Fixing a cheery smile to her face, the woman told Danny, ‘It’s good to see you, Dannybright. Will you be staying awhile? You’re more than welcome to.’
Disentangling Lizzie’s thin arms from his waist, Danny glanced wistfully towards the sun that was streaming through the cottage window, casting a pool of golden light onto the carpet.
‘I was wondering if perhaps Lizzie and I could go out to play for a while? I made a new friend on my way here who knows his way about, so I promise we wouldn’t get lost.’
‘Oh, and who would that be then?’ Blodwyn smiled.
‘Soho Gus. He lives up the hill near me.’
‘Ah, I think I know the laddie you’re talking of. Doesn’t he have a pet mouse that he carries about with him?’
‘It’s a rat actually,’ Danny informed her gleefully. ‘His name is Albert and Soho Gus carries him everywhere in his pocket. He said he’d take Lizzie an’ me down to the beach if you’d allow it.’
That was a pleasure that Blodwyn herself had been hoping to share with Lizzie later in the afternoon, but seeing the expectant look in the children’s eyes she didn’t have the heart to refuse them.
‘Very well then,’ she said. ‘But only for a couple of hours, mind. And don’t get going into the sea. There are currents out there that could sweep you away in no time.’
‘We won’t,’ the twins chorused, and Lizzie ran to fetch her shoes as Blodwyn turned her attention to Danny.
‘So, how is your stay with Mr Sinclair going then,
bach
?’
Danny shrugged. ‘All right, I suppose. Mr Sinclair is very quiet but he cooked me a lovely breakfast.’
‘That’s good then.’ The conversation was stopped from going any further when Lizzie shot back to stand next to Danny’s side.
‘You be sure to have her back for dinner now, laddie. You can stay for some yourself if you’ve a mind to.’
Danny shook his head. ‘Thank you, Mrs Evans, but I’d best get back to Mr Sinclair’s. I promised I’d be home for dinner.’
Blodwyn nodded understandingly. ‘That’s fine,
bach
. I have no wish to get you into trouble on your very first day here. Now off you go, the pair of you, and have a good time. Oh . . . and Lizziebright, pop this postcard to your mother in the postbox as you pass,
bach
.’
Lizzie took the proffered card and they walked sedately to the door, but the second they were outside they broke into a run and hurried across to Soho Gus, who was lying on the deep green grass at the side of the duckpond.
He leaned up onto his elbow, almost squashing Albert in the process as he heard them approach, and then the strangest thing happened. Less than an hour ago, he had confided in Danny that he didn’t like girls, but the second he laid eyes on Lizzie, who was looking very pretty with her blond hair tied up in a red ribbon, Gus blushed to the roots of his hair.
‘This is me sister, Lizzie,’ Danny informed him, as Lizzie glanced shyly at his new friend.
Gus was totally tongue-tied, and for now all he could do was nod. Lizzie was like no other girl he’d ever set eyes on before. The girls back in the East End where he had come from tended to be skinny, grubby little things, and the Welsh girls he’d met since coming here just ignored him. But Lizzie . . . She was beautiful in Gus’s eyes and he was sure that she must be a princess in disguise. Thankfully she was so intent on studying Albert that she didn’t notice his reaction to her, and by the time she turned to say hello he had managed to compose himself.
‘Hello, Soho Gus,’ she smiled, and even the sound of her voice was wonderful to him.
‘’Ow’d’ya do,’ he managed to mutter as his heart fluttered in his small chest. Hauling himself to his feet he began to lead the twins through the village, trying his best to pull his socks up and tidy himself as best he could as he went.
‘There’s loads to see,’ he informed them, hoping that Lizzie would be impressed. ‘There’s the sea an’ the beach. Oh, an’ there’s some crackin’ caves an’ all. Then on a clear day yer can see Snowdon from ’ere. But be careful if yer go fer a jaunt over the fields though. There’s disused mineshafts everywhere, an’ should yer fall down one o’ them, you’d be a bleedin’ gonner.’
The twins’ eyes stretched wide when he swore, but as they were soon to discover, swearing came as naturally to Gus as saying their prayers each night did to them.
‘So, do yer still wanna see the beach first then?’ he asked, and when they nodded excitedly he grinned and led them on, pointing out the shiny red postbox on the way. Lizzie kissed her card before she posted it. Danny on the other hand was acutely aware of Gus watching him so he popped his in with the minimum of fuss.
On the way they told each other of the places they were staying.
‘Mrs Evans seems nice,’ Danny remarked as they strolled along.
‘She is - and so is Mr Evans,’ Lizzie said. ‘But they call me Lizziebright an’ sometimes they gabble away in a language that I can’t understand. But what about you, Danny? That horrible man who came for you frightens me. He’s all scarred and ugly, and he didn’t seem very kind either.’
‘He’s all right really,’ Danny told her. ‘A bit on the quiet side, but his cat an’ dog are lovely. The cat is called Hemily and the dog’s called Samson. He’s a Labrador an’ he’s enormous. I was goin’ to ask Mr Sinclair if I could bring him out with me for a walk but I daren’t just yet.’
‘Perhaps he’ll let you when he gets to know you a bit better?’ Lizzie suggested wisely. Danny nodded in agreement but then the conversation dried up as they reached the top of a cliff and the sea came into sight.
Their first walk on the beach was something that Lizzie and Danny would never forget. Lizzie squealed with delight at the feel of the soft sand between her toes, and despite Mrs Evans’s warning, she couldn’t resist a paddle in the sea. Throwing her shoes and socks into a heap she splashed in the frothy waves that were crashing onto the shore with gay abandon. For a while, Danny and Gus stood back and watched her, but her laughter was so infectious that soon their shoes and socks had joined hers and they ran into the shallows. They searched for shells on the beach and then spent a pleasant hour looking for crabs in the little rock pools that the sea had left behind.
Eventually, Gus told them, ‘I reckon we ought to be’eading back now. We’ve gorra bloody good way to go an’ we don’t wanna get into trouble, do we?’
Once they’d brushed the sand from their feet and put their shoes and socks back on, they began the climb up the side of the cliff that would lead them to the village. As they neared the blacksmith’s, Lizzie became quiet again and asked fretfully, ‘You
will
come to see me again, won’t you, Danny?’
‘Course I will,’ he assured her, sad that the morning had come to an end. At Mrs Evans’s door he gave her a very brief hug, conscious of the fact that Gus was watching his every move.
‘See yer later,’ he said, and as he moved away he saw fresh tears well in her eyes.
Lizzie watched until Danny and Gus were gone from sight then slowly turned and tapped at the door of
Ty-Du
. Mrs Evans had told her to walk straight in, since this was her home for the time being, but somehow she didn’t feel that she could. It
wasn’t
her home, no matter how cosy it was. Home was with her mother in Coventry.
Chapter Sixteen
As Maggie lifted an envelope from the doormat, she frowned. Who would be writing to her?
‘What’s that letter you’ve got there?’ her mother asked from the doorway.
Maggie shrugged, then withdrew a crumpled sheet of paper. As she read down the page, the colour drained from her cheeks and her hand flew to her throat.
‘Lord love us. Whatever’s happened now?’ Ellen asked apprehensively.
‘It’s from David,’ Maggie managed to tell her. ‘He’s stationed in France and it sounds like the troops there are living in hell. The poor souls are dropping like flies, according to this. But there’s worse than that. It seems that Sam is out there too.’
‘Good God.’ Ellen could understand Maggie’s distress. There was no love lost at all between the two brothers. It seemed ironic that, after avoiding each other at home for years, they now found themselves fighting side-by-side on a bloody battlefield.
‘Ah well, happen this might be just what’s needed to bring them closer,’ she said optimistically.
Maggie looked at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. Both of them knew it would take a lot more than that. Maggie had no time to dwell on it though, for just then Lucy tottered up to her with her potty clutched in her tiny hand.
‘Wee-wee, Mammy.’
Maggie had been trying to potty train her for weeks, with very little success up to now. Lucy tended to tell her she needed the toilet when the deed had already been done. Not that Maggie minded. Now that the twins were gone, Lucy was all she had left and Maggie worshipped the very ground she walked on.
‘All right, darling. Who’s Mammy’s good girl then?’
Lucy flashed her a toothy grin and for now Maggie tried not to think of anything else but this precious child in front of her.
As David crawled through a sea of stinking mud he tried to keep a picture of Maggie and Lucy in the forefront of his mind. His stomach was growling with hunger and he felt sick and cold. Of course, he knew that he was one of the lucky ones. Only yesterday, young Jimmy Harris had died in his arms on the battlefield. Jimmy had been just nineteen years old and the joker of the bunch. David knew that he would never forget the sight of the young man dying for as long as he lived. He had promised Jimmy that when he got home, he would go and see his parents for him.
If
he got home, that was. All around him, soldiers were dying in their hundreds, yet still they were told to push on. It was no easy task, loaded down as they were with their gas masks, and rifles slung across their aching shoulders. Earlier in the day he had finished the last of the water in the bottle that was also slung across his shoulder, and right now he would have given anything for a drink. It didn’t help to know that somewhere on this very same field was his twin brother, Sam. When they had first run into each other, David had offered his hand and told Sam that it was time to put the past aside. But Sam had slapped it away and David knew then that he had more of an enemy in his own brother than any German he might be forced to confront on the battlefield. It was a chilling thought. The smell of diarrhoea and death was putrid in his nostrils and he kept his lips clenched tight shut.
Above him, the sky lit up as bright as day as another barrage of gunfire rattled into the night. Just then, he felt himself come up against something that smelled worse than anything he had ever smelled in his life, and he realised with a shudder that it was a corpse. Swallowing the vomit that rose in his throat, he wriggled his way around it in the cloying mud. Poor bastard must have been lying there for ages to stink like that, he thought. His mind slipped back to his training days. He had thought
they
were hard, but nothing could have prepared him for this. The nightmare had begun when they were shipped out, packed like sardines in a troop-ship. His biggest fear then had been that he would die on the battlefield. Sometimes now he thought it would be a relief. A bullet whistled past his head and slightly in front of him he heard the grunt of yet another comrade as they dropped to the ground. Many of his comrades’ bodies had never been recovered, for the mud had sucked them down. He shuddered as he thought of them lying there and prayed that if he should die he would at least be buried in a proper coffin in his homeland.
Up ahead he could vaguely see the edge of the foxhole that the soldiers had dug. If he could only get to that, he could rest for a while at least. With the last of his strength he dragged himself on as a picture of Maggie and Lucy floated before his eyes.
Maggie was bathing Lucy in front of the fire when the dreaded sound of the air-raid siren filled the air. Snatching the child from the tin bath she wrapped her in a towel and sprinted out of the house with her in her arms. In her haste, she almost collided with Mrs Massey in the shared yard, and the older woman steadied her before gently urging her towards the shelter.
‘I reckon I’ll come into your shelter wi’ you, love, if yer don’t mind?’ she panted. ‘The old man’s on fire-watch an’ I don’t much fancy sittin’ in our shelter on me own. Would yer mind?’
‘Not at all,’ Maggie told her, pushing Lucy into her arms. ‘Will you take her in, Mrs Massey, while I go an’ try to persuade me mam to join us?’
‘Course I will, love.’ With her head bent, Mrs Massey did a dash to the door of the shelter, which she wrenched open. ‘Don’t think much o’ yer chances of persuading her out o’ her house though,’ she shouted above the wail of the siren as Maggie disappeared off down the entry.
Minutes later, she was back. Mrs Massey had already lit the candles, put Lucy into her vest and nightdress, and tucked her into the bunk with her teddy. One glance at Maggie’s crestfallen face told her that she had been right.
‘Havin’ none of it then, is she?’ she whispered into the flickering light.
Maggie shook her head regretfully before heading for the door again.
‘Where you off to
now
?’ Mrs Massey asked in exasperation.
‘To make us a flask of tea,’ Maggie flung back. ‘If these bloody Germans are goin’ to keep us holed up in here all night again then I want me cuppa at least.’
A glimmer of a smile played around Mrs Massey’s lips as she watched the young woman’s retreating figure. Since first taking the job in the factory, Maggie had changed almost beyond recognition. She had grown up and become stronger, and since Sam had left and the twins had been evacuated, she’d become stronger still. Mrs Massey admired her; it hadn’t been easy for the girl, yet here she was caring for her child and sewing every hour that God sent to make a living. Maggie had somehow come out of her shell and shown that she had guts.