Moonlight and Ashes (16 page)

When she had finished, she raised her eyes to her mother, and Ellen saw the raw pain reflected in them.

‘Oh Mam, I don’t think I can go through with this.’

‘Yes, you can. It’s for the best and well you know it. You’d never forgive yourself if you kept them here and anything happened to them. You’ll still have Lucy, more’s the pity. I just wish to God that she was old enough to go somewhere safe too, but they won’t take pre-school children. Now try and look on the bright side - it won’t be forever. No doubt they’ll be home for Christmas. You’ve got to pull yourself together, me girl. They’ll be back in a minute and you’ll scare the pants off ’em if they come in an’ catch you blartin’. You’ve to take ’em down to the doctor’s after tea fer their medicals, ain’t yer?’

‘Yes, Mam - that’s if you won’t take them for me?’

A brief look of panic flitted across Ellen’s features as she blurted out, ‘No, no . . . it’s best if you were to take’em. I’ll stay here an’ mind Lucy for yer.’

Maggie blew her nose noisily. ‘Well, I would appreciate you at least bein’ here when I tell them they’re goin’ then.’

‘All right, love,’ Ellen told her reluctantly. ‘Now come on, I’ll stay an’ help yer get their tea on, eh?’

Minutes later, the twins walked into the room.

‘Danny’s got a big piece of shrapnel he found on the way home,’ Lizzie informed them excitedly.

‘Has he now?’ Ellen shuddered. ‘And what good will that be to him?’

‘There’s a competition goin’ on in the school playground,’ Danny piped up. ‘Up to now Simon Lees has got the biggest, but I reckon mine will beat it.’

Maggie shivered but managed to keep her smile in place. ‘Well, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you left it outside the back door until tomorrow. Oh, and by the way, I’ll be nipping you both down to the doctor’s surgery after tea.’

‘What for?’ Danny was frowning now as Maggie began to lay out the knives and forks so that she could avoid his eyes.

‘Oh, the doctor’s just going to check you both over and make sure that everything’s all right.’

‘Simon Lees had to go to the doctor’s yesterday to be checked out because his mam’s sendin’ him away till the war’s over.’ Danny was a bright little spark for his age and was instantly suspicious. ‘Are
you
goin’ to send me an’ Lizzie away, Mam?’

Panic gripped Maggie. This wasn’t how she had intended to tell them about being evacuated. She glanced imploringly across at her mother but Ellen merely hung her head, unable to cope with the situation.

‘Yes, you will be goin’ away fer a time, Danny,’ Maggie told him truthfully. ‘You’re goin’ to be evacuated with lots of other children to stay somewhere safe until the war’s over.’

‘Where will they take us?’ Danny was struggling to hold back the tears as his sister clung to his hand and began to cry softly.

‘That I can’t tell you,’ his mother replied.

‘So how will you know where we are then? How will we be able to keep in touch?’

‘You’ll both take a stamped addressed postcard with you an’ when you get to where you’re going you’ll be able to send us your address. Needless to say, me an’ yer gran will write to you every single week.’

Lizzie had listened in silence up till now, but suddenly she launched herself at her mother and began to sob. ‘Please don’t send us away, Mam. I’ll be so good, you won’t even know I’m here, I promise.’

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m not sending you away because you’ve been bad.’ Maggie’s voice was full of anguish. ‘I’m sending you both because I need to know that you’re safe.’

‘An’ what about Lucy? Ain’t she comin’ too?’ Danny asked.

Maggie shook her head. ‘They won’t let children as young as Lucy go,’ she explained.

Danny thought about this for a moment. Then: ‘But what happens if the bombs start again an’ they get you an’ Lucy?’

‘I’ll try very hard to make sure that that doesn’t happen. But now come on. Get some tea down you. Gran has brought a pot of your favourite jam over. That will be a treat, won’t it?’

Normally, Danny was like a bottomless pit when it came to food, but tonight his appetite seemed to have fled.

‘Who’ll get the coal in for you an’ run yer errands if I ain’t here?’ he asked, halfway through the meal.

Maggie almost choked on the piece of bread in her mouth. It tasted like sawdust.

‘I’ll have to manage,’ she muttered, and the rest of the meal was eaten in silence, save for the sound of Lizzie’s hiccuping sobs.

 

Much later that night, as they huddled together in bed, Lizzie whispered, ‘Where do you think they’ll send us, Danny?’

Hearing the fear in his sister’s voice, Danny replied bravely, ‘I don’t know. But we might be lucky an’ get sent to the seaside somewhere. That would be good, wouldn’t it? We’ve always wanted to see the sea.’

Lizzie shifted into a more comfortable position at the side of him. ‘It would be if we were goin’ with our mam. But what if they don’t place us together?’

Danny’s lip trembled in the darkness. ‘We’ll have to wait an’ see. No one’s said we’re goin’ to be split up, so why look at the worst?’

‘I can’t help it. Carol an’ Tony weren’t together when they went away last time.’

The children had been surprised earlier in the evening when they had found the majority of their classmates also waiting for medicals at the doctor’s surgery.

‘Well, if earlier on is anythin’ to go by, almost the whole of our school is goin’ to be comin’ with us. In fact, I’ve got a feelin’ there ain’t goin’ to be many kids left round here for a while, so at least we ain’t the only ones bein’ sent away. We’ll try to make it into an adventure. An’ look on the bright side. Mam said we might be home for Christmas.’

At that moment, Christmas seemed a very long way away, but not wishing to upset her brother or appear like a crybaby, Lizzie sniffed and smiled bravely.

‘Yes, of course you’re right. The time will soon pass, won’t it?’

She felt his head nod on her shoulder and then they fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts.

 

Downstairs in the kitchen, Maggie sat at the kitchen table with her head bowed. She felt as if her whole world was falling apart. For years the children had been everything to her and the thought of being without them was terrifying, and yet the thought of what could happen to them if they stayed was even worse.

‘Come on, mate. It ain’t the end o’ the world, yer know?’ Jo smiled at her across the table and despite herself, Maggie grinned.

‘You’re just like my mam used to be at times, Jo. She always used to look on the bright side - till we lost me dad, that is.’

Jo’s slight shoulders shrugged helplessly. She knew that Maggie was hurting but had no idea what she could do to help her.

‘Will your lot be going too?’ Maggie asked eventually.

Jo immediately shook her head. ‘Not on your Nelly. Me dad’s too tight to supply ’em with the things they’d need to take an’ I couldn’t kit them all out on what I get to keep o’ my wages.’

‘But . . . what about what you earn on your er . . . other job?’ Maggie asked tentatively.

Jo dropped her eyes as a stain spread across her thin cheeks. ‘I don’t get to keep none o’ that. The old man has it off me the minute I set foot through the door.’

‘Oh Jo, why don’t you stop him?’

‘Huh! An’ how am I supposed to do that?’

‘I don’t know. Report him to the Welfare or something.’

Jo laughed softly, a hollow laugh that made Maggie shudder. ‘Yes, I’m really goin’ to invite that lot to come hammerin’ on the door, ain’t I? They’d take the kids away like a flash - an’ what do you think that would do to me mam?’

Maggie’s heart went out to her. Jo had become a true friend over the last weeks and she wished with all her heart that there was something she could do to help her. She reached out to take her hand but Jo snatched it away.

‘Look, Maggie. We agreed that we wouldn’t talk about that any more, so let’s just drop it, eh? Our Ruth is getting out of it, at least. She’s goin’ to be a Land Girl. To tell the truth, I envy her. I’d go with her like a shot but I can’t leave me mam to that bullyin’ bastard, can I?’

Maggie shook her head miserably. Poor Jo. She had even more worries than she herself did, and she was so young.

Crossing to a half-finished dress that was hanging over the ironing board, Jo lifted it and smiled. ‘Let me guess. Yer makin’ this fer Lizzie to take with her, ain’t yer?’

When Maggie nodded, she laughed. ‘I don’t know how yer do it! Your daughter is goin’ to be the best-dressed girl on the train.’

It was a pretty dress. Maggie had bought the material for a snip on the market but no one would have known it now that she had smocked the bodice. It was in a pretty shade of blue that exactly matched Lizzie’s eyes. Folded across the back of a chair next to it was a smart hand-knitted jumper for Danny.

‘I can’t take the credit for that. My mam’s been busy as well,’ she said as Jo ran her hand across the soft wool. ‘She’s been knitting like mad. At this rate I won’t be able to get all their stuff into their cases.’

Tears flooded her eyes as she looked at the two small brown suitcases that she had fetched down from the loft. She had scrubbed and polished them until the leather gleamed. Now all she had to do was pack them, which she knew would be the hardest job of all.

Still, she consoled herself, all across Coventry city other mothers were having to do exactly the same thing. The last raid had caused widespread panic and there looked set to be a mass exodus of children. She tried to imagine the streets without the sound of them playing but couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried.

Sensing her friend’s pain, Jo sought for words to comfort her. ‘It won’t last forever,’ was the best she could come up with. But inside she was thinking, Will it?

 

The final arrangements were made a few days later. The children would meet at the school and from there they would be taken by coach to the station. Lizzie and Danny were to be evacuated to North Wales.

‘Is that by the sea?’ Danny asked when Maggie told them.

‘Is it very far away?’ asked Lizzie.

Maggie answered their endless questions as best she could as she packed their freshly washed and ironed clothes into their little cases. They’d been issued with brown paper labels that would have their names and addresses written on. These would be tied with string to the lapels of their coats on the day they left.

‘We don’t need those,’ Danny scoffed when he saw them. ‘We ain’t babies. We can remember our names and where we live.’

‘I know you can, sweetheart, but everyone has to have them,’ Maggie told him.

The next days passed in a blur. Maggie popped Lizzie’s teddy bear into her case and Danny’s marbles and his sketchpad and pencils into his, along with a black and white family photograph for each of them.

‘You can put these on your bedside tables when you get where you’re going so you don’t forget us,’ Maggie told them as brightly as she could.

‘Huh! Do yer really think we’ll need a photo to think of you an’ Lucy?’ Danny retorted in disgust.

Maggie noted that he hadn’t included his father in the statement but wisely didn’t comment. ‘An’ don’t forget to fill this postcard in and post it as soon as you get there, so I’ll have your address.’

Danny rolled his eyes heavenwards as Maggie snapped down the catches.

 

On a cold grey morning in early October, Maggie strapped Lucy into her pushchair and they set off for the school.

Grandma waved them off, her eyes overly bright and a set smile fixed to her lips. ‘You both be good now, an’ remember, you’ll probably be home fer Christmas!’ she shouted after them. Maggie had unsuccessfully tried to persuade her to come with them but she’d preferred to say her goodbyes at home.

Danny carried his own case, whilst Lizzie pushed Lucy along and Maggie carried hers.

The streets seemed to be full of mothers and fathers all trailing in the same direction, their children’s brown-paper labels flapping in the buttonholes of their coats and blazers, their little gas masks slung across their shoulders.

The journey was made in silence, for Maggie could hardly trust herself to speak. When they finally reached the school playground they found a large bus waiting there and Miss Timpson ushering children aboard as she marked their names off on a large clipboard. She was going to accompany them to Wales. Most of the boys were smiling as they anticipated the adventure ahead, but many of the girls were crying and clinging to their mothers like leeches.

‘Come along now. Keep it orderly, and be sure to hold on to your cases,’ Miss Timpson commanded as she bustled yet another child up the steep steps into the bus. The queue slowly dwindled until at last it was time for Danny and Lizzie to say goodbye.

Maggie hugged them both, drinking in the smell of their freshly washed hair. Danny was blinking bravely, determined not to make a cissy of himself in front of his school chums. Lizzie was openly sobbing.

‘On you get then. We don’t want to hold everyone up, do we?’ A final kiss and Maggie was nudging them towards the steps. And then they were gone from sight for a moment until their faces reappeared, pressed up to the window.

They gazed down on their mother and Lucy below them, and just for a moment Danny’s bravado slipped and his lip trembled as they waved at her frantically through the glass.

‘Be good now . . . I love you,’ she mouthed as the bus’s engine sputtered into life. Danny saw the look of desperation in her eyes and his lip trembled even more. The bus began to move away and Maggie found herself running alongside it. The twins looked so little and vulnerable that she had to fight the urge to stop the bus and snatch them off there and then. Instead she waved and blew kisses until it disappeared through the school gates.

Suddenly, the playground was silent and deserted. Only then did she allow the tears to fall as she wondered if she would ever see her children again.