Josie Under Fire (2 page)

Josie sensed Edith’s impatience as she waited for a pause in the conversation. When it came she asked her mother, “May I show Josie our room?”

“Yes, of course, dear. Run along.”

It was a relief to leave. They went across the hall and into the small bedroom that until recently Edith had shared with her sister Moira. Josie had always liked her cousins’ room. It was pretty, with a white-painted dressing table and pink eiderdowns – a proper girls’ room that made her own bedroom at home seem ordinary. Josie’s mother didn’t bother much about the house. She had always worked from home as a freelance journalist, and throughout her childhood Josie had been aware of the disapproval of some of the neighbours: married women were supposed to devote themselves to home and family. Until now. Now it was different, and her mother had told her that even Aunty Grace worked, unpaid, for the WVS.

“You can have Moira’s bed,” said Edith.

“Where is she now?” Josie knew Moira had joined the WAAF a few weeks ago.

“East Anglia. Mummy’s worrying about her. And about Peter, of course.”

She moved to shut the bedroom door. “Want to see something?”

“What?”

Edith opened the wardrobe and reached deep inside. She brought out what looked like a drawstring shoe bag made of striped sheeting. “Have a look.”

The bag was full of shrapnel from bomb sites. There were several bullets. Josie took them out and weighed them in her hand. They were heavy, dull silver, dented where they’d hit the ground. There was some glass, too, fragments of stained-glass window in deep reds and blues.

“That’s from the Catholic church,” said Edith. “There was a massive hit. All the people sheltering in the crypt were killed. Hilda Rodway – she goes to my school – her cousin was in there.”

Josie brought out some small sheared-off bits of metal – and then a watch with a shattered face, stopped at a quarter past six.

“That’s when the bomb went off,” said Edith. Josie could see that her cousin was particularly proud of this souvenir.

“How horrible.” But there was a fascination about the watch, about the thought of that moment when time stopped for someone.

Edith put the things away and hid the bag in the wardrobe. “Don’t tell Mummy. I’m not allowed to collect shrapnel.”

Edith hasn’t changed, Josie thought. She wondered what they would do together in the afternoons, when they weren’t at school. She remembered, from family visits, climbing the walnut tree in the back garden and, in autumn, collecting the nuts, some to be eaten fresh and the rest pickled. In colder weather they had played in the strange, dead-end space at the top of the stairs – a space that had always fascinated Josie.

Edith seemed to guess her thoughts. “Let’s go up to the landing.”

They went into the hall and through the archway to what had once been the grand staircase, the centre of a big house. Now the stairs, although richly carpeted in Turkish red, led nowhere. The girls ran up them, reached a landing, turned the corner and faced three steps that stopped at a blank wall. Beyond that wall, Josie knew, was the first-floor flat.

The Felgate children had always made the landing a play space, though Aunty Grace had worried about them falling downstairs. There were still boxes of
Ludo
and
Snakes and Ladders
on the top step, some
Girls’ Own
annuals, and an open box full of toy soldiers. Aunty Grace had encouraged quiet games here. But sometimes, when Josie visited, Edith would fetch shawls and fans from the dressing-up box in her bedroom, and the two of them would parade up and down the great staircase, pretending to be the Victorian ladies who once lived here. Or the landing would become a stage and they’d persuade the older ones – Peter, Ted and Moira – to put on plays with them. Often, though, they would just sit in the hidey-hole at the top and chat and giggle, which is what they did now.

“Who’s in your class at school?” Josie asked. “What are they like?”

“Clare Barrington, Pam Denham: they’re my friends. Nina Parton; Sylvia Wells; Iris Gray… They’re all quite good sorts except Alice Hampton: she’s peculiar.”

“What sort of peculiar?”

“Oh, teacher’s pet. Brainbox. No one likes her. We’re mixed ages, ten to thirteen, because of the war and doubling up the classes. Part of the school got bombed; we’ve had
tons
of bombing—”

“So have we!” exclaimed Josie, not to be outdone.

“And we’ve had to go part-time,” Edith continued, “because there’s not enough shelter space for all of us. But Miss Hallam’s nice. And it’s good fun in the air raids. We do quizzes and plays and things.”

It’ll be so much better here, Josie thought. Edith’s my cousin and she’ll be my friend. And no one will turn against me because they won’t know about Ted.

Edith had begun fiddling with the toy soldiers. She took a few out and stood them on the stair. She glanced sidelong at Josie. “Is Ted a pacifist?” she asked.

And Josie realized that Edith
did
know.

Chapter Two

Family Shame

“I think so,” she said. And added, in a rush, “What have they told you?”

“Nothing,” said Edith. “No one ever tells
me
anything. Only last time Daddy was home on leave I heard him and Mummy talking about Ted. Something about pacifists and ‘Able-bodied young men ought to be doing their bit’ – that’s what Daddy said. And Mummy said, ‘Poor Winifred. It must be so hard for her…’”

“It is,” said Josie. She thought of the family discussions that had often turned into arguments. Her father and Ted had both worn the white poppy to show that they were against the war, but once it started her father had felt he had no choice but to join up. “I can’t let others fight for me,” he’d said.

Ted had passionately disagreed. “People on both sides must refuse to fight. If we all refuse—”

“It’s too late,” his father said. “And we are up against an evil regime.”

“I can’t accept that all Germans are evil.”

Josie, knowing her father would be going away to fight and Ted might go to prison, felt torn by the arguments.

“They must each do what they feel is right,” her mother said, but Josie knew she was distressed.

Later, when her father had gone and Ted was summoned to a tribunal, Josie and her mother felt the hostility of neighbours who had always rather disapproved of the family. Now, even some of her parents’ friends deserted them; and at school Josie was first taunted, then ignored. When the Blitz started, and people were being killed, it got worse.

She couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice as she told Edith, “It’s hard for me, too.”

Edith’s eyes widened. “Don’t worry. I don’t blame
you
. I just want to know.”

“He’s a conscientious objector,” said Josie. “When he went to his tribunal they said he could work on the land. He’s in forestry. He was sent to Dorset first; then Cheshire.” She remembered how, when Ted came home on leave, she had shouted at him, “I hate you! No one at school will speak to me because of you!” But now Edith’s father’s scathing words made her determined to defend Ted. “He’s doing work of national importance,” she said.

“But he doesn’t risk his life, does he?” said Edith. “Not like Peter.”

Peter. Edith’s brother was a Spitfire pilot, about the most impressive thing you could be: alone, in his plane, fighting the Hun in the skies above Britain, perhaps with death only moments away. Peter was a hero.

I wish
my
brother was a hero, Josie thought. She loved Ted so much, but he’d left her feeling hurt and confused. She didn’t really understand when he told her how he felt he could not be part of what he called “the war machine”. Or rather, she did understand when he explained it, but afterwards she listened to all the other voices talking about sacrifice, and heroism, and pulling together, and standing firm; and then it seemed as if Ted had simply found a coward’s way out. Especially when the bombs rained down and men like Peter were fighting to destroy the bombers before they got through.

That was what the neighbours thought, back home in Greenwich. Most of them didn’t say much; it was the looks; and the way that whenever something scarce came into the grocer’s, like soap, or tinned peaches, somehow there was never any left when her mother reached the counter. And they couldn’t shop anywhere else; the ration books had their local shop’s name,
Hollamby & Son, 27 Albert Road
, printed on them; they had had to get Josie’s changed temporarily so that she could bring it here to Chelsea.

“Daddy said this country would already have been invaded if everyone was like Ted,” said Edith.

Josie had heard Ted himself answer that one. “If everyone was like him,” she said, “there wouldn’t be any wars.”

“Yes, there would,” said Edith, “because everyone wouldn’t be like him. Hitler wouldn’t, would he?”

“Well, my father’s in the army,” said Josie.

It was true, but no answer, and she felt she’d betrayed Ted.

Her mother’s voice came from the hall. “Josie! Are you up there?”

Josie jumped up and hurried down the stairs, relieved to end the conversation.

“I’ve got to go now,” her mother said. “Have to fetch Granny from the hospital. Now, I’ve given your ration book to Aunty Grace, and you’ve got everything you need in your suitcase. I’ve put writing paper and envelopes in. You’ll write to me and Granny, won’t you?”

Josie nodded. She was thinking more about Russ than Granny. Would he be pining for her?

“Be a good girl, then.”

They hugged each other, and then her mother turned to Aunty Grace, thanked her, and began gathering up her coat, umbrella and gas mask. She went down the path, looking lonely and resolute. Josie knew she hated the two of them being separated. With the bombs falling, she was uneasy whenever they were apart. Josie had been evacuated early in the war to a village in Hertfordshire. She’d been unhappy there, had come home and, when she refused to go away again, had sensed her mother’s relief. It was one thing her mother and Aunty Grace agreed on. Edith had never been sent away at all.

“Come and unpack your suitcase, Josie,” said her aunt. “Edith, I hope you made some space in your wardrobe.”

Josie had not brought much: her school uniform skirt and blazer, two blouses, a fair-isle jumper and cardigan, a blue woollen dress that was beginning to feel tight. And underwear: three of everything. In the bottom of the suitcase she had packed a film annual,
Black Beauty
,
Jane Eyre
and
The Three Musketeers
.

“Are you going to read all those?”

Edith never seemed to read much. In fact Josie had noticed before that there were very few books in the Felgates’ house, except binders full of back numbers of
Good Housekeeping
and big books with titles like
A Wonder Book for Boys and Girls
which were a mixture of stories and things to do. Josie could not explain that she had brought the books for comfort; she liked to dip into them and read parts of them over and over again. She put them on the floor by her bed.

Her aunt was sorting and putting away the clothes in Edith’s wardrobe.

“Come and see the garden,” said Edith.

They went out of the back door and down the steps, past the sandbagged sides of the cellar.

As with the front garden, the lawn and flower beds had been taken over to grow vegetables. But there was space for only a few rows because the huge old walnut tree half filled the garden. Josie remembered the great circle of shade it cast in summer, and the harvest of nuts in autumn. Her cousins had told her that the tree was nearly a hundred years old. It was too big now, out of scale, and yet the garden would be ordinary without it.

“Let’s climb the tree,” said Edith.

The ridged trunk rose to a height above their heads without forking, but Peter had tied a rope to the lowest branch, and this helped them as they began to climb. Josie looked up at the spreading network of bare branches. Edith, above her, had reached the first-floor window level; Josie stopped just below. The tree still towered above them – as high as the attics.

Josie glanced at the windows of the middle flat.

“Do that old man and woman still live there?” she asked. She remembered them giving her sweets before the war – striped humbugs and cough drops.

“Mr. and Mrs. Prescott? Yes. And Miss Rutherford’s in the top flat. She’s the ARP warden for our street.”

“What’s
she
like?”

“Fairly old – about like Mummy. She’s a spinster.”

Clearly Miss Rutherford was of no interest. Josie climbed to a higher branch and let her legs dangle. “I love this tree.”

“Remember when the boys used to try and scare us?” Edith reached out and grabbed Josie’s foot.

“Don’t!” shrieked Josie.

Edith laughed and began shaking the branch; Josie retaliated, and they both squealed in mock terror.

Before long, Aunty Grace appeared at the back door and signalled to them to come down. They obeyed promptly.

“Not so much noise, please – right outside Mrs. Prescott’s window! Remember it’s Sunday. In fact, we should be getting ready for church.” She turned to Edith. “Come and help me put up the blackout. It’ll be dark when we get back.”