Julia smiled at the picture and the charming world that her aunt was a part of and even though it was so different from her own she wouldn’t change a thing, she loved the buzz of London. But maybe right now for the children it was the best place.
Julia hung up the phone and wondered why she’d been so worried about it all. Her mother’s sister made it all sound so sensible and obvious and by the time she pushed open the telephone box door, it had stopped raining and a sweetness greeted her. The smell of spring flowers in full bloom drenched by the rain, scenting the air.
Striding down the street, she opened up her front gate and made her way down the path. As she put her keys in the door, she could hear the children in the front room already arguing about something. In a way, it made her happy. They’d been so forlorn just that morning, that to hear them in their usual evening discourse reminded her how resilient children were and how they knew how to live in the moment.
Agnes was putting the kettle on, sour-faced in the kitchen. ‘I can’t believe he’s gone,’ she said as she shook her head vigorously. She hadn’t moved on from John’s departure. ‘This wretched war is taking all the best people and I can’t help but be angry about it all.’
Julia stifled a deep sigh. She was glad she hadn’t asked Agnes to help her make the decision. She knew she was John’s mother, but she was always very negative and quite a difficult person to be around.
After they’d had a cup of tea, and Agnes had left, she decided to broach the subject with the children over supper. ‘My aunt Rosalyn has invited you down into the Cotswolds for a bit of a holiday.’
They both continued eating, obviously not realizing the significance of this.
‘She tells me there’ll be a fete there on Sunday, so I was thinking of sending you down there for a break.’
Tom looked up, fear crossing his face. ‘But you’ll be coming with us, too, Mummy, won’t you?’ he asked, the panic evident in his tone.
Julia swallowed. ‘Mummy has a lot of work to do here in London, and so many of your friends have already left to go and stay with their friends and relatives. And with Daddy now gone, I thought it might be a nice break for you to go and have some time with Aunt Rosalyn. She’s a lot of fun. I loved going to her house when I was a child.’
‘Isn’t that the lady who has a pony next door?’ asked Maggie thoughtfully as she spooned baked beans into her mouth.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Julia, not sure if the woman’s horse was still alive next door but amazed that Maggie, who had just turned nine, had remembered that. She’d been quite young, about five, the last time they’d been there.
‘I’ve always wanted to learn,’ said Maggie. ‘Learn to ride a horse.’ She stabbed at a potato with a fork. ‘No room for a horse here, is there? Maybe Aunty Rosalyn could introduce me to that lady next door so I could learn to ride her horse.’
Julia smiled. ‘I’m sure there’ll be something that you can do like that. There’s lots to do in the country. And Mummy can come down and visit you at any time. It’s just things could get very difficult here in London. We want you both to be safe.’
‘Will you be safe, Mummy?’ asked Tom in a timid voice.
She could have kicked herself for saying that with her tender-hearted son present. ‘Of course I’ll be safe, Tom. Mummy works for the government, and the government must take care of us. They have special places for us to stay if anything happens. You can’t worry about me.’
‘I don’t want to go,’ he said, screwing up his little face.
‘I do,’ said Maggie. ‘I want to ride the ponies.’
‘But I don’t,’ snapped Tom, his voice rising to a yell. ‘I want to stay here with Mummy.’ He slammed down his fork and rushed upstairs.
After she’d cleared away the tea things, she went up to sit on his bed and talk to him. ‘I need you to be grown up, Tom, and so much more grown up than you are. All of us are having to grow up in some way or another, even Mummy. Without having Daddy here, I have to be Mummy and Daddy, and it would help me a lot if you would go to the country with Maggie, and then I won’t have to worry about you because Aunt Rosalyn will take really good care of you.’
‘But I love you, Mummy, and I don’t want to be away from you.’
‘I know, me neither,’ she said, brushing a curl from his damp forehead where it had fixed itself with the exertion of crying, ‘but the government may ask you to go away anyway. And at least this way you get to go somewhere where you’re with my auntie. I need you to be very brave, Tom, and do this for me.’
‘Is that because I’m now the man of the house?’ he said with a small sniffle.
Julia swallowed down a laugh. She had no idea where he’d heard that before. ‘Well, that’s right. You are the man of the house now that Daddy’s not here. I need you to support Maggie and be good to her and be good for Aunt Rosalyn. I promise I’ll come down as soon as I can. And I’ll write to you all the time.’
‘What about my comics?’ Tom sounded mulish.
‘I’ll send your comics through the post, don’t worry. And they have comics in the village where Aunt Rosalyn lives as well. Everything’s going to be just the same. You’re going to make lots of new friends, and before you know it, this rotten war will be over, and you’ll both be able to come home.’
There was a long pause while he appeared to be considering her words as he toyed with the buttons on her cardigan, then his green eyes flicked up to meet hers. ‘Are there tractors down there?’ he asked, brightening a little.
‘Lots of tractors,’ said Julia, sensing an opening. ‘And animals and fields and streams you can play in.’
Tom’s eyes started to widen. ‘I’ve always wanted to climb trees in a wood, are there woods and trees in the country?’
‘Lots of trees,’ continued Julia. She could see the tide was turning. She brushed his damp forehead with a kiss. ‘Get off to sleep now, love, and we will talk more about it in the morning. You will be able to take your bear,’ she added, tucking him in and smoothing down the fur of the bear that was snuggled next to him, noticing as her heart melted a little the threadbare corner of its ear where Tom rubbed it in order to fall asleep. ‘And all your favourite toys,’ she continued, fighting the quiver in her own voice.
Tom nodded.
She rose and tiptoed to the door and turned off his light, his tiny voice finding her through the darkness.
‘You’ll be okay, won’t you, Mummy, without us?’
He sounded so much older than seven and she fought the truth. ‘Of course I’ll be okay, Tom. I’ll miss you terribly. But I have important war work to do for our prime minister here.’
Even in the darkened room, she could see his eyes widen with the gravity of what she was saying.
‘Then you must do it, Mummy, and I promise to be good. I’m getting good at writing now and I’ll draw pictures of the tractors and send them to you.’
‘Sounds lovely,’ Julia said, now fighting the croak in her voice as the tears started to rise in her chest again. After she closed the door that night, and after Maggie had gone to sleep, she sat at the kitchen table and cried. She cried for a whole hour. For the man that she’d put on the train that morning and for the children she’d be putting on a train at the end of the week. Everybody was leaving her. And she wondered if there would ever be a day when they would be a normal family again.