‘No, really—it’s nothing—’
Annie tried to move away, but Tom let go of her arm and caught her foot. He pulled back the leg of her working trousers, which she had kept on today in order to be covered up. He drew in his breath sharply as more injuries came to light.
‘Annie, Annie, how can he do this to you? We’ve got to stop this. We’ve got to tell someone. The police—’
‘No!’ Annie squealed. You mustn’t—my mum’d die of shame—’
‘He hits your mum as well?’
Silently, Annie nodded.
‘The bastard—Oh, I’m sorry, Annie, swearing in front of you, but—I want to go and tear his head off—’
Tom’s hands were balled into fists. His face was contorted with anger.
‘Don’t—’ Annie cried, seized with fear. ‘Don’t—you look like him when you say that—’
Tom looked ashamed. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
‘I’m sorry—it just makes me so mad, to think of you getting hurt like this. I want to help you, Annie. What can I do to help, to stop it?’
‘Nothing,’ Annie said flatly. ‘There’s nothing. My mum says it’s just the way he is and we have to put up with it because he’s a good provider.’
‘But there must be something.’
‘No. Maybe one day I’ll be able to go away. But till then … Look, it helps just to have you as a friend.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a lot of use,’ Tom said gloomily.
‘It is, really,’ Annie assured him. She tried to put her feelings into words. ‘It’s been really … nice … coming to see you each day. It’s made everything sort of … brighter … you know? Knowing I’ll talk to you at the end of the day.’
Tom’s face was glowing now. ‘Yes! That’s just it! It’s made everything different, knowing you. Like—even very ordinary things like walking along the prom are special when I’m with you …’
He stopped abruptly, scarlet with embarrassment.
‘That sounds right daft,’ he muttered.
‘No, it doesn’t. It’s—nice. It’ll be a nice thing to remember when—well—things are bad,’ Annie told him.
A phrase from the Bible came to her. She treasured it up in her heart. She would treasure up those words of his in her heart, and warm herself with them when life was cold.
‘Look—we’re not going to let them stop us, are we?’ Tom insisted. ‘It’s like in Romeo and Juliet. They didn’t let their families stop them.’
‘Who are they? Were they in a film?’ Annie asked.
‘No, it’s Shakespeare.’
Shakespeare. He’d written things, she knew that much. Plays. They’d never done them at the elementary, but she would get them from the library and find out what Tom was on about.
‘Yes, of course it is,’ she said, to cover her ignorance.
To her relief, Tom did not pursue it any further.
‘We’ll write to each other. Would you do that? Write to me?’
Delight bubbled through her.
‘Oh, yes! That’d be wonderful. But …’
She thought through the difficulties. Her father always sorted through the post, since it was mostly bills and stuff for him. She could not explain away a personal letter to herself from Nottingham.
‘… send them to my friend, Gwen, and she’ll give them to me.’
‘All right. Where does she live?’
Annie recited Gwen’s address. Tom committed it to memory.
‘What about your mum? Is it all right to send to your house?’ Annie asked anxiously.
‘I said I’m not going to let her stop me and I’m not. You write to my address,’ Tom insisted.
Annie repeated it after him till she had fixed it in her head.
Satisfied that they had done all they could, they talked and talked until the light had drained from the sky.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Annie said reluctantly.
This was it. The last moment.
‘I suppose so.’
A whole year till they saw each other again. It was so long that she could hardly bear it. Going back to life without seeing him at the end of each day was like a prison sentence.
Awkwardly, they got up. They looked at each other in silence. Then Tom swooped forward and planted a quick kiss on her lips.
‘Remember—write to me!’ he said.
‘I will,’ Annie promised.
And as she walked home alone with his kiss still warm upon her mouth, loneliness stalked beside her, cold and dark and bleak. She refused to let it in, pushing it away by holding on to the thought that she still had Tom as a friend, even if he was far away. It wasn’t like having him at Silver Sands, but it was something. Whatever else happened, Tom thought she was special.
She began planning the first letter she would send to him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘THOSE poor people in London,’ Gwen said, as she and Annie snatched a few minutes’ conversation outside Sutton’s Bakelite before she went back in for the afternoon shift. ‘Do you know they’re sleeping down the underground now, because of the bombing? I seen it on the newsreel at the pictures. Hundreds of ‘em, all lying on the station platforms. Must be horrible.’
‘It must,’ Annie agreed, though she found it difficult to imagine what it must be like. Unlike Gwen, she had never ridden on the underground.
‘Still, the war’s all right for some. Sutton’s is expanding. Mr Sutton told us all this morning. We’re doing such a lot for the war effort, we’re moving to a bigger factory, out on the edge of town.’
‘I s’pose that means the Suttons’ll be richer than ever,’ Annie said.
‘Yeah, but who cares, eh? Would you really want to be old fattypants Beryl?’
Annie laughed. ‘No, I would not,’ she agreed.
‘Coming to the pictures tomorrow?’
‘If I can get away.’
‘You must. Oh, look, everyone’s gone in. Got to go. I’ll get my pay docked if I’m late. See you outside the Roxy.’
Annie waved goodbye and cycled off to do her errands. She sang at the top of her voice as she bowled along. At this moment, life was good. It was a dull and damp October day, the heavy old bike would soon be even heavier with a load of shopping in the front basket and at home ahead of her there was her father, but for now she was happy. She enjoyed her Thursday afternoon buying provisions and delivering some of her mother’s alteration work, and meeting Gwen was always a treat. But best of all, here in her skirt pocket, warming her thigh, was a letter from Tom.
She put her hand on her leg, feeling the outline of the envelope through the layers of clothing. It was a huge temptation to stop and tear it open, but she controlled herself. It was better if she spun it out. First the pleasure of just having the letter in her possession, then the anticipation all evening, knowing it was hidden under her mattress upstairs, then finally the delight of opening and reading it after her parents had gone to bed. Then she allowed herself a whole week of rereading and planning a reply before starting on the equal but different pleasure of writing back. The letters, together with her outings into town and meetings with Gwen, lit up the drudgery of her day-to-day life.
As she turned into the track up to the farm later that afternoon, she was surprised to see someone cycling down towards her—a man in a raincoat and trilby hat.
‘How odd,’ she said out loud.
They had hardly any visitors at the farm.
It was only when he got really close that Annie recognised him. It was Mr Sutton.
‘Evening, young—er—’ he said as they passed each other.
‘Annie,’ she told him. ‘Evening, Mr Sutton.’
She longed to ask what he was doing at Marsh Edge, but he did not show any sign of stopping.
When she went into the kitchen with the shopping, she found her mother in a fluster.
‘We’ve had a visitor. I’m so ashamed. If only I’d known, I could have at least made some scones. To have a visitor and not even be able to offer some cake! And the state of the place as well—’
‘It looks fine, Mum,’ Annie assured her.
Her mother always kept the kitchen scrupulously clean and tidy, however much mud was walked into it over the course of each day.
‘Oh, but the Suttons have such a lovely house. All modern, with a gas stove and one of those geyser things for hot water. Imagine! This must look so old-fashioned.’
‘It’s nice,’ Annie said loyally, though really she wished her mother could have modern appliances to help her. ‘But what was he doing here—Mr Sutton? I was so surprised to see him cycling down the track.’
‘Oh, I don’t know that, dear. He came to see your father. Now help me get the tea on the table, will you? Or we’re going to be late.’
They both bustled about getting the meal ready. Being late with Walter’s tea was simply not an option. When he came in they all sat round the table in silence as usual, listening to the wireless. It was only when they had finished their last cup of tea and the plates had been cleared away that Annie dared approach the mystery of their visitor.
‘I saw Mr Sutton as I was cycling up the track,’ she remarked.
It was no use asking a direct question, but an observation sometimes got a reply.
‘Ha.’
Walter got out his tobacco tin and began rolling one of the two cigarettes he allowed himself each day. Annie hurried to fetch an ashtray. Walter licked the paper, poked the protruding strands of tobacco inside with the end of a match, then lit up.
‘I sent him away with a flea in his ear,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘Did you?’ Annie said.
Edna looked mortified. Mrs Sutton’s visits for dress fittings were as much a highlight of her life as Tom’s letters were of Annie’s. She didn’t want any risk of spoiling them.
‘Thought he could palm off his unwanted bit of land on me. Must’ve taken me for a fool. But I’m not. He might have that fancy factory of his, but I know a thing or two. Oh, yes. Showed him the door, I did.’
Annie stared at him. Silver Sands! He must mean Silver Sands. That was the only bit of land that the Suttons owned, as far as she knew.
‘You mean the chalet by the sea wall?’ she hazarded.
‘‘Course. What else? Rubbish corner of scrub with a hut on it. He thought that just because it’s running with my land that I’d want it. Must be off his head. Or think I am. I soon told him his fortune.’
‘Summer visitors are nothing but a nuisance,’ Annie said sadly, quoting his often-repeated words back at him.
To have had the chance of owning Silver Sands, only to have it thrown away! It was heartbreaking.
‘Too right. Walking all over my land, leaving gates open and worrying my stock. Ought to be shot on sight,’ Walter agreed. ‘And he thought I’d be interested in holiday lettings after the war was over! I told him, flaming townies are like the plagues of Egypt. I won’t have nothing to do with ‘em.’
Walter went on for some time, telling them what he thought of holiday-makers and giving examples of the dreadful things they had done in the past. Annie just sat and made affirmative noises, her face carefully blank. It had never occurred to her in the past that there was any real possibility of their owning Silver Sands, however much she had wished it. Now it would have been even more wonderful, for Tom had said that his family were thinking of coming back next year. If her father had bought it, she could have been the one who got it ready for them and went to see if they were all right. She would have had the right to stroll in there and visit them, instead of hiding from Tom’s family. And her father had thrown that all away. She felt quite sick with disappointment. Only the thought of Tom’s letter waiting for her upstairs kept her going through the evening.
She needed the letters to get her through the following months. As autumn turned into winter and Walter Cross was forced to change his farming methods by the local War Agriculture Committee, it was Annie who bore the brunt of the extra work. One Saturday late in November, she was out cutting cabbages in the field nearest to the road. It was a foul afternoon with a wet wind coming in from the sea. The continual bending was making her back ache, the sticky mud clung to her boots, making it difficult to lift her feet and the cold was cutting into her exposed fingers and face. On top of this, she had left her mother in a flap about the Suttons. Both Mrs Sutton and Beryl were coming to order dresses for Christmas, and Edna was tying herself in knots trying to stretch the meagre sugar ration enough to bake a batch of biscuits for them.
‘The government’s giving us an extra four ounces of sugar each for Christmas,’ she said.
‘The Suttons’ll have their own. There’s no need to waste ours on them,’ Annie pointed out.
‘Oh, but I must have something to offer them,’ her mother insisted.
The thought of biscuits hot out of the oven made Annie’s mouth water as she toiled. And to think that they were going to be wasted on beastly Beryl.
She saw the Wittlesham to Brightlingsea bus stop at the end of the lane and three figures step down. Beryl’s little brother Timmy went running up the track. Beryl caught sight of her and waved and shouted.
‘Cooee! Annie!’
Annie didn’t answer. She pretended not to see as they made their way to the nice warm kitchen, leaving her labouring in the wind and rain. With a bit of luck, she would be finished by the time they came out again.
But luck was not on her side. As the Suttons came out of the farmhouse she was just on the last row, by the fence that separated the field from the track. Once more, Beryl waved.
‘Hello, Annie!’
At first Annie ignored her, but as Beryl drew level with her, she was forced to give up pretending she hadn’t heard. She straightened up.
‘Hello, Beryl.’
She knew she looked dreadful. She was cold, wet and exhausted. Her face was raw red and her ancient work clothes were spattered with mud. Beryl was warm and dry and still glowing from sitting by the range.
‘Having a nice time?’ Beryl enquired.
Annie wanted to push her face in.
‘It’s my bit for the war effort,’ she responded. ‘What’s yours?’
‘We’re knitting mufflers for soldiers at my school,’ Beryl said. ‘They’re so grateful, poor things. They send us lovely letters thanking us.’
Annie said nothing. The thought of sitting at a desk and learning things instead of cutting cabbages was almost too much to bear.
‘I came top in French these exams,’ Beryl went on. ‘Je suis très fort en Français. I bet you don’t know what that means. It means I am very strong at French. My form teacher says that all educated people should be able to speak French, and she’s a history mistress. Tu es un cochon. I bet you don’t know what that means, either. That’s the trouble with only going to the elementary. Still, I suppose you don’t even need to know how to read and write to dig potatoes.’
‘I’m doing something useful, not just sitting round all day getting fat. Our pigs can do that,’ Annie retorted.
‘And this year I’m starting Latin. I bet you don’t even know what Latin is,’ Beryl said.
‘It’s a dead language. You see stuff written in it in churches,’ Annie said in a bored voice. ‘What’s the point of learning that?’
If she’d hoped to score a point, she was disappointed.
‘Well, of course an uneducated person like you wouldn’t understand. It’s still spoken by doctors and people at universities,’ Beryl retorted.
Annie gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘And you’re going to be a doctor, are you? Pull the other one!’
‘We all know what you’re going to be—a farmhand,’ Beryl said.
Annie was actually glad when Mrs Sutton and Timmy reached them.
‘Come along, Beryl, don’t hold Annie up. I’m sure she still has plenty to do. Good day, Annie.’
‘Good day, Mrs Sutton,’ Annie muttered.
‘Bye, Annie. Have a lovely time!’ Beryl called as she walked off down the track.
Annie choked back tears of frustration and jealousy. Beryl had everything—a rich, kind father, brothers to keep her company, a place at the grammar school. It wasn’t fair.
But then she remembered. Beryl didn’t have Tom. That almost made it all worthwhile.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THROUGH the long hard winter of 1940 to 1941, the people of the industrial cities and ports of Britain suffered the terrors of the blitz while the bombers of the RAF carried out Churchill’s promise to ‘give it them back’. Stray bombs and damaged aircraft crashed into fields and villages and towns, and even the quietest village had its German spy scare. The convoys crossing the Atlantic were harried by submarines, making scarce commodities even scarcer. Britons tightened their belts, worked harder and ate more frugally. But they did not think of giving in.
Annie laboured through the cold days, learning how to work farm machinery from the pool of modern devices now available on loan to farmers, on top of carrying on with the day-to-day work of running a dairy herd. Harder than either of these was keeping on the right side of her father. Praise, or even recognition of the huge part she played in the increased productivity of the farm, was out of the question. But when Walter was in a neutral mood, he did allow her the odd evening off. They were occasions to be savoured to the full.
An April Thursday saw her hurrying to meet Gwen outside the Roxy in the High Street. Gwen squealed when she spotted her and rushed to take hold of her arm.
‘You’re so late! I thought you weren’t coming.’
The two girls trotted arm in arm up the steps of the cinema.
‘I know, I’m sorry. The bus was ever so late, and when it did come it was an awful old thing. I think they’ve sent all their decent ones up to London,’ Annie explained.
‘We need buses just as much as Londoners do,’ Gwen grumbled.
They pushed in through the swing doors. Annie paused for a moment, looking around, making sure it was all just as grand as ever. She breathed deeply, taking in the smell of smoke and wet coats and the faint whiff of disinfectant. Yes, this was it. This was Life. Even in the dim wartime lighting, the entrance looked like a palace with its high ceilings, red flock walls, gold paintwork and shiny brass rails. Wonderful. It was like living in a fairy tale after the wet fields and the austere farmhouse. And it was all hers, for the price of a ticket in the front stalls.
‘Come on, dozy!’ Gwen was already at the ticket booth. ‘We’ve missed part of the first feature already.’
They walked to the stall doors and were escorted into the smoky darkness by the usherette and her torch. Trying not to stumble over people’s legs, they groped their way to their seats and subsided with sighs of pleasure. Settling back, they gave themselves up to fantasy. The sheriff’s posse thundered across the screen, the baddies galloped up into the rocks on the side of the valley, bullets whined and ricocheted, horses reared and fell. The good guys won.
‘That was good,’ Annie enthused as the credits rolled.
‘Yeah—’ Gwen’s accent had slid to somewhere in the mid-Atlantic ‘—sure was.’
A short cartoon came next. Tomcat chased Tweetie-Pie and failed yet again to catch him. The adverts rolled. Gwen elbowed Annie and offered a small paper bag.
‘Here—have a pear drop.’
‘Thanks, Gwennie! Can you spare them?’
‘‘Course—go on.’
Annie sucked off the rough sugar coating and let the gloriously artificial sweet fruitiness fill her mouth. Bliss.
The newsreel followed. Victims of the latest blitz on Birmingham were seen clearing up and fixing ‘Business as Usual’ signs to their damaged shops while smiling and making thumbs-up signs at the camera. Much was made of the successes in Eritrea and the huge bombing raid on Kiel.
‘I heard them going over the other night. They must have been heading for Kiel,’ Annie whispered.
‘They’re so brave, the RAF boys,’ Gwen said with a sigh.
That was quite enough reality. Now it was the big feature—a Busby Berkeley musical. Annie and Gwen were swept into a world of colour, song and dance. Time was suspended and nothing mattered but that the hero and heroine should end in each other’s arms.
The whole audience stood for ‘God Save the King’, and then shuffled out, chattering and laughing.
It was strange being back in cold, dark Wittlesham High Street. At least half of Annie was still prancing about in satin and feathers. The contrast made her feel quite light-headed.
‘That was just wonderful,’ she said, sighing.
But it was no use staying in Hollywood with your head in the clouds. There were practicalities to obey. The last bus left in just five minutes. The girls hurried to join the line of people climbing on board.
Gwen dived into her bag and produced an envelope. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘something to keep your pecker up.’
Annie took it and stared at the writing.
To Miss A Cross c/o Miss G Barker.
Tom. It was from Tom.
‘Already?’ she said, dazed. ‘I wasn’t expecting one for days …’
She stood still, gazing at the letter in happy disbelief.
‘Come on, darling. You taken root?’ a voice demanded from behind.
‘Oh, sorry …’ Annie shuffled forward to the head of the queue. She gave Gwen a quick hug. ‘Thanks ever so, Gwennie. I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you—’
‘I’ll think of something. Come and see me as soon as you can! Toodle-oo!’
‘Toodle-oo!’
Annie climbed on board and found a seat near the back. She sat staring at her letter. A night out and a letter from Tom. It was almost too much happiness for one day. Treats had to be hoarded up, brought out as rewards to herself. She thrust the letter in her pocket and sat staring out into the dark, reliving every detail of the musical.
Tom’s letter was like a beacon, seeing her through the next day when the rain drove across the flat fields and it felt more like winter than spring. Her father was in one of his blacker moods and her mother went tiptoeing around trying to appease him. Annie hummed the tunes from the film to herself and kept picturing what was waiting for her under her mattress. It was like a protective charm around her.
The wireless went off at ten o’clock to conserve the battery, and Annie lit a candle to go up to bed. She slit open the envelope while her parents were still moving around, so that there was no danger of them hearing the noise of ripping paper. Then she tore off her clothes, pulled on her nightie and jumped into bed. Now, at last, the letter could be taken out.
There was Tom’s familiar sloping handwriting in black ink.
Dear Annie
We’ve had a big bit of excitement here in Noresley. A bomber got lost on its way back from raiding Sheffield and dropped a bomb on us. Well, not quite on us. The way folk are talking round here you’d think the village had been flattened, but actually it fell on the playing fields of the Miners’ Welfare. But what a bang! It blew all our windows out, which was pretty frightening. Our Joan was screaming her head off and Mam was yelling ‘Are you all right?’ and Dad was yelling ‘Don’t move!’ and all the lights were off. Mam wanted us all to go and sit under the stairs in case it was a real raid, and Dad said that was potty because who’d want to bomb Noresley? So he and I went off to see if the neighbours were all right, which they were except for old Mrs Jackson on the corner, so we brought her back for a cup of tea. Luckily the gas was still working and by then Mam had swept up some of the glass though it was still all over the place. It sort of crunched under your feet. So we sat round the kitchen table and drank tea and cocoa with extra sugar and brandy in it because that’s good for shock. You should try cocoa with brandy—it’s jolly good. Worth having a shock for. Mrs Jackson got quite tiddly and started singing songs from the last war like ‘It’s a Long Way To Tipperary’, so it all got quite jolly, almost like a party. I hoped I’d be allowed not to go to school the next day as there was such a lot of clearing up to do, but Dad said that would be giving in to Jerry, so off to school I had to go, but it was good because everyone wanted to hear all about our bomb from us Noresley lot. I went to see the crater after school and it was massive! The Welfare was pretty well wrecked, but everyone’s getting together at the weekend to repair it and so that’s two fingers up to Jerry. (Whoops, sorry. That’s rude. But you know what I mean.)