Tin Hats and Gas Masks (2 page)

‘Go away,’ he said.

‘Can’t you sleep, Johnny?’

‘I said g-go away.’

‘We often have homesick girls at school. I was myself when I first started, but it passes,’ she said, ignoring him and coming to sit on the bed.

Johnny deliberately turned over so his back was to her, but it made no difference. Part of the sob he tried to muffle escaped.

‘You needn’t be afraid to cry in front of me, Johnny. I’ve seen lots of them cry first time away from home. It is your first time away, isn’t it?’

When he didn’t answer she said in a whisper, ‘I’ve some chocolate in my room. I’ll fetch it and we’ll have a midnight feast. But keep quiet or they’ll hear us downstairs.’

When she returned she was wearing a fluffy pink dressing-gown. ‘Here you are.’ She broke off half a bar of chocolate, ‘Go on, it’ll make you feel better.’

He took the chocolate and, pulling the bedclothes up to his neck, he looked at her over the top of the sheet.

‘Go on, eat it. They’ll send me some more when I want some.’ She broke a piece from her share and popped it in her mouth. ‘Fruit and nut, it’s my favourite,’ she said.

He ate the chocolate, still staring at the girl in the pink dressing-gown. She looked so different from the way she
had downstairs when she was in a gymslip and blouse. Now her hair was flopping over the front of her shoulders and dancing about on the top button of her gown.

‘How long does it take – to get used to being away?’ he said.

‘Depends.’

‘What on?’

‘I don’t know what you call it, the right word, but I know what it is, how it feels.’

‘You’re talking rubbish.’

‘I
am
not. You’ll see. In a few days you’ ll wonder why you ever cried at leaving home. You’ll have more freedom.’

‘I don’t want more freedom,’ he said. ‘I was all right as it was.’

‘Oh well.’ She rose, then suddenly put her finger to her lips. ‘Sshh, they’re moving about downstairs. Expect they’re coming to bed now. Good-night, Johnny, I’ll see you in the morning.’

She leant right over and kissed him, then slid silently from the bed and went back to her own room.

Johnny put his fingers to his lips. He’d never let a girl kiss him before. Tentatively he traced the outline of his mouth, remembering the taste of her. If I have to stay here, he thought, it might not be too bad, with someone like her around. After all she hadn’t turned a hair when he swore. It’ll keep my bike money intact too. But I’ll call her Annie, not Anita.

He slid out of bed and untied the tin hat from his case. Tomorrow he might let Annie try it on.

For the first time that day a smile raced over his face. She
don’t know everything, not about fresh-air holidays nor nothin’, but.…

He laid his tin hat on the chair by the bed and patted it. P’raps we won’t need it down here, he thought sleepily, if there’s no bombs in the country.…

Winchurch, a West Country town with a population of, 4,000, had two schools, one church and three chapels, a park, library, a small museum, Victorian-built town hall, and a gracious tree-lined square where most of the shops were situated. There was one cinema and half a dozen public houses. The nearest theatre was five miles away in Bushton, but occasionally a small touring company used one of the rooms in the town hall which had a platform.

Three London schools were evacuated to Winchurch, and the following day was spent by officials, teachers and pupils from both areas, in trying to integrate the local and the evacuee children.

Mrs Dover insisted on accompanying them to school that first morning, and when she left them by the gate Anita said mischievously, ‘Thought you weren’t going to stay, Johnny. You said you were going back to the smoke.’

‘I changed me mind. Thought I’d give it a try,’ he mumbled. They walked in together. Johnny soon saw most of his mates, but Anita knew no one. All the children from one of the schools were sent to the church and chapel halls, and when they had marched away, those left were divided into age-groups. The under-nines went to one of the other schools and the over-nines stayed to share classrooms with the children in this one. When the evacuees were assessed,
Anita, who was a few months older than Johnny, went into the top class and he into the middle one.

He watched for her when school was over for the day, and left the boys he was with when she appeared, but he wouldn’t go up to her. Instead he set off on the road back to the Dovers’ house, for he didn’t want to be seen waiting for a girl, but further along the road and out of sight of the school gates, he stopped. She caught up with him a few moments later.

‘You coming back now?’ he said offhandedly.

‘Mmm.’ Falling into step beside him she said, ‘What did you think of school, Johnny?’

‘OK I s’pose. Bit crowded and the locals are a dreary lot. What about you?’

‘It was strange at first, but I expected it to be. Lunch-time I made a friend. Her name’s Janet. She lives here in one of the houses by the park. She told me lots about the place.’

‘Have they got a Saturday-morning cinema club?’

‘Y-es.’ Anita sounded doubtful. ‘I think so, anyway. I’ll find out tomorrow if you like. There’s tennis-courts in the park. I’m going along with Janet next weekend, and she has a friend who owns a pony so she’s going to introduce me to her.’

‘Oh poo, bloody poo. Who wants to ride a stupid pony?’

Anita stopped walking suddenly and simply stood and laughed. She laughed and laughed until tears were running freely down her cheeks and Johnny didn’t know what to do.

‘Come off it,’ he said. ‘Whatever’s the matter with you? Have you gone mad or something?’

‘Oh, Johnny, Johnny,’ she said, gasping for breath, ‘I’ve never met anyone like you in my life before.’

Mrs Dover was watching through the window for them. ‘Don’t make a noise when you go to the bathroom,’ she said, ‘Mr Dover is working in his study.’

Anita looked at Johnny and started to laugh, but Mrs Dover had gone into the kitchen by then, and she put her hand over her mouth and ran upstairs in front of him. At the top she said, ‘I thought you were going to say it again then, Johnny. You’re better than the wireless, you are.’

He flung himself on to the bed in his room and wondered what they’d do now. At home he’d be out with his mates until tea-time, but here, well, he still might not stay. After all, they couldn’t force him to. This evacuation lark was supposed to be voluntary, wasn’t it?

It surprised him during the next few weeks just how many things there were to do. Messing about down by the stream, joining a gang of six for fights against the locals, climbing trees … he tended to stick with his special mates from the old school: Billy Green, Joe Ansty and Bob Tanner. Billy lived in the next street to him back home and he knew his house as well as his own. Anita mixed more with the locals, but then she didn’t have any mates from school.

‘Where did all the other kids from your posh school go then?’ he asked her one day.

‘Some went to America, some to relatives in the country, some even stayed in London.’

‘Why didn’t you? I mean, fancy going to a crummy old
school and being evacuated, after that posh one you was used to.’

‘It wasn’t posh, Johnny. Not nearly as expensive as some are. But it
was
mummy’s old school and she wanted me to go there.’

‘Poo, bloody poo,’ he said, and watched for her to laugh. Instead she said, ‘You’re overdoing that phrase. It doesn’t sound natural any more.’

‘You nearly laughed though,’ he said defiantly.

‘I didn’t.’

‘You did, Annie.’

‘Anita.’

‘Anita’s too bleedin’ highfalutin,’ he said.

‘For someone who knows words like highfalutin it’s a shame to spoil it by swearing.’

‘I didn’t bleedin’ swear.’

‘Yes you did. You don’t even know when you’re doing it, Johnny. Listen, I expect I could get you an invitation to Janet’s friend’s house if you like, but you’ll have to behave and not swear.’

‘I don’t want to go
there
. I can’t ride a blooming ’orse.’

‘They’ve got a swimming-pool,’ she said.

Now he
was
interested. If there was one thing he excelled at it was swimming. He went as often as he could to the baths back home, and he often thought how wonderful it would be to live by the sea and have the chance to swim every day.

‘And a tennis-court, but I suppose you’ll think these things too “la-di-da”.’ She mimicked his voice.

‘Wouldn’t mind having a go in the pool,’ he mumbled.

‘Really, Johnny? You serious?’

‘’Course I’m serious. Went swimming every day back home.’

‘Did you?’ She sounded surprised. ‘Where?’

‘In the bloo … in the water of course, where d’you think?’

‘I am a nitwit, aren’t I?’ she said, laughing.

As she turned away he said in a low voice, ‘Well, it wasn’t every day, it was about every month really, Annie, when we could afford it like. And sometimes I managed to sneak in with some others. An’ I swam in the river too, whenever I could get there.’

‘I think they’re covering the pool over for the winter, but after, when it’s warmer, I’ll see if I can get you an invite,’ she said.

‘I shouldn’t bother too much. I mean the war could be over by the summer and then I’ll be back in Hackney baths and you’ll be back having midnight feasts in your posh school.’

There were a lot of books in the Dovers’ house and as Mr Dover was often working in his study when they came in from school, Anita and Johnny were told to keep as quiet as possible.

At first Mrs Dover didn’t like them to go out to play. ‘It’s dark. There’s the blackout.…’ Johnny rebelled.

‘It’s all right for half an hour an’ you’d get a bit of peace. Blimey, my mum wouldn’t have wanted me under her feet all the time.’

The children won, but it was the wrong time of year for doing much, and the weekends were when they had the
most freedom.

‘It will be better in the summer,’ Anita said to him one day, ‘when the evenings are lighter. And down here we shall have the benefit of longer days.’

‘How come?’

‘Well, we’re in Somerset, and the sun travels east to west before going down. We are the last port of call, or very nearly, Johnny. Devon and Cornwall stay lighter for even longer.’

Johnny, who had never thought about it before, was impressed. ‘You’re clever, you are, Annie,’ he said. ‘’Course, I’ve never bothered to work it out like, but it stands to reason, don’t it?’

When they came indoors they sat on the settee, which was almost, but not quite, as soft as that roomy armchair Johnny had sat in on the first day, and they read.

Both loved books. At home Johnny belonged to the public library and had worked his way through
Biggles, Just William
, and some of Charles Dickens.

‘I s’pose you read Shakespeare and stuff. We did a bit at school but it don’t seem real to me,’ he said.

‘We’ve done a bit of Shakespeare, too. It’s wonderfully dramatic, Johnny.’

Anita brought some of her favourite books with her. ‘I like the adventure books’, she told Johnny, ‘but I enjoy other, softer ones too.
What Katy Did
is my great favourite, and
Black Beauty
.’

The weather and the blackout combined forced them indoors early that winter, but one day when they were walking home from school together, Annie said, ‘Wonder
what Christmas will be like, Johnny?’

He had been pushing the thought of a Christmas away from home to the back of his mind whenever it presented itself, which was quite often lately. Now he looked at her and, realizing she was in the same boat as he was, said, ‘Not too bad, I reckon. We’ll be on holiday from school. Can go into Bushton, I suppose, and have a look round. It don’t seem a bad town. Not like London though.’

‘What did you use to do at Christmas-time, Johnny?’

He sighed deeply. ‘Have a good nosh-up. Me mum makes the best Christmas puds for miles around. Then there was the mince-pies, and a chicken bursting with stuffing. Me dad always brings in a bottle or two for Christmas Day, and me and me brothers was always allowed to have a drop then. That’s the only time. To tell you the truth, Annie, I don’t like it much, but I never told ’em that. And we always play games in the afternoon. Me dad has a kip and when he wakes up me aunts and uncles and cousins come round and we play murder and blind-man’s-buff and pork and beans. Then we have tea and pull the crackers and wear funny hats and play sitting-down games like snakes-and-ladders and things.’ He paused for breath, and when she didn’t speak he said, ‘What do you do?’

She seemed to be gazing into space and not listening, but after a moment she said, ‘Go to church on Christmas morning with Mummy and Daddy if I’m home, and in the school chapel if I’m not. We usually have a chicken and roast potatoes, sometimes we have a turkey. I don’t like Christmas pudding so I just have mince-pies and cream,
then afterwards we go for a walk to digest it all. We don’t usually have crackers, Mummy thinks they’re common, but I went out to tea once on Boxing Day and they had crackers. They were
beautiful,
Johnny, much too pretty to pull. They were red and gold and silver. I smoothed mine out afterwards and took it back to school with me next term. And they had some lovely presents inside, and paper crowns and whistles and flutes. We had a fine time that Boxing Day, but my friend moved soon after – went abroad to live.’

‘That was bad luck, Annie. Must be awful having Christmas at school though. I’m wondering if I can’t go home for it actually, and if I can would you like to come too? It’d be all right with me mum, I know.’

‘Johnny, that is nice of you. We’d … better wait and see, hadn’t we? I mean, we don’t know yet what sort of plans have been made.’

Neither Johnny’s nor Anita’s parents had been to visit them yet. Billy Green’s mum came one Saturday and afterwards Billy talked about when he was going home.

‘But you won’t go ’til the war’s over, will you?’ Johnny asked him.

‘Might do,’ he said cockily. ‘We
was
talking about it. Me mum says there’s not much happening and London’s as safe as anywhere, she reckons.’