Abby reached out and patted her aunt’s arm. ‘I shan’t fret about Mam, Aunty,’ she said truthfully, ‘not for a second.’ She could have added here, ‘If you could see the way she’s been at home since Da died you would understand, ’ but she did not. How could she describe the look on her mother’s face when she wasn’t aware she was being watched? She couldn’t because she didn’t understand it but her mam definitely wasn’t grieving. And she’d cleared out all her father’s clothes and possessions before he’d even been laid to rest. If anyone called round she was the epitome of the sorrowing widow, but the rest of the time . . .
When Abby walked through the scullery and into the kitchen, her mother was nowhere to be seen, but she had expected that. Since the funeral her mother lit a fire in the front room every evening and went in there to sit. She took a tray of tea with her and one of the magazines she’d taken to buying. Even on Christmas Day when Audrey had invited the three of them to Christmas dinner, her mother had left early and retired here.
Abby went quickly through to the front room. Her mother raised her head briefly from her magazine. ‘Been chewing me over with them next door, I suppose,’ she said and turned a page.
There was a good fire in the grate. Abby glanced at it, thinking, She doesn’t even seem to have considered that without Da’s wage coming in she’ll have to cut back. With tightening fuel rations, her father had been in the habit of acquiring an extra bag of coke now and again from a pal involved in the black market. Every recipe you read these days aimed at meals which saved fuel, and with talk that the one hundredweight of coal per household per week would soon be cut further, her mam was mad wasting what little they had left on a fire which simply went up the chimney and didn’t heat the range.
Putting the extravagance aside for the moment, Abby said, ‘I was talking about Clara with Aunty Audrey and Granda actually. I wondered if it’d help if she came back to the farm with me. A change of scene might take her out of herself and stop her brooding about what’s happened.’
Nora continued staring down at the magazine on her lap but her mind was racing. What should she say to that? She’d like nothing better than to be rid of the child whose snivelling and carrying on was a constant thorn in her flesh, reminding her every minute of what she’d done. Not that she’d meant to push him, she qualified silently as she always did when she thought of that night. Not a bit of it. Hit him, oh aye, she’d meant to thump him one and he’d deserved it too, but she hadn’t expected the big galoot would lose his footing and fall. And that’s what had happened: he’d lost his footing, so it was his fault in the final analysis. Rising in the middle of the night and padding about in the dark, he’d brought it on himself. She wasn’t to blame.
‘Mam? Did you hear what I said?’
‘Aye, I heard.’ Nora raised her head to stare at her daughter.
Goosepimples pricked Abby’s skin as she looked into her mother’s expressionless face. ‘Well? What do you think?’
‘It might be the answer, but if I agree to her going with you, I tell her myself. Just the two of us. I don’t want her persuaded into something she doesn’t really want. There’s no way I’m coming out to fetch her if she plays up once she’s there.’
Abby’s brow wrinkled. They both knew there was no possibility of that, but if her mother wanted to tell Clara herself, it was fine by her. All she wanted to do was to get her sister far away from Sunderland as soon as she could.
She shrugged. ‘Whatever you want.’
‘Huh! That’ll be the day.’
Abby ignored this. ‘I have to leave the day after tomorrow so you’ll need to tell her in the morning.’
‘I’ll tell her when it suits me and I’ll thank you to keep your orders to yourself.’
Abby didn’t bother to say anything more before she left the room. Her mind was still in a jumble and full of pain knowing she would never see her father again, and the sadness excluded the normal rise of anger or irritation with her mother. She hadn’t been able to tell him one last time what he meant to her, that she loved him. She hadn’t been able to say goodbye. Somehow it wouldn’t have seemed so unfair if a bomb had fallen because the same thing was happening to thousands of people all over the country, but for an accident at home to have taken her da didn’t seem right.
She hunched her shoulders, lowering her head as she fought back the tears. But then nothing was fair or right in these times. James and Donald and her da dying when people like her mother seemed to go from strength to strength.
Her eyes unseeing, she stood in the gloom of the hall for a moment. After sighing deeply she began to climb the stairs. Her mind was struggling with the way the world had gone all topsy turvy. Families and loved ones were being torn apart everywhere and there were many folk who were feeling like her, but with James and her da gone and the knowledge that she would never see them again burning in her heart, tonight it was more than she could bear.
Two days later on a cold Monday morning which had the smell of snow in the air, Abby felt a different person to the despondent creature of Boxing Day.
She was standing on the platform of the train station with Clara holding tightly to her hand, her sister’s clothes and belongings crammed into their father’s old rucksack again. Audrey and Ivor were at work and her mother had still been in bed when they’d left the house so there was no one to see them off, but that didn’t matter.
Abby glanced at Clara and her sister smiled up at her. Clara was coming back with her and that was all that counted. Suddenly the world was a brighter and more positive place again.
For the first time since their father had died Clara had not wet the bed the night before, and, small thing though it was, Abby felt it boded well for the future. It might be a bit of a squash in the farm bedroom - it already held the three-quarter-size bed which she and Rowena shared and Winnie’s single, along with a rickety wardrobe and chest of drawers - but when she had put the possibility of bringing her sister back with her to the farmer’s wife before she’d left, Mrs Tollett had assured her they could squeeze a little pallet bed in somewhere.
‘Looking forward to seeing the farm, hinny?’ Abby said softly, and Clara, hugging the doll Abby had given her two years before and from which she was rarely separated, nodded earnestly.
But it wasn’t the farm. Clara’s grip on Abby’s hand tightened. She didn’t care where she went as long as she was with Abby. There had been a story in
Sunshine Weekly
which she had read a few weeks ago, and in it the little girl had been sleeping in barns and under hedges with her big sister and little brother because their parents had died. When it had been decided they would have to be split up and sent to different relatives, the three of them had run away. It had ended nice, Clara reflected, but it had left her with a funny feeling because she’d so wanted the little girl to be her and the big sister Abby. But the longing for Abby hadn’t been so bad then because she’d still had Da with her.
The sickening feeling stirred again in her stomach at the thought of her father, and what her mother had said to her yesterday morning burned in her mind. ‘You say nothing about the night your da had his accident to anyone, understand me, girl? Nothing. It’s no one’s business, no one’s. Not Abby’s or anyone else’s. Well? Do you understand what I’m saying?’
‘Y-yes, Mam.’
‘You were asleep the whole time and didn’t know anything until your Aunty Audrey came to fetch you after I’d been next door for help.’
‘But I wasn’t. I mean—’
‘Saints alive!’ Her mother had yanked her up from her seat and shaken her like a dog with a rabbit. ‘Listen to me, will you? How many times did we go over this before Abby got here? You had a dream, that was all. A dream, girl, brought on by having something that upset your stomach and made you sick.’
She hadn’t been able to answer, such was her fear, but then her mother’s voice had grown softer and even more terrifying. ‘You ever say anything else than what I’ve told you and I promise you I’ll see you’re taken away and put in a home for bad girls and boys for telling wicked lies. You’ll never see Abby again, you’ll never see no one but mice and rats and spiders. They won’t ever let you out, not ever.
Do you understand me?
’
‘Here’s the train, hinny.’ Abby’s voice cut into the terror, and as Clara looked up and saw the steam and heard the toot, toot, toot of the engine, she felt weak with relief. All yesterday and this morning she had been scared something would happen to stop her going with Abby. She hadn’t slept at all last night, lying awake and pinching herself when she felt sleepy in case she wet the bed again and her mam refused to let her go. But now the train was here and they were going to get on and nothing could stop them. For a moment the platform seemed to narrow down and she felt a ringing in her ears.
‘You all right, pet?’ Clara’s face had been devoid of colour for days but as Abby felt her sister clutch her tighter, she looked down to see the little face had a positively grey tinge. ‘Look, only a minute or two and we’ll be on the train and you can have one of the sandwiches I’ve brought. You didn’t have any breakfast, did you, and you haven’t eaten enough to keep a sparrow alive over Christmas.’
Clara managed a wan smile.
‘I’ve got an orange too.’ Abby grinned at her, her voice low. ‘Aunty Audrey got it for you but she couldn’t get one for Jed so don’t tell him when you write to him.’
‘An orange?’ The distraction worked. Clara couldn’t remember the last time she had tasted an orange.
‘A nice big juicy one.’ Abby was trying to jolly the child along until she could get her seated on the train. She had been shocked by how thin and white Clara had looked when she had first come home, but over the last days she’d swear her sister had got even thinner. She had taken all this so hard, bless her, but once on the train she would get a sandwich or two down Clara and the child could have a little sleep. ‘And at the farm there’s all sorts of things - fresh eggs, milk, butter, cheese and lovely home-cured bacon, and Mrs Tollett makes wonderful puddings.’
‘But what about rationing?’ Clara asked, the faintness forgotten.
‘Well, there’s big differences between town and country eating,’ Abby whispered confidingly as they waited for the incoming passengers to alight now the train had pulled to a halt. ‘And I think farmers do the best of all. Mr Tollett is allowed to kill a calf every three months and two pigs a year to supplement the official ration town folk have to manage on, and they’ve got lots of chicken and ducks and geese. Did I tell you Mrs Tollett has some beehives . . .’
By the time they climbed aboard, Clara seemed quite recovered, chatting animatedly about the farm, but the child’s brief dizzy spell worried Abby considerably. If she didn’t see a significant improvement in her sister’s health and general wellbeing over the next few weeks she would take her to a doctor, she decided.
Once the train had left the station, Clara forced down a sandwich and went to sleep with her head on Abby’s lap. Abby stroked the small forehead lovingly. Clara had always been a thin little thing, admittedly, but now she looked as though a breath of wind would blow her away, and although losing their father had been a terrible shock for the little girl, her subsequent emotional state was surely extreme for a child of nine. Abby turned to gaze out of the train window, her mind buzzing. And there was the Winnie and Vincent thing to deal with at the farm too. How had it all panned out after she’d had to leave so hurriedly? As far as they knew, Vincent had got back to the farm at some time during Saturday night because he had been at work in the yard the next morning when they had gone down to breakfast. The farmer and his wife had still been up when the three of them had walked into the kitchen after driving the lorry back, and during the subsequent explanation had said very little, neither defending nor denouncing their younger son’s behaviour. Sunday had been very strained for everyone and Monday hadn’t been much better. Vincent had refused to talk to the three girls at all and Winnie’s red eyes were ignored by Mr and Mrs Tollett. Then had come word about her da and everything and everyone else had faded into insignificance.
Clara stirred, muttering something unintelligible and making a flapping movement with her hand before sinking back into sleep. Abby gazed down at her sister as she brushed a strand of hair from Clara’s cheek. Thank goodness she’d got Clara away from their mam for the time being. That, at least, was one thing less to worry about. Now Clara was with her she intended to keep her in Yorkshire for the duration of the war, however long it was, and in this she knew she definitely had the backing of her Aunt Audrey and Granda.
It was later that afternoon that Audrey popped her head round the front room door and said to Silas, ‘Mrs Ingram’s just tipped me the wink there’s some rabbits to be had at the butchers on the corner so I’m going to see what’s what. Nora’s in the kitchen if you want anything. All right, Da? I shan’t be long.’