Time to Say Goodbye (7 page)

‘I’m Laurie Matthews and this is Dave Crewe,’ the young man said. ‘We’re stationed at the airfield a couple of miles away, and we were on our way here when we saw the kid struggling to get out of the ditch.’

Auntie nodded, her expression somewhat grim. As they talked she had been soaping Imogen and rinsing her off, and now she lifted her out of the tub, wrapped her in a large bath towel and set her in a chair before the fire. Meanwhile, Jill had carried jugs of hot water through to the small parlour and set a match to the fire laid in the grate, whilst the two girls thundered up the back stairs and returned with Auntie’s green dressing gown and Jill’s fawn one. Laurie and Dave thanked them, closed the door on them and stripped off their soaked clothing. Huddling as close to the fire as they could, they shared a rather unsatisfactory wash, for they had taken it in turns to carry Imogen and had managed to transfer a good deal of the muddy ditch from her person to their own.

As the two young men returned to the kitchen Jill placed a bowl of bread and milk in Imogen’s hands, but the child could not grasp the spoon so Jill fed her whilst Auntie, looking stern, began to tell her that she had let them all down by her behaviour. ‘You’ve done wrong and we all know it. But for the quick thinking of these two young fellows, you’d be dead and I’d be in deep trouble. You were in my charge and you knew very well that you were supposed to come straight home from Pilgrim Farm. I’ve not heard the full story yet, but from the state of you I’d guess you’ve come nearer death today than any of us would have thought possible. I won’t ask you how you came to leave the path Jacky and Herbert had made to the village, because I realise you probably don’t know yourself, but I’m telling you that for two pins I’d send you home to your mam and let her try to keep you out of mischief. I dare say, after this little adventure, you realise the country around the Canary and Linnet is just as dangerous as the slums off the Scotland Road in Liverpool.’

‘I’m s-s-sorry,’ Imogen muttered.

‘Fine words butter no parsnips,’ Auntie said severely, but Jill shook her head.

‘She isn’t taking anything in, Auntie,’ she said quietly. ‘I think she should go straight to bed and tell us her story in the morning.’ As she spoke she lifted Imogen in her arms and headed for the stairs, but was intercepted by Laurie who took her burden from her.

‘Show me where to go,’ he instructed.

Jill went ahead of him and opened the attic door, indicating Imogen’s bed. ‘I do believe she’s asleep already,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Don’t bother to take the towel off, just roll her into the bed with it wrapped round her. It’s my belief she’ll sleep till morning, so you’ll have to make do with our thanks – mine and Auntie’s – until Immy is well enough to thank you herself.’

‘I’m just glad we got her out in time,’ Laurie muttered. ‘Poor little bugger, she’s had a lesson she’ll never forget.’

As though the words had somehow reached her sleeping mind, Imogen’s long lashes lifted and her eyes focused on Laurie for one moment before the lids were lowered again. ‘Thank you,’ she said drowsily.

‘Glad to have been of service,’ Laurie said, grinning, but Imogen’s eyes didn’t open again, so he and Jill turned and left the room. They descended the stairs and re-entered the kitchen.

‘Now Imogen’s settled, how do you fancy bacon and eggs and some of Jill’s home-made bread?’ Auntie said. ‘You’d be all the better for something hot inside you, and though it’s small thanks for saving our foolish child’s life it’s the best we can do for now.’

‘That’ll be grand,’ Laurie said quickly. ‘Are you really going to punish her? Don’t you think she’s been punished enough?’

Auntie smiled. ‘I won’t send her away, if that’s what you mean,’ she said, ‘but fair’s fair, young man. Jill and I are what you might call
in loco parentis
to these children; I imagine you’ve gathered they’re evacuees. You must think I don’t take very good care of them . . .’

‘She does, honest to God she does; take care of us, I mean,’ Debby said. ‘And Imogen is very good as a rule. I suppose she never thought she was being naughty because she’s doing this Mass Observation thing and has been desperate for something exciting to happen.’

Jill, who had been slicing the loaf, pulled a face. ‘I don’t imagine she wanted anything as exciting as being nearly killed. And I don’t suppose we’ll get an explanation out of her for a day or two. All I can tell you is that so far as I can recall, Debby was watching me milk the cows and Rita was cleaning the channel—’

Rita interrupted. ‘If you’re going to punish Imogen, Auntie, then you really ought to punish me as well,’ she said miserably. ‘I was in a bad mood, and I – I think I took it out on Imogen.’ She turned to Jill. ‘If you remember, there was a bit of a row over who was wearing the wrong wellington boots. In fact, none of us were. Imogen hadn’t remembered that Auntie dried out our boots with scrumpled-up newspaper after we cleared the yard. In her hurry to go up to the farm, she put her own boots on with the paper still in and thought she was wearing mine. When we discovered the truth I – I jeered at her, made it sound as though she had been a real twerp, and I suppose she hated being laughed at and decided to show us all that she wasn’t the idiot I’d called her. She must have decided to come home, or perhaps go into the village. But of course I don’t know how she came to fall into the ditch except that she’s always been a bit of a dreamer. If she was wandering along, thinking about what she would write in her diary, I suppose she could easily have slipped down the bank.’

‘Well, no point in apportioning blame,’ Auntie said briskly. ‘I just want all of you to give me your word of honour that you’ll never go off by yourselves. There are other dangers in being alone in a strange place, too, which I won’t name . . .’

Debby nodded wisely. ‘Mad axemen who hate little girls,’ she said. ‘There was an old man who lived a few doors away from my grandmother in Liverpool. He bred pigeons, for racing you know, and was always inviting children to visit his pigeon loft, but we were told not to go with him, so we never did.’ She turned to Jill. ‘That’s what Auntie meant, wasn’t it?’

Jill, breaking eggs into the big black frying pan, smiled, but nodded too. ‘That’s right; never forget there is safety in numbers,’ she said cheerfully. Then she turned to address the two young men in their borrowed raiment. ‘Sit yourselves down; I want to dish the eggs up before they go hard.’

By the time Laurie and Dave left the pub they had little need of their torches, for the moon was up and they could see their way clearly. They had eaten well but had refused Auntie’s offer of a beer or even something stronger, thinking it best to stick to hot strong coffee. ‘It’ll keep us awake; not that there’s much fear of either of us falling asleep on the walk home,’ Laurie had told the two women after they had redressed in their dry clothing. ‘Thanks very much, Miss – er – Auntie, I mean. As you can imagine, whilst this weather lasts there won’t be any flying, so we’ll pop in again in a day or two to check how young Imogen is getting on.’

Warm and well fed, they found the path they had made with ease, and when Dave started singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’ as they trod in the footsteps they had made when heading for the Canary and Linnet it seemed very appropriate. The moon shone down on the cheerful scene, throwing blue shadows on the silvered snow. Presently, they passed the spot where they had rescued Imogen and pointed out to each other how easy it must have been for the child not to see the ditch, hidden as it was by the depth of the snowfall and the drifts.

‘She was lucky we came by,’ Dave said presently. ‘They’re nice, aren’t they, Laurie? Jill and Auntie, I mean.’

‘Very nice,’ Laurie said. He cast a look at his companion. ‘That girl; there’s something about her face. A sort of calmness . . . I don’t know how else to describe it . . .’

His voice faded away and Dave said brightly: ‘Imogen, do you mean? I didn’t really notice.’

Laurie gave a snort of laughter. ‘Not the kid, you fool,’ he said derisively. ‘I meant Jill, the one who cooked our supper. There was something about her – I’m not sure what – but I’d like to see her again.’

He looked across at Dave, a slow grin curling his mouth. He and Dave had both joined the Royal Air Force back in ’38, passing out as fighter pilots after eighteen months’ intensive training, and by now they knew each other pretty well. Laurie knew that Dave liked his girlfriends to be what he would have described as ‘hot stuff’. He realised of course that Jill could not be so described, for she wore no makeup, her hair was not permed or curled but fell, rain straight, to her shoulders, and her open friendliness did not indicate that she was looking for romance.

Laurie, immediately attracted, had watched her whenever she was unaware of his scrutiny and thought she had a quality of peacefulness, rare in someone so young; he knew her to be not yet seventeen. But Dave, nodding slowly, seemed to understand. ‘I’ve often wondered what sort of girl you’d go for, and now I know,’ he said triumphantly. ‘You like plain Janes, nice little homebodies who fuss around a feller; a stay-at-home girl, in fact. Well, you certainly found one there.’ He shrugged, then punched Laurie lightly on the shoulder. ‘You’ll have no competition for that one; not from me at any rate. I like my women to have sex appeal.’

‘And you want them to be willing; in fact that’s all you care about really,’ Laurie said with a grimace. ‘I’m a bit choosier than you, old fellow. I want someone I can talk to.’

‘If you want someone to talk to, what’s wrong with me?’ Dave said plaintively. He turned to grin up at the taller man and spoke in a squeaky voice: ‘Gee, honey, let’s discuss the theory of relativity . . .’

But before he could go further Laurie had bent down and made a snowball, and Dave’s sentence ended in a splutter as the missile got him right in the teeth. ‘Better the theory of relativity – which I’m bloody sure you don’t understand – than assessing every woman you meet on a “will she won’t she” basis,’ Laurie said reprovingly. ‘But that’s what you get if you simply grab for any girl you find bedworthy. I like to get to know a girl . . .’

‘. . . before you even ask her to dance,’ Dave said, grinning. ‘Well, you’re a relic from the past, Laurie Matthews, but if you ask me, life’s too short—’

‘Shurrup,’ Laurie said at once. ‘Tell you what, how about making up a foursome? Auntie and Jill, you and me . . .’

This time it was Laurie who found himself spluttering through a mouthful of snow, but when the conversation looked like deteriorating into a snowball fight he backed off at once. ‘Pax, pax, you idiot!’ he said, spitting snow. ‘I admit Auntie’s a trifle long in the tooth to accede to your rampant demands, so I’ll have to revisit the Canary and Linnet with no masculine support. And now stop fooling around and let’s get a move on. The Met boys say we’re all set for a thaw, so I mean to make the most of the snow and visit the pub whenever the opportunity offers. And don’t you go offering to come with me, because you’ll only queer my pitch.’

Jill was a light sleeper and was the first to hear the little whimpering cries coming from the girls’ attic bedroom. Her first thought was that Debby’s nightmares had started again, but when she hurried up the stairs and opened the door she saw, in the dim snowlight coming through the window, Imogen sitting up in bed. She was very flushed, and when Jill lit the candle which stood on the dressing table she saw that the child’s pupils were very enlarged and she looked terrified. Jill sat down on the bed and put her arms round her, giving her a gentle hug. ‘It’s all right, my love, you’re safe in your own bed,’ she said soothingly. ‘Can’t you get to sleep? Did you have a bad dream? Jill’s here, and won’t leave you.’

Imogen gave a low moan. ‘Falling, falling . . . the ice won’t hold,’ she muttered, in a hoarse wavering voice which Jill scarcely recognised. ‘I’m in the water . . . get me out of the water. Tell the men I’m sorry I was bad, I’ll never be bad again if they’ll only get me out!’

Jill smoothed the hair off Imogen’s forehead and realised that the child must be running a temperature, for the hair was damp and the forehead almost frighteningly hot. But probably it was no wonder, considering what had happened to her. Jill, who had had very little experience of illness, tried to lie Imogen down again, but the child flung her arms round Jill’s neck and refused to let go.

‘If I let go I’ll drown,’ she said, then withdrew from Jill a little. ‘Who are you?’ Her big frightened eyes scanned the room. ‘Where am I?’ Jill began to reply but was interrupted. ‘
Who
am I?’ Imogen demanded, her voice breaking on a sob. ‘Am I the lady in the brown dress? Am I going to die?’

Poor Jill, realising that she needed to fetch Auntie, tried once again to detach Imogen’s arms from round her neck, but before she could loosen the child’s grip another voice spoke. ‘Jill, it’s me, Debby. Shall I fetch Auntie? She did say to call her if Imogen got worse.’

‘Oh, Debby, I wish you would,’ Jill said breathlessly. ‘I think Imogen is running a fever, and I don’t know what to do. But Auntie will.’

Debby took her dressing gown off the hook on the back of the door, slid her feet into her slippers and in a moment could be heard softly thumping down the first flight, presently returning with Auntie close behind. Jill greeted her aunt with great relief, for although she had managed to detach herself from Imogen’s grasp the child had begun to moan and to complain that she ached all over and could not move without pain. It was clear that she still imagined herself half in and half out of the ditch.

‘Rheumatic fever,’ Auntie said in an undertone, as soon as she had examined Imogen, ‘or something very like it at any rate. We’ll have Dr Vaughan from the village up here as soon as it’s light, but in the meantime I think she’d benefit from a couple of aspirin and a long cool drink.’ She turned to Debby, for Rita was still slumbering peacefully. ‘Go down to the bar, dear, and bring me up a bottle of cordial and a glass of water. I’d best mix it myself.’

This sounded infinitely sensible to Jill, but although Imogen was burning hot she rejected the very idea of a cool drink. ‘I’m cold enough already,’ she said fretfully. ‘I’m freezing, and my hot water bottle’s gone cold . . . oh, how I do ache!’