Kisses on a Postcard (4 page)

A group of us gathered in a compartment to celebrate the birthday of June Burford, a girl of my age who I didn’t know, another younger sibling. We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ and watched her unwrap presents brought by her sister, Pat, and two brothers, Derek and Peter. Then a cake was produced and we were all given a minute piece.

An age further on we pulled up at a major station with an unusually wide gap between the platforms: ‘Exeter Central’, it said. The Welling-station-nameboard-remover hadn’t got there yet. There were some moments of excitement when a King Arthur-class engine pulled up opposite us across that gap, far enough away for us to have a good, full-length look at it:
Sir Bors
, the nearest we came to a named Southern Railway engine that day. What we did know was that the stop was only to change engines and pick up a little tank engine that would act as extra brakes as our train dived down the steep incline to Exeter St David’s station and the main Great Western Railway line where we reversed direction. ‘We’re going home,’ shouted some hopefuls. But no. The Southern Railway took the northern route round Dartmoor and the Great Western the southern; they arrive, bizarrely, in Plymouth from opposite directions, having come from the same starting point. The Southern Railway line (now gone) wandered through hilly Devon countryside, the Great Western Railway line ran (still runs) dramatically along the seashore at Dawlish. ‘The sea,’ yelled hundreds of excited voices in unison and our train heaved with excitement. It is a wonder it didn’t tip over sideways as every child and teacher in it strained to get as close as possible to the waves breaking a few feet from us as we clanked along. Then Plymouth, the Royal Navy base at Devonport packed with grey, menacing warships, a slow rumble over Saltash Bridge, which had an armed sentry at each end, and we were told we were in Cornwall. Cornwall, it sounded all right: a wall of corn. But the first station we passed through after Saltash was St Germans. Sainted Germans? Here? The next was Menheniot, which was incomprehensible. We crossed a viaduct, one of several, but this one was high over a deep little valley with a single-track railway far beneath us, and had a station at the end of it. We stopped there, the front of the train in a cutting, so steep were the contours. ‘Liskeard’, said the boards. We didn’t even know how to say it. Was this a foreign country?

The afternoon sun shone down the length of the cutting, making bars of gold through the smoke and steam of our new engine, given to us at Exeter. A Great Western, a stranger, a Hall-class, but I forgot which one as we were led away and walked up the road in long crocodiles of twos, past curious local people, to an assembly room where we were given a bun and squash. We were soon packed into buses which fanned out of Liskeard in all directions, breaking up Westwood Secondary School for good – well, anyway, for the duration.

Still going further west towards the sun, our bus followed another down a long winding hill past a vast railway viaduct, the biggest yet, with a mysterious, derelict one beside it: Moorswater. On, through strange folded countryside with a line of moors in the distance, to a school – granite and slate, small and bleak and Victorian – nothing like the brick-and-tile, airy, modern Westwood Secondary or Eastcote Road Primary in our modern pebble-dash estates. This one sat just outside the village, squat and solitary on a country road. All the buildings we had seen looked so old. Even the people waiting in the inadequate playground seemed older than our parents – the youngish marrieds who made up the adult population of our street at home.

The sixty or so of us were herded into the centre of the main schoolroom and the villagers crowded in after us and stood round the walls. What a scene, this auction of children with no money involved, almost medieval. The villagers slowly circled us and picked the most likely-looking. They used phrases strange to us in thick accents we could barely understand.

‘Hallo, my beauty.’

‘There y’re, me ’andsome. Wha’ be your name then?’

‘Don’ you worry none.’

‘Us’ll ’ave ’ee.’

‘ ’Er can come wi’ I.’

‘This one yere’ll do we.’

Inhuman as it all could be judged now, I can think of no quicker, better way of dispersing us. I don’t know if the other children felt fear or anxiety; some must have. I remember only curiosity. At least our new guardians were given some sort of choice in who was going to share their homes if the children were not. Not that anyone in authority in those days would have thought of consulting children about their welfare. One thing would seem to be sure: whoever was running things locally did a good job, because no brothers and sisters were split up that day. Some people took three or four children to keep families together. We knew this was so when we reassembled for school.

A female voice said to me, ‘What about you, my pretty? D’you want to come wi’ I?’

‘I’m with my brother,’ I said.

‘Two of you, eh?’

‘Yes, he’s with me. We’re staying together,’ said Jack.

‘Two boys is a bit much for we.’ And the owner of the voice moved on.

A hand grabbed my hair, an action I always hated. There was quite a lot of it and it was fair.

‘Yere. I’ll have this one yere, little blondie,’ said a female voice.

‘Ow, that’s my hair.’

‘I know, boy. Could do with a cut, too.’

I cannot be quite sure about my first reaction to this person, older than my mother, who laid claim to me in such a way. Although the hand that had ruffled my hair had been less than gentle, she herself, looking down at me, did not look intimidating. Her accent was different again, much easier to follow than much of what we were listening to.

‘You’ve got to have my brother, too.’

‘
Got
to?’ Her eyebrows went up a little in surprise.

‘Mum said we’ve got to stay together. She said so.’

‘Did she now?’

‘Yes, we’re staying together,’ said Jack, more firmly than he could possibly have felt.

‘Are you now? And you’re his brother, are you?’

‘Yes. We’re together.’

‘Both of us,’ I added, to clear up any possible misunderstanding.

She regarded us reflectively. ‘That’s right, then. If your mam said. How old are you, boys?’

We spoke eagerly and simultaneously. ‘Eleven, nearly twelve.’ ‘Seven and a half.’

‘And what are your names?’

Again we tumbled over one another. ‘Jack.’ ‘Terry.’

‘Well, you’re a pair, aren’t you?’ she said and it sounded complimentary. ‘I like boys, less trouble than girls. Girls, oh,
Duw
. Nimby-pimby, all tears and temper. Can you top ’n’ tail?’

‘We did that at our cousins’ last year,’ said Jack.

‘Well, that’s all right, then. You may be down in the front passage for a bit. We got two soldiers, see? Just for now. From Dunkirk. They’ll soon be gone. Come on. Both of you. I like little blondies. Our family’s dark, especially my son, Gwyn. He’s in the Army, training in Wales.’

We left the vacky market. Outside she called out to someone. ‘Here, over yere. We got two.’

‘Oh
Duw
, girl. Can we fit ’em in?’

‘We’ll think of something. Come on, boys, quick, ’fore he changes his mind.’

The man, tiny, bald, tanned, rotund, like a hard rubber ball, had booked the solitary village taxi. He was much shorter than his wife, who was no great height. ‘Here, boys, in you get, quick, ’fore someone else gets him. Ever ridden in a taxi?’ He didn’t wait for any possible reply. ‘I hadn’t when I was your age.’

And we were in the taxi with this odd couple, heading back up the lane, left on to the main road through the village, Dobwalls, where we – privileged in our vehicle – passed villagers walking home with their new vacky acquisitions.

Out into open country again, still towards the setting sun. The man sat in front with the driver, Jack and I behind with the woman. The man turned round. ‘Now then, what’s your names, boys?’

Once more neither of us waited for the other. ‘Terry.’ ‘Jack,’ we said in unison.

‘And how old are you?’

‘I’m nearly twelve,’ said Jack as I said, ‘I’m seven and a half.’

The man pretended to be confused. ‘Have you thought of electing one of you to be chairman?’

This, in turn, confused us.

‘Leave ’em alone, Jack,’ said the woman, already protective.

He pointed at me. ‘So, you’re Jack.’ He pointed at Jack, ‘And you’re Terry.’ His finger stabbed at me again, ‘And you’re nearly twelve.’ Back to Jack, ‘And you’re seven.’

We giggled. ‘Don’t be silly.’

He did it all again but correctly this time.

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, thank God we got that straight.’ His grin included us in his joke.

‘Only seven, are you?’ said the woman to me as though it were a wonder.

‘Yes.’ I was confident by now, too confident, and decided to identify myself. ‘I’m the clever one.’

‘Are you now?’ said the man, his grin fading. He turned to Jack, ‘And what are you?’

‘I’m the older one.’

There was a silent moment during which he glanced at the woman, then looked from one to the other of us. ‘Hmm,’ was all he said.

She came in quickly. ‘Well, that’s funny, my husband is Jack too.’

Jack was amazed. ‘Is your name really Jack?’

The man grinned again, instantly responding. ‘Course it is. What d’you think? We’re telling fibs?’

‘Isn’t that funny?’ said Jack, pleased.

‘We’ll have to make sure we don’t muddle you up, then, won’t we?’ said the woman.

‘D’you think you can manage to tell the difference?’ The man looked very concerned as we both laughed. ‘Well, what’s funny?’ he asked. ‘We look just the same, don’t we?’

‘He’s younger ’n you,’ I said.

‘No, not much,’ he replied.

‘I’ve got hair,’ said Jack, and this got a good laugh.

‘Oh, cheeky, are we?’ was the response.

‘And you’re redder than him and fatter. And you talk funny.’ As always I went too far for my brother, though everyone else laughed.

‘Please, I’m sorry. He didn’t mean anything,’ Jack said, embarrassed.

The woman was again all reassurance. ‘That’s all right, boy. He’s only saying what he sees and hears. So. You call him Uncle Jack. And I’m Auntie Rose.’

The driver said something incomprehensible to the man.

He turned back to us. ‘Hear that, boys? What he says about the vackies?’

‘No,’ we answered, mystified.

The driver half turned his head so that we could hear better and repeated whatever it was. We stared in silence.

‘Is he speaking English?’ I asked at last and earned a roar of laughter.

‘Oh, ar, ’tis English all right,’ he said. ‘ ’Tis Cornish. ’Tis proper English. We’ll soon ’ave you talking it, don’t you fret, my beauty.’ Beauty, as he said it, came out as ‘boody’.

‘Not living with a Welshman, they won’t,’ said the man Jack. ‘I’ll tan it out of them.’

‘Hark at them both,’ chimed in the woman, defending us from the threatened assault. ‘Double Dutch is all either of ’em can talk. You take no notice, boys.’

We swept past a farm with a huddle of outbuildings which grimly showed their backs to the weather and the outside world; they looked into shelter and pungent smells. We topped the brow of a hill with a lone oak tree growing from the hedge, not very tall but stark, only thinly veiled in June leaf, with all the branches blown one way like the fingers in a skinny hand pleading to the north-east for relief. We would soon learn to know intimately those prevalent (permanent so it sometimes seemed) south-westerlies that blew across Cornwall.

The man spoke. ‘There we are. See? That’s where we live. We’re the end one. There.’ We stared across a field at a terrace of Victorian cottages – more slate and granite. They looked tiny and grim. Seven of them, as it turned out. How could seven families live in so little space? ‘That’s Doublebois,’ he said. He pronounced it ‘Double-boys’ as you might expect. He continued, ‘Doublebois is French.’ Now he tried a French pronunciation on it. ‘Doobler-bwa’. That’s French. It means two woods. Not two boys, two woods. Only we can say two boys now, isn’t it?’ And he laughed at his welcoming wit.