Under the Apple Tree (32 page)

almost impossible to read his words. He was welcoming

enough and shook her hand warmly, but he seemed shy and

wouldn’t look her full in the face, which made it even harder

to understand him. When he was followed in by Jenny and

Brian, the other two evacuees, the chatter became impossible

to follow and Judy’s initial optimism faded a little. She

sat looking at the table, scarred with many years of use,

while the conversation flowed about her unheard.

Dinner was toad-in-the-hole with cabbage and potatoes,

followed by rice pudding. Afterwards, she helped wash up

and then Sylvie took her upstairs to show her where she was

to sleep.

The room was the same size as the one downstairs, its

uneven walls distempered in a sunny yellow and with yellow

gingham curtains at the low window. There was a cupboard

in one corner and a chest of drawers. Against one wall were

two bunks, both neatly made with patchwork quilts spread

over them.

‘This is where me and Jenny sleep. My bed’s the bottom

one. But you’re going to sleep in it now, and I’m going to be

on the floor.’ A mattress had been laid under the window. It looked comfortable enough, and Sylvie knelt on it to lean on

the wide windowsill and gaze down into the garden. She

turned after a moment and looked enquiringly at her aunt,

and Judy realised she must have said something.

She pointed at her ears. ‘I didn’t hear you. Say it again.’

But Sylvie shrugged and shook her head, as if what she had

said wasn’t worth repeating.

Judy felt a familiar flash of irritation. This happened time

and time again. People made casual remarks but when they

were unheard, couldn’t be bothered to repeat them. It made

her feel even more cut off - as if she had no choice in what

she was allowed to hear, as if she didn’t matter. It made no

difference that on the occasions when someone did repeat

their casual remarks she thought herself that they weren’t

worth repeating - she just wanted to hear. She wanted to

hear everything - like other people. Like she had before. She

wanted to be able to make up her own mind about what was

worth hearing.

The irritation quickly faded, however. It wasn’t Sylvie’s

fault, and she’d been very good about talking directly to

Judy. She was pointing down into the garden now, saying

something about an apple tree. Judy knelt beside her and

found that she was gazing out into an orchard at the back of

the house. She gave a little gasp of delight.

The orchard contained a dozen or so trees, every one

smothered in blossom. A foam of pale pink and white

seemed to wash like waves on the seashore right up to the

walls of the house, reaching just below the window. Their

scent drifted in through the open window, filling the room

with delicate fragrance. Below them, revealed only in

glimpses, the grass was sprinkled with late daffodils and

Judy saw the cat, Bossy, who had been ejected from his

chair at dinnertime, slumbering in a corner, warmed by

sunlight.

Judy felt a warmth steal over her body and into her heart.

I’m going to be happy here, she thought. It was the right

thing to do. If I can get better anywhere, it will be here.

She gave her cousin a hug. ‘Show me the rest of the

farm,’ she said. ‘Show me everything.’

It was not until she experienced the peace of the countryside

that Judy realised just how much she had been affected by

the terror of the raids on Portsmouth.

For a few days, she just roamed about in a dream. The

weather stayed fine and after she had helped Mrs Sutton to

tidy the bedrooms and wash some of the everlasting supply

of dirty clothes from the children and Mr Sutton, she was

free to go outside and lift her face to the sunshine. Often,

she took a bowl of vegetables out into the garden and sat on

an old chair, preparing them, but more than that Mrs

Sutton refused to allow her to do. ‘You’re here to get built

up, not do housework,’ she said, making her meaning plain.

‘You go for a nice walk. There might be a few bluebells

starting to come out.’

The children were at school in the mornings, and Judy

wandered alone down the lanes, drinking in the scent of the

flowers that bordered the way, and wishing she could hear

the song of the birds. She came to the village and stood for a

moment gazing at the green with its pond, alive with

tadpoles, but turned away quickly when she saw an old man

hobbling her way. She wasn’t ready to meet strangers, who

wouldn’t understand her deafness. On her own, with no

need to strain to hear, she felt herself again.

Arriving at a crossroads, she took a different way and

found herself close to some woods. As Mrs Sutton had

suggested, they were filled with early bluebells just beginning to come out - a sea of misty colour rippling in the

green dappled light that filtered down through the leaves

above. Judy gave a little gasp of pleasure and dropped down amongst them, stretching herself out and breathing in their

fragrance. She turned over and gazed up through the leaves

at the sky. I could be happy in a place like this, she thought.

I could be happy here for ever.

Back in Portsmouth, on the night after Judy left, there was a

raid which was concentrated on the Hilsea area, with several

high-explosive bombs being dropped close to the gasworks

and on the main railway line. A lot of houses were hit too,

and three people killed, one of them a friend of Polly’s.

‘I knew her at school. We used to sit next to each other

when we were in Miss Jenkins’s class. She went to work at

Lipton’s, and then she got married to a chap from Tipnor

way - dockyardman, he was till he went in the Army.’ Polly

wiped her eyes. ‘They had two boys, must be about my

Sylvie’s age. I suppose they were evacuated, poor little

souls.’

‘It’s awful for kiddies, losing their mums and dads,’ Cissie

said. ‘Like those two little Simmons girls. Our Judy’s going

to try to get across to see them, you know. It’s not far.’

‘She’ll see Jess Budd’s boys too, then,’ Dick observed.

‘Not bad nippers, though the older one’s a bit of a scamp.

He used to knock about with Micky Baxter, you know,

when his mother wasn’t looking. I should think she’s glad to

have him out of the way. That boy’s a bad influence.’

‘Oh, he’s not so bad,’ Alice said. ‘I saw him down

Charlotte Street the other day, working on one of the stalls.

He told me he’s been given a delivery bike, got a little round

of his own. Said he wants to join the Army soon as he’s old

enough - wants to be a hero.’

‘Hero!’ Dick snorted. ‘Dunno what sort of a hero that

boy’d be! Look at the trouble he got those other poor little

tykes into - Jimmy Cross with one leg blown off, and that

Nash boy killed outright. I’d be glad to have my youngster

out of his way, I can tell you.’

Now that the weather was better, Dick’s health had improved and he was able to get out into the back garden

and do some digging. The patch where Alice had grown

lupins, sweet williams and bunny-rabbits was now entirely

given over to vegetables and a couple of currant bushes.

Frank Budd, from number fourteen, had given Dick some

cabbage seedlings from his allotment, and he had already

harvested several pounds of new potatoes and baby carrots.

He had also managed to get some sticks for a row of peas

and runner beans.

‘Dig for Victory,’ he said, going out to the shed to fetch

his gardening tools. ‘Well, at least I can be a bit of use

around the place.’

Polly was working almost full-time now as a WVS

volunteer. She still did some hairdressing, but it was mostly

during the evenings or on Saturday afternoons. For the rest

of the time she found herself carrying out a huge variety of

tasks - from organising salvage drives to collecting saucepans, jelly moulds and kettles for their aluminium, to

sweeping up nuts and bolts from factory floors for re-use.

Every time the air-raid warning went, she hurried off to

present herself at the Emergency Centre, where she

collected her old ambulance van and prepared to dash off to

the site of the nearest bomb damage.

Often, the raid came to very little, with the planes

droning overhead on their way to London, Bristol or some

other city. But you never knew when the siren went whether

this would be such a night, or whether it was the beginning

of another ferocious attack. And you never knew if they

might jettison some leftover bombs on the way back. You

could never feel safe. Not until the ‘Raiders Passed’ - or, as

most people now called it, the ‘All Clear’ - sounded its

comforting wail.

Cissie and Alice too were doing their bit for the war

effort. Alice went to the Centre on the days after a raid and

spent her time making tea and sandwiches. On other days she and Cissie presented themselves at one of the two

communal feeding centres, where meals were provided for

all those who couldn’t cook their own, or were unable to get

groceries from the shops. There wasn’t much variety - just

soup at a penny a cup or a plate of minced beef and potatoes

at three or a time - but customers arrived in

droves, and when the tables and chairs were all occupied

they sat on the floor, the stairs and even outside in the street to eat. The Centres were invariably sold out by one o’clock.

It did seem, however, as if the raids were easing off. After

the one on the night following Judy’s departure to

Ashwood, there was a lull. People began to look and feel

better. It was almost summer, they were getting more sleep

and some of the bomb damage was being patched up. You

could almost think about smiling again.

Not that there was much else to smile about. The war was

looking bad in Europe. Yugoslavia and Greece had both

been overrun, with Allied forces having to be evacuated

from Greece and Crete - ‘just like Dunkirk all over again,’

Dick said bitterly - and at home there had been devastating

raids on Plymouth, Liverpool, Newcastle and Bristol. At

this rate, there wouldn’t be a city left in the whole country.

It wouldn’t be worth invading.

Yet the fear of invasion was still very strong. All around

the coasts barbed wire was being put up along the beaches,

so you couldn’t even go for a swim any more, and the Home

Guard was on permanent alert. The signal for an invasion

was the ringing of the church bells, so they were silenced on

every other occasion and Sunday mornings were quiet. You

didn’t know how much you’d enjoyed hearing the bells till

they weren’t there any more, Cissie remarked.

At Ashwood, Judy would have welcomed hearing anything

at all. She went for walks every day, wishing she could

hear the birds singing or the rustling of leaves and the

whisper of grass. She avoided meeting the village people or even the other evacuees, knowing they would be embarrassed

by her deafness or even think there was something

‘strange’ about her. They probably think that anyway, she

thought sadly, noticing a small group of children cross to

the other side of the lane as she approached. They’ll be

saying I’m mental, or a witch or something. She wondered

how many people in the past had become objects of fear or

derision simply because they were deaf, or frail in some

other way. Lonely old women, stuck in tumbledown

cottages because people were afraid to help them. Grumpy

old men, surly because they were hurt by their neighbours’

treatment of them.

Is this going to happen to me? she wondered. Suppose I

never get my hearing back? Am I going to spend the rest of

my life like this, avoiding people just because I’m afraid

they’ll treat me like a leper?

The thought of Sean haunted her still. She grieved for

him, yet she had an uneasy feeling that her grief should have

been deeper. I loved him, she thought, twisting the little ring on her finger. I ought to be even unhappier … yet to her

dismay she could barely remember what he looked like. She

hadn’t even a photograph to remember him by. The only

person in the family to own a camera was Dick, who had

had a box Brownie, lost in the bombing, and with film so

hard to come by he had never taken a picture of Sean. Judy

tried to capture Sean’s face in her mind but it was elusive,

fading away every time she thought she had conjured it up.

Perhaps it was because they had known each other such a

short time; there were so few memories.

She stopped and leaned on a field gate. Another memory

came into her mind - a brief glimpse of a tall, fair-haired

young man in RAF uniform with a Spitfire badge on his

arm. Chris Barrett. She thought of his ready grin, the flash

of white teeth and the crinkling of blue eyes. She thought of

the hour or so they had spent together trapped in the lift, the easy conversation, the feeling of comfort he had given