As the tea steeped, she slipped back into her room, where Diana sighed and turned over in her sleep. Lizzie pulled the newspaper clipping from her handbag and went back into the kitchen to read it one more time. She opened it and smoothed it out on the table. Three smiling faces looked up at her from the photograph. It was an article that had been in the local Scottish paper about the work that was being done for orphans all over the country. This story was about London orphans and how the orphanages were dealing with the influx of children that was happening because of the displacements during the war. When she’d first read it in her uncle’s newspaper, her heart had pounded in her ears because she’d recognized somebody in it. In the photograph was the woman who ran the orphanage, but next to her was an older woman in a nurse’s uniform who she’d recognized instantly as the nurse who had snatched her baby from her five years before. The woman who had been so cruel to her, and to the other young nurse who’d allowed her to hold her baby for a moment.
This had been the first clue she’d had about the whereabouts of Annie, the name she had given her daughter, since that day when she’d been taken from her arms, and here was a picture of that woman. The nurse she would never forget, who had stood in the doorway and looked at her with such cold contempt. Underneath the picture there was the name of the orphanage – St Barnabas. She reread it. It was down here in London, and she was determined to find it. As soon as she had leave, she was going to find Annie and make sure that she was all right. Tears sprang to her eyes again as she thought about her daughter, and as the world started to come to life outside Lizzie sipped her tea and came up with a plan. ‘I’m going to find you, Annie,’ she whispered into the empty kitchen.
8
After that first night when Julia had told them, the children seemed to come round relatively quickly to the idea of being sent to their great-aunt’s in the Cotswolds. It had helped that at school that week, a friend of Maggie’s had sent a letter to the teacher, who had read it out to the class, about all the marvellous things she was doing at the seaside since she’d been evacuated. Maggie had told Tom at supper and that had doubtless aided the situation and abated some of her children’s fears, and Julia had been grateful for the teacher’s clever idea.
Also, Julia had been spurred on by the ongoing discouraging news about the war in Europe. All week the papers had been full of the evacuation of Dunkirk in France, where hundreds of thousands of British soldiers had been rescued from the shores of Europe by the navy and a flotilla of small craft owned by everyday people. The fact that Europe was now defenceless added weight to current concerns that Britain could soon be invaded.
But too soon the day Julia had been dreading arrived. Early on Saturday, she rose before dawn to collect herself and finish any last-minute packing for her children. Sitting at her kitchen table, she wrote the labels that were to be hung around the children’s necks with their names and addresses on them. With a hand wrapped around a steaming cup of tea, she stared out of the kitchen window, watching the royal-blue night turn into a gorgeous cerise dawn, and contemplated how odd it was, to be labelling her children like luggage.
When Maggie appeared, following Julia down early that morning, her nervousness revealed itself in the way she began to babble to her mother in one long jumbled thought. This was her daughter’s usual way of dealing with things that worried her.
‘What happens if they put me on the wrong train, Mummy? Or what happens if they put me on the right train, but they don’t tell me when to get off at the right stop, Mummy? Or what happens if Aunt Rosalyn doesn’t remember us, or when we get to the station, she’s not there, and nobody tells you, and we can’t phone you because we don’t have a telephone here? And what will happen to us then?’
As Maggie burbled on, Julia tried to clear her thoughts. She turned to her daughter and gently upturning her distraught face, she smoothed down her frizzy hair and kissed the top of her head, saying, ‘Now, Maggie. You must stop worrying about everything all at once. There are lots of kind people that are going to help us along the way. Women in uniform, they are called the WVS, and they are going to take you all the way to the Cotswolds. You’ll be assigned to a person who you’ll know both on and off the train. That’s why I made these tags, you see.’ Julia showed her the labels she had just finished addressing.
‘Your London address is on here and on the back is Aunt Rosalyn’s. I’ve also put the phone number down where I work at the War Office, so if anything goes wrong, you can just give this label to somebody, and they’ll be able to call me. Lots of people have gone down to be with their families, and all of them have got where they’re meant to have been. I need you to be strong for Tom, Maggie. You know how much he relies on you.’
As if on cue, she heard the light tripping on the stairs of her son, also up early for a change. Most mornings, to get them off to school, Julia had to literally heave them out of bed. This morning both of them were up half an hour before they usually got up. As he moved down the stairs in his green striped pyjamas, his bear tucked under his arm, she could see the anxiety etched on his white face.
Julia swallowed down her guilt and concern. Tom had barely spoken for the last two days, just nodding or shaking his head when she’d asked him questions. With an uncommon silence both children sat down at the table and peered up at her. Julia fought the lump in her throat. They looked so young. She tried to continue in an cheerful manner. ‘Now, what can I get you both for breakfast? I managed to get some eggs, and would you like some toast?’
Maggie slumped back in her chair and nodded her head reluctantly as Julia moved around the kitchen. As the water boiled, she opened the cupboard and pulled out a couple of small wrapped parcels.
‘I’ve bought you both a little gift to take with you. Just a present for being so brave.’
Their attention at the table stirred as all eyes were upon the presents. She handed out the parcels and instantly, both the children started to unwrap them. A colouring book and pens for Tom. His eyes widened. He loved to colour. ‘So, you can draw those tractors for me, Tom,’ she said with a smile.
Maggie opened her gift, a doll with golden ringlets and a little green striped dress. She looked up in delight. ‘She’s lovely, Mummy! This is the one that I wanted. The one I told you about in the window. You said it was too expensive.’
Julia nodded. ‘Well, I thought you would need a playmate to go with you, and I had a little bit of extra money saved.’
Both the children’s moods lightened as she placed the boiled eggs in the egg cups and toast on the plate, then scraped the butter on and off again as she’d read about in a women’s magazine in order to make it last longer.
After breakfast, Julia sent the children upstairs to get dressed as their two little suitcases waited for them in the hall. Then, brushing their hair for the last time, she hung the tags around their necks, they slung their gas masks over their shoulders and the three of them all trundled out of the door. As they walked up the road and towards the train station, Julia tried to jolly them along, glad she had asked Agnes to say goodbye to them the night before. She didn’t think she could have stood her sorrowful and judgemental expression this early in the morning.