Not that she would have recognised her because Connie never knew her mother, having been abandoned in the porch of a Stepney church at the age of three months. Being brought up in the orphanage wasn’t unpleasant, but its rigid discipline and work ethic made Connie yearn to break the rules and express herself. Mr and Mrs Palmer, who ran the place for the Borough of Tower Hamlets, never beat any of the children. Instead extra chores were given by way of punishment. It wasn’t a bad place, but with thirty-two children in one large house, Connie missed the warmth of a family’s love. Now she was the sole focus of Henry’s attention and didn’t have to compete with anyone.
“Good sausages,” Henry commented, finishing his dinner.
Connie couldn’t help but laugh. The relief of something trivial and light after a day of turmoil. She told him that Farmer Finch had given them to her. In fact, they got most of their meat and eggs from the farm, with Freddie Finch ensuring that all his girls were well-fed and watered, ‘top ups’ to their government-approved rations.
“I wonder if we should be making such liberal use of the farm, though,” Henry finished.
Connie would have suspected that Henry’s discussion about the morality of rationing with the three old witches might have prompted this, but the truth was she had heard rumbles of this argument before. Should they be given special treatment in the form of extra food when the majority of people adhered to strict rationing? Henry was a fair-minded man who believed in equal treatment during times of war and this preferential treatment clearly made him feel uncomfortable. Especially when some of his sermons were rallying cries to abandon the black market and make do with what you were given.
“Perk of working on a farm, innit?” Connie said, eager to close the conversation down. She was too tired to have this debate tonight. Too tired for any more friction. The last thing she wanted was to be talking about sausages after what she’d been through.
“I know, but-” Henry squirmed slightly. “And don’t think I’m not grateful, but I just think that any extra we get, we should perhaps get by our own means.”
Connie asked what he meant by that. “What, hunt for sausages ourselves? You do know they don’t roam around like that in the wild.”
Henry laughed, despite himself.
“I just meant that if we, say, caught a rabbit ourselves then it’s an extra bounty from the Lord. I wouldn’t feel guilty about that.”
“I ain’t got time to catch any rabbits, what with digging ditches all day,” Connie said, clearing the plates. “And you wouldn’t have the first idea what to do.”
“You don’t think I could catch one?” Henry asked.
Connie regretted saying it. It had slipped out before she could stop it. The perils of having an easy mouth and a tired brain. And now, he was glaring at her again. Well done, Connie. First she’d shown him up in the community and now she was emasculating him. Just when things had quietened down again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“You jolly well did. But I could indeed.”
Henry simmered. He could catch a rabbit! He knew he could. Couldn’t he? He wondered if Connie really thought he was clueless in the ways of hunting and fishing. Didn’t she think he could do proper manly pursuits? He stared with sudden loathing at his neatly ironed cuffs and the genteel surroundings of doilies and oil paintings. And Henry Jameson made a silent vow to himself. He’d prove that Connie was wrong. He’d show her.
Margaret Sawyer had received an even rockier homecoming. Instead of showing relief that Vera and Margaret were all right after their ordeal, Michael Sawyer vented fury and frustration at how stupid they had been to take the train. Vera usually got a bus from Brinford to near Jessop’s Cottage. How could they put themselves at risk by getting on a train packed with servicemen? Margaret had often seen Michael angry, but this tirade was a new benchmark in furious indignation. Even Vera had been taken aback. Margaret assumed that Michael didn’t know how to show he cared, so he shouted to let out his feelings. She wished he didn’t shout all the time.
Now, after Vera had gone for a lie-down, Margaret was the sole focus for his still considerable anger.
She was being scolded by him for taking the cheese from the woman at the train crash. Michael was grey-haired and tall, with gaunt features and a stick-like appearance. A bitter and shrill man, Michael Sawyer liked things done a certain way. His dinner had to be ready at a certain time every day. Bath days would be Tuesday and Friday. Margaret knew that something was wrong with him, some illness of the mind, although she didn’t know what. It meant that he rarely strayed far from the house, making his wife responsible for running errands and going to the town. He also seemed very suspicious of outsiders, always talking of people being ‘out to get him’. Margaret knew the word ‘recluse’ and knew that that was what Michael Sawyer was, but she didn’t know the full extent of his mental problems. Michael would spend his days in his shed or working their plot of land for vegetables. He didn’t seem to have any friends or outside interests.
As he raged, Margaret knew from bitter experience that it was quicker and easier not to argue; just let him pour it all out and burn himself out.
His face was close to Margaret’s and she could smell his bad breath as he spat his anger at her. He’d stopped talking about taking cheese from a stranger and was focusing his anger on the brazen woman who had given it to her. According to the reports from his wife, Connie was some sort of trollop.
“You don’t take extra. You don’t know where it came from. Your mother said she had lipstick like a tart.”
“She was just being nice,” Margaret stammered.
“Your mother said she poked her nose in!”
“She saved our lives.”
“Your mother would have looked after you!”
Margaret couldn’t take any more. She desperately wanted to snap and shout: ‘Stop calling her my mother. She’s not my mother and you’re not my father!’ But she knew she’d regret such a spectacular outburst and it would just prolong the punishment that was inevitably coming. Far better to just get it over with, go through the motions.
Let him burn himself out.
“Go to the place!” he fumed, brandishing his hand as if he was about to strike her. Margaret knew that it wasn’t the right time to make a stand, so she obediently scurried to the ‘place’. This was what they called the cupboard under the stairs. And it was somewhere where Margaret spent a lot of time. She’d be locked in there, in the dark, to ‘think about what she’d done’ sometimes for hours at a time. She’d eaten meals in the cupboard, tried to read a book by candle-light in there. The screws on the woodwork of the door had become as familiar as the things in her bedroom.
Margaret went into the cupboard. Michael closed the door behind her and he slipped the bolt across. “Stay there and think about it,” he thundered through the door as he stomped away back to the dining table to finish his meal.
Margaret sat in the dark, cramped and lonely. She stared at the door, the missing section of skirting board on the floor, the collection of coats hanging from the hooks. It was usually a time of resigned sadness and usually it would overwhelm Margaret Sawyer with tears. But this time she didn’t cry.
Because this time she was thinking about Connie Carter.
