‘There’s a vacancy in the school for an assistant. I wish I’d been trained for something.’
‘Bertie, show your mother your painting,’ Sophie coaxed. Bertie pulled out the bright pattern and offered it to his mother, who looked, smiled, said it was lovely and, far too quickly, put it aside. Sophie felt the child’s disappointment even though she didn’t look at him.
There was something defeated about the woman and the drab, cluttered little room that made Sophie want to escape. She made her excuses, received an assurance that Sarah had no objection to Bertie visiting, as long as he attended school, and almost ran from the place.
Sarah didn’t move for a long time after her visitor had left. This room was too dark and too small for her ever to make into a proper home. She couldn’t see a glimmer of hope of an improvement. She’d lost the flat because it had been more than she could afford, and several rooms since because she hadn’t paid the rent regularly and had got into arrears.
What a fool she had been to earn the money at the factory and waste it on going out, treating friends in an attempt to forget her unhappiness for a while and buying clothes she never wore. Feeling sorry for herself and neglecting her son. What a dreadful way to live. It had taken the headmistress at Bertie’s school to remind her that he needed decent shoes.
She looked at Bertie waiting patiently for her to light the gas ring so they could fry the bit of fish she had bought.
‘Bertie, I have to buy you some new shoes,’ she said, and was ashamed then angry when his face lit up. ‘I can’t afford them, we’ll have to do without something else, and you’ll have to make sure not to scrape them. I won’t be able to replace them for a long time. And I’ll have to try and buy some clothing coupons as I don’t have any left. That’s illegal. Costing me a lot of money you are.’
The next afternoon she went and chose new shoes, promising to collect them the following day when she had ‘found my mislaid clothing coupons’.
One of the farm vans passed her and regrets welled up inside her. What a fool she had been, giving up a good life at the Treweathers and ending up in a tatty room without a hope of getting out of it.
A group of cyclists stopped then and asked the way to Clements’ bed and breakfast, and she pointed the way without stopping. Daphne’s next question would have been to enquire about Sophie Daniels, but Sarah hurried on and the chance was gone.
*
It was few days before Sophie remembered Sarah’s mention of the vacancy at the school. At first she shrugged away the idea. She wasn’t ready for such commitment, and knew that standing up opposite the curious and lively faces of a couple of dozen children would be difficult – but something convinced her she should try.
She made an appointment to see the headmistress, but her interview was brief once she had explained about her aborted training, and the fact that all her papers had been lost in a bombing raid.
The shake of her head as the headmistress listened convinced Sophie that she wasn’t believed. So many families had lost all their papers, so perhaps the excuse had been used by dishonest people and was now automatically met with distrust.
As she stood to leave, she gave the name of the college she had attended together with the dates, and the head agreed to make enquiries. Sophie had the impression she wouldn’t bother.
A week later, at the end of June, a letter came offering her the position, to start in September. Better still, she was invited to work two days a week as a temporary class-assistant until the summer term ended. As a trial, she supposed.
She still lacked confidence in her dealings with other people, and, knowing that Owen Treweather disliked her, she was hesitant about visiting the farm uninvited. But she wanted to share her good news with someone and Ryan was the first person she thought of as she held the letter in her hand.
Picking up her basket, planning to gather from the hedgerows as she went, she headed for the farm. She went through the wood, half afraid of being sent back by Owen, and emerged without mishap at the point where she could see the roof and chimneys of the farmhouse. A tractor was working in a field and she watched for a while as the machine changed the colour of the earth to a rich dark brown. She couldn’t see from there who was driving so she headed down the hill to the house.
Only the twins’ mother was there, making some illegal clotted cream for a special celebration. ‘Mr and Mrs Downy’s thirty-year-old son is coming out of hospital at last, after a terrible accident. After all this time, an unexploded bomb was unearthed in a field near their house. It went off near him and he almost died,’ Rachel explained.
That unkind part of her mind that Sophie tried to deny closed against the joy of the man’s recovery. Not everyone had been given a second chance of life, and that reminder made the pain return.
‘I called to tell Ryan that I have a job,’ she said, trying to push aside her mixed resentment and shame. ‘I’m to be an assistant teacher in the school.’
‘That’s good,’ Rachel said at once. Then her face fell as she said, ‘Teaching is what Ryan wants to do, but his father and I hope he’ll change his mind. If only one of the boys would stay we’d cope, but Ryan wants to teach and Gareth wants to travel. He says the army let him down by keeping him in this country when he’d wanted to see other places. I tell Gareth he’s lucky not to have been sent into the worst of the fighting. He might not have lived to see today.’
‘You didn’t need to be sent into the fighting to lose your tomorrows,’ Sophie said, then quickly turned to go before Rachel asked what she meant. ‘Would you tell Ryan about my job?’
‘As soon as he gets back from town,’ Rachel promised. ‘I’ll tell him about the low wage he could expect as a qualified teacher, too, and the cost of finding a home and everything else, once he leaves the farm where he has everything done for him.’ Oh yes, she’d remind him about the job for which he was prepared to put aside generations of the family’s history. ‘What he needs is a good capable woman who would enjoy the life of a farmer’s wife, then he’d change his mind and stay. It only takes the right woman, and that’s what Tommy and I are hoping for.’
‘It was clear that she was warning me away from Ryan,’ Sophie told Kitty later with a grim smile. ‘That was as close to a reprimand as she can get without actual rudeness. I’ve been well and truly told to stay away.’
*
Walking to school on that first morning, Sophie was filled with trepidation. This community was pushing her along, forcing her into doing things before she was ready. Anxiety almost overwhelmed her as she faced each difficulty, and she always had an urge to run, as she had in the past. But she slept soundly in Badgers Brook and awoke each morning with her latest fears calmed.
Today she would return to a classroom, an environment she had thought never to see again. There would be strangers, curious people asking questions, expecting answers. Inexplicably she wished Ryan had called, congratulated her on the job and wished her well. She would be feeling more confident if he had. His mother must have told him, yet he hadn’t been near.
Bertie was waiting at the gate. He was dressed in ill-fitting but clean and well-pressed clothes, his face shining from enthusiastic rubbing with a flannel. He carried a creased paper bag, which she presumed carried his lunch.
‘Morning, miss,’ he said gruffly, before turning away. She let him go, understanding that he didn’t want to bring attention to the fact that he knew her. As he walked away from her a boy ran towards him and bumped into him, causing him to stagger. His paper bag fell on to the ground and he picked it up without a word to the boy, who now stood with a group of his friends, watching Bertie’s progress with amusement. Rough play, she thought, nothing more. He was probably too embarrassed by her presence to retaliate.
She spent the morning assisting where she could, enjoying the environment with the enthusiastic six-year-olds and concentrating on learning their names. At play time she was asked to stay in the yard and ‘keep an eye’.
She s
aw Bertie knocked over by the same boy who had pushed him before school, and ran across to him. Bertie refused her help, rubbing his bloodied knee with a dirty handkerchief. She didn’t insist, although she did ask one of the teachers to look at it.
Dinner time was an opportunity to visit the shops. She was coming out of the bakery with a lunchtime snack when she almost bumped into Ryan, avoiding him by staggering against the shop window.
‘Oh,’ she said with a laugh, ‘this is worse than the playground.’
‘The playground?’ he asked.
‘I started working in the school this morning,’ she explained. ‘Didn’t your mother tell you?’
‘No, I expect she forgot. We’re very busy just now.’
‘I went to the farm as soon as I got the letter. I took it to show you, but you weren’t in.’
‘I didn’t know you were a teacher.’
‘I’m not, quite. I gave up before the final exam when I decided to help the war effort. I was in the WAAFs for a couple of years.’
‘I’ve applied for a place in college for October but I haven’t heard yet.’
‘Good luck,’ she said warmly, but a part of her was disappointed at the thought of him going away. They were hardly close, especially since Rachel’s lecture on her unsuitability, but he had played a part in her decision to settle in Cwm Derw, and she felt let down that he was leaving before she felt safe and secure.
She went back into the shop with Ryan so he could buy some lunch, and they sat together in the small park in the centre of the town to eat.
They were walking out when Bertie ran past, his face red with the effort, his socks around his ankles, bruises and dried blood on his skinny legs. Sophie wanted to follow him, but she had to get back to school. ‘I’ll talk to him there,’ she said anxiously.
Bertie didn’t attend school that afternoon. She learned that there had been another incident in the playground and he’d been upset, but had refused to explain what had happened. It was obvious he was being bullied.
When school ended Sophie stared out at the group of parents waiting to collect their children and she panicked. She couldn’t walk through them; it had been difficult enough coping with the few staff and the children – but this! She hadn’t thought of the curious faces all watching her or whispering together, sharing the little they knew about her. She turned away and escaped through the back entrance across the playing field. Ryan was waiting in the van, and, catching sight of her at the gate, he drove round and offered her a lift.
He saw at once that she was tearful but didn’t comment. He chatted casually to fill the silence and allowed her to recover.
‘I’m not going home,’ she told him eventually. ‘I want to talk to Bertie.’
They found him on the street near his one-roomed home, sitting on the curb, throwing stones down a drain. He wore his old shoes, which lacked laces. ‘They call me bastard,’ he said after much persuasion.
‘D’you know what that means?’ Sophie asked.
‘No, but I know it’s something horrible from the way they say it.’
‘It might be, but it doesn’t apply to you, so try and ignore it.’
He looked up the street and stood up. ‘Mam’s coming, she’ll yell at me for missing school again.’
Sarah Grange came closer and, to Sophie’s surprise, Ryan moved away and got into the van. Sarah began to run, shouting, ‘You might well hide, Ryan Treweather. Coward that you are. Get away from us. Leave the boy alone!’ She reached the van and hit it with the umbrella she carried, then turned to Sophie. ‘You too. Stay away from us, d’you hear? Bertie’s nothing to do with any of you.’ She grabbed the frightened boy by his lapel and half dragged him into the house, slamming the door behind them then drawing the curtains. They heard her shouting, then all went quiet.
‘D’you think he’s all right? What on earth was that about? Do you know her?’
‘Of course I know her. It’s so long since I saw her I just didn’t know Bertie was her son.’ His voice was low, and he looked startled.
Sophie waited beside the van, looking at his shocked face through the driver’s window, waiting for an explanation.
‘Get in and I’ll tell you the full unhappy story,’ he said.
He drove to the lane near the cottage where she had once lived and stopped the engine. ‘We lived here, in the farmhouse, when Gareth and I were small. Then, when the new house was built, Owen lived here with his wife. During the war he went away for three months to train landgirls in some of the skills needed for farm work, although most of them just arrived at the farms and learned on the job.’
Sophie waited patiently for the threads of the story to connect with Sarah and Bertie.
‘His wife had a child and it was absolutely without doubt that he wasn’t the father. Dates didn’t add up, you see. She left, but in fairness to Owen I don’t think he forced her to. She found herself a flat. Apart from a minimum payment paid monthly, he’s had nothing at all to do with her since.’
‘So Bertie is legally his son?’
‘Well, legally I suppose, but not in fact. Sarah had a fling, an affair, call it what you will, and Bertie was the result. She might have convinced Owen that stories about her having an affair were untrue, nothing more than rumours invented by unkind neighbours, but Bertie arrived, flesh and blood, something that couldn’t be hidden or denied.’
‘But didn’t he try to help the child? Didn’t your parents offer help? Bertie isn’t the guilty one, he doesn’t deserve what’s happening to him. Didn’t Owen feel at least a moral obligation? “Better or worse, sickness and in health?” That sort of thing?’
‘When you’re part of a family that can look back over several hundred years…’ He smiled deprecatingly. ‘I know this sounds pompous but to my parents it’s a bit like royalty, the pride in the name and the strength of the traditions. They don’t feel able to accept someone who bears the name but not the true inheritance.’
‘Come on, Ryan! A history going back a couple of hundred years? It must have happened many times before.’
Ignoring the interruption he went on, ‘Owen is a member of the family but Bertie is not his son.’
She gave a disapproving groan.
‘Mind you, I sometimes think Owen might have forgiven her if it hadn’t been for pressure from my parents and his love of the farm and its traditions. All my mother says in response to any thought of meeting the little boy is that Bertie is Sarah’s child but not her husband’s.’
‘And you?’ she asked coldly. ‘Is this how you feel too?’
‘I just went along with it. The problem seemed to belong with Owen, not me. If he’d accepted the child then I would have had no difficulty doing the same.’
‘Sarah is not coping well. She’s out much of the time, and Bertie seems to feed himself, with the luxury of chips when someone gives him a shilling,’ she added, a harshness creeping into her voice. ‘He’s unhappy in school, a low achiever, and the fact that he has no father is a gift to bullies.’
‘I should have done something,’ Ryan muttered. ‘You make me feel ashamed. I just followed my parents’ lead and ignored Sarah and her son – whose name, incidentally, I thought was Alfred.’
‘Albert,’ she corrected softly. ‘Named, so he told me, after Queen Victoria’s husband.’ She glanced at him, saw the solemn expression in his dark eyes as he struggled with his thoughts. ‘So what will you do?’
‘Talk to Mam and Dad and Gareth first. Then Owen. There must be something to be done that will make the boy’s life easier, without embarrassing Owen.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, lightly touching his arm.
When he left her outside Badgers Brook he called. ‘Come again next Sunday and we’ll try to involve the family in a discussion.’
‘How can I?’ she said with a light laugh. ‘First your cousin forbidding me to walk through the fields and now you mother telling me to stay away in case I’m a bad influence on you!’
‘Wh
at?’
She ran up the path and into the house before he demanded an explanation. Let him sort it out. After all, Rachel was his mother.
A couple of hours later she was preparing a bowl of wild raspberries she had found near the edge of the wood when there was a knock at the door.
‘Come in,’ she called, reaching for a tea towel to wipe her sticky fingers. It was Owen. His words were precise and brief.
‘Keep out of things that don’t concern you.’
‘But Bertie does concern me,’ she replied quickly, before he could close the door. ‘A child brought into the world to be despised and deprived of a normal childhood – how could anyone not be concerned? Every child has a right to be happy.’
‘In a perfect world, yes. But when people don’t follow the rules of decency others get hurt and there’s nothing anyone can do about it!’
She took a deep breath but he was gone before she could continue to argue. She looked out of the kitchen window and saw him hurrying down the path to the lane, the stiffness of his gait showing his anger.
By interfering she had probably made things worse, she surmised sadly. This was confirmed later, when she knocked on the door of Sarah’s sad little room and was told loudly to, ‘Please, go away!’
A few days later, during which time she had seen nothing of Bertie either at school or at Badgers Brook, she went around again and pushed a note through the door. On it she asked Sarah to please call, promising only to listen, so between them they might work out a way of helping Bertie. She repeated her words on a second note, to Ryan, to which she added a postscript: Every child has a right to be happy.
The following Saturday morning a knock heralded Sarah’s arrival, and Sophie invited her inside and lit the gas under the kettle. ‘Thank you for coming,’ she said. ‘Isn’t Bertie with you?’
‘He’s outside but won’t come in.’
‘Then will you take a few biscuits? He can eat them outside, boys of that age are always hungry, aren’t they?’
A New Beginning Page 8
