Authors: Esther Freud
Every morning I check the beach. Check the inlets and the gulleys, the river that lies behind the dunes. For these men, however smart their uniforms, will never know the land like me. In the afternoon, if I can get away, I look in on my starlings. They chirp and scrap and chatter for me, and when I’ve had my fill, I find my way across the river and climb up on to the station roof to see the soldiers coming in. I watch them, scrubbed and ready for action, their kitbags on their shoulders, and I scan their faces for signs that they are eager as I would be to set off into the unknown.
George Allard isn’t happy about these new rolls of wire, wrapped round with spikes, and made by some infernal machine. They have it in great loose coils along the cliff path beyond Dunwich and already it’s patched with white flags of wool torn from the coats of sheep that stray too near. Mother and Ann go up there and pull it free and they have a pillowcase full already which Mother plans to card and spin and knit into a jumper for me to wear next winter.
‘They’re already ordering in their strong rope from elsewhere,’ Mr Allard frets as he teases out the flax, ‘and soon they won’t be needing any kind of rope at all. Nor wooden fencing, or brick walls.’ And he shakes his head and curses the inventions of man that only bring misery to the lives of others. ‘What kind of a land will it be then, full of wire fences, with no cover for the animals or the birds?’ And he trudges backwards, plaiting as he goes, for once, in silence.
I don’t tell Mr Allard about the wool in case he thinks it’s stealing, and I warn Mother to keep her knitting away from our two Welsh Fusiliers. It may be against Dora, as everyone calls the Defence of the Realm Act now, to take wool that isn’t yours. But there’s no time for our soldiers to notice or not notice the lumpy beginnings of my jumper, because no sooner have they settled in than they are gone. They are needed at the Battle of Belgium, and they set off on their ship while Mother, Ann and I stand at the water’s edge and wave. Two weeks they were with us. That was all. And in all that time Father didn’t have a drink. Now he goes down to the cellar to check supplies and comes up with a cupful of ale for no one but himself. It’s not long before he’s down for another. ‘Ahhh,’ he sighs and a smile flips across his face. ‘That’s better.’ His eyes have brightened, there is colour in his face, and if I didn’t know what is likely to come after I’d think it was for the better too.
Instead I sit at the table, head down, and work on my boats. I’m drawing a clipper with three masts and a mizzen sail that’s sliced across sideways like a set of sheets. There are square sails too, and a jib sail to catch the wind from behind. I’ve drawn the ship in pencil, and now I must go over it in ink. But the ink smudges against the knuckle of my finger and I’m so disappointed I want to take the nib of the pen and stab it into my arm. But I daren’t draw attention to myself. Not to even give a quick jab at the table. And so I bite my lip hard and I turn my paper over and I start again.
When Father comes up with his third pint he tips his head back even as he climbs and I feel it in my stomach, the dread knowledge of his thirst. It’s as if he’s lost on a plain, the sap sucked out of him, and now, however much he drinks, he can never get enough. He’s not always bad like this, when he’s on the run, but the first night after he’s been on the water wagon, that’s when it’s best to look out. And true enough, after the fifth pint the raging starts. The few customers we have slip out through the door, but I daren’t move from my seat. I lean low over my paper and let the pen run over the faint lines. This is what it must feel like to be a rabbit, waiting in the corn for a man to club you on the head, and I imagine dropping to the floor, crawling across the tiles and streaking to safety up the ladder. But Father has an imaginary foe. An army of them. He’s conjured them before, although when sober he will never be drawn on who they are. He snarls at them and curses and when he knocks a tankard to the floor, Mother comes out of the kitchen, her sleeves rolled up, her hands dripping. ‘William Maggs!’ She takes his arm as if she has nothing to fear, and Ann, who’s been hovering behind her, flits round and seizing hold of me rushes us both out of the room.
‘Is this the way to run an inn?’ Mother scolds, and he storms back, ‘I’ll have no petticoat government, don’t you know!’ And he says it again, louder, as we scuttle up the ladder to bed.
Mother laughs, because sometimes laughing is the thing that works. But she’s not laughing for long.
I’m cold tonight, for all that it’s still August, and I lie against Ann’s back and pray for Mother whose clear voice I can hear in the room below battling against his wild one. There’s a crash, it may be a table going over, and I fear for my boat, half finished, the ink still wet. The back door slams, and I hear Mother’s steps rush out into the night. I want to get up and go to her, but our room opens into theirs, and I daren’t come face to face with Father at the top of the ladder. I tussle with him in my thoughts. Kicking at his face, twisting away as his hand grabs at my ankle. I free myself and stamp on his fingers, so that he slips one rung and I give a cheer.
Ann elbows me and I lie still. I won’t sleep till Mother is back. I’ve made a promise. Instead I listen to the sounds of the night. An owl hooting, high as a flute, and behind it, behind everything, the roar of the sea. Ann lies awake beside me, but we don’t talk. What is there to say? Finally we hear Father creak across the floorboards and heave down into the bed. I wait a moment for his snore, and then I climb out from under the covers and stand at the window, waving, in case Mother can see me and know that it’s safe to come inside.
‘Tommy,’ Ann hisses. ‘Stop that now.’ And she leaps out of bed and pulls me from the window.
‘What?’ I go to fling her off.
But her grip is tight. ‘What if the enemy is out there and takes your flapping for a sign?’
I thought I was cold before but now I’m so cold that my body shakes, and I’m too frightened to do anything other than crouch below the window out of sight. ‘Get in, you fool,’ Ann holds the cover for me, and I crawl to the bed and once I’m in, I let her fold her warm self around me, just as Mother used to do when I was small.
It’s morning when I next open my eyes and the cock is crowing where the owl once called. Below the window is the sound of Mother sweeping and then the squeak of the well shaft as she pulls the water up. She must have stayed out, slept in the open like our nation’s men, or more likely on the bench by the back door. I feel under the mattress for my growing bag of coins and I think of the day when I will surprise her with them. See the smile flash across her face.
The same day two Liverpools are billeted at our inn the first refugees arrive. They come by boat, women and children mostly. A few old men. From Belgium. They dock at the harbour and Dr Collings goes aboard, but rumour has it that he’s soon on dry land again. It was a bad crossing, that was for certain, and every man, woman and child is green as the sea, and the deck strewn with their suffering. But by the time I see them they’re washed and clean and sitting round a long table at the Constitutional Hall where Mother helps to serve them a lunch of bread and ham. I’m there to help too. Bring in the plates and cups and fill the kettle with water, but really I’ve come along to gawp. I’ve never seen a foreigner before. Only Mac, and the herring girls, who, hard as they are to understand, are ruled by the same king. The Belgians, much as I stare at them, don’t seem so different from us. The women are bare-headed, that’s true, ours never go out without a hat, but their hair is tied back and twisted tight into a bun just like the ladies in the Constitutional Hall now that they’re safely inside. It’s not just me who’s watching them. All around the hall there are men and women standing, staring, and under their gaze the Belgian mothers do their best to shush the children sitting on their knees and keep the older ones from choking on their food, so hungrily do they shove it in. The men, broken, with nothing to distract them, look the most likely to give in and weep.
By the time we’ve washed the dishes and dried them, swept the hall and moved away the chairs, the afternoon is wearing on, and I have to nudge Mother if we’re to get back and open up the inn. Father can hardly be relied on, and Ann, with Jimmy gone to war, is as likely to get up at dawn and scrub the kitchen floor as she is to go roaming off across the countryside alone.
It’s almost six when we get back, and Mr Mac is waiting by the door. It’s half an hour yet till we can legally serve him beer, but he must have forgotten about Dora and the new opening hours, because he has his flask beside him, and he’s tapping, impatient, with his stick.
‘You still with us?’ Mother asks, although it’s clear he is. And she raises her eyebrows and looks him over as if to check he isn’t one of the many things that’s banned.
‘I’ve been busy,’ he says, ‘working.’ He doesn’t seem to have taken offence. And still frowning he follows us round to the back door of the inn and comes inside.
Mac sits at the small table in the bar and lights his pipe. The tobacco gives out a sweet, warm smell. ‘You’ll have to wait.’ Mother daren’t go down and fill his flask, not till it’s six thirty, but there’s no reason, she says, softening, why she can’t offer a gentleman some tea. She gives him cake too, a slice kept back from lunch, wrapped in a cloth to bring back home. He doesn’t touch it, although he seems grateful for the tea. I keep my eye on it, hoping he will take one bite, so that later it might be considered ruined, and I can devour the rest.
‘And your wife?’ Mother asks. ‘She still here as well?’
‘Oh yes,’ Mac looks troubled at the thought that she might not be. ‘She’s at home, just now, packing up our things.’
‘Oh so you are leaving?’ And the news forces me up straight.
‘No,’ Mac shakes his head. ‘Not leaving. But Millside is to be given over for the needs of soldiers. We’re taking the wooden house on the rise above the lea.’
‘The rabbit house?’ And I flush because it may be only me who calls it that, although there can’t be anyone who hasn’t noticed how rabbits swarm on the long slope of the garden, smoothing away like ripples the moment you come near.
‘It was due to be demolished,’ Mac taps at his pipe. ‘But now there are to be no new buildings.’ He looks up at us and his eyes are dark. ‘Nothing new to be built in the whole of Britain. So it is to be left as it is. And we’re to have it.’ And I remember Runnicles telling me, and Runnicles knows a great many things, that Mac, our own old Mac, is a man who
makes
buildings. He’s built a school and a church, in his home city of Glasgow. And houses, unusual houses, for gentlemen that don’t care what anybody thinks. I glance at Mac’s hands that don’t look as if they’ve lain more than two bricks together, pale and long-fingered, nervously tapping as they are.
‘Unless you have a room here for us to rent?’
The door slams and Father comes in. ‘What’ll you have, my good man?’
We all look at the clock ticking its way towards the half hour, but not there yet. ‘A pint of beer, is it? With a whisky chaser?’ And he steps down into the cellar.
‘The good room’s taken, I’m afraid,’ Mother tells him. ‘Soldiers. Like everywhere else. Is the Lea House not to your liking?’
Mac smiles. ‘My wife finds the place a little eerie. With the sea rushing in below, and the wind roaring at the walls. But we’ll soon be used to it. We’re lucky to find anywhere with the village so full.’
Father lines up Mac’s drinks beside his flask. ‘The boy will help you move your things, if you need help. Isn’t that so, Thomas?’
‘I’ll bring the handcart in the morning,’ I say, and my heart begins to thump, for after all these years I’ll have a chance to see the Millside ghost.
The next day I find the door unlatched and Mrs Mollett in the scullery, mopping at the floor. ‘Go through,’ she tells me and there in the parlour is Mrs Mac, wearing a fawn dress, with a red pin holding up her hair. ‘That’s so kind of you to help,’ she says to me, in her good English accent, and she folds a coat and places it in the trunk. Mac doesn’t seem to see me. Instead he stares ahead, frowning at a stack of books.
‘What is it you’re after?’ His wife touches his arm. And Mac stands still as if he’s forgotten even himself. ‘I was thinking of the home I promised you when we married . . .’
Mrs Mac takes his hand. ‘You made it for me,’ she says. ‘On Mains Street. No one could have had a more beautiful home. Unless they were lucky enough to have moved with you to Florentine Terrace.’
But he shakes his head, and I notice that one eye droops down at the corner. ‘No,’ he looks sad. ‘We made it together.’ And right there in front of me he leans forward and kisses her on the cheek.
‘And Florentine Terrace is still there.’ She smiles at him. ‘Just as it was. Packed up and waiting for us when we return.’
‘Yes.’ The frown is back. ‘If we return.’
‘Shhh.’ She lets go of his hand. ‘We needed to get away, that’s all. But once you’re stronger . . . In the meanwhile we’ll make another home. We can start now. Today. But only if you let me get on and pack his trunk.’
‘Margaret.’ He says her name so beautifully it’s as if I’ve never heard it before.
‘Toshie,’ she answers with a little smile.
It seems they’ve forgotten that I’m there. I turn away and look around the room. As long as I’ve known Millside, it’s been owned by a family – the Newberys, friends of old Mac’s – who come from Glasgow every year to spend the summer here. They rent out this side of the house and when they’re gone, and the lodgers too, the house is closed up for the winter. Now that I’m inside I want to run upstairs and peer out through the high windows to see that long-ago woman staring back at me. ‘Is there anything you need bringing down?’ I ask, all the time listening for the sound of apples falling, but Mrs Mac shakes her head and points to a box of letters on the table. ‘You can tie that up with string,’ she tells me.