Safe Harbour (3 page)

Sophie ate her breakfast, scrambled powdered eggs – ugh! – and a mugful of steaming tea that had been stewing in a big urn since early morning.

The centre was crowded. She and Hugh had spent the night in the shelter again, and she was bleary-eyed from the lack of solid sleep. Hugh was still out for the count on the camp bed.

About twenty children from the district were about to be evacuated to the country, far away from the dangers of London, and they were hopping around the place with excitement. Mrs Stokes, she knew, was hoping to get herself and Hugh evacuated too, but Sophie decided to avoid discussing it with her until her mother’s condition improved. She was staying put in London.

‘I’m off to the hospital,’ Sophie mouthed to Reverend Fry later that morning. He was reading Bible stories to some of the younger kids. Hugh was engrossed in the story of Noah’s Ark, and luckily didn’t whine to come with her.

The weather was crisp and cool outside. She would walk today and save money. There was a queue outside Baxters, the high-street grocers. The women were standing patiently with their shopping bags, gossiping. Sugar and some bacon
and maybe cheese, that’s what they were hoping would be on offer today. That’s what the rumours had said anyway. Normally Sophie would have joined the line, but now she didn’t need to. She was forced to slow down as part of the street had given way to a curious pattern of holes and cracks. The path would occasionally give a strange wobble under the weight of her feet, threatening to send her sprawling in the dust.

Work crews were busy trying to salvage gas pipes which lay twisted and torn amid the concrete. The railings all along Windsor Terrace were gone, obviously off to a munitions factory to be melted down. Things were getting worse all over Europe, with sea battles, air battles, land battles. What would they do if the Germans invaded Britain? wondered Sophie.

The doctor and matron were busy in her mother’s ward. Sophie would have to wait, and she decided to pop down to see Mrs Abercorn. This ward was much bigger than her mother’s, with about sixteen old ladies arranged around the room in beds, and a few sitting in wheelchairs.

Mrs Abercorn hugged her tight.

‘Oh Sophie, pet! I’m ever so pleased to see you. How is your poor mother?’

‘She’s a little better. She opened her eyes last time. I think she knew me because she said my name,’ Sophie confided.

‘Oh, thank God!’ the old lady smiled.

Sophie suddenly realised that Mrs Abercorn was indeed a
very old lady. She seemed to have shrunk, and her hands and arms and neck were far bonier than Sophie remembered.

‘I’ll be getting my marching orders in a few days,’ Mrs Abercorn announced.

‘Are you going home?’ Sophie asked.

‘No, no, pet! The old place is all bombed out, just like yours – unsafe, they tell me. No, I’m going to Eastbourne, to a convalescent home for old folks like myself. My sister Millie and her husband Ron live about twenty miles from there.’

‘Oh!’ said Sophie.

‘We all have to do our bit, part of the war effort. Have to put up with things. You know something, love, I haven’t stayed a night out of London since I was sixteen. Young Joe was always trying to coax me to come over to Canada, said he wanted to show off his old Mum, but I couldn’t do it, just couldn’t leave London. I reckon old Adolf has changed my mind for me. Still, there’s life in the old bird yet. They haven’t finished me off yet!’

Sophie grinned to herself, Mrs Abercorn was a tough old girl, and she would miss her terribly.

‘Aunt Jessie!’ Sophie couldn’t believe it. Jessie, her mother’s younger sister, was sitting in the chair beside Mum’s bed. She almost squashed the breath out of Sophie with a tight squeezing hug. ‘I’m so glad to see you, Sophie!’

Mum was half-sitting up, propped up with pillows against
the bed-rest. She opened her eyes drowsily and tried to smile.

‘Oh Libby! You smiled at me!’ Aunt Jessie murmured proudly.

Sophie was so relieved to see her aunt. It didn’t matter that she was a scatterbrain and not to be relied on. She was an adult member of the family, and she had turned up.

They sat by her mother’s bed for over an hour. Aunt Jessie kept telling stories of when they were children, and the trouble they used to get into, and talked about how beautiful Mum was on her wedding day. Sophie gave her a kick when she mentioned the house. Sometimes Mum would nod, and her sister would squeeze her fingers and pat her arm.

Mum was tired and eventually the blue eyes closed heavily and her breathing became deeper and she slept.

‘Let’s go get a cup of tea!’ mouthed her aunt.

They walked silently from the hospital, and found a small tea shop round the corner. After a few minutes, the waitress, in her black uniform and starched white apron, got them a seat near the window. Aunt Jessie almost flung herself on it and immediately reached into her handbag, got out a packet of cigarettes and lit up, puffing the smoke into the air.

‘Ah! That’s better!’ she joked, running her free hand through her shoulder-length bob of curling brown hair. ‘Sophie! Tell me how you’ve been, and my little man, Hugh? I got such a scare when I heard what happened!’

‘We’re staying at the centre on Bury Road. The old church hall.’

‘I know,’ said Aunt Jessie. ‘I spoke to a Mrs Stokes on the phone. Listen, Sophie, something has got to be sorted out for you and Hugh. They want to evacuate you to somewhere safe, and I can’t say I blame them. I haven’t seen London since I came to stay with you last Christmas. The whole place is in bits, falling apart – shops, buildings, offices, homes, just gone – honestly, I could have cried when I got off the train today. Anyway, it’s no place for a pair of kids, whatever about those that have to stay and work in the city.’

‘I won’t leave Mum!’ shouted Sophie, making the two old ladies beside them turn and stare. ‘I’m not leaving Mum!’ she muttered obstinately.

Her aunt puffed long and slow on the cigarette.

‘You saw your Mum today, Sophie! It’s doctors and nurses she needs most at the moment, they’re the ones who’ll get her better. Soon she’ll start to worry about the two of you. Libby is a worrier, you know that, and she’ll worry and make herself even more ill. She called Hugh’s name twice in her sleep. You know what she’s like, Sophie!’

Sophie nodded. Her aunt was right. ‘Couldn’t we go and live with you, please?’ she pleaded.

‘You know, darling, that I’d love to have you, but I have no house or place of my own. I gave up the flat I shared with Helen and Rose when my office transferred out of the city. I just couldn’t afford to keep on paying the rent for Museum Square. You won’t believe it, but at the moment we’ve been released from desk duties and are all working as “landgirls”.’

Sophie laughed. Anyone more unlike a ‘landgirl’ was hard to imagine.

‘I know!’ her aunt blushed and sipped her tea. ‘You should see me in my overalls and wellies, up to my knees in mud and heaven knows what else!’

‘We were evacuated before, you know, with Mum,’ Sophie reminded her. ‘Remember, we went to stay with that ghastly Mrs Monks outside Oxford. She starved us almost and wouldn’t let Mum have any hot water to wash in. Even the walls of the bedroom were damp. It was disgusting, and when Dad saw it he took us back home immediately.’

‘That was different, Soph! Things had got quiet then and Neil thought it was safe for you again in London. But now things are a whole lot worse. Libby should have sent you away earlier. I don’t know what she was thinking of!’

‘I don’t want to be evacuated! I don’t want to leave London!’ As soon as she said it, an image of old Mrs Abercorn flashed across Sophie’s mind.

‘The Luftwaffe are stepping things up, Sophie. Hitler is pushing as hard as he can and the whole of Europe, as we know it, is falling into his hands. He intends to destroy London, and every man, woman or child that stands in his way. That’s what everyone says. Please, Sophie, we’ve all got to think about what’s best.’

Sophie knew in her heart of hearts that her aunt was right. Aunt Jessie was never serious, but now Sophie realised that there was no budging her. Thousands of children were being evacuated – why should they be any different?

‘I’ve written to Neil, and I wrote to your grandfather, and
also telephoned him.’

‘Grandfather? ‘Sophie almost choked on her tea.

‘Yes, your grandfather in Ireland. I told him about Libby’s condition and he has agreed to take yourself and Hugh.’

Grandfather, how are you! To Sophie all he was was someone who sent a Christmas card with a pound note in it every year. His letters were few and far between. Her father refused to look at them, and her mother would sit brooding and hunched, reading them, and afterwards lock them away in the mahogany bureau. The night after a letter came there was always a row between her parents, and Sophie had come to dread their arrival with the tell-tale Irish stamp and postmark.

‘But we’ve never even seen him! He doesn’t know us or care about us! Why should we have to go to bloody Ireland?’

‘Sophie! He is your grandfather, after all, your flesh and blood. Libby did keep in touch with him, you know. She told me she wrote to him sometimes,’ her aunt said earnestly. ‘You could go off and be evacuated to God knows where and to anybody, like you were in Oxford, or you have a chance to go to Ireland to someone who’s related to you. It’s where your father was reared, and besides, Ireland is a safe place. The prime minister, Mr De Valera, has declared its neutrality.’

Sophie sat, silent.

‘Kids!’ muttered Aunt Jessie, pouring herself another cup of tea.

‘I’ll think about it!’ Sophie said grudgingly.

Sophie hated the war! It had changed everything, turned her world topsy turvey, upside down, like sand shifting beneath your feet.

She thought about it all as she sat in the local park. It wasn’t a big important park like Hyde Park, or Regent’s Park, but it too had changed. They had taken all the railings down, and melted them. Imagine using the park railings to make guns and weapons to kill people! She wondered if they did the same thing in the parks in Germany. The whole world had gone crazy.

Normally at this time of year, when the cherry blossom drifted like snow through the air, the park would be crowded. Today it was half-empty – only a few old people, and a couple of mothers and toddlers, and a nurse, in her starched uniform, pushing a big fancy pram up and down in the spring sunshine.

Sophie sat on the wooden bench, watching the small collection of ducks paddling in the pond, every now and then darting their heads beneath its murky surface.

She had so much to think about: Mum sick in the hospital, her head swathed in bandages, and no nurse or doctor able to say for definite how long it was going to take for her to get better. Dad had put on his uniform and marched away like a thousand other dads, to fight in this
bloody war. Mum had begged him not to go. ‘You’re Irish, Neil. It’s not your fight.’ But all he said was: ‘I have lived and worked here in England for almost twenty years, the woman I love is English, my children have been born and reared here – no madman is going to destroy the people and place I love. Libby, I have to fight. This is my fight, I have to protect me and mine.’ And so her Dad had gone, like all the other dads, like Mr Brown the park-keeper – normally these beds would be a riot of colour by now, but there were only a few straggly tulips and some freesia here and there, and clumps of daring weeds pushed their way up all over the place. And the lawns were in dire need of a cut.

Even St Martin’s Academy, Sophie and Hugh’s school, had changed. The children came in late and most of them spent half the morning yawning. Some days classes were almost full, and on others only a few pupils would turn up. It all depended on the pattern of the bombing the night before. And then children began to disappear – evacuated, or worse? Sophie couldn’t bear to think of it. All her friends going.

Homework was meant to be done, but what teacher was going to scold someone who had spent most of the night in an air-raid shelter? Sophie found that it was hardly worth the bother of making an effort to work. And usually every year the school put on a big show, the summer show, but that too had been cancelled. It was silly and selfish, Sophie knew, to be upset because she hadn’t the chance to audition, the chance to sing. There was no guarantee she would have got a part anyway – but she was a good singer
and everyone praised her voice. Even the choir had been suspended.

‘It’s only a temporary suspension,’ Miss Oliver, the singing teacher, had assured them, but nobody really believed her.

Sophie hated being late, hated homework not done, subjects being changed, rules broken.

‘Sophie! You’re a creature of habit!’ her Dad had teased, giving her a hug, making her smile.

A creature of habit! Maybe that was just a nice way of saying that she was dull, ordinary and boring – with straight brown hair and a squared-off chin, and lips that were just a bit too big, and pale white skin with a squiggle of freckles across her nose and cheeks, which she hated.

I’m just like that duck, she thought, a plain old ordinary duck. The duck swam back and forth, dabbling among the pondweed, its brown eyes glinting as it searched for food for itself and its young. Its beige-brown plumage blended with its surroundings as it weaved through the water.

So, she and Hugh were to be sent away to Ireland, to a grandfather they didn’t know, who probably hated them. To a strange country, to a strange man who would not even speak to his own son. Grown-ups didn’t care – maybe they had forgotten what it was like. Sophie was scared. Scared because of this bloody war, because everything was changing.

It was all settled. Aunt Jessie and Mrs Stokes and the other women had talked on and on about it.

Sophie was angry with them. People should mind their
own business and not go poking their noses into other people’s lives.

Hugh was easily bought off. A big bag of sticky toffees and a few squares of fudge and he had listened, wide-eyed and unprotesting, when their aunt told him about being evacuated again.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked Sophie, cheeks and jaws bulging.

‘Ireland,’ she stated flatly.

‘Where’s that?’ he asked as he munched.

‘Across the Irish sea, bloody miles away.’

Aunt Jessie was trying to make amends. ‘What about a trip to the cinema, you two? Would you like that, Hugh?’

Hugh nodded. Sophie simply fumed away in silence.

The Odeon was packed and Sophie sat on the edge of her seat as the Movietone News came on. They were showing the British troops in Africa, and the audience cheered as they chased after a trundling German tank. Sophie studied each of the distant sunburned faces, some smiling and some serious, staring right into the camera lens. Dad was in Egypt – well, maybe he was there. She wasn’t really certain where he was at this point. She silently urged the camera to move down among the mass of men watching a plane land, but instead it focused on the plane and its spinning propellors.

The feature film was Goodbye Mister Chips, starring Robert Donat. Sophie sank back into her seat, losing herself in the world of Mr Chips, the ageing schoolmaster.

About mid-way through the film the siren wail began, and
an ‘Oh!’ of disappointment and resignation went up from the packed cinema as the lights came on.

Aunt Jessie followed the rest of the crowd to the exit, with Hugh held firmly by the hand. They all headed across the road to a large Underground station which was being used as a shelter.

The heavy rumbling drone of planes filled the sky and it was clear that the bombers were almost overhead. Sophie’s heart was racing, though her legs felt almost too heavy to walk, let alone run.

The mad scramble down the steps became more frantic as she tried to follow her aunt, pushing her way along. There was a dreadful stench in the place – of stale urine and scared people. In a few minutes they would get used to it.

The huge tiled tunnel seemed to rumble.

‘A hit! A direct hit!’ the call went up.

Two hours later, the All Clear sounded, and they were able to make their way back to street level.

The Odeon was engulfed in flames that roared and lit up the dark of the evening sky. Firefighters surrounded it. Aunt Jessie stood, stock still, watching them. Grey-black smuts clung to her cheek, and her mascara and eye make-up had streaked and blotched, as big tears slid down her face. She gripped her niece and nephew tightly.

Sophie felt a strange shiver run down her spine as they watched the roof of the cinema collapse; the flaming curl of the metal seats on the balcony became visible for only an instant, before crashing down on the floor below.

They were lucky. Next time they might not be.

‘That was too close,’ whispered their aunt, ‘much too close for comfort! I owe it to Libby to get you away from this. No more dilly-dallying. My mind’s made up. You’re going to Ireland tomorrow.’