Moonlight and Ashes (2 page)

‘Like you an’ Dad, you mean?’ Danny said innocently.

Maggie bent swiftly to peck them both on their cheeks. ‘Me and your dad don’t fight,’ she said, none too convincingly, then she turned and made for the door so that they wouldn’t see the fresh tears that were ready to fall at any second. Feeling their frightened eyes boring into her back, she turned just once more to smile at them reassuringly. ‘Don’t you two get worrying now. It will probably all be over in no time. We’ll be just fine, you’ll see. Now go off to sleep else you’ll never get better.’

Her heart swelled with love as she looked at them. They were both covered in Calamine lotion from head to foot to stop them itching, and looked like two little ghosts. They stared back at her, and once the door had closed behind her they snuggled further down into the bed.

Lizzie was trembling and Danny held her protectively against him.

‘Don’t worry,’ his soft voice sliced through the darkness. ‘If Mam says it’ll be all right, then it will be.’

Comforted, Lizzie yawned and closed her eyes. Soon, their gentle snores echoed around the room.

 

‘Vera Hodges’ son joined up today,’ Maggie remarked as she slid a slice of bacon onto a sturdy white dinner-plate.

Sam glanced up briefly from the newspaper he was reading. ‘Him an’ a few dozen more, from what the blokes at work were sayin’ today,’ he grunted.

Danny and Lizzie, who were sitting at the opposite side of the table to their father, exchanged a worried glance. Since the beginning of the war, lots of people they knew had gone away to fight, and it disturbed them. They sat silent until at last their mam had finished putting out the dinner and joined them at the table.

After folding his newspaper and lifting his knife and fork, their father grimaced. ‘Call
this
a dinner?’ He glared at Maggie. ‘One bloody strip o’ bacon an’ one sausage? How’s a workin’ man supposed to keep his strength up on this - an’ where’s me fried egg, eh?’

Hastily, Maggie slid her sausage onto his plate. ‘Sorry, Sam. It’s all this talk about rationin’. I’m doin’ the best I can. Everybody seems to be panicking and grabbing everything they can. I had to queue up at the butcher’s for over an hour just to get this. As for eggs - well, at the minute they’re harder to get hold of than snow in summertime.’

‘Huh!’ Grunting his disapproval, Sam began to shovel the food into his mouth at an alarming rate. It was at that moment that Lucy woke up and began to cry.

Maggie hurried over to the crib at the side of the fireplace and lifted her out.

‘You have my dinner an’ all,’ she told her husband. ‘This one needs feedin’, an’ by the time I’m done it’ll be stone cold anyway.’

Without so much as a word, Sam scraped her dinner onto his plate. Maggie crossed to the walk-in pantry at the side of the room and removed a glass feeding bottle full of milk formula that she had prepared earlier.

Settling into the fireside chair, she began to feed the baby, who gulped at the milk greedily. The twins grinned at each other. They still hadn’t got over the novelty of having a baby sister, and treated her like a little doll. Lucy was dark like her father, with chocolate-brown eyes that melted the heart of anyone who saw her. Their grins vanished, however, as they saw their mother’s meal disappearing into their father’s mouth, and without a word being uttered they both knew exactly what the other was thinking. Their mother was losing weight and had dark circles beneath her eyes that told of the sleepless nights she was having. Lucy was teething, and often they would get up in the mornings to find their mother pacing the floor of the small kitchen-cum-sitting room with the baby in her arms.

Their father rose from the table, snapped his braces off his broad arms and swiped a lock of dark hair from his forehead.

‘Going out, are you, Sam?’ their mother asked timidly.

He snorted. ‘O’ course I am. It’s Friday night, ain’t it? A bloke’s entitled to a few bevvies down at the pub wi’ his mates after a hard week’s graft, ain’t he?’

‘Yes, yes, of course he is,’ Maggie hastened to agree with him. ‘Just let me settle Lucy back down an’ I’ll fetch the bath in and fill it for you.’

‘Huh, it’ll be quicker to fetch it in meself. That little madam’s rulin’ the roost, from what I can see of it. I don’t know why yer don’t just put her down an’ let her howl. She’d soon learn to belt up if yer didn’t pander to her.’

‘She can’t help it, Sam,’ Maggie pointed out. ‘The poor little mite’s in pain with her teeth, that’s why she’s cryin’ all the time.’

Impatiently, he strode across the room and flung open the back door that led onto the shared yard. Seconds later, he returned with a tin bath that had been hanging on a nail outside.

‘Any hot water in the tap?’ he asked roughly.

‘There should be, I’ve had the fire roarin’ up the chimney as much as I dare,’ Maggie said.

Soon all four of them were traipsing back and forwards from the sink with hot water in kettles, saucepans and anything else that would hold water. It was a Friday-night ritual that they were all used to, and soon the bath was steaming in front of the fire.

‘You two pop upstairs an’ read your books while yer dad has his bath,’ Maggie told the twins, and obediently they turned and made their way up the steep narrow staircase.

At the top they hurried along to their room and slipped inside. Sinking onto her bed, Lizzie lifted her Enid Blyton book as Danny approached the one sashcord window that the room boasted.

‘Don’t let any light show,’ Lizzie warned him fearfully. Recently, their mother had gone out and bought blackout material that she’d stitched to the back of every single pair of curtains in the house, and the little girl knew that it would be more than their life was worth if they let any light spill out onto the pavement. Only last week, Danny had stood gazing down into the street below, forgetting to close the curtains properly, which had resulted in a visit and a stern reprimand from Mr Hutton, the ARP warden. When he had gone, their father had threatened the boy with his belt, should he ever do such a thing again.

‘I ain’t
totally
thick, yer know,’ Danny sniffed indignantly, and instantly contrite, Lizzie threw down her book and crossed to stand beside him.

‘Why does it matter so much if a bit of light
does
show?’ she enquired.

‘It’s ’cos if there’s any planes wi’ bombs in ’em flyin’ over Coventry an’ they see a light, they could drop ’em on us,’ her brother explained.

Lizzie shuddered. The twins could only hope that this war would soon be over, as their mam had promised, so that their lives could get back to normal. Many of their friends had already been sent away, and their class was almost empty. Just the thought of leaving their mother struck terror into their young hearts, but thankfully up to now Maggie had stood up to their father and refused to let them go, saying that she wanted the family to be together for Christmas.

It was almost half an hour later when they heard the back door slam, and then their mother’s voice floated up the stairs to them. ‘Come on, you two. It’s time for your baths.’

Danny sighed. He hated bath nights, but all the same he slid off the bed and followed his sister downstairs. Their mother’s face was flushed from her many journeys to and from the sink with kettles of hot water but she smiled at them as they tumbled back into the room.

‘Right - you first, Lizzie. Then I can be putting your rags in while Danny has his.’

Lizzie groaned inwardly. Every bath night, once she was washed, her mother would sit and painstakingly twist strips of rag into her wet hair, which would ensure she got up the next morning looking like Shirley Temple. She hated it, but loved her mam too much to tell her so. At eight, she considered she was too old for ringlets - especially when Susan Warren at school made fun of her.

In no time at all she was immersed in the hot water and she sat quietly while her mam rubbed a mix of camomile powder and warm water into her hair, then tipped jug after jug of warm water over her head until she was sure she was clean. The girl rubbed herself dry with a big towel whilst Danny underwent the same procedure. Then she sat patiently as the rags were twisted into her wet hair, ouching occasionally as the wooden hairbrush caught on a knot.

An hour later, as Maggie was just emptying the last of the bathwater down the deep stone sink, a knock came on the back door and both children grinned. That would be their Uncle David. He always popped in on a Friday night, and he usually came bearing treats tucked down deep in his pockets.

Hopping off his seat, Danny flew to the door and flung it open. ‘Hello, Uncle David.’

A tall man who was the double of their father stepped into the room and ruffled his nephew’s hair as he flashed a wink at Lizzie. ‘Hello, young man. Been good this week, have you?’ His chocolate-brown eyes twinkled.

‘I’ve been
very
good,’ Danny hastened to tell him as their uncle took his coat off and draped it over the back of a chair.

‘Good. I might find something nice for you then. But first I’ll get this bath outside for your mam, eh?’

As he lifted the tin bath effortlessly, Maggie bustled away to put the kettle on. Soon they were all seated at the table sipping mugs of steaming cocoa and helping themselves from the biscuit barrel, and not for the first time, Danny felt a pang of regret that his uncle wasn’t his father. David and Sam were twins, just like him and Lizzie, and to look at they were almost identical, except that his uncle had a dimple in his left cheek whilst his father had a dimple in his right. There, any similarity between the two men ended, for Uncle David was kind and funny, whilst his father was fed up and angry for most of the time.

Lizzie was thinking much the same thing as their uncle delved into his coat pocket and produced two bars of Fry’s Five Boys chocolate as if by magic.

‘Now don’t go getting it all over your clean nightclothes, else you’ll get me into bother with your mam,’ he warned.

‘Ta, Uncle David,’ they chorused, and in seconds they’d ripped the wrappers off and were eating the chocolate as if they’d never tasted it before.

Maggie smiled indulgently, but just then Lucy let out a lusty wail and she rose from the table. ‘No peace for the wicked,’ she sighed. ‘I reckon this one is overdue for her bottle.’

‘I’ll warm it up for you,’ David offered as the baby’s cries grew louder. They stopped immediately Maggie inserted the rubber teat between her rosebud lips, and they all sighed with relief. Lucy might only be small but she could certainly make her presence known. She drained the bottle in seconds, then lay placidly as Maggie removed her nappy, dropped it into the enamel bucket to soak and then fastened the safety pins into her clean one.

‘There, little lady. That’s better, isn’t it?’ Maggie said, her face alight with love. Lucy gurgled contentedly, and not for the first time a wave of envy swept through David. How could his brother have so much while
he
had nothing? If Maggie and the children had been his, then they would have had to crowbar him away from them, yet Sam escaped to the pub every chance he got. He supposed his love for Maggie had started the very first time he’d clapped eyes on her, but it was too late for regrets now. She had made her choice when she married Sam and there was nothing he could do about it.

Without being smug, David knew that there were plenty of women who would be more than willing to become his partner, but none of them ever quite measured up to Maggie in his eyes.

Seeing him become morose, Maggie’s eyes creased with concern. ‘Is something wrong, David?’ she asked anxiously.

Aware of the children’s eyes on him he forced a smile to his face. ‘No, no, course not. Though there is something I need to tell you when the children have gone to bed. Nothing for any of you to worry about though,’ he added hastily to his nephew and niece.

‘Right, well, speaking of bed, I think it’s about time you two skipped off and got tucked in, don’t you?’

‘Aw, Mam. Can’t we have just another half hour?’ Danny beseeched.

Normally, Maggie would have relented, but tonight for some reason a sense of foreboding had settled around her like a cloud. Now that she came to think about it, David hadn’t quite been his normal cheery self since the minute he set foot through the door, and she had an awful feeling that she wasn’t going to like what he was going to tell her.

‘No, you cannot,’ she retorted in a manner that brooked no argument. ‘Now come on, the pair of you, else you’ll have bags under your eyes in the morning.’

Reluctantly, the twins slid off their seats, offered their cheeks for a goodnight kiss and then trooped away up the stairs. The second Maggie heard their bedroom door close behind them she turned to David. ‘All right then - what is it you have to tell me that’s so important?’

‘Never mind about that for now. How did you do that?’ He stabbed his finger towards a bruise that was just fading on her cheek.

Maggie flushed and covered it self-consciously with her hand. ‘Oh, I er . . . I bumped it on the cupboard door the other day. I must be getting clumsy in my old age.’

Ignoring her light tone, he said, ‘He’s been at his tricks again, hasn’t he, the lousy bastard.’

‘Of course he hasn’t. I told you - I bumped it on the door, and you shouldn’t talk about your brother that way.’

‘Huh! Just because he’s my brother doesn’t mean I have to like him. Sometimes I can hardly believe we ever lay in the same womb together.’

Finding no answer, Maggie lowered her eyes and began to play with the fringe on the chenille tablecloth. Eventually she said, ‘So - are you going to tell me what’s going on or what then?’

The anger seemed to leave him in a flash and now it was his turn to be sheepish. ‘Well, the thing is, I’ve er . . . I’ve decided to join up.’

‘
You’ve what?
’ Panic gripped her. ‘But you can’t!’