Patricia Burns - We'll Meet Again

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.)

So that’s my big news. Our house is all boarded up now until we can get hold of some glass, so it’s pretty gloomy inside, but at least the electricity’s back on again. Otherwise, it’s same as usual—school, homework, football practice, cycle club, pictures. How about you? Have you seen the new Cary Grant film yet? It’s going to be on in Mansfield next week so a gang of us are going over to see it. Has your dad been all right? I think of you a lot like you were after he did that. It makes me mad just to think about it. What does the sea look like now? Not all bright like it was in summer. Whenever I think of Wittlesham it’s always sunny. It’s quite strange when you say it’s been cold and raining for a fortnight.

Sunday. Bad news, I’m afraid. Mam says the bomb has really shaken her up and she doesn’t want to go far from home, so we’ll not be going on holiday this summer. I’m really sick about it, I can tell you. I tried reasoning with her and saying that if she booked up Silver Sands she’d have something to look forward to but she wasn’t having any. Honestly, parents! I’ll be glad when I’m old enough to join up. I’m sick of being treated like a little kid.

Monday. I’ve thought of a way round the holiday problem. The cycle club are doing a tour round the Peaks at the end of July. I’ve already cleared it with the parents to go on that, so what I’ll do is, I’ll come down to see you instead. I can put my bike on the train and there’s a youth hostel in Wittlesham. So I will get down after all! Don’t you think that’s a clever plan?

I’m going to put this in the post now.

Yours truly,

Your friend,

Tom.

X

Annie’s hands were shaking. The bomb story wasn’t really frightening because Tom was obviously all right, and the bit about the old lady getting tiddly even made her smile. But the Featherstones not coming to Wittlesham! It was a nightmare. It was the end of the world. The thought of Tom being in that tent in the garden of Silver Sands this summer had glimmered ahead of her ever since he’d gone away. His alternative plan sounded feasible, but—there were so many buts. Supposing his parents found out and forbade it? Supposing he didn’t have enough money? Supposing the cycle club trip was called off and he lost his cover story? It was a bleak prospect—a summer with no Tom to look forward to.

But then, that X at the bottom of his letter.

She stared at it in the wavering light of the candle flame.

He had never put an X on a letter before.

That had to be a good sign. It was a good sign. Annie blew out the candle and fell asleep with the letter against her hand under the pillow.

Spring turned reluctantly into summer and Britons learned of the loss of the Hood and the abandonment of Crete while the air raids carried on unabated. The one rousing piece of news was the sinking of the battleship Bismark. And then the Nazis invaded Russia. Though the ordinary people of Britain did not realise it at the time, the invasion pressure was off. What concerned them more was that first clothes and then coal were rationed.

At Marsh Edge Farm, Walter Cross finally gave in to pressure from fellow farmers to try sowing ley grass and cutting silage to increase the amount and quality of feed available to the greatly increased dairy herd. By June, a second-hand tractor replaced the elderly work-horse. Its variable reliability did not improve his temper, though even he had to admit that it could work faster and harder than the horse and did not need attending to each day. Annie’s letters contained accounts of these innovations and of her trips into town to meet Gwen and her occasional brushes with Beryl Sutton, but mentioned nothing of Walter’s eruptions of temper. After all, Tom could do nothing about it, and the thought of her being hurt obviously worried him. On top of that, she felt ashamed to admit, even to Tom, what went on in her family. Her letters always ended the same way, asking him if he was still coming to Wittlesham at the end of July. His answer was always the same—yes. But still she harboured doubts.

Her birthday came round. Her mother gave her a blouse she had made out of rayon hoarded from before rationing. It had square shoulders with little shoulder pads and was darted in to a narrow waist. A real grown-up garment. Gwen gave her a lipstick. Fifteen. She was now fifteen years old.