Under the Apple Tree (9 page)

do you, Poll.’

Fifteen minutes later, Judy and Polly were left alone by

the dying fire. Alice had gone into the front room, where a

mattress had been put on the floor for her, and a few

minutes later they heard her snoring. They looked at each

other.

‘That’s awful, what Mum said about Dad,’ Judy said.

‘But Gran’s right, isn’t she? At least he’s alive. You must

wish you could have your Johnny back, even if he’d been

injured.’

‘I do,’ Polly said quietly. ‘But I’m not sure it’s what he

would have wanted. He was always so proud of being fit and

strong - I don’t think he could have put up with being an

invalid. And I was thinking about you, too. You haven’t said

anything about Sean, but you must be worried stiff. I saw

your face when the newsreader said about the ship that’s

been sunk in the Med. You were thinking about him then,

weren’t you?’

Judy bit her lip. ‘I don’t even know exactly where the

Southampton is, but she could be out there, Polly. And they

wouldn’t let me know, would they - not straight away.

They’d notify his mum, over in Ireland. I’d have to wait for

her to write to me.’ She sighed. ‘I try not to worry, but

sometimes it feels like a great lump of jagged metal inside

me. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him, Polly. We knew

each other such a short time.’

‘I know,’ her aunt said softly. ‘I know just what it’s like.

All you can do is wait. That’s all any of us can do - wait,

and do something useful in the meantime. At least we can

do that.’

‘Yes,’ Judy said. ‘At least we can do that.’

Several of the April Grove residents attended the mass

funeral at Kingston cemetery the following Friday. They

were there to mourn Kathy Simmons and her baby Thomas.

Alice, Cissie and Dick walked down with Freda Vickers,

from the end of April Grove. Her husband Tommy was an

air-raid” warden and had been one of the last men to come

down from the roof of the Guildhall when it had caught fire.

It had snowed during the week and the pavements were

slippery with ice. They walked carefully, holding on to each

other’s arms.

‘He was named after my hubby, the baby was,’ Freda told

them sadly. ‘Tommy was with her in the air-raid shelter

when he was born, see. Took care of Kathy right through,

and she was so grateful. Hadn’t lived in October Street all

that long, but they were a lovely family, and the two little

girls are dears.’

‘It’s terrible,’ Cissie said. ‘All those people killed, and all the families left behind to grieve. What about her hubby,

then — where’s he?’

‘I told you, Cis,’ Alice said. ‘He’s in the Merchant Navy.

On convoys somewhere.’

Judy and Polly were at the funeral too. Judy had gone

down from Southsea with Laura and the rest of the Council

staff and the Mayor, Mayoress and Corporation, all in

ordinary clothes because their grand robes had been lost in

the Guildhall fire. The Mayor’s regalia, which had been

kept in a safe, had been saved, however, and he wore that

over his dark suit, while the bishops of both Anglican and

Roman Catholic churches were resplendent in blue and gold, and black, gold and cherry-pink respectively.

The procession was led by the Royal Marine Band, its

trombones dazzling, its drums muffled with black crepe. It

was followed by twelve Rolls-Royce and Daimler hearses,

each driver wearing a top hat, and the coffins draped in

Union Jacks. Beside the hearses, in a slow march, walked the

servicemen who were to act as pallbearers, and behind them

came a parade of all the Armed Services, including some

from the French Navy, as well as members of the ARP and

Home Guard. Tommy Vickers was there, his yellow hair

glinting in the sunlight when he took off his hat in respect

for the dead.

Polly was smart in her new green WVS uniform, standing

in line with the other volunteers along the road. The icy

pavements were packed with mourners, and a number of

people who had just come to watch.

‘Sightseers!’ Judy said indignantly as they walked back to

Southsea afterwards. ‘Got nothing better to do. As if

watching a lot of coffins being put into a grave was

entertainment!’

‘Well, I’m sure they were upset about it too,’ Polly said.

‘And you’ve got to admit it was a real sight, for all it was so sad. I didn’t know Kathy Simmons but I couldn’t help

shedding a few tears. All those poor souls being put into one

grave - and all those people standing there, absolutely quiet,

watching. And those words the bishop said, about us being

a “proud people” and calling them “Citizens in the City of

God”. I don’t know how they think these things up.’

‘Neither do I,’ Judy said caustically. ‘All that about them

being “happy dead” and “winning a victory”! I bet Kathy

Simmons isn’t happy being dead, and I bet she doesn’t think

she’s won a victory either. It’s just words, Polly, and they

don’t mean a thing!’ Her cheeks flushed and her eyes

brightened with anger. ‘Just because he’s a bishop, we’re

meant to believe him and be proud that so many people were

killed and injured and bombed out of their homes, and I tell

you, I’m not! I’m not proud at all!’

Polly looked at her in surprise. Judy had never expressed

such feelings before, but when you came to think about it,

perhaps she had a point. The bishop’s words had made her

feel proud, but it was true that she hadn’t felt like that

beforehand. She’d been sad and upset and frightened. She

thought for a moment and then said carefully, ‘I suppose

he’s trying to make us all feel better - stronger. Being

miserable isn’t going to help them, or us. If we can feel

better about them dying, perhaps it helps us to carry on.’

She sighed. ‘Pompey’s not the only place hit this week.

Plymouth and Bristol have had bad raids too. I suppose this

sort of thing’s happening there as well. What I wonder is

where they get all the coffins from. They surely don’t have

all that many ready at the undertakers.’

‘I reckon they’ve got places making them specially,’ Laura

said. She and Judy were also in their new WVS uniforms,

with warm greatcoats over their jackets and skirts. ‘They

won’t tell us about them though, because of spreading

panic’

They reached the Royal Beach and went inside. The

offices were busy, with half a dozen girls clacking away at a

bank of typewriters and clerks sitting at paper-strewn desks

and dining tables. All the forms and official documents had

to be printed and sent out to homes and businesses all over

the city, and on top of that the bombed and damaged

premises must be surveyed for repair or rebuilding. There

were lists of people who needed rehousing, lists of places

where they could be sent, lists of those who had decided to

take evacuation, lists of places in the country that could

accommodate them. Lists, lists, lists, Judy thought as she

pulled off her coat, gloves and hat and hung them on a hook.

There’s no end to them, but without them we couldn’t even

begin to get everything done. She sat down at her own desk

and gazed at the mound of paper that seemed to have grown

during her absence. Each list, each entry, she knew, represented some personal problem or even tragedy - a

workman needing new clothes, a family bombed out just as

her own had been, two little sisters whose mother had been

killed.

‘That’s Kathy Simmons,’ she said, staring at the sheet of

paper in her hands. ‘She lived just across the road from my

gran, where we’re staying now. She was killed with her baby

boy in her arms, and now the little girls have got no one.

Oh, Laura.’ Suddenly, she was in tears. The strain of the

past week - the horror of seeing her home in ruins, the

desperate struggle to get through the streets, the sight of

the Guildhall that was the pride of Portsmouth, the funeral

of so many people that afternoon - overwhelmed her with a

rush of emotion, and she put her elbows on her desk, her

face in her hands and shook with sobs.

‘Judy!’ Laura came and put her arms round Judy’s

heaving shoulders. ‘Oh Judy, don’t. I know it’s awful.’ She

held the girl’s head against her, stroking the bright hair.

‘I’ve cried, too. I cried all night, thinking of it all. Perhaps it’s best to cry. Let it out, Judy, let it out. It’ll make you feel better.’ She went on murmuring and stroking, and Judy’s

tears slowly began to subside, until at last she was able to

look up and blow her nose and give a small, shaky smile.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to break down like that. It was just

seeing their names. It’s different when it’s someone you

know.’

‘I know. It makes it so real. Not that we’re in any doubt

about that,’ Laura said with a sigh, glancing round the

office. ‘I just wish we could wake up and find it was all a

dream - a nightmare. But it’s not.’

‘No. It just seems like one. A nightmare we can’t wake up

from.’ Judy blew her nose again. ‘And being sorry for

ourselves isn’t helping anyone. We’ve got so much to do — there’s so many people needing things.’ She drew the sheet of paper towards her again. ‘Stella and Muriel Simmons.

They’re staying with Mrs Budd, down at the other end of April Grove from Gran, but I suppose they’ll have to be

evacuated. Poor little scraps. They’d already been bombed

out once, you know.’

‘Would you like me to see to that?’ Laura asked gently,

but Judy shook her head.

‘No, I’ll do it. I can’t give up over everything that upsets

me, or I’ll never get a thing done. It’s the same for all of us, after all. We’re all going to come across people we know,

sometime or other.’ She looked at the paper again. ‘What do

we do, though? Send someone to go and see Mrs Budd, or

get their evacuation organised first and then just tell her?’

‘Haven’t they got any other relatives? A granny or

aunties? What about their father?’

‘I think he’s in the Merchant Navy.’ Judy sighed. ‘I

suppose someone had better go and find out.’ She glanced

round the room and saw her aunt standing by the window,

talking to another WVS volunteer. ‘I know - I’ll get Polly to

do it. We’re staying in April Grove after all, and Gran

knows Mrs Budd. Polly and Mum grew up there themselves,

though I don’t think the Budds moved in till after

they’d got married and moved out. It’s better than sending a

stranger though, and we can find out about the girls’ family

before we do anything else.’

She made a note in the ledger she had been given to keep

a record of what action had been taken in each case, and

went on to the next, two boys whose mother was in hospital

with a broken leg. They ought to have been evacuated too,

she thought. She was surprised how many children there

still were in the city - children who had been evacuated

right at the beginning of the war and then come home when

nothing much seemed to be happening, children who had

refused to go or whose parents refused to send them,

children who were under five and too young to go without

their mothers, whose mothers wanted to stay at home with

their husbands … Surely some of them would go now, she

thought. Surely, after this, their parents will see the danger they’re in.

But not everyone wanted to be parted from their children.

There was Jess Budd, whose boys were at Bridge End. She

and her elder daughter Rose, together with the baby

Maureen, had all gone out there to begin with, but Jess had

come back to look after her husband Frank, who worked in the Dockyard, and naturally the baby had had to come too.

And then Rose had wanted to come back with her mother,

and after some argument Frank had agreed to her return.

He wouldn’t hear of the boys coming back though, and they

didn’t really want to. They were enjoying their stay in the

country and, apart from being disgruntled at missing the air

raids, they were content to stay there, especially now that

there was some snow.

‘I thought perhaps Stella and Muriel could go to the

vicarage there,’ Jess said when Polly went to see her. ‘That’s

where my boys are now, and they’re well looked after. The

vicar’s got a housekeeper who’s like a mother to them, and

the vicar’s like an overgrown boy himself, by all accounts.

There’s plenty of room there and I’m sure they’d be

welcome, and they met Tim and Keith at Christmas.’ She

took a photograph from the mantelpiece and looked at it

fondly. It was a studio portrait and showed the whole family

in their best clothes, with baby Maureen seated on Jess’s

knee and Frank and Rose behind her while the two boys

stood straight and proud beside them. ‘My Frank had this

taken specially, before they went back. He wanted us all

together, just in case …’ She bit her lip, then added