Carrie's War

by Nina Bawden

  Carrie didn’t know if she was happy or not. It was all so sudden it made her feel queer; affecting her stomach like looking down from the top of a cliff or riding on a Big Dipper.

  Nick actually grumbled. ‘I don’t want to go to rotten old Glasgow. I don’t want to go to a new school. I don’t want to leave Auntie Lou.’

  He and Auntie Lou were thick as thieves at the moment. Several times, Carrie had come into the kitchen and found them giggling together. ‘It’s a secret,’ Nick said when she asked him what they were laughing about. ‘You’re Mr Evans’s friend. Helping him all the time. I’m Auntie Lou’s.’

  ‘Keep your silly old secret,’ Carrie said. ‘Fat lot I care!’

  But she felt a bit bruised. Suddenly it seemed she had no one to talk to. Nick had said he didn’t want to leave Auntie Lou but as soon as he was used to the idea, he was over the moon with excitement. Singing made-up songs all the time about living in Scotland and seeing their mother, while Carrie still felt nothing much, one way or the other.

  She went to Druid’s Bottom but she felt tongue-tied there. Hepzibah smiled and was friendly but there was no life in her face – like a pond with a thin skim of ice, Carrie thought. Even Mister Johnny was quiet, sitting in a corner of the kitchen, just watching Hepzibah, and Albert was unusually silent. Not as if he were angry with Carrie but as if he were busy thinking his own thoughts …

  When she told them about her mother’s letter he simply nodded, as if their going away wasn’t important. He would have to go away himself, leaving Druid’s Bottom when Hepzibah left, although he wasn’t leaving the valley. He was to stay with Mr Morgan, the Minister.

  ‘Will you like that?’ Carrie asked timidly, and he just shrugged his shoulders.

  Hepzibah looked at Carrie’s woebegone face. She said, ‘We’ll all be pulling up sticks about the same time, then! I tell you what we’ll do, we’ll have a joint farewell party! Now take that look off your faces, Mr Misery and Miss Gloom, and go and collect the eggs for me, will you? Mister Johnny’s not feeling up to the mark at the moment.’

  ‘He’s not ill, just scared stiff,’ Albert said as they went into the yard. ‘Won’t leave Hepzibah alone for a minute. He doesn’t understand, I suppose, and that makes it worse because he feels more. Things coming to an end.’

  He picked up a stone and flung it into the horse pond. They watched the ripples spread.

  ‘How deep is it?’ Carrie asked.

  ‘Bottomless. No, that’s nonsense, of course, it can’t be.’ He sighed and squared his shoulders. ‘Come on, let’s get on with it.’

  They collected the eggs. There was no fun in it. Carrie said, ‘All the poultry, that’s Hepzibah’s, isn’t it? And the cow belongs to Mister Johnny. What’ll happen to them?’

  ‘They’ll be sold, I suppose. The cow and the horse and the geese, anyway. There’s one farm where they might take the hens, but Hepzibah didn’t seem keen on it. The farmer didn’t actually refuse to take Mister Johnny but he made it clear he didn’t really want him. He said he might frighten his wife, or the children, or something.’

  ‘They mustn’t go there, then!’

  ‘Depends what else turns up, doesn’t it? Beggars can’t be choosers. They’ve got to go somewhere.’

  ‘Unless …’ Carrie looked at him sideways. ‘I did think I might ask Mr Evans if they could stay on here. But I only thought, so it’s no good. I didn’t do it.’

  ‘Not when it came to it,’ Albert said. ‘Same thing happened to me.’

  ‘Do you mean you were going to ask Mr Evans?’

  ‘Not that. But I thought …’ He glanced at Carrie and then said, very quickly, ‘If I tell you, don’t laugh.’

  ‘No,’ Carrie promised and remembered she had once said ‘Don’t laugh’ to him. When they were walking up through the Grove on her birthday. It seemed years ago now.

  Albert’s face was solemn and growing pink. ‘It’s just that I thought you shouldn’t be able to turn people out of places they’ve lived in for years, it doesn’t make sense. So I thought, there might be a Law about it, and the best thing to do would be to ask a solicitor. I could say Mrs Gotobed had made a Will but we couldn’t find it. I thought if I told him that he’d be bound to make a proper search – not in the house, I don’t mean, I’ve looked in the house – but among other solicitors she might have gone to. They’d have a record if she had made a Will. So I went to see Mr Rhys. The solicitor in War Memorial Square.’

  He stopped. Carrie looked at him and waited. Albert sighed. ‘I didn’t get any farther than his waiting room. I sat there for about ten minutes and then I came out. I knew it wasn’t any use. I mean, what would you do if you were a lawyer and a boy came in and started yapping on about missing Wills like in some kid’s story? I could just hear Mr Rhys saying, Run away, little man, back to your comics! And even if that didn’t happen, even if he listened and said he’d do something, it wouldn’t be any good because Hepzibah wouldn’t have any part in it. Can you see her, going to law?’

  Carrie said, ‘I’ll not stay where I’m not wanted so you needn’t think it!’ mimicking Hepzibah in a determined mood, and Albert laughed briefly. Carrie said, ‘I think, all the same, once I got there I’d have told him.’

  ‘I believe you would,’ Albert said. ‘But that’s you, not me, isn’t it? Once you’ve made up your mind to something I think you usually do it. I’m not like that. Trouble is, I start thinking. That there’s no point, that sort of thing. If you’d been with me, I might have stiffened myself and gone on with it. But you never believed in her Will, did you? So I couldn’t ask you to come …’

  ‘That’s mean,’ Carrie said. ‘That’s really mean, Albert Sandwich!’

  He nodded shamefaced. ‘Yes, it is. I’m just making excuses. And picking on you because you’re not a rotten coward like I am. That’s the only reason I slunk out of that place! I was scared that he’d laugh at me!’

  He looked so miserable. Carrie said generously, ‘You’re not a coward, stupid!’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re just – just too clever to rush into things.’

  Albert closed his eyes and moaned, ‘Oh, I hate myself!’ Then he opened them and kicked savagely at a lump of dried mud, sending it sailing across the yard to explode against the side of the stable. He said, ‘No, that’s not true, I don’t hate myself, what’s the point? But I know what I am and I don’t like it much. I’m quite clever but I’m not at all brave.’ He looked at her and grinned suddenly. ‘I suppose I might as well get used to it.’

  Carrie thought of something to comfort him. ‘It wouldn’t have helped being brave. Mr Rhys wouldn’t have paid any attention. Grown-ups only listen to grown-ups.’

  ‘I wish I was grown-up,’ Albert said. ‘It’s a fearful handicap being a child. You have to stand there and watch, you can never make anything happen. Or stop things you don’t like. If I was grown-up, I could stop this. I could look after Hepzibah, I could buy Druid’s Bottom, and we could all live there together. You and Nick, too. Though I suppose you’d rather go to Scotland and be with your mother.’

  ‘Not specially,’ Carrie said. ‘I mean, I do want to go, in a way, but in another way I’d rather stay here. I wish there was two of me, really. I feel torn in two.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  The days flew by on wings. Two weeks seemed so long to begin with, but there was so much to do. So many Last Things.

  Nick made up songs about them. The Last Time on the slag heap, bumping face down on the old tray and scraping his knee. The Last Time at Chapel. The Last Time making a dam in the stream at the end of the garden.

  He was so happy that Carrie was afraid Auntie Lou might be hurt but she didn’t appear to be. She joined in Nick’s songs and was as silly as he was, bright-eyed and laughing at nothing.

  Only Mr Evans seemed to share Carrie’s queer, sinking feeling of sadness. ‘I’m going to miss my assistant,’ he said, more than once. ‘You’ve been a real
help to me, Carrie.’

  And this rare compliment made Carrie feel sadder still each time she heard it.

  The Last Day …

  The night before, their suitcases were packed and waiting. Auntie Lou had washed all their clothes, darned all the holes. The range fire was stoked so they could have a Last Bath.

  Mr Evans said, ‘Tomorrow dinner time, we’ll have a picnic.’

  Carrie and Nick couldn’t believe it. Surprise made Nick giggle. He put his hand over his mouth and Auntie Lou shot a warning glance at him.

  Carrie thought it was partly because they were going to have a farewell tea at Druid’s Bottom. When she had told Mr Evans, he had gone very quiet; and then, just as they were going up for their bath, he suggested the picnic. ‘A Last Treat, see?’

  Auntie Lou had a basket packed with sausage rolls, cheese sandwiches and firm, greenish tomatoes. It was an extraordinary sight to see Mr Evans shutting the shop in the middle of the day and toiling up the mountain like an ordinary person. He sweated a lot because he wasn’t accustomed to climbing. ‘Used to come up here quite a lot when I was a lad,’ he said, mopping his forehead. ‘Seems to have got steeper since!’

  While Auntie Lou set out the food, he sat on a flat rock to recover and talked about the old days. ‘Used to carry your Auntie up here when I was a young man and she was a babby,’ he said. ‘I’d set her down here and dare her to move while I tickled trout in that stream. D’you remember that, girl?’

  Auntie Lou nodded; then blushed, for some reason. She was oddly quiet, seemed in an odd mood altogether, though not an unhappy one: while they were eating she sat staring over the valley with a dreamy look in her eyes and a small, secret smile on her face. Mr Evans’s voice boomed on about the things he had done when he was a boy – mostly earning money in his spare time to help his poor mother – but though Auntie Lou seemed to be listening, she wasn’t listening to him. It was as if she were holding a much more exciting conversation inside her own head, Carrie decided.

  As soon as lunch was over, Mr Evans was fidgeting to get back to the shop. ‘Hurry up, young Nick, help Auntie Lou with the basket, jump to it double-quick now! Some of us have to work for our living, I’d never have got anywhere if I’d moved at your pace!’ And when they got back he put on his working jacket with a sigh of relief and said, ‘Well, that’s over.’

  Nick said, dutifully, ‘Thank you, Mr Evans.’

  Carrie said, ‘It was lovely. A lovely picnic’

  ‘Well, as long as you enjoyed it,’ he said – as if he hadn’t, at all – but he looked pleased, all the same. And then, curiously shy. He took two small parcels out of his pocket. ‘Might as well have these now, mightn’t you? I’ve got a Council Meeting this evening. You’ll be fast asleep time I get back.’

  A knife for Nick, a marvellous knife in a sheath of green leather, and a small ring for Carrie. A real gold ring with a small dark red stone.

  ‘Oh,’ Nick said. ‘Oh! I’ve always wanted a sheath knife. I mean, the penknife you gave me for Christmas was very nice but it doesn’t cut things. This is just what I wanted, it’s my very best thing!’

  ‘Take care of it, then,’ Mr Evans said. He looked at Carrie.

  ‘The ring’s beautiful,’ she said. She couldn’t say ‘Thank you,’ the words stuck in her throat, but Mr Evans seemed to know how she felt.

  ‘As long as you’re pleased. Just a keepsake to remember us by. From your Auntie too, mind!’

  It was easier to thank Auntie Lou. ‘Thank you so much,’ Carrie said, and Auntie Lou blushed and smiled. There were tears in her eyes and when they went through to the kitchen she hugged and kissed them both. She said, ‘Oh, there’s happy I’ve been with you two, there’s been life in this house, first time I’ve known it!’

  Nick flung his arms round her. ‘Good-bye, Auntie Lou. I do love you.’ He squeezed her so hard that she gasped, and for so long that Carrie grew restless. ‘Do give over,’ she said. ‘You’ll see Auntie Lou again, it’s not the Last Time for that!’

  ‘Last time on the railway line,’ Nick sang. ‘Last time walking along the railway line because tomorrow we’ll go in the train, puff-puff, we’ll go in the train and screech-whistle-screech …’

  ‘Do be quiet,’ Carrie said.

  Nick pulled a face and walked beside her. ‘Will we be bombed in Glasgow? Will the train be bombed on the way?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Carrie thought of bombs falling, of the war going on all this year they’d been safe in the valley; going on over their heads like grown-up conversation when she’d been too small to listen. She said, ‘Don’t be scared, Nick. Mum wouldn’t send for us if it wasn’t safe. Don’t be scared anyway. I’ll be with you.’

  ‘I’m not scared, I’d like to be bombed, it ’ud be super exciting!’ He started to sing again. ‘Bomb, bomb, bang, shee-ow, ack, ack, ack …’ Spreading out his arms and pretending to be an aeroplane, flying low, machine-gunning.

  ‘Shut up, you bloodthirsty boy, you’re spoiling it all,’ Carrie said. ‘Let’s have one Last Time in peace and quiet!’

  The Farewell Tea was spread in Hepzibah’s kitchen: cold chicken and salad, a cheese and onion pie, a big plate of drop scones, thickly buttered. The range fire was glowing, hot enough to roast anyone who stood close to it. The back door stood open to let out the heat and Hepzibah’s chickens wandered in and out, pecking at crumbs and sleepily chortling.

  Nick stuffed and stuffed as if he hadn’t seen food for weeks but Carrie could hardly eat anything. It was all ending so beautifully: the picnic and Mr Evans being so nice, and the ring and the knife, and now this last, lovely tea, with faces she loved round the table. She was so full, so tight with happiness, she felt she would burst if she ate one more drop scone.

  Hepzibah wasn’t eating much either. Once or twice she met Carrie’s eye and smiled as if to say she felt just as she did. She cut Nick a fourth slice of pie and said, ‘What a boy! When the Last Trump sounds, the first thing he’ll say when he pops his head out of his grave will be where’s my breakfast?’

  ‘Our mother says she doesn’t know where he puts it all, he’s so thin,’ Carrie said, and as soon as she had spoken it struck her that she had never talked to them about her mother before.

  ‘What’s your mother like?’ Albert asked.

  ‘Well, she’s quite tall,’ Carrie began, and then stopped. Not because she couldn’t remember, but because it was such a long time since she’d seen her and she felt strange, suddenly, knowing that this time tomorrow they would be on their way to Scotland and she would be waiting for them. She thought, suppose I don’t recognize her, suppose she doesn’t recognize me, and felt her face grow hot.

  ‘She’s got blue eyes like mine,’ Nick said. ‘Navy blue eyes. That’s why our father married her, because he’s in the Navy. But she’s not as pretty as you, Hepzibah. And she can’t cook nearly as well. That’s the best cheese and onion pie I’ve ever had in my whole life, and cheese and onion pie is my best thing.’

  ‘And the last for now, Mr Cupboard-Love,’ Hepzibah said. ‘No more, not one crumb, or you’ll be sick on the journey tomorrow.’

  ‘He was sick when we came,’ Carrie said.

  ‘I was not!’

  ‘Yes, you were. And it was all your own fault because you were stinking pig greedy and ate all my chocolate!’

  ‘Stinking pig greedy yourself!’

  ‘Sssala. Ssschalala,’ Mister Johnny said. It was the first thing he’d said, all afternoon. He had got down from the table half-way through tea and was sitting on a chair in the doorway, looking droopy and listless.

  ‘That’s right, Mister Johnny,’ Hepzibah said. ‘Hush now, the pair of you.’

  ‘I’ll hush if you’ll tell us a story.’ Nick went to Hepzibah and leaned on her knee. ‘I’m worn out with eating,’ he said, ‘I want to sit on your lap while you tell us a story.’

  Hepzibah heaved him up, pretending to groan with his weight. ‘Which one do you want then, Mr Big-Baby? You’ve
heard them all, haven’t you?’

  Nick sighed and wriggled comfortably. ‘The one about the poor African boy.’

  ‘What made you think of that foolish tale?’

  ‘Mister Johnny’s playing with the skull,’ Albert said.

  He was stroking it. He had the skull half hidden in his lap and his little hand stroked the smooth bone, gently and rhythmically. Carrie had often seen him sit like that, fondling one of Hepzibah’s chickens.

  Hepzibah said, ‘Put that down, Mister Johnny! This minute!’

  The children had never heard her speak to him sharply before. They stared in surprise and she said in a tired voice, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, I suppose, not the old skull, but he’s run me ragged just lately, picking up things round the house and putting them down where they shouldn’t be. He had the silver this morning – all the best spoons, out in the yard!’

  ‘You’d just polished them,’ Albert said. ‘It was the shine that attracted him, you know he’s like a magpie that way He was only making patterns with the spoons, you’ve never minded before.’

  ‘Things are different now, aren’t they?’ Hepzibah said. ‘I don’t want Mr Evans to find anything missing.’

  ‘He’d hardly make a fuss about an old skull,’ Albert said, but went to Mister Johnny just the same and held out his hand. ‘Come on, hand it over.’

  Mister Johnny scowled and covered the skull with his hands.

  Nick said, ‘That’s not the way to ask, Albert. It just makes him stubborn.’ He slid off Hepzibah’s lap. ‘Look what I’ve got, Mister Johnny, look what I’ve got! My new knife. It’s sharp as a razor, a real hunting knife, but if you keep the sheath on you can hold it a bit. If you give me that first.’

  Mister Johnny looked at Nick; then he laughed and gave him the skull. Nick handed it to Carrie, behind him, and went on talking gently. ‘You just stroke the leather, isn’t it lovely and slippy? It’s a beautiful knife. Mr Evans gave it to me and he gave Carrie a ring. D’you want Carrie to show you?’