another thing,’ Beattie said. ‘Not one of them can or will take her, ’cept the feller in Australia. You ever heard of a kiddie being sent to the other side of the world to a man or family she’s never seen. ‘Specially with all them bleeding U-boats around. She wouldn’t stand a chance. Remember that ship with all those kiddies on board, sunk on its way to America? Anyway the welfare people won’t wear it.’
But what about the aunt that lives in Basingstoke?’
‘She’d have her and willing, but hasn’t the room,’ Beattie said. ‘She came down to see her. A nice woman, but she was telling me she has eight boys already and they’re all living in a little two-bedroom place. All they could give her I expect when she was evacuated, and she really has no room for the child at all.’
‘That’s it then?’ Jenny said. ‘Where will she go?’
Beattie shrugged. ‘Orphanage I suppose,’ she said. ‘I’d take her like a shot if I hadn’t had my house blown up, ’cos she’s a great kid. But I can’t land her on my sister as well.’
‘No, I see that,’ Jenny said. ‘But, oh God Beattie, an orphanage!’
‘I know. Bloody awful.’
‘Tragic,’ said Jenny. She knew Linda, that brave free spirit, would never fit into the rigours of an orphanage. She knew they’d crush her. Who there would care that her world had been tom apart? She’d just be one of many.
Jenny felt very depressed when Beattie had left. She tossed and turned in bed all night.
And in the hour before dawn, as she lay tired, but too emotionally charged for sleep, she wondered for the first time if it wouldn’t have been better for Linda to have died with her mother and brothers. And she turned her face to the wall and sobbed.
‘How is she?’ Jenny asked the nurse at the door to the children’s ward.
The young Irish nurse shook her head, sadly. ‘Desperate,’ she said. ‘It breaks your heart, so it does, to see her.’
‘Is she sedated still?’
‘No,’ the young nurse said. ‘But sure, she might as well be. She lies as still as a statue, withdrawn into herself you know, and never speaks more than yes or no – that’s if you get her to talk at all.’
‘Can I see her?’
‘I’ll have to ask Matron,’ the nurse said. ‘But I’d say it can do no harm. You are the young lady who was rescued with her, aren’t you? I’ve seen your picture in the paper.’
Jenny nodded, blushing, unused to such fame, and she blushed still further when the nurse continued, ‘We all think you’re ever so brave – the whole hospital was talking about it.’ But then she noticed Jenny’s blushes and touching her on the arm, said, ‘I’ll just go and have a wee word with Matron.’
Matron agreed with the nurse that Jenny’s visit couldn’t harm Linda. ‘In fact, my dear,’ she said, her stern features relaxing for a second in the ghost of a smile, ‘you might be the one to make her take an interest in life again.’
Jenny doubted it as she looked at the child, as pale as the pillow she lay against. Her face was expressionless, her arms still by her sides. She seemed unaware of anything – the hospital side-room where she lay alone, the drip feeding into her arm, a cage protecting her legs at the bottom of the bed.
‘Linda,’ Jenny said gently.
The child turned her head and Jenny was shocked by the hopeless look in them. There was not a flicker of recognition; she was like the living dead. For a moment Jenny regretted rescuing the girl. Hadn’t she thought it might have been better if she’d died, along with her mother and brothers?
Yes, but she hadn’t died. She had her whole life before her, and it could be a good and fulfilling life. She took one little thin hand in hers and said, ‘How are you feeling?’
What a stupid, inane remark, she thought instantly, but Linda appeared not to have heard her. Jenny’s eyes flitted around the room and came to light on a worn-looking teddy bear propped on the bedside cabinet. She’d seen it once before, by the light of a torch, and knew it was Tolly, the bear Linda had come back to the house to fetch. It had been that bear that had saved her life. She remembered Linda saying that George would be so pleased she’d found him, and a lump rose in Jenny’s throat.
This would never do, she told herself fiercely. She put out her hand and gently stroked the bear with one finger and Linda’s head moved to watch.
‘Talk to me, pet,’ Jenny said softly.
Linda’s eyes met Jenny’s and she snapped out in hurt anger, ‘What about? The weather?’ Her voice was little more than a whisper and she closed her eyes with a sigh, as if the mere effort of speaking had exhausted her. Then Jenny saw tears seep from the corners of her closed lids, slide down her cheeks and soak the pillow. She wondered if these were the first tears Linda had shed. They said she went mad, screaming and shouting and had to be sedated, but had she cried at all, like Jenny had that terrible morning when she’d sobbed in Beattie’s arms at the loss of Anthony and the terrible things she’d witnessed the previous night?
Risking rejection, she held Linda’s hand tight and looking into the child’s eyes she said, ‘I’m so sorry about your mother and little brothers.’
Linda’s eyes opened wider. No one in the hospital had spoken of the tragedy since she’d come out of her drugged sleep. She’d lain in bed and the doctor’s words had vibrated in her head, but the nurses tried to jolly her along and talk to her as if she was two years old. And no one said anything about her family; in fact they carefully avoided the subject, as if it was better to pretend they’d never existed at all.
It mattered much more to her than her crushed legs, but that was all anyone would talk about. They told her of the operations on them and that she’d be as right as rain in time, not that she believed them and the nurses said she was a lucky girl. Linda thought wryly she’d hate to meet an unlucky one, and many many times she regretted returning to the house that evening.
Her Uncle Sid had sent a letter to her from Australia. He said how sorry he was, and how he regretted being so far away, and said once the war was over she should come and live with him and his family and be welcome. Linda supposed it was nice of him, but ‘when the war’s over’, was like saying ‘when the world ends’, or ‘when the clouds fall out of the sky’. Any road she didn’t want to go and live in Australia. She didn’t even want to live in Basingstoke with her Aunt Lily, though she liked the plump motherly woman who’d bought her a small basket of fruit.
She felt completely alone in the world, and that was the hardest thing of all to cope with. If only she had a photo of her mother, of the boys and her father, but all the family snaps had been in the shoebox in the house, and were destroyed along with everything else. Beattie had searched the ruins for her, but there was nothing left. Her sense of desolation was total. ‘I expect I’ll forget what they look like eventually,’ Linda said to Jenny.
‘You won’t. You’ll carry them in your heart always.’
‘Huh,’
