Ellie (18 page)

Instinct told Ellie the symptoms were related to her mother. Even though she knew Miss Gilbert would snort and say she was being stupid, she had to voice them.

‘I think something’s happened to Mum,’ she blurted out, dropping the jumper she had started to unpick. ‘I can feel it.’

Miss Gilbert stared at her over her glasses for a moment. She had got thinner still in the past six months, and her face was even more puckered. ‘What nonsense!’ she snapped. ‘Get on with that unravelling and don’t go looking for ridiculous things to annoy me with.’

The news droned on. Ellie scarcely listened to it as it was all so vague. They never specified which part of London had been badly bombed or the numbers of people killed or injured. Ellie pulled out clump after clump of wool, winding it round her hand and then into a ball, trying very hard to banish the scene in her head.

But it wouldn’t go away. It was so clear, like seeing something at the pictures. She was lying in the double bed back in Alder Street, half asleep. Her mother was in her long nightdress, brushing her hair in front of the mirror, softly humming a tune from the evening’s show. The small room was lit by a gas mantle, which concealed not only the stains on the walls, but the shabbiness of that nightgown and the faint lines on Polly’s face. Fifty strokes on one side, fifty on the other, a crackle of static and faint sparks flying as Polly’s gleaming hair jumped to meet the bristles.

It was a scene Ellie had watched night after night throughout her childhood.

She could hear everything, too. The soft thud as the brush was put down, then the bedsprings twanging as Polly got in beside her.

Ellie smelt a whiff of face powder, her mother’s warm breath on her cheek as she leaned over to kiss her good-night and pulled the covers right over her shoulders.

‘Night night, sugarplum,’ she heard as clearly as if Polly were actually in the room.

Ellie saw her mother’s eyes then, just the briefest glimpse before she reached up to turn off the gas. Clear blue, with a hint of violet round the edge of the iris.

Ellie couldn’t sleep that night. She heard planes coming back, no brave roaring now, or tight formations, but singly, spluttering, limping back to the airfield.

A montage of jumbled images filled the darkness, vivid yet fleeting moving pictures. Polly and Marleen showing her how they did the Charleston, swinging imaginary beads and kicking their legs. Polly sitting on the doorstep in Alder Street, chatting to Edna on a summer’s night. Polly rowing a boat in Victoria Park, laughing because she couldn’t do more than make it go round and round. But one image was stronger than all the others that crowded in. Ellie could feel her mother’s hand in hers as they stood in front of a lighted shop window in Regent Street. In front of them was one lone, white ballgown, surrounded by hundreds of suspended, glittering stars. It was two Christmases ago, when they’d gone to the West End to see the lights.

‘You’ll be beautiful when you’re grown up,’ Polly had said, squeezing Ellie’s hand tightly. ‘You’ll wear dresses like that and I’ll be so proud of you.’

Ellie now knew with utter certainty that Polly would never see her in such a dress. She would never feel another good-night kiss, hear the word ‘sugarplum’ or see those blue eyes again. She turned her face into her pillow and sobbed.

‘Swop?’ Carol suggested, holding out a piece of bread and dripping to Ellie. She knew something was wrong with her friend. Ellie hadn’t interrupted once in class this morning, and had been sort of distant and tense, but Carol sensed it was better not to probe.

Officially all the children went home for dinner, but with so many women doing war work a great many of the children brought sandwiches to school now and stayed in the yard.

‘You wouldn’t want mine.’ Ellie wrinkled her nose at the contents of her one thin sandwich. ‘It’s fish paste.’

Last night’s premonition of disaster had been eased by waking to another fine day. She’d seen the telegram boy ride past on his bicycle, and the only telephone call had been for Mr Gilbert. In the face of any firm evidence, Ellie was doing her best to put her fear aside.

‘I like fish paste,’ Carol insisted. ‘I only ever get bread and dripping and I’m sick of it.’

Miss Gilbert knew Ellie hated fish paste, and so she gave it to her all the more. Bread and dripping was a luxury, especially the way Carol’s aunt did it, with thick, fresh, home-made bread and plenty of salt.

Carol had only arrived from London in June when the bombing started in earnest, and couldn’t be called a true evacuee as she and her mother were staying with an aunt. Carol was small and timid, with mousy hair and odd slanty eyes, and she could barely read or write because she’d been ill a great deal when she was younger.

Ellie had befriended Carol when the other children started picking on her, but since then it had grown into an enduring and comfortable relationship, based on mutual need. Carol was Ellie’s audience; she giggled at all her jokes, and comforted her when Ellie missed her mother. In return, Ellie protected Carol, helped her with her reading and boosted her fragile confidence.

‘Go on, swop,’ Carol insisted. ‘I’m mad about fish paste.’

Ellie felt bound to accept, faced with such a well-intentioned lie. The bread stuck in her dry mouth, but Carol’s kindness forced her to grin and pretend she was enthusiastic.

Some younger girls had brought out a long rope. Two seven-year-olds were holding each end, trying hard to turn it high enough for the others to skip in. Ellie saw one of them look to her for help and she was just going to stand up when she saw Miss Wilkins come out on to the steps by the school door.

Just the way she stood, with one hand shielding her eyes as she looked for someone, was enough. Even at a distance of some thirty yards, Ellie could see tension in the teacher’s stance.

Ellie’s stomach turned over. She dropped the remaining bread and dripping into Carol’s lap and stood up.

‘What’s up?’ she heard Carol say. A cold feeling was creeping down her spine as Miss Wilkins began walking through the children towards her.

‘Ellie, will you come with me?’ Miss Wilkins said as she approached. ‘I want to have a word in private.’

The few yards seemed like a mile as Ellie followed Miss Wilkins into the school, her legs turning to rubber, her heart pounding.

Once inside the hall, Ellie could wait no longer. She reached out and clutched at Miss Wilkins’s arm.

‘It’s Mum, isn’t it?’ she asked, hoping against hope she was wrong. ‘She copped it last night, didn’t she?’

‘Oh, Ellie.’ Miss Wilkins dropped her usual brisk manner and took hold of Ellie’s two hands, pulling her close.

Ellie looked up before being enveloped in the woman’s arms, and saw her teacher’s damp eyes. ‘I knew,’ she whispered. ‘I knew last night. Is she?’ She couldn’t finish the question. A feeling of utter desolation was welling up inside her.

For a second Miss Wilkins didn’t reply. Ellie heard her gulp, then a deep sigh. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ The woman’s voice broke. ‘She was caught in an air raid, running to the shelter.’

Ellie couldn’t cry for some time. She let Miss Wilkins lead her to the headmistress’s office, took the offered cup of tea in shaking hands and listened while her teacher told her of the telephone call she’d just received from Marleen.

Ellie pictured the scene. She could hear the warning siren, imagine her mother hurrying others out of the dressing-rooms before she thought of her own safety. Then the dash through the streets of Holborn, a basket with sandwiches and a flask of tea on her arm. Had she gone past the nearest shelter, running instead to the tube where Marleen always kept a place for her?

Ellie knew what bombs did. How the buildings just caved in, dust billowing up and then falling, covering everything like a thrown bag of flour. Then the fires breaking out all around like a scene from hell. But she couldn’t imagine her pretty little mother being knocked down, her body crushed by bricks and falling masonry.

There was a vase of chrysanthemums on the headmistress’s desk, a tawny red colour like Polly’s hair. A few petals had fallen on to the blotter and she had an urge to pick them up and put them back on the flowers.

Everything seemed so normal. The sun was shining in at the window, the noise of children playing as loud as it always was. She caught sight of a Janet and John reading book lying on the window sill and remembered Polly coaching her with a similar one.

‘Here is Janet. Here is John. This is Janet and John’s mother.’ She had learnt the words by heart, not really reading them, but the thing she remembered most about that book was the images it created of cosy ordinary families with happy, smiling faces.

A feeling of intense anger rose up inside her. What right did they have to kill her mother? What did she do to anyone?

She wanted to ask Miss Wilkins but she couldn’t. All she could do was look at those petals, remember her mother meeting her at Liverpool Street station back in the summer, holding her arms wide, running towards her. They had laughed as they collided, and Polly attempted to pick Ellie up and swing her round, but discovered Ellie was now the biggest.

Ellie cried then. She didn’t make a sound at first, just tears welling up and trickling down her cheeks, growing ever faster. She had no father. No home left. The Germans had bombed that too. Now she had no mother either.

‘What will happen to me now?’ she managed to get out. She was aware Miss Wilkins had moved her chair right next to Ellie’s, that she was encircled by her arms and that a hand was smoothing her hair, yet it didn’t comfort her.

‘Miss Hathersley, your mummy’s friend, is coming down here,’ Miss Wilkins said. ‘It won’t be until tomorrow because the trains are in a mess but she told me to assure you she will get here somehow. For now I’m going to take you back to the Gilberts’.’

‘How tragic,’ Miss Gilbert said as Miss Wilkins finished breaking the news. ‘My dear, I’m so sorry.’

Ellie looked up at the thin spinster. Her words might sound sincere to her teacher, but they couldn’t fool Ellie. Miss Gilbert’s eyes glinted like flint and her lips quivered, the way they always did when she was secretly pleased.

‘Is Mr Gilbert here?’ Ellie managed to get out, knowing he at least would feel for her.

‘He’s gone to Cambridge on business,’ Miss Gilbert said crisply. ‘Now let me get you both a cup of tea.’

‘I’ve got to get back to the school,’ Miss Wilkins said reluctantly after the tea. Twice before, she’d had to make announcements at assembly that one of the children’s fathers had been killed. But on both those occasions the mothers had broken the news to their children. Ellie had no other parent, or even grandparent – only this friend of her mother’s. She was concerned by Grace Gilbert’s cool reaction, too, but Amos would be home soon and she knew he’d handle the situation with the utmost sensitivity. ‘Now, Ellie, we’ll all be thinking about you. If you need me you know where I am.’

Ellie wanted to beg her to stay, even to ask to go back to school rather than stay alone with Miss Gilbert. But she couldn’t. This terrible grief inside her was something she’d have to face alone.

The clock hands seemed to have slowed down to the point where Ellie felt each minute was an hour. Miss Gilbert started on some ironing and each time she spat on the iron to test the temperature, Ellie sensed she had some spiteful remark prepared, just waiting for the right opportunity to air it.

All manner of things went through Ellie’s mind. Would she be moved to an orphanage? Would her mother have a proper funeral? Or was she already in one of those cardboard coffins Mr Gilbert mentioned they used in the cities and just shoved into a mass grave somewhere?

‘What will happen to me?’ she blurted out, unable to keep silent any longer. ‘Who do I belong to now?’

As she voiced that last question, she answered it herself. She belonged to no one. From now on, the safety net that had been her mother was gone. There could be no more dreams of them sharing a small flat. She was entirely alone.

Miss Gilbert turned from her ironing, her mouth pursed spitefully. ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ she said coldly. ‘I can’t imagine what your mother was thinking of, careering around the streets at night when decent folks are at home in their beds.’

A shaft of light came in as the door opened but Ellie didn’t move her head to see who it was. She had been crying ever since she was sent to bed and her pillow was soaked.

‘Sit up and drink this,’ Miss Gilbert said curtly. ‘I can’t have that noise going on all night. You’re a big girl, kindly behave like one.’

‘Has Mr Gilbert come home yet?’ Ellie sobbed. She had waited and waited for him, her ears pricked up for the sound of his boots outside in the cobbled yard.

‘No he hasn’t and even if he had he wouldn’t be wanting to know about your troubles.’

‘He would.’ Ellie sprang up in the bed. Normally she wouldn’t dare to answer Miss Gilbert back but she was beyond fear now. ‘He’s a kind man and he cares about me.’

‘He cares about no one but himself,’ Miss Gilbert snapped viciously. ‘His dinner’s spoilt and he hasn’t even bothered to telephone me and tell me where he is. Now for goodness’ sake take this drink and stop that dreadful noise.’

‘I don’t want it,’ Ellie sobbed. ‘Go away.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that, you ungrateful wretch,’ Miss Gilbert retorted, her voice rising to her usual screech. ‘It’s a good job Mr Gilbert isn’t here to witness such rudeness.’

A feeling of utter desperation welled up in Ellie. She had been alone with this cold-hearted woman from two in the afternoon until she’d been sent to bed at half-past seven. Not one word of consolation had passed the woman’s lips, no kindly reminders that she still had a home here. In fact, as the afternoon wore on, Ellie had felt distinctly menaced.

‘If he was here you wouldn’t dare be so nasty.’

‘So you think you’ve got a champion in my brother?’ Miss Gilbert said in a chilling voice.

‘Well you’ve never liked me,’ Ellie cast at the woman, hating her for her meanness, her skinny long body and all that bitterness trapped inside her. ‘You’re glad, aren’t you?’