Above the Bright Blue Sky Read online

  Esme continued to say, to all around her, that she just couldn’t wait to go. Some of the boys, too, seemed very excited about the adventure that lay ahead.

  ‘Hey, ’appen we’ll go to Blackpool,’ Maisie heard a lad called Billy say to his mate. ‘It’s dead good there. There’s a bloomin’ big tower, miles ’igh, and sticks o’ rock, and fish and chips you can eat in t’ street. I went there once wi’ me mam and dad.’

  ‘Course we won’t go to Blackpool,’ scoffed Arthur. ‘Don’t talk so daft! It’s bloomin’ miles away. Anyroad, you can eat fish and chips ’ere. You don’t ’ave to go to Blackpool to do it.’

  ‘Aye, but me mam says it’s common to eat in t’ street. It’s different when yer on ’oliday.’

  ‘Quietly now,’ said Miss Patterdale, but without her usual severity. She appeared to be in a thoughtful mood, staring out of the window at the uninspiring view of the concrete playground and the stunted bushes that grew around it in the barren earth.

  Maisie, too, was quiet and thoughtful. She had found out at playtime that Dorothy, the girl she was most friendly with, was not going to be an evacuee after all. If things got bad, she said, then she and her mum might go to a place called Skipton where her uncle had a farm. And Sheila wasn’t going, nor was Beryl. Joyce was going, but Maisie was not particularly friendly with her; she was just one of the crowd she sometimes played with.

  She glanced across the classroom to where Joyce Randall was sitting. She shared a desk with Audrey Dennison, a girl whom Maisie did not know very well. Audrey was what Maisie thought of as ‘one of the posh kids’. She lived in a semi-detached house across the main road, on the fringe of the park, in a much more salubrious part of Armley than the one in which Maisie lived. It was the area where her mother went cleaning, and she was glad that Audrey’s mother was not one of the ladies that she ‘did’ for, or Audrey wouldn’t half look down her nose at her, Maisie. At least, she suspected that she might – most of the kids in that locality thought they were ‘it’ – but she had to admit that Audrey might be different. She seemed nice enough, but there was an unwritten rule that there were two quite separate entities, those who lived near the park, and those who lived in the shadow of the jail, and seldom did the twain meet.

  Audrey Dennison was a quiet and diligent girl who was nearly always ‘top of the class’. Maisie’s group of friends tended to dismiss her, and others of her ilk, as ‘clever clogs’. But Maisie was a clever girl, too; she worked much harder at her lessons than did most of the children in her particular crowd, simply because she enjoyed doing so. Most especially she loved reading, and writing compositions. Once or twice she had nearly made it to the top of the class, but had been just pipped at the post by Audrey. Very shrewdly, Maisie had come to the conclusion that Miss Patterdale had wangled this with a slight jiggery-pokery of the marks. Audrey Dennison was something of a teacher’s pet because she was so quiet and polite…and clean; much more worthy of her position as top pupil than Nellie Jackson, who sometimes had too much to say for herself and was, moreover, an untidy scruff of a girl. But this, in all fairness, was not Audrey’s fault, thought Maisie, and she had often wished that she might get to know her a little better.

  She watched the girl now. Audrey was not making any attempt at the drawing of the flowers, but was sitting very still and quiet, with her hands in her lap. She was a pretty girl with pale golden hair which she wore in a neat page-boy bob. Her skin was pale, too, almost like porcelain, with a pinkish tinge to her cheeks, like a china doll, Maisie thought. But she knew that was not entirely fair to Audrey because china dolls with their big blue eyes looked vacant, quite stupid really, and Audrey certainly didn’t. She had blue eyes, but they were full of intelligence and eagerness most of the time. Sometimes, however, they seemed to hold a trace of sadness. Maisie could not see the girl’s eyes now, but as she observed her secretly, she saw Audrey lift a hand to her eyes as though she were brushing tears away. Then, as though suddenly aware that she was being watched, she glanced across the room and her eyes met those of Maisie. Audrey looked at her, so very sadly, for a moment, then she gave a wan fleeting smile and looked away again.

  Maisie’s heart went out to her. She did not know for sure what was the matter, but she guessed that Audrey was to leave her home the next day, as an evacuee, but that, unlike Maisie, that was something she was not looking forward to at all.

  ‘Mum, they’re going tomorrer,’ Maisie shouted as soon as she entered the house that afternoon. ‘You know – them that are going to be evacuees. We have to be at school by half-past eight in the morning… Can I go with ’em, Mum?’

  Lily looked at her in surprise. ‘You really want to go, do you, Nellie?’ The girl nodded. ‘Well then, that’s quite a relief I must admit, because I’d decided meself that it’s best for you to go. I thought happen you might be upset, though?’

  ‘No, why should I be?’ retorted Maisie. ‘I can’t wait to get away from here…’ Then, aware of the sad look that had appeared so suddenly in her mother’s eyes, she hurried on to say, ‘I mean…I shall be sorry to leave you, Mum. I shall miss you…and Joanie and Jimmy,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘Where are they, anyroad?’ She glanced around the untidy living room strewn with their somewhat meagre selection of toys – building bricks and battered cars and one or two ragged looking dolls – but there was no sight or sound of the children.

  ‘Upstairs, both of ’em; having a sleep, I hope,’ replied her mother. ‘From the sound of it they must have dropped off. They came in as black as the ace of spades, both of ’em, yelling ’cause a big lad down the street had chased ’em. Jimmy had fallen down and grazed his knee; he didn’t half make a hullabaloo. Anyroad, I gave ’em both a quick wash – just a lick and a promise, mind – and left ’em to play nicely with their toys. Next minute they were chucking bricks at one another, so I says, ‘Right – upstairs, the pair of you…’

  Maisie, in all honesty, would not be too sorry about leaving those two little brats, but she knew she must pretend that she would. ‘Mmm…I shall miss ’em,’ she said, somewhat half-heartedly, ‘but I shan’t miss Percy and…and Sid,’ she went on, ‘not one little bit.’

  Lily sighed. ‘No, I know that, love. I know you haven’t been very happy just lately, and I’m sorry. There isn’t anything you want to tell me, is there…about Percy, or…anything?’

  ‘No, why should there be?’ Maisie answered quickly; too quickly because her mother gave her an odd look.

  ‘Are you sure?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah, ’course I’m sure. I just don’t like him, that’s all.’ There was no point in telling her mother now because she was going away the next day and she wouldn’t need to see Percy or Sid ever again; well, not for a very long time at any rate. ‘What made you change your mind, Mum, about me going?’ She decided to change the subject. ‘I thought you didn’t want me to go.’

  ‘How did you know that? We hadn’t even talked about it, Nellie, because I didn’t even want to think about you going away and leaving me.’

  ‘I heard you and Sid talking about it last night,’ said Maisie. ‘I sat on the stairs, listening. He can’t wait to get rid of me, I know that.’

  ‘Oh, Nellie, you silly girl! You know what Sid has said about you earwigging. It’s a good job he didn’t catch you.’

  ‘I made sure he didn’t.’ Maisie grinned. ‘Why did you change your mind though? Is it because of what he said? Because he said I had to go?’

  ‘No, not really…’ said Lily. Then, ‘No, of course not,’ she repeated, more firmly. ‘If I wanted you to stay here, then I would make sure that you did. I just think it might be for the best at the moment. Like I said before, I know you haven’t been too happy.’

  Whilst they had been talking Maisie realised that she would, in fact, miss her mother very much. She had seemed, in the last few moments, much more like the person she remembered from a long time ago; loving and caring and wanting to talk to her little girl.

  ‘I sha
ll miss you though, Mum,’ Maisie said again. Then she looked away as tears started to mist her mother’s eyes, making them appear silvery-grey, as she remembered them, not lacklustre and careworn as they had been so often of late.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Lily, sniffing a little. ‘But don’t worry, love. I’ll be able to come and see you. I could come on a day trip, happen, and bring the little ’uns with me. They’d like that. Anyroad, what are we worrying about, eh? This ’ere war hasn’t started yet, and if it does, then it might not last for very long, eh? Cheer up, Nellie. Let’s go and put a few things together, shall we? I’ve made sure you’ve got a clean vest and liberty bodice and knickers to take with you, and a couple of pairs of socks. They’re a bit holey, though, so happen I’d better darn ’em tonight…’

  ‘Mum,’ Maisie interrupted. ‘You keep on calling me Nellie and you know I don’t like it. It’s what they call me, Sid and…Percy. You did say you’d try to remember…and now I’m going away I’ve decided that that’s what I’m going to be called. I shall tell everybody me name’s Maisie. I hate Nellie, I really do! I hate it!’

  ‘Very well, love. I won’t forget.’ Her mother smiled, then she put an arm around her and kissed her cheek. ‘That’s what Daddy used to call you, didn’t he? Maisie, my little mayflower… Oh, come on, love; let’s get upstairs and sort yer things out, or else we’ll both be crying, and that’ll never do, will it?’

  Lily led the way up the narrow staircase between the living room and the kitchen. The carpet was threadbare, worn into holes in parts, and the wallpaper was greasy and peeling off in places, especially where it had been helped along by grubby little hands. ‘Those two little demons are quiet, aren’t they? But I don’t suppose it’ll be for much longer. They’ll be waking up, the pair of them and then they’ll…’ Lily stopped dead on the threshold of the children’s bedroom.

  ‘Oh! Oh…you little devils! I thought you were too quiet. Just wait till I get hold of you! I might have guessed you weren’t asleep. Joanie, Jimmy, come ’ere, you naughty pair!’ The room was full of feathers, greyish white feathers, fluttering in the air and clinging on to every surface where they could land; carpet, counterpane, the tops of the dressing table and cupboard, and on the clothes and in the hair of the two children who were trying to disappear under the double bed. An empty pillow case lay on the floor, a pile of feathers, those that had not already been scattered by grasping little hands, lying at the side of it.

  ‘Come ’ere, come ’ere, you little devils!’ Lily yanked them, one at a time, from under the bed, pulling roughly at their arms and then laying into them, shaking them and trying to smack their bottoms whilst they danced and yelled and pulled away from her. She did not make a habit of smacking her children, although oftentimes they deserved it. She was usually too weary and dispirited to do much more than threaten them and tell them they were naughty; even now she was hitting out at them mainly through despair and frustration and sorrow. Her beloved eldest child, Maisie – whom she was now realising she loved far more than she loved these two terrors put together – was going away in the morning, to goodness knows where and for goodness knows how long. This was the very last straw. How could they do this to her?

  Her blows held little weight and after a minute she let go of Joanie and Jimmy, collapsing on to the bed and burying her head in her hands. ‘Whatever have I done,’ she moaned, more to herself than to anyone else, ‘to deserve a pair of little horrors like these two?’ The pair of horrors were not crying or making any show of trying to do so, nor did they even look cowed or repentant; they were grinning impishly at one another and at their big sister. But Maisie was just as horrified at their behaviour as was her mother.

  ‘Just wait till your dad comes home and I tell him what you’ve done,’ Lily was saying, but not very convincingly. Maisie knew that this was an idle threat. Sid, more than likely, would just laugh or would find a reason to blame their mother rather than the children, that was if she even bothered to tell him at all.

  ‘Come on, Mum,’ she said. ‘I’ll help you clear it away. I’ll get the dustpan and brush, an’ I’ll give this bed cover a good shake in t’ backyard. That should get rid of most o’ t’ feathers… Just look what you’ve done, you two!’ Maisie turned on her brother and sister. She had never been able to summon up much affection for them, but now she almost felt as though she hated them, just like she hated their father and elder brother. ‘Just you sit there, the pair of you!’ She plonked both of them roughly on their bottoms in a corner of the room, ‘and don’t you dare move an inch until we’ve got rid of all this mess!’ She wrinkled her nose. Jimmy, as usual, smelled very unpleasant. ‘And you need yer nappy changing, Jimmy, but you’ll have to wait. An’ I just don’t care. You’re a wicked boy, and so are you, Joanie, a very naughty little girl.’

  She scowled at them and, for once, they did not grin back at her. Jimmy stuck out his lower lip and glowered at her, whilst Joanie stuck out her her tongue as far as it would go. Poor Mum, thought Maisie. She began to feel very sorry at the thought of leaving her mother behind with these dreadful children. Sid did not give her any help with their upbringing, except to yell at them occasionally or give them what he called a ‘clip round the ear ’ole’.

  A thought struck her as she and her mother struggled to brush away the feathers that had stuck fast to the carpet and curtains. She had heard some of the kids in the playground saying that their mothers were going with them on this evacuation thing, but only those with babies and young children. Those of school age were considered old enough to go on their own. Perhaps her own mother could go. Maisie was sure that she, too, would be only too happy to leave Sid and Percy behind. It would mean taking Joanie and Jimmy of course, but maybe they might not be so badly behaved if they got away from this neighbourhood. There were a few older kids – older than Joanie and Jimmy, that was, but still not old enough for school – who ran riot in the streets, and it was from them that the ‘Bragg brats’, as they were sometimes called, had learned many of their unruly ways.

  ‘Mum, why don’t you come with us tomorrer?’ she said. ‘They’d let you go, y’ know, ’cause you’ve got two little ’uns. And they might learn to behave themselves if they got away from here.’

  Lily gave a deep sigh. ‘Don’t imagine I haven’t thought about it, love, because I have. It would be heaven… But Sid won’t hear of it. No; he’s adamant that I have to stay here and look after him…and Percy. An’ I suppose he’s got a point. He’s my husband when all’s said and done, and we can’t all go swanning off dodging our responsibilities… Don’t you dare mention it to him, Nellie – I mean Maisie,’ she went on, as Maisie continued to look at her thoughtfully. ‘He’d go barmy, he would really. He nearly went off ’is ’ead when I said before, casual like, that perhaps I could go an’ all. No, love… Let’s just hope and pray that things turn out for the best. Happen those two’ll learn to behave ’emselves when they start school.’

  ‘That’s a long time yet, Mum…’

  ‘Aye; I know that, Maisie…’ She turned away, shaking her head sadly. ‘Come on, laddie; let’s be ’aving you. Let’s get this mucky nappy off.’ She picked up Jimmy who was sitting sullenly in the corner – at least he had stayed put – and plonked him on to the bed. ‘Maisie – go and put the kettle on, there’s a good lass. And happen you could peel a few spuds. Those two’ll be home before I can turn round.’

  Tea was late, inevitably, and Sid was not best pleased when he had to wait for several minutes whilst Lily and Maisie set the table and dished up the meal. Maisie usually had her tea – bread and jam, more often than not, as she had had a cooked meal of sorts at midday – before the menfolk came home, but this day was an exception. With all the commotion she had not had time to eat, so she sat at the table with her mother, Sid and Percy to eat the hastily prepared meal of sausages, chips and Heinz baked beans. Lily, at her wit’s end with the younger two, had bundled them into bed when they had eaten their jam butties.

&n
bsp; Sid coughed and spluttered when he had swallowed a mouthful. ‘What the ’ell’s this?’ He spat out a half-chewed morsel of sausage on to his hand. ‘That’s a feather, woman! A bleedin’ feather! ’Ow the ’ell did that get there? I might have choked to bloody death.’

  ‘Oh dear…’ Lily began.

  ‘Don’t blame me mum,’ said Maisie. ‘It’s not her fault. It was Joanie and Jimmy. They took all t’ feathers out of a pillow and chucked ’em around, didn’t they, Mum?’

  ‘And you had no more sense than let ’em?’ scoffed Sid, giving his wife a withering look. ‘You stupid, brainless woman…’

  ‘I thought they were asleep, Sid. They were so quiet.’

  ‘You let ’em run rings round you. You ’aven’t a bloody clue ’ow to look after ’em, and they’re grand little kids.’

  ‘They’re very naughty,’ retorted Maisie, the thought that she would be leaving the next day giving her courage. ‘And it’s not me mum’s fault. She does her best.’

  ‘You speak when you’re bloody well spoken to, Nellie Jackson!’ Sid gave her a vicious look. ‘It’s nowt to do wi’ you, so keep out if it, you interferin’ little brat, or you know what you’ll get… What’s she doing here anyroad, ’aving her tea with us?’ He scowled at Lily.

  ‘She’s going away tomorrow, Sid,’ said Lily quietly. ‘You know – we talked about it and I decided to let her go. So we’ve been getting her things together.’

  ‘Oh, so you’ve seen sense at last, ’ave yer?’ said Sid. ‘Not afore time.’

  ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ mumbled Percy through a mouthful of food. Maisie noticed, nonetheless, the way he leered at her from under his eyelids. And her mother noticed too. ‘So we’re celebratin’, are we, wi’ sausage and chips?’ He laughed uproariously.

  Maisie tossed her head, not deigning to answer. Only one more day and she would be rid of them. She looked with loathing at Percy, and at Sid, with tomato sauce dribbling down his chin. Despite his initial comment, he had scoffed all his meal, without choking. He wiped his forearm across his mouth and burped loudly. Maisie gave an inward shudder. Only one more day, she thought again. But poor Mum… However would her mother manage when she, Maisie, had gone and left her?