Moonlight and Ashes (26 page)

At that moment, they saw the cottage door next to the blacksmith’s open and Mrs Evans appeared, clutching Lizzie’s hand. Lizzie spotted the boys almost immediately and would have waited for them, but when she paused, the huge woman bent to whisper something in her ear and then hauled her on.

‘Didn’t I tell yer she weren’t all the ticket?’ Gus snorted. ‘Their cottage ain’t a stone’s throw from the school, so why is she walkin’ her there?’

Having no answer to Gus’s question, Danny merely shrugged as they hurried to try and catch Lizzie up.

It was as they were passing the village hall that Gus told him, ‘They’re havin’ a dance there on Sat’day night. I dare say the Thomases will be goin’. They reckon they have a rare good time, jitterbuggin’ an’ everyfink. Problem is, they won’t let kids go so I’ll probably get left at home on me own.’

‘I’ve never been to a dance,’ Danny said, ‘but I did used to go to the pictures back home most Saturday mornings. We saw some crackin’ good films. Don’t they have a picture-house here?’

‘Nah. Yer have to go into Pwllheli. Mrs Thomas goes sometimes, ’specially if there’s a Humphrey Bogart film on, but there’s nuffin’ like that here in Sarn-Bach. Nothin’ excitin’
ever
happens here - we’re stuck in the back o’ beyond.’

Danny thought that Sarn-Bach was the most beautiful place he had ever seen but decided against saying it.

The school playground was teeming with children of all shapes and sizes. It was surrounded by tall metal railings that made it look a bit like a prison. Danny was looking around with interest when Lizzie spotted him. Pulling her hand away from Mrs Evans’s larger one, she hurtled towards him.

‘Danny!’ Her face lit up at the sight of her twin. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?’ Danny blushed with embarrassment as some of the children looked towards him. Thankfully, just then a bell sounded and the Welsh children instantly began to form straight lines. His embarrassment faded away to shock when the same wizened-up little woman who’d met them off the train appeared in the school doorway.

‘That’s Miss Williams,’ Gus hissed in his ear. ‘She teaches the evacuees ’cos she can talk English. The other teachers gabble away in Welsh all the bleedin’ time, an’ yer can’t understand a word they’re sayin’.’

Danny nodded as Miss Williams began to herd the evacuees into a separate line. She glared at Mrs Evans, who was once again clutching Lizzie’s hand, and the woman turned the colour of a beetroot as she reluctantly loosened her grip.

‘Now then, children. Follow me,’ the teacher commanded, and so began one of the strangest days Danny and Lizzie could ever remember as she marched them into the school. The Welsh children were herded into classrooms whilst the rest of them, children ranging from five to fourteen years old, were left standing in the hall.

‘Ain’t we going into separate classes?’ Danny managed to whisper to Gus.

Gus answered him from behind the back of his hand. ‘Gerroff wi’ yer. This is as good as it gets.’

Danny thought it was very strange. Back at school in Coventry, all the children in his class had been roughly the same age, but here it seemed that age was irrelevant. Still, he decided, with a shrug of his shoulders, they were all in the same boat so he might as well just get on with it.

They were led into a room with three lines of desks and chairs set out in regimental rows. It was a small room compared to the rest of the classrooms, but because of its high ceiling it still managed to be cold.

‘Crikey, yer could freeze in here,’ Danny commented quietly to Gus.

‘Right,’ Miss Williams rapped with authority. ‘Less talking now, boy. You are not here to talk - you’re here to learn. Little ones to the front, older ones to the back.’

The children quickly slid behind their desks as Miss Williams began to hand out paper and pencils, and soon they were busily doing arithmetic.

It was playtime before Danny and Lizzie got to meet their classmates properly, but the second they were outside in the playground, Gus began to introduce them.

‘That’s Nick over there.’ He pointed to a boy who was rampaging around the play area like a mad thing. ‘An’ her over there is Audrey, an’ that’s . . .’ He rambled on as Lizzie and Danny looked on. They were sure that they would never remember everyone’s name but didn’t want to offend Gus by stopping him.

‘An’ this,’ Gus told them finally, ‘is Sparky, me mate. He’s from the East End an’ all.’

The twins nodded at a solemn-faced, dark-haired little boy with startling blue eyes. He was considerably smaller than Danny and looked just as untidy. But there was something about him that didn’t seem quite right, and this was borne out when Gus whispered behind his hand, ‘Sparky is a bit slow, like. Yer know? A bit doo-lally.’ He tapped his forehead to add emphasis to his words. ‘On top o’ that, he was what they call a blue baby when he were born so he gets out o’ breath real quick. But he’s harmless enough really. He tends to get picked on, so I stick up fer ’im.’

When Lizzie smiled at Gus admiringly, the small boy felt as if he would burst with joy. She looked absolutely beautiful today. Her long fair hair was tied into plaits with shiny blue ribbons, and she was wearing one of the dresses her mother had painstakingly stitched for her. Gus knew for sure that she was the prettiest girl in the whole of the playground. In the whole of the world, if it came to that, but of course he didn’t tell her so. He didn’t want Sparky and Danny to think that he was going soft.

‘What’s a blue baby?’ Danny asked inquisitively.

‘It means he were born wiv a hole in his heart,’ Gus informed them knowingly. He was about to go on when someone called Lizzie’s name. They looked towards the sound to see Mrs Evans waving at them over the railings.

‘Oh no.’ Lizzie felt embarrassment flood through her as she reluctantly walked towards her.

‘Tut tut.’ Mrs Evans frowned as she approached. ‘Whatever are you doing out here without your coat on, Lizziebright? You’ll catch your death of cold, so you will. But never mind that for now. See? I’ve brought you a nice apple to eat in your break. I don’t want you getting hungry and it’s a long time until dinnertime.’

Lizzie awkwardly reached through the railings and took the proffered fruit, wishing that Mrs Evans would just leave. None of the other mothers or carers had come and she could hear children sniggering behind her.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered, and to her relief, Mrs Evans turned and began to stride away. ‘I’ll be here to meet you at lunchtime,’ she called over her shoulder.

‘Oh no, really. There’s no need. I know the way—’ Lizzie began, but it was no use. Mrs Evans was already out of earshot. Mortified, she pushed the apple into the pocket of her dress and crossed to join the others.

‘What was all that about?’ Danny asked as she drew abreast.

‘Oh Danny, I don’t like living with Mrs Evans.’ Lizzie’s voice faltered.

‘Why not?’

‘She’s . . . well, she fusses over me all the time.’

‘That’s hardly a bad thing,’ Danny sensibly pointed out. ‘It just means that she likes you, that’s all.’

‘No, no, it’s more than that. It’s like . . .’ Lizzie struggled to find the right words to describe how she felt. ‘Last night I woke up an’ she was standin’ over me bed stroking my hair.’

Danny sighed. ‘What’s so terrible about that? She was probably just checking that you were all right.’

‘But she kept calling me Megan. She does it all the time, especially when Mr Evans ain’t there.’

Danny scratched his head. It did sound strange, he had to admit. However, the conversation was stopped from going any further when a teacher appeared and began to ring a bell, heralding the end of break.

‘We’ll talk more about it later,’ Danny assured her, then taking her firmly by the hand he led her back to the classroom.

Closing the stairs door softly behind her, Maggie looked across at Jo, who was sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the radio.

Maggie had a mountain of sewing to do now that she’d put Lucy to bed, but first she was going to treat herself to a well-earned snack.

‘Do you fancy a sandwich, Jo?’ She went towards the pantry.

‘Sshh,’ Jo said immediately as she hung on the broadcaster’s every word.

Maggie shrugged as she took the loaf from the bread bin and lifted two plates down from the dresser. She had just smeared a meagre amount of butter onto two slices and begun to spread them with fishpaste when the broadcast finally ended and the haunting strains of Joe Loss’s Orchestra playing ‘I’ll Never Smile Again’ echoed around the small room. Sighing deeply, Jo joined her at the kitchen table.

‘Things are goin’ from bad to worse,’ the girl said gloomily. ‘Apparently the Italians attacked Greece today. Some of our warships are on their way out there right now to give Greece some back-up. The King an’ the Prime Minister have both pledged to give full aid to the Greeks. It seems the whole world is gettin’ drawn in. Ugh, it don’t bear thinkin’ about really, does it?’

‘No, it doesn’t.’ Maggie’s thoughts went to Sam and David. Were they on their way to Greece right now, in some great battleship? There had been no news from either of them and she was beginning to worry. She hadn’t really expected Sam to get in touch, but she thought it strange that David hadn’t written to his mother again at least. She said as much now to Jo, who listened soberly.

‘Well, whether they are still alive or whether they ain’t, there’s not much you can do about it, is there?’

Maggie was forced to agree. In the short time that Jo had been lodging with her, the two young women had become very close. Courtaulds factory had been bombed, and Jo now worked in a small but select dress shop on Primrose Hill, which was just as well, for she had moved in with Maggie with nothing but the clothes she had stood up in. Working at the shop had enabled her to buy herself a few new clothes each week from her meagre wages, plus Maggie had made her some smart skirts from offcuts of material that she had got from Coventry market for a snip. Initially, Jo had borrowed some of Maggie’s clothes, which had hung off her, for she had lost an enormous amount of weight.

The new outfits she’d selected had come as a surprise to Maggie. They were nothing at all like the gaudy concoctions she had worn to walk the streets in, nor yet again anything like the loose baggy affairs she had worn to work in the munitions factory.

At the moment she was wearing a tasteful knitted twin-set in a soft shade of blue, and a straight navy skirt that fell sedately below the knees. Her hair had grown a little and was inclined to be naturally wavy, and devoid of the heavy make-up she had worn to attract clients, she looked totally different, apart from the dark shadows beneath her eyes and her gaunt cheeks, which told of her inner pain.

Maggie knew that Jo still missed her family dreadfully. Some nights she cried out in the grip of a nightmare and Maggie would race across the landing and wrap her in her arms as Jo sobbed her heart out. Personally, Maggie was inclined to think that Jo had gone back to work far too soon. But as she had soon rediscovered, Jo could be stubbornly independent.

‘I’m not goin’ to sit here on me arse all day an’ sponge off you,’ the girl had declared indignantly when Maggie suggested she should give herself a little more time to grieve. ‘If you’re good enough to let me stay here fer a while, the least I can do is pay me way. Besides, if I’m working an’ keeping meself busy I’ll have less time to think, won’t I?’

Maggie had reluctantly agreed, although the trauma Jo had been through had deeply affected her too. Following the night of the raid, Jo had returned to the ruins of her home to watch her family being dug from the wreckage one by one. It had been a heartbreaking sight, and even the men who were digging had been reduced to tears as they passed out the broken little bodies of Jo’s siblings. Then they’d had the funerals to endure and Maggie had been impressed at Jo’s resilience, wondering how she would have coped in the same situation.

Maggie’s mother had taken to Jo straight away, and so had all the neighbours when they learned of the poor girl’s plight. The only one who was giving cause for concern was Mr Massey, who had eyed Jo suspiciously.

‘Ain’t I seen you somewhere before, gel?’ he’d asked as he rubbed thoughtfully at his chin.

‘I er . . . I don’t think so.’ Panic had flared in Jo’s eyes as she blinked rapidly.

Once alone with Maggie, she’d been almost beside herself with fear. ‘He’s seen me out on the game,’ she had told her fretfully.

‘You don’t know that, so don’t jump to conclusions,’ Maggie had soothed, but even so, Jo was on edge every time she saw him now, and she avoided him like the plague.

It was of him that Jo now spoke as Maggie placed her supper in front of her. ‘I passed Mr Massey in the entry tonight as I was comin’ back in from work.’

‘Did you?’ Maggie asked absently, her thoughts far away with Sam and David. ‘Did he speak to you?’

‘Yes, he did. But it’s the way he looks at me that’s unnervin’. It’s as if he’s rackin’ his brain to think where he’s seen me before.’

Hearing the fear in her friend’s voice, Maggie pulled her thoughts back to the conversation they were having. ‘Oh Jo, I really do think you’re fussing over nothing. Even if he
has
seen you before, it doesn’t mean to say that you were standing on a street corner. Swanshill isn’t that big a place. He could have seen you outside the factory gates or anywhere, if it comes to that.’

‘I suppose you’re right,’ Jo admitted reluctantly, ‘but wouldn’t it be awful if it all comes out - just when I’ve got the chance to put the past behind me.’

Seeing that Maggie’s mind wasn’t 100 per cent on what she was saying, she suddenly felt guilty. Maggie was going through her own private hell at the minute, worrying about the twins. Not a day went by when she didn’t talk about them or stand on the doorstep looking for the postman, who she prayed would deliver news of them.