Tuppence To Spend (40 page)

‘That’s right. Turned up all of a sudden. I think he’d decided to come on the spur of the moment, straight after work.’

‘What’s he like, then?’

‘I don’t really know,’ Ruth said thoughtfully. ‘He’s a big man, like Reg Corner only a bit older, of course, and as dark as a gipsy – nothing like Sammy. And yet – well, there was something about him, a sort of look in his eyes, as if he was just a little boy inside, a little boy like Sammy who just needed to be loved …’

She stopped and Jane gave her a sharp glance. Ruth hesitated, coloured a little and went on, ‘I can’t say I took to him. Not the sort of man you’d want to cross. Mind you, I
did tell him a few home truths, said little boys needed to be loved and looked after properly, not just fed and washed and sent to school. Trouble is, I think he thought I meant I wanted to take Sammy away from him. I was half afraid he was going to tell Sammy to pack his bags – not that he’s got any to pack – and go with him.’

‘D’you think he’d do that? Take Sammy back to Portsmouth?’

‘Well, he didn’t then, did he, and I dare say it’ll be another six months before he shows up again, so I don’t think we’ve got too much to worry about … It’s not as if he seemed all that fond of the boy. They were like two strangers, didn’t know what to say to each other.’ She poured the tea and put the two cups on the table.

Jane sipped thoughtfully. ‘It’s a funny situation all round. The mother dying, and the brother being – where is he? Borstal? – and the father hardly wanting to be bothered. It sounds to me as if you’ve got Sammy for the duration.’

‘That’s what I think. And I’m not worried about that at all. It’s what happens afterwards – when the war’s over. Whenever
that’s
going to be – some people seem to think it’s going to go on for years and years. And there’s others that think we’re going to be invaded any minute, and have to live under the Germans, like all those poor souls in Poland. What’ll happen to Sammy then, Jane? What’ll happen to
any
of us?’

‘I don’t know, Ruth. But what I think is that we’ve just got to carry on as normal, as best we can. It’s no use worrying how long the war’s going to take, or whether we’re going to be invaded. There’s nothing we can do about those things and we’ve got enough to worry about anyway. What we’ve got to do is look after our own bit of the country. Keep life going at home. It’s what our boys are fighting for, after all.’

They sat quietly for a moment, drinking their tea and
staring into an unimaginable future. Then Ruth stretched out a hand to her sister.

‘You’re right, Jane. And we’ve got to stop having silly squabbles. That makes us just as bad as them, in a way. I’m sorry I took offence.’

‘And I’m sorry I gave it.’ Jane squeezed her hand. ‘I know it’s been a sadness to you, not having children, and it was unkind of me to say what I did.’ She touched the paper bag on the table. ‘You’d better put these eggs in a bowl in the larder. I want the bag back for George’s sandwiches tomorrow, he’s going to be working right up the far fields and won’t get home for his dinner.’

‘And I’ve got to get off to the hospital. We’re full right up at the moment with some of the poor souls that were bombed in Southampton. They’ve patched them up and sent them out here to be looked after.’

Ruth got up and found a bowl for the eggs. The two sisters went out of the door and along the lane together, parting at the corner. They paused for a moment.

‘You’ll let me know the minute you hear any news from Terry, won’t you?’ Ruth said quietly. ‘And if you need me any time, just let me know. You know I’ll do anything I can to help.’

Jane nodded. Her eyes were full of fear again and her lips trembled a little. With an obvious effort she bit back her tears and gave a shaky smile.

‘I will, Ruthie. And you look after yourself too – you and that little boy. He’s a fine little chap – you’ve done wonders with him since he came.’

He’s done wonders for me, too, Ruth thought as she hurried across the green to the Cottage Hospital. I just hope his father doesn’t decide to take him back to Portsmouth. I don’t know what Silver and me would do without him now and that’s the truth.

As May drew on the news grew worse and worse. Liverpool had been virtually cut off by a Blitz that lasted for seven days. London, which might have thought itself to have suffered the worst of all during the terrible nights just after Christmas when St Paul’s had stood alone in a sea of flames, endured worse still when over five hundred bombers came in one night, leaving the city in a strange, wintry darkness beneath a pall of sullen smoke. Westminster Abbey, the House of Commons, the Tower of London, the British Museum – the list of places hit read almost like a visitors’ guidebook. And, as always, there were the thousands of homeless, the misery of people who had emerged from their shelters to find that they had lost everything.

Lizzie, now training in the hospital in Southampton, was almost frantic over Alec. The Atlantic convoys had been suffering heavy casualties, harassed by German U-boats, and she lived in terror of receiving the dreaded telegram that would tell her she was a widow. It was useless for her friends to tell her that there were still plenty of ships that had not been sunk; like her mother, she was sick with fear, both for her husband and her brother. When news came of the sinking of HMS
Hood
, the world’s biggest battlecruiser, she was convinced that nobody could be safe, and even the retaliatory sinking of the German
Bismarck
a few days later failed to comfort her.

‘Only three men survived, out of nearly fifteen hundred,’ she wept when she came home for her half-day and sat in
the farm kitchen with her mother hovering anxiously over her. ‘
Three
. It’s so
cruel
. And a great big ship like that – what chance has my Alec got, in his little cargo boat?’

Jane tried to comfort her, but she was full of her own fear for Terry. News had come that the Germans were bombing Crete and, following hard on that, of the invasion by thousands of paratroopers. The RAF had left the island and the soldiers who had already been hurried out of Greece had few weapons left. It looked like another defeat.

‘They say the Navy will get them out,’ she said to Lizzie. ‘I just hope they’re in time. And I hope to God our Terry’s one that gets away – that’s if he’s still alive at all.’

They sat together in silence for a few minutes, their arms round each other, clinging to the fear they shared and the hope they strove for. The same thought was in both their minds. So many men were being killed. So many men would never come home. How could they dare to believe – what right did they have even to
hope
– that their own two men, so dearly loved, would be among the lucky ones?

‘I know it seems selfish,’ Jane said at last, ‘but we’ve got to hope all the same. It’s the only way we can carry on.’

Lizzie nodded. ‘I know. Keep the home fires burning and all that. But – oh, Mum – it’s so hard. It’s so horribly,
horribly
hard.’

At the beginning of June, exactly a year after the evacuation of Dunkirk, nearly twenty thousand men were rescued from the beaches of Crete. It was another harsh defeat, made worse by the fact that a further twelve hundred were left behind to be taken prisoner. To the relief of everyone at Bridge End, however, Terry was among the rescued.

He arrived home towards the end of the month, trudging along the lane with his kitbag over his shoulder one sunny afternoon, weary and shaken by his experiences. Sammy, walking home from school with Tim and Keith Budd, was
the first to see him and ran shouting with excitement to spread the news.

‘It’s our Terry!’ he yelled, bursting through the kitchen door. ‘It’s our Terry, he’s back, he’s home, he’s coming down the lane
now
! Auntie Ruth, where are you? Terry’s back.
Terry
’s back!’

Ruth was upstairs, changing out of her nurse’s uniform. She came running down the stairs, still pulling her pink blouse over her head.

‘Terry? Are you sure?’

‘Yes, it’s Terry, it’s Terry, we played football, he showed me how to box.’ Sammy was hopping from foot to foot in his impatience. ‘Come on, Auntie Ruth, or he’ll have gone past. Tim and Keith are keeping him for me.’

‘You make him sound like half a pound of sausages,’ Ruth said, half laughing as she ran out of the door. She paused for a moment, staring at the tall young soldier standing at the gate, talking to the two Budd boys. ‘Oh, you’re right, it
is
Terry. Oh, it’s so good to see you.’ She ran forward and flung her arms around him. ‘Oh,
Terry
– we didn’t think – we weren’t sure – your poor mother’s been
frantic
.’

‘Hello, Auntie Ruth.’ He hugged her for a moment, oblivious of the disgusted stares of the Budd brothers. ‘I know – we couldn’t let anyone know – but we’re here now.
I’m
here now. And they’ve given us all a couple of weeks’ leave before we go back to camp, how about that? Not that they’ve got a camp for us to go back to at the moment, if you want the truth of it,’ he added with the wicked grin she remembered so well. ‘There’s quite a crowd of us.’

‘Well, I’m more pleased than I can say to see you back safe and sound,’ Ruth declared. ‘But you’d better get on home and see your mother straight away. If she hears you’ve wasted time standing here chewing the rag with me …’ She turned to Tim and Keith. ‘And you two had
better get back to the vicarage. Tell Mr Beckett the news. Come along, Sammy.’

‘Where?’ Sammy asked. He had hold of Terry’s hand and didn’t look as if he meant to let go. ‘Where are we going, Auntie Ruth?’

‘Why up to the farm, of course, with Terry. You don’t suppose I’m going to go back tamely indoors, not with the best thing that’s happened to us since – since …’ She cast about in her mind for a comparison and her eye fell on Sammy once again. ‘The best thing that’s happened since you came,’ she ended softly. ‘That’s what this is. So come on, Sammy – I want to see our Jane’s face when she sees her wandering boy come home again. It’s going to be a picture, I reckon – a real picture.’

Jane’s face was, indeed, a picture and Ruth wished she’d had a camera to record it. As she watched the incredulous joy break out she felt a pang of sadness, remembering how she had felt when Jack came home from his trips, and how she would have felt if he had come home that last time, instead of dying thousands of miles from home.

‘Well, I’ll be getting back home, then,’ she said abruptly, overwhelmed by the sudden pain. ‘You’ll want to be on your own.’

‘Don’t be so silly!’ Jane put out a hand and caught her sleeve. ‘You’re not going anywhere. We’re going to have a celebration, that’s what! I’ll tell George to kill a chicken – there’s one of the old hens hasn’t laid for a month, she’ll be a bit tough but I’ll simmer her nice and slow – and there’s plenty of veg in the garden, and I’ve got some nice bottled fruit for afters. And while we’re getting it ready Terry can tell us all about Crete. I knew you were there, you know,’ she told her son. ‘I knew you must be in Crete, from the news. I just didn’t know whether you’d got away or not—’ Her mouth began to work suddenly and her voice shook, then broke with tears. ‘Oh, Terry – Terry –’

‘There, there,’ he said, taking her in his arms again. ‘It’s all right, Mum. Don’t cry now. I’m home, large as life and twice as ugly. And I’ll tell you what – by this time tomorrow you’ll be going on at me to tidy my room, just as if I’d never been away!’

‘I won’t.’ She wept against his khaki serge chest. ‘I’ll never go on at you again, I’m so glad to have you back. I just wish you didn’t have to go away again.’

‘Well, we needn’t think about that now,’ he said, detaching himself. ‘Though if I don’t get a cup of tea pretty soon, I might think about turning right round this minute. They looked after us properly in camp, you know, cups of tea in bed of a morning and whenever we wanted them during the day. What does a chap have to do to get one around here, that’s what I want to know!’

‘Oh, you are a fool!’ Jane hurried over to the sink and began pumping up water. ‘Go and find your father, he should be getting the cows in, and tell him I want that hen. Maybe we’d better have it tomorrow,’ she added as Terry went out into the yard. ‘It’ll take half the evening to cook. But I
would
like to have something special.’

‘I’ve got a tin of ham,’ Ruth said suddenly. ‘I’ve had it by me ever since Christmas. We can have that with a bit of lettuce and some of my early tomatoes from the greenhouse, and a cucumber. And there are a few strawberries coming ripe too.’ She got up briskly. ‘Sammy and me’ll go and get them straight away.’

‘And I’ll dig up some new potatoes,’ Jane nodded. ‘A nice salad, that’s what we’ll have. I’ll boil a few eggs as well.’ She looked out of the window. George had come out of the milking shed at Terry’s call and stood in the doorway, staring unbelievingly before breaking into a shout of joy and running to greet his son. ‘I’d begun to think this day would never come,’ she said softly. ‘I’d almost lost hope, Ruth.’

‘It just shows we’ve never got to lose hope,’ Ruth said
staunchly, and drew Sammy close against her side. I know he isn’t really my son, she thought, but I’d feel the same way if I thought I’d lost him. I know I’d feel just the same way.

It wasn’t quite so bad, Dan Hodges found, to be coming home to an empty house in the summer. With double summertime it was light until gone eleven at night, so however late he worked he still managed to get home in daylight. He could ride his bike to work, which saved on bus fares, and he liked riding home through the streets, trying not to think about the bomb-sites but noticing the gardens people had dug up to plant vegetables ‘for victory’. He even began to think of planting a few veg in his own back garden.

Dan had never thought about the garden before. Nora had liked pottering about out there, growing a few flowers, and he’d dug it over for her when she asked him, but she’d barely had time to see her plants grow up. Tommy Vickers had neat rows of lettuces and beans in his garden next door, and a few tomatoes strung between sticks, and Frank Budd had an allotment and could be seen every evening setting off with his fork and spade over his shoulder, but Dan hadn’t ever been interested. It was only since he’d been out to Bridge End that he’d started to think about it.