‘Trust him, then,’ Mrs Elsworth said. ‘He might surprise you.’
‘I suppose I’ll have to. I’d better go. I’ve still got to take some funeral invitations to Dad’s friends, just round where we live, you know. I’ve already posted the ones to people I can’t get to on foot, and if I get it all done before I go to bed it’ll be one less thing to worry about.’
She came away from the Elsworths feeling almost part of the family. Mrs Elsworth had admired the ring, and had told her that they’d congratulated Charles when he’d telephoned. It seemed that her mother-in-law-to-be had resigned herself to the inevitable. But by the time she got home Marie had a violent headache. Smut came trotting to welcome her, crying and mewing after being left alone so long. She bent to stroke him. ‘How long is it since you got fed, Smutty? You’ll have to go a-hunting and fend for yourself, like we all do, now. Catch your own or starve, you lazy tomcat.’ She gave him a saucer of leftover porridge, and then boiled the kettle. She would blitz her headache with aspirin. She took four, washing them down with a beaker of Horlicks so thick she could almost stand the spoon up in it. Dr Steele’s fatalism had a lot to be said for it, she concluded, draining the thick, warming liquid to the last drop. If there were an air raid, she’d take her chances. There would be no getting out of bed to run and sit in a cold shelter this night. For all the protection they gave she might as well stay warm and cosy in her bed, unless the Nazis blasted her out of it.
With Smut curled up at her feet and purring like an engine, she slept soundly all night and reported for duty the following morning feeling better than she had for days. A couple of anti-aircraft shells had done some damage around George Street, but Marie had never heard a thing.
On Wednesday afternoon Sister called her into the office. ‘There’s a telephone call for you, Nurse. Something to do with your brother. But you know the hospital telephones are not for staff use, so just this once, Nurse, and make it quick.’
It was Pam. ‘You’re not supposed to ring me here,’ Marie told her. ‘You’ll get me into trouble. You’ll have to ring the Elsworths, and leave a message, in future.’
‘I did ring the Elsworths, and he told me to ring you at the hospital. Alfie wasn’t in school yesterday, so I couldn’t tell him about the funeral. We – Uncle Alec and I, I mean – we went to Mrs Morton’s after tea, and she told us she’d sent him to school, and if he didn’t go, it wasn’t her fault.’
‘What did Alfie say?’
‘He didn’t say anything, because he was out. So we told her we’d come for him today to put him on the bus for home, and she told us it wasn’t a minute too soon. She was going to get the authorities to take him away. He’s a thoroughly bad boy, she said, he ought to be in that approved school—’
‘What’s she talking about?’ Marie interrupted. ‘How is he a thoroughly bad boy?’
‘She said he’d tied a can to her cat’s tail, and nearly tormented it to death. She said it was tied so tight the end of its tail will probably come off, and it’s been ill ever since, and she wouldn’t be surprised if it dies of the shock. And he won’t do anything he’s told, he’s got filthy habits, and a filthy mouth. She said: “You should have heard him when Ernest chastised him for tormenting the cat, and he tried to throw the blame on Ernest! And some of the names he called me! Disgusting! We’ll be glad to see the back of him.” That’s exactly what she said.’ Pam’s voice was becoming ever more shrill. ‘Can you imagine how I felt, hearing all that about my own brother, and Uncle Alec standing there, listening to every word?’
‘Chastised him? What does she mean by “chastised”? And why was Ernie doing the chastising, and not her?’
‘How do I know? All I know is I just wished a hole would open in the ground and swallow me up! I felt so ashamed!’
‘Never mind your bloody feelings, Pam. What about Alfie?’
‘What about Alfie? Well, he wasn’t there this morning either, when Uncle Alec went to collect him for the bus. Mrs Morton said he’d sneaked out, and Ernest said he was always having to go out looking for him, and he was sick of it! So Uncle Alec asked where he’d be likely to be, and Ernest said St Peter’s pool, or the woods. But Uncle Alec couldn’t find him anywhere, and I’m ringing to save you the trouble of going to the ferry for him, Marie, even though you don’t care about me or my feelings!’
‘She’s lying,’ said Marie. ‘Alfie would have been ready and waiting, bag and baggage, if he’d known someone was coming to put him on the bus home, and he’d have been on that bus like a shot.’
‘Well, he did know, because she told him, and he wasn’t there.’
That made no sense. It was obvious the woman was lying, but why would she, if she was set on getting rid of him? Marie was at a loss. ‘Well, you go again tomorrow, and you get him on that bus,’ she said.
‘I can’t go. Have you forgotten, Marie? I have to go to school. So Uncle Alec will have to go.’
Our Pam, Marie thought, a great help in a crisis. She drew a deep breath, and paused to get her tongue under control before she spoke. ‘This is your brother we’re talking about, Pam. He’s eleven years old, and nobody seems to know where he is. That’s more important than missing a couple of hours of school. Is Mr Stewart there?’
‘No.’ Pam sounded sullen. ‘They’ve gone out. They’ve both gone to get some shopping.’
‘Well, tell them I’ll ring tomorrow morning, after someone’s been to the Mortons’. And if Mr Stewart doesn’t want to go, you go, Pamela. Alfie’s your brother; you’re the only family he’s got nearby, so it’s your responsibility. And if Alfie isn’t there this time, I’ll be ringing the billeting officer and the police.’
Marie replaced the receiver, feeling as if she’d lost her stomach. The Alfie she knew would never torture an animal. When her mother had taken Smut in, Alfie had doted on him. If Alfie had changed into a little demon the Mortons had made him like that, but she didn’t believe it, and she didn’t believe the Mortons’ story that he’d run away knowing someone was coming to put him on the bus home. Some very dark suspicions of the Mortons loomed into her mind.
Sister was back in the office. ‘Are you all right, Nurse?’
‘No, Sister, I’m not. I’m really not,’ Marie said. ‘But it’s my own trouble, nobody else can do anything about it, and it won’t stop me looking after the patients.’
Sister let her off early on Thursday to make preparations for the funeral. Marie rang Mr Stewart from the public telephone in the hospital foyer before she went home.
‘Yes. I went to collect Alfie for the second time this morning,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t there, and Mrs Morton told me he hadn’t been in all night. Ernest went out to look for him on Wednesday evening, and Alfie attacked him.’
‘Attacked him?’ Marie exclaimed. ‘How could he? Ernest’s twice Alfie’s size.’
Mr Stewart sounded mildly offended. ‘The fact remains, Miss Larsen, that’s what happened. He was searching for Alfie around St Peter’s pool, and he said Alfie jumped at him and headed him under the chin. Ernest fell down, and then Alfie gave him a thrashing with a willow stick. I’m afraid it’s true. I saw the marks.’
‘Listen, Mr Stewart,’ said Marie, ‘the likelihood that my brother would be avoiding someone who was coming to put him on the bus back home is somewhere between nil and zero, or even less. Something’s going on there that I don’t understand. All I know is, nobody but the Mortons seem to have seen him all week.’
‘No . . . but Mrs Morton’s a very respectable lady; she attends the church. I can’t think of any reason why she would lie. And I did see the wheals on her boy. I also went to the school. Alfie hasn’t been in since Monday and I’m sorry to have to tell you that he hasn’t got a shining reputation there, either. Apparently he’s quite an unruly pupil.’ There was a note of deep disapproval in Mr Stewart’s voice.
‘Pam said you went yesterday to look in all the places Ernest said he might be.’
‘I did, and having had no su
ccess yesterday I saw no point in repeating the performance today, especially as it’s impossible to get him home in time for the funeral now.’
Evidently the man was tired of running around on wild-goose chases in pursuit of other people’s children. Marie could hardly blame him for that, but it should have been Pam doing the searching, not him.
‘Well, thank you for everything you’ve done, Mr Stewart,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you, but my 11-year-old brother hasn’t been seen since yesterday evening, and I can’t just leave it at that. Do you happen to have the number of the nearest police station?’
Chapter 9
Holding the funeral at two o’clock at least meant there was enough time for all the friends and relatives to get to the church and for Marie to make the final preparations. She was up at dawn to make a mountain of sandwiches with Mother’s Pride and baked ham – bought with Charles’s money from somebody at the hospital who knew somebody who knew somebody else who could get such things with no names, no coupons and no questions asked. When she came to the end of the baked ham, she looked dubiously at the pile, wondering how many people would actually turn up. There might be enough, but to be sure she’d better open those tins of salmon her mother had been saving, and get another loaf as soon as the shops opened. The postman came while she was mixing scones. Rubbing her floury hands on her apron she went to the door to pick up a letter from Charles and sat at the bottom of the staircase to scan it.
‘Sorry you’re having such a rotten time of it,’ he wrote, ‘. . . sorry I can’t be there to help . . . Dad’s promised to do everything he can . . . don’t be too soft with Pam and Alfie, whatever you do . . . if he comes to the funeral, send him back as soon as it’s over, for his own good, and get her back to look after your mother . . .’
The letter took on a much brighter tone as he came to news of his own, as if he couldn’t conceal his excitement at his forthcoming adventure. His fellow officers were a good bunch, and he was discovering he could play a decent hand of bridge. The men were a decent bunch as well, except for one, who so far had been a bloody nuisance, and showed every sign of continuing to be one. He would have to be squashed, in short order. They might be shipped off somewhere very soon, or so rumour had it. He’d let her know as soon as he could, and write to her as often as possible.
Marie folded the letter with a grim smile, and put it in her apron pocket. Her dad was going to be shipped off too – off to four clay walls about six feet deep, and there she’d have to leave him. He wouldn’t be making the return trip, and he wouldn’t be writing.
‘He’s bound to turn up soon,’ George said, from the back of Mr Elsworth’s car where he sat beside his mother as they followed the hearse up Princes Avenue towards St Vincent’s Church.
Marie turned to him, her face even paler than usual, and drawn with the strain of the past few days. ‘Preferably alive and well,’ she said.
She had telephoned Bourne that morning and the news was the same from Alfie’s school and the Stewarts. Neither hide nor hair of Alfie had been seen by anyone.
‘Well, he can’t have dropped off the face of the earth. He must be somewhere,’ George said, stating the blindingly obvious.
‘He’s been missing for two nights now.’
Both Pam and Mr Stewart had mentioned St Peter’s pool and an image of the place loomed into Marie’s mind. Was that where Alfie was? Drowned?
After a few moments’ silence, George tried again. ‘Well, maybe it’s not such a bad thing if he misses the funeral. My dad died when I was about Alfie’s age, and you took me to his funeral, didn’t you, Mum? I’ll never forget looking down at the coffin in that awful hole, and then that horrible sound of the earth, landing on top of him. I dreamed about it for years afterwards.’
‘George!’ There was a warning note in that one word from his mother.
‘Oh, yes. Sorry, Marie.’
‘It’s all right, George,’ she said, ‘Nothing you can say can make things any worse than they are already.’
‘Don’t say that. Alfie’ll turn up soon. Sure to,’ Mr Elsworth said.
‘I hope you’re right. I’m not looking forward to telling my mother her baby’s missing, on top of everything else. That would be the end of her.’
The hearse stopped, Mr Elsworth slowed his car to a halt behind it, and they got out. Marie heard a voice she recognized.
‘Hello, Mr Elsworth!’ Hannah hailed him. At the sight of Marie she pulled her face into an expression of sympathy. ‘Oh, Marie!’ she said, with her mouth turning up at the corners and eyes dancing with malice. ‘I heard. It’s your father, isn’t it? And your mother’s not very well, either. What a shame. I am sorry. Some people have no luck, have they?’
Marie gave her a dour look. ‘Save your sympathy for Jenny, Hannah, and your husband, risking his life somewhere in the Atlantic. You must be frantic with worry about him.’
Hannah’s repressed little smirk burst into a full-blown grin. ‘Funnily enough, I’m not,’ she said. ‘Lucky Larry, that’s what they call my husband. And he is lucky, like me.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it, for Jenny’s sake as well as his,’ Marie said, and turned to walk into the church on Mr Elsworth’s arm. Gloat while you can, Hannah, she thought – and watch your step with that little lass, or you’ll be laughing on the other side of your face.
The church held an amazing number of people, given the short notice they’d had. Her father had been a kindly, sociable soul, with time for everyone. This turn-out was the result. It was a real comfort to Marie, but those two tins of salmon would definitely have to be opened if everyone here came back to the house.
‘Charles will telephone tomorrow evening, if he gets the chance,’ Mr Elsworth told her, before leaving them at Northern Cemetery. ‘Come and spend the day with us, if you’re not working.’
Marie promised she would, and shortly afterwards walked home with the rest of the funeral party and put her key in the lock. The door was already open.
‘That’s funny,’ she said, standing back to let George and his mother in first. ‘I must have forgotten to lock it.’
‘I’m not surprised. You’ve had a lot on your plate this past month, lass,’ George’s mother sympathized.
The crowd of mourners followed Marie into the house. The front room was packed to suffocation with ten people, and the middle room was the same. People began spilling over into the kitchen and sitting on the staircase, so there was no room for all their coats and baggage.
‘If you’ll take your coats and everything upstairs and put them on the bed in the front bedroom, they’ll be out of the way,’ she said. ‘We’ll have a bit of room to manoeuvre.’
Uncle Alfred handed his coat to his wife, Dorothy – Auntie Dot – and edged his way into the front room to stir the fire into life, warm his backside, and start his familiar style of genial pontificating, a habit Marie well remembered from her childhood. This time the pontificating was about the war. She left him to it and went through to the kitchen to put three kettles on the stove, two of them borrowed from neighbours. They had also swelled the supply of crockery sufficiently to go round, but the piles of sandwiches didn’t look quite as high as Marie had thought. She opened the salmon and started making more, until a neighbour relieved her of the task so that she could join her guests. The family had congregated in the front room with Aunt Edie and George, the rest of the neighbours occupied the dining room. By the time Marie joined the party in the front room Uncle Alfred had given them the solution to the problem of Adolf Hitler.
‘I’m going to write to the War Office people and tell them to put you in charge, Uncle,’ she teased. ‘We’ll have the war done and dusted in a fortnight.’
‘That’s just what your dad would have said. Our Alf, setting the world to rights again,’ Uncle Alfred said. The recollection brought a tear to the corner of his eye, which he surreptitiously brushed away with the back of his hand before pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, to give
his nose a good blow. ‘Aye, but we’ve had some fun in this house in the old days, lass. I’ll never forget the parties your mam and dad used to have on New Year’s Eve. You remember some of the games we played? I’ve laughed till my sides ached, in this house. Poor old Bert. Poor old lad.’
‘He was a great practical joker,’ Auntie Ellen said, after a moment or two of solemn silence. ‘Do you remember that game where he used to have us blindfolded, feeling things, and guessing what they were? Do you remember when he put that raw sausage and some warm water in the chamber pot, and made me put my hand in it and tell everybody what it was? My God! I nearly died!’
‘We all nearly died – of laughing,’ Uncle Alf said, as the whole room erupted into mirth. ‘It’s a pity we don’t get together more often. We’ve always got on.’
‘If you thought that, why’d you move out to Dunswell?’ demanded Aunt Lucy, who had lived in Anlaby for the past ten years with her husband and family.
‘You know why. We wanted the smallholding,’ Alfred said. ‘Same as you wanted that little shop you got in Anlaby.’
Auntie Dot looked up. ‘Pity we had to get together at all for something like this. I got the shock of my life when we got Marie’s letter,’ she said.
‘Our Bert. I still can’t believe it,’ said Aunt Lucy. ‘My baby brother, gone.’
Marie had been wondering how to drop her bombshell about Alfie, and here was the perfect opening. ‘My baby brother gone, as well,’ she said. ‘We sent him away to keep him safe from the bombing, and now he’s gone missing. I can hardly believe that, either.’
All eyes turned towards her. Auntie Dot gaped. ‘What, our Alfie?’
‘What do you mean?’ Auntie Ellen demanded. ‘Gone where? Not killed, surely!’
‘I certainly hope not killed. Only our Alfie wasn’t happy where he was, and now he’s just vanished. Nobody seems to have seen him for the past two days. I told the police yesterday, and I rang them again this morning. They’re going to contact me when they’ve “had time to look into the matter.” ’
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