Wartime Family (17 page)

‘A robber!’ said Stanley, his eyes shining with gruesome excitement. ‘He saw us go out and thought nobody was here!’

Mary Anne glanced around the apartment. No drawers or cupboard doors hung open, the tasteful watercolours still hung on the wall and the elegant porcelain and silver candlesticks still graced the mantelpiece.

‘It doesn’t look as though anything is missing.’

‘He wasn’t here long enough for that,’ said Edgar, wincing as he shook his head.

It was then she noticed something poking out from beneath his ankle. She reached forward and picked up his door key. ‘At least you found your key.’

‘No. I didn’t find it. He let himself in with it. And I didn’t drop it, Mrs Randall. I
know
I didn’t.’

She frowned.

Stanley’s eyes shone like they did after a visit to the pictures. ‘He stole it when you weren’t looking. He knew where you lived and planned to break in and take all your money …’

‘Stanley!’

‘But Mum and me foiled him. We came back and—’

‘Stanley! That’s enough.’

‘But it’s exciting …’

Mary Anne gave him a good shaking. ‘This isn’t a Saturday-morning serial at the pictures, Stanley. It’s for real. Edgar’s been hurt. We need to call the police.’

Edgar became agitated. ‘No! No. Don’t do that.’ He looked sheepish suddenly, his eyes full of sadness. He lowered his voice. ‘You know what they’re like with blokes like me.’

‘That’s silly,’ said Stanley, reanimated now his mother had let go of him. ‘We could tell him about that man we bumped into outside. We could describe him.’

Mary Anne felt goosebumps break out all over her body. The man they’d bumped into had been in such a hurry he had almost knocked them over.

‘Stanley’s right. We did bump into a man, but it was dark.’

Suddenly Edgar grabbed her hand. ‘Please. Don’t go to the police. I’ll be alright. Honest I will.’

He winced as she helped him to his feet, coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His fist was spattered with blood.

‘You should see a doctor. You said he hit you in the kidneys.’

Edgar shook his head emphatically. ‘No. I’m alright.’ That weak laugh again. ‘It’s just one of life’s little troubles.’

‘Can I ask you something?’ said Mary Anne, a sudden thought crossing her mind. ‘Do you get these little troubles when Harry’s around?’

A warm smile spread across Edgar’s face; admiration for Mary Anne’s son shone in his eyes. ‘Never. Harry has powerful business partners – if you know what I mean.’

Mary Anne nodded. It wasn’t often she admitted, even to herself, that Harry was not quite as upright and honest as she would have liked him to be. She wouldn’t be wearing new stockings and eating brisket on Sunday if that was the case. Harry knew people and some of them were downright dangerous to know.

The bell above the shop door jangled as Mary Anne entered. Daw was behind the counter sorting out ration coupons. She looked surprised and also less than happy to see her mother.

‘Busy then?’ said Mary Anne as brightly as she could.

Daw frowned and held her head to one side. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

Mary Anne shrugged and held on to her smile. ‘I haven’t seen Mathilda for a while. I expect she’s grown.’

Daw nodded. Her lips were tightly pressed together and she was having trouble meeting her mother’s eyes.

It had been a few months since Mary Anne had last seen her granddaughter. The thought of holding that soft little body sent a thrill through her own.

‘If you’re busy I can take her for a walk in her pushchair.’

Daw jerked her attention away from the coupons. ‘And lose her like you did before?’

Mary Anne’s mouth fell open. She hadn’t told Daw about what had happened. No family member had done so, because no family member knew. ‘Who told you?’

‘Never mind who told me,’ said Daw, her tone totally devoid of warmth.

A sick feeling came into Mary Anne’s stomach. ‘Can I see her?’

‘She’s asleep,’ Daw snapped.

Mary Anne hung her head and a tear squeezed out from the corners of her eyes.

‘Daw, I haven’t seen her for quite a while. I’m really missing her.’

Daw glared. ‘And you think I should consider your feelings?’

And this is my daughter
, thought Mary Anne, eyeing the dark hair and eyes. Henry’s daughter, her father through and through.

Just as Mary Anne turned to go, the shop door was pushed open. A woman in a tweed coat went straight to the counter demanding a piece of cheese and waving her ration book.

At the same time John’s Auntie Maria came through from the living accommodation at the back of the shop with Mathilda in her arms.

‘Ah, Mary Anne,’ Auntie Maria cried, her round, dark features creasing with joy. ‘Look,’ she said, turning to the cherubic child in her arms. ‘It is your grandmother.’

‘I’ll take her,’ snapped Daw even though she was halfway through serving the woman with cheese.

‘You carry on,’ said Auntie Maria in her firm, unflappable manner. ‘I want to talk to your mother and Mathilda wishes to see her grandmother.’

Mary Anne almost cried with joy as she took the child from the warm woman’s arms. For some reason, Daw rarely contradicted John’s aunt and uncle; perhaps it was because she lived on the premises. Whatever it was, Mary Anne had no intention of looking a gift horse in the mouth.

‘Come on, my sweet,’ she said to Mathilda, cooing in her ear and kissing her cheek. Carrying the child in her arms, she followed Maria into the back of the shop.

Behind the counter, where the till tinkled with coins and the bacon sheer took up most of the room, was the cosy living room where they’d eaten their Christmas dinner.

Knitted cardigans and smock dresses hung drying on a line suspended above nuggets of glowing coke. The mantelpiece was high and decorated with a length of red chenille trimmed with matching bobbles.

Maria went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. ‘I wanted to have a little chat with you,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘I think Daw is being led astray.’

Mary Anne heard her but was too engrossed with her granddaughter to fully take in what exactly Maria had said. The big blue eyes and the winning smile had captured her full attention.

‘What was that you said?’

Maria repeated it and added, ‘I’ve tried to reason with her, but she’s having none of it.’ Maria shook her head. ‘It is not right that a daughter should be that way with her mother.’

As the words began to sink in, Mary Anne’s attention was diverted from the lovely child she held in her arms and she had to ask Maria to repeat herself again.

Maria sighed and took a sip of her tea. ‘I was saying that Daw is being influenced by some “friend” who is saying that you have a bad reputation and should not be bothered with. She says that not content with living in sin with one man, you are now living in sin with another.’

It was like being socked in the jaw – and she’d had some of that from Henry in her time so she knew how it felt. In fact this was worse. Daw was so different from her other daughter, Lizzie, but she’d never been downright vindictive. And yet, if what Maria said was to be believed, she was being so now.

‘That’s not true! I’m living in Harry’s flat. She knows Harry has a flat he shares with his friend, Edgar. And Stanley is there with me. He can swear that I’m telling the truth.’

Maria tutted and shook her head. ‘Daw tends to pick the bits of truth that she wants to believe. When she sets her mind on something, nothing anyone else says can make her change it.’

‘Just like her father.’

‘So I understand.’

‘And yet this friend is influencing her judgement. I’m surprised.’

Between sips of tea, Maria took down the baby clothes from the line, folding then caressing each item to flatness.

‘This friend seems a right know-all and I for one do not like this person even though I have never met them.’

Mary Anne sighed deeply. ‘And I suppose this friend told her I’d lost Mathilda that day.’

‘I suppose so.’

She frowned. ‘But who is this friend?’

She ran through all Daw’s old friends in her mind. School friends, friends in the same street, friends where she’d worked in the tobacco factory; all different characters, but were any of them nasty?

‘I can’t believe this,’ said Mary Anne, shaking her head. ‘Who could it be?’

Maria spread her hands, palms upwards, her shrug signifying that she did not know.

‘I tried asking her, but she was very closed about it. Said it was none of my business. I’ve got a feeling he may be an air-raid warden.’ She patted Mary Anne’s hand. ‘Up until this war started, this world was ruled by men. I think it will be different once it is over. Us women are entitled to live a happy life. I understand what you did and why you did it. Visit me on those days when I look after Mathilda when Daw attends the First-Aid Centre. It is cruel to try and separate you from your grandchild. I will not have it.’

Eyes brimming with tears, Mary Anne kissed the top of Mathilda’s head and thanked her good fortune for the likes of John Smith’s Auntie Maria.

‘I should go,’ she said.

Maria raised both her hands and signalled that Mary Anne should sit back down. ‘Not so quickly. How about we go for a walk in the park? It’s windy out, but it’s dry.’

Mary Anne jerked her head towards the door dividing the living accommodation from the shop.

‘What about Daw?’

Maria’s face lit up with childish wickedness. ‘Wait a moment.’

She got up, opened the door just a crack, and peered through. Noiselessly, she shut it again.

‘She’s still serving Mrs Draper. The woman takes forever to make up her mind, and even once she’s bought all she wants, she watches like a hawk as you cut out her coupons. Come on. Wrap up the baby. The pram’s out the back. I’ll get my coat.’

Mary Anne couldn’t help giggling as the two middle-aged women ran along the pavement away from the shop, the child chortling with glee as the pram bounced over the kerb and on to the cobbles.

Victoria Park was not as it used to be. The smell of turned earth and growing vegetables had replaced the smell of pre-war flowers, but the trees were still there, the first buds of spring bright green on their branches. Men in navy-blue dungarees were digging or watering fresh green vegetables. Even children were helping out, picking sprouts or using a trowel to pull weeds from around the precious plants.

The fresh air was exhilarating and John’s aunt chatted merrily about times gone by and what Italy had been like when she and John’s mother were children.

‘But that was before the war,’ she sighed. ‘It is far behind us.’

As Mary Anne pulled Mathilda’s blanket a little higher around the cherry-pink face, a thought occurred to her.

‘I think I have something that used to belong to your sister – perhaps to you too.’

‘Oh?’ Maria eyed her quizzically.

‘Yes,’ said Mary Anne, and went on to tell her about the time John had come to borrow money against a silver crucifix that she’d guessed had belonged to his mother.

‘He’d wanted the money for Daw’s engagement and wedding ring. I gave him the money but never sold the cross on. I couldn’t do it somehow. I kept thinking that one day he might want it back.’

‘You have this?’ said Maria, her eyes shining.

‘You remember it?’

Maria clapped her hands together. ‘Of course I do!’

‘Michael found it in the ruins of the pawn shop. I still have it.’ She turned and looked with gratitude into Maria’s dark eyes. ‘You’ve been so kind to me. You must have it back.’

Maria’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘It is a pleasure. I cannot thank you enough.’

They sat on a park bench. Mathilda was sitting up, observing everything with unusual interest.

‘She’s a lovely child,’ said Maria.

Mary Anne murmured a reply. Her eyes were elsewhere, her attention caught by a man in a trench coat walking along the path at the side of the bowling green. She fancied he had been staring at them.

Lizzie and the wing commander had been travelling between airfields, ‘co-ordinating events’ as Hunter liked to call it, when he’d spotted a dog fight in the distance.

Streaks of white vapour trail criss-crossed the sky as the Messerschmitt and the Spitfire locked horns above the English countryside. In their midst was a low-flying bomber, the bone of contention between the two.

Hunter got out a pair of binoculars. Lizzie shaded her eyes with her hand.

‘They’re chasing the bomber.’

‘Correction,’ Hunter said slowly. ‘The Spitfire is chasing the bomber. The Messerschmitt is trying to protect it.’ He paused, mouth slightly open, eyes glued to the binoculars.

‘Damn!’

‘Is he down? Have the Germans got him?’

‘No.’ Hunter sounded surly. ‘There should be more up there protecting him. We need more planes. More men.’

His voice drifted away. The bomber flew overhead, the German in hot pursuit, determined to protect his charge. The RAF Spitfire harried him all the way.

The planes flew some way distant. There was a staccato burst of gunfire, and then a plume of white as one plane hit the earth. It was hard to tell which one. For a moment they both stood there, each wrapped up in their thoughts.

‘Well,’ said Hunter. ‘That’s it. There’s nothing we can do. Ground forces will deal with it now. Let’s find a pub.’

‘I hope the pilot’s safe,’ said Lizzie, the gearbox making a crunching sound as she pushed the stick into first gear.

‘I hope he is too. Good pilots are hard to find – and so, may I point out to you, are good gearboxes. Treat it gently, will you?’

Lizzie smiled. ‘Yes, sir.’

Things between she and Wing Commander Hunter had changed since his knight-in-shining-armour act outside Lavenham guildhall. He’d taken her to a village pub afterwards and bought her a brandy to steady her nerves.

‘I should have put him on a charge,’ he’d said at the time.

Lizzie had gulped at the brandy and nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘I should have put you on one as well.’

‘Me?’ She’d stared at him in amazement. ‘What are you saying? That I was partly to blame?’