Whirl of the Wheel

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean—’ Connie said.

  Kit put down a bunch of forget-me-nots and clasped at Connie’s hand. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘Did we see what?’

  ‘Did you see the airman?’ Connie finished.

  ‘No,’ Bert replied. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘Yeah, he was. He just . . . left,’ Connie said.

  ‘But we didn’t see anyone,’ said Kit.

  ‘Oh,’ Connie said again. Confusion built in her brow. ‘I’m sure you would have seen him.’

  ‘He must have been in a hurry,’ Kit said.

  ‘To fly?’ asked Charlie-Mouse.

  ‘Hey, I’ll bet he’s the pilot of the Lysander,’ said Bert. ‘Dash it – I wish I could have seen him to ask about it.’

  ‘Sssh,’ Kit interrupted. ‘We mean to ask you about Malcolm.’

  Connie shook her head. ‘We were hoping you would tell us . . .’

  ‘No,’ Kit replied. ‘We haven’t seen him since the day you came. They searched the church and found no sign. No one’s been in the tower since – too dangerous.’

  ‘Then we have to go and see for ourselves,’ Connie said. ‘There must be some sort of a clue.’

  Kit fell silent – her smile faded.

  ‘Word went out he may’ve been a boy spy,’ Bert said.

  ‘A fair guess,’ Charlie-Mouse said.

  Kit turned a grave look upon him. ‘We didn’t say anything,’ she explained. ‘They wanted to find you too – to ask questions.’

  Charlie-Mouse laughed. ‘Did they think we were spies?’

  ‘Don’t joke, Charlie,’ Connie said.

  ‘The authorities can’t risk anything these days, old chum,’ Bert said.

  ‘And now?’ Connie asked. ‘Are they still looking for us?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kit said, keeping her eyes to the ground. Gingerly, she raised them, ‘Oh, promise me – now you’ve seen the letter – promise me you’re not spies.’

  Dry tears fluttered persistently this way and that in the cavern of Connie’s chest, and she held them where they were. ‘I promise,’ she replied. She laid her crutches to one side and pressed the palms of her hands against the desk. She let her shoulders fall and her hopes followed – the weight of her body doubled in her calipers. ‘I can’t explain everything that’s happened – I wish I could,’ she said.

  Kit pulled Connie’s hand to her own. ‘I’m so sorry, she flustered. ‘I know you can’t, if I’ve any sense at all. I’m sorry, very sorry. Can you possibly forgive me?’

  Connie’s eyes drifted into the little library room. She saw the bedrolls tied up with cord in the corner – the dulled satin edges of the blankets sandwiched tightly – waiting to be taken down to the shelter. She managed a smile. ‘These are strange times,’ she said. ‘But we’re good friends, aren’t we?’

  Kit nodded, her cheeks flushing with red. She offered Connie the small bunch of flowers. ‘We will always be friends,’ she replied.

  Spring 1941

  Chapter Twenty Five The tower revisited

  The worn stone steps to the tower curled away, rising sharply. Connie laid down her crutches, put a hand to the centre pillar and pushed her other hand against the wall.

  ‘There’s a danger I’ll topple,’ she said.

  ‘I’m behind you,’ replied Charlie-Mouse.

  She laughed. ‘You might regret it.’

  She climbed with ease – the stairs were narrow and the handrail curved into the stone acted as perfect support to carry herself up to the clock room. The brass dials of the clock turned and chased, absorbing her gaze until Kit came to her side. The girls stood in front of the stairladder.

  ‘Who’s going up this time?’ Kit asked.

  ‘Scary,’ Charlie-Mouse said. ‘What are the chances of another raid?’

  ‘They’ve eased off,’ replied Bert. ‘But I’m no expert.’

  ‘Me – I’ll go,’ Connie said.

  ‘Don’t be silly, Bert can do it,’ said Charlie-Mouse.

  ‘And so can I,’ she replied. ‘Help me take these legs off.’

  Calipers abandoned and her skirt straightened, she wriggled one knee onto the stairladder and pulled up – building a rhythm.

  How far did Malcolm get?

  Her ear aglow with the heat of the sun being dragged in through the hole above. Sunlight warmed her scalp and her arms, fizzing up the rainbow colours of her bracelet. She looked across to the bell frame – some of the wood was new – cut and repaired into the old. The children’s bell tipped into the air – sparks of light flew from the shiny engraving. A pile of flintstones crowded the platform marking halfway. The window louvres opened out as she rose and found herself level with the children’s bell. She grasped the wood frame and leaned in. Grit and stone filled the wooden pocket at its side. She pulled at the flint and cement mix, emptying it out. But there was no sign of a letter.

  ‘You let me down, Mollet,’ she said, fist clenched. ‘Just when I was beginning to like you for some reason or other.’ She climbed back on the stairladder but as she did so, her right knee splintered-off part of the rung. She gripped at the sides – fear crushing the feeling in her fingers. The wood dropped twenty metres down.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Charlie-Mouse called up.

  ‘Fine,’ she replied, carefully. She closed her eyes and pulled herself up with the little strength she had left in her elbows. ‘I’m going further.’

  ‘What?’ he called.

  ‘Everything’s fine,’ she shouted.

  The pounding of her heart slowed and her head steadied as she reached the narrow-boarded walkway along the edge of the tower wall.

  The hole the bomb had made stretched out below her now, and she could guess it had landed to wedge itself in the metal structure of the bell frame. It was a miracle it hadn’t exploded to blow the tower away. She pushed her head against the trap door and pulled herself onto the rooftop.

  Leaning against the flagpole, she looked out over Claybridge. ‘I don’t suppose the Wendlewitch ever expected this to happen,’ she said, aloud. Her sigh joined with the rise of new voices, carried by the breeze.

  ‘You were very lucky,’

  She recognised the voice as belonging to Auntie Evie.

  ‘I couldn’t stay, I had to come early – for the children. Besides, the office was quiet,’ came the lighter tones of her companion.

  Auntie Evie’s voice returned. ‘Was it bad?’

  ‘Sadie said Wednesday was the worst yet – the fires were fierce down her way. Even I could taste the smoke at the all clear. Several families Sadie knows were bombed-out,’ the second voice said. ‘The firebomb took the entire street . . . the hotel took them all in, mind – and they’ll stay until they get sorted.’

  ‘I don’t think families have been so important,’ said Auntie Evie. ‘You hear what I’m saying, Lily Parker, don’t you? There’d be something for you here if you wanted. Grandpa Joe wouldn’t have wished it any other way.’

  ‘I hear, but I have my job at the bank,’ replied Lily. ‘Besides it may all be over in a few months. Our Mr Churchill is seeing to that, isn’t he.’

  The figures came into view and Connie watched the two women stroll away to the garden.

  She descended – the distant rumble of an aircraft rolled across the brass in the heart of the tower. The apple blossom lifted from her head and disappeared below her feet. The air grew chillier – it swished at her loose hair, blowing it across her face. She wanted to keep moving but something compelled her to stay. The blossom carried high again – she moved her head with it, as if being turned in a dance, and found herself looking out of the louvres back towards the rooftops of the house. ‘Malcolm?’ she whispered.

  ‘Well?’ Charlie-Mouse said.

  ‘Well . . . there was nothing,’ she replied, rubbing at the grooves in her knees. ‘Or nothing apart from dust and rubble. No clue where he might have gone.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Kit said. br />
  ‘I do,’ replied Charlie-Mouse ‘He’s lost.’

  ‘No, he’s not lost,’ Connie replied. ‘He’s just somewhere else.’

  Charlie-Mouse shook his head. ‘I’m glad you’re so sure,’ he said.

  Shlapp . . . shlapp . . . shlapp

  A soft knocking turned her head to the rafters.

  ‘It’s the wind,’ Bert said.

  ‘What? Oh, yeah, I expect so,’ Connie replied. A small yellow-gold feather drifted down and she cupped it in the air.

  ‘What else would it be?’ Kit asked.

  ‘Malcolm’s ghost?’ Charlie-Mouse said.

  ‘No, he’s not dead either,’ Connie said. She blew into the down of the feather. ‘I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Then what?’ asked Charlie-Mouse.

  ‘I don’t know. It was the feeling I had – it surrounded me,’ Connie said.

  Her brother gave a nervous laugh. ‘Still sounds like ghosts,’ he said.

  ‘Perhaps it was an echo – Malcolm’s echo,’ Kit said.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Connie replied. ‘Then it’s a pity I couldn’t hear it so well.’

  The smell of baking bread streamed at her as they emerged into the spring sunshine, but at this moment Connie knew only confusion and the burning desire to go home – to be with her mum and dad and to wake up as if it had all been a dream. Malcolm Mollet’s dad was welcome to win now. She didn’t care any more.

  Spring 1941

  Chapter Twenty Six Dreams do come true

  ‘Darlings!’

  The voice stroked softly at Connie’s ears. She turned her head to see the sun-silhouetted figure of Auntie Evie’s companion standing by the tree swing in the orchard.

  ‘Mother,’ exclaimed Bert.

  The lady with a cascade of neat auburn curls around her silk neckerchief bent to rest her wicker basket on the grass. She kissed the heads of her children and held them tight.

  ‘We’ve missed you so, so much,’ said Kit, her eyes filling up with tears.

  ‘I’ve missed you too,’ Kit’s mother comforted.

  ‘We weren’t expecting you for at least another week,’ Bert said.

  ‘Surprises are always the best. Besides, I couldn’t stay away a moment longer.’

  ‘I still can’t believe you’re really here,’ Kit said. ‘Does Auntie Evie know?’

  ‘Yes, my dearest.’ Her voice broke into a whisper, ‘I’ve brought some fudge for a special treat,’ she said. ‘And a note from Daddy.’

  ‘Oh, Mummy, this is an absolute dream,’ Kit said.

  Connie kept her emotions at bay as Kit slipped her arm around her mother’s belted waist and pressed her head against her silky blouse.

  Kit murmured – ‘Your pretty perfume, it reminds me of home – of sitting at your dressing table and looking at the brooches in the drawer while you brush through my hair.’

  ‘How I miss putting the ribbons in your hair, dear Kathleen,’ Kit’s mother said. She walked her fingertips tenderly over her daughter’s head. ‘And reading stories to you both – I only read to myself these days and the library’s so short of good books. It’s the simplest of things I miss the most.’ She tickled at Bert’s tousled mop. ‘Gosh, and you’ve really grown, haven’t you – you’re both at least an inch taller. It must be this country air! And my darling Bert, I hear you’re camped out in the attic – Evie and I used to do battle to sleep up there.’

  Bert laughed. ‘Kit couldn’t wait to get rid of me.’

  ‘There’s a good feeling about this place,’ the children’s mother continued. ‘It lives and breathes like nowhere else I know, and it’s why I love it so much. I remember how we used to look forward to the holidays when we would stay here with Grandma. Little tomboys we were, climbing trees in the orchard – although I shouldn’t confess to it.’ She laughed, settling on the swing seat. ‘It was the best thing ever when Grandpa Joe hung the swing. We used to see how far we could jump into the mossy grass,’ she said. As she loosened her neckerchief, a small twisted feather spiralled to the ground. She stooped to pick it up, twirling it between her finger and thumb.

  ‘My dearest children . . . once upon a time we came across a boy. I spotted him first from the attic window. He stepped out of the church in a bit of a daze and wandered into the orchard. Evie was on the swing at the time. She asked him what he was doing here and he didn’t seem to know. I remember it so well because he carried with him a bird. The poor little thing had perished and not long after we buried it right here,’ she said. The boy was distraught, it was as if it was the last thing he had left in the whole world.’

  Connie’s heart tensed with compassion, before spilling with a relief she had wished to feel inside.

  ‘So what happened to this boy?’ Kit urged.

  ‘Grandma took him in and he helped for a month while she found a family to look after him. He went to Golden Hill, and after that I don’t recall what happened then. Do you know . . . isn’t it silly but I can’t quite remember his name – Mervyn or something. Good gracious me,’ she hurried on. ‘I promised Evie I’d help in the kitchen. But I’ll say this much – it’s good to be back for a little while, especially now I have my two most precious things by my side.’

  Her eyes glazed over and Connie guessed she was thinking of the children’s dad.

  ‘We have to get on, don’t we,’ the lady said, gathering her basket.

  Kit and Bert skipped and danced ahead of their mother, their laughter filling the air.

  ‘It was Malcolm . . .’ Connie whispered.

  ‘Who was?’ said Charlie-Mouse.

  ‘The boy with the bird. It was Malcolm.’

  ‘But that was years ago and he was just a boy with a dead bird. It could have been anybody.’

  ‘Yeah. But it was Malcolm. I know it.’

  Charlie-Mouse laughed it off. ‘Good story, Sis – but I reckon Malcolm found himself an escape in 1941 – one that suited him better than going home.’

  ‘No,’ she asserted. ‘It’s not a story. He slipped through – like the Wendlewitch said.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘I just am.’

  ‘You’ll have to prove it.’

  ‘Shut up, Charlie – you know I can’t.’

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘If he’d slipped through, he’d have grown up by now.’

 

  His words blew with a rush of air, picking up a swathe of blossom and baying at the back of her bare heels. The roar of an aircraft charged her ears. She drew her eyes from her brother to see the dark undercarriage and robust wheel arches of the Lysander rising above.

  Through the window glass of the cockpit she was certain she could make out the profile of the airman. Was he waving to her? She stared so hard her eyes fogged and her head began to spin.

  Chapter Twenty Seven Welcome home

  The wheel pulled on the moonlight and whirled a collage of crazy patterns over her forearms and across the dusty floor of the pottery shop. A shadow image of the Lysander with its night-lights ablaze reflected the glaze of the Wendlewitch’s pots into a sweeping magical shimmer, leading her entranced to gaze at the top shelf. The china desk companions pawed down at her in play. The magic fell away to nothing and the cats stopped still.

  She held her head in her hands – feeling the electrostatic charge spiking out of her hair as it lay over the surface of the slowing wheel. ‘We were so nearly there, I’m sure of it,’ she whispered.

  ‘Huh?’ Charlie-Mouse said. ‘Tell me I can go back to sleep.’

  The floorboards twinged and creaked above. ‘Sssshhh,’ she said.

  Something mouse-size scampered down the moonlit stairs and shot towards the shop door. In its wake, the Wendlewitch hovered halfway down in her dark flowing dressing gown. The moon slipped an eery stripe onto one side of her face. She gave a tidy yawn and patted her cheeks with her hands. ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump, my dears,’ she said.

  With a click of a light switch
underneath her potter’s wheel, the Wendlewitch brought a warm blush to her pottery shop. ‘There – now we can see each other.’

  Connie saw her own reflection twinkling in the Wendlewitch’s night-time spectacles and for a moment she thought she saw someone over her shoulder. She looked round – but there was no one there.

  The Wendlewitch snapped something on top of the potter’s wheel.

  ‘I want you to look at this,’ she said, turning the sepia-toned postcard to catch the light of the lamp.

  Connie peered in to see two fair-haired girls laughing, and leaning on the fence. A darker-haired boy of about her age sat on top of the fence beside them. A smaller boy sat lower down on the stile, looking straight to camera.

  ‘Taken at Claybridge,’ the Wendlewitch said. ‘Circa nineteen-twenty-something.’

  ‘The trees by the stream – they’re so small,’ Charlie-Mouse exclaimed.

  Connie pointed. ‘This girl looks like Kit,’ she said. ‘It can’t be her. Not then. But it could be her mother.’

  The Wendlewitch pulled off her glasses. She was about to speak when Charlie-Mouse whipped the picture from under her nose.

  ‘Look! The boy on the stile,’ he announced. ‘It can’t be . . . but it is . . . it’s Malcolm!’

  The table lamp flickered and the potter’s wheel buzzed.

  ‘The wheel’s turning . . . on its own!’

  Charlie-Mouse’s words disappeared into a quickening of shrieks from within the chimney breast.

  ‘Seems her power is still strong,’ the Wendlewitch shouted through the din.

  As Connie gripped to her crutches, the table lamp blew. In the pitch black, the wheel radiated a pale mauve over her body. Spinning faster and faster, mauve turned to silver, picking up the hollows in Charlie-Mouse’s face and making him appear skeletal. She thrashed out for his hand and shut her eyes tight.

  Chapter Twenty Eight New hope

  Golden Hill Farm

  Saturday, 2nd August 1941

  Dear Mummy,

  We spent today by the brook at Corberley Green, as it was scorching again. Bert made potato crisp sandwiches for our lunch basket. I took one of Auntie Evie’s old magazines and lay on the rug in the shade reading it for most of the afternoon. Bert spent all the time in the water, throwing sticks for Solo. Neither seemed to tire of this game.