Page 90 of Last Letter Home
Derek had liked it in the country well enough, though he was frightened of the noises at night, the creak of the floorboards and the strange cries, that Alf told him were devils, but which Miss Sarah said were foxes. Foxes being strangled more like.
They’d been very kindly to him when the news came. It had been 1943, just before Christmas; he’d hated Christmas for years afterwards. It had been a direct hit: his mum would have been killed at once, his dad told him when he came down to see him, as if that was a consolation to a young boy who’d lost the person he loved most in all the world. His dad told him to be a brave big boy and to stay with the Baileys because he was working nights and sleeping at his sister’s in the day, and what with her kids, too, there wasn’t room for Derek. And so he’d stayed in Westbury until the end of the war when his dad found them lodgings and wanted him home. Thirteen he was and settled in Westbury, but he hadn’t any choice. You did what your dad told you then.
Miss Sarah said she’d come up in the train with him and make sure he met up with his father. She took a small suitcase with her, said that she’d stay with her aunt, make a proper trip of it.
She hadn’t spoken much on the train, but had stared out of the window at the passing landscape, her eyes dreamy with her thoughts, some of which must have been happy ones, for then she smiled, but at other times when he glanced up from his comic she appeared troubled. He wondered what she was going to do in London, but wasn’t bold or interested enough to ask. Boring old shopping, he supposed. Women liked to shop. He remembered the battlelight in his mother’s eyes when she arrived home with a bargain, and blinked away tears at the memory.
When they reached Liverpool Street Station, his dad wasn’t there so they hung about a bit on the station concourse, then Miss Sarah said he was to look after their cases while she went to the convenience.
Derek waited with the luggage, his own holdall, Sarah’s suitcase and, over his shoulder, a long-handled cotton shopping bag of the same dull brown as his jacket. From this she’d extracted a vacuum flask and a greaseproof paper packet of sandwiches which they’d shared for their lunch on the train. He watched Sarah’s sturdy figure disappear into the ladies’ waiting room and continued to scan the crowds for a jaunty bow-legged man with his hat pushed back above an open face, but Dad was nowhere to be seen. Hanging above the concourse was a great clock with heavy roman numerals that marked the time with ponderous hands. Dad was already fifteen minutes late. Derek watched a pigeon alight on top of the clock and set about cleaning its wings.
A slurred male voice behind him made him jump: ‘Hey, young man,’ and he turned to see a stranger, some gent who must be down on his luck, for he was ill-shaven with dark circles under his eyes and wore an ill-fitting suit and cheap shoes. Derek’s nose wrinkled at the alcoholic fumes on his breath.
‘You’re with Miss Bailey. C’n you give her this?’ Despite the slurring, there was something about his voice that made him think of Westbury. He glanced at the crumpled envelope the man held out and drew back. The bloke wasn’t wearing gloves and Derek felt a shudder of revulsion at the livid scars across his hand.
‘She’ll be back in a minute, sir. You can give it to her yourself,’ but the man’s eyes darted nervously in the direction Miss Sarah had gone.
‘No, that wouldn’ do. Jus’ give it t’ her, there’s a go’ lad.’
Derek had been drilled to be polite to his elders so he accepted the envelope. When the bloke rummaged in the pocket of his trousers and brought out a coin, he received it automatically. Then the man tipped a finger to his hat brim in a clumsy salute and stumbled away.
‘Sir, who shall I say . . . ?’ Derek called, but the man merely gave a dismissive swipe of the hand before he was swallowed by the crowd. A minute later, Miss Sarah could be seen walking quickly towards him. She reached his side smelling lightly of a flowery scent as though she’d visited some foreign land.
‘Still no sign of your father then?’
He shook his head and held out the letter he’d been given.
‘Where did you get this?’ She examined her name on the front and her blue eyes rounded and her cheeks drained of colour. He thought she hardly heard his explanation. He watched her slit it open with her thumb, pinch open the scrap of paper inside and heard her sharp intake of breath as she read it. Her eyes met his, unfocused, then she craned to see the great clock where the first pigeon had been joined by another. Dad was twenty-five minutes late now and his heart fluttered like the birds’ wings.
‘Derek!’ His dad was barrelling towards him out of the crowd, a short, heavily built man in working clothes. He ran, felt Dad’s rough hand round his shoulders and pressed his face briefly against his father’s coarse cheek.
Sarah came over, a wild look in her eyes. ‘Mr Jenkins, we’re very glad to see you.’ She held out her hand and his dad shook it.
‘Much obliged to you, miss, and beggin’ pardon for the lateness. An unexploded bomb in Lime Street, and the bus weren’t goin’ nowhere. Shanks’s pony all the way and my chest ain’t too good.’
‘He walked, Miss,’ Derek explained, seeing her puzzled expression. ‘Did the bomb go off, Dad?’ he said in a nervous voice, thinking again of his mother.
‘I’m dreadfully sorry to be rude,’ Miss Sarah cut in,’ but I have to go. Derek, be a good boy, won’t you? I’m sure we’ll meet again some day.’
‘It’s very good of you to ’ave ’ad ’im,’ his dad said.
‘It was a pleasure, always a pleasure,’ she said, and bent and kissed Derek, and again, that flowery scent and he felt himself blush. Then she took up her suitcase and was off, the crowd parting for her busy figure to pass. She was gone.
‘She was in a hurry,’ his dad said, a little affronted.
‘I thought you weren’t coming,’ he whispered, glancing up at his dad and, to his shame, he felt tears flood his eyes. He dashed them away with his hand and as he did he felt the weight of the bag on his shoulder and a tremor of horror passed through him.
‘Dad, she’s forgotten her bag.’
‘That’s a shame. What’s in it?’
They opened it and peered in. There was the battered vacuum flask, something wrapped in cloth that turned out to be a pair of shoes, much repaired, and underneath, a cardigan wrapped round something that felt like a book. Nothing valuable then.
‘Women’s things. We’d better take it with us, I suppose. Come on, nipper, or I’ll be late for work.’ He seized Derek’s suitcase and laid a guiding arm around his shoulder. ‘It’s just you and me now, but we’ll do our best, eh?’
‘And he did do his best,’ the old man Derek told Briony. ‘Until the lung cancer took ’im. Just like it took King George. Dad were proud of that, strange, innit? Lived just long enough to see the Queen’s coronation on the telly. I rented it for ’im special cos ’e couldn’t make it to the Mall. We sat and watched it together.’
Briony smiled to picture this, then she said, ‘But what about the letters?’
