Orphans of War (13 page)

Plum’d enjoyed all the children’s preparations, making sure they made presents for each other, all the secrets and surprises, letters and cards home, and the parcels arriving for some of the children who lived far away.

Without children the Brooklyn Christmas was a stodgy affair of much wine and little cheer, sherry gatherings and small talk and gossip, church and long walks. This was going to be a real Dingley Dell festival at the Brooklyn: the excitement of parcels unwrapped, extra food rations and treats, decorations in every room and fires lit, a great tree cut down and decorated, and above all the chatter of little voices singing carols. All they were waiting for was Dolly and Arthur’s arrival by train to complete the picture.

Pleasance was fooling no one by pretending it was all a waste of time and expense, for even she had given a hand wrapping up parcels and sending cards this year. No one could say Sowerthwaite didn’t look beautiful in the snow, icicles spiking down the rooftops.

Lost in these thoughts, Plum didn’t hear the bell ring.

‘Mrs Belfield! Phone!’

Plum raced over to the hall shelf. ‘Sow’thwaite 157,’ she smiled. At last! What perfect timing! ‘It’ll be
Maddy’s parents,’ she yelled to Mrs Batty, who was preparing the morning’s vegetables in the kitchen. She smiled at her ruffled reflection in the mirror.

Then her expression went from grin to grimace in two seconds, her mouth tightening. She slumped on to the hall chair in a daze. ‘When…? How…? I see…Yes, Yes…I see…Thank you for letting us know…Is there any hope?…I see…Yes…It is dreadful…’ She slammed the phone down and sat winded. Some disembodied voice had just shattered hopes of a cheerful Christmas. Mrs Batty was hovering, curious.

‘What is it, Mrs Belfield? Not bad news? Not Master Gerald? You’ve gone white,’ she said.

‘No, it’s not him. I’m afraid it’s Maddy’s parents. Their ship was overdue, reports are coming in that it went down
en route
home in the Atlantic, somewhere off the coast of Ireland…enemy fire. They’re not among the survivors…Oh dear God, what am I going to tell the poor child? It’s almost Christmas Eve!’

‘Mrs Plum, was I good in the show? Do you think Father Christmas’ll know where me and Sid live?’ whispered Gloria as she and Maddy skidded along the ice on the lane home from church, with little Sid and Mrs Batty, past the tall trees, their branches arching with snow. ‘He won’t know we left Elijah Street and if there’s no one there, somebody’s sure to nick the presents if he leaves ’em on the doorstep…Mrs Plum?’

Plum wasn’t listening at all.

‘Don’t be a chump,’ laughed Maddy. ‘He’s magic, he knows everything, doesn’t he? We put our letters up the chimney at the hostel. He’ll take them there or to your cottage, won’t he, Aunt Plum?’ Maddy turned round but their escort was not listening, walking behind them, lost in another world.

She’d been very quiet all day and Maddy had seen her dabbing her eyes when they were singing carols. She must be missing Uncle Gerald, who had come to visit them for a few days last month. He didn’t look like Daddy at all. He’d ignored the children in favour of chatting to Ilse and Maria in the kitchen, but then
popped half a crown in her hand when he left, so he wasn’t that bad.

Aunt Plum was behaving very oddly, not looking a bit Christmassy at all in her black coat and hat. Every time she’d asked when Mummy and Daddy were coming she just shrugged her shoulders and turned away. ‘It’s this wretched weather spoiling everyone’s plans and we can’t change the weather, Madeleine. It’s in the Lord’s hands.’ What a funny thing to say? Was Plum cross with her? No one called her Madeleine except Grandma.

They’d sung their hearts out in church although she loved the quiet ones best, like ‘Away in a Manger’. The donkey pooed in the yard and made a stink, and Gloria sang her solo without forgetting her words.

The gang from the Old Vic had a great snowball fight outside church on the way home and Gloria got hit and had a hissy fit when her costume got soaked.

‘Gloria in Excelsis!’
they teased her.

‘Shurrup! I’m not Gloria Chelsey,’ she screamed back.

Maddy thought she looked silly in the long white gown made out of a tablecloth, and the halo, but now the two Conleys were so excited and Sid was racing ahead.

‘Jungle bells!’ he shouted. ‘I’m listening for the Jungle bells.’

‘It’s bed and no nonsense, the both of you,’ Aunt Plum said, shoving them through the gate of Huntsman’s Cottage. ‘The quicker you go to sleep, the
earlier the day will come, won’t it, Mrs Batty? There’s church in the morning and dinner at the hostel. Tomorrow I want everyone to have a lovely day. Now shoo! Remember, we’re last on Father Christmas’s round so no disturbing Mrs Batty at all hours of the morning or you’ll be disappointed.’

‘Yes, miss.’ Gloria waved, much too full of herself to listen to a word she was saying.

‘Is there really a Father Christmas in the sky?’ asked Maddy. ‘Greg says it’s all fairy tales. He’s never had a proper Christmas and all his presents came wrapped up in the same paper from the Council. “It was the matron what done it,” he said.’ Maddy took hold of Aunt Plum’s hand for the last lap home.

‘Well, if Gregory doesn’t believe, he’ll just have to go without presents, won’t he? He’s jolly lucky to be staying here,’ she snapped, and Maddy was surprised by her outburst.

‘But he has no mummy and daddy, not ever,’ she defended her friend.

‘Lots of children have no mummies and daddies because of this damn war,’ Aunt Plum answered in a cold voice, looking ahead. ‘Come on, up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire, it’s been a long day. We don’t want to spoil the surprises, do we?’

‘I just wish the telephone would ring for me,’ Maddy sighed. ‘Good night and God bless. See you in the morning.’

‘Not too early,’ came a tired reply. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll have a lovely day, I promise.’

How can I say such a thing? How can Christmas Day ever be lovely again for the child? How can I spoil Christmas with such terrible news?
Plum paced her bedroom floor, hugging herself to keep from shivering.

She should have taken Maddy for a walk in the snow and told her the truth when she had the chance but she’d flunked it. Why? What did it change? Why cast a gloom over the whole day, put the house into mourning for people they’d never even met?

The news would dampen all the joy of the surprises in store for the children, just for the sake of another twenty-four hours or more. Why not just let her open her presents and have their big party on Boxing Day as promised? Time enough then to break the terrible news.

She’d sworn Madge Batty to secrecy and not told her mother-in-law yet, but held the secret to herself. It hung heavily in the pit of her stomach like a cannon-ball, making her feel sick. She sat in the candlelight wishing she could take the pain away from the child herself. It was making her shake just thinking of ways to break the news gently–but there was no easy way to tell this news. Perhaps the vicar could do it? Perhaps Pleasance would see it as her duty, or they could do it together?

No, she was going to break it to Maddy and try to explain why she had not come straight out with it.

Oh, how she wanted to put off the moment when the child’s face crumpled in disbelief, the moment Maddy realised she too was an orphan of war, that her
future was now in the hands of others and that she must face life alone.

No, that wasn’t strictly true. Maddy wasn’t alone. They must take her on here. She was a Belfield child and no one would turn her away from Brooklyn Hall.

Plum shivered in the darkness as she shoved the little trinkets into the girl’s red knitted stocking with trembling hands: ribbons, nuts, a mouth organ, a book, a little sweet shop, a cut-out theatre, a comic and some home-made toffee. The dress and the second-hand bike were waiting under the tree in the hall as her special presents.

Am I doing the right thing to hold back? What would Arthur and Dolly want me to do but love and comfort her like the daughter I never had? I must give her one happy day after all she’s been through. Surely it’s not wrong, Lord, to let the day pass uncluttered with gloom, but how do I tell her?

It was the one special day in the year when all the evacuees could forget this wretched war, stuff themselves with treats and have a big party. She had to think of the other children: Gloria, Sid, Greg and the rest. She must pin a smile on her cheeks and make sure the celebrations went ahead as planned. She thought of all the sad children in London, Coventry and Birmingham, children with no homes or toys, living as best they could. Her children were the lucky ones. It was so safe here. It was if there was no war going on at all.

As for Pleasance and Uncle Algie and the oldies, they would doze by the fireside waiting for their
blow-out dinner, loosen their belts, dress up in their jewellery, drink sherry and pass pleasantries.

She would wait for a suitable moment after Boxing Day. It was not as if there were bodies to claim, nothing but the hush-hush phone call, perhaps further discreet communications to follow. It would not be announced on the wireless for days, if ever. No one wanted to hear such news around Christmas.

‘The first victim of war was always truth,’ she’d once read. Nothing was done to disturb public morale. Who wanted to know that a troopship was caught by submarines only a hundred miles off the Irish coast?

All over the country there would be other sad hearts receiving this call or telegrams around Christmas Eve. ‘I regret to inform you that…’ Her first thought had been that it was Gerald and then she was flooded with relief that it wasn’t him. But now she was sickened by guilt at what she was withholding from the child.

Plum stroked her red setter Blaze for comfort. He nuzzled in for more.
What have I done? I just want to give Maddy a few more hours before I destroy her world. Every Christmas for the rest of her life will be spoiled by this news. It’ll be a time of dread and sorrow. I just want her hope to last a while longer. What harm can that possibly do?

Gloria could hear Mr and Mrs Batty whispering in the kitchen, after lunch on Boxing Day. It was something to do with terrible news at the Hall but when she popped her head round the door they drew back and changed the subject.

She was good at earwigging, hovering behind doors at Elijah Street, listening to stuff she shouldn’t. That’s how she’d learned from her aunties about the birds and bees and how babies got made, how rubber johnnies stopped them and how Old Ma Phipps could get rid of them if you was caught. Manchester seemed a long way away, and she wondered if Mam was thinking about them. Would she send them a present?

She’d never had a Christmas like this one. Elijah Street was just pop and sweets, singing and fighting and waiting outside the public in the dark. There was always a toy but it was broken by teatime. There was nothing about Baby Jesus in the manger and candles in the church, singing carols in the snow and making presents for each other. Everyone went to church in Sowerthwaite; only Freda and her mam went to the Kingdom Hall and they didn’t believe in Christmas Day.

At Elijah Street they were sent to Sunday school to get out of the house of an afternoon but it was just a tin shack hall with no candles and decorations. She’d never seen such a big Christmas tree as the one in Brooklyn Hall. It smelled of disinfectant and melting wax. They spent ages decorating the one in the hostel with tinsel and paper chains. It was lovely.

Did Mam ever think about the two of them? How could she just shove them on a train with no word that they were safe? Sid had already forgotten their old home. He looked blank at her when she asked him about Mam. Gloria got hot and cold just thinking where she might be. One minute she was sad, the next
spitting flames. What Mam had done wasn’t right but coming here was great. She didn’t want to worry about someone who didn’t care about them, not now.

They were getting ready for the Boxing Day party at the Hall, and she was dressed in her new pinafore dress and shirt. It was navy-blue corduroy with rick-rack braid where the hem had been let down–not very partified at all but it was better than her other skirt and jumper.

Sid had on his new Fair Isle jumper that itched him, and his ginger curls were plastered down with Mr Batty’s Brylcreem. Father Christmas had got the right address and Sid was thrilled with his toy farm and tractor, and she was pleased with her crinoline doll in its own box until she saw Maddy wobbling on her new bike on Christmas Day. Why hadn’t he brought her one too?

Greg was helping her ride it on the path where the snow and ice were cleared away. Maddy was wearing a new velvet dress, all shiny and soft, the colour of peacock’s feathers, under her school mac. It wasn’t fair. She’d had two Christmasses–one at the Hall and the other at the hostel.

Greg was wearing long trousers and a new blazer, strutting around like the cock of the midden. Everyone was dressed up and on best behaviour. Maddy wanted her to see all the presents. There was a little toy sweetie shop with jars and scales and boxes of Dolly Mixtures given to her, and a book and presents from the staff. It wasn’t fair.

Gloria begged for a shot on the bike but Greg said
her legs were too short to ride it and that got her mad, so she and Sid hid behind the sofa and scoffed all the jelly beans in the toy sweet shop. Aunt Plum was cross. She didn’t smile once but, Gloria realised now, that would be because of the terrible news.