The Very Thought of You (3 page)

Had she made the right choice?

4

Anna’s school bus arrived first at Paddington Station, and sat there dead-engined for an hour. An inconstant sun came and went, making the children fidgety. Some of them disembarked there, but not Anna.

Her bus pushed on to St Pancras – magical, colourful St Pancras, a riot of exotic brickwork. Anna had never seen this station before. Climbing from the bus, she glanced upwards at red Gothic spires rising to the sky – they looked like the towers of a fairy-tale castle, the first step in a great adventure.

Inside, the vast vaulted space thrilled her
.
Steam was rising from the trains, their smokestacks were trailing wisps of white up to colossal arched girders. Beyond the platforms, the sky was framed like a stained-glass cathedral window – an infinite window of bright blue.

But she was being pushed forwards, and there was little time to stop and look. The station was seething with crosscurrents of children and parents; it was hard not to get caught in the wrong queue. Station announcements and men with loudspeakers only aggravated the chaos. Many children seemed to have brothers or sisters, some of them very young and wanting to go to the lavatory. Anna felt strong in herself, and sorry for those who were looking miserable. She clutched her belongings carefully – the case, the food bag, the gasmask box.

She longed for the seaside.

A great clock hung over the sea of bewildered children, ticking away the morning. Gradually, Anna’s excitement began to dwindle, and the magic of the steel cathedral faded as they queued along the platform, waiting for something to happen. They stood, they sat on the ground. The platform was grimy, and there was an acrid smell which burned her nose.

“Where are we going? Where?” The whisper of unanswered questions swept up and down the lines of children, dozens of young faces screwed into supplicant expressions.

At last her group was led towards a train. Mrs Martin, her class teacher, ticked her off a list as she clambered on board with her cases.

She had nobody to say goodbye to, but as the train drew away she joined the throng at the window, and waved at all those mothers and fathers whose faces were fixed on the departing children.

The train rolled slowly through North London, past dingy backs of houses, small tended gardens, smoking factories. Anna felt as though she were in a film. The train speeded up, more places flashed by, and fields began to roll past her window.

She remembered her mother’s gift book and unwrapped it: to her joy, she found
The Yellow Book of Fairy Tales
, with scary drawings of sea serpents and gnarled witches. Her mother’s photograph and letter made her a little tearful, but she was fixed on being as brave as a fairy-tale orphan, setting out to prove her mettle.

Only she did wish for a brother or sister.

The train stopped and started. Every now and again, somebody with a clipboard came to check that all was well. The toilet was blocked, and this was causing problems. Anna dreaded smelly lavatories, so she was careful not to drink or eat much.

At last the train pulled in at a station. Nothing happened for a while, then doors started slamming, and voices shouted down the corridor, “Everybody out!”

When they reached the platform, Anna saw they were at Leicester
.
She didn’t know where that was. Some of the children were being led towards the exit; others were directed onto a new train. As the crowds flowed round her, Anna felt suddenly dizzy – should she climb onto the train, or find her new home here? She stalled where she stood and felt sick and faint, facing this invisible crossroads to her future.

“Is Leicester at the sea?” she asked a woman with a list of names.

“No dear, nowhere near the sea.”

That settled it. Anna did not want to stop here. She joined the queue for the new train, even though nobody seemed to know where they were going.

She made for a window seat.

“When do we get to the sea?” she asked a patrolling teacher. His eyes were quizzical.

“You mustn’t be too disappointed if you don’t end up at the seaside,” he said. “Anyway, it’s too cold for bathing at
this time of year.” Anna asked no more, but sensed with a sickening heart that she was on the wrong train.

She began to worry. She watched and watched out of the window, hoping for a glimpse of the sea on every horizon. They seemed to roll through empty countryside for too long. Clutching her food bag and book, she fell asleep. Her legs did not touch the floor but swung from side to side with the train’s motion.

In the late afternoon, the train slowed and she woke up. They were pulling into a station on a great bend. Anna saw the sign: York.

“Everybody off!” called the supervisors, hurrying down the corridors. Anna was jolted to her feet and scrambled together her belongings. She stepped off the train and followed the line of children. They marched up many steps and over a long bridge, stretching across the station’s majestic curve. Birds were focking in the great glass roof. Somebody blew a whistle, and they flapped away into the open air, startling the children.

Were they seagulls? Anna watched them, wishing she knew more about birds.

Billeting officers were waiting for them, ticking off their names. Only a few children remained from Anna’s school.

She looked about her at a crowd of unknown faces.

“Where are we going?” she asked a man with a beard. He stopped and looked down at her small, anxious face. “We’re just taking you all to the billeting hall now. There’ll be tea for you there.” he spoke gently, with an unfamiliar accent. She didn’t dare to ask, this time, if the seaside was close by.

The children were quickly marched off into hot and dusty buses. Anna looked out at the towering station hotel with its neat banks of flowers. So this is York, she thought.

Fortunately, it was only a short drive from the city before they reached a school hall. There were a couple of hundred children there, and kindly women greeted them with drinks.

“Where are we?” asked Anna.

“You’re in Yorkshire!” replied a stout woman with spidery red veins on her cheeks. Anna didn’t know anything about Yorkshire, except that it was for poor people, factory people. That scared her a little.

She was placed in a row of chairs and checked for head lice. Once cleared, she was given a bun and a cup of milk. Some of the adults were hurried and a bit snappy, but others looked her in the eye and took the time to smile.

She ate her bun on one of the benches by the big windows, trying to make sense of the scene before her. She could see that adults were wandering around the hall, watching all the children. They were talking to a man sitting at a big desk, and pointing at different boys and girls. Were they being picked, like vegetables at a market stall? She sat down next to Becky Palmer, one of the few girls from her school who had come this far with her. Becky was soothing her little brother, who had wet himself. Women walked past, looking them up and down.

Her heart was fluttering: a bit of her wanted to be chosen, but she also dreaded the people she saw. It all seemed so different to the seaside holiday she had dreamt of. She didn’t want to be in Yorkshire with unknown people – she had a picture, suddenly, of factories and smoky faces.

Anna began to notice that all the women with nice faces were choosing girls – and she was sitting beside a weeping boy who had wet himself. Well, she wasn’t going to leave Becky just because of that. Just then, a purple-faced woman with bristles on her chin walked by and Anna felt relieved that young Ben was still crying.

Suddenly the doors opened and a dark-haired woman in a smart coat strode into the hall. A younger woman hovered at her shoulder, as if attending her. The elegant woman seemed to swing forwards in her high heels, and her light coat swayed as she walked. She made straight for the chief billeting officer, who rose and spoke to her with deference. Anna watched from her bench as this new lady turned and surveyed the hall, leaning back on one leg and subtly rocking her other heel, like a dancer.

The chief officer stood on a chair and clapped his hands to ask for silence.

“Mrs Ashton here has thirty places left at Ashton Park, for those aged between seven and thirteen – boys or girls. Any children fitting that description, come over here now please.” Children began to shuffle over, but Anna rose quickly and went to the front of the line.

She was captivated by this mysterious, beautiful woman –
Mrs Ashton.
Her hair was glossy and dark, and her clear level eyes travelled around the hall with a glint of amusement.

My mother would admire this woman because she’s a lady, Anna thought.

She looked down the line behind her: a straggle of boys and girls, all bewildered by their long day. The billeting officers were hurriedly taking down their names, and issuing them with postcards to send home. Anna watched closely as Mrs Ashton waited there with effortless poise, talking a little to her assistant, and asking a small girl about her journey.

A billeting officer gave a signal that everything was in order.

“All set? Come along then,” said Mrs Ashton, striding away on her heels. Anna hurried to keep up, and clambered onto yet another bus, already half-filled with children.

The bus rolled out of the city through miles of flat wheat-felds, until gradually the ground rose higher and the road began to twist and turn more. At last light, they climbed up a steep bank, where the bus engine struggled round sharp corners.

Then daylight was extinguished, and they travelled in darkness. There were no street lamps, just the empty road. The bus rumbled on and the children fell asleep in the dark, heads falling on shoulders and laps, cases and gas masks scattered all about the floor.

At last they reached a hump-backed bridge and entered a village.

“Here we are” – Anna heard Mrs Ashton’s voice. She strained her eyes and glimpsed some iron gates. The bus rattled over a cattle grid, then slid silently up a long driveway. There was a sudden turn to the left and Anna found herself looking out at a great dark building, with lit windows. They passed through more gates into an oval forecourt. The bus slowed to a halt, and the children were roused.

“Don’t forget to bring
all
your cases,” said another voice.

They followed each other off the bus like a flock of startled sheep. Anna was one of the first out. Clasping her things close, she followed Mrs Ashton up the stone steps to a pair of tall doors: through them, they emerged into a magnificent marble hall, with a blue-domed ceiling which seemed to reach up to the sky.

Anna felt her eyes on stalks. What would her mother say about such a place? All around stood silent Greek statues: a naked man hurling a plate, a great dog baring its teeth, a sleeping lion. The children huddled together on the chequered floor, their small voices echoing in the vast hall.

Mrs Ashton clapped her hands.

“Welcome, all of you, and I hope you will be happy with us here at Ashton Park. I am Mrs Ashton. This is a special house, and we hope that you will enjoy it and care for it as we do. There are teachers and staff here who will look after you, like your schools at home. And this is Miss Harrison, who will be your matron.”

A hefty, iron-haired woman stepped forwards, wearing the blue uniform of a nurse, with a watch pinned to her tunic. She looked a little fierce, and her twitchy, bespectacled eyes seemed to lack eyelashes; Anna preferred Mrs Ashton.

But it was Miss Harrison who divided them into groups – boys, girls, younger, older – and led them up a great stone staircase.

They came to a long corridor with a red runner carpet. The matron showed them into a large room of wash basins and partitioned lavatories, before leading them, through yet more corridors, to various dormitories lined with rows of beds.

Anna was placed in a dormitory named “Wisteria”, on the second floor. She had a plain iron bedstead, and stiff new sheets. She took out her nightdress, and stowed her other things neatly away under the bed.

Curiosity took her to the window: she peered through the curtains – but all she could see was dark distance. Perhaps the seaside was out there after all.

There was one more queue for the basins and the lavatories, before Anna collapsed into bed, thinking of her mother as she fell asleep.

* * *

Downstairs, Thomas Ashton waited for his wife to join him for a late dinner. Their large dining room had been
transformed by three new refectory tables, ready for the evacuees’ breakfast.

Elizabeth arrived at last, her eyes glittering. Over these last few weeks, she had worked tirelessly to prepare for the evacuation, extending the sleeping quarters, buying the provisions, recruiting her helpers. Only this morning, she had walked through the top corridors with her new matrons, admiring the clean airy dormitories.

“They’re all settled upstairs now,” she reported.

“And the beds are full?”

“Oh yes. The billeting halls were still busy when we left.”

“Let’s hope there aren’t too many tears tonight.”

Elizabeth looked over at him, and tilted her head as she spoke.

“We can give them something good here, Thomas.”

He smiled and touched his wife’s hand. He was moved to see her so engaged.

“I’m looking forward to meeting them all tomorrow,” he reassured her.

Thomas had been surprised and delighted by Elizabeth’s willingness to open up their lives like this. And not a day too soon: Hitler’s dawn invasion of Poland had been reported all day long on the wireless.

“I’ve been thinking about the Nortons,” he added, picturing their friends in Europe’s most incendiary spot.

“They’ll get out of Warsaw.”

“I hope you’re right.”

But none of them, Thomas reflected, would really escape the coming war. The front line would stretch all the way into the home front this time, with aeroplanes reaching far into enemy cities. He was glad if Ashton could at least act as a refuge for a few evacuees.

Since Easter, the house had become a shell of its former self, with many of the male staff called up to local regiments. There was an expectant silence in the empty corridors, waiting to be broken by the sound of these children. Other people’s children.