by Katie King
But the boys were too busy smiling at one another, and imagining the adventures that they would be able to have together once they were bona fide musketeers, to take any notice of what the intelligent pony might be thinking.
Milburn plunged her head down to pull at the nutritious turf once more.
She might not approve, but she thought she’d better fill up while the going was good, as she sensed there might be a time coming in the not-too-distant future when she was going to need lots of energy.
Chapter Thirteen
By now, virtually all the talk in Harrogate, and in the letters Barbara and Peggy wrote to each other (Barbara, who could barely imagine what she would feel like if Ted had done the dirty on her the way that Bill had, was making sure she scribbled at least a few lines to her sister daily just to try and keep Peggy’s spirits as buoyed as possible), were equally concerned with what was happening across the English Channel at Dunkirk as with the mundanities of their own daily lives.
One thing for certain was that everyone agreed that what had felt at first as if it were occurring a very long way away indeed, now felt as if it were happening virtually next door. The war, and the struggle between life and death, and victory and defeat, suddenly seemed startlingly vivid.
‘DUNKIRK DEFENCE DEFIES 300,000’ Tommy read after tea from a Daily Sketch Larry had brought home from June Blenkinsop’s, once the news of the mass evacuation of British soldiers from the shores in northern France began filtering through.
And Connie managed to read to the others the Daily Express headline: ‘TENS OF THOUSANDS SAFELY HOME ALREADY’.
‘Aunt Peggy, what would ten thousand soldiers look like all together?’ Connie asked.
Peggy thought about it before confessing, ‘Do you know, Connie, I don’t have any idea. I do know however that this number of men wouldn’t be able to fit into your playground at school, even though it is a much larger playground than you had at Bermondsey. It is a lot of men though, that much is clear, and it’s needed a large number of small boats to sail over the Channel to get them. The customers at June’s have hardly been able to speak of anything else.’
‘Just like Tommy,’ replied Connie, and it was true so aunt and niece shared a conspiratorial smile.
Later Peggy and Roger spoke of how it seemed that the more the public had time to think of what was happening at Dunkirk, the more a chord was struck that reverberated across the whole nation, with the result that even though it was a retreat, somehow it felt to everybody like a major victory that everybody could and should feel proud of.
A still under-par Peggy gathered with Roger, Mabel, and the children to listen on the wireless to the BBC broadcast Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s rousing speech on the subject, to the nation. As everyone was getting ready for the broadcast to begin, Gracie bustled in too with a grumbling baby Jack in one arm, although she had to beat a hasty retreat to give him a feed when he wouldn’t stop creating, just as Roger finished playing with the tuning knob and began to explain to the children that Churchill was using what had happened in France to try and encourage the United States to support the British cause against Germany.
But before Roger could go into too much detail, Mabel gave a firm shush, and soon the parlour was filled with the sound of Churchill saying in his distinctive voice crackling through the tinny-sounding loudspeaker, ‘We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…’
A frisson engulfed the room and although they weren’t prone to this sort of demonstrative behaviour, Roger and Mabel clasped hands briefly.
Churchill had honestly acknowledged the British defeat on the French sea shores, but still somehow he made his words feel to everybody as if the war was not lost. Those held rapt in the parlour at Tall Trees, even the children, found themselves feeling they could – and they would – be heroes.
It was only Peggy who felt lost and adrift in her own world as Churchill’s words washed around her, and she gazed unseeing into the space before her.
As the Prime Minister’s speech continued, she barely noticed the four boys all sitting facing each other crossed-legged on the floor in their grey short-legged trousers, staring seriously at one another and then nod, before putting their clasped fists once more together in a vertical tower.
Connie and Angela were sitting on hard chairs, their heads together as they whispered to one another, but the boys’ close attention to what they were doing didn’t quite escape Connie’s eagle-eye, although she continued to make a show of listening to what Angela was murmuring about how fond Bucky seemed to be of Milburn.
Gradually, as Churchill’s inspiring words lulled a sense of calm and confidence over his listeners, Peggy started to feel almost hypnotised, even soothed.
A new mood crept upon her, and with what might almost be a jolt, she realised that in the blink of an eye suddenly she felt bolder and more competent, and less disappointed in herself and her situation. And although she didn’t realise that this was the case, she began to square her shoulders a fraction. She wasn’t quite sure what was making her embrace a new frame of mind from her hangdog feelings of only a few minutes previously, but as Churchill’s rousing words rang out, the closest she could have described it was that she was experiencing a feeling of being cleansed and renewed. Although their leader was talking about fighting in terms of winning the war against Germany, to Peggy it more felt like Churchill was addressing her and her alone, making a direct call to arms as regards bonding her and Holly into a unit, held fast and strong together, and invigorating their intensely personal fight for a better future.
Peggy took a deep breath. No longer did she feel she wanted to spend her time and energy picking over the whys and wherefores of what Bill had done – or, more painfully in Peggy’s opinion, think endlessly on quite what it was that had made Bill want to put to one side both herself and his marriage vows of fidelity.
Instead – and it was an amazing feeling growing quickly from the tiniest seed of hope – it wouldn’t be going too far to say that she felt purged of Bill’s bad behaviour, and as if she had the spirit now to forge forward and look to her and Holly’s future with a sense of inner strength and equanimity.
Of course, Peggy knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as this. She would feel bruised and battered for a long time, that was inevitable. But she wouldn’t allow herself to feel a victim any longer, Peggy suddenly believed with the clarity of day coming from night. Bill had hurt her by what he had done, absolutely. But she didn’t need to let him go on hurting her; and while Barbara had said this on several occasions to Peggy (only using different words), and actually so had Mabel, June and Grace, and even though she herself had paid lip service to this too, now Peggy understood exactly what everyone had been driving at, and what her own head had been reasoning but her heart hadn’t been ready to follow.
Peggy resolved just to accept that although they had tried very hard, despite their best efforts, it had gone irrevocably wrong between herself and Bill. Now she had done her grieving for what might have been, and she should try not to dwell on it any further. It might not be a very big decision on her part, but still it seemed to Peggy as if a weight had lifted from her shoulders.
Peggy shifted the sleeping Holly from one arm to another, and she realised as she refocused her eyes and looked around, that it was only her and Roger left sitting down, and the wireless was now silent. She had lost all sense of time and place, and she had no idea if everybody else had just left the room, or if they had gone out and about their business as much as an hour ago.
She felt dreamy almost, and she startled slightly when Roger said, ‘I’ve never heard anything quite like that. Mr Churchill is very good at his speeches. I found his words stirring. Ve
ry stirring, wouldn’t you say, Peggy?’
She nodded, and for a moment felt overwhelmed, experiencing just for a second or two the too-familiar ache of threatening tears. But even this wasn’t anything to fear, Peggy decided, as it felt too, for the first time in weeks, as if they wouldn’t be tears of anger, bitterness and rancour, but more as if the ‘right’ sort of tears were going to come. Healing and purifying tears. She took in an enriching breath and, oddly unembarrassed considering that Roger was there, let them spill from her eyes unchecked.
Presumably Roger was used to this sort of thing from some of his female parishioners, as he didn’t look uncomfortable or awkward in the least.
Instead he pulled his chair closer and contented himself with smiling down at the softly snuffling Holly, deeply asleep, and then he raised his head to look at Peggy, his gaze steady but warm.
Peggy felt as if she were being looked at as herself, Peggy, for the very first time in quite a while; it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation. She tried to concentrate on just the moment, and not thinking forwards or backwards, or worrying about what had happed yesterday or what tomorrow might bring.
It seemed enough just to be sitting there with caring people close to her, and a happy and healthy baby in her arms.
‘We’re doing it all for them, aren’t we?’ said Roger softly after a while, as he leant forward to tuck Holly’s shawl a little more securely across her bare legs uncovered by her short cotton dress, as although the evening was still warm now that the sun had moved and thrown the room into shadow, the temperature was dropping slightly. ‘Whether we are fighting on the beaches, to use Churchill’s words, or within the realms of our own hearts, we are all fighting for something. You have it in you to be a wonderful mother, Peggy, so you must remember that always. I see it clearly.’
Roger smiled encouragingly and then continued, ‘While it has been difficult for you in recent days concerning your marriage, you should remember to embrace too that Holly was born from an act of love. I know you’re not an especially religious person’ – Peggy felt a little twinge at this being articulated so clearly, as Roger was a man of the church after all, and she hoped he wasn’t about to make her feel guilty for not sharing his depth of belief, or that she would plunge him into a sense of disappointment that she wasn’t more enthusiastic churchwise, but she needn’t have worried as then Roger ploughed on regardless – ‘but it is times like these, perhaps when we have just listened to something like our Prime Minister speaking directly to all of us while we are sitting in our homes as if we had invited him inside in person, that makes many of us start to think once more of our faith, whether it be faith in our children, or in our leaders, or, in my own case, before the altar I hold so dear.
‘I think that as long as we allow goodwill of all sorts to flourish in our hearts, that can never be a bad thing, and that it will give us many different kinds of strength. It strikes me that faith in our next generation is maybe as close to a real sense of grace as any of us will ever feel in this life, and when I look at a baby such as Holly or Jack I see how very special that is and how extraordinary they are.’
Peggy nodded furiously, tears welling up again, and she had to use Holly’s muslin cloth, already damp from her earlier tears and which fortunately wasn’t too grubby from wiping Holly’s milky mouth, to mop under her eyes.
Roger sat quietly by, not saying anything more. It was an enriching and comforting silence, and as Peggy’s fresh tears abated and Holly woke up and looked at her mother, Peggy understood that she was much, much recovered to how she had been only a day or so ago.
‘Thank you, Roger, I er…’ Peggy began.
‘No thanks needed, my dear,’ he said as he got up, giving her a vague pat on the shoulder as he went to put his chair back in its proper place. ‘Now, I wonder where I put that lethal sloe gin that Mrs Timms gave me last summer? I think a small toast to Mr Churchill and our brave boys, and in fact the brave boys from all sides of the war, is very much on the cards, wouldn’t you agree?’
Peggy stood up too, and then quickly touched Roger on the arm to stop him walking off to the kitchen to find the gin and the glasses just yet. ‘Roger, I do want you to know that me, and Barbara and Ted, will never be able to thank you enough for everything you have done for us all. And we know that we can never repay you and Mabel either. You really have been most kind to us all.’
‘Peggy,’ said Roger gently, ‘have you ever considered for a moment that perhaps it is you and little Holly, and Connie and Jessie, of course; and now Larry and Aiden and Angela, and Gracie and young Jack, who have given us Braithwaites the biggest gift of all simply by us having you, each and every one, here with us at Tall Trees?’
Peggy didn’t want to start weeping again, and so she smiled and said, ‘You forgot Milburn.’
‘And dear Milburn too, of course – how could I forget her! Now, where’s Mrs Timms’ gin? Let’s hope Mabel hasn’t turned into a secret drinker and hogged the lot all to herself.’
‘I ’eard that, Roger!’ came Mabel’s ringing tones from just the other side of the open door, making Roger jump and, in a moment of pure joy, Peggy clasp Holly to her chest as they looked up to see Mabel step past the doorway en route to Angela’s room, with the laundry basket and some folded bed linen, clearly intent on changing the sheets.
Suddenly it felt good to be alive. Peggy wanted to shout this out but she didn’t want to scare Holly. In many ways she had Mr Churchill to thank for that, she thought, and then she wondered if many other people listening to his words had felt their lives shift just as she had?
Chapter Fourteen
Walking back from June Blenkinsop’s one warm day after their stints, Aiden and Larry were worried about the sizeable number of newspapers left behind in the teashop by the end of the day.
‘I’ve ’ad an idea,’ said Aiden. ‘What about if we make cards an’ drop ’em off all round town t’ tell folks t’ gather their papers, an’ then of a weekend we could collect all t’ newspapers? We could do it in t’ wheelbarrow, but Roger might let us use Milburn. An’ when we git a good load we could lug it all t’ depot.’
Larry agreed this was a good idea, and so did Roger when Aiden broached it with him and even said without any surreptitious prompting that it was perfectly all right for them to use Milburn and the trap as they would be able to collect more than if they were having to use the wheelbarrow. The government wanted all paper saved as part of their National Salvage Campaign, either newsprint or scrap, as it could be used for packaging around weapons when they were sent abroad, or bullet cartridge boxes, and some of it was even being used to eke out the concrete in the runways that were currently under construction for Britain’s bombers to use. People were already saving all their papers and were using collection points, but Aiden’s idea would be in Roger’s opinion a service that those who were very elderly or who found it difficult to get out and about would find invaluable.
Jessie wished rather enviously that he’d had the idea, seeing how much everyone seemed to be congratulating Aiden for having come up with it.
Aside from Roger’s congratulatory clap on Aiden’s shoulder, Connie was sneaking looks at Aiden with undisguised admiration, and as Jessie watched them, one nudging the other’s elbow and the other nudging back with their own, for the first time he understood with a feeling of what he could only think was sadness that although he and Connie would always be twins and have their very special bond together, there would be a time – and indeed maybe it was practically here already – when he wouldn’t hold the closest place in his sister’s heart (well, after their parents, obviously).
Jessie felt a sense of hurt for an instant as if he might be about to lose something precious, as he knew how eagerly Connie had always leaped to his defence and had tried to make sure nobody bullied or was mean to him, especially when he’d been having such a terrible time at school back in Bermondsey. He often wished he’d been able to do the same for her, but this situation never reall
y arose as Connie always seemed to be so much better at looking after herself than he could ever be, which had been most galling to Jessie in the past. However, these days he’d noticed recently that he didn’t need her to step in on his behalf quite as often as she had had to do when they had been living in Jubilee Street, and he liked this feeling of a slowly growing independence – it made him feel, while not quite brave, definitely more certain of himself and his place in the world, and so he tried to be happy that Connie liked Aiden and Aiden seemed to like her back.
As Roger gave a few useful suggestions as to how they might collect the paper, Jessie peeked again at the way Connie and Aiden were laughing together, and he wondered if he’d ever be like that with a girl, larking about with someone who wasn’t his sister, with them hanging on his every word. He doubted it – he’d looked in the mirror only that morning, and had been chastened by the sight of his bony chest and puny arms – and anyway, he didn’t really like girls, other than Connie, of course, although then he had to admit to himself that for a girl, Angela wasn’t too bad either.
The previous week he’d even asked Connie precisely what it was that she felt about Aiden, and her reply had been, ‘I like the way he makes my heart beat when he’s near me, and when he smiles at something I say I like how my cheeks go pink no matter how hard I try to make them not do so.’
Jessie wondered what it would be to feel like that, but he couldn’t imagine it. He was much more comfortable spending time with his pals than thinking about girls, let alone talking to them. In his opinion girls – especially when gathered together – seemed too noisy and complicated and unknowable.
Sighing silently to himself, Jessie now tried to pay better attention to the talk at the tea table, which was still on using Milburn for the mobile waste-paper collection, and the girls were volunteering to make the cards so that everyone would know about it.
