Under the Apple Tree (56 page)

who can’t manage on their own.’ She lay back in her chair

and closed her eyes. It had been an exhausting day, filled

with irritating tasks that never seemed to get done properly.

She had been sent on several errands, delivering messages to

people who weren’t there, meeting others who didn’t arrive,

searching for documents that had mysteriously disappeared

and answering innumerable questions from Portsmouth

residents who had trekked complainingly out to the Royal Beach only to find that the Council office they needed was

in a different building, as often as not one that they’d passed on their way. Polly could understand their frustration but

wished they could in turn understand the difficulties the

Corporation had faced in finding and setting up new

premises after the bombing of the Guildhall. We had to start

from scratch, she thought, and we still haven’t got it all

organised, but they just won’t accept that.

‘There’s a letter here for you,’ Cissie said, handing her an

envelope. ‘Looks like it’s from your friend Mr Turner.’

Polly took it and turned it over. Joe had written a few

times and she’d written back, but their letters had been no

more than the letters of friends - brief descriptions of their

lives, mention of more important events, a joke or two.

They were pleasant to receive, but didn’t seem to be going

anywhere and once or twice lately Polly had wondered if

they were worth going on with. Yet she knew that she would

miss having him in her life, however tenuously. So long as

he was there, she had a small hope that one day things might

change.

She opened the letter and gave an exclamation. Cissie and

Dick both looked at her, and Alice popped her head round

the scullery door. ‘What’s going on? What’s our Poll

squeaking about?’

‘It’s that Joe Turner,’ Dick said. He still harboured a

strange disapproval of the man his sister-in-law had met,

and there was a grumbling note in his voice whenever he

mentioned him. ‘Been writing to her again.’

‘Oh.’ Alice came right into the room, wiping her hands

on her pinny, and they all gazed expectantly at Polly. She

looked up and met their eyes.

‘Well, I don’t know what you lot think you’re staring at!

I’ve had letters from Joe before.’

‘Yes, but you haven’t looked like that before,’ Alice said

shrewdly. ‘Come on, what’s he say?’

‘Like what? I don’t know what you mean,’ Polly said, blushing.

‘Like a young girl who’s just come in from her first date,’

Cissie laughed. ‘Come on, Polly, out with it!’

She gave them a look of exasperation. ‘There’s no privacy

in this family, none at all. Everyone wants to know everyone

else’s business. Well, if you must know, he’s coming down

to Pompey again and wants to take me out to tea, and that’s

all. Nothing out of the ordinary in that, is there? Nothing to

make a song and dance about?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t have said so,’ Alice said, ‘but it’s not me

who’s looking ten years younger all of a sudden. More’s the

pity,’ she added, touching her grey hair.

Polly laughed and shook her head. ‘You’re awful, all of

you. Look, Joe and me, we’re just friends, that’s all. I can be pleased a friend’s coming to see me, can’t I, without you

turning it into something more than what it is?’

‘Well, maybe we are and maybe we’re not,’ Cissie said.

‘Time will tell. So when’s he coming, Poll?’

‘Next Tuesday,’ she said, looking at the letter again. ‘He’s

coming down on the afternoon train and staying overnight.’

‘Where?’ Dick broke in. ‘I hope he’s not expecting us to

put him up here. I hope you’ve told him we haven’t got

room, Poll.’

‘Of course he’s not expecting to stay here. He’s been here,

hasn’t he? He knows what the house is like. I don’t know

where he’s staying, he doesn’t say. He just says he’d like to

take me out to tea and maybe to the pictures or for a walk or

something.’ She raised her eyes again. ‘There’s no harm in

that, is there? You don’t think you ought to come too, Dick,

just to make sure he doesn’t take advantage of me?’

‘There’s no need to talk like that,’ he began, his colour

rising, and Cissie intervened hastily.

‘Now, don’t you two start getting all aeriated. Dick’s just

concerned about you, Polly, you know that. He doesn’t

mean anything by it.’

‘Well, he doesn’t have to be concerned,’ Polly said resentfully. ‘I’m not a young girl and he’s not my father.

I’ve been a married woman—’

‘And now you’re a widow,’ Dick said. ‘And I’ve got a

responsibility towards you, Polly. You’re living in my house.’

he caught Alice’s sharp movement and amended his words

hastily ‘— all right, it’s not my house now, but you were

living in my house till we got bombed out, and that gives me

a responsibility. I took it on when Johnny died and I’m not

taking it lightly.’

There was a silence. Then Polly said in a tight voice,

‘You don’t have to remind me I’m a widow, Dick. I

remember it every day of my life. And you don’t have to

take responsibility for me, either. I’m not a child, I’m thirty six years old, I’m doing responsible work and I can take

responsibility for myself, thank you very much. And if you

don’t like it,’ she rose to her feet and looked down at him

with a glint of challenge in her eye, ‘maybe it’s time for me

to find somewhere else to live!’

She marched out of the room and they heard her feet

going up the stairs. For a moment or two there was

complete silence and then Cissie turned on Dick, her eyes

filled with angry tears.

‘There!’ she said furiously. ”Now see what you’ve done!

And you needn’t start coughing and sneezing neither,

because you’ve brought it on yourself and just for once I’m

not sorry for you. Not a bit sorry!’

Judy was walking home from the big house where the

refugee families were living, having spent the afternoon

preparing vegetables and making pastry for their evening

meal of meat and vegetable pie (more vegetable than meat),

when she paused on the hill above the railway cutting, and

sat down in the shade of an oak tree.

The sky was cloudless and the air stirred by only the

faintest of breezes. Below, deep in the cutting, the railway

lines shimmered in the heat. The grass had grown long and in the fields the corn was a deep gold, almost ready to

harvest. Bees hovered over the mauve and cream globes of

clover, and Judy watched them wistfully, knowing that the

air must be filled with their humming. I wish I could hear

them, she thought. I wish so much that I could hear

them …

A movement caught her eye and she saw a train pull in at

the station. The ancient station master came out of his office

and someone in the guard’s van threw a few parcels on to

the platform. Two or three passengers alighted: a man in a

suit, a woman with several shopping bags, and a tall young

man in RAF uniform.

Judy watched.” She saw the woman drop one of the

parcels and the young airman stoop to pick it up. He handed

it back to her, then took two of the bags to carry. They

walked out of the station and along the lane, talking

animatedly.

I wonder who he is, Judy thought. For a moment, as he

had first alighted, he had reminded her sharply of Chris

Barrett, and her heart had skipped a beat. Surely not …

But as she saw him walking along with the woman, carrying

her bags, she dismissed the thought. It must be someone

from the village, come home on leave. Her heart sank a little

and she shrugged away the brief disappointment. I don’t

want it to be him anyway, she told herself sharply. I don’t

want it to be anyone I know.

The two had disappeared between the hedges that

bordered the lane. Now they appeared again, directly below

her, and she could see their faces clearly. The woman was a

spinster who lived at the other end of the village with her ,

elderly mother. And the young man ‘Chris!’

she breathed, and her whole body turned cold and then flushed with warmth. ‘Chris …’

‘I didn’t know if you’d want to see me,’ he said. He’d looked

up and seen Judy at the same moment, almost thrusting the bags back at the spinster in his haste to come racing up the

hill. He saw the incomprehension in her face and repeated

slowly, enunciating his words. ‘I — didn’t — know — if — you’d - want - to see - me.’

‘So why did you come?’ He’d caught her hands, his whole

face glowing with delight, and she withdrew them quickly.

She felt a turmoil of strange emotions — pleasure at seeing

him, wonder that he should have bothered to come, dismay

and embarrassment at her own condition. I didn’t want him

to see me like this, she thought, and then came anger that he

had caught her unawares and she hadn’t had time to hide.

‘Why didn’t you let me know?’

‘And what would you have done?’ he asked simply, and

then said more slowly. ‘You would not have seen me. You

would have hidden away. Like you did before. Wouldn’t

you?’ He looked at her accusingly.

Judy understood. She met his eyes and said, ‘Yes.’

‘But why?’ His frustration showed in the crease of his

brows, the brightness of his eyes. ‘Why don’t you want to

see me, Judy? What have I done?’

‘It’s not you. It’s me. I’m deaf Chris. I can’t hear you. I

can’t hear anyone - or anything.’ She waved her hand at the

trees, the hedges, the railway. ‘There could be al), sorts of

sounds - trains coming, birds singing, cows and sheep,

people in the lane - but I can’t hear a thing. It’s just a sort of mushy sound all the time. It’s horrible.’ She paused and

stared at him. ‘It’s horrible for everyone else too. Having to

speak slowly, having to make sure I can see them. Even

then, most of the time I can’t understand them. Some

people don’t open their lips much, they don’t make any

shape at all with their words - I shall never understand

people like that. And they have to write it down for me, and

then I can’t read their writing or they can’t spell the words

and then they’re even more embarrassed. You don’t know

what it’s like, Chris. Nobody knows what it’s like.’

‘Isn’t there a sort of sign language?’ he asked doubtfully.

‘I’m sure I’ve heard of something.’ Once again, forgetting

already, he had spoken too quickly and Judy looked at him

in exasperation.

‘You see? You see how difficult it is?’

Chris bit his lip and repeated his words, determined to be

understood, and Judy shrugged.

‘Yes, I think so. But I don’t see what use it is. It’s no use

just me learning it, is it? Everyone else would have to know

it too.’

‘I’d learn it,’ he said quickly, and Judy shook her head.

‘It’s no use, Chris. I don’t know why you bothered to

come. You’d better go back.’

‘No!’ He was angry now. ‘I came because I wanted to see

you. We had a date, remember? We were going to go out

together - have a walk, talk to each other, get to know each

other.’ Once again, he saw her look of incomprehension, and

was forced to speak more slowly. ‘We had a date, Judy. I’ve

come for my date.’

Judy’s eyes met his and the penny dropped. ‘You said

more than that,’ she said dully. ‘This is another thing that

happens. People can’t be bothered to talk properly to me.

They just talk in a sort of shorthand. It’s not like proper

talking at all.’

Chris stared at her. Then he caught both her hands in his

again and shook them. ‘Judy! You’ve got to stop feeling

sorry for yourself!’ Her eyes flicked up at him again,

shocked by the fierceness of his grip and the anger in his

face. ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself he enunciated, watching

her eyes to make sure that she understood. ‘Deafness isn’t

the end of the world. You’re young - you’re pretty - / think

you’re beautiful - and there’s nothing else wrong with you.

Being deaf isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you.’ He

waved at the countryside about them, then put his hands to

his eyes. ‘Suppose you were blind. Suppose you couldn’t see

all this? Suppose you couldn’t walk anywhere without someone to guide you?’

Judy understood his meaning. She looked down at their

hands, then around at the banks. They were thick with

ragged robin and campions, guelder roses and a froth of wild

parsley. Queen Anne’s Lace, Mrs Sutton called it. She

looked at the ash trees just breaking into leaf, later than all the other trees, and caught a glimpse of a thrush sitting on a

branch, its beak open and its throat swelling as it sang the

song she knew she would never hear again.

‘It would be awful,’ she agreed quietly, ‘but it’s not as

awful as being deaf. People take trouble with a blind person.

They look after them and talk to them, and they tell them

things they can’t see. When you’re deaf, people only care for

a while, and after that you’re left alone. You can’t take part

in any conversations. You can’t listen to the wireless and

laugh when they laugh. You can’t be part of the family any