Tin Hats and Gas Masks (8 page)

Back at school on Monday Annie came in for a lot of attention.

‘What have you done to your arm? How did you do it?’ Both children became the centre of interest when they told of their adventure to an admiring audience in the playground.

‘Were you injured too, Johnny?’ someone asked.

‘Just a few bruises and scratches really,’ he said, in what he hoped sounded a ‘making light of it’ voice.

‘Gosh. A good job you’d eaten your meal before the bomb fell.’

‘Annie was just biting into her éclair and Mum and me hadn’t started ours. What a waste,’ he said. ‘You should have seen the size of them. Huge, weren’t they, Annie?’

‘And we didn’t get to see the show either,’ Annie joined in. ‘But I guess we were all lucky not to be killed.’

‘Was it a direct hit, Anita?’

‘No. Wouldn’t have stood much chance then. The bomb fell further along the road, Johnny’s mum said afterwards. She wasn’t injured, well a few bruises and cuts, because she was sort of thrown around away from where we were and we got separated. They took us two in one ambulance and Mrs Bookman in another.’

‘And she was in a different part of the hospital from us,’ Johnny added, ‘but we didn’t know this at the time. We thought she was still at the restaurant – buried underneath the debris,’ he finished dramatically, ‘so we went back to search for her.’

‘Gosh.’

‘Did you really? Weren’t you afraid?’

The bell broke up the playground session, and Annie and Johnny returned to their respective classrooms, glorying in their brief moments of celebrity prestige.

The Dovers were also impressed and made a great deal of fuss of both children. Mrs Dover especially, who later in the week suggested she should take them to Bushton on Saturday.

‘We might be able to lose her for a while,’ Annie said later. ‘We must make a plan. Tell you what, on Saturday you follow exactly what I say and do and just go along with it. OK, Johnny?’

‘OK. We don’t want her tagging along. We could just as easily go in on our own anyway.’

‘But she wants to give us a treat, Johnny. It’s a kind thought and, well, I expect we can manage to dodge spending
all
the time with her. Have to do what she wants
for some of it, I expect. Leave it with me and I’ll work something out.’

Johnny was content to do this. He realized that Annie had the kind of brain that coped with this sort of thing. She sorted out the details whereas he took a chance, and often it backfired on him, like the morning of the post office fiasco.

They went in on the ten o’clock bus on Saturday morning, and Annie whispered to Johnny to be patient for the first half-hour and she was sure they could then get away on their own. After a sedate walk along by the river Annie suggested to Mrs Dover that she might enjoy a cup of tea in the small café there. ‘I should like to treat you to that,’ she said, smiling at her foster-mum, and secure in the knowledge that, in spite of losing her purse in the bombing, today her pocket-money had arrived and before she left Mrs Bookman had given both her and Johnny half a crown each. She had not taken all her money to London with her in any case, and she looked appealingly at Mrs Dover (she had never been able to bring herself to call her ‘auntie’ either) and added, ‘It won’t be much fun for you to have to be with us all the time. I expect you’d like half an hour’s break and we’ll be fine just having a look round.’

‘Well I suppose you can,’ Mrs Dover said when they were in the café, ‘but be careful of the roads now, and be sure and be back here by—’

‘By lunch-time,’ Annie interrupted swiftly. ‘That will give you a chance to do any shopping and have a rest, won’t it?’

They had brought sandwiches with them which were
going to be eaten by the river. ‘I promise we won’t be late. We’ll be here by half past one.’

‘By one o clock, Anita,’ Mrs Dover said firmly, ‘and don’t get up to any mischief, mind.’

They left her drinking her tea and, once outside, skipped joyfully across the grass and down to the riverbank.

‘What shall we do now?’ Annie said. ‘We’ve two whole hours.’

‘Let’s have a boat out. I’ll row and you can sit and do nothing but nurse your plastered arm.’

Annie giggled. ‘It would be fun. Tell you what, let’s have a look round the town first. There’s lots of nice shops and an amusement arcade, and if we have a boat now Mrs Dover might see us when she leaves the café.’

‘Good thinking, gal,’ Johnny was in one of his showing-off moods. ‘I can get me mum a card – a nice picture of the river. Poor old Mum, she was as worried about us as we were about her last week.’

‘Yes, we mucked that up properly between us, didn’t we, Johnny? It’s all right now, thinking about it, but it was very scary at the time.’

They went into the amusement arcade and Annie changed two shillings into pennies and halfpennies. She gave Johnny a shilling’s worth. ‘Here you are. When we’ve spent this we’ll do something else, shall we?’

‘I’ve got some of me own,’ he said.

‘Go on, I’ve changed it into coppers now.’

They had a go on almost everything and when they won and a shower of money tipped into the chute they gathered it gleefully, divided it and spent it again.

Eventually they emerged into the High Street and wandered along looking in the shop-windows. Annie pressed her nose closely against one which held a fascinating array of objects; jewellery, toys, ornaments, flimsy georgette scarves, paintings, crystal balls.…

They went inside and although it was quite small it was an Aladdin’s cave of treasure. Annie seemed drawn to the jewellery. She tried on a bracelet, a ring, fingered a snaky necklace, and when Johnny joined her he picked up the ring, a silver band with a deep ruby-coloured stone set in it. ‘That’s lovely,’ he said.

‘Yes, it is.’ She held out her hand for him to give it to her, but instead he awkwardly took hold of her fingers and tried to put the ring on. She giggled nervously. ‘It’s the wrong finger, Johnny, it won’t fit that one. This one’s thinner.’ Together they put it on the third finger of her left hand.

Johnny swallowed loudly. ‘D’you like that ring, Annie?’

‘Mmm. It’s pretty, isn’t it? It looks right.’

He let her hand go abruptly and fished about in his pocket for his money. ‘I’ll buy it for you,’ he said. ‘How much is it?’

The shopkeeper, a wizened little old man had been watching them discreetly. Now he moved forward and Johnny said, ‘How much is this ring, please?’

‘Half a crown.’

‘Right. We’ll take it.’ Johnny handed over the money, and they walked out and into the bright sunshine of the High Street again.

‘Gosh, thanks Johnny.’ Annie looked down at the ring
gleaming now on her finger. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘It means you’re my girl, Annie. No messing about with other boys now.’

‘I won’t, Johnny. I like being your girl.’

They returned to the riverside and asked the man in the boat-hut how much it cost to hire a rowing boat for half an hour.

‘Can you row?’

‘Yes,’ Johnny replied.

‘Not safe for her to go out with an arm in plaster. No.’

‘But I’ll be rowing the boat—’

‘I said no. Now be off with you.’

Disconsolately they turned away and Johnny muttered, ‘Silly old bugger. He’s no right to stop us. We can swim and anyway I’m not going to turn the bloody boat over.’

‘Johnny, why do you always swear when you’re cross or excited or upset? I wish you didn’t – it sounds horrible.’

‘Poo bloody poo.’

In spite of herself Annie started to laugh, and within minutes they were both doubled up with laughter.

Johnny recovered first. ‘You’re so funny when you’re acting posh Annie. It’s natural to swear if you’re angry with something or someone, and it doesn’t bother you really. It’s only what other people think that worries you. I can tell.’

‘Well, if I’m your girl,’ she glanced at the ring on her finger, ‘then I’m entitled to an opinion. It’s true what you said, that it doesn’t offend me personally – sometimes I find it funny, but sometimes it’s embarrassing. Especially when other people are there and it just looks as if you’re
showing off then. I get embarrassed as much for you as for me, Johnny.’

‘OK. But don’t start nagging me. Mostly you’re a good sport, Annie, but jest because you went to good schools once, don’t think you can lord it over us as didn’t. Come on, we’re wasting our time. If we want to go on the river before we have to meet old Mother Dover then we’ll have to be quick.’

‘But we can’t go – the old boy won’t let us have a boat.’

‘Who says? He can’t watch them all, Annie. Now you do just as I say and we’ll have a boat on the river this afternoon – you’ll see.’

‘What are you going to do, Johnny?’

‘Nothing very bad. Nick a boat for half an hour. Now, can you keep him talking, about anything, for five minutes?’

She nodded.

‘Right, that’ll give me the chance to grab a boat. Look, there’s a couple just coming in there. Now while they’re talking to him when they get off you be there too, and you get him back into his hut, or at least with his back to the boats see, and then, after five minutes, walk along the bank that way.’ He pointed upstream from the boatman’s hut, ‘and I’ll be along there waiting to pick you up.’

‘You can row, can’t you, Johnny?’

‘ ’Course I can, silly. I wouldn’t think of doing it otherwise. Me and me dad used to always have a boat out on Sunday mornings in the park.’

He left her walking towards the hut, just as the couple in the boat were pulling into the side.

‘
Now
, Johnny,’ he said to himself when he saw Annie engage the boatman in conversation and start walking towards the hut with him. He was hidden behind a nearby tree and within a minute he had the boat untied and was pulling away from the bank.

He had told Annie the truth when he said he could row, but he had not mentioned that his father or his brothers had always done the bulk of the work, letting him take over for a short while each trip. It was tricky at first, and he needed to get a good way along before he picked Annie up – no use doing it within sight of that old blighter back there.

All went well and when he thought he had travelled far enough Johnny drew in to the side and let the oars rest. He had chosen a good spot, just beyond a weeping-willow tree, which effectively hid the little craft. From here he could watch for her and be ready to pull away once she was safely in the boat.

She came after a while, sauntering along the bank in a casual way and Johnny silently applauded her calm. He whistled softly and saw her look around and hesitate.

‘Annie,’ he called in a low voice, ‘here.’

She ducked beneath the branches of the tree and quickly clambered into the boat. Johnny rowed smartly away.

They hugged the bank for a while longer, then Johnny moved towards the middle of the river. ‘We’re far enough away now, I think,’ he said. ‘We should just look like two dots from the hut. Even your plaster won’t show up much from this distance.’

Annie looked at it, covered now with signatures and
good-luck messages from her classmates.

‘You think of everything, Johnny. Have you done something like this before?’

‘No, ’course not. Yes, once me and me brothers did,’ he remembered. ‘But I was quite small then and didn’t have much to do with it. But they had to take me with them because they were supposed to be looking after me that morning.’

‘Careful, Johnny.’ At Annie’s sudden cry he pulled on the oar and managed to miss the other boat, who also took evasive action.

‘Think we’ll get into the side a bit,’ he said, ‘but not too much because you can get stuck that way.’ From somewhere in his subnconscious memory he recalled hearing his dad say that. It stood him in good stead now and made Annie gaze at him with admiration.

‘How far are we going, Johnny?’ She looked at her watch. ‘We’ve three-quarters of an hour before we meet Mrs Dover. And we have to return the boat.’

‘We’ll leave it somewhere along the bank. Maybe where I picked you up,’ he said. ‘No sense in letting the grumpy old geezer see us now. If he’d let us hire it properly he’d have been paid properly. We’ll go on a bit, shall we? It won’t take us long to get back.’

They pulled over to the side and Johnny manoeuvred the small craft well. It was all right once you got into the rhythm of the thing, he thought, but it was distracting when they talked. He lost concentration then and they either drifted or started to swing round.

Annie trailed her good hand in the water. ‘It’s beautiful
out here, isn’t it, Johnny. Wish we could stay all day. If we’d come on our own we could have brought our sandwiches and had a picnic on the water.’

‘We’ll do it another time, shall we? We break up from school next month and can come in more often. Suppose we’d better be getting back now because we’ll have to walk along to the café from where we leave the boat.’ He started to turn the craft round too quickly and almost collided with another, then the little boat went three times round in circles. Eventually he got over to the bank, but it was the opposite side to where he wanted to be.

‘We’ll shoot across as soon as there’s less traffic,’ he said, ‘then we’ll be all right.’

Johnny was sweating by the time he had manoeuvred the boat across the water. He let the oars rest for a few moments, then he grinned at Annie.

‘I’m starving,’ he said, ‘hope Mrs Dover packed lots of food.’

He started rowing again but he was too close to the bank, so using one oar to push himself away he shot out into mid-river.

Annie laughed. ‘I can’t wait until my arm’s better so I can take a turn rowing with you,’ she said. ‘You look so powerful.’

‘It’s easy once you get the knack.’ Johnny decided that now they were on the home stretch he’d really dazzle her. He had been a bit bothered getting from one side to the other, but rowing downstream like this now was child’s play.

‘Hold tight,’ he said, ‘and we’ll go really fast for a few yards before we pull into the side.’