‘The government’s giving us an extra four ounces of sugar each for Christmas,’ she said.
‘The Suttons’ll have their own. There’s no need to waste ours on them,’ Annie pointed out.
‘Oh, but I must have something to offer them,’ her mother insisted.
The thought of biscuits hot out of the oven made Annie’s mouth water as she toiled. And to think that they were going to be wasted on beastly Beryl.
She saw the Wittlesham to Brightlingsea bus stop at the end of the lane and three figures step down. Beryl’s little brother Timmy went running up the track. Beryl caught sight of her and waved and shouted.
‘Cooee! Annie!’
Annie didn’t answer. She pretended not to see as they made their way to the nice warm kitchen, leaving her labouring in the wind and rain. With a bit of luck, she would be finished by the time they came out again.
But luck was not on her side. As the Suttons came out of the farmhouse she was just on the last row, by the fence that separated the field from the track. Once more, Beryl waved.
‘Hello, Annie!’
At first Annie ignored her, but as Beryl drew level with her, she was forced to give up pretending she hadn’t heard. She straightened up.
‘Hello, Beryl.’
She knew she looked dreadful. She was cold, wet and exhausted. Her face was raw red and her ancient work clothes were spattered with mud. Beryl was warm and dry and still glowing from sitting by the range.
‘Having a nice time?’ Beryl enquired.
Annie wanted to push her face in.
‘It’s my bit for the war effort,’ she responded. ‘What’s yours?’
‘We’re knitting mufflers for soldiers at my school,’ Beryl said. ‘They’re so grateful, poor things. They send us lovely letters thanking us.’
Annie said nothing. The thought of sitting at a desk and learning things instead of cutting cabbages was almost too much to bear.
‘I came top in French these exams,’ Beryl went on. ‘Je suis très fort en Français. I bet you don’t know what that means. It means I am very strong at French. My form teacher says that all educated people should be able to speak French, and she’s a history mistress. Tu es un cochon. I bet you don’t know what that means, either. That’s the trouble with only going to the elementary. Still, I suppose you don’t even need to know how to read and write to dig potatoes.’
‘I’m doing something useful, not just sitting round all day getting fat. Our pigs can do that,’ Annie retorted.
‘And this year I’m starting Latin. I bet you don’t even know what Latin is,’ Beryl said.
‘It’s a dead language. You see stuff written in it in churches,’ Annie said in a bored voice. ‘What’s the point of learning that?’
If she’d hoped to score a point, she was disappointed.
‘Well, of course an uneducated person like you wouldn’t understand. It’s still spoken by doctors and people at universities,’ Beryl retorted.
Annie gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘And you’re going to be a doctor, are you? Pull the other one!’
‘We all know what you’re going to be—a farmhand,’ Beryl said.
Annie was actually glad when Mrs Sutton and Timmy reached them.
‘Come along, Beryl, don’t hold Annie up. I’m sure she still has plenty to do. Good day, Annie.’
‘Good day, Mrs Sutton,’ Annie muttered.
‘Bye, Annie. Have a lovely time!’ Beryl called as she walked off down the track.
Annie choked back tears of frustration and jealousy. Beryl had everything—a rich, kind father, brothers to keep her company, a place at the grammar school. It wasn’t fair.
But then she remembered. Beryl didn’t have Tom. That almost made it all worthwhile.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THROUGH the long hard winter of 1940 to 1941, the people of the industrial cities and ports of Britain suffered the terrors of the blitz while the bombers of the RAF carried out Churchill’s promise to ‘give it them back’. Stray bombs and damaged aircraft crashed into fields and villages and towns, and even the quietest village had its German spy scare. The convoys crossing the Atlantic were harried by submarines, making scarce commodities even scarcer. Britons tightened their belts, worked harder and ate more frugally. But they did not think of giving in.
Annie laboured through the cold days, learning how to work farm machinery from the pool of modern devices now available on loan to farmers, on top of carrying on with the day-to-day work of running a dairy herd. Harder than either of these was keeping on the right side of her father. Praise, or even recognition of the huge part she played in the increased productivity of the farm, was out of the question. But when Walter was in a neutral mood, he did allow her the odd evening off. They were occasions to be savoured to the full.
An April Thursday saw her hurrying to meet Gwen outside the Roxy in the High Street. Gwen squealed when she spotted her and rushed to take hold of her arm.
‘You’re so late! I thought you weren’t coming.’
The two girls trotted arm in arm up the steps of the cinema.
‘I know, I’m sorry. The bus was ever so late, and when it did come it was an awful old thing. I think they’ve sent all their decent ones up to London,’ Annie explained.
‘We need buses just as much as Londoners do,’ Gwen grumbled.
They pushed in through the swing doors. Annie paused for a moment, looking around, making sure it was all just as grand as ever. She breathed deeply, taking in the smell of smoke and wet coats and the faint whiff of disinfectant. Yes, this was it. This was Life. Even in the dim wartime lighting, the entrance looked like a palace with its high ceilings, red flock walls, gold paintwork and shiny brass rails. Wonderful. It was like living in a fairy tale after the wet fields and the austere farmhouse. And it was all hers, for the price of a ticket in the front stalls.
‘Come on, dozy!’ Gwen was already at the ticket booth. ‘We’ve missed part of the first feature already.’
They walked to the stall doors and were escorted into the smoky darkness by the usherette and her torch. Trying not to stumble over people’s legs, they groped their way to their seats and subsided with sighs of pleasure. Settling back, they gave themselves up to fantasy. The sheriff’s posse thundered across the screen, the baddies galloped up into the rocks on the side of the valley, bullets whined and ricocheted, horses reared and fell. The good guys won.
‘That was good,’ Annie enthused as the credits rolled.
‘Yeah—’ Gwen’s accent had slid to somewhere in the mid-Atlantic ‘—sure was.’
A short cartoon came next. Tomcat chased Tweetie-Pie and failed yet again to catch him. The adverts rolled. Gwen elbowed Annie and offered a small paper bag.
‘Here—have a pear drop.’
‘Thanks, Gwennie! Can you spare them?’
‘‘Course—go on.’
Annie sucked off the rough sugar coating and let the gloriously artificial sweet fruitiness fill her mouth. Bliss.
The newsreel followed. Victims of the latest blitz on Birmingham were seen clearing up and fixing ‘Business as Usual’ signs to their damaged shops while smiling and making thumbs-up signs at the camera. Much was made of the successes in Eritrea and the huge bombing raid on Kiel.
‘I heard them going over the other night. They must have been heading for Kiel,’ Annie whispered.
‘They’re so brave, the RAF boys,’ Gwen said with a sigh.
That was quite enough reality. Now it was the big feature—a Busby Berkeley musical. Annie and Gwen were swept into a world of colour, song and dance. Time was suspended and nothing mattered but that the hero and heroine should end in each other’s arms.
The whole audience stood for ‘God Save the King’, and then shuffled out, chattering and laughing.
It was strange being back in cold, dark Wittlesham High Street. At least half of Annie was still prancing about in satin and feathers. The contrast made her feel quite light-headed.
‘That was just wonderful,’ she said, sighing.
But it was no use staying in Hollywood with your head in the clouds. There were practicalities to obey. The last bus left in just five minutes. The girls hurried to join the line of people climbing on board.
Gwen dived into her bag and produced an envelope. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘something to keep your pecker up.’
Annie took it and stared at the writing.
To Miss A Cross c/o Miss G Barker.
Tom. It was from Tom.
‘Already?’ she said, dazed. ‘I wasn’t expecting one for days …’
She stood still, gazing at the letter in happy disbelief.
‘Come on, darling. You taken root?’ a voice demanded from behind.
‘Oh, sorry …’ Annie shuffled forward to the head of the queue. She gave Gwen a quick hug. ‘Thanks ever so, Gwennie. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you—’
‘I’ll think of something. Come and see me as soon as you can! Toodle-oo!’
‘Toodle-oo!’
Annie climbed on board and found a seat near the back. She sat staring at her letter. A night out and a letter from Tom. It was almost too much happiness for one day. Treats had to be hoarded up, brought out as rewards to herself. She thrust the letter in her pocket and sat staring out into the dark, reliving every detail of the musical.
Tom’s letter was like a beacon, seeing her through the next day when the rain drove across the flat fields and it felt more like winter than spring. Her father was in one of his blacker moods and her mother went tiptoeing around trying to appease him. Annie hummed the tunes from the film to herself and kept picturing what was waiting for her under her mattress. It was like a protective charm around her.
The wireless went off at ten o’clock to conserve the battery, and Annie lit a candle to go up to bed. She slit open the envelope while her parents were still moving around, so that there was no danger of them hearing the noise of ripping paper. Then she tore off her clothes, pulled on her nightie and jumped into bed. Now, at last, the letter could be taken out.
There was Tom’s familiar sloping handwriting in black ink.
Dear Annie
We’ve had a big bit of excitement here in Noresley. A bomber got lost on its way back from raiding Sheffield and dropped a bomb on us. Well, not quite on us. The way folk are talking round here you’d think the village had been flattened, but actually it fell on the playing fields of the Miners’ Welfare. But what a bang! It blew all our windows out, which was pretty frightening. Our Joan was screaming her head off and Mam was yelling ‘Are you all right?’ and Dad was yelling ‘Don’t move!’ and all the lights were off. Mam wanted us all to go and sit under the stairs in case it was a real raid, and Dad said that was potty because who’d want to bomb Noresley? So he and I went off to see if the neighbours were all right, which they were except for old Mrs Jackson on the corner, so we brought her back for a cup of tea. Luckily the gas was still working and by then Mam had swept up some of the glass though it was still all over the place. It sort of crunched under your feet. So we sat round the kitchen table and drank tea and cocoa with extra sugar and brandy in it because that’s good for shock. You should try cocoa with brandy—it’s jolly good. Worth having a shock for. Mrs Jackson got quite tiddly and started singing songs from the last war like ‘It’s a Long Way To Tipperary’, so it all got quite jolly, almost like a party. I hoped I’d be allowed not to go to school the next day as there was such a lot of clearing up to do, but Dad said that would be giving in to Jerry, so off to school I had to go, but it was good because everyone wanted to hear all about our bomb from us Noresley lot. I went to see the crater after school and it was massive! The Welfare was pretty well wrecked, but everyone’s getting together at the weekend to repair it and so that’s two fingers up to Jerry. (Whoops, sorry. That’s rude. But you know what I mean.)
So that’s my big news. Our house is all boarded up now until we can get hold of some glass, so it’s pretty gloomy inside, but at least the electricity’s back on again. Otherwise, it’s same as usual—school, homework, football practice, cycle club, pictures. How about you? Have you seen the new Cary Grant film yet? It’s going to be on in Mansfield next week so a gang of us are going over to see it. Has your dad been all right? I think of you a lot like you were after he did that. It makes me mad just to think about it. What does the sea look like now? Not all bright like it was in summer. Whenever I think of Wittlesham it’s always sunny. It’s quite strange when you say it’s been cold and raining for a fortnight.
Sunday. Bad news, I’m afraid. Mam says the bomb has really shaken her up and she doesn’t want to go far from home, so we’ll not be going on holiday this summer. I’m really sick about it, I can tell you. I tried reasoning with her and saying that if she booked up Silver Sands she’d have something to look forward to but she wasn’t having any. Honestly, parents! I’ll be glad when I’m old enough to join up. I’m sick of being treated like a little kid.
Monday. I’ve thought of a way round the holiday problem. The cycle club are doing a tour round the Peaks at the end of July. I’ve already cleared it with the parents to go on that, so what I’ll do is, I’ll come down to see you instead. I can put my bike on the train and there’s a youth hostel in Wittlesham. So I will get down after all! Don’t you think that’s a clever plan?
I’m going to put this in the post now.
Yours truly,
Your friend,
Tom.
X
Annie’s hands were shaking. The bomb story wasn’t really frightening because Tom was obviously all right, and the bit about the old lady getting tiddly even made her smile. But the Featherstones not coming to Wittlesham! It was a nightmare. It was the end of the world. The thought of Tom being in that tent in the garden of Silver Sands this summer had glimmered ahead of her ever since he’d gone away. His alternative plan sounded feasible, but—there were so many buts. Supposing his parents found out and forbade it? Supposing he didn’t have enough money? Supposing the cycle club trip was called off and he lost his cover story? It was a bleak prospect—a summer with no Tom to look forward to.
But then, that X at the bottom of his letter.
She stared at it in the wavering light of the candle flame.
He had never put an X on a letter before.
That had to be a good sign. It was a good sign. Annie blew out the candle and fell asleep with the letter against her hand under the pillow.
Spring turned reluctantly into summer and Britons learned of the loss of the Hood and the abandonment of Crete while the air raids carried on unabated. The one rousing piece of news was the sinking of the battleship Bismark. And then the Nazis invaded Russia. Though the ordinary people of Britain did not realise it at the time, the invasion pressure was off. What concerned them more was that first clothes and then coal were rationed.
At Marsh Edge Farm, Walter Cross finally gave in to pressure from fellow farmers to try sowing ley grass and cutting silage to increase the amount and quality of feed available to the greatly increased dairy herd. By June, a second-hand tractor replaced the elderly work-horse. Its variable reliability did not improve his temper, though even he had to admit that it could work faster and harder than the horse and did not need attending to each day. Annie’s letters contained accounts of these innovations and of her trips into town to meet Gwen and her occasional brushes with Beryl Sutton, but mentioned nothing of Walter’s eruptions of temper. After all, Tom could do nothing about it, and the thought of her being hurt obviously worried him. On top of that, she felt ashamed to admit, even to Tom, what went on in her family. Her letters always ended the same way, asking him if he was still coming to Wittlesham at the end of July. His answer was always the same—yes. But still she harboured doubts.
Her birthday came round. Her mother gave her a blouse she had made out of rayon hoarded from before rationing. It had square shoulders with little shoulder pads and was darted in to a narrow waist. A real grown-up garment
. Gwen gave her a lipstick. Fifteen. She was now fifteen years old.
‘We could get married next year,’ said Gwen, whose birthday was a few weeks earlier than hers.
They both tried the lipstick, which was dark red. They tried to do each other’s hair up in fashionable rolls around the face, though Annie’s hair wasn’t really long enough and Gwen’s was too fly-away. Neither of them looked very much like a film star or a dance band singer, but still they were quite pleased with the result.
‘We do look a lot more grown up. That blouse is lovely, very fashionable. You are lucky, Annie, having a mum who can make you things like that,’ Gwen said.
‘Yes, I am,’ Annie agreed, stroking the silky fabric.
‘And you’ve got a boyfriend, you lucky thing.’
Two things to feel lucky about. Annie savoured the feeling. Usually, it was Gwen who had so much more than she did in the way of people in her life.
‘He’s not really a boyfriend. More like a pen-pal,’ Annie said.
‘Ooh!’ Gwen teased. ‘I’ve seen how desperate you are for a letter from him. And you never show them to me. I bet they’re full of lovey-dovey stuff and kisses.’
‘No, they’re not. We just write about what we’ve been doing.’
‘So you say. I wish I had a boyfriend. My mum and dad would go potty, but I’d really like to have one. I want to know what it’s like, being in love.’
‘Mmm,’ Annie said.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror of Gwen’s dressing table. She did look older, what with the lipstick and the hairstyle and the new blouse. No longer a little girl. Love. She imagined love being something all floaty and dreamy, like a romantic song in a film. What she felt for Tom was not like that. It was sometimes quite gnawing and painful and desperate. If he didn’t manage to get to Wittlesham …
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