Goodnight Mister Tom (17 page)

George beamed.

‘Rehearsals every Thursdee. I’ll give you a hand in the readin’ if you gits stuck.’

‘That’s two bits of news for the Gazette,’ said Ginnie.

‘We need to do somethin’ a bit more excitin’, like,’ said George impatiently. ‘Let’s go lookin’ fer badgers or even their holes. How about it? Who’s for goin’?’

‘I’d like to,’ blurted out Willie.

They all stared at him in surprise. It was unusual for him to volunteer without persuasion.

‘I’ll come too,’ said Zach. ‘I don’t know anything about badgers, but it might be useful. Who knows, perhaps one day I may have to play one.’

Carrie and Ginnie looked at each other.

‘We’ll come too,’ they sighed in a tone of resignation.

‘I ent forcin’ you,’ said George.

‘I say,’ said Zach. ‘What was that mysterious place you were talking about at Aunt Nance’s?’

Ginnie paled.

‘Spooky Cott,’ she whispered.

‘Couldn’t we go and look at that as well?’

George and the twins gave no answer and Willie felt a cold prickle crawl up his back and into his hair.

‘Oh come on,’ cried Zach. ‘It can’t be that frightening, can it?’

All three of them nodded silently.

‘We ent bin there for two years now,’ said George.

‘I say, what happened?’

‘Nothin’ you could exactly put yer finger on, like,’ said Carrie ominously. ‘But there was a strange eery feeling in the air. The trees,’ she swallowed, ‘the trees, they seemed to groan and wave their arms about.’

‘Let’s go. I mean, if we all go together we can protect each other.’

‘When was you thinkin’?’ asked George in an unusually timid voice.

‘How about tonight!’ whispered Zach.

Ginnie gave a shiver.

‘Or,’ he continued, ‘Halloween!’ and he gave a shrieking imitation of a cackling witch.

George and the twins yelled and Willie clutched Sammy who had started barking.

Zach gave a long ghostly moan and raised his hands. With wide, blank eyes he shuffled towards them. They stumbled backwards. Willie tried to calm Sammy who was jumping about excitedly.

‘That’s enuff,’ said Ginnie crossly.

‘Oh, all right, spoilsports,’ he said, feeling disgruntled, and he sat down, missed his cushion and landed with a painful thump on the floor. This time it was the others who laughed. He rubbed his bottom vigorously, looking very hurt.

They were interrupted by a knocking on the hatch.

‘Blimmin’ heck,’ said Carrie.

‘Now we’re for it,’ whispered her sister. ‘I told you we was makin’ too much noise,’ and she glared at Zach.

‘Don’t foist all the blame on I,’ he retorted.

Willie lifted it up to find Tom standing on the steps, with a large tray in his hands. On it was a jug of lemonade, five cups, a plate of ginger snaps and a bowl of nuts. Beside it was a small saucer of salt.

‘Hot chestnuts,’ yelled Willie. ‘They has them in London when it’s Christmas. I see’d them sell them in the streets lots of times but I ain’t never tasted them like.’

‘Thought mebbe you could use them.’

‘Rather,’ cried Zach. ‘Mister Tom, you’re a real brick.’

‘Am I?’ he mumbled. ‘Humph!’

He looked around at their delighted faces and began to feel embarrassed.

‘You’d best eat them afore they gits cold.’

Sammy wriggled into his arms and pushed his head underneath Tom’s chin.

‘’Ad enuff have you, boy?’ he said picking him up and with that he gave them all a brisk wave and disappeared down the steps, closing the hatch quickly behind him.

‘He’s a real decent sort, Will,’ said Zach. ‘You’re awfully lucky being landed on someone like him.’

Willie smiled. He’d known that since that first bewildering day.

‘I’m lucky too,’ he went on, ‘with the Doctor and Aunt Nance.’

‘That’s a cos they’re daft like you,’ said George through a mouthful of ginger biscuit.

‘I don’t think Christine and Robert King are very happy,’ said Ginnie. ‘They’se stayin’ at one of the tied cottages at Hillbrook Farm and they has to earn their keep. Specially now that John’s gone.’

‘Robert fell asleep in History on Monday,’ said Carrie.

‘Don’t blame him,’ said George.

‘And Christine told me,’ continued Ginnie, ‘that Mr Barnes threatened to have their dog put down if they didn’t work hard enuff.’

‘Here, have a chestnut,’ said Carrie flinging one into her sister’s hands.

‘Yes, let’s eat,’ added George.

After they had devoured the nuts and drunk the lemonade they discussed who would write what for the Gazette. It was unanimously decided that any drawings or illustrations would be done by Willie. Zach was to finish his epic poem and write a report on the Christmas Show. Carrie would put in a bit of news regarding how the wai was affecting the supply of sweets. Ginnie was to write about the wonders of the First Aid Group and George about his beloved badgers.

The meeting had ended, with everyone feeling very satisfied. They scrambled down the ladder, yelling their good-byes. Willie watched them as they ran through the graveyard and climbed over the wall to the lane. He closed the door, walked into the living room and sank happily into the armchair.

Tom glanced at him. The last time Willie had had so many children at the cottage he had been sick. Tonight he looked healthily tired.

‘Let’s have a look at that ole arm of yours,’ he said.

Willie sleepily pulled his jersey and shirt off and slid to the edge of the armchair. Tom squatted down in front of him. Very gently he cleaned a sore and put some ointment on it. It was the last one.

‘This time next week, should be gone,’ he muttered, but Willie didn’t hear him. His eyelids were already fluttering into sleep.

Tom helped him into his pyjamas, carried him up the ladder on his back and put him to bed.

When Willie woke the next day, there was something altogether unusual about the morning. He lay in bed, for some time, and stared up at the ceiling trying to puzzle it out. Finally he gave up and clambered out of bed. It was only when he started automatically to strip it that he realized what it was that was so different. There was no need for the sheets to be washed that day. They were dry.

12
The Show Must Go On

November had been a damp and drizzly month, bringing shorter days and causing aggravation to those people who found it increasingly difficult to travel in the blackout.

Tom had meanwhile dug up his turnips, and set to work hedging, digging ditches and helping out with the other farms, when the extra labour was needed. Willie would return from school to find the living room filled with the musky perfume of freshly-cut branches burning in the range.

All evacuees had left the village and outlying countryside, except Willie and Zach, Robert and Christine King up at Hillbrook Farm, and the four Browne children at the Vicarage.

David Hartridge had become a fully-fledged pilot and was looked upon as a hero. His few short visits to the village caused great excitement.

While Little Weirwold was returning to normality, events in the larger world continued to escalate. Hitler had escaped a bomb blast in a Munich beer-cellar. German aircraft had parachuted mines into the Thames estuary. A British merchant cruiser had been sunk by German battle cruisers. Finland had been invaded and Helsinki had been bombed.

But these events of war didn’t really disturb Little Weirwold except for Miss Emilia Thorne who had to recast the Christmas show as each evacuee left for home.

It was now the first week in December. The last of the swallows had gone long ago and now the black outline of rooks could be seen flying around the ploughed fields looking for grubs. Cold icy winds swept under the gaps of cottage doors rattling them fiercely. It looked as though it would be a hard winter.

Willie had completed the last of the ‘Learning to Read’ books. His reading was up to standard for Mrs Hartridge’s class and his writing was progressing well. He now needed to learn his tables up to six times and also be able to do multiplication, addition, subtraction and division, tens and units, shillings and pence and have a basic knowledge of simple weights and lengths. It all seemed quite endless.

Tom thought that once Willie had finished his final Reading Book he wouldn’t want him to read to him any more, but Willie loved to sit back and listen to his voice and so the stories continued. They had now almost finished Exodus and were in the middle of
The Wind in the Willows
.

Meanwhile, the first Gazette had been completed but Carrie and Willie were the only two with any staying power which meant that two-thirds of it were filled with Carrie’s words and Willie’s pictures. The remaining third consisted of some jokes from Zach, a few sentences about animals from George and a patriotic essay from Ginnie about how collecting salvage was helping to win the war. There was only one copy and this was passed around the village for a farthing a read. Most of the money collected was given to the war effort and a bag of gobstoppers and aniseed balls was bought with the rest. Once the first Gazette was completed they decided to move on to something else.

With Christmas only three weeks away their days were hectically filled, making presents, hanging up decorations and rehearsing.

The show that Miss Thorne was producing was an adaptation of
A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens.

Zach was playing Bob Cratchit, Mr Fezziwig, the ghost of Christmas present and the Ghost of what might be. Carrie was cast to play Mrs Fezziwig and the young woman who had fallen in love with the youthful Scrooge while Ginnie hid in the school happily making costumes with Miss Thorne’s older sister.

George had been tried out in a variety of parts, but each time he stepped on the stage he would stand with his legs and arms splayed out and drone monotonously.

Miss Thorne suddenly hit upon the idea of casting him as the ghost of Marley, Scrooge’s ex-partner. It would need no acting ability from George.

One winter afternoon, while they were rehearsing, something happened which stunned everyone involved in the play.

Willie had already helped paint the scenery but had been asked to take over as prompter when Matthew Browne had been suddenly whisked off to boarding school.

He usually sat with the prompt book, next to Miss Thorne. His head still spun slightly as he followed the words and looked upwards intermittently to see by the expression of a face if someone had forgotten their lines. But after a while he soon knew large chunks of the play off by heart and could occasionally prompt without looking at the book. It was difficult at first. Initially he whispered the line, but it was embarrassing to have to continually repeat himself after a series of ‘pardons’ and ‘whats?’ and he soon discovered that if he spoke a line clearly and loudly he wasn’t noticed as much.

On this particular afternoon Willie sat as usual with the prompt book resting on his knees, his forehead frowned into a tense concentration. The blackouts were already pulled down over the hall windows. Willie liked it that way. It gave an air of mystery and excitement to the rehearsals.

Carrie was the only one on stage. She stood with her hands clasped tightly together and stared frantically at the curtain rail, her face racked with pain.

‘Carrie, dear,’ said Miss Thorne, ‘you look as though you’ve got wind.’

‘It ent fair,’ she retorted, scowling fiercely.

‘Isn’t,’ corrected Miss Thorne.

‘It isn’t fair,’ said Carrie, ‘I feels daft pretendin’ to speak to someone who ent,
isn’t
, there.’

Miss Thorne gave a sigh. Her long willowy legs splayed outwards into a balletic second. Although she was terribly fond of the children she found that working with them was like banging her head against a brick wall. Zach was the only one who showed any real talent and he was more of a performer than an actor. He played himself all the time, using his characters to display his many theatrical talents. He was still trying to persuade her to have a tap routine in the play.

She stared up at Carrie, slapping her forehead with the palm of her hand.

‘Has anyone seen Christine or Robert King?’ she asked, turning to the others who were sitting at the back of the hall.

‘No, Miss,’ piped Lucy.

Robert was playing Scrooge.

‘We’ll do the crone scene then.’

‘Christine’s in that,’ chorused three at the back.

‘So she is,’ said Miss Thorne. ‘This really is too bad. We’ve two weeks to go and we are nowhere near being ready.’

She glanced at Willie.

‘William, stand in for Christine.’

‘But it’s a girl’s part,’ said George.

‘Well, we’ll just have to have a male crone for today,’ replied Miss Thorne in a dangerously quiet voice.

Willie crept nervously on stage with the prompt book in his hand and was joined by the others.

‘Begin!’

He read out Christine’s part, giving an imitation of all the inflections in her voice, at the same time prompting those around him when they forgot their lines.

‘No, no, no!’ cried Miss Thorne. She looked around. ‘Someone else prompt.’

‘But then he won’t be able to say his lines,’ said Carrie. ‘Er, will he?’ she added nervously as Miss Thorne glared threateningly at her.

‘I’ll prompt,’ said Zach.

Miss Thorne didn’t think this was too good an idea but time was precious, so she agreed.

‘Now, William,’ she said. ‘Do you think you can remember the moves?’

He shrugged helplessly.

‘Well, let’s try, shall we. And William?’

‘Yes, Miss?’

‘Imagine that it’s very cold and dark, that you’re old and hungry and that you love stealing and making trouble for people.’

Willie looked at her dreamily.

‘Did you hear that?’

He nodded.

‘Good. You have the first line. Start when you’re ready.’

‘Ready?’ he asked, feeling a little puzzled.

‘When you feel that you’re that horrible old man.’

Willie withdrew into himself. He remembered an old tramp he used to watch down by the tube station near where he lived. He was hunched and he dragged his feet when he walked. He also remembered times when he himself was so hungry that he couldn’t stand straight for the cramps in his stomach.