Safe Harbour (2 page)

Mum lay totally still, as if she were fast asleep. Sophie was too scared to disturb her as she watched the tremulous rise and fall of her mother’s breathing and the tiny throb of pulse in her neck. One of her legs lay at an awkward angle.

‘Mum! It’s me! It’s Sophie!’

She could not tell if her mother could hear her or not. Funny, but she looked perfect except for the dark stain of blood on the path under her, which clung to her hair and ear. The grey school-jumper she had knit for Hugh lay loosely beside her.

‘You’ll be fine, Mum! Hugh’s gone to get help. Please, Mum. I love you.’

Sophie stroked the shabby pink cardigan her mother wore and pulled the faded floral print skirt down, covering her thighs. She felt dizzy and sick herself, and the pain in her chest was so strong that she could hardly breathe or swallow. Someone came up behind her.

‘It’s all right, lass! You did the right thing not to move her. Never move a head injury. The ambulance will be here in a jiffy.’ Mr Thompson knelt down and took hold of her mother’s wrist to check her pulse.

‘Will she be all right, Mr Thompson?’

The warden pretended not to hear her.

Slow, silent tears slid down Sophie’s face and plopped on
to the dust-covered path. She sniffed and wished she had a hankie. The warden passed her one.

‘Go on, lass! Have a good blow!’

She shoved it up her sleeve afterwards.

‘Any minute now, my love. They’ll be here any minute now, Mrs Fitzpatrick, you just hang on, my love, and they’ll have you in the hospital in no time.’ He rambled on, talking soothingly to her mother.

Sophie turned to discover Hugh, panting and out of breath from all the running, standing dazed behind her.

‘She’s alive, Hugh! She’s still alive!’ she shouted at him, but he didn’t seem to take it in.

A woman from the Women’s Voluntary Service and a member of the Home Guard appeared. The woman put her arm around Hugh and led him to where Mrs Abercorn was sitting, wrapped in a big thick red blanket.

‘Best to get that old dear to the hospital!’ the warden said to the man from the Home Guard. ‘Ticker trouble by the look of it.’

Two more women in uniform appeared. They seemed very sure of what to do, and Sophie stood out of their way as they produced a stretcher and gently rolled her mother on to it. Mum looked terribly white and her eyes were still shut. Mr Thompson helped them to lift the stretcher through the back garden, and out to the front where an ambulance lay waiting. Two or three neighbours were standing around.

‘I must go with her!’ insisted Sophie.

‘I’m sorry, dear,’ replied the peroxide-blond lady who was driving, ‘I’m afraid we’re full up. We were already on our
way to Saint Martin’s Hospital when we were diverted here, so we’ve a full load. I’m sorry!’

‘But …!’ Sophie didn’t know what to say.

‘I’m sorry,’ the lady said firmly, climbing up into the driving seat and refusing to discuss it any further.

‘Best to stay and mind your brother, lass,’ urged the warden. ‘We’ll get you to the hospital later, I promise. Word of honour!’

Sophie had to believe Mr Thompson, as she watched the white lorry with its red cross swerve and lurch off down the road.

The recreation centre was packed. It was really the old parish hall, where jumble sales and meetings and choir practice and the drama society took place. But now it had been transformed into a place of rest for those who had nowhere else to go. The huge room had been divided up, and a makeshift canteen set up at one end, where volunteers were busy doling out hot breakfasts and mugs of tea to those in need. A few tables and chairs had been grouped together and Sophie recognised one or two of the families sitting there.

In one corner a gang of toddlers played together, and the far end of the room contained two rows of camp beds, neatly laid out. Some had been slept in, and others lay ready for use.

Mr Thompson had brought Sophie and Hugh to the centre. ‘Bombed out!’ he announced to Mrs Stokes, the woman in charge. ‘Right old shock they’ve had. The mother’s been taken off to the hospital.’

‘Mrs Stokes will take good care of you both now,’ he said to them. ‘I’ll be back up to see you later. I’ve got to get back to Grove Avenue, and get the engineers to have a look at that house of yours – and the rest of the street.’

Sophie’s heart sank. So he did think their house was unsafe. It would be cordoned off until they decided if it had
to be demolished or not. The house where they had lived all their lives …

‘Come on, ducks! Let’s get you both a cup of tea and a bite of breakfast!’ interrupted Mrs Stokes. She was sturdily built, and seemed to be a really calm type of person, who didn’t get in a flap about things.

In a few minutes she had them sitting down, with two big mugs of milky tea and a plate of fried bread and some baked beans in front of them.

‘Would you care for anything else to eat?’ she enquired.

Hugh simply shook his head.

‘No, thank you,’ replied Sophie, kicking her brother on the shins to remind him of his good manners.

‘You both look all done in,’ said Mrs Stokes, ‘so I’ll arrange for you to lie down when you’ve finished.’

‘No!’ exclaimed Sophie, almost shouting at her. ‘I don’t want to lie down. I must stay awake! There might be news of my Mum.’

‘Look, Sophie! I promise you the very minute there is any news I’ll wake you, and I promise to take you to the hospital too.’

Sophie nodded dumbly. She felt such a big sissy because she wanted to cry again. She just longed to be back in their small messy house in Grove Avenue.

‘Another drop of tea?’ asked Mrs Stokes kindly. ‘Your brother is nearly asleep already, so go on, you go and lie down too, now that you’ve eaten.’

Sophie dragged the two campbeds close beside each other. Hugh was strangely quiet, almost as if he was afraid
to ask any questions for fear of the answers he’d get.

People lay on the beds chatting. ‘The whole street gutted … that’s what I heard … not a brick left standing!’

‘Water flooding everywhere!’

‘Decent people … why do they do such things?’

‘Shot down over the channel.’

Snatches of conversation drifted around her, and under the blanket, Sophie held Hugh’s hand.

‘It’s all right, Hugh! We’re together, that’s all that matters.’

Sophie stirred. Mrs Stokes was bending towards her.

‘What time is it?’ she asked sleepily.

‘Three o’clock.’

‘Oh no! I’ve been asleep for hours,’ she sighed.

‘I came down to tell you we’ve just had word about your mother,’ Mrs Stokes told them gently. ‘She had surgery and is in the intensive care section, but she has pulled through.’

Sophie blessed herself. ‘When can I see her?’

‘Me too?’ demanded Hugh.

‘Well, I can’t say for certain, but Mr Thompson will be waiting for you at Saint Martin’s. I’ll be knocking off duty in about half an hour, and I can drop you there, on my way home.’

‘Oh! Thank you, Mrs Stokes. I appreciate it!’ said Sophie, with a lump in her throat.

‘I’ preciate it too,’ murmured Hugh, copying her.

Mrs Stokes’s car was packed to the roof with stuff.

There were cardboard boxes everywhere, containing bandages, antiseptic, tea, spare sheets.

‘Squash in!’ she told them brightly. ‘Push that mess out of your way!’

But there was nowhere to push all the supplies, and they ended up practically sitting on the things, trying not to squash them.

‘I love this old jalopy,’ Mrs Stokes confided as the engine of the Morris spluttered into life.

On the way to the hospital she rabbited on about her family – her husband who worked fairly high-up in the War Office, her daughter Gwen who was a nurse, Helen who was studying in Oxford, and her son Tim who was a trainee pilot, and had been on four missions already.

‘Wish I was a pilot!’ sighed Hugh.

‘Not in these times, pet! Not in these times, Hugh, when the skies are so dangerous and have become a battlefield,’ warned Mrs Stokes, her voice choked with emotion.

As if to distract herself, she pointed out the damage done by the previous night’s raid, as they drove past.

‘Senseless waste!’ she muttered.

Finally they came to a halt outside Saint Martin’s, a looming grey stone Victorian building, which gave Sophie
the creeps. She had been here once before, about four years ago when she was eight, and had got a big splinter of wood from a swing stuck in her backside. She blushed even thinking of it and hoped that none of the doctors or nurses would remember her. She tried to let her straight brown hair partially cover her face as Mrs Stokes led them into the waiting area.

‘Mr Thompson will be along in a while, Sophie, and maybe one of the nurses. Sorry I’ve got to rush off, but I’ve got a million things to do. Anyway, I’ll see you both at breakfast time tomorrow in the centre, when I’m back on duty.’ Sophie wished she could stay with them. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie! Ah look, there’s the warden!’ Mrs Stokes reassured her, going over to him to have a word.

Sophie and Hugh sat quietly on the bench waiting. They counted the windows, the black-out panels, the patterned black and white and green tiles in the corridor.

‘I hate hospitals,’ murmured Hugh.

Every now and then a cry or a moan of pain would issue from some open door. Nurses in uniform and doctors in white coats with stethoscopes hanging around their necks passed by. People in wheelchairs or on crutches slowly made their way along; visitors strode by in a hurry, knowing where they were going; and shambling old folk hung about, obviously waiting for news of relations.

Sophie tried not to focus on it, but she hated the smell of disinfectant and heaven knows what else, and of potato and cabbage and corned beef that filled the air around them.

‘Ah, there you are!’ Mr Thompson finally came towards
them, a nurse in uniform following behind.

‘Sophie! Hugh! This is Nurse Harvey. She’s helping to look after your mother.’

The nurse smiled at them. ‘Come along,’ she said, and led them all up a wide stone staircase for two floors until they reached a long white corridor. Nurse Harvey stopped.

‘Now, you must both promise me to be very quiet,’ she said. ‘Your mother is in a ward with five other patients and I’m afraid they’re all seriously ill. She’s in a very deep sleep, and we’re not sure if she’s able to hear. I’ll let you see her for a few minutes, and then we’ll have a chat in my office.’

Sophie hardly dared to breathe when she walked into the big room. Everything was white – the walls, the floor, the uniforms, the sheets, the bandages around her mother’s head, the white cage thing over her plastered-up leg. And her mother lay looking bluish-white in the middle of it all.

A voice which seemed to be plucked out of the air said: ‘Mum, it’s me. Sophie. Hugh’s here too. We’re both fine. We want you to get well. You’re in hospital, you know the one you brought me to the time of the swing, you and Dad …’ she trailed off.

‘Mum! Mummee!’ Hugh’s voice was urgent, pleading. ‘Mum, wake up!’ Forgetting the warnings, he was trying to half-hug, half-shake her by the shoulder. ‘I love you, Mummy! Wake up! Please!’

Nurse Harvey rushed over and managed to quieten him, then she led him back to Mr Thompson, who took him by the hand. Sophie could hear his half-crying echo down the corridor and stairs. ‘I want her to wake up … wake up!’

Sophie bit her lip and touched her mother’s long fingers that lay stretched out on top of the cover. She was aware of the nurse standing at the door watching her closely.

‘I love you, Mum. You have to rest now and get better. Don’t worry about us. We have somewhere to stay.’

Nurse Harvey came over and whispered to her to come away now, and she led her back outside into a small pokey office with a desk and two chairs. On the wall was a large drawing of a human body and a chart of emergency procedures. Nurse Harvey coughed.

‘Well, Sophie, I’m glad to see you’re a sensible girl with a cool head on you. I think it’s best for me to tell you about your mother’s condition. I believe you were the one who found her?’

Sophie nodded.

‘Well, first of all, you probably noticed her leg and the cage over it. She has fractured the right femur,’ the nurse pointed to the drawing on the wall, ‘and also broken two of her toes. The force of the bomb probably flung her to the ground, so she did this as she fell. Perhaps something struck off her foot, we don’t know. These will set, and be fine in a few weeks’ time. The more serious injury is to her head. Obviously she hit it off something hard.’

‘The concrete path to our washing line,’ Sophie offered.

‘Possibly. With the impact, she fractured her skull. The brain, as you know, lies inside the skull, the shell that protects it –’

‘Like an egg,’ said Sophie.

‘Yes, and with a bad blow the brain can swell, fluid can leak, pressure can build up. We can relieve some of the
pressure, and hope to stop internal bleeding, but after that it’s time and nature and a lot of good nursing. It’s too early to tell yet …’

‘Will she live?’ asked Sophie anxiously.

‘Oh, Sophie, we do hope so! We think so, but she is very ill. At present she’s in a state of coma. We can’t say how long that will continue.’

‘Is my mother in pain?’

‘As far as we can know, we don’t think so. And she’s having pain relief. The next few days will tell us a lot.’

‘How long will she be here?’

‘I can’t really say yet, but it may be a long time. The brain is a very delicate organ, it takes time to heal.’

Sophie stared at the pile of charts on the desk. Libby Fitzpatrick, her mother’s name, was written on the top.

‘There’s a lot for you to take in today,’ Nurse Harvey added kindly. ‘I’ll talk to you when you’re in again. You know, new research is showing that hearing a familiar voice and familiar sounds are good sometimes for people in your mother’s condition. So you must come again – but I think, for the moment, it’s best not to bring your younger brother.’

Sophie nodded.

‘Oh, before you go, I have a parcel here with some of your mother’s things. You might like to take them with you.’ She passed a small brown paper parcel across the desk to Sophie.

Sophie thanked her, and left the office.

She stopped on the first landing, and leant against the heavy leaded stained-glass window depicting some saint,
probably Saint Martin, and peered into the bag. Not much: the check apron her mother wore when cleaning or cooking; a handwritten recipe for rabbit and potato pie; a ration-card holder – Sophie had embroidered it for her as a gift, with the initials L.F. surrounded by bluebells; her mother’s watch, its face cracked; and a gap-toothed comb, a few coins, the gold cross and chain her mother always wore, and, underneath everything, Hugh’s school-jumper. Mum had gone to endless trouble to get fine-quality grey wool for it, as the heavier wool made him itch. It had a v-neck with a pale blue line around it. It had been knitted last year, and already was almost outgrown and beginning to look small. It still felt damp, and had a clothes peg attached to it. Sophie shoved it back into the paper bag. She guessed that her mother had been trying to get that stupid jumper off the washing line when …

Sophie scrunched her eyes shut. Then she glanced up at the window. The glass saint stared down at her.

‘You! You’d better take care of my mother! Do you hear me?’ she shouted as she ran off down the stairs.