A Song At Twilight

by Lilian Harry

  His own eyes shone as he described it, and Olivia, watching him, could see that in his mind he was there now, flying amongst the stars, searching the glittering pathways of the moon on the shifting sea, far removed from the world below … She shivered. In peacetime, she would be able to share in his excitement, sense the thrill of it and imagine herself in that other-world where he felt so much at home. But this was war, and she knew that death could come blasting from that darkness; that the ethereal peace was false and concealed a bitter danger.

  John glimpsed the shadow in his wife’s eyes and said quickly, ‘Well, I’ve got another surprise for you all too. Alexandra’s coming home tomorrow.’

  They turned to him, all talking at once … ‘How do you know?’ ‘When is she coming?’ ‘How long can she stay?’ ‘Why didn’t you tell us before?’ until he lifted one big hand and called for them to quieten down.

  ‘She rang up while you were at the WI meeting,’ he said to Olivia. ‘And then I went to see old Norman Stanley – you know he’s ill – and when I came back Ben was here. And I’ve only just walked through the door, anyway! I haven’t had much chance.’

  ‘Well, tell us now,’ Ben said. ‘I haven’t seen Alexie since the middle of summer. How’s she getting on?’

  ‘Oh, much as usual, from what I can gather. They keep the VADs pretty busy at Haslar, and a lot of them went out to Egypt, you know. Anyway, we’ll find out more when we see her. She’ll be here about eleven, she thinks, and she’ll have to go back in the evening.’

  ‘Well, it will be good to see her.’ Olivia sighed. ‘If only Peter and Ian could be here too. It’s such a long time since we had the whole family together.’

  ‘I know.’ John took her hand. ‘And I’m afraid it will be a long time before we’re all together again. This war’s going to go on for a while yet, although I do think the tide’s beginning to turn. Russia’s making a good job of fighting the Germans off, and with Italy turning against them too they’re in a difficult position. I think the next year could see us looking towards the end of it all.’

  ‘Another year!’ Olivia said. ‘John, it’s been going on for over four years already. That’s even longer than the First World War.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But we won that, didn’t we? We’ll win this one too. You’ll see.’

  Olivia said no more, but they all knew that her mind was with all those still fighting, and with her children especially: her son Ben, about to start night-flying, which could only mean accompanying bombers on their desperate missions deep into Germany, and her other sons – Ian, an Army chaplain somewhere in Italy and still in danger despite that country’s change of heart, and Peter, commanding a ship in the waters of the Pacific.

  Even Alexandra, working at the Haslar Royal Naval Hospital in Gosport, had been in danger from the relentless bombing of Portsmouth and Gosport earlier in the war. And although that bombing had stopped, there had been disquieting talk of a ‘secret weapon’ and everyone was afraid that it might start again, even worse than before.

  Jeanie had put the pie into the oven as they talked and was now busy with the vegetables. Olivia finished her tea and got up to help her, and Ben lifted Hope from his lap and set her on the floor.

  ‘I’ll take my kit upstairs.’ The bedrooms were always ready for any of them who came home unexpectedly, although it was a long time since Peter’s and Ian’s beds had been slept in. Followed by Hope, who had attached herself to him like a limpet, he hauled his canvas kitbag up to the room he had occupied ever since he was a baby and, before switching on the lamp, he stood for a moment looking down into the twilit garden. There was still just enough light to see the rows of vegetables where once his mother had grown flowers, and the little patch of orchard with its tiny lawn and the apple tree where he’d first met Judy Taylor, deafened by bomb blast, and where Hope had been born. He remembered climbing the tree when he was a small boy, eating so many of the windfall apples that he’d had a stomach-ache all night and, later, being allowed to pick those still on the tree when they were ripe. There had always been one or two just too high to reach, and they’d been left there all winter, to ripen and glow like scarlet lanterns against the sky.

  He’d spent hours under that tree, first as a baby in his pram and then on a blanket with a book in front of him. He’d done his homework and holiday tasks there, he’d played noughts and crosses, draughts and chess with his brothers, and he’d just lain there in the dappled sunlight, thinking of nothing much and drifting off to sleep.

  He had known this garden all his life, and to him it was the essence of England, the essence of all he was fighting for.

  Hope tugged at his jacket; he drew the blackout curtains and turned away from the window to switch on the light. He had dumped his kitbag on his bed and, grinning at the little girl, he began to unfasten the ties around its neck.

  ‘I know what you’re after. Well, let’s see what we can find, shall we?’ Ferreting about inside the bag, he pulled out a bar of chocolate. ‘There, is that what you want?’

  ‘Chocolate,’ she breathed, her eyes widening. She took it almost reverently in both hands and Ben laughed.

  ‘You’d better not eat it before supper, or I’ll be in trouble.’ He began to unpack the few bits and pieces he had brought with him. Hope ran out, calling for her mother to show her what she’d been given and Ben flung himself down on his narrow bed and lay back, letting his eyes move slowly round the room.

  It was the smallest of all the rooms in the vicarage except for the tiny box room where the family dumped all the things they had no room for anywhere else. Ben didn’t mind this at all – he enjoyed not having to share, as Peter and Ian did in their larger room. Here, he could spread his clutter around as he liked, without fear of anyone either moving it or complaining that he was taking up more than his share of space.

  Apart from being tidier than it was when he was living at home, the room was much as he had left it. There on the chest of drawers were his treasures – the fossil he had picked up on the beach near Swanage during a family holiday; the sea-urchin shell his mother had brought back from Cornwall; the wooden model of a Spitfire he had made himself at school, soon after the beginning of the war, when he had just started to dream about becoming a pilot.

  His cricket bat was still propped in one corner, and on the mantelpiece of the little fireplace stood the photographs of the various teams he had played in at school – the cricket and rugger teams, the rowing eight. On the walls hung three pictures – a photograph of his grandparents, looking stiff and stern in their Victorian clothes, one of his whole family taken just before the war started, and a rather gloomy picture in which you could just make out three Highland cattle standing up to their knees in a bog amongst shadowy mountains. It had been on the point of being taken to a village jumble sale when the ten-year-old Ben had rescued it and insisted on its being hung in his room.

  On his bookshelf were a row of books from his childhood that he still couldn’t bear to part from – his Rupert annuals, other books on such diverse subjects as bees, internal combustion engines and volcanoes, and the set of Biggles stories by Captain W.E. Johns which had first fired his desire to learn to fly.

  Ben closed his eyes for a moment. Faintly, he could hear the sounds of people talking in the kitchen or hallway. Hope’s excited babble was interspersed with Jeanie’s light voice and John Hazelwood’s deeper tones. The sounds were a comfort to him, reassuring him that there was another world, a world that wasn’t about fighting and killing other men. For although Ben lived for flying, although he revelled in the use and development of his skills in the air, somewhere in his heart was the dark knowledge that those skills were used to deal death to people he had never met and might even like.

  These short visits home reminded him that peace was the ultimate aim, even of war. Peace, and the freedom to live in harmony and contentment.

  A knock on the door roused him and he heard Jeanie’s voice. ‘Supper’s ready, Ben. You
haven’t gone to sleep, have you?’

  ‘Not far off.’ He swung his legs off the bed and opened the door. As she stood there, small and pretty in her flowered pinafore, he was suddenly filled with affection for her. Pulling her into his arms, he gave her a smacking kiss, and she squealed with surprise.

  ‘Ben! Whatever are you doing?’

  ‘Giving you a kiss,’ he said, looking down at her. ‘And what’s more, I’m giving you another one, too.’

  This time the kiss was gentler and lasted a little longer. As he released her, they looked at each other, suddenly solemn. Then Jeanie gave a little laugh and stepped away.

  ‘Come on, Ben. The pie will be getting cold.’ She turned and ran down the stairs and he followed, slowly and rather thoughtfully.

  Sitting round the kitchen table eating rabbit pie, Ben was suffused with warmth and affection. He glanced at Jeanie once or twice, remembering their kiss, and caught her peeping at him through her lashes. Each time, she blushed and looked away quickly, and his heart gave an odd little twist. Afterwards, he helped her wash up and felt the same comfort that he had experienced while helping May Prettyjohn with the same task.

  ‘We’re going to listen to the wireless in the drawing room,’ Olivia said. ‘You’re welcome to come in as well, Jeanie.’

  ‘Oh, no – you’ll want Ben to yourselves. Anyway, I’ve got to put Hope to bed and there’s some mending I ought to be getting on with.’ Her voice was flustered and Olivia glanced at her curiously. As she followed her son into the large, pleasant drawing room, she said, ‘I hope you haven’t been upsetting Jeanie, Ben.’

  ‘Of course I haven’t! How could I have upset her?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ his mother said, ‘but you should remember that she’s had quite a hard time. It wouldn’t be kind to give her the wrong idea.’

  Ben felt the warmth creep into his face. He bent to put a log on the fire and let the heat redden his cheeks, then straightened up. He said, ‘It’s all right, Mum. I won’t do that.’ He met her grey eyes. ‘I like Jeanie. That’s all.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if it weren’t all,’ Olivia said, ‘so long as you’re honest, and sensible. I’m very fond of Jeanie myself. I just don’t want either of you to be hurt.’

  They were still standing there when the door opened again and John came in, carrying the daily paper. He glanced at them and said breezily, ‘Hasn’t anyone turned on the wireless yet? We’ll be missing half the programme.’ And he walked over to the set and began to twiddle the knobs.

  As the whistling and burbling sounds of the wireless warming up filled the room, Olivia and Ben moved apart. Ben dropped into an armchair and his mother settled herself on the sofa. The signature tune of their favourite comedy programme began and they smiled at each other and prepared to enjoy themselves.

  Jeanie didn’t come downstairs again. She stayed in her bedroom, sewing and listening to her own wireless, and thinking of her lost fiancé, Terry.

  Chapter Nine

  Alexandra arrived on the eleven-fifteen train from Ports-mouth next morning and almost fell from the carriage into Ben’s arms. She exclaimed in surprise and flung her own arms around him for a hearty hug.

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me you were going to be here?’

  ‘They were afraid you wouldn’t come if you knew that,’ he said, grinning, and she made a face at him.

  ‘They were probably right. What’s happened? Has the RAF come to its senses and thrown you out?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said with dignity. ‘We were just given a forty-eight-hour pass, that’s all, before going on new duties. Night-flying.’

  ‘Oh.’ Her tone told him that, like their mother, she understood exactly what this meant. ‘I expect you’ll enjoy that.’

  They fell into step, strolling back through the lanes to the vicarage. Alexandra lifted her head and sniffed. ‘It’s lovely to smell fresh country air again. Not that we don’t get plenty of fresh air at Haslar, being right on the sea, but country air’s different.’

  ‘There’s more muck, for a start,’ Ben said, stepping round a pile of horse dung.

  Alexandra laughed. ‘Well, there’s that. But it’s nice muck – except when it’s pigs’, of course. And I get plenty of that smell at Haslar – there’s a pig farm not far from the hospital. How d’you like your new station, Ben?’

  ‘It’s good. Right on the edge of Dartmoor – plenty of fresh country air there, I can tell you. Plenty of good fresh food, too. We get quite a lot of stuff from local farms, and there are even places where you can get clotted cream.’

  ‘Proper clotted cream?’ she asked, and he nodded. ‘I haven’t had proper clotted cream since we went to Cornwall on holiday before the war.’

  ‘You ought to come down to Devon for a few days next time you get leave,’ he said. ‘There are some nice villages around Harrowbeer. I’m sure we could find you somewhere to stay. There’s a girl—’ He stopped suddenly and his sister gave him a quizzical glance.

  ‘There is, is there?’

  ‘It’s nothing like that!’ he said quickly. ‘It’s just a girl I met at a party at the Squadron Leader’s house. She helps his wife – they’re friends. Anyway, I don’t think they’d have room,’ he finished, remembering the situation in the Prettyjohns’ cottage. ‘But there must be plenty of other places.’

  ‘It’s an idea,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘as long as Mum wouldn’t mind. I know she likes me to come home whenever I can.’

  They arrived at the vicarage gate and went into the house. Jeanie was polishing the hall floor and sat back on her heels as they came in, beaming. From the kitchen came the warm aroma of freshly baked bread, and they could hear Olivia chatting to Hope, who was kneeling up on a chair and watching as she stirred cake mixture in a brown and white earthenware bowl. She looked round as they came in and left the mixture at once to come and hug her daughter.

  ‘Alexie! You’re looking well. Come and sit down and I’ll make some coffee. Only Camp, I’m afraid, but it’s all we’ve been able to get for ages now. Take your fingers out of the cake mixture, Hope. I’ll let you scrape out the bowl when I’ve finished.’

  ‘Oh, I was hoping to do that,’ Ben said at once, and Jeanie bustled in from the hall and swooped on the little girl.

  ‘Come on, naughty. We’ll take you out into the garden and leave Mrs Hazelwood in peace. No,’ as Hope let out a roar of disappointment, ‘it’s no good screaming at me. We’re going to feed the chickens.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Ben said as they departed, ‘I’ll leave the bowl for you.’ He went to put the kettle on and Olivia returned to her mixture. Alexandra sat down in the chair Hope had vacated, and stretched her arms above her head.

  ‘Oh, it’s good to be here. We’ve been terribly busy at the hospital. A lot of patients came in from that ship that went down in the Channel a week or so ago, and I’ve been working in theatre almost non-stop. We’re all exhausted – it’s the busiest we’ve been since Dieppe. Are there real eggs in that cake mixture?’

  ‘One,’ Olivia said. ‘The rest are dried. Ben had two for his breakfast.’

  ‘Greedy gannet,’ Ben’s sister said automatically. ‘Are the hens off lay, then?’

  ‘No, not yet, but I wanted to save some for you to take back with you. They’re in that bowl.’ Olivia nodded towards a bowl containing three brown eggs and Alexandra kissed her fingers at them. ‘You’ve got somewhere you can boil them, haven’t you?’

  ‘We can use the stove in the dormitory. You’re an angel, Mum. But will there be any left for Ben’s breakfast tomorrow?’

  ‘Not that you care!’ he said, pouring a teaspoon of dark brown Camp coffee liquid into each cup and adding boiling water. ‘What you’re really asking is whether you can have those too. You can if you like – we get fed pretty well. Won’t do me any harm to go without an egg for one morning.’

  ‘You’re both angels,’ Alexandra told them. ‘I come from a family of angels. That’s probably why I’m a
s nice as I am. Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Over in the church, being an angel,’ Ben said, and she drank her coffee and fished in the tin of broken biscuits, then pushed back her chair and stood up.

  ‘I’ll go and find him. Coming, Ben?’

  Ben looked at her. As the only girl in the family, Alexandra had a special relationship with their father, and he knew that she really wanted some time with him on her own. He smiled and shook his head.

  ‘You go and be angels together, Sis. I’ll come over and tell you when lunch is ready.’ He slid into the chair she had vacated and stretched a tentative finger out to the mixing bowl.

  Olivia slapped his hand away. ‘Honestly, Ben, you’re as bad as Hope.’ She sighed a little and he knew that she was thinking of her other two sons and wishing they could all be here together. ‘Sometimes, I wish you were all little again, playing around my feet and squabbling over who was going to scrape out the bowl or have the skin off the custard. It all seemed so safe, then. Nothing seemed to go wrong. The Great War was over and done with, the Twenties were in full swing and there was no sign of the Depression. It was a charmed time.’

  ‘It was an unreal time,’ he said. ‘Nothing was going wrong, but it was all there under the surface, waiting to happen. Like a pullover with one dropped stitch, waiting to unravel. And once it starts, there’s nothing you can do to stop it.’

  ‘Oh, Ben, that sounds terribly gloomy.’ She turned the mixture out into a cake tin and opened the oven door. ‘Even an unravelling pullover can be mended.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ He ran his finger round the bowl and licked it. ‘I’m not so sure about an unravelling world, though.’