26
June 1940
“Sally, are you in?” Maggie shouted up the lane.
Sally dropped the clothes she was hanging on the clothes-line and ran outside. “What’s wrong?”
“Sally love, come in and sit down.” Maggie tried to lead her indoors to the kitchen. “I’ll make the tea.”
“Is it news of Harry? Reverend Collins promised me he would find him. He also said the government would keep him safe. Was he wrong?”
Maggie didn’t say anything. Sally couldn’t move, her feet rooted to the spot she stood on.
“Maggie, tell me what’s going on, you’re scaring me.” Sally put her arms around herself, knowing that look on Maggie’s face. It was the same one Maggie wore when she came to find Sally at school to tell her about mum.
“Who?” Sally demanded. As Maggie stayed silent, Sally heard the bell on a pushbike. The telegram boy. Ride on past, she shouted in her head but didn’t say a word. She and Maggie stared at one another in silence as they heard the boy put the bike against the wall, the squeak of the gate as he pushed it open. She’d asked Derek to mend the gate but he’d run out of time before he’d gone back. Derek, please God, no! It couldn’t be. Not her Derek.
Her knees weakened as she heard the knock on the door.
“Round the back, Ian,” Maggie shouted.
Ian poked his head around the side of the cottage. “Mrs. Ardle you know I have to give it… oh hello, Mrs. Matthews, I didn’t see you. I…” Ian’s voice got buried by Sally’s scream.
“No. I don’t want it. Take it away. Go away, do you hear me? Scram. Get on your bike and leave. Take that with you. I won’t open it. I won’t.” The whack across her face brought her back to her senses. For a split second, she held her hand to her face before Maggie pulled her into her arms.
“Go on Ian, lad. Leave it on the table in the kitchen.”
“But Mrs. Ardle…”
“Leave it, lad. Nobody will know that you didn’t put it into her hand. Now go on. Find Reverend Collins and let him know.”
Sally heard all this from a distance. She couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything, even though she knew Maggie had her arms wound tightly around her. She was glad of that, as she might topple over otherwise. She looked up, the sky was bright blue, birds were singing, the sun was shining. It shouldn’t be like that. The sky should be black, the sun hiding behind the dark clouds, with rain teeming down. That’s how it happened in films, all the time.
She vaguely acknowledged the boy leaving, the scrape of the bike against the wall, the sound of tires on the pebbles. Maggie led her into the house and forced her to sit down. She heard her put the kettle on.
Sally glanced at the table, the brown envelope sitting there where Ian had put it. She put her hand out towards it, surprised to see her hand shaking. She held one hand with the other before she could pick up the envelope. She didn’t want to open it, didn’t what to know what was inside.
“He may not be…. he could just be hurt.” Maggie’s voice broke through her thoughts.
She tore it open, reading it over and over but the words wouldn’t register. She threw it at Maggie. “What does it say, I can’t make it out?
“He’s missing presumed…”
Sally cut off the last word. She didn’t want to hear it. She stood up and started laying the table with plates and cutlery.
“Sally, sit down and have some tea with sugar in. It’s good for shock.”
“The children will be hungry. You know what they are like. Liesl will be awake soon. She doesn’t sleep long these days. Into everything, she is, the little rascal. She’s changed so much from the baby she was when she first arrived. She ran the other day. Did you know that?”
“Sally, sit down now or I’m going for the doctor. Dunkirk was a mess. There are thousands missing. He’s probably a prisoner of war or something. You need to contact the Red Cross. I think they are the ones who find out where the soldiers are, like what camp they are in.”
Sally knew Maggie was trying to be helpful, but she didn’t want her there. She didn’t want anyone in her home. In Derek’s home.
“Maggie, can you take Liesl to your house and wait there for Tom. He has to walk past your house from school. Can you keep the children there for a while? I have to think. I need to be alone.”
“Alone is the last thing you need.”
“Don’t tell me what I need, Maggie Ardle. I want my Derek right here beside me, that’s what I need. But that’s not going to happen now, is it?”
“Sally, I…”
“Please, just go Maggie. I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to be alone. I just have to be.”
Maggie didn’t say another word but went upstairs to collect Liesl. When she came back downstairs, carrying the child, Liesl was squirming to get down. She called for Sally but Sally couldn’t look at the child, she felt numb.
“Come on Liesl, pet, we are going to see Rachel, Ruth, and Tom. You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”
“Want Tom. Want go school. With Tom.”
Sally heard the child chattering, as Maggie led her outside, closing the garden gate behind them. Then there was silence, apart from the ticking clock on the mantlepiece. A wedding present from some relative of Derek’s. Sally couldn’t remember the old man’s name. Her gaze landed on Derek’s photo. She picked it up and headed upstairs to their bedroom. Lying on the bed, she cuddled his photograph close. He couldn’t be dead, not Derek. He just couldn’t be. She’d have felt something if he’d died. She’d have known.
Reverend Collins came by later but she didn’t open the door. She’d pulled the blackout blinds earlier so
