It was Mrs Brindley who brought it all to a head one evening when she appeared at the kitchen door clutching a chipped cup.
Briony was up to her eyes in ironing the children’s school clothes and she looked up as the woman entered the room.
‘’Ello, luvvie.’ Mrs Brindley was dressed in her customary wrap-around flowered pinny. ‘Yer couldn’t lend me a bit o’ sugar till in the mornin’, could yer? I don’t fancy goin’ up the corner shop in this cold.’ Then as her eyes settled on Lois she abruptly stopped talking and said, ‘So what’s this then? Why is young Briony doin’ the ironin’ when she’s bin to work all day, Lois? Are you ill?’
‘She’s missing my dad,’ Briony explained as her mother broke into a fresh torrent of weeping. Martha Brindley seemed to bristle before her very eyes.
‘Is that so? Well, I’m missin’ my Clal an’ all, but it won’t do no good to sit about weepin’, will it? Then young Ernie will be off an’ all soon, an’ I’ll be all on me own, not like you, Lois, who still have yer family about yer. Stop feelin’ so bloody sorry fer yerself, woman, an’ get up off yer arse, fer Christ’s sake. You ain’t bein’ a bit fair on yer kids, especially young Briony ’ere.’
Lois was so shocked at being spoken to in such a manner that she stopped crying and stared at the older woman open-mouthed.
‘That’s better.’ Mrs Brindley nodded approvingly. ‘Now get yerself over to that sink an’ wash yer face then go an’ get yerself dressed, ’cos I’m tellin’ yer now, I ain’t goin’ nowhere till yer do. Then when you’ve done that, yer can make us all a nice cup o’ tea an’ make yerself useful. Meantime I’ll sit an’ have a chat to young Briony ’ere.’ And with that she plonked herself down in the chair opposite Lois and glowered at her until the woman stood up and hurried off to do as she was told.
Once Lois had washed her face and gone upstairs to get dressed, Briony smiled at Mrs Brindley gratefully.
‘Thanks for that,’ she said. ‘I was beginning to get really worried about her, wondering if she was ever going to get out of that chair.’
‘Hmm, trouble with yer mam is she’s been spoiled,’ Mrs Brindley said matter-of-factly. ‘I reckon she had yer dad eatin’ out o’ the palm of her hand, waitin’ on her hand an’ foot. But he ain’t here now so she’s goin’ to have to join the real world like the rest of us. Not that I don’t like yer mam,’ she added hurriedly, seeing Briony’s face fall. ‘It’s obvious that she were brought up different to the likes of us.’ She chuckled then. ‘She’s made many a head turn round ’ere, I don’t mind tellin’ yer, what wi’ her lipstick an’ her powder an’ never a hair out o’ place, but I reckon the majority o’ the women are just jealous of her ’cos she’s so attractive. Trouble is, yer dad’s gone fer now, so she’s goin’ to have to pull her socks up an’ look after them little ’uns – if they don’t get evacuated, that is. Between you an’ me I don’t understand how she’s managed to avoid it fer so long. But it certainly ain’t right that you should have to come home an’ do all this just ’cos you were the firstborn. You’re still not much more than a slip of a kid yerself, even if yer have left school an’ got yerself a job.’
She heaved herself out of the chair then and placed the kettle on the hob to boil. Soon afterwards, Lois reappeared dressed and looking slightly better than she had before.
‘I didn’t mean to bully yer, Lois,’ Mrs Brindley apologised as Lois spooned tea leaves into the teapot. ‘But sometimes, as me old mam allus used to say, yer have to be cruel to be kind. Now let’s have that cup o’ tea, shall we?’
Briony stared at her mother. Lois’s eyes were still red and swollen, but at least she had stopped crying – which was a step in the right direction.
‘Our Ernie’ll be off next week,’ Mrs Brindley glumly reminded them then, and Briony’s heart missed a beat. It seemed that everyone she cared about was leaving – and there wasn’t a single thing she could do about it.
Much to Briony’s surprise, soon after Mrs Brindley left that evening, Lois dragged in the tin bath that hung on a nail in the yard outside and began to heat up pans of water.
‘I dare say I have let myself go a little,’ she admitted reluctantly. ‘And I’m sorry if I’ve put on you, darling. I know how hard you work, rushing about that office all day, and it’s not fair that you’ve been coming home and having to see to all of us. But I will try harder in future, I promise. I’ll make a start right now by washing my hair and having a bath. I shall be starting work at the shop on Monday and I don’t suppose I can go in looking like this, can I?’
Briony’s spirits lifted. ‘I’ll help you shampoo your hair,’ she volunteered, flashing her mother a warm smile.
They filled the bath together and once Lois was soaking in the hot water and Briony had washed her hair for her, she sat down in the chair at the side of the fire, glad of a chance to rest her feet, which were throbbing nicely now. It was a ritual they usually went through together on a Sunday evening, and Briony welcomed the feeling of things returning to some sort of normality.
After a while her mother glanced at her before saying quietly, ‘I’ve got a feeling Mrs Brindley might have been right – about the children, I mean. I fear I won’t be able to keep them here much longer. It said on the radio earlier today that Hitler is just waiting for the spring before he begins to bomb England. If that’s true, it won’t be safe for the kids to be here any more – but how will we bear it if they are sent away?’
Just the thought of Sarah and Alfie being whisked away to some unknown place filled Briony with dread, but not wishing to upset her mother again she answered sensibly, ‘Well, from what I can gather from some of the ladies at work whose children have already been evacuated, they’re doing fine. I suppose we won’t have any choice in the matter. There isn’t any other alternative, is there?’
‘Actually . . . there is,’ her mother said cautiously.
Briony blinked in surprise. ‘Oh, and what’s that then?’
Lois seemed to hesitate before saying, ‘They could go and live with their grandparents in Cornwall until the war is over. I had a letter from my father today and he told me that you would all be welcome there.’
Briony’s eyes almost popped out of her head. She hadn’t even known that her mother’s parents were still alive – so the information had come as a complete shock to her.
Lois sighed resignedly and, grabbing the towel that Briony had put ready for her, she hauled herself out of the tin bath while her daughter averted her eyes. After drying herself, Lois slipped on her dressing gown and sat down opposite her, a towel round her shoulders while her wet hair dried in the warmth from the fire.
‘You are old enough to know the truth now,’ Lois told the girl, and her eyes grew dreamy as her mind slipped back in time. ‘I had a very privileged upbringing,’ she began. ‘My father has his own business – he’s an undertaker in a town called Penzance – and I went to the finest schools and had the best clothes that money could buy. I’m afraid that Daddy always rather spoiled me. He’s a wonderful, kind man but my mother . . .’ She frowned. ‘Well, Mother always made it crystal clear that my brother Sebastian was her favourite.’ She smiled apologetically then as Briony looked taken aback, admitting, ‘Yes, you have an uncle too. Our mother is a very strict woman and highly religious. We lived in a beautiful house with a cook and a maid. Obviously my parents both wanted the best for me and they expected me to make a good marriage – but then I met your father and needless to say, they weren’t happy about me associating with him. They said he was a drifter and that he would never amount to anything, but the thing was, I loved him and I wouldn’t listen.
Lois stood up and paced restlessly. She lit a cigarette and went on, ‘Anyway, the long and the short of it is, eventually I became pregnant with you, and when they found out, Mother told me that I was to leave and never darken their door again. Your father and I ran away together in the dead of night with barely a penny between us, and eventually we ended up back here, in a part of the world he knew, and I had you. And I’ll tell you something, Briony; I’ve never regretted it for a single second. Your father is a wonderful man, as you know, and although we have never been rich materially, I’ve been rich in other ways and I consider myself to be a very fortunate woman. It broke my heart to leave my father, and recently I wrote to him and asked him to help me. I knew it would be no good writing to Mother. I explained that I now had three beautiful children and that I didn’t want them to be sent to live with strangers, and he wrote back and said that of course you could all go there until the war was over.’
‘But I’m too old to be sent away,’ Briony objected. ‘I’m almost seventeen and I’m working now.’
‘I know, but you wouldn’t want the younger ones to go alone, would you?’ her mother answered cajolingly. ‘At least if you were with them I’d know that my mother couldn’t bully them. I won’t be able to keep them here much longer. Most of the children hereabouts have already been evacuated and the school is working on a skeleton staff. Almost all the male teachers have joined up.’
Briony’s mind was reeling as she tried to take it all in. It was a shock to discover that she had grandparents and an uncle that she had never known existed – let alone that she might now be expected to go and live with them. She had supposed that her grandparents were dead.
‘But why didn’t you tell me all this before?’ she asked as things began to flash into her mind. The letters that had recently arrived and which her mother had hastily shoved into her pocket to open when she was alone. They must have been from her grandfather.
‘Until now I didn’t think you needed to know. And of course, it might not be for some time, if at all,’ her mother hurried on, seeing her daughter’s agitation. ‘But if the Red Cross do call again, wanting to take the younger ones . . .’ her voice trailed away. ‘Just think about it and get used to the idea, eh?’
Briony could only nod numbly before she stumbled away to start emptying the dirty water out of the bath, trying to picture what these new members of the family might be like.
Later that night she lay under the bedclothes, her mind working overtime, with Sarah’s warm little body snuggled next to her. If she were to go and live in Cornwall, her life as she had known it would change completely. She would be sharing a house with strangers, even if they were her grandparents. But no doubt it wouldn’t be forever. The war had to end sooner or later, and the thought of her young brother and sister going alone was unthinkable, especially if her grandmother was as strict as her mother had warned her. Eventually she drifted into an uneasy sleep, after deciding that she would worry about it if and when the time came.
Briony arrived home from work the following evening to find that her mother had made an attempt at cooking them all a meal.
‘These taters have got lumps in,’ Alfie whined as he pushed them about his plate.
‘And my sausages are all red inside and black on the outside,’ Sarah grimaced.
Lois glared at them. ‘Oh, stop complaining,’ she snapped. ‘You know your father was a better cook than me, but it’s better than going hungry, isn’t it?’
‘It’s fine, Mum,’ Briony said hurriedly, although her stomach was revolting at the stodgy mess in front of her. ‘You just need to cook everything a little slower and for a bit longer tomorrow.’
Lois sniffed. ‘I broke a nail while I was cooking all that as well,’ she grumbled, staring down at her manicured hand as if it were the end of the world.
‘Well, it will soon grow again. But now come on, kids; eat up while it’s nice and hot.’
The children scowled but did as they were told, and once the meal was over Briony washed the dishes whilst her mother filed the offending nail and varnished it. Briony was pleased to note that Lois had curled her hair and put on powder and lipstick. Her eyes were still sad and she had lost some of her sparkle, but at least she was making an effort again – for which Briony was grateful.
They listened to Glenn Miller on the wireless after the dishes were all put away in their proper places, then Briony got the children washed and into their night things and took them up to bed.
‘I’m going to pop next door and see Ernie for a bit, Mum,’ she said when she came back downstairs and was surprised to see that Lois had fetched the sherry from the sideboard. It was usually kept for special occasions. Seeing the look on her daughter’s face, Lois confided, ‘I thought a drop of this might relax me. I haven’t been sleeping properly.’
Briony didn’t comment. After all, the way she saw it, if a drink could make her mother feel a little better – where was the harm in it?
Martha Brindley was standing at the sink washing the dinner pots when Briony tapped at her door and entered the kitchen. The woman smiled at her fondly. In her opinion, the poor girl had to do more than her fair share of housework and looking after her little sister and brother. That mother of hers was a right flighty piece – not that she wasn’t pleasant, mind. Anyone would be hard pushed not to like Lois, but she was too vain by half from where Martha was standing, and that handsome husband of hers hadn’t helped matters by pandering to her every whim. Still, he was off fighting now, so Martha hoped this might be the making of his wife. If there was no one there to wait on her hand and foot, apart from Briony, Lois would have to pull her finger out and learn to help herself, wouldn’t she?
‘If it’s our Ernie you’ve come to see, he’s just popped to the corner shop to get me ten Woodbine,’ she told Briony, and saw the girl’s face fall. ‘But he shouldn’t be long,’ she added hastily. ‘So why don’t yer pour us both out a nice cuppa? I’ve just made a fresh pot and I’ve about done here now. I’ll leave this lot to drain an’ put ’em all away later.’
Briony obediently fetched some cups and saucers from the cupboard as Martha watched her from the corner of her eye. She had a sneaky suspicion that young Briony had a soft spot for her Ernie, and he made no secret of the fact that he fancied her – but up until now neither of them seemed to have done anything about it; no bad thing, in her opinion, now that he had been called up. Martha was a realist, and who knew what the future held for them? Up until recently she would have bet any money that young Ruth and Ernie would become an item eventually. After all, everyone knew that Ruth puppy-worshipped him. Martha liked Ruth; she was a gentle-natured lass and she wouldn’t have minded at all having her for a daughter-in-law, but now it looked as if the feelings that were obviously developing between her son and Briony might throw a spanner in the works. But then from what she had learned, nothing ever went smoothly in life, so she was prepared to sit back and let nature take its course. What would be would be.