‘Yes, I wrote the day before yesterday and she’s answered
straight away.’ Polly forgot to speak slowly. ‘Isn’t that kind
of her? You’ll like her, Judy, and Sylvie will be so pleased to have her auntie there. And it’ll be lovely there now, all the
spring flowers will be out and there’ll be lambs and—’
‘You wrote to her,’ Judy said, ignoring her. ‘You wrote
and told her about me.’
‘Well - yes.’ Polly began to feel uncomfortable. Judy
didn’t seem pleased at all. ‘I was worried about you, Judy.
We all are. We think you need a few days away, out in the
country where you can—’ She recalled that Judy could
barely follow one word in three of this. ‘We want you to
have a holiday,’ she enunciated. ‘Some peace and quiet. To
help you get better.’
She stopped uncertainly. Judy seemed to understand, but
she didn’t look any more pleased. She stared from Polly to
her mother, then back at the letter in her hand. ‘Why didn’t
you ask me?’ she said. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were
writing?’
Polly glanced helplessly at her sister and Cissie said, ‘We
only wanted to do what was best for you, love.’
‘But why didn’t you ask me? I’ve been here all the time.
I’ve still got a brain, you know - I can still decide what I
want to do! What if I don’t want to go? What if I’d rather
stay here?’ Her voice trembled. ‘I want to go back to work. I
want to be useful. I don’t want to be sent away to the country
like a - like a little child. And don’t you understand? Don’t any of you understand what it’ll be like for me? Not being able to hear what people say? Being with strangers, and not
being able to hear what they say?’
Cissie and Polly looked at each other. Polly put her
teacup back on the table and spoke again, very slowly,
looking directly into Judy’s eyes.
‘Judy. Nobody is treating you like a child. We want to
help you get better. You need to be away from Portsmouth
- away from the bombs. Away from noise. Please go. Just
for a few days. That’s all we want you to do. Please. And the
Suttons will understand - I know they will. They’re kind
people, Judy.’
There was a long silence. Judy looked down at the letter
again. Her face was pale. Then she said, ‘Just for a few
days?’
‘Yes. That’s all, really. Just to see if it helps.’
‘And I’d see Sylvie. It seems so long since I saw Sylvie.’
‘She’d love to see you,’ Polly said quietly, thinking how
long it was since she herself had seen her daughter. Not
since that brief hour when she’d taken Stella and Muriel to
Bridge End. When the children had first been evacuated, all
the parents had expected to be able to visit them regularly you could even get the fare paid for two or three visits - but
once the raids had started there just hadn’t been the chance.
Railways stations were full of posters - Is Your Journey
Really Necessary? — and there was so much to do at home.
‘I’d feel happier about her if I knew you’d had a chance to
spend a few days there,’ she said to Judy.
Judy seemed to understand the gist of what she was
saying. She nodded and her mouth twisted into a wry smile.
‘Well, I suppose I’d better go, then. But only for a few
days,’ she added warningly. ‘I’m not being sent away for
ever.’
‘Of course not!’ Cissie threw her arms around her and
kissed her. ‘Oh Judy, I’m so glad! It’ll do you good, I know
it will. And they have much better food out in the country
too - lots Of milk, and butter and proper eggs. You need a
bit of building up. You’ve been looking so peaky and
washed-out lately. Now, we’d better sort out what you’re
going to take with you. There’s that blue skirt you got from
the Clothing Store after we were bombed, and you can take
my best blouse, and—’
‘Wait a minute!’ Judy cried, only half understanding what
her mother was saying. ‘Can’t you wait to get rid of me? I
didn’t say I’d go this minute.’
‘No, but there’s no point in waiting, is there? Mrs Sutton
says she’s expecting you any day. And we’re just having a
spell of nice weather too, so you may as well make the most
of it.’ Cissie was not to be deflected. She ran upstairs and
began pulling open cupboards and drawers. Judy glanced at
Polly and smiled ruefully.
‘You’re determined to make me go, aren’t you? But what
about Dad? He’s the one who’s been ill - he could do with a
few days in the country. Where is he, anyway?’
‘He’s gone for a walk,’ Polly said. ‘You might not have
noticed it, but he’s really improving with this nice sunny
spell. He’s gone over to Langstone Harbour - said he just
wants to rest his eyes on some water. It’s months since he
was on the shore.’ She saw Judy’s face and repeated the
main words more slowly, until Judy understood. Then she
said, ‘You won’t feel too awkward, will you, Judy, when
you’re at the Suttons’? They know about what’s happened.
And your hearing is getting better, isn’t it? You can hear
some things now.’
Judy shrugged. ‘No, not really. I’m just getting a bit
better at lip-reading.’
‘Well, I still think this is what you need.’ Polly looked
into her cup and then stood up. ‘This tea’s gone cold. I’ll
make some more, and then help Cissie with supper.’ She
bent and gave Judy an awkward kiss. ‘I’m glad you’re going.
It’ll do you so much good.’
Judy shrugged. ‘Perhaps. But it’s not going to bring Sean
back, is it?’ She looked at her aunt. ‘I may get my hearing
back, but I’ll never have my sweetheart again.’
Chapter Fifteen The whole family walked down to the tiny station next
morning to wave Judy off. With a small suitcase from the
store, her gas mask in its cardboard box, and two brown
paper carrier bags, she looked like a waif as she climbed
aboard the train, and there were tears in all the women’s
eyes. Even” Dick cleared his throat rather often, and hugged
his daughter tightly before letting her go.
‘It’s only for a week or so,’ she said, leaning out of the
window. ‘You don’t have to look as if you’re never going to
see me again.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ Cissie begged her, but what with
her deafness and the noise the engine was making, there was
no chance of Judy’s hearing her. However, she had learned
to lip-read surprisingly well and grinned impudently at her
mother.
‘I might not want to come back. I might decide to stay.’
‘Don’t you dare! Not but what it wouldn’t be good to
know you were safe.’ The whistle of the engine drowned her
words and the train began to pull away. Suddenly crying in
earnest, Cissie waved frantically and turned to her husband
to bury her face against his shoulder. ‘Oh Dick, she’s gone!
Oh, I hope she’ll be all right, going all by herself. I hope
we’ve done the right thing.’
‘Of course we’ve done the right thing — and she’s only
going to Ashwood. It’s not the other end of the world.
You’re going on as if she was off to the Front.’
‘I know.’ She sniffed and laughed a little. ‘I’m being silly.
It’s just that so much has happened, and you never know
what’s going to happen next, and just saying goodbye, even
for only a week, makes you think about all the people who
go away and never come back, or perhaps there’s no home to
come back to. Oh, I know I’m being silly, I’m talking a lot of
nonsense.’
‘It’s all right, love,’ Dick said quietly. ‘You’re not talking
nonsense. We’ve been through some terrible times, you’re
bound to worry. And I know you worry about our Terry
too, same as I do. We don’t know where he is half the time,
and all we can do is hope we don’t hear it’s his ship that’s
got sunk. It’s worry we never thought we’d have, and more
than anyone should have to put up with. And I’m not a lot
of help to you,’ he added ruefully.
‘You mustn’t say that.’ They had begun to walk away
from the station. ‘You don’t know how empty the house
seemed while you were in hospital. I feel like I’m just half a
person when you’re not there.’ Cissie stopped and looked
into his eyes. ‘You’re only ill because of what happened to
you in the Great War. That was cruel, and you’ve been
suffering ever since. It’s not your fault.’ She took hold of
both his hands. ‘Shall I tell you what I think? You’re still serving your country. Every time you wheeze or cough, you’re serving your country, because you wouldn’t be like it
if you hadn’t gone to serve it then. And I thank God on my
knees every day - every day — that you came home. So don’t
ever say you’re no use. Ever.’
‘And so say all of us,’ Alice said fervently, and Polly
agreed.
‘We’ll go home and have a cup of tea,’ she said, ‘and then
I’ll be off down to the Centre.’ She lifted her face to the
May sunshine. ‘Do you realise, we’ve had five nights now
without a raid? Five nights of peace in our own beds. I can’t
believe it.’
‘Nor can I,’ Dick said, ‘but it won’t last. Mark my words,
the Germans haven’t finished with us yet.’ He, too, looked
at the blue, innocent sky with its drifting fleet of silver
barrage balloons. ‘They’ll be back. Sure as God made little chickens, they’ll be back.’
Judy sat on the train, feeling a little sick. She had refused
both her mother’s and her aunt’s offers to come with her,
insisting that she could manage - ‘I’ve only got to get off the train and walk down the lane to the farm’ - but inside she
felt apprehensive. Suppose the train broke down, or went
the wrong way, or she didn’t recognise the station when
they arrived there? All the signs had been taken down, and
she had only Polly’s description to go by, and the stations all looked more or less the same. Because she wouldn’t be able
to hear any announcements, they’d taken the precaution of
asking the guard to make sure she got off there, but suppose
he forgot? And suppose someone got into the compartment
and tried to talk to her? Suppose she got lost and had to ask
for directions? Tears came into her eyes as she reflected that
even a simple thing like a train journey seemed almost
impossible when you were deaf.
Angrily, she brushed the tears away. She had seen enough
injuries, and enough death too, during the air raids and in
hospital, to know that she had escaped quite lightly in
comparison with others. Awake night after night, she’d told
herself over and over again that losing her hearing was
nothing - nothing — and if it really did get better, as the
doctors thought it would, then she had no reason to
complain. No reason at all to be sorry for herself. No reason
for this incessant weeping that kept overtaking her. No
reason to get so angry with her mother and aunt just because
they tried to help. No reason to feel so useless.
Yet everything seemed to be so difficult. The simplest
tasks - going shopping, answering the door - seemed
suddenly to be almost impossible. Making herself understood
was easier, although she suspected her voice was
coming out oddly, either too quiet or too loud, but trying to
make out what others were saying drove her into a frenzy of
frustration. I’ll have to learn sign language, she thought, but that was only any use if everyone else learned it too. And she
felt left out of conversations. You couldn’t expect people to
say everything slowly; you just had to sit by, knowing they
were talking and laughing but with no idea what the subject
or the joke was. It was even worse when they listened to the
wireless and you could see them looking dismayed by the
news or laughing at ITMA or Arthur Askey. It was like
living in a glass cage.
There I go again, she thought impatiently, feeling sorry
for myself. I’ve just got to grow up and get on with it. There
are worse things than being deaf. Being blind, for instance.
Not being able to see this lovely countryside, the cows and
sheep and the lambs, skipping about in the grass. The trees
all coming into fresh green leaf. The blossom on the wild
cherries and the apple trees that had grown beside the track,
from cores people had thrown out years ago.
But other people were different when you were blind.
They were helpful, considerate. They still treated you as a
human being, they took your arm and guided you along,
they talked to you.
If you were deaf, they treated you as though you were
stupid. They talked to you for a few minutes, making big
shapes with their mouths, and then they left you out. After a
while, it was as if you weren’t there at all. As if you were
invisible.
The train trundled through the countryside, stopping at
every small station and halt and sometimes in between for
unexplained rests. The actual distance to the village where
Sylvie lived wasn’t very great, but the journey took almost
two hours and at every stop someone got on or off. There
were servicemen and women, Land Girls, civilians in
shabby coats or smart suits, workmen carrying bags of tools,