Patricia Burns - Follow Your Dream

www.mirabooks.co.uk

PATRICIA BURNSis an Essex girl born and bred and proud of it. She spent her childhood messing about in boats, then tried a number of jobs before training to be a teacher. She married and had three children, all of whom are now grown up, and she recently became a grandmother. She is now married for the second time and is doing all the things she never had time for earlier in life.

When not busy writing, Patricia enjoys travelling and socialising, walking in the countryside round the village where she now lives, belly dancing and making exotic costumes to dance in.

Find out more about Patricia at www.mirabooks.co.uk/ patriciaburns

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Patricia Burns

WE’LL MEET AGAIN

BYE BYE LOVE

To the Swanwick Fun Club – for their wit, wisdom and silly emails

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LATE one January night in the bitterly cold winter of 1947, Lillian’s Aunty Eileen made a break for freedom.

Lillian woke up when Eileen crept out of the bed they were sharing. One side of her felt suddenly cold from the space her aunty had left, while the other was still warm where her older sister Wendy was curled up with her back against her. Moonlight was shining into the attic room through the crack between the threadbare curtains. It outlined her aunty as she pulled on two layers of clothes and carefully lowered the old suitcase from on top of the wardrobe.

‘What are you doing?’ Lillian whispered.

Eileen started. She caught her lip between her teeth as she stared at the little girl. Then she tiptoed over to the bed, bent and kissed Lillian on her chilly cheek.

‘I’m escaping, sweetie-pie,’ she breathed. ‘I’m going to follow my dream. I’m going to be happy! Don’t tell anyone, all right? Not a word. It’s our secret, just you and me.’

‘Can I come?’ Lillian asked.

Beside her, Wendy stirred. Eileen put a finger to her lips. They both held their breaths, willing Wendy to stay asleep. They both let out a sigh of relief when she turned and settled. Eileen smoothed back a lock of hair from Lillian’s forehead and kissed her again.

‘Bye-bye, my darling little Lindy-Lou. Not a word, remember! And listen, you make sure you follow your dream too, when the time comes. Don’t let them stop you.’

‘I won’t,’ Lillian breathed, though she hardly knew what she was promising.

Eileen propped a note up on the washstand and tied a scarf over her hair. Then, with her shoes tucked under her arm and the suitcase in her hand, she carefully turned the doorknob and slid out onto the landing. The door closed behind her with a creak from the carefully released handle, and she was gone.

Lillian lay for a long time, wondering what it was all about. Where had her aunty gone? How could you follow a dream? Dreams disappeared as soon as you woke up. Even she knew that, and she was only six-and-three-quarters. It didn’t make sense. Of one thing she was sure—there was going to be big trouble in the morning. Worrying about what Mum and Dad and, most of all, what Gran would say when they found out kept her awake for what seemed like half the night.

Yet at some time in the early hours she must have fallen asleep, for the next thing she knew was Wendy sitting up beside her and shaking her shoulder.

‘Where’s Aunty Eileen?’

Lillian looked at the space beside her in the lumpy double bed. Where was Aunty Eileen? Strange memories stirred. Aunty Eileen in her outdoor clothes. Aunty Eileen kissing her. But it was a dream. There was something about a dream.

‘Dunno,’ she said.

‘Oh, you! You never know anything. I s’pose she’s got up early. Go and get my undies.’

Lillian growled and pulled the blankets tight round her. She was lovely and warm in bed, and in the room it was freezing.

‘You get ’em.’

Wendy reached under the sheets and pinched her hard on the bottom. Lillian squealed and kicked backwards with her hard little heels, catching her sister on the shins.

‘Ow! Kick donkey! Go and get my undies, go on! And my shirt. Or I’ll tell Gran you kicked me.’

‘I’ll tell her you pinched me,’ Lillian countered.

But she knew it was useless. Wendy was three years older than her, three years bigger and stronger and far more than three years more ruthless. She always won the arguments in the end. Lillian slipped out of bed, scampered across the room to the chest of drawers, pulled two sets of vests, knickers and liberty bodices out of the left-hand top drawer and two blue cotton school shirts out of a lower one. Just as she was about to run back and shove the clothing under the sheets to warm up, another memory surfaced, of Aunty Eileen carrying a suitcase. She pulled open the right-hand top drawer, the one that belonged to her aunt. It was empty.

She caught her breath. At that moment, Wendy piped up, ‘What’s that on the washstand? Is it a letter?’

Lillian stared at the envelope. So it wasn’t a dream. Aunty Eileen had gone out in the middle of the night. She had kissed her and said goodbye. Fear, grief and a sense of betrayal began to churn inside her. Slowly, as if it might bite her, she reached out and picked it up, dropping the school shirts as she did so.

‘Give it here,’ Wendy demanded.

‘It ain’t for you,’ Lillian told her.

Oblivious now of the cold air that was bringing her arms and legs out in goosebumps, she stood gazing at the writing. It was Aunty Eileen’s all right. Just one word, in pencil, in her unmistakable sprawling hand. Mum.

‘Give it,’ Wendy repeated.

‘No.’

Lillian clutched it to her chest. This was her link with Aunty Eileen. Wendy was not going to have it. Her sister bounced out of bed and tried to snatch it from her. Lillian squealed and held on tighter. Wendy twisted at one corner. There was a rip and the cheap paper gave way. Both girls stood still, aghast.

‘Now you done it,’ Wendy said.

‘It wasn’t me, it was you! You shouldn’t of grabbed it.’

‘You should of let me have it.’

‘It’s for Gran,’ Lillian told her.

They both went silent, thinking of their grandmother’s wrath.

‘You better give it her, then,’ Wendy said.

‘No. You wanted it. You tore it. You give it to her.’

‘Finders keepers,’ Wendy said, taking her underclothes from Lillian and jumping back into bed with them. From the warmth of her cosy nest she added, ‘You better take that to Gran straight away. She’ll be cross if you don’t.’

The thought of facing Gran first thing in the morning with bad news, and bad news in a torn letter at that, made Lillian feel quite sick. Shaking now with nerves and cold, she opened the door of the dark oak wardrobe. All Aunty Eileen’s clothes were gone. All that was left was a faint smell of the scent she used.

Wendy started nagging at her again. Lillian pulled on her baggy navy knickers, tore off her nightie and pulled on her woollen vest as fast as possible, then struggled with the fiddly rubber buttons of her liberty bodice. Next came her school shirt, her gym slip, her cardigan and the knee length grey socks with elastic garters to stop them from falling down. Every single item had once been Wendy’s. Some of them had been Eileen’s before. She couldn’t remember ever having had a new piece of clothing.

‘Hair,’ Wendy said.

It would never do to appear before Gran with untidy hair. Lillian looked on the washstand. The hairbrush that she and Wendy shared with Aunty Eileen was gone. She picked up the comb, dragged it through her straight hair and shoved a couple of hairgrips in to hold back the side-parted curtain. Lillian had similar colouring to most of the family, who had hair ranging from fair to mousy and eyes of greyish blue. Wendy was the lucky exception. She had inherited her mother’s wavy blonde hair and clear blue eyes. Wendy was pretty and she knew it. She was her daddy’s darling. Lillian was just Lillian, the smallest and the skinniest.