Tuppence To Spend (36 page)

‘No, I suppose not. But see, what I felt when I got there and see them flowers there, I thought – I’m not even any use to her now, I can’t even take her a few flowers. I was never any good to her when she was alive and I’m no bloody good now. I don’t blame your missus, Tommy. I’m glad someone’s been keeping an eye on Nora. But it oughter bin
me
,’ he said, banging his fist down on the table so that their tankards rattled. ‘
I
oughter bin taking her flowers all these months. And I never did. I never even went near it. I just – left her there.’ His voice ended on a bleak note and he repeated the words in a whisper. ‘I just
left
her there.’

Tommy stared at him. ‘But that weren’t your fault, mate. What time have you had? You’ve been working all hours. And there’s been the blackout. You couldn’t go ferreting about in the churchyard in the blackout. I dunno when you think you
could’ve
taken flowers, not that there’s even been any flowers to
take
till the past few weeks. That’s why my Freda took it on. She knew you couldn’t manage it.’

That wasn’t strictly true. What Freda had actually said
was that she was surprised Dan Hodges couldn’t find a minute or two to visit his wife’s grave, and if he couldn’t be bothered, well then, she would. But Tommy saw no reason to tell Dan that.

‘Yeah, well, I’m glad she did,’ Dan said, surprising him. ‘It oughter bin me – and it
will
be me, from now on – but I’m glad someone took an interest. At least she knows someone cares a bit.’

‘She knows you care too,’ Tommy said quietly. ‘If she knows anything, Dan, she knows that. And she’s proud of you.’

Dan snorted. ‘There ain’t nothing to be proud of about me. It was a bad day for Nora when she took up with me, Tom, a bad day. I was never no good to her and I’m no good to the boys now. I’m just bloody useless.’ He stared into his tankard. ‘Bloody useless.’

There was a short silence. Then Tommy said carefully, ‘I reckon it’s time you went out to see that boy of yours, Dan. Young Sammy, out at Bridge End. He must wonder why you don’t go out. The other dads do, when they gets the chance. Frank Budd goes on his bike.’

‘Sammy! He won’t hardly know me.’

‘No,’ Tommy said, suddenly losing patience, ‘he won’t, not if you leave it much longer. But he won’t forget he’s
got
a dad, Dan. He won’t forget you exist. And he’ll want to see you, it stands to reason. Boys
want
their dads. They
need
’em. Look how those two nippers of Frank Budd’s follow him round when they’re home, look how he’s taught them to box and all. And one day this war’s going to be over and Sammy’ll have to come home. You don’t want him thinking you’re a stranger, do you? You don’t want him not knowing who you are then.’

Dan stared at him. Then he got up, so suddenly that his chair scraped backwards along the floor and almost toppled over into the sawdust. He lifted his glass and drank the last few drops, then banged it back down on the table.

‘I’ll be seeing you, Tommy Vickers,’ he said gruffly and turned towards the door. He dragged it open and blundered through, almost knocking over two customers who were just coming in. They protested, but he ignored them and thrust his way past. Tommy half rose to his feet but then sank back.

Well, I suppose it had to be said, he thought, swishing around the last half-inch of beer in his glass. But I dunno why it was me had to say it and I dunno if it’ll do any good. By the look on Dan Hodges’ face it won’t. It’ll just make things worse.

He sighed deeply. He’d been slowly feeling more and more sorry for Dan over the past few months. But you couldn’t deny it, the man was his own worst enemy. He didn’t help himself at all.

As the weather improved, Sammy took to wandering off, sometimes by himself, sometimes with one of his friends or in a group. He had quite a collection of friends now – partly, she knew, because of Silver and partly because Terry’s boxing lessons had given him the ability to look after himself against bullies. Ruth still couldn’t help laughing when she thought of the day Dotty Dewar had come to the house to complain that Sammy had given her Ernie a black eye.

‘Well, I dare say he deserved it,’ Ruth had said. ‘Your Ernie’s always been a bully. Serves him right to get a taste of his own medicine.’

Dotty Dewar drew in a deep breath of indignation. Her hennaed hair looked as if it could do with a wash, and her loose, floppy bosoms threatened to spill out of her grubby blouse. She came a step closer, her face reddening. ‘My Ern never hurt no one. He wouldn’t hurt a
fly
. It’s that evacuee of yours, always causing trouble, he is. He’s known for it.’

‘And he’s known for bullying boys like your Ern too, I suppose,’ Ruth said. ‘I’d have thought a big boy like that
would be able to look after himself. Have you actually
seen
my Sammy, Dotty?’

‘I don’t need to see him. Ern’s told me what happened and that’s good enough for me. Bleeding like a stuck pig, he was, when he came home. And his eye, well, I’ve never seen an eye come up like his done, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not damaged permanent.’

‘Well, let’s hope it teaches him a lesson, then,’ Ruth said. ‘He’s been tormenting the little ones for too long. It’s time someone stood up to him.’

The woman stared at her. ‘Is that all you got to say? Aren’t you going to do nothing about it?’

‘What do you want me to do? Ask the butcher for a nice steak to put on it? Look, Dotty, if I was your Ern I’d be ashamed to go running home to mummy saying that a little boy like my Sammy had bashed him. Why, he’s twice Sammy’s size!’

‘He’s not. He can’t be. My Ern says—’

‘Well, here he comes,’ Ruth said, hearing Sammy’s footsteps running down the lane. ‘You can see him for yourself, and then maybe you’ll go home and tell Ern to stop bullying boys smaller than him, for one thing, and not to go crying to you when one of them turns round and gives him what for.’

Dotty turned and followed her gaze. A second later Sammy came round the corner. He stopped when he saw them and Ruth felt a grin break out over her face.

Sammy was wearing grey flannel shorts and a grey shirt, both clean on that morning. His fair curls were glinting in the sun and his blue eyes shone with innocence. He was carrying a bunch of primroses.

‘I got these for you, Auntie,’ he said as he saw her. ‘There were lots down the railway cutting.’ He glanced uncertainly at Dotty Dewar and hesitated.

‘This is Ern’s mum, Sammy,’ Ruth said pleasantly. ‘You’ve been fighting with him, she says.’

Sammy looked indignant. ‘He was hitting Muriel Simmons. Terry told me boys ought to look after girls so I told him to stop, but he wouldn’t. And then he said he’d hit me.’

‘But he didn’t, did he?’ Dotty Dewar said belligerently. She had looked taken aback by the sight of Sammy, who was indeed only half the size of her big, burly Ernie, but now she stepped forward, raising her arms threateningly. You can see who Ern takes after, Ruth thought. ‘You hit him first.’

‘Only because I ducked, so he missed me.’ Sammy looked at his right hand and Ruth saw that the knuckles were faintly bruised. ‘I only hit him once. He fell over then, so I just took Muriel back to the vicarage and he run off.’

Ruth looked at Dotty and smiled. ‘I think you’d better go home, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Tell your boy to stop hitting girls. Tell him to pick on someone his own size.’ She looked at Sammy again and couldn’t help laughing. ‘Mind you, I don’t expect he will – not when even a little chap like my Sammy can knock him down!’

Dotty gave her a furious glare and turned on her heel. She stalked off down the garden path and out into the lane. Then she wheeled round and shouted at them both.

‘You’ll hear more about this, see if you don’t! I’ll go and tell the teacher. I’ll tell the policeman. That evacuee of yours is a devil, for all he looks so pretty and innocent with his yellow curls and his big blue eyes. A
devil
, that’s what he is!’

Ruth waved at her and the woman snorted and strode away out of sight. Ruth and Sammy looked at each other.

‘Well,’ Ruth said, ‘so you’ve been standing up for little Muriel Simmons, have you?’

‘He was hitting her,’ Sammy said. ‘He was trying to get her sweets off her. Anyway, me and her’s friends. I said she could come and see Silver.’

‘And so she can,’ Ruth said. ‘You bring her whenever
you like, and bring her sister as well. They lost their mother a little while ago, just like you, so they need someone to look after them and cheer them up.’ She gave him a little hug. ‘Come on indoors now, Sammy, and let’s put those flowers in water. And then we’ll take some of them to the churchyard, shall we? I’d like to put some on my dad’s grave.’

Sammy spent a good deal of time at the vicarage, with Tim and Keith Budd and the two little Simmons girls. Stella was older and inclined to be bossy, but since the incident with Ernie Dewar, Muriel seemed to look up to Sammy as her protector. He had never had anyone look up to him before and it was a heady feeling.

‘We’re going for a picnic,’ Muriel informed him one afternoon. ‘Mrs Mudge is making two sorts of sandwiches. One lot will have Marmite in, and the others will have condensed milk, only she says we’ve got to eat the Marmite ones first or they’ll taste horrible.’

‘But Marmite already does taste horrible,’ Sammy said. Ruth had tried several times to get him to eat this delicacy but he couldn’t. It seemed to burn his tongue and he didn’t like the colour either. It was black. You couldn’t put black stuff on your bread.

‘The condensed milk makes it taste horrible,’ Muriel explained. ‘It’s too sweet, see. Are you coming on the picnic too?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t been invited.’ Ruth had explained to him that you had to be invited to people’s parties or picnics. You couldn’t just go along. Sammy, who had never been to parties or picnics anyway, invited or not, had resigned himself never to being asked to either event, and his reply was no more than a simple statement of fact.

‘Well, I’m inviting you,’ Muriel said, as if it ought to have been obvious. ‘And you could bring Silver too,’ she added.

‘Bring Silver?’

‘Yes. He’d like it. He could fly about in the trees.’

‘But what if he flies away?’ Sammy asked doubtfully.

‘He comes when you call him. I’ve seen him.’

This was true. Sammy had only to click his fingers and whistle when Silver was flying free in the room, and Silver would fly straight to him.

‘I don’t think Auntie Ruth—’

‘She wouldn’t mind,’ said Muriel, who had met Ruth just three times. ‘Anyway, she’s at work and he’s lonely when he’s on his own. You said so.’ She gazed at Sammy. ‘You want to come on the picnic, don’t you?’

Sammy couldn’t tell her how much he longed to go on the picnic. Even the thought of Marmite sandwiches couldn’t put him off. All the same, he had a niggling feeling that Ruth would not want him to take Silver and he still wasn’t quite sure that Silver wouldn’t fly away once he got out into the open air. But Muriel was right, he did always come when Sammy clicked his fingers. And if he took along plenty of sunflower seeds …

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring him.’

‘Go and get him, then.’ Muriel was not going to let him off the hook. ‘Go and get him now. You’ll have to hurry because Stella’s helping make the sandwiches and we’re going as soon as they’re ready.’

‘But Auntie Ruth’s at work – I won’t be able to ask her.’

‘That won’t matter,’ Muriel said. ‘She’d say yes, so it’ll be all right.’ The words ‘
she wouldn’t be able to say no
’ hung in the air between them.

Sammy gave her a hunted look and bit his lip. ‘I ought to ask …’

Muriel turned away. ‘I’m going in to see if the sandwiches are ready and then we’re going. We’re going down your lane,’ she added. ‘We’ll meet you at the gate. If you’re not there we’ll go on.’

Without you. She might as well have said it, loud and
clear. Sammy looked after her for a moment, wishing he could be as certain that Auntie Ruth wouldn’t mind him taking Silver. But he could take the stand as well – Tim would help him carry it – and Silver would be tethered to it all the time. He wouldn’t be able to get away. And Sammy was sure he’d enjoy being out in the open air, all among the trees.

He turned and ran back to the cottage as fast as he could. He couldn’t risk being left behind. This might be the only picnic he would ever be invited to.

‘Sammy hasn’t heard from his dad in the last couple of days, has he?’ Joyce asked when Ruth called in after work. ‘There’s been some terrible news from April Grove. Mrs Budd wrote and told the vicar, and Mrs Mudge passed it on to me in the post office. Some of the boys that were still there had been making a den or something in a bombed-out house. From what I can make out, they were collecting shrapnel and things, the way boys do, and picked up a live bomb as well. It went off, and one of them lost a leg and one was killed.’

Ruth stared at her. ‘Oh, that’s awful! Actually in April Grove, was it?’

‘No, in another street somewhere, but one of the boys came from there, I don’t know which one, and they all lived close by.’

‘How dreadful!’ Ruth exclaimed. ‘Their
poor
mothers! It doesn’t bear thinking of … April Grove. If my Sammy hadn’t been evacuated he could have been one of those boys.’ She shuddered. ‘I’m so thankful he’s out here with me. I just hope that father of his has the sense to leave him here – though he doesn’t seem to show much interest, so I can’t imagine him wanting the poor kiddy back.’ She glanced out of the window, to the boys playing in the garden. ‘Where is he?’

‘Oh, he said little Muriel Simmons asked him to go for a
picnic with them – her and her sister and the two Budd boys. I said it would be all right. You don’t mind, do you?’

‘Mind? Of course I don’t! I’m pleased to see him making friends. You know he gave young Ernie Dewar a nosebleed for teasing Muriel, don’t you? Proper little knight in shining armour. She follows him everywhere now. I don’t suppose Sammy’s ever had anyone looking up to him like that.’

‘Well, I don’t think they’re going very far. Just down to the woods, he said. I dare say they’ll be back by six, wanting their tea just the same as usual. Picnics always seem to make youngsters hungry, no matter how many sandwiches they take with them.’