Moonlight and Ashes (25 page)

Once his wife had shepherded the little girl upstairs, he sank into the fireside chair as yet another coughing fit overtook him. Hastily snatching a handkerchief from his trouser pocket he held it to his mouth until the spasm had passed. Then, holding it away from him, he gazed at the stain on it in the light from the fire. More blood. Hearing Blodwyn’s step on the stairs, he flung it into the roaring fire where the flames quickly consumed it. Stifling a wry smile he wondered how long it would be before he completely ran out of handkerchiefs. But then it didn’t really matter. What Blodwyn didn’t see wouldn’t hurt her.

When they’d moved to the blacksmith’s cottage less than five years ago, Daffyd had hoped that it would be a new start for both of them. It certainly had been for him. After years of living in a tiny, tied miner’s cottage up in the hills, this new home had seemed luxurious, and not to have to go down into the bowels of the earth each day to earn a living was an added bonus. He had learned the trade of blacksmith from his father many years ago as a boy, but then he had married Blodwyn and gone into mining as so many of the Welsh menfolk did.

He’d thought he had finally escaped the mines and all they represented, but he hadn’t allowed for the legacy that his years down the pit had left him: the blood on his handkerchief each time he coughed. And the cough was getting worse, though he would never have admitted it to his wife.

His worried eyes strayed to the stairs door. From above, the sound of Blodwyn fussing over the child like a mother hen floated down to him.

He shook his head in bewilderment. Blodwyn had changed already in the short time since the child’s arrival, and if he were any judge, not for the better.

On Sunday, for the first time in more years than he cared to remember, she had failed to make her ritual trip to the churchyard with flowers for Megan’s grave. It was just as if she saw the child reincarnated in Lizzie. Burying his face in his hands, the sick man shook his head from side to side. Why did things always have to be so difficult?

 

Back at
Tremarfon
the mood was not much lighter. Danny hurried away upstairs and slipped into his pyjamas, then quietly made his way back downstairs to say goodnight. He found the kitchen empty except for Samson and Hemily, who was curled up in a ball fast asleep in the fireside chair.

Stepping back into the hall, he noticed that the library door was slightly ajar so he tiptoed towards it and inched it open. The room was in darkness save for the light of the moon that was flooding through the window. Eric was standing with his back to him, staring up at the painting of the woman Danny had admired the day before. Something about the stoop of his shoulders told of a great sadness, and Danny suddenly felt as if he were imposing on something that he shouldn’t see. Quiet as a mouse, he crept back up the stairs and slipped into bed, shuddering at the cold sheets. It had been a funny old night, one way and another, and he for one would be glad to see the back of it.

Like Lizzie in the blacksmith’s cottage down in the village, he wondered what his mother would be doing now. In his mind’s eye he could see her, sitting at her sewing-machine with the firelight playing on her hair, turning it to the colour of wheaten gold. If he closed his eyes tight and really concentrated, he could almost smell the sweet, clean scent of her.

We could be home for Christmas
, he had told Lizzie, and he clung to the thought, for he didn’t know what to make of Eric at all. One minute he felt as if he was in the way, and the next minute the man would be kind to him. It was all very confusing and once again he wondered at the complexity of adults.

Sneaking out of bed, he crept towards the window and stared out into the starry night. A silver moon was sailing high in the sky and the sea in the distance looked as if it had been sprinkled with fairy dust. The wind was bending the trees, making them appear as if they were trying to pull themselves free of their roots, as they swayed erratically to and fro. The vast spaces made the small terraced house in Coventry where he had come from appear even tinier and cramped than it was. And yet, he would have given all this up there and then to be tucked up back in his own little bed at home with Lizzie curled up beside him.

His troubled eyes returned to the moon as a thought suddenly occurred to him. That very same moon was shining down on his mother. ‘Will you tell her I miss her?’ he whispered to the bright shiny orb, then he climbed back into bed where he tossed and turned until sleep finally claimed him.

Early the following morning, as Maggie snatched up the cards from the doormat, she almost sobbed with relief. At least now she knew that the children had arrived safely at their destination. It was a crying shame that they had been split up. She had prayed that Lizzie and Danny would be placed together, but those prayers had gone unanswered.

‘Any news?’ her mother shouted from the kitchen.

‘Yes, the cards with the addresses have turned up, but Mam, they’ve been split up. How do you think Lizzie will cope with that?’

Ellen sighed. ‘You’d be surprised, love. Children are a lot more resilient than folks give ’em credit for. Just so long as they can see each other from time to time, I’ve no doubt she’ll manage just fine.’

Maggie wished that she could believe her, but somehow she didn’t. In the short time since the twins had gone, her mother had been venturing over to see her a little more, and the last thing Maggie wanted to do was upset her, so she wisely said nothing.

Ellen tried to cheer her up. ‘You did the right thing letting them go, love. Look what’s been happening in London this last few days. The poor sods there barely know what’s hit ’em, an’ who’s to say it won’t be our turn again next? They’ve hit the Woolwich Arsenal, a gas station an’ the docks, an’ that’s not to mention the devastation they’ve caused in the city itself. They reckon three hundred bombers and six hundred fighters were flyin’ over the Thames at one time. Nearly a thousand enemy planes! Anyway, that’s enough o’ that. At least the twins are out of it now.’

Deep down, Maggie knew that her mother was right, but still she felt their absence.

 

Minutes after the children’s postcards had arrived in Coventry, Eric was shaking Danny’s arm, to wake him. The child stirred and looked up at him sleepily. The bed was warm and he was reluctant to be disturbed.

‘Come on,’ Eric told him. ‘It’s your first day at school today so you don’t want to be late, do you? I have your breakfast ready downstairs when you’ve washed and dressed.’ Without another word he turned and left the room.

Danny stretched and yawned lazily as he looked towards the window. Great fat raindrops were lashing against the glass and the sky was leaden and grey. Swinging his legs out of bed he shuddered as his feet came into contact with the cold lino. The water that he dipped the flannel in was even colder, and by the time he’d struggled into his clothes he was shivering. Dragging a comb through his hair he lifted his shoes and headed for the kitchen. At least it would be warm in there.

Eric had a huge pan of creamy porridge bubbling on the stove, and when Danny appeared he nodded towards the table. ‘Sit yourself down. This will soon warm you up.’ Ladling a generous portion into Danny’s bowl he then picked up the sketches that Danny had left lying about and began to thumb through them.

‘You know, these are actually very good. Have you ever thought of trying your hand at painting?’

Danny nodded eagerly through a mouthful of porridge. ‘Oh yes, I got to do paintin’ at me old school sometimes. Not at home though. Me mam couldn’t afford all the brushes an’ paint an’ such so I just used to sketch at home.’

‘Mmm. Then how would you feel if I were able to supply you with some?’

Danny stared at him as if he could hardly believe what he had just heard. Was Eric playing some sort of practical joke on him? When their eyes met he nodded cautiously. ‘I’d love to have some paints,’ he admitted, ‘but they’re very expensive, yer know.’

Eric waved aside his concerns. ‘Don’t you get worrying about that. I think you have a flair for art that should be encouraged.’

Danny’s chest puffed out to almost twice its size in delight, and seeing his reaction, Eric nodded. ‘Right, that’s settled then. I’ll have some ready for you when you get home from school. I’ll be able to give you a few pointers in the right direction if you’d like me to.’

‘Why, do yer know how to paint, then?’

A flicker of amusement played around Eric’s lips. ‘You could say that. But never mind that for now. You’ve got your first day at school to get behind you first. I’ve done you a packed lunch over there on the dresser. You know where the village school is, don’t you?’

Danny nodded as he spooned the last of his porridge into his mouth then slid smoothly from his chair. Picking up his lunchbox, he eyed a huge brown envelope that was lying beside it. The sight of it made him think of the postcards he and Lizzie had posted off to their mother on Saturday.

‘Eric,’ he asked tentatively, ‘how long do yer think it would take fer a postcard to reach me mam from here?’

‘Oh, not more than a couple of days if the post is getting through all right, I shouldn’t think,’ Eric told him.

Danny smiled. If Eric was right, then his mam might be reading them right now. The thought made him feel closer to her somehow.

‘Thanks fer this.’ He waved his lunchbox at Eric, then moving towards the door, he told him, ‘I’ll see yer later then. Ta-ra.’

Again he thought he detected a flicker of amusement as Eric raised his hand. ‘Ta-ra.’

Once outside, Danny pulled the collar of his blazer up, and with his head bent against the rain, began the steep descent down the hillside. He’d gone no more than a few yards when he heard something and paused.

‘Pssst . . .’ There it was again. Glancing into the trees that bordered the road, he smiled with relief as Soho Gus appeared, sporting a brand new haircut.

‘Thought yer might like a bit o’ company walking to school, seein’ as it’s yer first day,’ Gus told him cheerfully.

Danny dragged his eyes away from his friend’s hair and grinned as Albert’s little white head appeared from the top pocket of Gus’s blazer. The pocket had now stretched to at least three times its original size, which was hardly surprising when Danny came to think of how much time Albert spent in there.

‘Don’t the teachers mind yer takin’ Albert to school?’ he asked with a broad grin on his face.

‘They ain’t gorra a whole lot o’ choice in the matter,’ave they?’ Gus sniffed. ‘Where I go he goes, an’ that’s the end of it, though I admit I do pop him in me desk during the day.’ He fell into step beside Danny and soon the village came into sight far below them as they splashed through the puddles.

‘So how’s it goin’ back there then?’ Gus asked inquisitively. ‘An’ have yer found out why Eric locks himself away in that big outbuildin’ yet?’

‘No,’ Danny admitted regretfully. ‘But he ain’t half bad when yer get to know him a bit. In fact, he’s offered to set me up with some paints an’ brushes when I get home from school this afternoon.’

Gus’s eyebrows disappeared into his short fringe, which up to now, Danny had tactfully refrained from mentioning. ‘I wouldn’t have taken you for one o’ those arty-farty types,’ he teased.

Danny shrugged defensively. ‘I like to sketch
an’
paint if it comes to that. Always have done. There’s nowt wrong with that, is there?’

Not wishing to offend his newfound friend, Gus hastily shook his head. ‘No, ’course there ain’t. I were only teasin’.’

As he spoke, he noticed Danny looking at him and his hand self-consciously flew to his freshly shorn hair. ‘Yer can blame that sister o’ yourn fer this haircut. All hell were let loose at
Derwen Deg
last night, I’m tellin’ yer. That nutty Mrs Evans come chargin’ in sayin’ as your Lizzie had got nits off me an’ somethin’ about Lizzie goin’ missin’. She reckons as Eric had her up at
Tremarfon
.’

‘Lizzie
did
come to see me without telling Mrs Evans she was going,’ Danny said, ‘but it weren’t Eric’s fault. In fact, he got the car out an’ took her back.’

‘Well, I got the blame fer the nits. Mad old cow, that Blodwyn is,’ grumbled Gus. ‘The second she’d gone the old woman were snippin’ at me hair like she were shearin’ a bleedin’ sheep.
An’
she made me wash it in carbolic soap,’ he added, deeply aggrieved.

‘Did she find any nits?’ Danny asked with a twinkle in his eye.

Gus wiped his nose along the length of his blazer sleeve, leaving a slimy trail. ‘As it ’appens she did,’ he said with dignity. ‘But that don’t mean to say your Lizzie got ’em off me, does it? I might’ve got ’em off
her
, beggin’ yer pardon, that is.’

Seeing as how Lizzie and he had mixed with no one else since arriving in the village, Danny thought it highly unlikely that she could have caught them from anyone else. But he cleverly changed the subject by asking. ‘What did you mean just now when you called Mrs Evans a mad old cow?’

‘Exactly what I said. Everyone knows that she’s barmy. Apparently she lost a kid some years ago, an’ accordin’ to the villagers she went a bit funny in the ’ead like. She had two lads an’ all, but they scarpered as soon as they were old enough to leave ’ome. She’s got a lot o’ nerve though, to come up to
Derwen Deg
like that.’

By now they were on the road that led into the village. Other children had appeared from nowhere and were heading in a steady stream towards the village school. Not one of them so much as looked in their direction, which Danny found rather strange. Back at school in Coventry, a newcomer was eyed with curiosity, but he and Gus might have been invisible.

‘As yer can see, the Welsh kids ain’t too fond of us foreigners,’ Gus commented. ‘It ain’t too bad though. We evacuees get to go in a separate class, so the only time we really see ’em is durin’ break and lunch-hour.’