Authors: Lilian Harry
‘Trouble with your dad’, Jack said gloomily, ‘is that he doesn’t want you to get engaged at all – much less married.’
‘He doesn’t want me to leave him,’ Ruth agreed. ‘You can’t blame him. He’d be so lonely, here on his own, and who’d cook his meals and look after him?’ She sighed. ‘I don’t see how I’m ever going to be able to leave him.’
‘Well, you don’t have to,’ Jack said. ‘You could stop here with him. I’m going to be away a lot anyway – it’d be company for you too.’
They’d agreed to talk about it again when Jack came back from this first trip. Her father would be able to see then that they were serious. They’d get engaged and save
up to get married two years later. They wouldn’t have any children for another two years, to give them time to save for a home of their own nearby – Dad wouldn’t want kiddies under his feet and Ruth could still look after him – and then they’d have three children, like Jane, or maybe even four. It was all worked out.
At first it seemed that everything was going their way. Joe Sellers had agreed to their engagement and was pleased that he wouldn’t be losing his daughter. He gave them a good wedding in the little village church and what privacy he could in the little cottage, after their honeymoon in Bournemouth. When Jack went back to sea he settled down again with Ruth as if nothing had happened.
Jack came back and went to sea again. On one of his trips he acquired a parrot and brought it home for Ruth, to keep her company and remind her of him. He’d taught it to talk, copying his voice and saying the things he said to her when he was at home. ‘I love you, Ruthie. Let me be your sweetheart. I’ll be home soon, Ruthie …’
And then he’d caught malaria and that was the end of all their dreams. Here she was, a widow woman at thirty-five, she thought sadly, and that was all she had left of him – Jack’s voice, a bit croakier than it had been in real life, following her around the cottage. And Dad needing her more than ever before.
It was funny that her niece Lizzie should also have married a lad who went to sea instead of stopping on the land. Alec came from Southampton and she’d met him in the shop where she worked. He was an engineer in the Merchant Navy, just like Jack, and away at sea more than he was at home. Ruth hoped Lizzie’s luck would be better than hers, although with this war coming the girl must be worried stiff.
Lizzie looked cheerful enough this afternoon, however, and had done her dark brown hair in the latest fashion,
rolling it over her forehead in a bang. She greeted her aunt with a smile.
‘Hello, Auntie Ruth. Come to get yourself a slave?’
‘Certainly not. I’ve just brought down a few rock cakes and some lemonade. I suppose you’ll be taking a kiddy in, Edna?’
The fair-haired young woman nodded. Plump and motherly, she and her husband Reg hadn’t been blessed with children yet, though a better mother and father you’d go a long way to find. Perhaps having a youngster about the place might set them off, you often heard of that. Anyway, Ruth thought regretfully, it wasn’t something you could hurry.
She took her basket over to the long tables and set the cakes and lemonade out with all the rest. Then she went back to the other women.
‘I wonder what they’re going to be like,’ Edna Corner said a little nervously. ‘There’s some awful slums in Portsmouth. My Reg had to go there once, he said it was terrible – tiny narrow streets, all crowded together, and kiddies running around with no backsides to their trousers. And the smell! It was worse than the day they come round to collect the nightsoil.’
‘They’ll be filthy dirty, all of them,’ Mrs Hutchins said. Her mouth tightened, little straight lines splaying out all round her thin lips. ‘And we’ll be expected to clean up their dirt. It’s not right, sending young hooligans from the slums out to decent country folk.’
‘I’m sure they won’t be that bad,’ Joan Greenberry said. ‘And at least we’re just getting the younger ones here, and the mothers with babies. I’ve offered a room to someone like that. I’d like another woman about the place.’
‘You won’t when you see her,’ Aggie White, whose husband was the village butcher, said darkly. ‘All perm and lipstick, and a fag hanging out of the corner of her
mouth as likely as not. I wouldn’t want another woman in
my
kitchen.’
‘Well, we’ve all got to put up with something these days, Aggie.’ Joan glanced around. ‘I must say, I’m surprised to see the Woddis sisters here. I wouldn’t have thought two old spinsters like that would want kiddies about the place. They’ve never been used to children, have they. And they’ve got some nice furniture in that house of theirs, too.’
‘It’s a big place, though, isn’t it?’ Edna remarked. ‘I think that’s what it is. Anyone who’s got the room has to register, whether they want to or not.’
‘Are you taking one, Lizzie?’ Aggie White asked, but Lizzie shook her head regretfully.
‘Not with me and Alec still living at Mum’s – when he’s at home, that is! There’s no spare rooms, see. Otherwise we wouldn’t mind at all.’
A small boy raced in, skidding on the wooden floor and panting. ‘The train’s come! They’re here! The ’vacuees are here.’ He slid to a stop by his mother. ‘Can I have a bun before they get here, Mum, can I?’
‘No, you can’t, our Freddy! They’re for poor little children that’ve been on the train all day. You had a good dinner not half an hour ago,
and
you licked out the bowl when I made the buns. You leave them alone.’ Mary Parker turned to the others. ‘Hollow legs, that child’s got. Hollow legs. And I suppose these kiddies’ll want feeding too, when we get them sorted out. A penny bun and a cup of lemonade isn’t going to be enough.’
‘That’s just the trouble,’ Aggie White said sharply. ‘They’ll eat us out of house and home, you mark my words. Growing children want a lot of feeding, specially the boys. And the few bob we get for putting up with them ain’t going to go far, not when you think of all the washing and the ironing, and cleaning up after them.
And
the breakages.’
‘Well, you’ve got to make a few allowances,’ Edna Corner said. ‘They’re bound to find it strange, away from home. It’ll take them a little while to settle down. What are you hoping for, Mrs Purslow, a little girl?’
Ruth shook her head regretfully. ‘I can’t take one at all, not with Dad the way he is and me working part-time at the Cottage Hospital. And if it wasn’t him, it’d be my in-laws – I’d like to get them out from Southampton, if they’d come. If I did have the room I’d like a little boy, but I don’t suppose they’d think a widow suitable for boys. I suppose you’d like one, to help on the farm, like?’
‘Reg would like a boy, yes. I’m happy either way.’ Edna tilted her head. ‘Listen! I can hear voices.’
‘It’s them, it’s them!’ Freddy scuttled to the door. ‘I can see them! They’ve got suitcases, and gas masks. What did they want to bring them for? We’re not going to need gas masks out here. They’re just for towns.’
‘Don’t be silly, Freddy, you’re getting above yourself,’ his mother told him sharply. ‘You know very well we’ve all got gas masks and if a war starts we’ll have to take them with us wherever we go. Just because we’re not in a town doesn’t mean we can’t get gas. It spreads, like clouds.’
A large, tweedy woman bustled into the hall. She was carrying a folder and had a bossy, efficient look about her. She marched up to the little group of women, eyeing the tables spread with their buns and lemonade.
‘I see you’ve prepared a welcome for the children. They’ll be glad of that. They were all up early and their teacher says that most of them ate their sandwiches the minute they got on the train. Now, they’ll be here in just a few moments and you’ll have a chance to look them over while they have their tea. You’ll be able to pick the children you like the look of, but I must warn you that not all of you will get your first choice and those that are left over will be allocated as best we can.’
‘I don’t want no slum kids,’ a fat young woman with straggly hair and a grubby blouse said aggressively. ‘I got my own little ’uns to consider.’
The tweedy woman glanced at her and Ruth Purslow hid a smile. The whole village knew Dotty Dewar’s children. There were five of them already, running wild, and it looked as if another might be on the way. Ruth was surprised that Dotty was even being considered for an evacuee. Surely there was no room in the dilapidated cottage on the edge of the village, with its scrubby garden full of broken toys, straggling bushes and old motorbikes that were being ‘repaired’ by Dotty’s husband Ned, not to mention the scrawny, ferocious dog that was chained to the front fence. Ruth didn’t envy any evacuee child billeted there.
‘I want a nice strong girl, about twelve or thirteen, what’ll give me a bit of a hand around the place,’ Dotty went on. ‘I can’t be expected to look after a little one, not in my position.’
You just want a servant and one whose keep’ll be paid for, what’s more, Ruth thought, hoping that the billeting officer would see through Dotty. But she had already turned away as the new arrivals appeared at the door and hesitated, their faces uncertain. Their teacher, a tall, thin, rather harassed-looking young woman, ushered them in and indicated the tables laid with buns and lemonade. There was a pause and then a rush. Two thin, ragged girls began to fight over a plate of buns and it was pulled off the table and smashed.
‘Look at that! You’d think they hadn’t eaten for a week.’ Aggie White pursed her mouth as the teachers scolded their charges and made them form orderly lines. ‘You can see they’ve never learnt any manners.’
‘They’re hungry and frightened, poor little mites,’ Edna Corner said sympathetically. ‘I don’t suppose any of them have ever been away from home on their own before. I
like the look of that little chap there, the one with curly hair.’
‘There’s two of them,’ Ruth said, liking the look of Tim Budd herself. ‘I expect they’re brothers. Could you manage two?’
‘I dare say we could. I’ll go and see.’ Edna went to speak to the tweedy woman, and a few moments later she and the two Budd boys went off together. The Woddis sisters took Wendy and Alan Atkinson, with evident doubt on both sides, and Rose, whose mother and baby sister were coming next day, went with Joan Greenberry. Gradually, all the children were allocated to their various billets and the village hall emptied. Only Ruth Purslow and a few other women who had come to help were left to clear away the empty plates and cups.
The billeting officer looked at Ruth. ‘It looks as if you’re one of the lucky ones. Most of the houses have got at least one evacuee now.’
‘I wouldn’t have minded one,’ Ruth said quickly. ‘It’s just that my father’s an invalid and I’m a nurse at the Cottage Hospital as well. But if things were different I’d have been glad to give a kiddy a home.’
‘Well, if the situation changes you can let us have your name.’ The woman ran her eyes down the list in her hand. ‘It’s Mrs Purslow, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Thank you for giving your time, anyway.’ The billeting officer snapped her folder shut. ‘I must go. I’ve got to visit all these homes in the next day or so, see that everything’s as it should be. Good afternoon, Mrs Purslow.’ She gave a quick nod to the other women clearing up and strode briskly out of the hall.
Ruth looked after her, then turned to the others. ‘Well! Did you hear that? “If the situation changes!” And just what did she mean by that, do you suppose? If my poor old dad dies, that’s what. Not that I expect him to last
much longer,’ she added sadly. ‘That was a really bad stroke he had.’
‘Well, I’ve got to get home,’ Dotty Dewar said in a disgruntled voice. ‘My old man’ll be wanting his tea on the table, and since we’re evidently not good enough for Pompey slum kids I don’t see why I should clear up after them here. I don’t know why they wouldn’t give me one, I’m sure. There was a couple of bigger girls there looked as if they could have been real useful and the money would’ve come in handy too.’
She marched out of the hall, trundling the dilapidated pushchair which had seen her through five toddlers already and been second-hand when it started.
Ruth made a wry face and turned to the only other woman left. ‘That leaves just you and me, Mrs Ward. Well, we’d better get on with it.’
Mrs Ward nodded. She was about seventy years old and hadn’t been asked to take an evacuee. She lived next door to the hall and looked after it, keeping the keys and sweeping it through once a week. She was quite accustomed to doing other people’s chores for them.
‘I don’t reckon the village’ll ever be the same now,’ she whispered as she carried a tray full of cups through to the tiny kitchen. She had lost her voice after an illness twenty years before and never been able to talk any louder ever since. ‘Everything’ll be different now, you mark my words. Country folk and townies never did mix.’
Well, they’re going to have to try, Ruth thought, loading up another tray. And it’s not the only change there’ll be if there really is a war.
Everything
’s going to be different from now on.
Back at Ruth’s cottage Joe Sellers was propped up in the old armchair looking out of the window across the green. He could see almost everything that went on from here and people could wave at him as they went by. He could
watch Ruth going over to work at the Cottage Hospital and coming home again; he could see kiddies going to school, housewives carrying their bags from the village shop and stopping for a gossip, and the local dogs and cats going about their own business. He knew everyone and knew pretty well what they were all up to.
‘Chubbleduck’s got a tree,’ he said when Ruth came in. The stroke had affected his speech and he now talked a language of his own. Ruth worked hard to learn its grammar and vocabulary, but just when she thought she was getting somewhere it all changed.
She looked at him doubtfully. Yesterday, ‘chubbleduck’ had meant the ginger cat from next door and it was quite possible that it still did today, and ‘tree’ might mean exactly what it ought to. She decided to take the risk.
‘Ginger’s up a tree, is he?’ she said, coming to the window. ‘I expect he’s trying to catch birds. Which tree is it?’
Joe Sellers stared at her. She sometimes wondered if he knew what he had said. Perhaps, in his mind, the words had come out quite correctly and he didn’t even know he’d said ‘chubbleduck’ for ‘Ginger’. It certainly seemed, when he looked at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses, as if she were the one whose words were nonsense.