All The Days of My Life (7 page)

“Hullo, Mrs Gates,” he said. “Hope you're well.” Then, looking past the housekeeper at Mary he said, “Is this the evacuee?”

Mary's mouth went down. The word “evacuee” was never used in a friendly way, even between the village children. It meant intruder, alien, someone who was ignorant and did not know how to behave. Isabel Allaun frowned. She had evidently told Tom to be polite to the evacuee. “This is Mary Waterhouse, Tom, as I told you,” she said.

“Sorry, Mary,” said Tom, pushing past her into the hall. Mary, with sinking heart, realized that he was not sorry.

The issue came up again at tea. “She has tea with us?” Tom said, his pale eyebrows raised.

“She is a guest,” said Lady Allaun.

“She makes a lot of crumbs,” Tom said, studying Mary as she ate her cake. “What about dinner?”

“Mary goes to bed early,” said his mother. “She does not sit up to dinner. Nor will you if you continue to refer to anyone, however young, who is sitting in the room, as 'she'. Can we have done with this? I don't want your first visit home for so long to start with silly arguments.”

“All I can say,” Tom Allaun said clearly, “is that it's the first time I've heard an evacuee called a guest.”

Isabel Allaun bit her lip but said only, “Your father should be arriving in the next few days. Won't it be nice to be all together again for once?”

Sir Frederick, however, was delayed, and Tom, bored without the usual company of his cousin, Charlie, and frustrated by the rain, which poured down all day long, passed the time by tormenting Mary secretly, jumping out on her from corners, pulling terrifying faces at her while no one was looking and, on one occasion, coming into her room after she was asleep, dressed in a sheet and howling like a ghost. Mary was terrified of him and of his faces, his pinches and squeezes on her upper arms and his frightening remarks. When challenged he denied that he had ever been in her room and told her a story about a ghost which had always haunted her room. “I'm surprised you haven't seen it before,” he said. “Other people have. That's why no one ever sleeps in it. I expect that's why they gave it to you.”

The half term seemed very long to Mary. She grew pale. She dared not to go to sleep at night in case Tom, or the ghost, came in again.

When Jackie, who in spite of the rain had been hard-worked all week by Twining, finally made his way to the back door he found Mary very subdued and Mrs Gates surprisingly welcoming. Taking off his cap and wiping his feet carefully on the doormat outside, Jack came in and said to Mrs Gates, “What's up with 'er?” He nodded at Mary who was sitting in a chair staring up at the ceiling.

Mrs Gates said, “Want a cup of tea, Jack?” as if she were talking to a grown-up. Jack, like a grown-up, replied, “That's very kind, Mrs Gates. Thank you. Well, Mare,” he said, going over to her, “what's up, then, gel? You look as if you'd lost a shilling and found sixpence.”

“She's not getting along too well with young Tom,” said Mrs Gates.

“Oh – ah,” said Jack, understanding. “I'd forgotten about him. I've heard about him before, from Mr Twining. He cut up a live chicken with an axe – right?”

“He was too young to know any better,” said Mrs Gates.

“Not what Mr Twining said,” the boy told her promptly. “He said it was unnatural and it made him go cold all over. And you should see what he does – Twining, I mean – with lambs and the pigs and all that. He's not exactly lily-livered.”

“Twining should keep a still tongue in his head,” was all Mrs Gates could manage.

“Anyway, what's he been doing to my old Molly?” said Jack. “Come on, Mare – out with it.”

“He keeps on frightening me and pinching me and he says I've got to sleep in the shed with the spiders. They won't send our Shirley here, will they, Jack?”

“Poor little Mary,” said Jack. “Course they won't. She's only a baby. I'll see to Tom Allaun –”

“Oh no you won't,” said Mrs Gates. “All you'll do that way is cause more trouble for Mary, not to mention yourself. He's going back to school on Monday – just let it be, Jack, there's a good lad.”

Jack looked at her. He said, “Yes, Mrs Gates.”

“Here's your tea, then,” she told him. “Have a couple of these digestives.”

“You'd better stay out of his way, then, Mary,” said Jack.

“I'll go back to London and live with Ivy and Sid and the baby,” Mary said obstinately.

“There's a war on,” Jack told her.

“If a little baby can be in the war so can I,” Mary said. She was frightened but she would not show it.

“You'll stay where you are,” said Jack. “Because it's the best place to be.” The Waterhouses glared at each other. For a moment they were like two adults. Then Mary dipped her head and said, “All right.”

That night Mary awoke to find a spooky head in a sheet, with a torch beaming out of two sooty eyeholes, staring at her. She screamed and could not stop screaming. Isabel Allaun stood in the bedroom doorway in a white nightdress, looking furious. Mrs Gates made hot milk. Mary sobbed out her story about a ghost. In the end Mrs Gates took her upstairs to sleep with her in her own big brass-knobbed bedstead. She was not very surprised, after Tom had gone back to school, to find that she had one sheet too few. Tom had evidently disposed of the evidence. Mary's peace of mind did not immediately return, however, for as he left in the car he managed to put his head out of the window and whisper to her, “I'll be back soon for Christmas.
And
I'm bringing my cousin Charlie with me, ha, ha. Smelly evacuee!”

Mary went back into the house with a white face, feeling the air around her sour with malice. Her terrors diminished during the next two months of rain and early darkness. Sir Frederick came for the weekend and was nice to her. He brought her a doll from Africa. But when they started to practise the Christmas carols at school she became frightened again. While she was worrying about the arrival of the boys, Pearl Harbor was bombed and the USA came into the war.

“Don't see why we shouldn't have them home for Christmas,” said Sidney Waterhouse, forking up a piece of meat pie. “They're our kids, after all.”

“Maybe,” said Ivy. “I do miss them. But what've we got to offer them here? Bombs – rationing – where they are, they'll be killing geese for Christmas dinners. And they're safe, that's what matters.”

“They haven't even seen their sister yet,” Sid pointed out.

“Suppose they come here and get killed, what will you think then?” demanded Ivy. The baby, which was lying in a basket on the kitchen floor, began to cry. Ivy, stooping down to pick her up and opening the buttons on her cardigan said, “Oh, Christ.”

“I don't know why you can't feed the baby properly,” Sid said jealously as the greedy baby sucked at the breast. “Why don't you give it a decent bottle, or something?”

“I'd lose that extra pint of milk I'm allocated as a nursing mother,” said Ivy. “And that's what goes in your tea, half the time.”

“I'd have thought,” remarked Sid, “that with the government handing out free babies' milk you'd be only too pleased to be rid of all this business.”

“You'd better get off to work,” said Ivy. “It's getting on for six.” At that moment there came the wail of the air raid siren. Sid picked his bus-driver's cap and coat off a chair and started for the door. “Don't go now, Sid,” Ivy said. “Wait a bit and see where it is.”

“I can't stand here waiting for an air raid to stop,” he said. There was a whistling sound, a huge explosion, the floor shook and the cups rattled on a shelf. Ivy jumped and the nipple came out of the baby's mouth.

“Whew,” said Sid. “That was close.”

“Don't go, love,” said Ivy, taking no notice of the roaring baby. “You'd be mad to start running about.” There was a second explosion as another bomb dropped. “Too late for the shelter,” he said, going to the window. “Might as well have a cup of tea. Oh, Christ. It looks like Wattenblath Street. They're trying to hit the flaming railway again.” A red flicker was filling the room. Ivy sat down with the baby, saying, half to herself, “I hate all this. What a world to bring a baby into.” She froze as the whistling sound of a bomb came again. “Sid,” she cried, “Sid – we're going to die –” But the crash came a little further off. “Come away from that window, Sid,” she yelled. “Pull the curtains.”

Sid, drawing the blackout curtains across the window, said, “Take it easy, love. I'll put the kettle on.” He came across the small room and kissed the top of the baby's head. “Be all right,” he told her, “they're on the run.” He turned on the light.

Ivy went on feeding the baby. She said, “Someone's knocking at the door. Better open up.”

Sid went to open the door and came in again followed by a thickset man of about thirty wearing a rough khaki tunic and trousers. He hesitated in the doorway, seeing Ivy feeding the baby. “Oh – excuse me, Ivy,” he said. “Just wondered if I could shelter here until it's over. I didn't realize –”

“Can't stand on ceremony in times like these,” Ivy said briskly. “Come on in. Sid's just put the kettle on.” She gave him a careful look, then rearranged her dress and put the baby back in its basket, where the little girl whimpered and then fell asleep.

Once again the house shook. Sid ran to the kitchen window and cried out, “I think they got the depot. I'll have to go.”

“Oh, no, Sid,” wailed Ivy. “Don't go – you can't do any good.”

Sid was putting on his coat, saying, “It's no good, Ivy. They'll all be in there – Harry, Jim Jessop, all of them. Half of them are coming off shift and the other half's going on.”

“You can't help, Sid,” she cried. She jumped up and took his coat by the sleeve. “For God's sake, think of the rest of us.”

“I'm another pair of hands, Ivy,” he said. “That's what they need. Raid's mostly over, anyway. You can hear the ack-ack guns making short work.”

“They've only got to drop one more,” said Ivy. “And that's you gone. Think of that.”

He said urgently, “Ivy, love, I've got to go – what sort of a man would I be?”

Ivy sighed and dropped his sleeve. “All right. Go if you've got to,” she said. He put on his cap and went out. She followed him onto the pavement. The sky to the west was red with fire. A plane droned overhead. There was gunfire. They stood outside the house with their heads bent, as if that would protect them from the bombs.

“Don't leave me and Shirley in the house with that gangster,” she whispered. “Anything might happen.”

“He's harmless,” said Sid. “He's in the army now.”

“He's gone AWOL,” said Ivy. “He'll be posted as a deserter. He's done time for half-killing a woman, Sid. How can you go and leave me here with him?”

“He never touched a woman,” said Sid. “Oh, well – his wife – that's different, isn't it? Listen, Arnie Rose is perfectly all right as long as you know him. What's more, this is just an excuse to keep me back. You were at school with him. You're no more afraid of him than I am. I've got to go. The raid's nearly over. I have to go down to the bus depot and see if anybody's hurt.”

The skies were quieter now. The gunfire was more sporadic. Ivy looked up and then across at the red glow along the skyline. She said, “All right, Sid. Look after yourself.”

“We'll meet again,” he said. He went off down the pavement into the darkness. She heard him call back, “Bye, love.”

“Bye, Sid,” she shouted after him and went back into the house. She bumped into Arnie Rose in the passageway and jumped.

“Come on in, Ivy,” he said. “Don't worry. Old Sid'll be all right. What you need is to warm up and have a little drink of something I've got in my pocket. Let's cheer up and keep the cold out.”

Ivy thought that if the raid was nearing its end Arnie Rose ought to be on his way. She thought that a man with any decency in him might have offered to go along with Sid and help at the bus depot. But she suffered Arnie to lead her back into the kitchen, where he sat down confidentially at the kitchen table and produced a full half-bottle of whisky from his pocket. “And plenty more where that came from,” he remarked. Ivy took the glass he offered and thought to herself, “Please, God – keep Sid safe. Amen.”

Sid returned as the first light was coming up over winter streets filled with drizzling rain. He was dirty and haggard. “Sorry, gel,” he said. “It wasn't a direct hit – one of the sheds collapsed with a bloke inside. After we got him out I started helping in the houses nearby. We found an old lady in the coalshed but there was two little girls killed. Heat up some water. I want a wash.”

Ivy filled a big saucepan with water and put it on the gas. She handed him a cup of tea and put two slices of bacon in the pan. “Poor little girls,” she said.

“You're right about not bringing Mary and Jack back here for Christmas,” he told her. “I must have been barmy to think about it.”

“Get any sleep?” asked Ivy, turning the rashers.

“Best part of an hour in the cab of one of the buses,” he said. “I felt too tired to walk home. You look pale. You all right?”

“I never slept much,” said Ivy. “Shirley was all right, though.” She did not add that she had spent nearly all night evading Arnie Rose. She had been too cautious to ask him directly to leave, or even call a neighbour to help her get rid of him. She thought it would not be a good idea to upset Arnold Rose. She did not want her husband to upset him either.

Sid bit into his bacon sandwich and said, “We could all do with a year in bed, I reckon. I don't know how much more of this we can stand.”

“A lot more,” said Ivy. “You'd be surprised what people can put up with.”