Only a Mother Knows

by Annie Groves

  Olive wanted today to be perfect for Tilly and she didn’t want Nancy to spoil it with her carping. She left her neighbour looking out of the window and, picking up her tray, went to collect empty tea cups.

  Dulcie seemed quiet today and was deep in thought in the chair near the door, Olive noted, knowing her lodger’s subdued behaviour was most uncharacteristic; she would normally revel in a good old get-together. Perhaps she would start one of her usual sing-songs around the piano in the front room later on, but right now it didn’t seem as if she had any such inclination.

  As Olive walked towards the kitchen door she noticed Archie further down the hallway. ‘Excuse me, Nancy, I think I hear the kettle boiling,’ she said as her neighbour, with obvious rage written all over her face, made a beeline for her.

  ‘He’s definitely got his eye on you, Olive, it’s as plain as the nose on your face,’ Nancy began.

  But Olive was in no mood to hear the woman’s comments; she was far too busy making sure her other guests were properly looked after. Also, she didn’t want Nancy to see Archie being his usual amiable self towards her. She would only jump to the wrong conclusion – again.

  As Archie drew near, Olive suddenly felt a glow of guilt suffuse her neck and face; she’d thought of him a lot since Nancy had insinuated he might have feelings that were more than neighbourly, much more than was proper for a widow to think of a married man. She ought to be ashamed of herself. And she was, especially since his wife was in hospital.

  ‘I must go and see to this tea,’ Olive said hastily, heading for the kitchen.

  ‘Something I said?’

  Olive heard the amusement in Sergeant Dawson’s deep voice that could do one of two things: either put the fear of God into the most hardened felon or fill the heart of the most frightened child with hope and security. And for this, at least, Olive felt a tremendous respect for the man who had looked after his ailing wife with tender loving care, as well as helping to bring up the wayward child of a serving soldier.

  In the kitchen she smiled to herself, relieved that everybody, apart from Nancy, seemed to be having a good time, especially Tilly, who was now laughing at something somebody had said. Olive was glad she hadn’t made a song and dance about her going into the Forces. In reality she had no choice, all the young ones were being called up to do their bit and it now happened to be Tilly’s turn. However, knowing she had to go didn’t make the parting any easier.

  Olive had decided to have a little tea party on the Sunday afternoon because Tilly was leaving by train later that day and it was much easier to have everybody around her than mope around, walking on eggshells in case she set Tilly off crying or vice versa. No, it was much better to do it this way, she thought, putting the washed cups on the draining board. Having saved her points and coupons Olive had purchased a few luxuries especially for today, including a tin of red salmon – pink was almost impossible to get hold of even if she did have the money and the coupons – which she used to make sandwiches. Agnes had brought in the last of the home-grown lettuce, radish and spring onions from the little garden and Olive managed to make a nice salad with a few ounces of ham she had gleaned from the butcher on the high street yesterday.

  The ham was a bit dry around the edges where it had been lying in the sunny window but she managed to shave that off and it was as good as new now. What with all that and the Victoria sponge she made with her dried-egg ration, Olive was quite happy with the way things turned out, especially when Nancy brought a jelly she had made along with some condensed milk. She wasn’t all bad, Olive thought with a smile.

  Taking the clean, damp tea towels off the food, Olive made sure everything was perfect before putting it on the table in the front room and was so engrossed in her task she didn’t hear Archie coming into the kitchen with his empty cup. His little cough of introduction startled her and she wheeled around, her eyes wide as she gave an involuntary gasp of surprise.

  ‘I hope you’re not eating all the goodies.’ Archie gave a low rumble of laughter.

  ‘You gave me such a start,’ she said, turning back to the tray as much to hide her self-conscious flaming expression as to pour half an inch of milk into each clean cup.

  ‘I’m sorry, Olive,’ Archie said in his usual friendly way. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you, is there anything I can do to help?’

  Olive, conscious of the nearness of this man whose wife was going through such a difficult time, shook her head, knowing he was doing his best to put a brave face on his domestic difficulties.

  ‘Shall I take the tray?’ Archie asked.

  ‘Thank you, Archie.’ Olive’s voice sounded quite stiff even to her own ears and she knew she would have to put Nancy’s sometimes spiteful insinuations to the back of her mind otherwise she would be no use to Archie or Barney or Mrs Dawson come to that. Taking a deep breath now she wondered how she could have been so gullible as to let Nancy Black get to her like that.

  ‘Here, let me,’ said Archie, reaching for the tray. Olive found the room suddenly hot.

  ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’ Olive’s voice was brusquer than she’d intended as she picked up the tray of cups and she immediately regretted her impatient remark at a simple act of goodwill from a helpful neighbour. However Archie, being the thorough gentleman he so obviously was, seemed not to notice as he opened the door for her to take the tray through.

  ‘You and Archie were in the kitchen a long while,’ Nancy said with an ‘I-know-what-you’ve-been-up-to’ expression on her face.

  ‘Not that it’s any of your business, Nancy,’ Olive said, straightening her good white damask tablecloth to keep her trembling hands busy, ‘but he was just offering to help me out.’

  ‘Oh, I bet he was,’ Nancy smirked. ‘I’ve heard he’s very good like that.’

  ‘Like what?’ Olive turned sharply and delivered the question straight to Nancy’s face. She could feel her own cheeks burning now, only too aware that Nancy could be so infuriating when she jumped to the wrong conclusions.

  ‘Well, with you having no man about the place, it must get quite difficult when little jobs need doing, you know what I mean?’

  ‘No, I don’t know what you mean, and if any “little jobs” need doing around here I’m sure I can manage them by myself, I’ve always had to do so in the past.’ Olive moved the tray with such force the cups rattled on the saucers.

  ‘Pardon me, I’m sure,’ Nancy said, put out at being spoken to like that. Olive took a deep breath watching her neighbour flounce out of the front room and wondering if she really should have given the woman the sharp edge of her tongue.

  ‘At it again is she?’ Sally laughed as she brought another plate of food and put it on the table and breaking into Olive’s thoughts.

  ‘Oh, you know Nancy,’ said Olive, ‘she’ll never change, always got her nose in someone’s business.’

  She was still standing with her hands gripping the back of the chair when Agnes came into the front room and said, ‘I have to be in work in half an hour.’ Olive noted she looked almost shy as she handed her a little package. ‘Would you give Tilly this for me? It’s not much, just a little lucky charm I’ve had since I was a child, it’ll keep her safe.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to give it to her yourself, Agnes?’ Olive watched the young woman vigorously shake her head.

  ‘I’d rather not say goodbye.’

  Before she could say anything else, Agnes, with a little tear in her eye, turned and hurried from the room to leave for her shift at the Chancery Lane. Olive sighed, taking a little rabbit’s foot from the crumpled tissue paper that had obviously seen better days. ‘I’ll make sure she gets it, Agnes,’ Olive said to the closing door.

  ‘How d’ya fancy a game of togger?’ Barney asked young Freddy as they sat in Olive’s back garden, pulling at short blades of grass. They had finished their food now and were bored. Barney looked up at the back window and could see the adults talking in little groups and wondered what they found to yak a
bout for so long.

  ‘Togger?’ asked Freddy, three years younger than Barney but almost the same size.

  ‘Yeah, togger, soccer … Football! Now don’t tell me you’ve never heard of football.’

  ‘Of course I’ve heard of football, me and Dad used to play it before he …’ The young lad’s lip wobbled and then he burst into tears. Barney shrugged his once-skinny shoulders that were beginning to fill out a bit now he was being well looked after, worrying that he would be scolded for upsetting Freddy.

  ‘Oh lordy, doncha go an’ start squawking, you’ll ’ave your granny out playing merry ’ell.’

  ‘What is merry ’ell?’ asked Freddy, bemused now, his tears suddenly subsiding.

  ‘That fing your granny plays every time she sets eyes on me,’ said Barney with a world-weary sigh, ‘so d’ya wanna play or doncha?’

  ‘All right,’ said Freddy, jumping to his feet. ‘I’ll just go and tell Grandma.’

  ‘Best leave it, we’ll only be outside Olive’s front door,’ said Barney, doubting Nancy would allow her precious grandson to play something as uncivilised as a game of football in the road. ‘We’d best go further daan the street, that way we can’t get into any bother.’

  ‘Righto,’ said Freddy in a trusting voice. Then he stopped and pointed towards number 49. ‘What do you suppose those two men are doing?’

  Barney followed the direction of the younger boy’s fingertip, and felt his heart sink when he recognised one of the dockside boys, now dressed in a sharp suit and sporting a pencil-thin moustache that had not been there the last time they saw each other.

  ‘Let’s scarper,’ he suggested, not wanting to get involved. ‘We don’t want to see this.’

  ‘They’ve got a gramophone … and is that a wireless? They must be moving in,’ Freddy said, watching closely and forgetting the football game. But Barney could feel his spirits sink when he saw the older of the boys come towards them.

  ‘That’s torn it,’ he said, knowing it was too late to make a run for it now.

  ‘Wotcha, Barney, long time no see, me old china,’ said the moustachioed one, pushing back a pork-pie hat, his exaggerated swagger making him look as if he’d just got off a ship in turbulent waters.

  ‘Hello, are you moving in today?’

  Barney gave Freddy a little dig in the arm with his elbow to stop him asking any more daft questions; he knew these people and they were not to be messed with. It would be better for both of them if they didn’t ask what was going on in number 49. From what Barney could see this was a ‘need to know’ operation and he didn’t need to know a thing.

  ‘What’s it got to do wiv you, shrimp?’ said the taller of the two menacing boys as Barney began to tug Freddy’s sleeve.

  ‘C’mon, it don’t matter what they’re doin’,’ Barney hissed in a low voice. ‘Let’s get outta here. When I say “now” you run like the wind, right?’

  Freddy looked a little bewildered but when Barney gave the signal they both ran as fast as their legs could carry them up Article Row. Barney didn’t want to know about or be involved in anything these lads were doing any more, especially now he was living with Sergeant Dawson and his wife who had been good to him since his mother and grandmother were killed in an air raid during the Blitz. Also, he worried that once you knew the secrets of these hoodlums you were sort of bound to them, part of the gang. It was very hard to get away from them once they had something on you, and Barney knew he’d done more than collect shrapnel with them. They wouldn’t forget the time they saved him from being put in a home for receiving stolen goods.

  ‘They’re a tough lot an’ no mistake,’ said Barney as he and Freddy crouched behind a low wall out of sight. ‘If they get their ’ands on us there’s no saying what could ’appen.’

  ‘Do you think they will hit us?’ Freddy looked terrified. If this weren’t so serious, thought Barney, he would have laughed out loud at the young lad’s innocence – but now was not the time.

  ‘Sure as eggs is eggs,’ Barney said, keeping a lookout, then he spotted one of the boys. ‘Quick, let’s scarper, they’re comin’!’

  ‘Has anybody seen my Freddy?’ Nancy’s shrill voice was only a couple of decibels below a screech as everybody broke off from their conversations and turned in her direction.

  ‘He won’t be far, Nancy,’ Archie said. ‘He’s only playing with Barney in the garden.’

  ‘But he’s not in the garden now and neither is your young upstart of a foster son!’ Nancy’s face was a livid red and everybody was shocked at how forthright she was to Sergeant Dawson when he was plainly trying to calm her fears.

  ‘Nancy, Archie was only trying to help you.’ Olive jumped to the sergeant’s defence but it was lost on her next-door neighbour who was running around like a headless chicken, opening the cupboard door under the stairs to see if her grandson was hiding inside.

  ‘I’m sure he isn’t in there,’ Olive said, obviously put out that her home was being all but ransacked.

  ‘I’ve got to find him! His mother doesn’t let him out of her sight, she won’t even let him play in the street she is so scared something might happen to him!’

  ‘Listen,’ Olive said, taking Nancy by the shoulders, ‘you have to calm down, hysterics are not helping.’ Olive was worried she might even have to slap Nancy’s face and, much as she had sometimes longed to in the past, she didn’t believe she could actually bring herself to do it. ‘We will all go and search around, he’s probably up a tree laughing at us all being worried.’

  ‘No, not my Freddy, he’s not that kind of boy.’

  Olive sighed. ‘I’ll go upstairs and check.’ But when she came down a little later she shrugged. There was no sign of Freddy upstairs and, more worrying, there was no sign of Barney either.

  ‘I’ll check the street, he might be playing a game of football,’ Archie said, noting his neighbour’s look of disgust and disapproval, knowing something as harmless as a game of football was anathema to Nancy.

  After an hour’s search in the surrounding area there was still no sign of the two boys and the adults were beginning to grow concerned because, much as it was commonplace for children to play in the street when the bombs weren’t falling, Nancy’s obvious anxiety told them that it was not a usual occurrence for her grandson. In fact, thought Olive, the boy was probably enjoying his new-found freedom so much he had completely forgotten the time.

  ‘We’ll go and search up by the park. He’s bound to be there with Barney,’ Archie said, inviting Mr Black, Nancy’s husband, to follow him so they could search in different places whilst the women went back into Olive’s house to wait and see if they came back.

  ‘They will walk in, bold as brass, when their stomachs are empty and ask if there’s anything to eat, I should imagine.’ Olive tried her best to allay Nancy’s fears but her neighbour was having none of it.

  ‘His mother will faint clean away when she finds out I’ve lost her beloved son – she will go doolally … I will never be able to look after him ever again!’

  ‘I’m sure that won’t be the case, Nancy,’ Olive said in soothing tones. She looked at the clock and hoped that the men would come back with good news, as Tilly had to leave for the station soon.

  ‘You mean you’ve never played football in the street … ever!’ Barney could hardly believe his ears. Freddy had just told him that his mother never usually let him outside the house on his own. ‘Blimey.’ Barney shook his head in wonderment, temporarily forgetting they were being pursued by the two dockside bullies who now wanted an explanation of why Barney never came to visit any more and also some kind of reassurance that he would keep his trap shut, especially now he was living with Old Bill.

  The two young boys found they had a common bond in that both their fathers were both away fighting the war, each trying to outdo the other with tales of his father’s courage and daring. But the lull was short-lived when Freddy caught sight of Stan, one of the older boys, who was approaching at sp
eed.

  Without another word Freddy was on his feet and tearing down the road closely followed by Barney, who was worried the little chap would get lost in this part of London, as he didn’t come here very often. Barney only managed to catch up with Freddy when he reached Chancery Lane tube station. Quickly looking around, hardly able to breathe, the two boys could see that the spivs were still on their tail.

  ‘In here!’ Barney hissed, pulling on Freddy’s arm and protectively holding on to him, weaving through the waiting crowds as he dragged the young boy towards an opening.

  ‘There, there, don’t fret, he’ll be back,’ Olive said, patting Nancy’s hand. It was almost an hour later when the men arrived back, sadly shaking their heads. There was no sign of the two boys anywhere. The three men had split up and searched every square inch of the park, in bushes, in prickly shrubs that scratched them to bits, in the air-raid shelter, everywhere they could think of – but there wasn’t a single sighting of either of them.

  ‘Mum, I am so sorry that I can’t help you but I’ve got to go now,’ Tilly said, lifting her cardboard suitcase bought specially from the market for this very occasion.

  ‘I’ll get my coat,’ Olive said, turning to her guests. ‘I am so sorry I have to do this but …’

  ‘Mum, no,’ Tilly said with a hint of panic in her voice. ‘You stay here and help out with the search for Freddy and Barney, I’ve ordered a cab. I prefer it this way, honestly.’ She tried her best to stop a sneaky tear from dropping to her cheek as she hurriedly caught her mother in a bear-hug.

  ‘Here,’ Olive said quickly, sniffing away a tear herself, ‘Agnes left this for you, she said it will keep you …’ She couldn’t finish the words as her throat caught in a vice-like grip. Tilly nodded, her chin giving a little wobble as her watery smile threatened to overpower her.