Maggie felt the room sway as shock coursed through her.
‘See - it ain’t all doom an’ gloom after all, is it?’ Beryl chuckled. ‘I tell yer, it were the last thing I were expectin’. Yer could have knocked me down with a feather when it arrived. But it’s wonderful, ain’t it? At least one o’ me boys will be coming home.’
A smile of relief spread across Maggie’s face as she hugged Beryl. ‘Yes, it is wonderful news,’ she agreed. ‘But doesn’t it say where he is?’
‘Just that he’s in some military hospital somewhere, an’ that as soon as he’s well enough they’ll be shippin’ him back home. Apparently, he was found on the same night as Sam was killed an’ he’s been there ever since. Why they ain’t let us know sooner, God only knows, but still, all’s well that ends well, eh?’
‘If he’s in a hospital he must have been injured then,’ Maggie said cautiously.
‘Injured or not, at least he’s alive,’ Beryl told her sensibly. ‘An’ once we get him home we’ll soon have him ship-shape again between us, which leads me to the next thing I’ve come to see you about.’ She glanced at Doris apologetically before going on, ‘Ain’t it about time yer came to live with me now, love? I know Doris has done yer proud an’ I’ll never be able to thank her enough, but let’s face it: yer all jammed in here like sardines in a can. It can’t be easy fer Doris wi’ two extra mouths to feed, an’ I feel as if it’s my turn to do a bit now, so won’t you consider it? There’s me rattlin’ round like a pea in a pod back there, an’ the thing is, you’d be doin’ me a favour if you did but know it, ’cos once our David gets home I shall need a hand to take care of him if he’s been hurt, an’ I ain’t as young as I used to be.’
Maggie stood in an agony of indecision but she needn’t have worried, for Doris suddenly pottered across to her and hugged her affectionately.
‘You go, love, if you want to. I were just a port in a storm to get yer through the worst. But Beryl has a point. Families should stick together at a time like this. Not that I want rid of yer, of course. Yer know yer welcome to stay fer as long as yer want, but I certainly won’t be offended if yer decide to go with yer mother-in-law.’
Maggie gave her a grateful smile. This rough diamond of a woman had stood by her through the worst time of her life, and she would never, ever forget it, but that left just one more problem, the way she saw it. Looking towards Beryl, she now voiced it. ‘What about Jo? She hasn’t got anyone but me now an’ I wouldn’t want to leave her. You see, the thing is, Jo is going to have a baby.’
When both women burst into laughter, Maggie looked at them in astonishment.
‘Do yer really think we hadn’t guessed that?’ Doris snorted. ‘Why, it’s been as plain as the nose on her face fer weeks. Yer can’t hide things like that from women who’ve been through it, love.’
‘Too right,’ Beryl agreed. ‘And as to your question - well, Jo would come with you, of course. I wouldn’t expect you to abandon her.’
‘The tongues will be wagging when word gets out, though,’ Maggie warned.
‘Huh! Because she ain’t got a ring on her finger, do yer mean? With a war goin’ on, I think I can safely say she won’t be the only one. An’ anyway, it ain’t nobody else’s business, so let ’em gossip if they’ve a mind to. Me back’s broad an’ I can take it if you pair can. There’s a sewin’-machine sittin’ idle back at my place. Yer could take up sewin’ again an’ get a bit behind yer fer when this bloody war is over. Meantime, I could lend you a bit so yer could pay the twins a visit, once David is safely home. I reckon that would perk you an’ them up no end at the minute.’
Maggie nodded. ‘It would be lovely to see them,’ she admitted as tears started to her eyes. ‘Though I don’t know how I’m going to tell them about what’s happened to their dad and their grandma and our Lucy.’
‘Now then, don’t get blartin’,’ Beryl ordered gently. ‘Just go an’ get yer things together. Yer know what they say - there ain’t no time like the present.’
Maggie climbed the stairs in a daze, but for the first time since the dreadful night when she’d lost Lucy and her mam, she felt as if she were focused again. She still had the twins to think of, and although she knew she would never get over the loss of their baby sister, she had to think of them now.
In no time at all, she and Jo had packed their few belongings into brown paper carrier bags. The neighbours had all whipped round and supplied them both with the barest essentials of clothes. They were neither grand nor particularly well-fitting, but Maggie and Jo were more grateful than they could say, for the raid had left them with nothing but the clothes they had stood up in.
Once at the door, Maggie clung to Doris tearfully. ‘I shall never be able to thank you enough for what you’ve done for us both,’ she told her, narrowly missing being stabbed in the eye by one of Doris’s fearsome metal curlers, that rarely came out apart from when she was going anywhere.
‘Get off wi’ yer,’ Doris told her. ‘It were a pleasure. Just make sure yer come an’ see me from time to time, eh? An’ remember, you’re a young woman an’ a lovely one at that. You may think yer life is over at the minute but you’ve still got a lot o’ livin’ to do. Every cloud has a silver linin’ an’ you’ll come through this. Now go on, get off wi’ yer before you have me blartin’ too.’
The three women set off across the frosty pavement, but at the end of the street Maggie paused to look back at the ruins that had once been her home. It was hard to imagine it as it had been, now.
Beryl took her arm. ‘Come on, love. No lookin’ back, eh? We have to put this behind us now an’ look to the future. Let’s get you home an’ settled in.’
Maggie nodded solemnly as Jo slipped her arm into hers and hauled her on her way.
‘Bleedin’ ’ell. We ain’t never gonna get home at this rate,’ Gus complained as he and Danny laboured up the hill. ‘Poor old Albert will ’ave frostbite if I don’t get ’im in out o’ the cold soon.’
Danny chuckled despite the fact that snow had come in over the top of his Wellies and his feet were frozen. ‘Never mind. At least we don’t have to go to school tomorrow.’
‘We might never go back to school again if it keeps comin’ down at this rate,’ Gus grumbled. ‘It’s all right, them shuttin’ the school till further notice ’cos o’ the weather conditions, but the trouble is, yer can ’ave too much of a good thing. Knowin’ my luck, I’ll get roped in helpin’ around the farm again. They had me herdin’ all the cows into the barn last night till God knows what time. I don’t mind tellin’ yer, by the time I got to bed I was frozen through.’
They ploughed on, often wandering off the path, for the snow was so deep that everywhere looked the same. Every now and again, Albert’s head would peep out of Gus’s top pocket, but then with a tweak of his whiskers and a shudder he would burrow back down again out of sight.
Danny began to get concerned as his imagination started to work overtime. They seemed to have been walking forever and he wondered if they were going in the right direction. He was just about to say as much to Gus when he thought he saw a shape lumbering towards them through the snow. Swiping the snow out of his eyes, he peered ahead - and sure enough, the shape of a man slowly drew closer. All the tales he had ever heard of Abominable Snowmen suddenly flashed into his mind and his heart began to race until a voice he recognised called, ‘Hello there! Is that you, Danny?’
He sighed with relief. It was Eric. In no time at all he’d come abreast of them.
‘I was a bit concerned you might stray off the path and get lost so I thought I’d come down to meet you,’ the man explained.
Danny felt himself flush with pleasure. Perhaps Eric did care about him after all, if he’d taken the trouble to do that?
Seeing that the small boys looked totally exhausted, Eric stood them either side of him, then taking one of their hands in each of his own he began to haul them through the drifts.
Soon after,
Derwen Deg
came into sight and he nudged Gus towards the gate that led to the farmhouse. ‘Go on, I’ll just watch till you’re safely inside then we’re going to push on,’ he told him.
Gus smiled at him gratefully. ‘Thanks a lot. Tarra then, both.’
They watched him go in through the door, then Eric turned his attention back to Danny. Up here, high on the hill, the storm had turned into a blizzard and they could barely see a hand in front of them.
‘I tell you what, how about I give you a piggy-back?’ Eric suggested. Danny stared at him uncertainly but then before he could stop him, Eric had squatted down in front of him. ‘Hop on,’ he urged. ‘And once you have, wrap your arms around my neck and your legs around my waist, then bury your face in my shoulder. I’ll have you home before you know it now.’
Danny self-consciously did as he was told and was amazed when Eric began to stride surefootedly through the drifts. Just as he’d promised, the lights of
Tremarfon
soon appeared ahead of them and he breathed a sigh of relief. Once Eric had kicked the kitchen door open, he placed Danny down onto the red tiled floor and began to peel his wet outer clothes off him. There was a welcoming fire roaring up the chimney, and after hoisting Hemily out of the fireside chair, he plonked Danny down into it. Samson immediately pottered over to him and put his head in his lap as Hemily sauntered indignantly away with her tail swishing angrily in the air.
Eric chuckled as he hung up Danny’s wet clothes, and the boy held his chilled hands out to the warmth of the fire. For the first time since he’d been there, he felt as if he had come home. But more importantly, he felt wanted. It was a nice feeling, and he basked in it as he watched Eric from the corner of his eye. He suddenly realised with a little shock that for some reason, Eric didn’t appear quite so daunting now. Admittedly, the eye-patch and the scars were still there for all to see, but somehow they weren’t quite so scary any more. Perhaps it’s ’cos I’ve got used to them, he mused. Or could it be that, underneath, Eric ain’t quite as hard as he likes to make out? Whatever it was, it made Danny happy, and he settled back contentedly into the chair until his dinner was ready.
Down in the village, Lizzie was having her dinner too, but the atmosphere was nowhere near as easy as it was up at
Tremarfon
.
‘Come along now, Megan,’ Mrs Evans urged her. ‘How are you going to grow into a big strong girl if you don’t eat your soup? Look, I’ve done you chicken, your favourite.’
‘M-m-my name isn’t Megan, it’s Lizzie,’ the child stuttered for at least the tenth time that night.
The woman seemed not to have heard her. She prattled on, ‘I was thinking, now that they’ve had to close the school down, I could be teaching you for a while. We could start after dinner, if you like. After all, if I want my girl to be top of the class, we can’t be shirking now, can we?’
Lizzie gazed miserably down at the dish in front of her. Mrs Evans had forgotten to warm it and a layer of grease floated on the surface, making her stomach revolt. Blodwyn seemed to be forgetting a lot of things these last few days. Only yesterday she had sprinkled salt instead of sugar onto her porridge and then forced her to eat it, insisting that it was good for her. Lizzie had somehow managed to do as she was told, but the second she got to school she’d had to run to the little toilet block where she had been violently sick. Another strange thing that Mrs Evans had started to do was talk to someone whom Lizzie couldn’t see, which was very unnerving to say the least. But worst of all was the fact that she made Lizzie sleep in her big double bed with her. Lizzie hated it and would balance precariously right on the edge of the big feather mattress as far away from the big smelly woman as she could get.
Seeing the child’s hesitation now, a note of irritation crept into Mrs Evans’s voice. ‘Can you see her, Father? Turning her nose up at good food, indeed. Why, there’s many a child would be grateful of such a feast, is there not?’
Lizzie followed her eyes to the chair at the side of the fireplace but there was no one there and she began to get frightened. Why did Mrs Evans keep talking to Mr Evans when they’d recently buried him in the little churchyard in the village? Perhaps he’d come back as a ghost that only Mrs Evans could see? The thought of it made her tremble as the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention. She wished Danny were there with her, or better still, her mother. She had promised to come and see them in her last letter, so why hadn’t she done so?
‘
Megan
, stop daydreaming, child, and eat your soup.’
Lifting her spoon, Lizzie valiantly tackled the greasy mess in front of her. Her mother would be bound to come soon - she had to.
When Danny came down to breakfast the next morning, Eric had a surprise waiting for him.
‘Look, I got to thinking,’ the man told him. ‘I don’t want you getting bored while the school is closed so I knocked that up for you. I don’t profess to be the best carpenter in the world, but I thought it might do you and your mates good to have a bit of fun.’
Danny gasped with delight. Propped up against the back door was a sledge that Eric had made from bits of wood that he had found knocking about. Just as he’d said, it wasn’t the best-looking sledge Danny had ever seen, but even so it looked sturdy and the lad could just see himself whizzing down the hillside on it.
‘Why, it’s wonderful,’ he exclaimed with a smile on his face that lit the whole room up. ‘Soho Gus will be dead jealous when he sees it. Can I try it out now?’
‘Well, it might be a good idea to get some breakfast inside you first,’ Eric smiled. ‘And then if you wrap up warmly I can’t see any reason why you shouldn’t take it out for an hour or so. I have to go down into the village to the post office, and while I’m there I’ll see if there’s any mail for us. There’s no way the postman will try to battle his way up the hillside in this weather.’
Danny nodded as he curiously eyed the huge envelope on the dresser. Every single week Eric went down into the village to post one off, but Danny still had no idea at all what was inside them. All he did know was that they were all posted to the same address in London. However, this morning he had far more pressing things on his mind as he thought of all the fun he and Gus were going to have on his new toy, so he attacked the lightly boiled eggs Eric had made for him and then flew up the stairs to get dressed for outdoors.