The aunt she did not know, whom she did not remember, had repudiated her.
I would not allow myself to venture any further along this path. I simply let the facts settle in my mind. They didn’t weigh heavy. Instead, a lifting sensation took hold of me, as if there were more air in the lorry’s tyres, more light among the clouds spreading away to the horizon.
As the school day came to a close I went out to the garage for the bicycle. William Kennet had made us ropes of straw to fill our outer tyres. The original inner tubes were packed in chalk dust and kept for very long journeys, rubber being rare and costly now.
Edward had written twice in 1942. The first time was in February. All the world has come dashing over the Straits, Indians, Aussies etc., Japanese hard on their heels, but we plan to blow up the Causeway and in this way raise the drawbridge. Fear not, drst Ellen, I’m a wharf rat of long-standing as you well know and have got myself out of any number of tricky spots.
By the time I received it the Causeway had been destroyed, but this hadn’t stopped the Japanese. Singapore fell and there was no word from my brother. Then in April 1942, to my immeasurable joy, another letter had arrived, this one crumpled, filthy and water-stained. The only legible words were: … to Ringat in a terrible old … annot believe how they missed … Padang … Nurses … n Ceylon now … tea the best in the world. And after that more messages had followed, clearer ones, detailing his escape to Ceylon, his journey to India and thence to fight in Burma. Pamela, thrilled by these letters, plotted his progress in drawing pins on her map of the world. I was never wholly happy with this ritual, imagining the day when a distraught Pamela would climb onto the chair – because she would insist on doing it – and push in the last pin. But he’d told me, my darling Edward, he’d told me not to fear when he was fourteen, when he took himself far off into the shocking dangers of hurricane seas and fever coasts. It was the least I could do to trust him again now.
I rode to the school, collected Pamela. She climbed onto the makeshift back seat of the bicycle. The rolled sheepskin that served as a cushion was well squashed down now. I doubted it would ever recover. I strained on the pedals and she breathed in, as she often did, to make herself lighter, and we set off for Upton Hall and William.
‘You’ll have to pedal me, soon,’ I said.
‘Let me do it now, Ell.’
‘Wait.’ A rumble was approaching from behind. ‘Soldiers coming.’
Two army lorries passed us at thoughtless speed, each one creating its own diesel-gust, making me weave. A parcel of eggs nestled in my wicker bicycle basket. Our ducks had been laying well and we were taking them to William in exchange for four young apple trees. I was to give two of the trees to Lucy. Her old apple tree, which kneeled down to the ground, produced only fruit the size of large marbles now.
‘Where are they going, all these soldiers?’ Pamela was clinging to my waist, creating a draughty gap beneath my jacket. I wished I’d worn my long coat.
‘To the camp.’ Which occupied the long narrow field under a wood known as Jeps Hanger, where sheepdog trials took place in happier times.
‘I mean all the soldiers in the camp. They aren’t on holiday, are they! They must be off somewhere. Ruby says it’s France.’
‘We don’t know, Pamela. Nobody knows, and we don’t talk about it.’
‘I bet you do, really.’
We caught up with the lorries as they halted at the camp gates. The tops of Nissen huts and mess tents poked above the high new fence. People were starting once again to voice the unspeakable word: invasion. Only this time the tide had turned and the invasion was running the other way, from England to France. Gales were sweeping down the Channel and yet all those men had to be got covertly out, over the sucking bottle-green waters of the docks, in moonless secrecy, to face the chop of the open sea. The very idea sent nerves shooting down my arms.
The driver of the first lorry was opening the wide gate. The men in the second lorry had pulled up the canvas shield at the back. Pamela cupped her hands to her mouth. ‘Got any gum, chum?’
‘Pamela! Really!’
One of the soldiers, a black-haired boy, rummaged in his pocket and a tiny white package whistled across the road to land in the verge. Pamela leaped off the bicycle, pounced on the package. ‘Oh, gosh! Thank you!’ she yelled, and the young soldier grinned. They were all young, and all quiet, sitting obediently in two rows facing each other. Their hair was indecently short, the scraped skin of their necks pink, damp tufts sticking up from their crowns. The lorries moved forward into the camp, and the gates were closed behind them.
‘That is the most coarse way to behave, Pamela.’
She climbed back onto her bicycle pillion. ‘Bobby does it all the time.’
‘I don’t care what Bobby Rail does.’
Mrs Rail had produced so many children that her elder boys were grown up – Ernest and Stanley, who’d been thrown from their house when the burning hayrick set it alight. Stanley had come home from Dunkirk and was now waiting like these soldiers, in another camp somewhere in the south of England. Small Ernest, too frail to pass the board, was clerking in Southampton Docks. I feared for him as much as I did for Stanley.
‘Hey, ho, nobody at home,
Meat nor drink nor money have I none.
Yet will I be merry, merry, merry,
Hey, ho …’
Of all our songs it was this mournful little rhyme Pamela loved best. We sang it in a round. It had taken her weeks to learn to sing against my melody, and even now her voice would merge with mine from time to time. ‘No! Not that tune!’ she cried.
I’d broken into the descant. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help it. Don’t you think it sounds nice?’
‘It’s nice but wrong.’ Her voice sounded mushy.
‘Are you chewing that disgusting stuff? Take it out before we get to the Hall, if you please. Hey, ho, nobody at home. Meat nor—’ The bicycle lurched and plunged.
‘Ell! You’re jolting the eggs! We must get off!’
We were ploughing along the drive to Upton Hall, over ruts as deep as coffins. I braked and dismounted. I hadn’t even noticed. I always dismounted on the drive to the Hall, which was impassable on straw-stuffed tyres. And today we had eggs, of all things. No wonder Pamela slept so deeply: every incident of the daytime inspired an orchestral level of emotion. I had fainted; she’d got some chewing gum; and now I was about to smash the eggs. And it wasn’t yet teatime! I walked the rest of the way and Pamela rode. When I reached William’s shed I leaned the bicycle against the wall and, at her insistence, lifted her down. She clung, briefly, like an infant monkey, and the shock of delight was accompanied, as always, by a white flare of pain in my lower back. ‘This is ridiculous, darling, you’re eight years old.’
Her eyes twinkled. ‘Yes, but extremely light.’ I set her down, kissed her cheek.
William Kennet was in the small glasshouse with a barrow of compost and what looked like a hundred thumb-pots. He looked up, said ‘Hm’ in a mild, contented way and jerked his chin at a clutch of four larger clay pots, each with a thin lively stem and thrusting leaves. ‘Those are your pippins. I raised them from seed. Go slowly home. They won’t like to be rattled in the breeze. Don’t worry about Lucy’s trees – her dad will come for them.’ He speedily filled another dozen pots. ‘So, young Pamela, how are the onions progressing?’
William was president of the Upton School Onion Club.
‘The little ones are such lazy weeders.’ Pamela pouted. ‘“Why should we grow onions to give ’em away to the sojers?” That’s what they say. May I borrow your Art of Prowling, Mr Kennet, please?’