Polly's Angel (23 page)

At first, Polly had waited daily for the letter to arrive, telling her when her dearest and best friend expected to be on British soil once more, but the weeks had passed and Grace had not been able to ‘make arrangements' as easily as she had hoped, so Polly was still waiting.

I'll be glad when Grace is home, Polly thought sleepily to herself, eyes shut now but knowing, even through her closed lids, that the firelight still flickered. It would be fun if we could both join one of the services together – but then I'm not old enough, not yet.

Presently she fell asleep, and presently, too, she dreamed. She seemed to awaken in the early hours to find the fire out, the air chilly, and the Christmas tree looking shadowy and rather frightening in the darkened room. But she was snug enough in her blankets and merely looked about the room in a wondering sort of way, until she noticed Tad's present, the angel on the top of the tree, and it seemed to her that it would be sensible to climb out of bed and go over to have a word with her angel, now that it was almost Christmas morning.

She looked up at the little angel, with its golden hair, long white gown and gauzy wings. ‘Merry Christmas, angel,' she whispered up to it, and was sure that it smiled down especially for her. ‘There's something I'd like to ask you, if you wouldn't mind.'

The little angel inclined her head very graciously, which Polly took to be a nice way of telling her to get on with it, so having thought for a moment she said slowly: ‘A long time ago, me mammy and daddy telled me I wasn't to see Sunny again. He was me pal, but he got me to wag off school, so he did, and I did some pretty bad t'ings.'

The angel looked sorrowful yet encouraging, and it suddenly occurred to Polly that though her own guardian angel was neither golden-haired nor clad in gauzy white, the two of them shared, at this moment, very similar expressions. So Polly, who often talked to her guardian angel when she was – unhappy or puzzled, went on. ‘But that was ages ago, angel, when I were just a kid. Now I'm almost growed, and me and Ivan t'ought we saw Sunny a little while back, in naval uniform, walkin' along Church Street just the way he always did. So Ivan chased after him, but he got away. Now d'you t'ink it would be wrong of me, angel, to try to see him again?'

The angel bent down, lower and lower, and she no longer looked like the little Christmas angel but just exactly like Polly's own guardian angel. She began to answer Polly's question, speaking very low indeed, saying that surely Polly's mammy . . . And Polly reached up and reached up so that she might be near enough to catch every precious word . . . and woke, to find pale sunlight streaming through a crack in the curtains and her mammy softly brushing the piled-up ash off the top of the fire and lifting the coals with a poker to let the air in underneath so that it would blaze once more.

Polly must have stirred or muttered, for her mother turned round and smiled lovingly at her. ‘Happy Christmas, Polleen – did you sleep well?' she whispered. ‘There's only you an' me awake in the whole house, for I t'ought I'd let the fellers have a lie-in, and Monica's curled up like a dormouse and snorin' like a lion. Do you feel like gettin' up and helpin' me to make some breakfast?'

‘Happy Christmas, Mammy,' Polly said, keeping her voice very low. ‘You'll never guess what! I woke in the night and me angel leaned over me an' said—' She stopped short. It had been a dream, of course, and now that she thought about it, she had only caught a few of the words that the angel had addressed to her in the dream. Besides, she was fifteen and three-quarters and should be too old for chatting to any angel, either the one on the Christmas tree or the shadowy figure she sometimes saw on the extreme periphery of her vision. She sighed; how difficult it was to know what was real and what wasn't, even if she was fifteen and three-quarters.

‘What did your angel say?' Mammy asked. She sometimes looked a bit apprehensive when Polly talked about her angel, but she never even hinted that there was anything odd about a child who conversed with someone no one else could see. ‘I trust she gave you good advice, and telled you to be kind to Monica?'

Polly giggled. ‘I don't know what she was goin' to say, Mammy, but I t'ink what she
meant
to say was that I should tell you about me problem, an' not herself. The truth is, Mammy, Ivan an' me saw Sunny a few days ago. Just in the street, you know, not to speak to at all.'

‘Sunny?' Deirdre said as though she did not know what Polly was talking about. ‘Sunny what?'

‘Sunny Andersen, the feller you said I wasn't to see again, and I haven't,' Polly explained, sitting up in her couch bed and hugging her knees. ‘Only I'm old now, Mammy, and Sunny's in the Navy – at least he was wearin' that uniform – and I t'ought, if I bumped into him . . .'

‘If you do, bring him home, acushla,' Mammy said gently. ‘As you say, that other business was a long time ago, and I wouldn't want you to be upsettin' a feller what's fightin' for his country. Only bring him home, eh, alanna?'

‘Oh, Mammy, I do love you!' Polly exclaimed. She hurtled off the sofa and flung herself into her mother's arms. ‘I don't suppose he'll mind if I talk to him or not, because he's past eighteen now, and a man growed. But he was nice, and I'd like to bring him home, so I would.'

‘Then that's settled,' Deirdre said. She pushed Polly gently towards the doorway. ‘Can you wash in the kitchen, alanna, and dress there too? Then we'll make breakfast together once I've cleared this bed away and made the room neat.'

And presently Polly, washed, brushed and dressed, was slicing bread and laying the table and singing a carol as she did so, whilst upstairs various bumps and bangs seemed to intimate that the other members of the family were also getting up. She felt very happy, and at ease with herself in a comfortable sort of way. She
had
liked Sunny, and now that he was in the Navy he could scarcely get her into hot water – come to that, now she was working and not at school, surely the same applied?

So Polly continued to slice bread and sing and think happily about Christmas and wonder about the little packages on the tree, and the memory of Sunny's back vanishing into the Christmas-shopping crowds disappeared from her mind. Time enough to wonder what had been happening to him, time enough to plan how she would bring him home and introduce him to Mammy, Daddy and the rest of the family when they met up once more. For now, it was Christmas, her sister-in-law would be waking up and coming downstairs any time, and she must be really nice to the girl, for Martin's sake.

So sang Polly, working happily away in the kitchen, on the first wartime Christmas she had ever lived through. The blackout curtains were pulled back and the thin wintry sunshine streamed into the room and Polly, at peace with the world even if the world itself was not at peace, was suddenly sure that Martin would come home safe and sound and that Sunny and she would meet up again, as friends. Nothing but good could come of such a day as this.

Martin's ship had docked at three on the Christmas afternoon and by four o'clock he was walking across the almost deserted, frosty dockside and thinking peacefully that he and the rest of the crew of the frigate
Campion
had been extremely lucky. Their engine had gone on the blink a couple of weeks back and the captain had turned back to port as soon as he could. So now most of the crew had five days' leave – and over Christmas too.

Martin had been as pleased as anyone when he had been given this break whilst the
Campion
was checked and repaired. He had applied to join the Navy in April, believing, despite Chamberlain's ‘Peace in our time', that war would come all too soon, and had comforted Monica over his departure by telling her that at least, when war did come, he would be trained to face it. She had not been pleased, of course, had said that he was too eager to get away from his city job and their small house, had accused him of becoming tired of her, of marriage, of his life in the city. Because she was not so far out he had explosively denied all her accusations and what had started out as a discussion had speedily become a full-blown row, with the result that they had parted awkwardly, both aware, he supposed, that their relationship was less strong, after more than three years of marriage, than it had been when they first met.

But now, knowing that she was safely tucked away in Southport with her parents, he was preparing to reach Titchfield Street with almost boyish excitement. It would be good to see the family, good to hug Mammy and Daddy, to buffet the boys on the shoulder, and to kiss Polleen. Of course he had seen them on a previous leave, but never alone, always with Monica either literally or figuratively clutching his arm, making it plain that he was hers, all hers, and was only on loan to his family.

What was more, the night alone in whatever makeshift bed his mammy could offer him would give him some much-needed thinking time. He knew that he was not being fair to Monica, criticising her because she was so possessive, but he did resent her obvious intention of keeping him away from his family. He had married her knowing that she was possessive and clinging so should not have expected her to suddenly become an independent and generous person. What was more, he had known for two years that she did not want children of their own, yet he was still annoyed by such selfishness – he saw it as selfishness, recognising it as a desire to have all of his affection for herself.

However, this was one Christmas Day, he told himself as his footsteps rang out on the icy pavements, which he would have with his family. He did not want to have to lie to Monica, to pretend that he had not had time to reach Southport that day. Now, it was no lie but a reality; dusk had already fallen and the streets were dark and difficult. A couple of trams had passed him, black, blue-lit ghosts with windows papered over and no headlights, but he had not attempted to hail them. The walk would do him good. He changed his kitbag from one shoulder to the other and stepped out, smelling the city smell of burning coal, cats and the contents of dustbins, almost enjoying it after weeks and weeks of the frowstiness of a small vessel crowded with men who found washing in such confined quarters difficult. Soon be home now! Soon have his mammy's arms round his neck, his daddy's hand in his! Tomorrow would be time enough to face Monica, give her the present he had brought, listen to her various woes.

As he reached Titchfield Street Martin felt his heart give a joyful thump at the sight of number 8 and, guessing that they were in the parlour though no glimmer of light showed through the blackout, he decided to go round the jigger and across the yard, then creep softly through the kitchen and the narrow hall and burst into the parlour, to surprise them.

Accordingly, he went round the back, opened the door and stepped in, basking for a moment in the warmth of the kitchen. The fire glowed, there was the most marvellous smell of roast meat and other good things and, although the lamp in here had not yet been lit, he could see in the firelight that preparations had been made for a high tea. The long wooden table had a checked cloth laid upon it, the cutlery was spread out and the best plates were ready to be piled with food.

As it's Christmas there will be cold ham left over from dinner, Martin thought longingly, taking off his duffel coat and hanging it behind the kitchen door. He began to struggle out of his boots, standing them neatly to one side of the back door, then picked up his ditty bag and slung it on one shoulder. Food on HMS
Campion
was doubtless as good as the Navy could manage in wartime, but it was still pretty dull stuff. For obvious reasons everything – or almost everything – was dried or canned, and although the frigate was rarely at sea for longer than a month, the crew had still got extremely tired of corned beef, mashed potatoes and the sort of peas to which you added a fizzy tablet in order to turn them from off-white to a more appetising green. There was the rum ration of course but it scarcely made up for the hardships and constant danger of being on the
Campion
.

As Martin crossed the kitchen he remembered the luscious taste of his mammy's Christmas cake and risked a side trip into the pantry just to reassure himself. There it was, standing on the slate slab, a white and scarlet edifice, as yet uncut. Martin, mouth watering, turned away and opened the door into the passage, his socks soundless on the red linoleum. He paused outside the parlour to adjust the ditty bag, since it contained the small gifts he had brought home for everyone. Right at this very moment, he had never loved his family so well. They were the salt of the earth, so they were; Mammy and Daddy the best parents a feller ever had, Poll and the boys the best sister and brothers. He grabbed the door handle and pushed it wide, grinning from ear to ear, shouting, ‘Hello-ello-ello, here's Santy come to bring you what you most wanted at Christmas! And just in time for tea, so he is!'

Someone hurtled across the room and into his arms and Martin, fielding the girl, thought for one startled moment that a total stranger had mistaken him for someone else. Then all in a moment he recognised her. It was Monica, and he had thought her thirty miles away, in Southport!