A Girl Can Dream (37 page)

Lily nodded. ‘Pretty certain they won’t be back. It’s a bit of a pointless exercise coming to places of safety like Penkridge for a few months when it was as safe in their own home towns. And then the children and the mothers get fed up being separated so the children go back home. But I bet the bombs are going to fall on the cities in the end.’

‘Well, the way I see it is, they have to,’ Will said. ‘We are at war with a barbaric nation. I don’t think they’ve learned anything from the last lot, and we know their capabilities in the air. Don’t think we’re going to get away scot-free.’

‘I don’t either,’ Joy said. ‘But why have they done nothing yet?’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Will. ‘I think the bombs will start falling soon enough.’

‘But today is Christmas Day,’ Enid said. ‘So for this one day, no more talk of war.’ And then turning to the girls she announced, ‘I have got a wee present each for you two as well.’

Neither girls had expected that, and they went bright pink when Enid presented them with sheepskin slippers. ‘Noticed you didn’t have any,’ she said. ‘And these stone-flagged floors are too cold just for stockinged feet.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Meg said. ‘We didn’t really go a bundle on slippers at home, except for the younger ones, because there never seemed the money, but my feet have often felt cold here when I have taken my boots off, so I’m very grateful.’

‘So am I,’ Joy said. ‘And they are by far and away the nicest slippers I have ever had.’

‘I have something for you too,’ Will said gruffly, and he handed each girl an envelope inside which was a five-pound note. He lifted his hand to still their protests. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Each week we pay you less than the boys because that was the wage I was told to give you, and also, out of that you have to pay something for your keep, so this money is by way of a little bonus.’

‘But it’s too much,’ Meg protested.

‘Not at all,’ said Will. ‘You said you gave us things as a mark of appreciation; well, this is to show how much you are appreciated.’

‘I don’t know what to say,’ Joy said. ‘I mean, thank you, of course, but …’

Meg could say nothing, not without crying; Enid saw her eyes glittering with tears and said with mock severity, ‘I shall know what to say if you don’t take your places at the table this minute. I have a dinner spoiling.’

They sat not far from a range piled high with logs the girls had sawn. The bird Will was carving was one that had been running around the yard the day before; along with it they ate potatoes and the swede and carrots that they had lifted from the ground. Even the flagon of cider that Will brought in from the barn was made from the apples they had picked, and Enid produced what was left in the sherry bottle after dousing the cake, in case they would prefer it. Meg wasn’t keen on the sherry, though she drank the small glass Enid poured, feeling it was impolite to refuse, and then refilled her glass with water from the jug at the table – or Adam’s ale, as Will called it.

The meal was delicious and they all did justice to it. Afterwards there was the pudding they had stirred, for which Enid had made white sauce.

‘Oh, that was just luscious,’ Joy said as she finished the pudding, ‘and I am ever so full now.’

‘And me,’ Meg said. ‘Point was, I didn’t think I wanted any pudding at all, and yet when you brought it out steaming to the table, my mouth started to water.’

‘Enid is a very good cook,’ Lily said. ‘She was always better than me.’

‘I wasn’t, Lily,’ Enid protested. ‘I just had more practice, that’s all.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s it really,’ Lily said. ‘I didn’t usually bother much for myself but I had to get a grip on myself when I had youngsters to feed.’

‘Will you miss them if they don’t come back?’

‘D’you know, I think I will,’ Lily said. ‘But cooking for them made me appreciate good food and that was a truly delicious meal, Enid.’

‘It was indeed,’ Will said. ‘Thank you, Enid. Now if you ladies don’t mind, I would like to sit by the range and smoke one of my new cigars.’

No one had any objections, and as Will settled himself, the woman began tidying away. By the time it was all done, washed, dried, put away, and the kitchen to rights again, Will was fast asleep. Meg wasn’t surprised and confessed she was fair jiggered herself. ‘Midnight Mass is lovely,’ she said. ‘But when you have to get up early to milk cows or whatever, it makes a body very tired on Christmas Day, especially if you are not used to keeping late hours.’

‘Well, I wasn’t at Midnight Mass,’ Lily said. ‘And had a lie-in till I went to Mass at nine, so why don’t you three sit and rest yourselves now and I’ll make us a cup of tea?’

‘Just the job,’ said Enid, sitting down at the table with a sigh of relief. ‘You may as well cut into the cake when you are at it.’

‘Oh, yummy!’ cried Joy.

‘Goodness me,’ Lily said, with a smile at Joy’s very good figure, ‘where do you put it?’

Joy shrugged. ‘My mother always reckoned I had hollow legs,’ she said, winking at Enid as she continued. ‘But I can eat what I want here as they have it run off me.’

‘Anyway,’ Enid said, ‘we are eating this cake as it may be the last of the proper cakes if rationing comes in.’

‘Oh,’ said Lily in enquiry, looking at her sister.

‘Don’t tell her?’ pleaded Joy.

‘I’ve no intention of,’ Enid said. ‘There is something different about the cake this year, and that isn’t that it’s not iced properly because I ran out of sugar. It’s something else.’

Intrigued, Lily tried the cake a little cautiously and declared it first-rate and was very surprised when she was told about the artificial marzipan and the preponderance of carrots. The marzipan did taste strange,’ Joy said. ‘But it wasn’t unpleasant.’

‘No, and you couldn’t tell about the carrots at all,’ Meg said. ‘They were all mixed up with the other things’.

She glanced across at their ration books behind the clock on the shelf above the range. ‘Rationing is not going to affect you much, is it?’ she asked.

‘Not yet,’ Enid said. ‘It’s looks as if they’re only going to ration bacon, ham, sugar and butter in January. I am due a side of bacon when the pig is killed on the neighbour’s farm, we make our own butter, and we can use sugar beet to supplement our sugar ration. But that, I think, will be the tip of the iceberg.’

‘Yeah, but even when meat is added, like they say it will be, you can supplement that with rabbits or chicken, can’t you?’ Joy said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Enid agreed. ‘We are much better off than city folk. As long as I can get feed for the hens, we will always have eggs too, and we can always have as much milk as we want. Oh, the city folk won’t starve, and I suppose it’s fairer everyone getting the same amount, not like it was in the last war, but it isn’t going to be easy when it really starts to bite, especially for those with children to feed.’

‘Yeah,’ said Meg. ‘I bet no one in Birmingham is looking forward to it.’

Meg was wrong, however. Frank Zimmerman was looking forward to rationing coming in because he had a little black-market business going. At the moment all he had was petrol, lots of it in barrels in the spare bedroom. He didn’t ask where it had come from and probably wouldn’t have been told if he had asked. He knew only that the petrol was the extra given to certain sections of the community like doctors, farmers and government officials, and coloured pink to prevent people stealing it. But if it was filtered through bread from one barrel to another the pink staining was removed and those barrels were delivered to him.

People would come under cover of darkness with cans and if they could pay the inflated price asked they could have as much as they wanted. It was relatively safe, for the darkness in the blackout was really dense. The Government had in the end relented and allowed shielded torches to be used and shielded headlights on cars after so many people had been killed or injured, but nothing much could be seen in the fuzzy pencil of light so anyone who wanted to stay hidden had a good chance of success.

The black market and the drugs were already bringing in a lucrative living. Doris had kicked off at first when she realised Frank was keeping wooden barrels of petrol in the flat, saying it wasn’t safe.

‘’Course it is, you stupid cow,’ Frank snapped. ‘It’s safe as houses until someone sets light to it.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘’Course I am,’ Frank said. ‘So shut up about it or you’ll just make me bloody angry and you’ll know what that will mean, don’t you?’

And she did, because he controlled her supply of opium that she now couldn’t do without, feeding her addiction. It meant she would do whatever he asked her to, like travelling down to China Town to get in the fresh supplies of opium, though he knew she was always nervous going there, and being extra ‘nice’ to certain people.

The New Year celebrations were fairly muted on the farm; everyone believed that 1940 could only be worse than 1939. New Year’s Eve was Sunday and so Lily came home with them after Mass and stayed to see in the New Year. Coming up to midnight, they clustered around the wireless, and Will poured everyone a glass of cider, which Meg much preferred to sherry. As they took their glasses, Big Ben began to sound the witching hour.

‘I won’t wish for a Happy New Year,’ Will said, as the booms stopped. ‘Let’s hope instead that we will survive whatever is thrown at us.’

‘Yes, with the Lord’s help,’ Enid said, raising her glass. ‘For surely we are on the side of right?’

‘And I’d like you to drink to something else,’ Lily said. ‘The day before yesterday, I received a letter I’d been more or less expecting. It was from Christine, you know, who I was looking after. She said they have decided to stay in Liverpool. Well, having those children pulled me into the war, which, despite Stephen’s call-up, I was trying to pretend had nothing to do with me. I began to realise that war today isn’t between two battling armies on a field; it affects each and every one of us, and so I have decided to join the WVS.’

‘Oh, Lily, that’s wonderful news,’ Enid cried.

‘And yet much overdue,’ Lily said. ‘I have licked my wounds for long enough. I am not the only one to taste tragedy, and there will be more of it before this war is won. Everyone can’t just go into decline as I did.’

‘You were hurting.’

‘I was selfish,’ Lily corrected. ‘I never let go of the memories. I kept revisiting them in my mind’s eye. Meg puts me to shame.’

‘Why me?’

‘Because of your stoicism,’ Lily said. ‘After losing your mother, you brought up your brothers and sisters, but the war has taken your father and the children from you, and your stepmother no longer wants you.’

‘Yes, and I have been making decisions of my own about that,’ Meg said firmly. ‘Richard Flatterly has been the bane of my life for years and, because of the emotional state I was in, what he told me in Birmingham affected me so much I couldn’t think what to do. I should have gone to the police there and then. I reckon he has more to hide than I have.’

‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised,’ Will commented drily.

‘Anyway, I am fed up being frightened by him,’ Meg said determinedly. ‘I am going to see the police and report the disappearance of my brother and sisters as I should have done in the first place.’

Enid looked pointedly at Will, and Meg caught the look. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What is it? You know something?’

‘No,’ Will said. ‘Nothing like that. I only wish we did know, but I did go to see our local beat bobby because I thought all of us might get into trouble if we didn’t report the missing children.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘That you were upset,’ Will said. ‘That you had only just found out they were missing and I didn’t want to raise your hopes – which was true – and could he make some discreet enquiries? He’s a good man. Known him years.’

‘And what did he find out?’

‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ Will said softly.

‘Nothing?

‘No,’ Will said. ‘He contacted the police in Rugeley. One or two evacuees said they had seen your sisters and brother in the hall. One girl said that one minute they were there and the next they were gone.’

‘But she didn’t see anyone actually take my siblings away?’

‘No,’ Will said. ‘But she said it was hard to see anyone really because there were so many people in the hall.’

Meg’s shoulders sagged. ‘So you don’t think there’s any point in pursuing this?’

Will didn’t, but that wasn’t what Meg wanted to hear, and so he chose his words with care. ‘It’s always worth having a word with the police and maybe bringing it into their mind again, because three children just going missing like that is worrying and should have high priority. But they seem to have had very little to go on, and Rugeley is a bit like Penkridge: most of the children will have gone back home now anyway.’

‘Yes, I’ve thought that too,’ Meg said. ‘It’s a bit of a dead loss really.’

‘We will drink to it anyway,’ Will said. ‘Toast you and Lily, because we never know what 1940 will bring us.’

Meg drank obediently but she felt very dejected. She knew with each passing day it would be harder and harder to find out what had happened to her three siblings. If she allowed herself to think about them all the time she would be no good to herself or anyone else, so for the moment she resolved to do her best to draw a line under the whole heart-breaking affair.

Meg was finding that a winter in the countryside is very different from winter in a town. Everything took three times as long, for a start. When the snow tumbled from the thick grey clouds, after milking the cows had to be moved into the low lean-to holding shed off the cowshed. They disliked being kept in there, but there was nothing else to do. Each one was then led into a stall and the manger filled with hay; Meg knew that they would need mucking out before the evening milking and if the lane was blocked with snow, that had to be cleared before Dobbin set off with the milk churns, lest he slip.

The yard also had to be kept clear so that the hens could peck amongst the cobbles for their corn, because if they didn’t eat enough grit with their food, their shells were too soft. That caused a problem if it iced over in the night, because the cobbles were like a skating rink the next day and had to be liberally sprinkled with rock salt.