on the bed when a guest arrived, even if the sheets on the bed hadn’t been used. It was better to have fresh sheets, she said, and, besides, the spare room often smelled musty. Fresh clean sheets and an open window, her mother said, soon fixed that.
She’d tugged the old sheets from the bed and set to making it up again with the new. As she worked, she had pretended that she had a little girl of her own who today was insistent on reading something to her, a pamphlet she had found.
“Yes, yes,” she said to the girl. “Now come on, you’re getting under my feet, and I’ve a WVS meeting at eleven and washing to hang out and cakes to bake and dinner to cook for your father. Go and read that thing in the sitting room if you want to read it, but not under my feet.”
She shooed the girl away, then turned back and looked at the bed appraisingly. The sheets’ corners could have been tucked in better but she had at least made an effort. She supposed it only right that she treated him like a guest.
Alfie said that spies were the people that you least suspected, and in Wales the boys had always been talking about codes, symbols carved into the trunks of trees, shapes cut into the sides of stiles to give the Germans directions; even an ordinary pile of stones might mean the invasion was coming. She had spent hours in Wales hiding under the bed, trying to find secret messages in her mother’s letters. They were so dull and ordinary that they must have been hiding something. She wrote of nothing but shopping trips and days out. She’d gone up to Southwold, she wrote once, and half the shops were boarded up. It really was a waste of a day. The place was like a ghost town. The galloping horses were still there though, and that funny little man. Do you remember? And when Lydia wrote back and said that she did, she put a tiny dot next to the letters that spelled out I LOVE YOU . When her mother’s reply arrived, several days later, she studied it for hours to see if she’d used the same code and then had been disappointed and quite surprised that she hadn’t.
She looked at her face in the bathroom mirror. She was definitely looking older, and rather pale despite the summer. She bit at her lips to make them red, then refastened the clips that kept her hair out of her eyes. You can’t let yourself go, she said to herself, just as her mother did, and then she sighed as her mother did too. You’ve got to be strong. She took the cloth from the cabinet and wiped it around the sink bowl, clearing it of the dried specks of white foam and tiny bits of hair spattered from his shaving. Just like her father, she thought—leaving bits of himself in the sink.
If she went down to the kitchen now, she might suddenly find him there, or her mother. Oh there you are, her mother would say, as if nothing much had happened. We wondered where you’d got to. Didn’t you hear me call?
Voices. Always voices. It had never been a quiet house. The sound of the wireless or the gramophone or the piano coming from the sitting room. Alfie and Eddie’s shouts and cheers coming from the dining room where they shot the bagatelle ball around the board that their father had made and it clattered about among the pins. Cheer up, darling, her mother would have said to her. Her father would say, Don’t cry.
They all had something they tried to think about to take their minds off the march. Some counted in foreign languages or wrote poems or letters to loved ones in their heads. He made up rhythms to walk to that fell in line with the long, hard slog. A slow base beat: left, right, left, right, one-two-three-four. He would lay tunes over the top. A mournful song for his cello or, if the march was flat and easy, a fanfare of trumpets, bringing in a lone violin sometimes or a clarinet or a soprano, turning it operatic. The starting point was always the rhythm though. He could write concertos, adagios, or waltzes to it. It didn’t matter, as long as the
She’d tugged the old sheets from the bed and set to making it up again with the new. As she worked, she had pretended that she had a little girl of her own who today was insistent on reading something to her, a pamphlet she had found.
“Yes, yes,” she said to the girl. “Now come on, you’re getting under my feet, and I’ve a WVS meeting at eleven and washing to hang out and cakes to bake and dinner to cook for your father. Go and read that thing in the sitting room if you want to read it, but not under my feet.”
She shooed the girl away, then turned back and looked at the bed appraisingly. The sheets’ corners could have been tucked in better but she had at least made an effort. She supposed it only right that she treated him like a guest.
Alfie said that spies were the people that you least suspected, and in Wales the boys had always been talking about codes, symbols carved into the trunks of trees, shapes cut into the sides of stiles to give the Germans directions; even an ordinary pile of stones might mean the invasion was coming. She had spent hours in Wales hiding under the bed, trying to find secret messages in her mother’s letters. They were so dull and ordinary that they must have been hiding something. She wrote of nothing but shopping trips and days out. She’d gone up to Southwold, she wrote once, and half the shops were boarded up. It really was a waste of a day. The place was like a ghost town. The galloping horses were still there though, and that funny little man. Do you remember? And when Lydia wrote back and said that she did, she put a tiny dot next to the letters that spelled out I LOVE YOU . When her mother’s reply arrived, several days later, she studied it for hours to see if she’d used the same code and then had been disappointed and quite surprised that she hadn’t.
She looked at her face in the bathroom mirror. She was definitely looking older, and rather pale despite the summer. She bit at her lips to make them red, then refastened the clips that kept her hair out of her eyes. You can’t let yourself go, she said to herself, just as her mother did, and then she sighed as her mother did too. You’ve got to be strong. She took the cloth from the cabinet and wiped it around the sink bowl, clearing it of the dried specks of white foam and tiny bits of hair spattered from his shaving. Just like her father, she thought—leaving bits of himself in the sink.
If she went down to the kitchen now, she might suddenly find him there, or her mother. Oh there you are, her mother would say, as if nothing much had happened. We wondered where you’d got to. Didn’t you hear me call?
Voices. Always voices. It had never been a quiet house. The sound of the wireless or the gramophone or the piano coming from the sitting room. Alfie and Eddie’s shouts and cheers coming from the dining room where they shot the bagatelle ball around the board that their father had made and it clattered about among the pins. Cheer up, darling, her mother would have said to her. Her father would say, Don’t cry.
They all had something they tried to think about to take their minds off the march. Some counted in foreign languages or wrote poems or letters to loved ones in their heads. He made up rhythms to walk to that fell in line with the long, hard slog. A slow base beat: left, right, left, right, one-two-three-four. He would lay tunes over the top. A mournful song for his cello or, if the march was flat and easy, a fanfare of trumpets, bringing in a lone violin sometimes or a clarinet or a soprano, turning it operatic. The starting point was always the rhythm though. He could write concertos, adagios, or waltzes to it. It didn’t matter, as long as the
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