The Hills and the Valley (59 page)

Margaret felt a lump rise in her throat. ‘I'd love you to stay, Marie, but it's not really up to me. It's whether your mum would let you.'

‘Oh, please let me stay!' The look on Marie's face was one of sheer desperation. ‘Don't send me to America!'

Margaret laid her hand on the child's head. Her hair had grown now from the ugly shorn look she had had when she came to a flattering bob. It felt silky to the touch. Margaret turned Marie's face into her skirt and the little spark of warmth within her fanned to a flame.

‘Is that what you really want?' she asked.

‘Oh yes. Oh please let me stay!' Marie whispered.

It was all Margaret needed to hear. If Marie wanted to stay she would fight for her all the way.

‘I'll do what I can, Marie,' she promised.

It was three weeks before they heard from Mrs Cooper again, three weeks when Margaret had to endure the girls'eager faces every day on their return from school and try to alleviate their disappointment whilst coping with her own turbulent emotions. She was as much on edge as they were, watching for the postman and jumping each time the telephone rang, and she did not know whether to be glad or sorry when the letters that plopped onto the mat turned out to be only bills and circulars and the telephone calls were almost always for Harry. Each passing day gave her cause for hope and strengthened her conviction that Mrs Cooper did not care two figs for the girls beyond their usefulness as ‘the family'which lent her credibility in Joe's eyes, but she could not rid herself of the constant nagging fear that her bubble was about to burst. The more she built up her hopes, the more possible and devastating – was the prospect of the girls leaving. An hour of optimism seemed to be followed inevitably by a depression of exactly inverse proportion. All the wretched woman had to do was turn up and announce that she was taking the children away with her and there was nothing that Margaret or anyone could do to stop her.

The uncertainty ate into Margaret, making her snap where normally she would have been good tempered, ruining her appetite and keeping her awake at night. She was usually able to fall asleep from sheer exhaustion the moment her head touched the pillow but by three or four o'clock she was awake once more, her head spinning with a crazy whirl of thoughts.

Was it this way for Sarah, her sister-in-law, she wondered? Did she lie awake at night wondering about Alec? A year after the fall of Singapore they had received a postcard from him, saying he was well and in the hands of the Japs but it had brought little comfort. The wording had obviously been dictated and since the card had taken so long to get through Alec could have been dead of malaria or beri-beri even before Sarah received it and there had been no news since. And Dolly, too, had to live with the worry of having both Fred and Bob in the fighting forces, for both had joined up as soon as they were old enough.

But at least for her there was some prospect of the end in sight. Little by little the stranglehold of the Axis had been whittled away and now the talk was that the Allies were going to land in France and hound the Germans back over the Rhine.

‘It can't last much longer – we've got Hitler on the run now!' people said optimistically. ‘Churchill will make his move soon now – and then woe betide them!'

Listening, Margaret felt a small teacherous dart of despair. To them it meant the end of the killing and fighting, the end of shortages and nights of waiting for the wail of air raid sirens. To them it meant the boys would be coming home. But to her it could mean the loss of her beloved evacuees. So Margaret lived from day to day unable to do anything but wait. And one evening when the telephone rang it was not the union or the constituency party for Harry. It was Mrs Cooper.

‘We thought we'd come down at the weekend,' she said. Her voice was loud, false and nervous, as if she was not used to speaking on the telephone, ‘Is that all right with you?'

‘Of course,' Margaret said, making a great effort to sound normal, though she was clutching the receiver so hard that her palm felt sticky against the solid black instrument. ‘What time do you expect to get here?'

‘Trains allowing, about dinner time. Course, me and Joe
could
have something to eat at the Station buffet before we leave Bath, but …'

‘Oh, don't do that. I'll get you a meal,' Margaret said.

‘That's very civil of you, I'm sure.' She paused. ‘The girls will be there won't they? We shan't be coming on another fool's errand?'

‘They'll be here,' Margaret promised.

She replaced the receiver and turned to see both girls in the hall behind her, Elaine with her
Radio Fun
comic, Marie clutching a coloured pencil she had been using to do some colouring.

‘Was that our Mum?' Elaine asked eagerly.

‘Yes. She's coming down to see you at the weekend.'

‘There you are!' Elaine said triumphantly to Marie. ‘I told you, didn't I? She wouldn't go off to America without us!'

But there was no look of answering delight on Marie's face and her thumb went into her mouth in the childish gesture she still reverted to when she was upset. Elaine nudged her impatiently.

‘Don't be stupid, you!'

‘Don't want to go to America!' Marie mumbled over her thumb.

Margaret put an arm around her. ‘Come along, both of you. Tea will soon be ready,' she said brightly, though it occurred to her that whatever the outcome of Mrs Cooper's visit it would be impossible to please both girls.

On Saturday the girls were ready for the visit by mid morning, dressed in their best fair isle jumpers and pleated kilts. Elaine was excited, Marie solemn, though Margaret did manage to enlist her help in making a ‘treacle tommy'tart for dinner and as she rolled a piece of pastry into strips to criss-cross the pie, her small face pale and set above the apron Margaret had put around her to protect her best clothes, Margaret's heart went out to her.

She had been so pathetic when she had first come but this was her home now. At her age, four years must seem like a lifetime and her mother a virtual stranger. I'll fight for her – I will! Margaret promised herself.

By noon Mrs Cooper had still not arrived. Elaine had spent the last hour watching for her out of the front bedroom window and Marie was following Margaret around like a nervous puppy dog, getting under her feet at every turn.

‘Do you think they're coming?' Margaret asked Harry when he brought her in a freshly cut cabbage.

‘They've just been held up, I expect. Stop worrying, love.' At times Harry's unruffled attitude, so like his father's, could be infuriating.

‘I'm not worrying!' she snapped.

He grinned. ‘All right, you're not worrying. So why are you putting sugar instead of salt into the potatoes?'

‘Am I? Oh!' She glanced down at the jar in her hand and shook her head in disbelief. ‘Oh Harry, whatever is the matter with me?'

Ten past twelve and she was beginning to hope that perhaps Mrs Cooper might not turn up after all. She was ashamed of the thought for she knew she was being selfish but she could not help it. She was not looking forward to the meeting, and to its outcome even less.

At twenty past twelve she heard Elaine's footsteps flying down the stairs.

‘They're coming! They're coming!'

She ran past Margaret and Marie out of the back door to meet them. Margaret tried to untie the strings of her apron and found Marie clinging to her skirt. Her face was upturned, her eyes huge and afraid.

‘Oh Auntie Marg – I'm scared!'

‘It will be all right,' Margaret comforted with more confidence than she was feeling.

‘Don't let them take me away! Please!'

Margaret rumpled her hair, bent down and kissed her. Her heart was full. There was nothing she could say to comfort her. She resorted to bustle.

‘Come along, darling, we'd better open the front door for them.'

Marie was still hiding behind her as she opened the door. They were just crossing the road, Joe looking enormous in his GI uniform, Mrs Cooper ‘done up to the nines', Elaine hanging onto her arm.

‘There you are, Marie. There's your Mum,' Margaret said.

She was aware of Marie peeping from behind her as they came up the path. ‘Hello. So you made it,' she said.

‘We sure did.' Joe's voice was hearty.

‘Marie? Where's our Marie?' Mrs Cooper asked shrilly.

‘She's here. She's …' Margaret broke off. At the sound of her mother's voice Marie had emerged from behind her skirts and now she darted forward, running down the path and throwing herself at Mrs Cooper with all the enthusiasm of the young puppy she so often resembled.

‘Oh, our Marie!' Mrs Cooper, almost bowled over by the onslaught, teetered on her high heels and made to hold the child away. ‘Mind my skirt! Oh, you're all over flour!' Her welcome was less than warm but Marie seemed not to notice. All her reservations, all her fears, had flown as if they had never been and she was oblivious to everything but that her mother, whom she had not seen for four years, was here. She clung to her legs, sobbing, and Margaret felt the emptiness yawn inside her.

She had lost her. All her pleas to be allowed to stay had been merely the whimperings of an abandoned child, clinging to the one person who had offered her love and understanding in this alien world. But now her mother was here and nothing else mattered. Not the privations of life in London, not the neglect, not the days of waiting for a letter which did not come. She was here, a highly coloured figure in a two-tight skirt and a pair of American nylons, and everyone else had faded into shades of sepia. Even Margaret, who had fed her, cared for her, tucked her up in bed at night. She had been a caretaker mother only, now Marie's real mother had come to claim her and Margaret knew the child would go with her without a backward glance.

She should have been glad for her, Margaret knew, but she could not be. She felt numbed, empty, heavy as lead. Automatically, her lips formed a smile and she heard her own voice, steady and amazingly normal.

‘Won't you come in? If the children will let you, that is! You've had a long journey.'

‘That's it then. It's all decided. There's nothing more you can do,' Harry said.

It was late evening, Mrs Cooper and Joe had departed, the children were in bed and Harry and Margaret were drinking cocoa by the fire. Harry was tucking into the last of a pound of Osbornes but Margaret felt as if even a nibble of biscuit would choke her.

‘Just a few more weeks and they'll be gone,' she said forlornly. ‘Oh Harry, I shall miss them so!'

‘You'll get over it,' Harry said placidly.

It had all been arranged that afternoon in the stiff formality of the front room. Mrs Cooper had decided the children should definitely accompany them to America after the war and Joe thought they should return to London as soon as possible so that they could become accustomed to living with their mother again and get to know him.

‘Seems safe enough now,' he had stated in his slow drawl.

‘Are you sure?' Margaret was still clinging to any straw in an attempt to keep the girls in Hillsbridge.

‘We haven't had a raid now for months,' Mrs Cooper assured her. ‘They'll be as safe at home as they are here, judging by the look of Bath.'

‘Oh, we don't get bombed out here,' Margaret said quickly, omitting to mention the incendiaries and the bomb which had demolished the chapel.

‘That's decided then,' Joe said. ‘The girls will come back to London.'

‘As soon as I can get things ready for them,' Mrs Cooper added. Margaret heard the slight reservation in her voice and was heartened. Even now, she was not sure that Mrs Cooper was sincere in her desire to have them back.

‘Why don't you let them finish out this year at school?' she suggested. ‘They are doing so well. It's a pity to unsettle them just now.'

Mrs Cooper hesitated but Joe was clearly the force behind her new found interest in her children.

‘I reckon they should come as soon as possible, sugar,' he insisted.

And so it was arranged. As soon as she was ready for them Mrs Cooper would send for Elaine and Marie.

‘They can come on their own, can't they?' she said. ‘I don't have to trek all the way down here again, do I? You put'em on the train here, Mrs Hall, and I'll meet them at Paddington. That'll be all right, won't it?'

Margaret thought it would be far from all right, but did not see how she could say so.

They were, after all, not her responsibility any more.

The knowledge hurt more than she would have believed possible.

On 6th June 1944 Charlotte sat down to a solitary meal of a rasher of bacon and potatoes moistened with fat from the pan. The house was very quiet for she was unable to use her wireless as the batteries had run low and she was waiting for Jim to recharge them for her when he came to visit. She ate slowly, because one of her teeth had come loose and ached a little when she bit on it and also because she suffered from terrible indigestion these days if she swallowed a meal too quickly.

When she had finished she washed the dishes and went outside to hang her tea cloth on the line to dry. Perhaps she would sit out for a while on the bench in the sun, she thought. It was a nice afternoon and she had nothing to hurry back inside for. How different from the days when she had had all her family at home and there had never been a moment to spare!

As she settled herself, Peggy Yelling emerged from the outbuilding across the yard where Colwyn carried on his shoe-mending business.

‘Afternoon, Peg!' Charlotte called, glad of someone to pass a few minutes with.

Peggy approached, beaming. ‘Well, Lotty, and what do you think of the news then?' she asked.

‘News? What news?' Charlotte asked, puzzled.