A Family At War, page 8
'That's fine,' she says, when she's finished. 'You can get dressed now.' She sits down behind her desk again. 'I don't think you need to worry Mrs Edwards,' she says. 'She's intact.'
Mummy says, 'Good', and I'm pleased to be told I'm intact, although I didn't think I was falling to pieces.
The doctor's still talking in her quiet voice. 'I should say the kick broke a little blood vessel. Keep her quiet for the rest of the day and she should be fine. She's a healthy child.'
So we say goodbye and go out into the Tooting air. It is nice to be back. I can smell the trams and the beer from the off-licence. We cross the road and go in to see Uncle Leslie.
He's standing behind the counter humming to himself. 'Hello Ella,' he says. 'What's brought you here?'
'I've just been to the doctor with Beryl,' Mum says. 'Your Brian kicked her and made her bleed.'
'She looks all right to me,' he says, grinning at me.
'She's all right now,' Mummy says, 'but it was a nasty kick.'
'I'll get your envelope,' Uncle Leslie says. 'You might as well take it now you're here.'
'Wait there,' Mummy says to me. 'I'm just going to get Gran's money.' So I wait in the shop and after that we take a tram to Balham and go back to Bognor.
On the train I pretend to read my book again, but I'm not reading because I need to think. It was Mummy who kicked me, not Brian. I know she couldn't tell the doctor it was her. You have to keep things like that a secret from people like doctors and teachers. But she didn't have to blame Brian when she told Uncle Leslie about it. That was a lie.
Brian’s gone. Aunty Ela came down on Saturday and took him back. She was in and out of the bungalow so quick she didn't even sit down. She just said, 'Pack your things. You're coming home with me.'
Mummy says it's the best thing. 'I couldn't stand all that fighting,' she says to Gran. 'If you ask me those two boys are better apart. Jealousy of course. That's what it is.'
So now it's just me and Alan and we're not going to Lyon Street School anymore, because Mummy says it's too much of a business getting us there and back every day. We're going to the village school and we're going to walk there on our own.
CHAPTER 7
We didn't last long at the village school. We'd only been there a week when they decided we ought to be going to the London school, because we came down from London and we're really evacuees. So that's where we are now. It's a Balham school, called Cavendish Road, and they make us work a lot harder than they did at Lyon Street or the village school. We have some of our lessons in the Methodist church hall and, on our first afternoon there, they ask us if we want to be in the choir, because they're going to put on a play at Christmas and there's going to be choir singing as well.
Alan says he doesn't mind being in a choir, but I say I'd rather be in the play.
'You're a bit late,' the teacher says. 'We've cast it.'
I tell him I could do a dance if he'd like.
'Oh yes,' he says, as if he doesn't believe it. 'Well let's see you then.'
So I do one of my routines, singing the tune to show him how it goes. He's impressed. I can see.
'Good God,' he says. 'You can dance.'
'Yes sir.'
'Tell you what,' he says. 'You can be one of the fairies and do your dance when they first come on. I'll write in a bit of a part for you. I'll bet you've got a costume too, haven't you.'
I tell him my mum will make me one. You have to call your mummy Mum when you're at Cavendish Road school otherwise they laugh at you.
'See you at rehearsal then,' he says. 'Back here as soon as the bell goes for home time.'
It's lovely to be rehearsing for a play. It's all about two children having magic adventures on Christmas Eve and we're going to put it on at the Pier Theatre. The lines are a bit awkward because they haven't got any rhythm. I'll have to see if I can change mine round a bit. They're easier to learn when you can sing them. But the excitement's the same, everybody hot and happy afterwards, and the teacher shouting and laughing, and people clapping when you get things right. They really like my dance. The teacher who plays the piano is going to get some sheet music so that she can accompany it. And Mum's made me a lovely costume, bright red with a handkerchief skirt, really soft and pretty. Oh it'll be lovely to be back in a theatre again. I can't wait for the performance.
We rehearse in the church hall twice a week, first the choir and then the play. It's boring waiting while the choir sing. Some of the cast are learning their lines and some of the girls are doing French knitting, but I learnt my lines long ago and I can't do French knitting because I haven't got an empty cotton reel, and I've left my library book in the bungalow so I haven't even got anything to read. After a while I get the fidgets and ask if I can go out to be excused and on the way back I look through the glass door of the hall to where Alan's singing and he frowns at me to go away so I start to make faces at him through the glass, squashing my nose and pulling my lips out sideways. He tries not to look, but he can't help it and that gives him the giggles. Then all the others look too and the giggles spread. The teacher's really cross.
I'm enjoying myself making really horrible faces when I feel someone behind me and I look round and it's the headmaster.
'What do you think you're doing?' he says. He sounds annoyed. I wonder how long he's been watching.
'Nothing sir.'
'Don't give me nothing. You were interfering with the choir. Weren't you.'
There's no point in arguing. I've been caught fair and square. So I just say, 'Sir.'
'You're getting too big for your boots,' he says. 'That's your trouble. You need taking down a peg. Follow me.'
I follow him into a little room at the side of the foyer and he takes a cane out of the cupboard and flexes it. 'One stroke for insubordination,' he says, writing it in a book. 'Hold out your left hand, if you please.' He's quite calm, almost as if he's going to give me an arithmetic lesson. I hold out my hand. I even remember to curve it upwards at the last minute so that the cane only catches the edges. It stings a bit but nowhere near as bad as it does when Mum lets fly. If I give it lick, I can cool it down in no time.
'Now go back to the hall,' he says, 'and don't let me catch you being silly again.'
I say 'Sir' and go, licking my hand as soon as I'm out of the door.
When the rehearsal's over everyone wants to hear what happened. They all come flocking round, asking questions. 'Did he give you the stick?' 'How many d'you get?' 'Did you cry?'
I'm quite a heroine, especially when I say I didn't cry. But I'm a bit worried about Alan knowing because he might tell Mum and then I really would get a caning. I thought she'd be better when Brian went but she isn't, she's worse, only this time it's me that's in the wrong all the time and I can get the cane for anything. But he's ever so good and doesn't tell. So that's all right.
It's only two weeks to the play now and Alan and me are in Bognor Christmas shopping. At least he's Christmas shopping because he has pocket money every week. I'm not because I don't. I did ask Mum whether I could have some too, but she got cross and said pocket money was a wicked extravagance and anyway I didn't need any money. So I haven't got any, but I'm looking in all the shops because there are all sorts of nice things in the windows.
The best place for looking in windows is the arcade. It's right in the middle of Bognor and leads from the High Street to the entrance to the Theatre Royal and it's like a conservatory with posh shops on either side. They hang baskets of flowers from the glass roof in the summer and make it look really pretty, and now that it's Christmas the shop windows are decorated with tinsel and paper lanterns and that's pretty too. There's a bookshop and a posh shoe shop and right in the middle a toyshop with two windows full of the most gorgeous toys you ever saw. They have rocking horses there and Noah's arks and dolls' houses full of tiny furniture all made to scale. Not just tables and chairs and things like that but vases of flowers and tea pots and plates full of pretend food, roast chickens and loaves of bread and bowls full of fruit and fairy cakes perfect in every detail, right down to the cherry on top.
We spend a long time looking in those windows. Alan likes the lead soldiers. They're lined up on the shelves as if they're on parade, all in different uniforms with rifles on their shoulders. And in front of them there's a toy train that runs on a long line all the way round the window, past stations and over level crossings, just like a real one. But I only look at it for a second because standing right in the middle of the window is the best toy I've ever seen.
It's a toy theatre and it's absolutely perfect, with a wonderful pros arch all painted in lovely swirly patterns of red and gold, and red velvet curtains with a toggle to pull them open and shut, and two sets of wings all black and straight and set at an angle, and flats attached to poles that you can lower into slots along the top and change when the curtains are drawn, just like a real theatre. It's set up for a performance of Ali Baba and there are little cardboard actors standing on the stage with their arms stretched out as if they're saying their lines and a row of laundry baskets ready for the forty thieves. They're on sticks too so that you can push them on and off stage and change the characters for the next scene. There's a box full of characters and props alongside. There's even a script, lying open by the front of the stage for the director to read, and a row of tiny little footlights that are all on and shining like the real thing, some red and some white, and two more rows of stage lights shining down from above the wings. Oh I love it! Love it!
Alan says it's all right. He's more interested in the train.
'I wouldn't mind that for my Christmas present,' he says.
'Would they buy it for you?'
'I expect so. If I asked them to.'
I wish I could ask Mum to buy me the theatre. She wouldn't, of course, because it's so much money. Five whole pounds. It's a fortune. Two and a half times as much as Daddy earns in a week. I know what he earns because Gran told me once.
'Couldn't you have some games with that theatre,' I say. 'I wouldn't mind that for my Christmas present.'
Alan's working out how long it would take him to save up enough money to buy a box of soldiers. 'Eight half crowns in a pound,' he says. 'That's eight weeks.'
'You'd have to go without sweets,' I tell him. He buys sweets every week. He loves sweets. He's storing them for when they go on ration. Only he keeps eating the store and then he has to buy more.
'Um,' he says, considering it. 'Eight weeks is a long time.'
I'm still lusting after the theatre. 'How long would it take to save up for the toy theatre?'
We stand in front of the window, gazing at our inaccessible dreams, doing mental arithmetic. 'Eight weeks a pound, five times eight is forty, forty weeks.'
'Forty weeks,' I say. 'That's ten months.' We both know it's impossible and we both say so. But wouldn't it be wonderful.
'Come on,' he says. 'Better be getting back or it'll be dark.'
So we leave the dazzle of the toyshop and go home through the darkening footpath where the rooks caw and jump into the air and the brambles claw at us as we pass.
But I can't leave the theatre behind. I dream of it every night. I'm writing plays for it and arranging the little characters and switching on the lights and opening the red velvet curtains to reveal it in all its glory.
It's the last week of term and we're all in the Pier Theatre, waiting for the play to start. Aunty Ela's come down to see Alan in the choir and she's brought my make-up box, which is very kind of her, so I've put on full stage make-up. The others stand round and watch me do it, which makes me feel really special. They think it's funny when I put a dot of carmine at the corner of my eye. I tell them it's to make your eyes look bigger and put some on their eyes too. But the nicest thing is to smell it again. I love the smell of greasepaint. It makes me feel safe.
We've got a miserable audience. There's hardly anybody there. The teachers are really disappointed although they pretend they're not. They say you can't expect parents to come down all this way. Not when they've got work to do. I think it's sad because you need a good audience to make things go well and we've worked jolly hard on this play and we're almost word perfect. Anyway I do my very best because that's what you have to do, no matter what your audience is like.
Afterwards the man from the local paper makes us all come back on stage and takes a picture of us for the paper. So at least people will see what we've done. But I still wish there could have been more of them in the theatre.
'Happy Christmas!' the teachers call to us as we leave. 'You've earned it, all of you. You've been wonderful. Happy Christmas.'
Dad's coming down for Christmas, so Mum says. She says he couldn't come before because he's been evacuated to Hertfordshire and it's too far. I wonder whether he'll bring us any presents. Alan's got his from his mum and dad. Aunty Ela brought it down for him, because it's only a few days till Christmas now and she won't be able to get down again because of the shop. Alan says he doesn't mind. And Gran says. 'Don't worry about him, Ela. He'll be all right with us.'
So now it's just a matter of waiting the last few days. We have fires in the bungalow now because it's getting very cold and in the evening we all sit round and listen to the wireless. Our favourite programme is Tommy Handley's ITMA, which is short for 'It's That Man Again.' It's ever so funny and ever so quick and it makes us laugh like anything. Mum says it's an absolute tonic. Tommy Handley's really good. He pokes fun at everything and says the most amazing things and he gives all the characters peculiar names. There's a charlady called Mrs Tickle who says 'I always does my best for all my gentlemen' and a man called Fusspot, who makes a fuss about everything, and another one called Vodkin who speaks in a funny accent and calls Tommy Handley all sorts of funny names like Mr Handmedown and Mr Hamaneggs, and a man who phones up and pretends to be Hitler and says, 'This is Fumf speaking.' The door keeps opening all through the programme and you never know what's going to come in next. It could be a person or a tank or a flock of sheep or anything. I love it. There's going to be a special show for Christmas and I can't wait for it.
We couldn't get a turkey this year but Gran's got two chickens and she's made an enormous Christmas pudding. It was steaming in the kitchen for hours and hours and the whole place smells of it. She says it'll make very good eating.
It does too. Alan licks his plate and they don't tell him off, and Dad says it's the best meal he's had since he was evacuated, and nobody's cross. I think this is going to be the best Christmas ever.
After dinner we make up the fire, clear the plates and leave them in the sink to soak, shake the cloth out in the garden and put the chenille cloth on the table, and then we all gather round the fire for the presents, which have been waiting on the sofa bed for days and days, looking tempting.
Dad gives Mum his present first. It's a pair of silk stockings and she says, 'Very nice' and actually thanks him. So that's a good start. Then Gran gives him some of his favourite tobacco, and Alan gets his lead soldiers, which is nice, and me and Alan give Gran some Yardley's lavender water, which is her favourite, and I get a Rupert Annual and a Pinocchio colouring-in book and a new packet of colouring pencils. I always get the Rupert Bear annual and I always say it's very nice and thank you very much because that's what they expect, but I don't really like it. Rupert Bear's a goody-goody and the book's boring. But the colouring pencils are nice.
The last two presents are to Mum from Gran and to 'dear little Pat from her Mummy and Daddy.' Mum reads it out before she gives it to her. It's a very big present, all done up in brown paper, and it takes her a long time to unwrap it, while we all watch and tell her to hurry up and to come on, which is what you have to do.
But she opens it at last and takes it out of its box and it's my toy theatre. It's such a shock I feel as if someone's punched me in the stomach. My lovely theatre! Given to her! It's awful. Whatever made them give her an expensive present like that? She'll ruin it! She's much too young for it. It says suitable for children aged ten to fourteen on the side of the box - I can see it from where I'm sitting - and she's only just four. Much, much too young. She won't know how to play with it. She doesn't know anything about theatres. And I do. It's not fair. Not, not, not. How could they do such a thing? If they wanted to give it to anyone they should have given it to me. I'm the right age for it and I could have played with it beautifully. Now I've got to watch while she scribbles on it and tears it to bits and throws it about. She won't let me have a go of it because she'll say it's hers. I don't think I can bear it.
She's picking up the little characters by their heads. Oh don't do that. Treat them gently. They're delicate. 'What is it?' she says.
'It's a theatre darling,' Mum says. 'Won't that be a lovely thing to play with.'
It's been snowing for days and days and the whole world's white and black, as if someone's come along during the night and rubbed out all the colour. The roofs are all quite white and so are the pavements and the fences, and the beach is under a foot of snow. People go out with spades and shovels and clear their front paths and as much of the pavement as they can, but you can't see where the gardens begin and end, and the branches of the trees are twice the size because they're coated in ice.
Mum has fires halfway up the chimney but they only warm the living room and the rest of the bungalow is freezing. When you wake up in the morning you can see your breath streaming out in front of you, as if you're out of doors, and we keep our socks on in bed because the lino strikes so cold when you get up. Me and Alan get dressed under the covers too so as to keep warm. When I'm grown-up I'm going to have carpets and fires in every room in my house. The windows are so cold it hurts to touch them and they're covered in swirling patterns of ice. They start in the corners right at the bottom and grow upwards until they cover half the windowpane, and they're actually rather pretty, like fern leaves and flowers. Most mornings, me and Alan lift up the net curtains to have a look at them but we don't look long because the cold air puffs in through the cracks round the window and makes us shiver. Even with two jerseys on and two pairs of socks you still feel cold. And I've got chilblains.
