her cost.
‘You’d better put your things back on,’ Missie said, ‘before Mom catches sight of you.’
Magda pulled her socks on and pushed her feet into her shoes, but the laces defeated her and she had to leave them dangling. Fortunately, it was Sarah who came to bring the children inside and she only grumbled good-naturedly at Magda as she fastened up the shoes.
‘And let me straighten your hair before Mom sees it,’ she said. ‘How you get it in such a tangle in minutes beats me.’
‘I don’t know how I do it either,’ Magda said. ‘It’s a mystery.’
Sarah laughed at the crestfallen look on her young sister’s face. ‘Magda Whittaker, you are one on your own,’ she said as she rebraided one of Magda’s plaits. ‘And thank God for it.’
Now that the twins had made their First Holy Communion, all the Whittakers went to Communion every Sunday. As no one was allowed to eat or drink beforehand, when they returned from Mass they were usually more than ready for a big feed. However, the first Sunday after Bill had left for the training camp there was no big breakfast. Instead, Marion made a big saucepan full of porridge. It was thin because it was made with water, and there was no jug of creamy milk to pour over it and just one small teaspoon of sugar each.
‘I’m still hungry,’ Tony declared as he cleared his plate.
Magda was as well, but again she had seen the two bright red spots appear in her mother’s cheeks. She was a great respecter of those spots because they would always appear before she got her legs smacked for something or other, so she waited to see what reaction Tony would get.
‘Well then,’ said Marion, ‘you will have to stay hungry until dinner time.’
‘Yeah, but—‘
‘If you have any more now you will have no appetite for dinner.’
‘Yeah I will, Mom,’ Tony cried. ‘Honest. I’m starving.’
‘Starving,’ snorted Marion. ‘You don’t even know what that word means. Anyway, there is no help for it and you will just have to make do with the porridge. No one else is making such a fuss.’
Oh, but I could, Magda thought, for I bet that I’m just as hungry as Tony. There was little point in saying any of this, though, and anyroad, her twin sister, Richard and Sarah seemed satisfied, and Sarah had already started clearing up the bowls.
Sarah could have said that the porridge barely took the edge off her appetite, but she knew that that was the type of meal that they had to get used to when so little money was coming into the house.
Later, in the yard, Magda said to Missie, ‘D’you suppose we’re poor now, ‘cos Mom only gave us two farthings for the collection instead of the two pennies we usually have?’
‘I don’t know if we’re really poor,’ Missie said, ‘but Sarah did tell me that there will be less money about now that Dad has enlisted.’ ‘Oh.’
‘She even said that some weeks we may get no collection money at all.’
‘Well, I’m going round Aunt Polly’s,’ Tony declared. ‘She’ll give me a jam piece or summat when I tell her that I’m still hungry.’
‘You can’t tell Aunt Polly that,’ Missie said, clearly shocked.
‘Why not?’ Tony demanded. ‘It’s the truth.’
‘Because Mom would be hurt if you did,’ Missie explained.
‘She wouldn’t half,’ Magda agreed. ‘Hurt and angry, I’d say. Anyroad, Tony, why d’you think that you’re the only one that’s still hungry? I am as well, if you want to know, but I don’t make as much fuss as you. It’ll be dinner time soon.’
‘Not for flipping hours it won’t.’
‘Oh, stop moaning. It’ll do no good.’
‘I wish Dad was here,’ Tony said wistfully. ‘If he took us down the park or summat I’d probably forget about being hungry.’
‘We all wish Daddy was here,’ Magda said. ‘But it ain’t no good going on about it.’
Tony sighed. Maybe there wasn’t, but there was no way that he was going to stay cooped up in the garden with his kid sisters. ‘Well, I ain’t staying here, anyroad,’ he said. ‘I’m off.’
‘Don’t you dare go to Aunt Polly’s.’
‘I ain’t,’ Tony said, because he knew Magda was right, his mother would be very angry should she find out that he had gone to his aunt’s house to be fed. He had no wish to cope with his mother’s temper as well as starvation. ‘I’m going to find our Jack and have a game of summat.’
When he had gone Magda said, ‘What shall we do? Shall I get our skipping ropes out?’
Missie made a face. Tm bored of skipping.’
‘Tell you what then, let’s see if we can throw two balls at the wall like our Sarah can?’
‘She can do three,’ Missie corrected. ‘I’ve seen her. I have trouble enough doing one.’
‘And me, but Sarah says practice makes perfect.’
‘If you like then,’ Missie said. ‘I don’t care what we do really.’
Magda sighed as she looked at her twin sister. ‘This is probably what being at war’s like,’ she said, ‘and our Sarah says we have to put up with it like everyone else.’
‘I know,’ Missie replied heavily. ‘It’s just everything’s so strange, and I do miss Daddy. But go and get the balls and we’ll see what we can play.’
However, the whole flavour of the day was wrong. Eventually the girls were called in for dinner. Magda sniffed because she loved the smells that would waft through from the kitchen on Sundays: the succulent aroma of a large piece of meat roasting slowly in the oven, surrounded by golden brown potatoes, and there might be apple crumble or treacle sponge bubbling away on the shelf below.
That day, however, she was in for an unpleasant shock for there was no roasting meat and golden brown potatoes and no pudding at all.
Marion didn’t know how long it would be before she had some more money coming in and she had been horrified at the price of meat, which had rocketed up since war had been declared, though no one could give a satisfactory reason as to why this was. So she made a casserole with a small piece of beef she had diced so that it would cook quicker and filled the pot with vegetables.
Usually, while the dinner was cooking Marion would be hard at it making pastries, pies and sponge cakes for Sunday tea, and by the time the dinner was ready there would normally be some of these cooling on wire trays. But Marion knew those teas would be a thing of the past. She had explained it all to her parents, though when she
