Jubilee (10 page)

I put a hand to my brow as though to push away the reflections, and focused instead on the evacuee aspect of Evie and my father’s childhood. Most village families had taken in children
from towns and cities, Evie had told me once. But usually they’d hoped for sturdy boys who could help on the farm or with digging allotments, or a single girl who could be squeezed into a
small spare room and act as a companion to a woman whose son or husband had joined up. Twins of ten were another proposition altogether.

‘Robert must have wanted a teenage lad, too,’ she’d said. ‘It would have been so useful for him on the farm. But he chose us. That shows he must have . . .’ Her
mouth closed on the unspoken words.

‘Must have what?’ I asked.

‘Nothing,’ she’d said. ‘We were so excited when we left London on the train with all our classmates. I don’t think we understood that we weren’t just going on
holiday.’ Her expression altered. ‘But our poor mother knew, despite her brave face. I think the reality only dawned on me when we were standing in the village hall. It was a terrible
place with a tin roof, stifling in summer and freezing in winter, reeking of damp lino and mildew. Most of the people who came to take in evacuees just walked past us, though a few old ladies cooed
over your father. He was such an attractive child.’

‘So were you.’

She laughed. ‘Not then. I was too thin-faced for a child. But they couldn’t have Charlie without me. Mum had made our teacher promise they wouldn’t split us up because we were
twins.’

‘It must have been awful, waiting to be chosen.’ I shuddered, remembering netball teams chosen by the most popular girl in the class, how she’d select her friends and leave me
standing alone, unwanted. How much worse this selection of evacuees must have been.

‘Being evacuated seemed like fun at first. I remember the train with its cream and brown livery, how smart it was, and the charabanc from the station to Craven. But then we reached the
village hall and I thought Mum would think I hadn’t tried hard enough to look appealing.’ For a moment my aunt’s face was that of a child’s. ‘She’d even found
some wool to knit us both new cardigans so we looked our best: mine was red and Charlie’s was blue. With smart horn buttons. But it didn’t seem to be working.’ She paused.
‘Then Robert Winter came in and saved us.’

Robert

Kanburi, Thailand, late March 1943

Dear Evie,

I’m starting to realize that nothing can save us from this ordeal but I’m still trying to keep my chin up. We’re in another camp, thirty miles or so north-west of Ban Pong.
It’s called Kanburi or something like that, hard to tell whether the Australians have cut out a few letters from the proper Thai place name. The town itself has shops and some good-sized
wooden buildings, running down to the river.

When we were told we were marching to our new workplace some of the men looked at one another. I didn’t know what they meant by those looks. I do now.

We were responsible for moving all the tools and equipment we needed for our work constructing the railway. No mules. We were the mules. At home I could carry tools on my shoulder without
thinking about it. I could heave a sack of feed in one easy movement and carry it across the farmyard. ‘You’re strong,’ you told me.

I’m not strong now. By the time we’d reached this camp I’d dropped most of my tools at the side of the track. The guards could have killed me for that but I scarcely cared
any more. We slept each night in the open, with nothing to protect us from the mosquitoes. Or the snakes and centipedes and scorpions. I felt the darkness rolling over me and I wondered whether I
should just let myself drop over the edge of the path so that I’d shatter on the rocks below. Only knowing Matthew was beside me stopped me from doing that. We didn’t say much. We
didn’t need to.

The first few weeks we were here I managed to get a job cutting strips of wood into signs and painting them. Good work to conserve energy. But then I was thrown out of that post. I think they
saw I was too strong to waste. So now I break stones on the ground they’re clearing for the railway. Each work day is ten hours long. I watch the tracks lengthen and I think of all those
Japanese soldiers heading north-west for India.

I long for someone to tell us that the war is over and that they are coming to save us. I don’t even know who the ‘they’ are. Last night two British officers were hauled out
because they’d made and hidden a radio. They will be made to stand in the open for two days and nights. And that won’t be the end of it, the Japanese build punishment on punishment.
They stand you out. Then they beat you. Then they let the doctor patch you up and then it starts again: stand out, beating. Or perhaps a visit to the secret police treatment centres in the town.
And the worst is what happens in your head.

A radio. All those evenings at home before the war when we sat in the parlour and listened to the wireless. Mum was better then, not confined to bed. Matthew’d listen to the news with
us, though he didn’t like the wireless as much as I did. Mum liked the dance bands – she’d been quite a dancer herself before the stroke.

I used to be called a steady lad. Reliable middle order batsman, they said, just like his brother, just like all the Winter men. Mum knew different. Sometimes, when I was small, and there was
an animal to be slaughtered on the farm, she’d find a reason for me not to be there. ‘Go down to the shop, Robert,’ she’d tell me, handing me a sixpence. ‘I need
tea.’ And I’d go, even if I knew she didn’t need the tea, even if I was ashamed because I knew I should be there watching the slaughterman with his sharp blade and quick strokes.
Mum knew my secret: that I’m not like my brother, that when I see bad things they won’t leave my imagination. Stanley will always have that bayonet through him in my mind. I can’t
replace the picture with one of him chattering to himself as he played with our tools.

But it helps when I pretend I’m back at the farm. You and Charlie are playing tag in the farmyard. You’re good runners, like hares darting from the barn to the henhouse and
stables. Sometimes I join in and you scream with delight as I catch you. Then I realize that the screams are real and they’re coming from the officers as the guards beat them. I try and pull
myself back into Winter’s Copse but the screams keep me here, in this hut with its stinks and crawling insects.

Do you remember when I first saw you in the village hall? When I came to take you home with me.

Evie

1940

He unlaced his boots at the entrance and approached the line of children in his stockinged feet, stopping in front of them to examine them. For a whole minute nobody spoke.
Even Miss Moss ceased her chatting with the WRVS lady who’d driven them here from the station. The thin woman sitting in the corner with the clipboard watched the young man intently.

Evie felt the warmth of his eyes on her face. She stared at him and couldn’t keep her eyes from his. He was probably the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. Evie’s chest suddenly
felt tight. She stared at the fire extinguisher on the wall until it blurred. He smiled and there was a note of apology on his face. Evie hardened her face. He walked away.

And turned. And came back to look at them again. The young man nodded slowly and padded over to the desk, where Miss Moss, the schoolteacher, handed him some papers.

Unsure what was to happen next, Evie and Charlie remained in the line.

The young man walked back to the door and replaced his boots, which, Evie saw, were caked in mud. He turned. ‘What are you waiting for, you two?’

The thin woman in the corner made an exclamation. ‘It’s all right, Miss Fernham,’ the young man said. ‘I know what I’m doing.’

‘They’re from south London. Are you sure it’s appropriate?’ She spoke in a clipped voice.

He gave a single nod.

Evie sought Miss Moss’s eyes. ‘Off you go with, erm, Mr Winter, Eve and Charles.’ Miss Moss’s fingers pulled at a loose thread on her angora jumper. ‘His mother is
waiting for you at home. I’ll see you both at school on Monday. You can tell me all about the farm.’

‘The farm?’ Evie must surely have misheard.

‘Apparently the Winters live at Winter’s Copse, the biggest farm in the parish.’ She made a gesture with her hands like a woman shooing away pigeons. ‘Off you go,
you’ve been chosen now.’

Chosen. They had been chosen to live on a farm. But why? The children picked up their suitcases.

‘You like chicks?’ Mr Winter asked as they joined him at the door. She noticed the way his eyes crinkled up at the corners. His hair was thick and shiny like a film-star’s.
‘Ducklings? We’ve got both. In spring we have lambs, too.’ He held out his hands. ‘What am I thinking of? Give me those cases, you both look all in.’

And they handed them over and followed him out of the hall and up the village high street. Most of the gardens had flowers in them: roses and honeysuckle and other plants she didn’t
recognize. In London people had started digging up gardens to grow potatoes and carrots. There were cats, too, sitting on walls, enjoying the last of the sun. Apart from their own footsteps the
only sound was of cows mooing somewhere behind the cottages. Evie nudged her brother. ‘D’you hear that?’

They turned off the street and up a narrow lane leading uphill. Charlie slowed. Evie tugged at his hand to hurry him. Mr Winter stopped, and walked back to them. ‘I’m going too fast,
aren’t I?’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Sorry. I’m not used to kids. How old are you two?’

‘Ten,’ said Evie.

The young man whistled. ‘Tiddlers.’ With one smooth movement he hoisted a case up under each arm and held out a hand to each of them. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a pull up
the hill.’

His hands felt warm and rough. Her suitcase had left a red welt on Evie’s hand but he held it gently so it didn’t hurt.

He turned through into a field with lots of trees in it. ‘The orchard,’ he said proudly. ‘Best apples in the parish. Pears too. You like pears, Master Charles?’

Charlie nodded, still too shy to speak. Mr Winter grinned and suddenly looked hardly older than them. ‘My big brother Matthew says I’ve got a knack with fruit trees. They do well for
me.’

So there was an older brother, too.

Then the house was before them. Evie stopped. It was enormous. Posh. It made their own house in London look teeny. The white walls with their soft orange brick detail seemed to be growing out of
the fields, as though the building was a living, breathing thing, part of the landscape. Trees waved their boughs all around it.

‘I like your house,’ she told Mr Winter. Immediately she was aware that like wasn’t a big enough word for what she felt. Winter’s Copse, was its name, it said so on the
sign.

He turned to smile at her and his eyes were like warm toffee. ‘It’s the prettiest house in the village, if you want my opinion. But I’m prejudiced.’

Uncertain what the word meant, Evie nodded.

They didn’t enter by the front door; he walked them round to the back, through a side gate. The garden was long and given over to grass, with flowerbeds of lupins and delphiniums beneath
the stone walls. A black and white collie rose and wagged its tail but the young man waved it away. ‘The kids are too tired for you tonight, Fly.’

Inside the kitchen copper saucepans hung from the ceiling and the range was warm. A slim girl about the same age as Robert stood at the table, arranging plates and cutlery. ‘Thanks,
Martha,’ Robert said. ‘You can go now.’

The girl’s eyes, a curious pale green in colour, narrowed. Evie felt her sweeping cold glance take in every detail of her appearance: the new cardigan, the not-new skirt, the slightly
scuffed, if highly polished, sandals. She gave a brief nod, her glossy dark hair falling over her shoulders.

Evie’s attention moved to the chairs round the kitchen table. The day had started early. ‘Supper in a minute,’ Robert said. ‘Martha’s got it ready. I’ll just
take you upstairs first.’

They followed him up the broad wooden staircase.

‘Mother’s in here,’ he said quietly. ‘You’d best see her tonight, before she gets too tired. She had a stroke a few years back, just after Dad died, and now she
can’t move or talk much.’ He nodded at them to enter the bedroom, which was dark because the curtains were drawn. It smelled of menthol and lavender. A woman sat up on her pillows to
peer at the children. She wore an old-fashioned lace cap. Evie noticed the spectacles folded on top of the bible on the bedside table. Perhaps she couldn’t even see without them.
‘Plenty of milk,’ she told her son. ‘To build them up. Pretty little things.’ And the lids covered her watery eyes. Mr Winter beckoned them out of the room.

‘You’re in this room.’ He opened a door on the other side of the landing. Two beds, a chest of drawers and a wardrobe. A striped rug on the wooden floor, some cross-stitched
verses from the Old Testament on the walls. A big bookcase against one of the walls, its shelves packed with children’s books and toys, which must once have belonged to Robert and his
brother. On the floor sat a large model castle with knights defending its ramparts. Charlie gave a short exclamation. He’d left a toy fort at home in London but it was nothing in comparison
with this one.

‘Used to be ours,’ Mr Winter said. ‘Matthew’s and mine. We collected all those knights and painted them.’ He laid a suitcase on each bed. Evie flopped down beside
her case. ‘Have a wash-up,’ he said. ‘Bathroom’s at the end of the landing. Then come down. Martha’s made us a stew for supper. I’m no cook.’

‘Can we play with it?’ Charlie’s eyes were still on the fort.

‘That’s why I put it in here for you.’

‘Robert,’ the girl Martha called up the stairs. ‘Supper’s ready.’

He gave a little start. ‘We’d better go down. She doesn’t like it if we let the food get cold.’

The stew had real beef in it, just small pieces but you could tell it was the proper thing. Martha served the children. The ladle paused as she came to Evie’s plate. Evie looked up,
enquiringly. ‘Your hands could do with a scrub, young lady.’ Evie felt heat spread across her cheeks. She’d washed her hands in the bathroom but she’d missed the smear of
soot on the top of her left hand.