For once she was entirely with his mother.
‘It was pandemonium down there this morning. I saw half a dozen blokes I knew.’
The same bubble of excitement was present in his voice again and Abby found she wanted to hit him. How could he feel anything but the utmost dread at the prospect of going away to war?
‘Anyway,’ he drew in a sharp, short breath, ‘it’s done now and that’s that. You’ll come and see me off Wednesday afternoon?’
‘Wednesday afternoon? That soon?’ Abby was silent for a moment. It was taking all her control not to burst into tears.
‘Please?’
‘Of course I’ll come and see you off.’ From somewhere she found the strength to smile and added, ‘I’d like to see anyone try and stop me.’
‘That’s my girl.’
His own smile carried a thread of relief and in that moment Abby knew he had planned to tell her in a place where she was unable to give way to her feelings. She didn’t know if this made her angry or grateful.
Her eyes were dry and bright as she watched him walk over to Mr Hardcastle but she didn’t return to Felicity; instead she made her way to her office which she entered without looking back into the main office. She sat down at her desk and was surprised to find her hands were trembling when she tried to insert a piece of paper into the typewriter. She’d never been more thankful for her little cubbyhole away from prying eyes.
Five minutes later when James popped his head round the door and asked if he could have a word with Mr Wynford, she was perfectly composed, and this state of affairs continued for the rest of the day.
James walked her home but in view of all the preparations he had to make they agreed not to see each other that night. Abby said she would get in touch with Winnie and cancel their arrangement for the cinema the following night so she and James could be alone on their last evening together. All the cinemas had closed at the announcement of war anyway, and schoolchildren had had their summer holiday break extended, much to their delight. Shops were advised to close at six o’clock and even the churches had cancelled their evening services.
Abby stood on her doorstep until James had turned the corner and when he stopped and looked back at her, raising his hand to his lips and blowing her a kiss, the sunlight slanted across his hair and turned it golden. It was in that moment she realised she was angry with him for choosing to leave her a day before he had to, and she stood in the street for a good minute or so more, giving herself a silent dressing-down. She was being silly and weak and unpatriotic and she must never let him guess she’d had such a feeling for a moment, she told herself firmly. He was brave, so brave - like all the other men who were leaving wives and mothers and sweethearts. She ought to be thoroughly ashamed of herself.
When she entered the house, it was to find Clara, her face tear-stained, attempting to sew a name tag onto a pair of her thick woollen stockings. The kitchen table was strewn with clothes.
‘Look at that.’ Her mother barely raised her head from the scullery sink where she was busy scrubbing an old haversack of her husband’s, which carried an odour all of its own. ‘That list on the table. Everything has to have a name tag but did Miss Forget-her-own-name remember to tell me that? I’ve enough to do mending the holes she makes in her things as it is and now they’re insisting they want a holder for the gas mask, with shoulder straps.’
Abby picked up the piece of paper. It advised parents of children wishing to be evacuated that suitable clothing had to accompany each child. For boys: one vest, one shirt with collar, one pair of underpants, one jersey or pullover, one pair of trousers, handkerchiefs and two pairs of socks. For girls: one vest or combination, one pair of knickers, one bodice, one petticoat, two pairs of stockings, handkerchiefs, gym slip, blouse, hat and cardigan. Nightclothes, comb and brush, toothbrush, slippers, towel, soap and face cloth had to be carried by the same child separately.
Abby raised her head. Newcastle and Gateshead had already evacuated the mothers, infants and schoolchildren who wanted to leave the towns for the relative safety of the countryside of North and East Yorkshire; Sunderland was due to follow suit on 10 September. Her mother had had this list for weeks but had done nothing about it, refusing to accept there would be a war, and now she was blaming Clara because nothing was ready.
‘I’ll see to the name tags,’ Abby said flatly, ‘and I’ve got a piece of thick linen which will do for the holder for the gas mask. There’s still plenty of time.’
‘Says you! Sure sign you don’t work your fingers to the bone from dawn to dusk like me, that’s all I can say.’
Clara had risen from her seat while their mother had been speaking. She went across to Abby and tugged on her sister’s dress. ‘I don’t want to go. Not everyone’s going and I don’t want to. I want to stay here.’ She didn’t add ‘with you’, but she didn’t have to. Abby knew what her sister meant.
She bent down and put her arms round Clara, saying softly, ‘Jed’s going, isn’t he, so it’s not as if you’ll be all by yourself. And Aunty Audrey is going with you and Jed to settle you in. She’ll stay for a week or two until you’re used to everything. It will be exciting, Clara. Like a holiday.’
‘I want to stay here. Jed does too, he told me.’
‘You’re both going with Aunty Audrey and that’s that.’ Nora’s voice could have cut granite. ‘And don’t you encourage Jed to play up about leaving or I’ll take my hand to you again. Your aunt’s said she’ll stay for a while so be grateful to her.’
Abby glanced at her mother in surprise. It wasn’t often Aunty Audrey got a commendation in this kitchen. ‘Where’s Da?’ she asked, aiming to take her mother’s mind off Clara who was now crying again but silently.
‘Shipping Office,’ said Nora briefly.
‘Shouldn’t he wait to see what happens, with the war and everything?’
‘And what do we do for money in the meantime? Don’t talk daft, girl. Life goes on in spite of Hitler.’
Clara, her face working and her lips trembling, stared at her mother who continued to pound at the stained canvas, and then her eyes moved to her sister’s face. She had been longing for Abby to come home. Abby wasn’t frightened of their mam like everyone else, and whatever Wilbert said, he
was
scared. He certainly never stuck up for her like Abby did.
Abby’s voice was low as she said, ‘I’ll do the rest of the name tags, hinny.’ Clara’s small fingers were bloodstained with the number of times she’d pricked herself with the needle. ‘It won’t take long. And you’ll like it with Jed on a farm or something in the country. Honestly.’
Blinking, sniffing and wiping her nose on the sleeve of her cardigan, all in one movement, Clara whispered, ‘I don’t want to go.’
‘I know, I know.’ Abby’s hand cupped her cheek. ‘But you’ll have Jed and you’ll soon make friends.’
Jed. Clara wasn’t sure right at this moment if she still liked Jed. Her mam had brayed her something rotten just because she’d said she and Jed didn’t want to go away, blaming it all on her, when really it was Jed who had shouted and played up because he didn’t want to leave Aunty Audrey. She wouldn’t mind leaving
her
mam. Her eyes moved back to Nora’s face. Everything would be perfect if Abby could come with her. But she couldn’t, she was too old. Jed had said so and that was when she had agreed with him that they should play up a bit.
Just to make sure, she whispered, ‘Couldn’t you come, Abby? Like Aunty Audrey is with Jed?’
‘I can’t. It’s not allowed, pet. It has to be your mam.’
Clara swallowed hard. She couldn’t think of anything worse than being stuck with her mam in a strange place, and when the teacher at school had first explained about evacuation and what it meant, she’d prayed her mother wouldn’t want to go. Not that she had admitted that in confession, not with Father Finlay, even though everyone knew God emptied a priest’s mind of everything he’d heard in the confessional box. It might be wicked but she felt if any priest would remember, it was bound to be Father Finlay and most definitely about something she’d admitted. Anyway, her mam didn’t want to leave Sunderland and it seemed she’d made her mind up about that as soon as evacuation was mentioned, so perhaps it wasn’t her prayers that had affected things.
And as though Abby had read her mind - which Clara was quite sure was possible because her big sister could do anything in the world - she said very softly, ‘Just be glad Mam doesn’t want to go and settle you in, Clara. Aunty Audrey will look after you. You’ll like it when you’ve got used to it, I know you will.’
Not without Abby she wouldn’t.
‘And if you’re a good lass and don’t cry any more I’ll give you a present when you go. A surprise.’
‘What surprise?’
‘It wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you what it was, now would it?’ Abby pushed her slightly with her elbow, making a funny face. ‘But you have to be good, all right?’
Clara thought for a moment. She was going to have to go anyway - her mam had said so, so that was the end of the matter - and at least this way she’d have something special from Abby to take with her. She nodded. ‘All right.’
Oh, to be that age again, when anything could be made better by the promise of a present. Abby smiled at her sister before gathering up all Clara’s clothes and putting them to one side. She began to lay the kitchen table for dinner, trying to ignore the lump in her throat as she worked. She did so want to talk to Winnie, she just hoped she was in when she visited.
Winnie was in and she answered the door herself. Abby had been to the house in Liddell Terrace on the north side of the river several times, and she liked Winnie’s family although she wasn’t too sure about Mr Todd. Winnie’s five older brothers were miners like their father and as the only girl Winnie was constantly chaffed and teased by them, but it was clear they loved their baby sister. And Mrs Todd, although always harassed and tired, obviously doted on Winnie too, but Mr Todd was difficult to fathom and not what Abby had expected, being somewhat dour and sarcastic. But Winnie worshipped the ground he walked on; her conversation was always peppered with ‘my da this’ and ‘my da that’ even though he rarely gave her the time of day.
‘Ee, lass, I was just about to put me coat on and come and see you,’ Winnie said as she waved Abby into the house. ‘You’ll never guess what Lonnie’s done. He’s only joined up, daft blighter.’
‘So has James.’
‘Never! By, I thought he’d got more sense, him being white collar and with a university education and everything. I’d expect Lonnie to do something stupid, daft as a brush he is most of the time, but your James? Never.’
‘Never or not, that’s what he’s done.’
There was a pause during which the two girls stared at each other, and then Winnie said softly, ‘I’ll tell them we’re going to have a chat private like upstairs, all right? Go on up, lass. That’s if you can stop a while?’ she added.
Abby nodded. ‘I can stay,’ she said flatly.
The house was a two-up, two-down terrace, with Winnie’s five brothers packed like sardines in one bedroom and Winnie in splendid isolation in the other. Her parents had the front room as their bedroom. Winnie’s room was the normal higgledy-piggledy mess it always was, clothes strewn everywhere, bed unmade and piles of this and that littering every available surface. Abby picked her way to the narrow iron bed and cleared a space before sitting down. She loved her friend dearly but she could never understand how she could choose to live in such a muddle when she had a whole room to herself. Abby and Wilbert had shared a bedroom with a piece of curtain separating their space before Clara had come along, when Wilbert was despatched to the desk bed in the kitchen and her baby sister’s cot took the place of his bed. It had remained propped against the wall until Clara had been old enough to use it.
When Winnie came into the room a few moments later she was carrying a tray on which were two cups of steaming tea and a plate of her mother’s gingerbread. ‘Me mam thinks you want feeding up,’ she said, nodding to the gingerbread, before adding ruefully, ‘If you’re not going on fifteen stone you’re fading away as far as me mam’s concerned. Hence my shape.’
‘You’re all right.’ Abby smiled at her even though she felt like crying at Mrs Todd’s kindness. But that was because she was all upset about James, she told herself silently, and she couldn’t give way here. Winnie was a good friend but she wouldn’t understand, she didn’t feel that way about Lonnie.