Ellie Read online

  ‘Now, now.’ Amos got up and put one hand on Ellie’s shoulder comfortingly. ‘What would she do in the country?’

  He had met Polly Forester just three times, but he liked her very much. Once or twice he had even allowed himself to weave a few romantic dreams of her moving here, of what might come of their shared interest in Ellie. But he was a practical man. Not only was the pretty little widow unlikely to fall for an undertaker, but she’d be like a fish out of water away from the theatre and London life.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ellie sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘But I miss her so much and the war seems to be going on for ever, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It does,’ Amos agreed. He couldn’t admit that for him the past few months had flown by. ‘What if we both try and persuade her to come here for a holiday? I could ask George at the Crown to put her up. Maybe if she was here for a while she’d change her mind and want to move.’

  Ellie’s face lit up. ‘Maybe she could come next month when we do the show.’ Her voice bubbled with excitement. ‘I’ll write tonight, Mr Gilbert. Would you really ask George?’

  Amos smiled. ‘Of course I will. But not a word to my sister, though, not until it’s arranged. You know how prickly she is sometimes.’

  As Ellie mixed some pastry on the kitchen table she was thinking up a persuasive letter to her mother, rather than concentrating on the few ingredients for the evening meal.

  Mr Gilbert had managed to get a rabbit last weekend and they’d been eking out the stew all week. There was only a few tablespoons of it left now, but with a bit of onion, some diced carrots and potatoes there was enough to make three pasties.

  One invaluable skill Ellie had brought with her from home was cooking. After years of watching her mother turn the cheapest cuts of meat into something tasty and satisfying, wartime rations were no real challenge. Even Miss Gilbert had been agreeably surprised and almost happily surrendered her former place as cook.

  Her culinary skills had been widened still further by reading all the frugal recipes in government handouts, and learning from country women about herbs and vegetables almost unknown in London.

  Ellie had learnt a great deal in her year here. Her cockney accent was all but gone and she had a broader vision of what she wanted for the future. In another six months she’d be fourteen and able to work, and if she hadn’t persuaded Polly to move out of London by then, she’d join her there and find an office job or something until she found a way of getting on to the stage.

  It was frustrating just waiting for the time to pass, especially when she knew Mum censored her stories of how it was in London in exactly the same way the newspapers and the BBC did. But then Ellie censored her stories too. She never let on how horrid Miss Gilbert was, or how much she missed her mum.

  She supposed everyone was the same. Men in battle didn’t whinge about how dangerous it was. Wives didn’t witter on about how little food they had. Instead they mentioned the good or happy things, just as she told Polly about Mr Gilbert and Miss Wilkins, and Polly told her all the jokey things that happened in the Empire.

  Ellie placed the pasties on a baking tray and put them in the oven, then went to her school satchel to find the apples. They were windfalls: she’d discovered a tree overhanging an alley close to her school and she checked there every afternoon to see what had dropped. Ellie smiled as she cut out the bruised bits and sliced them up. Such economy would silence Miss Gilbert’s protests that they ‘only had puddings on Sundays’.

  It was just after six when planes came screaming overhead, so low that Ellie involuntarily ducked, thinking for a moment they were German bombers. Going to the kitchen door, she looked up at the sky. Mr Gilbert was standing by the workshop, shielding his eyes from the sun. It was a tight formation – six Spitfires speeding across the clear sky, leaving white foam-like traces of smoke behind them.

  It was a common enough sight – in the past few months it had gone on incessantly – but for some odd reason, this time Ellie’s stomach churned alarmingly, and she clutched her mother’s letter tightly in the pocket of her dress for comfort.

  ‘They’ll knock out a few Germans for us,’ Mr Gilbert shouted across the yard. ‘Let’s just hope they make it back.’

  Despite Miss Gilbert returning home in an unusually pleasant mood and actually expressing pleasure at Ellie’s pasties, the gut-churning sensation stayed with her, preventing her eating more than a few mouthfuls. Miss Gilbert was gloating about the huge amount of jam jars and bottles the Brownies had collected in a house-to-house campaign, and then suggesting Ellie should help unpick some old jumpers with her that evening to be re-knitted into blankets.

  It was just before the news at nine that Ellie felt ill. She was sweating, her mouth was dry and her heart started to pound. Miss Gilbert was sitting opposite her with the wireless on, surrounded by jumpers, and Mr Gilbert was in his office doing some paperwork.

  Instinct told Ellie the symptoms were related to her mother. Even though she knew Miss Gilbert would snort and say she was being stupid, she had to voice them.

  ‘I think something’s happened to Mum,’ she blurted out, dropping the jumper she had started to unpick. ‘I can feel it.’

  Miss Gilbert stared at her over her glasses for a moment. She had got thinner still in the past six months, and her face was even more puckered. ‘What nonsense!’ she snapped. ‘Get on with that unravelling and don’t go looking for ridiculous things to annoy me with.’

  The news droned on. Ellie scarcely listened to it as it was all so vague. They never specified which part of London had been badly bombed or the numbers of people killed or injured. Ellie pulled out clump after clump of wool, winding it round her hand and then into a ball, trying very hard to banish the scene in her head.

  But it wouldn’t go away. It was so clear, like seeing something at the pictures. She was lying in the double bed back in Alder Street, half asleep. Her mother was in her long nightdress, brushing her hair in front of the mirror, softly humming a tune from the evening’s show. The small room was lit by a gas mantle, which concealed not only the stains on the walls, but the shabbiness of that nightgown and the faint lines on Polly’s face. Fifty strokes on one side, fifty on the other, a crackle of static and faint sparks flying as Polly’s gleaming hair jumped to meet the bristles.

  It was a scene Ellie had watched night after night throughout her childhood.

  She could hear everything, too. The soft thud as the brush was put down, then the bedsprings twanging as Polly got in beside her.

  Ellie smelt a whiff of face powder, her mother’s warm breath on her cheek as she leaned over to kiss her good-night and pulled the covers right over her shoulders.

  ‘Night night, sugarplum,’ she heard as clearly as if Polly were actually in the room.

  Ellie saw her mother’s eyes then, just the briefest glimpse before she reached up to turn off the gas. Clear blue, with a hint of violet round the edge of the iris.

  Ellie couldn’t sleep that night. She heard planes coming back, no brave roaring now, or tight formations, but singly, spluttering, limping back to the airfield.

  A montage of jumbled images filled the darkness, vivid yet fleeting moving pictures. Polly and Marleen showing her how they did the Charleston, swinging imaginary beads and kicking their legs. Polly sitting on the doorstep in Alder Street, chatting to Edna on a summer’s night. Polly rowing a boat in Victoria Park, laughing because she couldn’t do more than make it go round and round. But one image was stronger than all the others that crowded in. Ellie could feel her mother’s hand in hers as they stood in front of a lighted shop window in Regent Street. In front of them was one lone, white ballgown, surrounded by hundreds of suspended, glittering stars. It was two Christmases ago, when they’d gone to the West End to see the lights.

  ‘You’ll be beautiful when you’re grown up,’ Polly had said, squeezing Ellie’s hand tightly. ‘You’ll wear dresses like that and I’ll be so proud of you.’

&
nbsp; Ellie now knew with utter certainty that Polly would never see her in such a dress. She would never feel another good-night kiss, hear the word ‘sugarplum’ or see those blue eyes again. She turned her face into her pillow and sobbed.

  ‘Swop?’ Carol suggested, holding out a piece of bread and dripping to Ellie. She knew something was wrong with her friend. Ellie hadn’t interrupted once in class this morning, and had been sort of distant and tense, but Carol sensed it was better not to probe.

  Officially all the children went home for dinner, but with so many women doing war work a great many of the children brought sandwiches to school now and stayed in the yard.

  ‘You wouldn’t want mine.’ Ellie wrinkled her nose at the contents of her one thin sandwich. ‘It’s fish paste.’

  Last night’s premonition of disaster had been eased by waking to another fine day. She’d seen the telegram boy ride past on his bicycle, and the only telephone call had been for Mr Gilbert. In the face of any firm evidence, Ellie was doing her best to put her fear aside.

  ‘I like fish paste,’ Carol insisted. ‘I only ever get bread and dripping and I’m sick of it.’

  Miss Gilbert knew Ellie hated fish paste, and so she gave it to her all the more. Bread and dripping was a luxury, especially the way Carol’s aunt did it, with thick, fresh, home-made bread and plenty of salt.

  Carol had only arrived from London in June when the bombing started in earnest, and couldn’t be called a true evacuee as she and her mother were staying with an aunt. Carol was small and timid, with mousy hair and odd slanty eyes, and she could barely read or write because she’d been ill a great deal when she was younger.

  Ellie had befriended Carol when the other children started picking on her, but since then it had grown into an enduring and comfortable relationship, based on mutual need. Carol was Ellie’s audience; she giggled at all her jokes, and comforted her when Ellie missed her mother. In return, Ellie protected Carol, helped her with her reading and boosted her fragile confidence.

  ‘Go on, swop,’ Carol insisted. ‘I’m mad about fish paste.’

  Ellie felt bound to accept, faced with such a well-intentioned lie. The bread stuck in her dry mouth, but Carol’s kindness forced her to grin and pretend she was enthusiastic.

  Some younger girls had brought out a long rope. Two seven-year-olds were holding each end, trying hard to turn it high enough for the others to skip in. Ellie saw one of them look to her for help and she was just going to stand up when she saw Miss Wilkins come out on to the steps by the school door.

  Just the way she stood, with one hand shielding her eyes as she looked for someone, was enough. Even at a distance of some thirty yards, Ellie could see tension in the teacher’s stance.

  Ellie’s stomach turned over. She dropped the remaining bread and dripping into Carol’s lap and stood up.

  ‘What’s up?’ she heard Carol say. A cold feeling was creeping down her spine as Miss Wilkins began walking through the children towards her.

  ‘Ellie, will you come with me?’ Miss Wilkins said as she approached. ‘I want to have a word in private.’

  The few yards seemed like a mile as Ellie followed Miss Wilkins into the school, her legs turning to rubber, her heart pounding.

  Once inside the hall, Ellie could wait no longer. She reached out and clutched at Miss Wilkins’s arm.

  ‘It’s Mum, isn’t it?’ she asked, hoping against hope she was wrong. ‘She copped it last night, didn’t she?’

  ‘Oh, Ellie.’ Miss Wilkins dropped her usual brisk manner and took hold of Ellie’s two hands, pulling her close.

  Ellie looked up before being enveloped in the woman’s arms, and saw her teacher’s damp eyes. ‘I knew,’ she whispered. ‘I knew last night. Is she?’ She couldn’t finish the question. A feeling of utter desolation was welling up inside her.

  For a second Miss Wilkins didn’t reply. Ellie heard her gulp, then a deep sigh. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ The woman’s voice broke. ‘She was caught in an air raid, running to the shelter.’

  Ellie couldn’t cry for some time. She let Miss Wilkins lead her to the headmistress’s office, took the offered cup of tea in shaking hands and listened while her teacher told her of the telephone call she’d just received from Marleen.

  Ellie pictured the scene. She could hear the warning siren, imagine her mother hurrying others out of the dressing-rooms before she thought of her own safety. Then the dash through the streets of Holborn, a basket with sandwiches and a flask of tea on her arm. Had she gone past the nearest shelter, running instead to the tube where Marleen always kept a place for her?

  Ellie knew what bombs did. How the buildings just caved in, dust billowing up and then falling, covering everything like a thrown bag of flour. Then the fires breaking out all around like a scene from hell. But she couldn’t imagine her pretty little mother being knocked down, her body crushed by bricks and falling masonry.

  There was a vase of chrysanthemums on the headmistress’s desk, a tawny red colour like Polly’s hair. A few petals had fallen on to the blotter and she had an urge to pick them up and put them back on the flowers.

  Everything seemed so normal. The sun was shining in at the window, the noise of children playing as loud as it always was. She caught sight of a Janet and John reading book lying on the window sill and remembered Polly coaching her with a similar one.

  ‘Here is Janet. Here is John. This is Janet and John’s mother.’ She had learnt the words by heart, not really reading them, but the thing she remembered most about that book was the images it created of cosy ordinary families with happy, smiling faces.

  A feeling of intense anger rose up inside her. What right did they have to kill her mother? What did she do to anyone?

  She wanted to ask Miss Wilkins but she couldn’t. All she could do was look at those petals, remember her mother meeting her at Liverpool Street station back in the summer, holding her arms wide, running towards her. They had laughed as they collided, and Polly attempted to pick Ellie up and swing her round, but discovered Ellie was now the biggest.

  Ellie cried then. She didn’t make a sound at first, just tears welling up and trickling down her cheeks, growing ever faster. She had no father. No home left. The Germans had bombed that too. Now she had no mother either.

  ‘What will happen to me now?’ she managed to get out. She was aware Miss Wilkins had moved her chair right next to Ellie’s, that she was encircled by her arms and that a hand was smoothing her hair, yet it didn’t comfort her.

  ‘Miss Hathersley, your mummy’s friend, is coming down here,’ Miss Wilkins said. ‘It won’t be until tomorrow because the trains are in a mess but she told me to assure you she will get here somehow. For now I’m going to take you back to the Gilberts’.’

  ‘How tragic,’ Miss Gilbert said as Miss Wilkins finished breaking the news. ‘My dear, I’m so sorry.’

  Ellie looked up at the thin spinster. Her words might sound sincere to her teacher, but they couldn’t fool Ellie. Miss Gilbert’s eyes glinted like flint and her lips quivered, the way they always did when she was secretly pleased.

  ‘Is Mr Gilbert here?’ Ellie managed to get out, knowing he at least would feel for her.

  ‘He’s gone to Cambridge on business,’ Miss Gilbert said crisply. ‘Now let me get you both a cup of tea.’

  ‘I’ve got to get back to the school,’ Miss Wilkins said reluctantly after the tea. Twice before, she’d had to make announcements at assembly that one of the children’s fathers had been killed. But on both those occasions the mothers had broken the news to their children. Ellie had no other parent, or even grandparent – only this friend of her mother’s. She was concerned by Grace Gilbert’s cool reaction, too, but Amos would be home soon and she knew he’d handle the situation with the utmost sensitivity. ‘Now, Ellie, we’ll all be thinking about you. If you need me you know where I am.’

  Ellie wanted to beg her to stay, even to ask to go back to school rather than stay alone with Miss Gilbert. Bu
t she couldn’t. This terrible grief inside her was something she’d have to face alone.

  The clock hands seemed to have slowed down to the point where Ellie felt each minute was an hour. Miss Gilbert started on some ironing and each time she spat on the iron to test the temperature, Ellie sensed she had some spiteful remark prepared, just waiting for the right opportunity to air it.

  All manner of things went through Ellie’s mind. Would she be moved to an orphanage? Would her mother have a proper funeral? Or was she already in one of those cardboard coffins Mr Gilbert mentioned they used in the cities and just shoved into a mass grave somewhere?

  ‘What will happen to me?’ she blurted out, unable to keep silent any longer. ‘Who do I belong to now?’

  As she voiced that last question, she answered it herself. She belonged to no one. From now on, the safety net that had been her mother was gone. There could be no more dreams of them sharing a small flat. She was entirely alone.

  Miss Gilbert turned from her ironing, her mouth pursed spitefully. ‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ she said coldly. ‘I can’t imagine what your mother was thinking of, careering around the streets at night when decent folks are at home in their beds.’

  A shaft of light came in as the door opened but Ellie didn’t move her head to see who it was. She had been crying ever since she was sent to bed and her pillow was soaked.

  ‘Sit up and drink this,’ Miss Gilbert said curtly. ‘I can’t have that noise going on all night. You’re a big girl, kindly behave like one.’

  ‘Has Mr Gilbert come home yet?’ Ellie sobbed. She had waited and waited for him, her ears pricked up for the sound of his boots outside in the cobbled yard.

  ‘No he hasn’t and even if he had he wouldn’t be wanting to know about your troubles.’

  ‘He would.’ Ellie sprang up in the bed. Normally she wouldn’t dare to answer Miss Gilbert back but she was beyond fear now. ‘He’s a kind man and he cares about me.’

  ‘He cares about no one but himself,’ Miss Gilbert snapped viciously. ‘His dinner’s spoilt and he hasn’t even bothered to telephone me and tell me where he is. Now for goodness’ sake take this drink and stop that dreadful noise.’