Fear lent her strength to run on, ignoring the bite of pain beneath her ribs, mindless of the crash of tumbling walls and roof slates, oblivious of all but one thought: Reuben, she must get to Reuben!
The house was still standing. Sobbing with relief Miriam hurled herself along the terrace darting into the entry that gave access to the house she shared with her father.
Reuben would be there, his grandfather would be with him, they were both safe.
‘I be sorry Miriam, wench . . .’
Numbed by shock Miriam made no answer.
‘. . . the lad said he were goin’ along o’ the library, said he would come home along of yourself and that bein’ so, I didn’t come to fetch ‘im to the shelter when the bulls blew. Had I knowed there were goin’ to be a raid then o’ course I wouldn’t have let him go to the library; but that be the trouble, there be no tellin’ when them bombers be goin’ to come and you can’t keep kids chained up, they need some freedom if they’re goin’ to be sane at the end o’ this war.’
Even in her fear Miriam recognised the truth of her neighbour’s words.
‘But the library would have closed.’ She turned to the woman who had come into the house on hearing her return, ‘He would have come home, he promised always to come home, to go into the shelter, Reuben would not break his promise.’
‘The shelter!’ The woman’s face drained of blood, ‘Oh God, wench . . . we never . . .’
‘Reuben!’ Miriam’s scream trailed behind as she fled into the garden and saw, in the reflected glow of the burning sky, the garden shelter buried beneath tumbled brickwork of the high boundary wall.
10
The police constable had come late that evening, asking to see her father.
Katrin stared at an enamelled box, its colours glinting in the light from a window.
Her father was not home, she had explained; he undertook volunteer duties each evening.
‘My mother also is not at home,’ she had continued, ‘perhaps I might be of assistance.’
Helmet under one arm, the constable had slipped open the button on the breast pocket of his uniform, drawing from it a pencil and a slim notebook, juggling them awkwardly in his attempt to write.
‘Might you know your mother’s whereabouts?’
‘I might not.’ It had been clipped, precise, cold as the frost in her eyes.
He had glanced at the clock at the foot of the stairs, asked her to inform her father of his having called, then left.
Her father had looked haggard and drawn on his return from the police station, shock written deep across his face. Was that how she had looked when opening this box for the first time? Yet there had been something other than shock in the glance he had lifted to her, there had also been guilt.
Guilt! Katrin lifted the lid of the box she had taken from a drawer. Was that look in his eyes caused by what he too had known lay here? She had not asked then, she would not ask now.
Returning the box, drawing back into position the scarf which had covered it, she walked from the room.
‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’
Miriam watched the group of people gathered at the graveside, women dabbing tears of sympathy, men glancing surreptitiously at wrist or pocket watch. Absence from work was not lightly taken, even to attend a funeral, for it meant loss of wage to family and loss of production vital if the war was also not be lost.
Watching the coffin being lowered gently into the ground, Miriam shuddered. War had claimed so many lives, taken the hearts from so many more.
‘Steady girl.’ Isaac had felt the shiver. ‘It be all over.’
Tears stinging her eyelids, Miriam clutched the rough hand closing over hers. Would it ever be really over, would the pain ever fade?
Looking at the girl visibly fighting an inner battle, Isaac’s own heart tripped. They had come to a church, to a house of God, to ask mercy for the dead and a blessing for the living but it was hard to see mercy among so much suffering.
‘You’ll both be comin’ for a cup of tea.’
‘It needs be a quick one.’ Isaac answered his sister. ‘I said I would be back to the factory as soon as the funeral were done.’
‘That were Jacob’s answer.’ Ella Robson shook her head. ‘He says he must go straight off but I wouldn’t ’ave thought the wench needed do the same, it ain’t as if her work be on munitions.’
‘We all be needed.’ Isaac’s answer was conciliatory though his thoughts matched those of his sister. The girl would likely have been given a full day.
‘Ar, some more’n others judgin’ by the speed that one be goin!’ Ella glared toward the receding figure of Katrin Hawley. ‘Remind me to back ’er in the Derby once horse racin’ be on again.’ Following up with an irritated ‘tut’, she turned to Miriam. ‘Violet fair ruined that wench, brought her up to think herself better than the rest, but no good comes of that, mark my words, no good comes of that.’
‘Aunt Violet acted as she thought best.’ Miriam too was conciliatory.
Isaac glanced at Jacob, who followed a few steps behind his daughter, then back at Miriam. ‘You go on with the others, I want a word with Jacob.’
‘Ar wench, you come along home, a cup of tea be what you needs.’
No, she needed more than tea. Miriam looked at the mound of freshly turned earth, deserted now of mourners. That was all that was left of a life, a life ended by the impact of a bomb.
‘I . . .’ She swallowed hard, the grave with its flowers swimming in an ocean of hot tears, ‘. . . I’d like to go back into the church for a few minutes.’
Sitting alone in the graceful sandstone church of Saint Paul, Miriam gave herself up to the silence, to the memories so ready to envelop her.
She had run until it seemed her lungs would burst, run while her brain pounded one thought: she must get to Reuben, she must be with her son. When at last she had reached the house, every room was empty.
‘. . . I be sorry Miriam, wench . . .’
She had heard no more, her screams drowning the rest of Isaac’s words as she had thrown herself onto the heap of rubble, ripping it away with her bare hands. She felt nothing until strong arms had pulled her to her feet, holding her against a heaving chest. Breathless from his own running, her father had held her as close as on the day that fatal telegram had arrived.
But his voice could not penetrate the anguish in her brain, could not quell the torment of a soul once more ripped apart.
Neighbours had come from all around, working frantically to remove the fallen brickwork, but there had been no body pulled from beneath it, no boy inside the shelter.
Eyes still closed, Miriam looked on the scene showing like a film in her mind.
It seemed the world had stilled, the night had become silent except for one sound.
‘
Mum
.’
It had been so quiet. The murmur of a child drawn from sleep.
Caught by the horror of those past minutes, she had clung to her father, desperate to throw off the trick her mind was playing. He had put her gently from him pointing to where a shape, dark and solid, loomed in the sudden brilliance of fresh flame scorching into the sky.
She had not wanted to look, had wanted only the comfort of her father.
‘
Mum
.’
One simple word that rocked her senses. Then a gentle push from her father and she had run to the dog kennel, to where her son was crawling out, a puppy held in his arms.
‘
Sorry I didn’t go into the shelter
. . .’
Reuben had smiled sleepily.
‘
Spot is frightened to go in there and I couldn’t leave him on his own
.’
Miriam opened her eyes and stared at the cross centred on a plain white covered altar.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, ‘thank you for saving my son.’
He had returned from that police station his features grey and drawn, his head slumping onto his chest when Katrin had asked what was wrong. He lifted his eyes to hers and she had seen the guilt.
Those ration books missing from the drawer, had her mother taken them with her to use? Had he known? Was that the reason for the look of guilt? If she had been caught, there was only one consequence.
Prison!
Katrin’s whole body had tensed.
Her mother would be sent to prison!
As she lifted dresses from a walnut inlaid wardrobe, Katrin flinched.
Jacob Hawley would be pointed at, shunned by colleagues and friends; but the same would be directed toward Katrin Hawley.
‘. . .
folk round here won’t want no truck with a wench convicted of dealin’ on the black market
. . .’
Words said about Freda Evans rang in her mind.
The repercussion would be the same for her. As the daughter of a convicted criminal, she would be ostracised. But having the like of Alice Butler and Becky Turner, of the Eldons and the Robsons turn their back was of no significance. the danger lay in the position she had engineered for herself at Prodor. Arthur Whitman would break the links she had so carefully forged between herself and him, sever them easily as he had those moulded by Harriet Simpson.
Her mother had been a fool, a fool to buy those ration books and even more of a fool to try to use them!
‘
Mother is
. . .’
Tea had spilt into her saucer as her hand shook with rage.
‘
Not at the Robsons’
.’
‘
. . . nor was she with the Eldons, the police checked at both houses
.’
‘
But I thought . . . when she was not home when I came from work . . . I thought she was shopping later than usual
.’
Despite the resentment that burned like coals, some inveterate self protection made the lie slip out.
Jacob had reached for her hand, clasping it a moment, then had gone into the hall, returning with a dust-covered bag.
‘
The police gave me this
.’ He had swallowed hard, struggling to bring out the rest. ‘
That is how they came to call here, the address was inside
.’
She had looked at the bag. Her mother was so very meticulous about her belongings.
Maybe she had not been arrested.
An accident then, there could be no other reason for her mother not being home; the police had thought it prudent the husband be first informed.
She had not been so flippant then, careful to mask the reassurance already cooling the flames of anger, the satisfaction of once more feeling herself secure. Inflecting a note of trepidation into the questions, she had asked where was her mother, had she been hurt?
She was found in Darlaston. There had been an air raid, the church of All Saints had been bombed. It was thought no one was inside and then . . . someone found that
.’ He had looked again at the battered handbag, his voice cracking as he went on. ‘
A few minutes later they found her, she . . . she . . . she was dead
.’
Her mother was dead.
It was Violet Hawley they had buried in Wednesbury Cemetery.
Violet Hawley was dead.
But Violet Hawley was not her mother.
11
They had sat beside her in the church, stood alongside her at the grave, commiserated with Jacob upon the loss of his wife. Violet’s family, her sister and brother, had gone through the motions – their grief genuine enough, their sympathy also. But sympathy and truth had not gone hand in hand. They had not once spoken of that truth Katrin had carried so long inside, despite calling Violet Hawley her mother.
Would they have told her? Had that been the purpose of Ella Robson and the Eldons calling to herself and Jacob as they had walked from the cemetery?
Unconscious of the pen twisting in her fingers, Katrin listened to the questions in her mind. What had the three of them talked about there at the cemetery gate? Had it been Katrin Hawley they had discussed or had they used some other name? Had they mulled over the pros and cons of acquainting her with what they, their sister and her husband, had kept hidden?
Why had she not told them? Why had she not thrown their so carefully concealed secret in their faces?
The pen slipping from her fingers, Katrin smiled.
That was Katrin Hawley’s secret!
‘I couldn’t take it in when Isaac Eldon said it’d been rejected.’
‘Eh Alice, after all the time it took persuadin’ your mother an’ everything.’ Becky Turner’s look reflected disbelief.