Sadler's Birthday (10 page)

Madge sat up and brushed her hair. Her eyes smarted and the lids were puffy from lack of sleep. ‘Ugly old woman,' she said to her face in the mirror held up to it. But with a bit of rouge on, from the little flat pot she kept on the bedside table, she felt better and rang the bell for Sadler.

He arrived almost at once, setting her tray down carefully on the bed and crossing to the windows to draw the curtains.

‘Before you go, Sadler,' Madge said on impulse, ‘I'd like to tell you about something that happened yesterday. I'd like to know what you think about it.'

‘Yes, Madam?'

‘You remember that-woman who called while we were having breakfast? You spoke to her, didn't you?'

‘She . . . informed me what she'd come about.'

‘What do you think, Sadler? I mean, do you think we should?'

Sadler was surprised by her question. He hadn't known her long, but on more than one occasion he'd heard her say she felt uncomfortable – that was the word she'd used – uncomfortable with children. That she was still in doubt about her answer was odd. Even Miss Reader hadn't been hopeful. ‘If you could only persuade them,' she'd said to him, ‘it's such a paradise here. You couldn't give any child a more precious gift.'

Sadler had believed the matter closed and wondered only what they would do if the Government's plea became an order.

‘It's so difficult, you see,' Madge went on, ‘to know what's expected of one at a time like this. Don't you agree?'

‘It is, yes.'

‘But you don't think that at all really, do you? Of course you don't. You think the Colonel and I should agree to take in a child, don't you?'

Sadler was about to lie, but she cut him off.

‘And of course you're right. I know you're right. Why shouldn't we share our home? Give someone's boy or girl some nice memories. But would they be nice, Sadler? You see, we've never been close to any children, the Colonel and I. We've never had to handle them. We don't understand children, only insofar as we were children once – I think. But it's not enough, is it? I mean, the countless things one has to think up just to amuse them. All that, day after day . . . and we're getting on, you know . . . we really are . . .'

She was quite distressed. Sadler waited a second or two before he spoke.

‘If you like,' he said quietly, ‘if you thought it was my place, I could take responsibility. There were kiddies at my last job, the one in Scarborough. They were left on their own a lot and they used to come to me for games, to have a laugh. I learnt a lot about kiddies there.'

Madge frowned.

‘Really, Sadler? Did you? Could you, I mean?'

‘I'd be glad to try.'

And now she smiled. Because that might be different. That might alter the whole thing and make it bearable. If the child stayed in the servants' hall, had its meals there, the kind of meals it'd be used to, she'd be glad to spend some of her time with it, take it shopping or for walks round the garden. Her conscience would be clear because she'd be paying for it all, and who knew if, under these conditions, she might not come to like the child.

‘It seems an awful lot to ask of you, Sadler.'

‘No. I'd be glad.'

‘We'd be on hand, of course, if anything went wrong.'

‘Oh yes.'

‘And money, naturally. We'd see you had everything that was needed.'

‘Oh I doubt one extra would cost a lot.'

‘But extra for you, of course, if you're going to do two jobs . . .'

Sadler had saved her. When she'd finished her breakfast and the tray had been taken away, she turned her head from the light and slept an untroubled sleep till lunchtime.

The big house with its tended garden, its woods and its orchard, had stayed in Miss Reader's mind as she looked out on Mrs Dart's patch of scuffed grass. It stayed with her as she went round Hentswell from door to door and saw the cramped rooms where many of the new ‘vacuees' would live. And by the end of the week, her determination had grown: she would place a child in the Colonel's care or count herself a failure in the job she had taken on.

She was surprised to be greeted with a smile when she turned up at the house. Madge herself came out into the porch as she arrived and led her into the drawing room, where a fire was blazing.

‘I'm so glad you've come back, Miss . . .'

‘Reader.'

‘Miss Reader. You see, we did need time to think this over. I imagine everyone does, don't they? But I didn't want you to get the impression that we were set against it. I feel I must have given you that impression, didn't I, when we last met? But as I explained to you, I – we've – never had children of our own, and coming out of the blue like that . . . But we've had time now to think it over and we do feel that you were quite right, it is everybody's war and I wouldn't like anyone to accuse us of not doing our bit. The only thing that I've been wondering about is the
procedure
– you know. I mean, does one simply sit here and wait for one or does one go and . . . choose one?'

Miss Reader told Madge to go down to the Reception Centre in the church hall early on Friday morning. The evacuee train was due in at nine and it was a question of first come first served, rather along the lines of a livestock auction, except that you didn't pay – the Government paid you, eight and six a week for a girl and ten shillings for a boy. The children would be wearing labels with their names and addresses on; it was just a question of picking the one you wanted.

Madge was relieved. It had been decided of course that the child would sleep upstairs in one of the servants' rooms and have meals with Sadler and Vera, but still, it was nice to know she'd be able to choose the face she'd see from her window, a face she'd have to meet from time to time.

‘It sounds a very sensible arrangement,' she told Miss Reader. ‘We'll be there.'

‘We' meant Madge and Sadler. The Colonel stayed at home, treasuring perhaps his last few hours of peace. He sat in his study, listening to the wireless, and the news announcer told him that still no bombs had fallen on London and that there were ‘disturbing signs' that many of the families evacuated from the East End had failed to adapt to the country wastes and were trickling home. The news reassured him. The unwelcome intrusion into his quiet life might soon be gone.

The train came in. It was only a short walk from Hentswell station, but the children, herded along by volunteer chaperones, began to run. The long hours spent in the stuffy, crowded train had snuffed out any excitement they might have felt and had left them thirsty and tired. The promise of a beaker of orangeade as they left the station was enough to send them scuttling down the village street, shouting and jumping, some laughing at long last and others crying as they were pulled along. Their homes vanished now as their new surroundings pressed in on them, but they were too bewildered to know what to make of them, too thirsty to do anything but keep running. The mothers, the few that had come, were forced to run, too, pulled along by their children.

‘Don't run, stop running!' they shouted, hating this embarrassing, disorderly progress.

As they passed, the silent, safe community of Hentswell received them with little titters of laughter.

Once inside the church hall, the children jostled for the orangeade laid out on long trestle tables, and the mothers hung back, aware of the group of people sitting to one side and looking them up and down. Miss Reader and the vicar's wife came forward: there was a cup of tea for the mothers, if they liked, and then perhaps, they'd like to collect their children and wait in family groups. They drank the tea, glad of that at least. But time was casting them adrift and they looked about them in blank misery. They felt like beggars.

‘Go on, Sadler,' said Madge.

Her eye had singled out a pale, fair boy, standing on his own, holding his beaker of orangeade, but not drinking it, staring in awe at the strangers come to meet him.

He was remembering what his Ma had said before he left: ‘Don't look so bleedin' miserable, Tom, or no one'll choose you. For Gawd's sake smile, can't yer?' He couldn't. He hadn't known till the evening before that he was going. No one had told him. And he'd stayed awake all night, frightened to go to sleep in case they put him on the train before he'd said goodbye. Then the morning had come and a coach had arrived to collect him, and his Ma in her dressing gown, shivering in the early morning cold, hadn't even hugged him, just held his shoulders and kissed his forehead and told him to hurry up.

‘He looks a nice quiet one,' Madge said. ‘Go and talk to him, Sadler.'

‘Sadler crossed the room to where the boy stood.

‘Hello, lad,' Sadler said, smiling. ‘What's your name, son?'

The boy fingered the top button of his coat.

‘It's on the label, mister.'

Tom called everyone ‘mister'. Except Madge, whom he never addressed at all, and Vera, whom he liked and called ‘auntie'. The Colonel, of course, would have preferred to be called ‘Colonel' or ‘Sir'. ‘You should call me “Colonel”,' he told Tom, ‘or “Sir”.' But Tom was confused. The only people he'd ever addressed as ‘Sir' were his schoolteachers, and in his history books Colonels only popped up when there was a war going on and they had to go off and command. They never seemed to have homes, let alone stay in them, when everyone else was outside fighting. To Tom, this argued that Colonel Bassett couldn't be a real Colonel. He thought of asking Vera, but as far as he could see, Vera and the Colonel had never met, so he doubted that she knew anything about it. Only much later did he think to ask Sadler and Sadler told him that the Colonel was ‘retired' – a word Tom believed meant some kind of incurable illness. After that, he did call the Colonel ‘Colonel' when he remembered, mostly out of pity.

Tom's first comment about the house as they drove up – Madge and Wren in front, Tom and Sadler behind – was that it looked like Buckingham Palace.

Madge, feeling light-hearted now that it was ‘all over', said: ‘I'm afraid you won't find the King here, dear.' And Tom said flatly: ‘No. I know. The King's in London. My Ma said she thought 'e was quite brave to stay there.'

‘Oh I agree,' said Madge, ‘I agree with your Ma.'

The car and his empty stomach had made Tom feel sick. His face was as white as chalk as they led him up the stone steps and into the great, dark hall. Looking at him, Sadler could imagine the nightmare he was going through, so he took his hand, anxious to spare him any further meetings and told Madge that he thought it best if Tom went straight to the kitchen and had a warm drink and something to eat. Madge agreed. Best to get it sorted out right from the start, she thought, he's Sadler's responsibility.

When Vera greeted him with her ‘come on in, duck,' sat him down at the scrubbed table with a mug of tea and told him she'd fry him a couple of sausages, he felt better.

‘Ta,' he said.

‘'Ad an awful journey then, love?' she asked him.

‘They didn't give us no drinks,' said Tom, clasping his tea.

His eyes followed her as she moved around the kitchen. All the women he'd ever met – until today – had been a bit like Vera. Fatter or thinner, with different hair, different aprons, but like her in essence. Even his Ma, though younger, had a manner something like Vera's. He hoped he could just stay there in the warm kitchen, watching her.

Sadler was watching him. He was a thin boy and quite small for what, judging from his face, his age appeared to be. His eyes were a washed-out blue, large in a bony face, and they looked steadily and carefully at things. He was still wearing his coat, too short in the sleeves, and with the label on it.

‘You warm enough, Tom?' Sadler asked.

‘Yes,' said Tom.

‘Like to take your coat off?'

‘Yes.'

Tom put down his tea reluctantly, then stood up and unbuttoned his coat. Sadler took it from him, reading the label as he hung it up:
Tom Trent, 68 Woodbridge Buildings, Coston Lane, London. E.5. Aged 11 years
.

‘When's your birthday, Tom?' Sadler asked him.

‘Nineteenth of March, mister.'

‘Well, that's funny – day after mine.'

Tom grinned at last.

‘How old are you, mister?'

‘Same age as the year. You didn't know that, did you, Vera?'

‘Lor no, Mr Sadler,' she teased, ‘I always thought you was older than me.' Then to Tom: ‘Certainly looks it, don't 'e?'

But Tom was looking away.

‘My Ma's thirty-one,' he said.

It was this business of Tom's Ma, the way, during his first weeks at the house, each conversation ended with some reference to her, that made Sadler want to care for Tom. Trying to remember what it was like to be eleven, Sadler decided that had he been separated from Annie at that age, he would have wanted to die. So close to her had he stayed, so absolutely necessary to his life had her almost constant presence become, that even one night away from her would have been torment. And if – for whatever reason – she'd sent him away, as Tom's mother had done, he knew he would have resisted all communication with the strangers who replaced her and withdrawn into total silence. Sadler thought he saw in Tom something of what he himself had been, would make this the excuse for loving him.

But he was mistaken. Tom was nothing like Jack Sadler had been. Despite the careful ways in which the boy kept stating apparently random bits of information about his Ma so that no one would forget that he belonged to her, he had long been forced into an unwilling independence from her. She'd come and gone. Gone, often, by the time he kicked his way home from school.
Don't go out
, notes on the kitchen table had read,
Sausage roll for your tea
. He always stayed up waiting for her, reading his
Champion
, had fallen asleep sometimes, till she woke him up putting the light on.