We Must Be Brave

9

SPRING CAME, hot and late, and then a cloudless summer. Mother and I walked to Waltham and took the bus to Southampton, and made our way, at two in the afternoon, to the shipping office of Raymond & Rose, where we sat on hard chairs in the blessed cool and dimness of the wood-panelled room.

‘So.’ The man behind the desk turned the pages of a ledger. ‘Edward Calthrop.’

‘Calvert.’ My mother spoke sharply. ‘He said his hopes were for the Far East.’

But I didn’t even know if that was true. I could imagine him in front of the mirror, thrusting out one leg, shading his eyes from an imaginary tropical sun, and saying, ‘Edward Calvert, who took ship for the Far East.’

‘Calvert, Calvert.’ The man turned another page. ‘Ah. Here he is. Siam, ladies. Bangkok, Swatow, Hong Kong. Rice out, general cargo on return. On our Queen of the Straits.’

My mother folded her hands together so that they could each comfort the other. She seemed unable to speak so I did it for her.

‘It’s simply that we haven’t heard from him for so long.’

The man nodded. He knew what it meant, for a seaman’s family, to hear from him. ‘I’m sorry. He gave us no authority to stop back a portion of his wage.’ He dipped his nib in the well, pecked at the page. ‘There,’ he said, with satisfaction. This had been an easy task. ‘A note. Family enquired. It’s all I can do.’

I inked the holes in my stockings but when I sat down at my desk the holes slid to reveal crescents of white skin. Like the clock face which showed the lunar phases; Daddy sliding the brass lever to make the moon wax and wane, wax and wane. Temporarily, perhaps just for ten seconds, my father had lost his wits. Shot himself in the heart and got out of everything. No more pain and certainly no hunger.

‘You’ve got half-moons peeping out on your legs,’ said Lucy.

‘I know.’

‘You want to do them patches bigger. Or get yourself some darning wool like everyone else.’

If 2a equals 10 what is a? Clearly a is for asinine, Miss Yarnold. Can there be a person alive who cannot see that a is 5? But yes, there are such persons – John Blunden and Daniel Corey for two, and Lucy for a third, and others, who all cry in protest, ‘But, Miss. We’ve gone an’ learnt two fives was ten. And now you says it’s two a’s that make ten!’

I met Miss Yarnold’s eyes and saw a glint of tears.

Lucy nudged me. ‘Or you could try soot. It spreads better.’

One Sunday in autumn I left the house, leaving Mother unfolding three yards of calico on the kitchen table. There’d been a discount on five yards but we couldn’t run to five. Nonetheless she’d galvanized herself, taken herself to the haberdasher’s in Waltham, and she was going to make drawers for us: ‘The light’s good, darling,’ she’d pleaded, but I was too hungry to sit sewing. ‘I’m so slim now,’ she was saying gaily as I swung the door closed, ‘I can squeeze an extra pair in, I’m sure.’

That gay tone I hated even more than the pleading.

I went by the back lanes even though they were wet and my left shoe leaked. The clouds broke late in the afternoon and I stopped by a field in the low sunlight and leaned on the gate, the field a wet, vivid green, and a large, pale cow rocking her head by the fence halfway down the hill. Lucy Horne was in the next field, leaning on the fence watching the cow. Beside her was a boy with a shock of walnut hair. When he sprang up onto the fence I recognized him as Daniel Corey. Before I could move they saw me.

‘Ellen,’ Lucy called, ‘come here.’

I could have darted on down the lane, pretended I hadn’t heard. I would have been hidden by the hedge in a second. But I was lonely.

Daniel was at the top of the fence when I reached them. He was wearing an enormous pair of breeches, so long that the knee cuffs came almost to his ankles. He didn’t turn his head or say hello, just swung each leg over and sat on the top rail. ‘Dorc,’ he was saying. ‘Ready, Dorc.’

‘He’s going to get up on Dorcas, if she’ll let him.’ Lucy grinned at me. It was a sight. She had so many top teeth missing.

The cow stood, still rocking her head although there weren’t any flies. Daniel perched his feet on the rail below the top, leaped up into the air, where he seemed to hover for a moment before falling deftly with his knees each side of the withers of the cow, who did not move. Lucy squeaked. ‘Good Dorc,’ Daniel breathed.

Dorcas had deep folds on her pale neck. Her muzzle was the colour of the lining in my mother’s kid gloves.

‘She’s beautiful, int she,’ said Lucy.

‘What would the farmer say?’ I whispered. I didn’t want to startle Dorcas.

‘She’s Daniel’s. Well, his dad’s. Do you fancy coming to ours for tea, Ellen?’

Lucy lived at the far end of the village street, on top of a high bank. I had always known there were cottages up there, but had never mounted the brick steps that led to them. Now I followed Lucy and Daniel up, placing my feet carefully, for the light was going.

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