Patricia Burns - We'll Meet Again

She ran up the sea wall, stopping at the top to look about.

‘Oh!’ she said out loud.

For there, just below her on the seaward side of the wall where nobody ought to be, was a boy a year or so older than herself with a sketch-book on his knee.

If he had heard her, he made no sign of it, but just kept on glancing at the sea then looking down at his paper and making marks. Fascinated, Annie looked over his shoulder. He was making a water-colour sketch. The sky was already done and, as Annie watched, he ran layers of colour together to make the sea, leaving bits of white paper showing through so it looked like the low sunlight reflecting off the waves. He made it look so easy, so unlike the clumsy powder paint efforts that she had occasionally been allowed to do at school.

‘That’s ever so good,’ she said before she could stop herself.

The boy turned his head, screwing up his eyes a little to see her as she stood against the light.

‘Oh—’ he said. ‘Hello. I mean—thanks. I thought you were one of my beastly kid cousins creeping up on me.’

He had an angular face with broad cheekbones, and very dark hair cut in a standard short-back-and-sides, but what struck Annie most was his unfamiliar accent—something she vaguely identified as being northern.

‘No,’ she said.

Now that she had started the conversation, she wasn’t quite sure what to say next.

‘You an artist?’ she blurted out, and instantly curled up inside with embarrassment, because how could he be an artist? He wasn’t old enough.

But, to her relief, instead of laughing, he took her question seriously.

‘I want to be. But I don’t know whether I’m going to be good enough.’

‘But you are! That’s lovely!’ Annie cried.

He shook his head. ‘Not really. The colours aren’t right.’

‘They are—well, nearly,’ Annie said, sticking to the truth. ‘And it’s—’ She stopped and considered, her head to one side. She’d never really looked at a painting before, not a proper one. She had no words to describe what she thought about it. ‘It’s like—moving. Yes—that’s it. The sea’s sort of moving—’

It sounded daft, put like that, because paint didn’t move. But the boy’s face lit up. He had an infectious smile.

‘Really? You think so?’

Glad that she’d hit the right note, Annie grinned back. Without thinking about it, she came and sat down by him. He was dressed in a blue short-sleeved shirt, khaki shorts and plimsolls. His arms and legs were long and skinny. His nose was peeling.

‘I do, honest. I think it’s good,’ she assured him. ‘Are you going to put the pier in? And the wire?’

‘When it’s dry I’ll draw the pier in Indian ink, so I’ll be able to get all the little details. I don’t know about the wire. I think I might do another one, without the pier, just sea and sky and the wire across it.’

Annie nodded slowly, seeing it in her head. ‘Yes, sort of … like a prison—’ The boy turned and gave her a long, considering look.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s just it. It’s supposed to be keeping the Jerries out, but if you look at it the other way, it’s keeping us in.’

‘But if you look through it—sort of fuzzy your eyes—you know? You can pretend it isn’t there at all,’ Annie said.

Which brought on that dazzling smile again.

‘Yes! That’s what I’m doing right now! Just—making it go away. How did you know that?’

‘I do it a lot,’ Annie told him. ‘Pretending things aren’t there. Or people. It’s better like that.’

‘And how,’ the boy said.

They looked at each other, breathless, startled by that heart-stopping moment that revealed a kindred spirit.

‘I’m Tom. Tom Featherstone.’

That intriguing accent. The way he said ‘stone’.

‘Annie Cross.’

Self-consciously, they shook hands. Tom put down his sketch-book and brushes.

‘Are you here on holiday?’ she asked.

‘Mmm. At the chalet.’

‘Silver Sands?’

If it had been anyone else, she would have resented them being in the place she wanted for her own retreat, but with Tom it was different.

‘S’right.’ he said. ‘You?’

‘I live at the farm. Marsh Edge. Over there.’

She pointed her thumb over her shoulder.

‘Oh—that farm. We can see it from the garden. I wondered who lived there.’

‘I wondered who the family was at Silver Sands. I saw the tents in the garden. I thought—I thought it must be nice, to have a holiday, and lots of people to play with. If you’re a little kid, of course.’

‘They’re pests, my cousins,’ Tom said. ‘They’re all younger than me. My sister Joan’s five years younger than me, and my cousin Doreen’s only a year younger than her, so they’re friends, and then the twins, that’s Doreen’s brothers, they’re always together anyway. I came over here to get away from them.’

It was all falling into place.

‘Who are the grown-ups? They your mum and dad?’

‘My mam and Aunt Betty and Uncle Bill. My dad had to stay at home and mind the business.’

Mam. She liked that.

‘Where’re you from?’ she asked.

‘Noresley. It’s near Nottingham.’

Nottingham. Annie pictured the map of England in her head. They’d traced it and put in all the boundaries and principle towns and cities in Geography a couple of years ago. Nottingham was just about in the middle. The Midlands.

‘Where Robin Hood came from?’

‘Sort of. We’re not in Sherwood Forest, though. It’s all pit villages round our way.’

‘Pits? You mean coal mines?’

Miners were one of her father’s many dislikes. They were all good-for-nothing commies in his opinion.

‘That’s right. We run a bus and coach company, in and out of Nottingham and Mansfield, and between the villages.’

Annie thought of being out and about all the time, driving from one place to another, talking to all the people getting on and off the bus.

‘Sounds like fun. Are you going to drive a bus when you’re older?’

Tom sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll have to. I can’t really see my dad letting me go to art school. Depends, though, doesn’t it? If the war’s still going on by December next year I’ll be joining up.’

‘D’you think it’ll go on that long?’

‘Last one did, didn’t it? It went on for four years.’

‘Four years! I’ll be eighteen then.’

Eighteen. It seemed a huge age. And where would she be then? Still here at Marsh Edge Farm, probably. Or … Annie looked at the barbed wire that was supposed to keep the Germans out and a dreadful thought struck her.

‘Do you think they will invade?’ she asked.

It had never really presented itself as a possibility before. It was something lingering on the edge of imagination, like a past nightmare. Now she saw waves of grey-uniformed soldiers coming ashore, cutting through the wire, marching over the fields—her fields—towards her home. Fear sliced through her.

‘I don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘We’re winning the Battle of Britain so far. Our planes are shooting down more of their planes. We can’t lose, can we? I mean—we just can’t—’

‘No,’ Annie agreed. ‘We can’t.’

They both stared through the wire to the horizon. The fear subsided, but still lurked there.

There was a rustling and panting on the other side of the wall, and then two shrill voices broke through their reverie.

‘Tom! Tom! Your mam says you’re to come in, she’s making the cocoa.’

Annie turned round. Two small boys with identical round faces, grey eyes and grubby knees were staring at her.

‘Who’s she?’ one of them asked.

‘Never you mind. Go and tell my mam I’m just coming,’ Tom told them.