The Keeping of Secrets

by Alice Graysharp

  After a slight pause to ensure that we all reflected on her homily, Miss Landing continued. ‘We will shortly make our way to West Norwood Station. From there we will travel to Leatherhead where we are to share the premises of St Birstan’s School for Boys.’

  A slight murmur rippled through the hall, quelled by Miss Landing’s steely glare. ‘I shall expect my girls to behave with due modesty and decorum. You will be co-travellers along the road of education and learning.

  ‘In a few moments we will leave in our groups. First we shall sing our school song, the closing words of which have an extra special resonance for us today.

  ‘From here into the world we’ll fare,’ Miss Landing, stepping forward a pace, extended an arm dramatically, ‘The wrong to fight, the right to dare / Remembering whose cloak we wear / St. Martin-in-the-Fields.’

  Miss Landing nodded to Miss Matthews seated expectantly at the grand piano, who immediately struck up the introduction and we sang of the saint who had cut his cloak ‘in twain’ and given half to a poor freezing beggar beside the road. What happened to the Lord’s exhortation to give both the whole cloak and the shirt off your back as well? I wondered cynically.

  After the scramble for the toilets that followed – for who knew when the next opportunity might arise – we formed up in our groups outside in the rosy glow of the rising morning sun which was steaming off the early misty wisps. We set off. The air was chill on my cheeks and my ungloved hands as we made our way south in a seemingly unending crocodile towards Tulse Hill station, beyond which lay West Norwood.

  ‘What’s your lunch?’ asked my brown-eyed companion, Joyce, as we walked, her wiry brown hair flying at the turn of her head.

  ‘Mine’s meat paste sandwiches,’ interjected Vera over her shoulder from in front. She was shorter than Janet beside her, round of face, excitable and bouncy.

  ‘I’ve got real meat in mine,’ responded Janet, of medium height, curvaceous and oval faced, her blond shoulder length hair caught back in a ponytail. I was just about to chime in with my Edam cheese and cucumber sandwiches when:

  ‘No talking, girls, decorum, decorum,’ boomed Miss Marchant beside the line just ahead.

  ‘What’s decorum?’ asked Vera, turning her head further round and bumping against Janet. As they recovered their stride, Joyce, herself skipping lightly to avoid the heels in front, quipped, ‘A little Roman town near Bath,’ and we all snorted and tittered at this well-worn double act, until Miss Marchant turned and quieted us with her famous Look.

  As we reached the junction of Tulse Hill and Christchurch Road the crocodile was brought to an abrupt halt, shuddering and shunting like wagons on a goods train.

  ‘What’s going on?’ hissed Vera as we cannoned into her and Janet, the girls behind us cannoning into Joyce and me in turn.

  I stood on tiptoe, peering over the heads beyond me, my natural height giving me an advantage. But it was the sound that met me first. Steady, inexorable, relentless, rhythmic. It sent a shiver down my spine and a churning to my stomach. Troop movements. Yesterday evening the wireless news reported Hitler’s invasion of Poland. War between us and Germany, as yet still undeclared, was inevitable. Today, while the nation held its collective breath, troops were being moved to their units in readiness. Ahead of us was proof, had we needed it, that the whole country was standing on the edge of the precipice and about to plummet. I rocked back down onto my heels. There was no need for me to say anything and I stood silent, cowed by the enormity of the future, a hard lump in my throat and an overwhelming feeling of loss.

  After a while the crocodile resumed its previous momentum and, passing by Tulse Hill Station, moved on south to West Norwood Station where we saw a train waiting for us, one, I learnt later, of one thousand five hundred special trains laid on that weekend to carry London’s children away to places of greater safety.

  At first the train trundled along slowly, then faster and faster as grey grimy buildings gave way to green gardens and wavy washing lines. Girls chattered beside me in our ten-person compartment, some diving into their food, but I felt distant and dislocated, my thoughts concentrated on the coming war. I recalled my childhood memories of maimed beggars at street corners, the flotsam of the Great War, for whom I went home and wept. Last year we had the mock evacuation day when gas masks became a part of our school uniform. In newspapers and in newsreels at cinemas the Germans depicted themselves as victims, needing more room to live than was available and claiming they were picked on when Germans moved out of Germany to settle in nearby countries. Hitler’s injured innocence and ranting rhetoric stalked his speeches and we had all laughed at the films of him leaping up and down, a comic figure shouting and screaming, sweating and spitting. I was not laughing now.

  Leaning forward, across from me in the carriage, Kitty, dark, slender, waif-like, cut across my reverie, asking, ‘Aren’t you hungry?’, her narrow head tilting like a listening bird. I drew my thoughts back to the present, feeling a little nauseous as the world flashed by my window seat, and shook my head.

  ‘I’m starving,’ declared a cheerfully countenanced dark-haired Gwen, sitting to Kitty’s left and already halfway through her first sandwich. She turned to Joyce, my partner in the crocodile, now seated on Gwen’s other side. ‘Here, would you like one of my rich teas for a piece of your shortbread?’

  ‘I can swap cream crackers with anyone,’ offered Nora at the far end, a long-faced girl whose straight, dark hair held back in an old-fashioned plait gave an impression of studiousness, belied by a lively personality and a laugh of loud guffaws.

  ‘Look,’ cried Vera, beside me, jogging my arm as she pointed across me. ‘Cows, sheep, this is such an adventure!’

  ‘It’ll be dark in the country,’ Kitty quavered. ‘Do you think some of us’ll end up on a farm?’

  ‘It was dark already in London last night,’ countered Gwen, yawning. ‘My mother went to Brixton market weeks ago and found some really thick dark curtaining, but, typical of her, she left it until the last minute to run them up.’

  ‘My Dad just bought black paint for half our windows,’ said Vera.

  ‘I’d like to stay on a farm.’ Gwen continued her response to Kitty’s question. ‘I might get to ride horses. I’ve always wanted to ride one. This evacuation business could turn out to be the best thing ever.’

  ‘Trust you to look on the bright side,’ said Kitty, turning to her. ‘I think evacuation’s perfectly horrid.’

  ‘How can you say that? We haven’t even got there yet,’ challenged Gwen.

  Kitty burst into tears. Gwen, contrite, put a comforting arm round Kitty, while Vera leaned across the carriage and patted her arm.

  Smiling sympathetically at Kitty, I thought, part of me knows how you feel. I’ll miss Mummy and Daddy and Nan and Peggy. But things might not be so bad. Maybe I’ll get to live in just one place for the whole time, maybe right through to the end of the sixth form, if this war lasts as long as everyone thinks it will.

  The girls settled back and the chatting resumed around me while the sun blazed in through the window and sweat trickled down and tickled my back. Early September was in the grip of a heatwave but we were evacuated in our winter uniforms – a treble pleated brown tunic, a long sleeved blouse, fine cotton ‘Lisle’ stockings and a plaited belt of woven material tied in a slip knot around our waists, all topped by a dark, deep rich chestnut brown winter coat!

  I shook myself from my musings and joined in the hubbub. Feeling more relaxed, I opened my packed lunch only to find the train drawing to a halt in Leatherhead station. Hastily I scrambled the food back into its bag.

  ‘Crocodile, girls,’ commanded Miss Marchant and we marched smartly off in a long column, two abreast, Joyce again beside me, away from the station and round to the left at the end of the approach road, and left again into Kingston Road. About a quarter of a mile along on the right stood a smart new building with a round-ended protruding multipaned window lying above a wide front delivery area. W
e trudged up some stairs towards a hall on the first floor. A large handwritten sign beside the entrance declared it to be the Evacuee Distribution Centre. Several of us dived for the toilets in the entrance foyer.

  Passing into the hall I was momentarily distracted by a booming, ‘’Eere’s yer rations,’ from a jolly red-faced lady who handed out paper bags from a pile on a large table beyond her. I peered into mine as I made my way to my class line up and found a big tin of corned beef, a small tin of baked beans and a small tin of evaporated milk. I clutched the food bag in one hand and placed my half-sized case on the floor close beside me. Last year on the practice evacuation day everyone brought full-sized cases and many struggled to lift them, bumping into others’ legs, hogging valuable space in cramped pretend railway carriages and generally being such a nuisance that for the real event we were ordered to bring half-sized cases only.

  A gaggle of people, mainly women, stood to one side of the hall raking us with assessing eyes. We’re just parcels of goods in a factory, I thought, packed, labelled and ready for distribution.

  The Evacuation Centre was initially crowded, the adults walking round the classes, like overseers buying slaves at a slave market but, as the local people chose girls to stay with them and headed off, gradually the numbers thinned out and the cacophony died down. Younger girls seemed to be the preference, older ones less attractive. I was so hungry that the table at the end of the hall laden with cakes and steaming cups of tea was torture, but I was determined to stay in my place in case I was missed. Eventually there were only a few of us older ones left, with no one remaining to choose us.

  I stood in the centre of the hall with one of my crocodile companions, blonde, busty Janet, and with Becky, a tall, slender black-haired and brown-eyed girl with whom I was only vaguely acquainted. My anxiety was rising. Where will I sleep tonight? The grownups have let us down. There’s nowhere to go. Feeling bereft, lightheaded through lack of food, and thoroughly miserable, I was immensely relieved when one of the organisers came up to us and said, ‘I’ve got an address for you three. Transport has just arrived.’

  We were driven by car, a rare treat for a working class London girl, to a house in Givens Grove on the southern outskirts of Leatherhead. Turning into a road lined with trees, I welcomed the breeze through the lowered window. The car swept onto a smaller gravelled road followed by a short driveway running up to the house. I felt like royalty as the chauffeur hastened out of the car and round to my door to open it for me.

  As we disembarked, the front door opened and a tall, thin grey-haired lady in a grey dress emerged. ‘I’m Mrs Harris, the housekeeper,’ she announced grandly. Mrs Harris, the Housekeeper, I thought. Like someone in Happy Families. And is this man Monsieur Charabanc le Chauffeur?

  We followed Mrs Harris to the kitchen. I felt horrendously hot and hungry. The house seemed immense around me, and through the kitchen window I spied a swimming pool in the back garden. I thought of my parents, my grandmother and me being grateful to have rented rooms on the upper floor of a terraced house in crowded London.

  Mrs Harris offered us some water which I quaffed greedily like Lawrence of Arabia at an oasis.

  ‘Now you’ve drunk your water, follow me to your room,’ ordered Mrs Harris. To my surprise we were not led upstairs to a bedroom but along the hallway to a rear sitting room with easels, some with paintings on them, set out along the far wall.

  ‘I love art,’ I ventured, whereupon Mrs Harris sniffed, ‘Mr Briggs does his painting here. You are not to touch anything.’

  I spied a painting of a naked woman. While I was unfazed as I was used to nude paintings owing to my passion for art, I wondered what my parents might think if they saw it there!

  ‘’Zare you are!’

  In bustled a portly and heavily made-up lady in a tweed skirt and flamboyant lace-bedecked white blouse. I gathered she was French. ‘I am Meesis Briggs.’

  We hastily introduced ourselves. Mrs Briggs merely nodded at each of us in turn, not even a handshake, although I was relieved she also passed on the traditional French-style kissing of total strangers on both cheeks.

  ‘Meesis ’Arree will see to you and find you some bread for your tea.’ Mrs Briggs’ strong perfume had preceded her and it lingered as she strode from the room.

  At last I had the opportunity to consume my sandwiches. Sitting gingerly on a delicate spindly chair, I wolfed them down while my companions unpacked their meagre belongings. After I finished I was still hungry, and was now thirsty again.

  We settled down to write our new address on our postcards. I was deputed to find Mrs Harris to check the correct address as we had not noticed a house number.

  ‘There are no house numbers in this road,’ she sniffed, tilting her head back and looking down her nose at me despite being a couple of inches shorter. ‘It’s Givens House.’ You could have been nicer about it, I thought. What a truly horrid welcome.

  After returning and completing my own unpacking I felt restless, and Janet must have too. ‘Let’s go for a walk into Leatherhead town and explore it a bit,’ she suggested. ‘It’s not even six yet and we can check what time to be back for supper.’

  We looked for Mrs Harris but it seemed she had gone home. There was no sign of supper being prepared, and Mrs Briggs was not in the offing either, so Janet scribbled a note which we left on the hall table. We let ourselves out and set off north into Leatherhead, the warm early evening sun streaming onto our left shoulders across the fields as we retraced the route the car had brought us. After a few minutes the church I had spotted earlier hoved into view and, turning right, we climbed up the longstepped path to its west door. I turned round at the top and stood with my eyes closed, the wide, square, chequer-board edged tower looming up behind me. Soaking in the late sun’s rays, funnelled through the fir trees lining the steps, I breathed in slowly, conifer scents mingling with the perfume of the grasses and late summer flowers, laced with a distant edge that was a little unpleasant and sour. I opened my eyes and saw the fields beyond the houses ahead glowing golden like a sepia photograph and the seated cows lying like boulders deposited randomly by a retreating ice age. Brixton seemed a distant planet away.

  Janet tried the west door but it was locked. ‘I’ll see if there are any notices outside about tomorrow’s services,’ she said, disappearing along the side of the church. Becky and I followed.

  There was no one about to ask, but the side door was unlocked so we slipped inside and found a notice that said 8am Holy Communion and 11am Matins.

  We meandered up a road running at right angles to the church’s side door, past a Methodist church on our left, and on to what transpired to be the top end of the High Street, its entrance dominated by a grand, red-brick building with stone-edged windows and imposing wings at either end. The central arched doorway proudly declared the Leatherhead Institute to have been erected in 1892. Outside a couple of ladies stood chatting and, emboldened, I crossed the road to ask,

  ‘Excuse me, we would be most grateful if you could point us in the direction of St Birstan’s School.’

  ‘You’re from the girls’ school sent here to keep those boys in order?’ one of the ladies asked, smiling indulgently and giving us directions. ‘Second along the main road, then left, then right again and just past the recreation ground.’ She looked at us dubiously. ‘It’s a bit of a walk.’

  We thanked her and crossed the junction. A car motored slowly by, but the road seemed deserted compared with the bustle of trams, cars, buses and delivery lorries which carved their way from the south through Brixton to central London’s busy streets. A little way along the main road we turned right, weaving through side streets, and about ten minutes later reached our goal.

  ‘Golly gaiters!’ exclaimed Janet as a four-storeyed ornately gothic Victorian grey stone building came into view beyond an imposing closed railinged gateway. Our own gentle Georgian school frontage seemed modest in comparison. The drive ran up to the large double fronted door that
lay partially open as boys were exiting in a crocodile towards the separate red brick chapel on our right. Heads turned in our direction as we were spotted gawping at a scene from Tom Brown’s schooldays.

  ‘It must be a boarding school,’ whispered Becky.

  Janet chuckled. ‘Shall we join them, girls, for their service, and lighten up their evening?’ and we sniggered slightly.

  ‘Strange, on a Saturday,’ I mused, ‘to have a church service, perhaps they’re Roman Catholics?’

  ‘Or perhaps they have a Saturday evening assembly to keep them out of mischief in the town,’ Becky chuckled.

  A few of the stragglers, older boys perhaps our age, waved in our direction. Janet, even more generously endowed than me, pressing herself against the bars, her breasts extending through, waved back and blew them a few kisses through the gate. ‘Janet!’ I exclaimed, a little shocked at this forward behaviour; meanwhile the boys, responding, were being sharply admonished by a tall, thin master sporting a flowing black gown.

  Spectacle over, we returned to the top end of the High Street which sloped down to an impressively grand multi-gabled mock Tudor building dominating the far end. We walked down past the King’s Head on the left, Gregory’s bakery and tearooms on the right, and numerous small shops. Grocer, butcher, ironmonger, haberdashery, shoe shop, boot repairer. All that was missing was the candle-stick-maker.