Josie Under Fire (10 page)

Brothers and Cousins

She hadn’t known, but Josie saw the change in her face as she realized that it must be true.

“I’m sorry,” Josie said. “I mean it. I—”

But Alice turned away and ran off.

Josie found herself alone in the street.

She had no friends now, she realized. Her attempt at rescue had not worked out as she’d imagined. Alice hadn’t been grateful. And Josie had made enemies of the other girls; even Edith had deserted her.

She walked back to her cousin’s house, feeling more hurt and angry at every step.

She rang the bell, keeping her finger on it till Edith opened the door. Edith glowered at her and said, “I’m not deaf.”

“No, you’re just mean and a bully.” Josie went straight to the bedroom, picked up
Jane Eyre
and sat on the bed, pretending to read.

Edith appeared in the doorway. “I suppose you’re friends with Alice now?”

“No.” Josie held the book in front of her face. “She hates all of us.”

“Well, I don’t know why you had to make such a scene,” retorted Edith. She went out, and Josie heard her calling to the cat: “Biddy! Biddy, come and play! Come on!”

Josie returned to her book, but she could take nothing in. She felt tight and resentful inside.

After a while Edith reappeared with the cat in her arms. “It wasn’t
me
that called you names,” she said.

“But you went off with them.”

“I had to. They’re my friends.”

Josie began, reluctantly, to understand. Edith was more like her than she’d realized. She too was frightened of becoming an outsider. But surely Edith – so pretty, so confident…?

“You could be friends with anyone,” she said.

“But
they
’re my friends. They’re not usually like this. They’re fun.”

She put Biddy on the bed next to Josie and both girls began to stroke the cat.

Josie thought about her own guilt. “Alice didn’t know the Hamptons had changed their name,” she said. She imagined how shocked Alice must have been by the revelation. “You’d think they would have told her.”

“Parents never tell you anything,” said Edith.

“Mine do.” She remembered all the arguments between her parents and Ted about politics and ideas; and then his decision not to fight. It would have been hard to have kept
that
quiet, but perhaps the Felgates would have. I’m lucky, she realized; luckier than Edith. The thought surprised her.

“Do you think it’s her parents that make her go to those extra classes?” Edith asked.

“Probably.”

“I’m glad mine aren’t like that.”

“Me too.”

“Well, I still don’t like her,” Edith said, “so don’t expect me to make friends with her.”

“I doubt if she’d let you.” Josie knew, because she’d been targeted herself, that Alice must have a tight, hurt feeling inside her all the time.

A key sounded in the lock. Aunty Grace was back. They heard her go into the living room and then the kitchen.

“Girls? Are you home?”

Josie got up, and she and Edith went into the kitchen together. Biddy twined herself around Aunty Grace’s legs.

“There you are! How did the knitting go?”

“We both got stars,” said Edith. “And our picture will be in the paper next week.”

“Oh, splendid! We must order an extra copy for Aunty Winifred.” She began unpacking a bag of shopping. “I called in at Melford’s on the way home and got some provisions” – she smiled at Josie – “since we have a visitor tomorrow. Everyone was talking about that dreadful business at Hampton’s. Apparently the police are looking for three boys; a neighbour saw something and gave a description.” She shook her head. “Some of these children just run wild…”

Edith and Josie exchanged guilty glances.

No wonder Vic and the others weren’t at the bomb site, Josie thought. They must be lying low.

That afternoon the girls did some cooking in anticipation of Ted’s arrival. Aunty Grace had found a recipe for an eggless fruit cake, which involved a much reduced amount of margarine and half a pint of weak tea.

“
Tea?
” said Edith suspiciously.

“It’s to make it moist, I expect,” said her mother, “instead of the fat. We can try it.”

The girls weighed and measured, arguing, giggling and getting in each other’s way. Josie’s frostiness towards her cousin thawed. Edith can be a beast, she thought; but she’s good fun. She stirred the tea and began pouring it into the saucepan.

“Josie!” screeched Edith. “Strain the tea! It says ‘well-strained’.”

“Oh!” Josie stopped, tipped the tea back into the pot, and found the strainer.

“Imagine finding tea leaves in your cake!”

“Ugh! All gritty!”

They giggled as Edith stirred.

“Beat it well to get some air into it,” advised Aunty Grace.

But when at last it came out of the oven the resulting cake still looked flat and heavy. They left it to cool.

Ted telephoned from Greenwich on Wednesday morning to say he was on his way. Aunty Grace took the call, and Josie, who was in the bedroom, heard her aunt’s kind, restrained words of welcome. She longed to rush out and ask to speak to Ted, but she knew it was rude to listen when someone was on the telephone; and of course calls should be kept short – the telephone was not for children to chatter on.

She heard the receiver put down, then her aunt called her. “Ted should be here within the hour,” she said. “Now, what are you going to wear?”

Josie thought she
was
wearing something. It had never occurred to her to dress up for Ted. “This?” she asked, glancing down at her skirt.

“Perhaps with a clean jumper,” suggested her aunt. “What about your pale blue one?”

Josie agreed. It didn’t matter. Whatever she wore, she knew Ted wouldn’t notice.

Edith was similarly tidied up, and Aunty Grace bustled about, vacuuming and making beds and plumping up cushions – all the time lamenting the loss of Mrs. White, their daily help, to the armaments factory in Battersea. Biddy fled to the back door and the girls retreated with her into the garden.

It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny. The longed-for spring seemed to have come at last. Josie felt on edge – excited and yet fearful. Would everything be all right? Would Ted fit in, just as he always used to? She was sure Aunty Grace would be polite, but there was an embarrassed note to her voice these days whenever she mentioned Ted. And Josie could not get out of her mind the conversation that Edith had overheard: “Able-bodied young men ought to be doing their bit”, Uncle Walter had said.

She and Edith swung and clambered on the walnut tree until Aunty Grace came to the back door and said, “Now don’t get yourselves dirty. Come and help me with the washing. We could hang it outside today.”

They climbed down unwillingly. But there
was
something rather satisfying, Josie thought afterwards, about seeing the tea towels, dishcloths, vests and petticoats flapping on the line.

Aunty Grace looked up at the cloudless sky. “Such a lovely day!” she said. “It even smells of spring. It gives me hope that this war will soon be over.”

The back door was open, and they all heard a loud knock at the front.

“Ted? Already?” Aunty Grace whipped off her apron and hurried indoors, tidying her hair with her hands.

Josie followed, her heart beating fast.

Her aunt opened the front door.

“
Oh!
” she exclaimed.

And Josie saw that the man on the doorstep was not Ted, but her cousin, Peter.

“Peter!” said his mother.

He laughed. “Thought I’d surprise you!”

Peter. Josie tried to swallow her disappointment. Ted would be here soon. But Peter was the one who mattered now: Peter the hero, the Spitfire pilot, the one who was saving his country from invasion, the one who faced death every day.

He swept his mother into a hug, swung a squealing Edith off her feet, then turned to smile at Josie and kiss her cheek. Josie thought how handsome he was in his uniform, with his dark hair and the smile that was so like Edith’s. The flat was full of his presence.

“I’ve got forty-eight hours’ leave,” he said. “Short notice. I left first thing.”

“How long can you stay? Are you tired? Hungry? Josie’s staying with us – did I tell you in my last letter? And we’re expecting Ted. It’ll be quite a party.”

Aunty Grace was all of a flutter. And she was on the brink of tears. Josie had never seen her so emotional.

“I can stay till tomorrow afternoon. Don’t fuss, Mother.”

He followed her into the kitchen as she went to put the kettle on. She was talking about beds. “I was going to put Ted in your room, but we could bring up a camp bed from the basement.”

He grinned. “Don’t
fuss
. I’m so tired, give me a chair and I’ll be asleep in five seconds.”

“You must call on the Prescotts while you’re here,” said his mother. “They’d love to see you. And the Melfords. And the Gorings…”

Peter winked at Josie and Edith. “Would you like to go to the park? Kensington Gardens?”

“Oh, yes!”

“When Ted comes,” said Josie.

She’d always liked Peter, but she wished he hadn’t arrived first. And she wished it could have been Ted who suggested going to the park.

When the second knock came it
was
Ted. He was dressed in civvies and carried a holdall and a brown paper carrier bag with a packet of tea and some biscuits in it – a present for Aunty Grace. He looked a little more tanned than Josie remembered, but otherwise the same as always: a small, slight, earnest young man with fair hair and glasses, a paperback book protruding from his coat pocket.

As Josie hugged him she felt ashamed because she suddenly wanted so much for him to be a serviceman, in uniform, someone she’d feel proud to be seen out with.

The two young men greeted each other, and shook hands. Josie could not fail to notice the constraint between them: each must be wondering how the other would react.

As they drank tea in the living room Peter asked, with polite awkwardness, about Ted’s work: where it was, what he did, the details of the planting programme. No one asked whether Ted was accepted by the other foresters, whether he had encountered any hostility. The fact of his being a conscientious objector was ignored – rather as one might ignore a disfigurement, Josie thought.

Aunty Grace and Edith asked a lot of questions of Peter about
his
activities, but surprisingly he did not have much to say. Josie had imagined he would have been full of stories of battle and heroics, but he was oddly silent.

Later, when they went out, everything felt more relaxed and normal. They took a bus to Knightsbridge, and walked through Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens.

Josie saw that all the wrought-iron railings had gone. The Albert Memorial was boarded up to protect it, and there were ugly concrete air-raid shelters and gun emplacements. But the paths were still open, and they saw animals: sheep grazing on the grass, and a fenced-off enclosure full of pigs.

The animals all had babies. Josie had only rarely seen lambs before, and she laughed in delight as they sprang about. Edith tried to stroke one, but it ran to its mother, pushing to find her teats. The park was full of the high-pitched bleating of lambs and the lower calls of their mothers.

Ted liked the pigs. “They’re comfortable animals,” he said; and he leaned on the fence and scratched the head of a big sow, who grunted with pleasure.

Later, they walked by the Serpentine and fed the ducks, and then Aunty Grace sat down and watched as the four younger ones played with a ball on the grass.

After lunch at a restaurant they walked home, and Aunty Grace declared herself exhausted and let the girls make a pot of tea and serve it with slices of their home-made cake.

“Splendid cake!” said Peter. “Interesting flavour. Cinnamon?”

“Tea,” said the girls, and giggled.

The last slices soon disappeared.

“You’ll spoil your dinner,” said Aunty Grace.

But Josie could see that she didn’t mind. She’d made a pie yesterday and had been concerned about the small amount of meat in it – and that was before Peter arrived.

Afterwards Peter was sent to call on the Prescotts, and when he came back Aunty Grace told the girls to leave their brothers to talk and to come and help her. They scrubbed potatoes and carrots and washed and shredded spring greens while Aunty Grace concocted a pudding out of what she could find in the store cupboard. The wireless burbled in the background: “…milk rationed this week, but milk for schools and hospitals will not be affected…oranges and lemons unobtainable…war in Yugoslavia…”

Later, seeing Ted and Peter together, Josie realized that something had happened during that time when they were left talking together. They seemed more at ease with each other now.

At dinnertime Peter went down to the basement and fetched a bottle of wine, and the adults drank a toast to peace on earth.

“And all safe home,” said Aunty Grace.

Josie thought of her father, somewhere in France. And Uncle Walter too.

The pie stretched to feed five; the pudding – “an experiment”, Aunty Grace said modestly – was pronounced a success. They sat chatting afterwards, and then Peter said, “We thought we’d go along to the Duke of York, Ted and I. Might meet some of the chaps from school.”

And Josie thought: that’s brave of Peter; being prepared to be seen with a C.O.

They went out, calling goodbyes to the girls, who would probably be in bed by the time they returned. It was a quarter to nine.

Josie and Edith helped clear the table, and Aunty Grace washed up. Afterwards she said, “We should play a game.” She was in a happy mood; none of them wanted the festive day to end.

“
Consequences?
” Josie suggested.

“Yes!” Edith ran to fetch paper and pencils – and at that moment the wail of the air-raid siren rose and penetrated every corner of the flat.

Aunty Grace’s relaxed mood vanished instantly. “Edith!” she called. “Quickly!” She ushered Josie towards the hall, where they met Edith, with Biddy already in her arms.