When the Lights Come on Again (30 page)

‘You’ve a’ to stay together now! It’s up to you, Charlie Thomson!’

‘Aye, Ma,’ he said. He was struggling hard to maintain a manful attitude. Poor wee soul, thought Liz, he’s only a baby himself. Before she could think of something to cheer him up, Amelia Buchanan extracted a delicate handkerchief from the large handbag which she carried with her everywhere she went.

‘Dear me,’ she said to Charlie. ‘Your nose seems to be running. A summer cold is such a nuisance, isn’t it? Have a good blow now, young man.’

It was more of an almighty sniff man a blow, but it saved Charlie’s face. Once she was satisfied that he had finished, Amelia dropped the handkerchief back into her bag, apparently without a qualm. Cordelia’s mother looked at her in horror.

The children were cheerful as the train pulled out of the station, looking around them with interest as they crossed the Clyde and passed through the southern outskirts of Glasgow. There were houses and factories to be seen, an environment they all recognized.

‘You’ll maybe be missing your lessons because of all this carfuffle,’ said a helper, one of the few adult males on board the train. Charlie Thomson’s reply flashed back at him like lightning.

‘I’ll not miss them at all, mister.’

It was a vestibule-type train, and the helpers moved through the open carriages, distributing the picnics donated by Glasgow bakers and packed into white cardboard cake boxes tied up with string. Smiling and chatting, they encouraged the children to relax and enjoy the trip.

It wasn’t long before the train left the familiar surroundings of the city behind. Chocolate biscuits kept spirits high for a little while longer, but soon the children began to flag. The novelty had worn off.

Some of them were snuffling quietly, others doing their best to look brave. Amelia Buchanan raised her elegant eyebrows in a gesture which reminded Liz of her son. He and Cordelia were attending to the young passengers at the other end of the train.

‘A sing-song, do you think?’

‘That’s a brilliant idea.’

Liz had really warmed to Amelia today. Any woman who could let a snotty-nosed wee toerag like Charlie Thomson use her finest lace-edged handkerchief without turning a hair was all right in her book. At the start of the journey her fair hair had been as elegant as her eyebrows, pulled back into a chic French roll. Now it was escaping from its pins, strands of it sticking to the sides of her face. One child, having eaten too many chocolate biscuits, had been sick down her front. That hadn’t seemed to bother her very much either.

Liz thought about what this lot might want to sing. Inspiration struck. They’d probably be fans of Gene Autry, the singing cowboy. Softly at first, she started singing one of his hits,
South of the Border, Down Mexico Way.

Amelia Buchanan joined in. She couldn’t carry a tune, but that didn’t matter. By the second verse, most of the children were singing along. By the second run-through they all were. Everybody had suggestions for the next song - and the next, and the one after that.

Sitting up in his seat and taking a renewed interest in the outside world, Charlie Thomson pointed at what he had spotted through the carriage window.

‘What’s all that water out there, missus?’

Amelia Buchanan beamed at him.

“That, my dear Charlie, is the sea. You’re going to really enjoy living by it.’

Several exhausting hours later, the public hall which had been the clearing house for evacuees and families prepared to offer them billets was half-empty, dusty and echoing. Most of the helpers had gone off for a well-deserved cup of tea or a breath of sea air before the train journey back to Glasgow.

A woman with two daughters of her own had taken young Susan and her new friend in. That was going to be a lively household as soon as the new arrivals found their feet.

Putting her fists into the small of her back, Liz arched her spine and let out a long sigh. She would go round and see Susan’s parents tonight - the other girl’s too - and tell them that they were both fine. She yawned. Or maybe she would leave it till tomorrow. It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet. The Thomson children had still to be found a billet

Clutching her rag doll in the crook of her elbow, the wee girl had her thumb stuck so tightly in her mouth you’d probably have needed a crowbar to prise it out. With her other hand she was gripping her big brother’s hand.

‘I’ll take the little girl. I could probably scrub her up to something halfway presentable.’ The woman who’d made the offer laughed, clearly expecting her remark to be taken as a good joke. Charlie’s sister whimpered and redoubled her hold on his hand.

‘We’ve got to stay together, missus,’ he said firmly before any of the adults could speak. ‘Ma mammy’ll leather me if we dinna.’

‘Really!’ exclaimed the woman, looking down her nose at him. ‘Children should be seen and not heard, young man. One of my friends was saying that half of them haven’t brought the right stuff with them, either. Are we supposed to provide all that, because their parents can’t be bothered to? Don’t these people care about their children?’

Liz, straightening up from her surreptitious health and beauty exercises, thought she might explode. She’d heard too many moans and complaints today, and not from the children either. She could understand it in one way. The folk who were taking the evacuees in were being asked to do a lot: opening their homes to youngsters who were complete strangers to them.

Some of them would have been badgered into it, persuaded to pull together in this time of national crisis. It must be difficult, being asked to turn your own house topsy-turvy to accommodate other folk’s children.

But the complaints about them being badly kitted-out were unfair. As far as Liz was concerned, the people who made them were showing their own ignorance when they did so - like the people who’d drawn up the list of items evacuees should take with them to their new homes. They might have meant well, but the length and scope of that list showed all too clearly that too many people had absolutely no idea of the harsh living conditions endured by hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens.

The evacuees were supposed to take ‘a warm coat or mackintosh, a change of underclothes and stockings, handkerchiefs, night clothes, house shoes or rubber shoes, toothbrush, comb, towel, soap, face cloth and a tin cup’. As an afterthought they had also been asked to bring a warm blanket. Liz laughed when she read that list and then had to explain to Cordelia what was so funny.

What was so funny wasn’t really funny at all: the reality that lots of children didn’t possess a coat, let alone a warm one, that many of them had never owned night clothes, far less slippers, that while middle-class households might have several spare blankets, working-class families didn’t have enough bedcovers to keep themselves warm at night as it was.

Liz glared at the woman who was regarding the Thomson children so disdainfully. How dare she look down her nose at these poor wee refugees? What they needed right now was a cuddle and some loving care - then they could have a bath and be scrubbed up.

Like the children, Liz was tired and upset and worn out by being at the centre of so much emotion throughout the day. Her own personal emotions stemming from last night’s disastrous date with Mario weren’t helping either - and it all boiled over.

‘How dare you talk about these children like that!’

She crossed the floor to stand by the Thomsons, laying a comforting hand on young Charlie’s shoulder. There was definitely something moving in his hair.

‘People couldn’t afford to supply half the things on that stupid list. That doesn’t mean they don’t care about their children. They care about them a lot. They’re not used to sending them away, that’s all. And how do you think you’d cope if you had to bring up a family in one room - your only washing facility a sink out on the landing, shared with several other families?’ Liz gave the woman a head-to-toe appraisal. ‘Not very well, I shouldn’t think.’

There was a stunned silence. Nurse’s uniform or not, nineteen-year-old girls weren’t supposed to speak to their elders like that.

‘Elizabeth,’ said Amelia Buchanan quietly. She was digging in her handbag. Liz wondered if she was looking for her copy of the Riot Act, or perhaps a set of handcuffs - or a cat o’ nine tails.

But she was wrong. With what could only be described as an air of triumph, Amelia found a brown leather horseshoe purse, extracted two half-crowns and extended them to her.

‘Would you take Charlie and his brothers and sister out for an ice-cream, my dear? Come back in about half an hour.’

‘Could I interest you in a cup of tea?’

Standing on the breezy station platform waiting for the train which would take them back to Glasgow, Liz turned at the sound of Adam’s voice, forgetting for a moment he would be able to see that she’d been crying.

‘Don’t you want to sit in the refreshment room with the rest of them?’

‘No. I want to stand out here in the fresh air with you.’ He held out a chunky green Delft cup. ‘Not the delicate porcelain you deserve, but it’s wet and hot. One with sugar, one without. Which would you prefer? No saucers either, I’m afraid.’

‘Which do you want?’

‘I asked first.’

‘I like sugar in my tea.’

‘So do I,’ he said. Overriding her protests, he handed her the cup holding the sweetened tea. ‘You need the energy. It’s been a hard day. Fancy a seat?’ He indicated a bench behind them.

Holding his cup carefully, he lowered himself down, tilting his fair head back against the stone wall of the station buildings and closing his eyes. ‘You’re not upset about the Thomsons, are you?’

‘No.’

She’d come back from the ice-cream parlour to find that his mother had done the impossible and found someone prepared to take all four children. No, she wasn’t upset about the Thomsons. She was upset because she was tired and emotional and because of the argument she’d had with the stupid woman who wouldn’t take the children. And because things hadn’t worked out with Mario last night

‘Who was that woman who took them? She seemed a bit-’

‘Eccentric?’ Adam suggested, opening his eyes and giving her a tired smile. ‘She’s a friend of my mama’s. Mad as a hatter, but in the nicest possible way. Got this huge house further down the coast where she lives with a husband who plays golf all day, an aged father and an equally aged and usually bad-tempered housekeeper who cooks like Escoffier. Not to mention two huge and hairy golden Labradors and an army of cats. When you ask her whether she likes children, she gives you the W.C. Fields answer. You know,’ he said. ‘Boiled or fried?’

‘But will the children be all right there?’ she cried, alarmed by this description of the household to which the Thomsons were now heading.

‘They’ll have a whale of a time,’ Adam said confidently. ‘She actually loves children, but she didn’t volunteer to have any because she thinks she’s no good with them.’

‘Your mother used her legendary powers of persuasion on her?’

‘You might say that. In actual fact, she’s great with children. Treats ’em like little adults and they adore it - and her. Right now she’s probably asking Charlie if he’d care for a brandy and soda after the exertions of his journey.’

Adam had closed his eyes again whilst he’d been speaking. Now he opened them wide, turned his head and looked Liz straight in the eye. ‘After she’s deloused him and the rest of his siblings, of course.’

She sighed and took a gulp of tea, feeling the relief of the warm, sweet liquid sliding down her throat. ‘I know, I know. A few of them were verminous, a lot of them were pretty grubby, some of them had snotty noses - but that’s not their fault, Adam! You might even argue that it’s not really their parents’ fault. When you see the terrible conditions some folk live in, it’s amazing how well so many of those children today were turned out. They weren’t all toerags.’

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘A lot of them were very neat and clean.’