by Lizzie Page
I felt disappointed. The step was also painful on the derrière. It wasn’t that I expected him to ask there and then but some sign that I was on his mind was long overdue.
‘What do you think I should do, Vivienne?’
‘Ab-out?’ I asked.
He looked up, startled. ‘Do you think I should join up?’
I shook my head. I really had no idea on that one.
‘Whatever you do, we’ll all be right behind you,’ I said. I hoped that sounded supportive enough. I had wanted to say I instead of we, but feared it would be too much.
* * *
When we went back in, Olive was standing up dominoes in lines, a sure sign that she was bored. I would always knock them with an errant sleeve or a fat thumb, but she could make them wind their way across the low table. Walking past with a plate of cake balanced in one hand and cup and saucer in the other, Aunt Cecily nodded approvingly at Olive. ‘Ooh, is that a train?’
‘It’s a snake,’ my sister said, raising her eyes once again at me. At the Fords’, someone was more likely to be able to dance on dominoes, or to produce one from behind their ear.
‘Marvellous,’ said Aunt Cecily absently before wandering over to join Uncle Toby.
‘How did it go with Edmund then?’ Olive whispered.
‘Very well, Olive, thank you.’
‘You were ages in the garden.’
‘We were admiring the rhododendron.’
‘Of course you were.’
She rummaged around in the drawer next to us; I’m not sure what she was looking for, but she found nothing there.
‘Any news on the marriage question?’ She and Richard always called it that. Pressing issues became questions: The Balkan question. The suffragette question. The marriage question.
‘Shush, everything is up in the air now—’
‘Is that what he said?’
‘No, it’s what I’m saying. I don’t want to talk about it any more, Olive. Thank you.’
My sister flicked the dominoes so one by one they toppled over. They kept their shape as they went down. It was quite impressive.
‘I’m leaving now, are you coming, Vi?’
The cheek of her. ‘You can’t go now, Olive. It’s far too early!’
‘Course I can,’ she said. ‘I told everyone, they said it was fine.’
I stared at her suspiciously. My aunt and uncle did not take kindly to people leaving before the cheese course.
‘What on earth did you tell them?’
She smirked. ‘I said it was for the war effort.’
‘You’re such a… such a liar, Olive.’
I think she was startled at my choice of word, I certainly was, but still she shrugged, stood up and made for the door. It wouldn’t be the last time I would call her a liar either. I suppose it shouldn’t have bothered me that she was leaving – after all, Edmund, Father and all the others were still there – but it did bother me terribly. For one, Olive got to have all the fun, and for another, a room was always smaller and duller without her in it.
3
1939 – Now
Hinckley is abuzz with all the theories about the ‘evacuation question’. The London children will come up on one train – no, two trains, three trains – then donkey and carts, or maybe buses would bring them to the village hall. How many carts? How many buses? Nobody knows. It would give us a big clue as to the numbers involved. One bus could be eight kids. Three buses could be ninety. We’d have to wait and see.
‘Are you taking any, Mrs Lowe?’ A tall, worried-looking woman walks over to me. I rack my brains to remember her name. Mrs Fellows, could it be? Married to the vet?
‘Course she is,’ says the milkman, who has crept up behind us, as stealthy in the afternoon as he is when he delivers at 5 a.m. ‘Why wouldn’t she?’
I think about the time in the Hinckley pet shop many years ago. I had brought a rabbit home and it lasted three days. I cringe as I recall the return trip – Mr Lowe has allergies, you see.
‘I have been allocated one,’ I say awkwardly. ‘But I’m not sure…’
‘I’ll put you down for an extra bottle, shall I?’ The milkman grins. I’m not sure if he’s being serious.
‘I like children, but I couldn’t eat a whole one!’ says Mr Shaw from the post office. You can’t post a letter without a ‘Knock knock, who’s there?’ from Mr Shaw and his sweet-natured wife.
‘If they say you’re getting one, you’ll get one,’ says Mrs Fellows insistently. ‘God knows what I’ll do. There aren’t enough hours in the day already.’
‘But they’ll want to place them with big families first, won’t they?’ I ask, thinking of Edmund’s expression when I came home with the rabbit.
‘They’ll want whoever they can get to look after the children,’ she replies confidently.
Mr Shaw interrupts. ‘One out, one in!’ and I’m not sure what he means initially, then I realise he’s talking about his own boy, tousle-haired and freckled Simon Shaw, who has gone and signed up early, the day Chamberlain came back from Munich, flashing around his white papers.
Just like my cousin Richard last time round; but of course, I don’t say anything. No one wants to talk about last time round, even though it was little more than twenty years ago.
The milkman nudges me, says ‘I bet Simon Shaw gone and done it just to get away from his father’s terrible jokes.’
* * *
We stand in the back of the hall as the children troop in. It’s like we’re at a play and instantly I am back, remembering the recitals and the piano performances at the Fords’ house during the Great War. I shake it away. I am remembering that time such a lot lately. I thought I had put it all to bed, but now with all the talk of fighting and bombs, it feels like it’s been released, yanked out in the open, roaming the countryside of my mind.
The hall is chilly in all weathers but especially so today. Poor children. Big ones and little ones. Large ones, thin ones. Straggly hair, cropped hair, curls…
Someone, whose name I can’t remember, says to me, ‘I didn’t think I’d see you here,’ and I reply nonsensically, ‘I’m just having a look,’ which is what I always say to the shopkeepers of the dress stores in town.
‘Haven’t you been allocated one?’ she goes on and I remember with a dread feeling that it’s Mrs Carmichael, the doctor’s receptionist. I hate seeing her.
‘Oh yes,’ I say, ‘but we’ll see… Who knows?’
The mayor couldn’t make it. He never can. He has a reputation for being ‘too far up his own backside’ if you’ll pardon Mr Shaw’s French, so the deputy mayor does everything the mayor should do. The deputy mayor is an older man with a striking ginger moustache and a freckly forehead. I try to steer clear of him. He says he’s only going to say a few words, but we all know when he says that, he’s going to get into the hundreds.
‘Mr Hitler hadn’t reckoned on the good people of Hinckley!’ he exclaims, and we clap, even though we are holding teas, which makes it rather awkward.
He says everyone should step forward and get to know each other.
‘Shall we…?’ says Mrs Carmichael, smiling nervously.
‘Go ahead. I’ll wait,’ I reply, although I don’t know what I am waiting for. I stand back and pretend to sip my tea. I’m shaking so much I can hardly keep hold of the saucer. This is excruciating. The other villagers don’t hold back. They swarm forward like it’s a cake show and the ones with the fancy icing have caught everyone’s eye.
I wish my neighbour Mrs Burton had come. We’ve formed quite the friendship in the last three weeks. We’re making up for the eighteen years when we didn’t speak. I know that her two girls are Ethel and Sally, although I’m not sure which is which, and I know her two dogs are called Laurel and Hardy, even though Laurel is female. I’ve almost got used to them now. Mrs Burton throws something at Hardy when he does the humping and it seems to stop him. She found them as strays, heartbreaking they were, she told me, and couldn’t leave
them. I like that Mrs Burton is someone who takes in unwanted dogs.
A pretty and composed-looking girl is standing at the front of the group of children with a suitcase in front of her. Goodness, she looks like a female version of Edmund with her careful smile and long, athletic legs. She will likely be more popular than the tubby lass with chocolate smears around her mouth, but who knows really. Both girls are being roundly interrogated by people, including Mrs Carmichael (she’ll go for the leggy blonde, surely).
A boy in shorts with scabbed knees is talking to Mrs and Mr Dean.
There are a pair of sisters – are they twins? One is definitely bigger than the other, but they are identically velvet-ribboned, small darting eyes, holding each other’s hands.
A London teacher is talking earnestly to Mr and Mrs Shaw. ‘Yes, two, but they are so tiny, they don’t take up much space.’
A tall, strong-looking boy stands out. Farmer Jones – flushed, but no more flushed than usual – has collared him, naturally. Poor kid. He’ll be up at 4 a.m. every day, ploughing the land.
The farmer wants his boy. Thinking of the nursery rhyme, I smile to myself. But this boy is no pushover.
‘I’m supposed to be looking after Pearl Posner,’ I hear him say uncertainly. ‘I live next door to her in Stepney and I promised her ma I’d look out for her.’
Farmer Jones huffs. He asks, ‘Where is she then?’ and he is directed to a scrunched-up little thing who has decided to sit on the floor instead of a chair and whose face is obscured by a… I was going to say a bear, but I think it’s a grimy flannel. I see her through Farmer Jones’s eyes. She will not suffice. She’s too small to operate machinery.
‘I’m only supposed to take one of you. She’ll find someone else to look after her, son.’ And the boy, frankly, looks relieved to be free of his burden. He whispers something to the girl, who shrugs back at him, then rolls over on to her side. I presume it’s the mothers who are friends, not these two. The sturdy boy is off with Farmer Jones over to the officials – Jones promising him a nice joint. ‘Do you know what lamb is, son? It’s God’s own food.’
Most of the boys go first. Or the pretty, older girls who look like they know how to do a bit of spit and polish. Some of the pairs have separated: not everyone is attached to their cousin, but some pairs have refused to split and mostly those are in the eight or so who remain unselected. There is a young boy with hair that won’t settle, and a snotty-nosed kid, even smaller, who is trying to meet everyone’s eyes. I try not to meet his. Imagine Edmund’s face if I brought him home! The walls would be smeary in no time. Mrs Beedle, the butcher’s wife, takes him. I think it’s a match. She has to be the tolerant type, married to that Roy Beedle.
‘You’ll be a help, won’t you, sonny?’
The boy grips his name badge and says loudly, ‘I’m not Sonny, I’m Keith.’ And everyone laughs and Mrs Beedle smiles indulgently; she thinks the best of everyone. Her expression says, Looks like I haven’t done too badly after all.
Then there is just the one child left, the girl on the floor. Pearl Posner. I see now she has dark blonde hair and purple shadows under her eyes, thin as a string bean. She is snotty too, and her sleeve is damp and ragged like she’s been chewing it. She must be about five years old. I look at her and I see shades of Olive. A lighter-haired, olive-skinned, more exotic version of Olive, but the Olive type nevertheless. I am now one of the only adults in the hall without a child. This girl is the only child without an adult. Everyone else, it seems, has paired off.
Mr Pilkington nudges me with his corduroy elbows. Usually, Mr Pilkington is striding across the fields in his flat cap and knee-high boots, carrying a shotgun, but he obviously wanted to see what was happening today. He winks at me.
‘Jews are always chosen last,’ he says, smiling serenely, like he is saying something profound. ‘She’ll clean up, after a bath.’
I ignore him. Heart in my boots, I go over and squat in front of the girl on the floor. She doesn’t raise her eyes straight away, she leaves me waiting. When eventually she does look up, I see her eyes are brown, flecked with green. Her pupils are huge and black. She reminds me of something familiar, I’m not sure what. Her face is mucky, but nothing a wash won’t fix.
I hold out my hand.
‘Hello, I’m Mrs Lowe.’
‘I’m Mrs Lowe,’ she parrots in an exact mimic of my voice.
I laugh nervously. I turn round to see if anyone has noticed us. I don’t think anyone has. Mr Pilkington has gone. The butcher’s wife, Farmer Jones, the Shaws, the Carmichaels, the milkman – all home with their catches. I take a hold of the poor little thing’s name tag – I don’t know whose idea this was, to label the children like pots in a shop.
‘I think you’re Pearl Posner.’
She laughs too, a small squeaky sound, then suddenly grabs my outstretched hands. The shock of it nearly makes me topple over backward.
‘Are you my one?’ she asks quietly and I want to giggle at the phrasing but she is so sincere, it would be rude.
‘I think so.’
* * *
I do the paperwork at the table where there’s usually flower-arranging on a Monday, and all the time I am ticking the boxes I am thinking: How on earth am I going to cope with this vulnerable little thing? I, who can’t even look after Edmund’s shirts?
She thinks I’m a grown-up. She thinks I’ll take care of her, but I’m eminently unqualified for the job. I’m the last person to be able to do this.
She is not five. I was a long way out (another thing that doesn’t bode well!). She is seven, nearly eight. Female. Date of birth: 22 September 1931. She has two little brothers. Not here. Back in London.
We walk all the way from the village hall, me carrying her battered suitcase. It’s not heavy but it’s awkward, and it knocks insistently against my knees. At each painful clunk, I think: Please let Edmund be out, please don’t let him be at home.
* * *
I proudly show Pearl the lavatory. We have one upstairs and one down. She says she doesn’t have an indoor one at home but seems less excited about our multiple lavs than I might have been. As I show her the spare room, I call it ‘your bedroom’. Surveying the room through her eyes, I see now that it is distinctly lacking atmosphere. There’s a single bed, with a single blanket. A wardrobe and a table with a chair. I always pretend to myself it’s a work in progress but actually it’s an empty shell with limited prospects. The box of Mrs Burton’s toys is on top of the wardrobe. Maybe they will help cheer up the place? I thought it would be bad luck to get them out too early, like getting a cradle long before the baby’s born.
Pearl seems quite taken with the picture on the wall though. She reaches out and gently slides her finger along the gilt frame and I think she is going to ask if it is real gold or something (it isn’t). But she is looking closely at the actual picture.
‘It’s you, isn’t it?’
She’s sharper than she looks. ‘A long time ago.’
I tell her my sister drew it.
‘She’s clever.’
‘She was, yes.’
I think, I need to find out what she likes doing. What are her hobbies? ‘Do you like drawing, Pearl?’
‘Mm, ye-es…’ she says mildly.
‘Or music?’
‘Hmm.’
She glances back at the picture. ‘You look like a film star here. Like Ava Gardner.’
Ahh. ‘Do you like films, Pearl?’
‘Yes!’ she says keenly. ‘We go every week.’
I’ll have to see what I can do. I haven’t been to the cinema for a few years now, but Pearl could be a reason to go again.
I help her open her suitcase and we start to unpack. There isn’t much to it. There’s the gas mask, underwear, nighties, plimsolls, socks and some washing items. I find all her things charming: the scuffed black shoes are adorable, and I have to scold myself for being sentimental – she’s not a doll. I open the wardrobe for her and she gazes into it, wid
e-eyed, like she is looking into the depths of a cave.
‘All for me?’
I have taken out my wedding dress and Olive’s clothes. They are now in the trunk at the foot of my bed. It’s silly but having them there makes me feel like they are defending me, like a suit of armour. I should have moved them ages ago.
‘All for you, yes. Do you think you’ll be happy here, Pearl?’
She nods. Her dark, dark eyes have long lashes and she has a small mouth. I have never seen anything so sweet. She is a little Olive all over again. But I won’t muck it up this time.
* * *
I am nervous, but Edmund stays out that evening doing whatever it is Edmund does. I don’t know if the other host mothers will be tucking the children in tonight, but I relish it. As I plump the pillows and fuss over the folds of the blanket, Pearl tells me about her brothers – ‘the baby and the new baby’, she calls them. Mummy spends most of her time feeding them, ‘from her boobies’ – she looks at me uncertainly, as if checking it’s an acceptable thing to say. I nod. When we are finished talking, I try to remember what happened next when I was little.
I get on my knees at the side of the bed.
‘Shall we pray now?’
She mimics me, with her fingers, her eyes wide.
‘Our Father…’ I begin.
She is staring at me blankly.
‘Don’t you… you don’t?’
‘I’ve never…’ She blinks up at me helplessly. She reminds me of a small woodland creature. She whispers, ‘Sorry, Mrs.’
I flush. I feel terrible.
‘That’s all right, it was just an idea, to keep you in your routine, if it was your routine. And please call me…’
What the devil should she call me?
‘Aunty Vi.’
I back away. It seems absurd that she is here. That the ‘stalk’ finally grew a little girl for me.
