Above Us the Sky Read online

  ‘Nothing to do with us, miss. Bloody dog was in here, with ’im.’ He jerked his head towards Jake. ‘That’s right, ain’t it, lads?’

  Ernie and Jonny nodded, smirking, and all three were digging their hands into their pockets. Magically, the money had disappeared.

  ‘Stand up, and turn out your pockets,’ Phyllie insisted, gripping the doorway again as the train switched points and took a long curved bend. The pale embankment grass was charred. Smuts and sparks threatened to create new fires. Behind the embankment were silver birches, with fluttering leaves.

  Ron slouched to his feet, loosening the rope from his ankle, discarding it, kicking the dog to one side. The dog yelped; the coins in Ron’s pockets clinked.

  Jake grabbed the rope, pulling the dog away from Ron. ‘I didn’t bring the dog in, miss. Honest.’

  Melanie slipped from her seat, her white ankle socks still pristine, her face red and sweaty. ‘No, he didn’t, miss. It was Mr Stevens sent us in ’ere, cos you said I was to stay near Jake. The dog was here, hidden behind them boys. Mr Stevens didn’t see the dog. Mr Stevens said it would be good for Ron to get to know Jake better, but I don’t think Ron wants to, so we’ve just been quiet and looked out of the window, like the others.’

  Some of the other children in the carriage nodded and Phyllie smiled. ‘Sit down, Melanie. I will—’

  ‘But the seat’s prickly, miss. I don’t want to sit any more, and I want to do a wee, but he said we was to sit tight.’ She pointed to Ron.

  Phyllie kept her eyes on Melanie, but she could see Ron nudging his friends and edging towards the door she was blocking. What did he intend to do, ram her? ‘Melanie, the train is swaying about a bit so it will be safer to do as I say until I sort this out and then we will find the toilet and somewhere else for you and Jake to sit. Hold out your hands, boys.’

  Ron, Ernie and Jonny removed their hands from their pockets, holding them out for her inspection. ‘Ain’t got nothing, miss,’ Jonny said. Ernie nodded. Ron just glared.

  She patted their shorts, and felt the clutter of coins. ‘That’s not nothing. Show me.’

  They produced a medley of pennies and Ron a crumpled ten-bob note as well as a franc, a florin and two half-crowns.

  She looked at them, and at the cowering dog, which was about the size of a spaniel, shaggy and nervous.

  ‘So, that poor tired soldier paid you to take the dog, boys? What would your mothers say?’

  As she finished speaking she heard the sound of water, a stench of urine and at the same time Ron yelled, ‘The bugger’s peed on me leg.’

  Indeed, the dog was standing, his leg cocked, a steaming puddle forming at Ron’s feet. Phyllie’s fondness for the dog knew no bounds. Melanie laughed. Ron cursed and punched the dog, who yelped and fell.

  Jake barged him then and Phyllie shouted, ‘No.’

  Ron dominoed into Ernie and Jonny, and they crashed to the floor. Jake, Melanie and the dog were in a bunch by the external door. The other children had lifted their legs clear of the spreading puddle. Phyllie sidestepped the urine, as the three boys scrambled to their feet. She reached Jake and said, ‘Take Melanie and the dog to my compartment, the third one down, the one with Marjorie in it. Stay in there and keep that animal under control. I’ll take you to the toilet soon, Melanie, but if you can’t wait, ask a WVS lady. You other children, off you go, too. There are spaces in the compartments between here and mine. Joseph, you bring me back the newspaper in my basket.’

  She pressed herself against the seats as the children passed her, tiptoeing around the urine. The money was all over the floor, the ten-shilling note soaked through. Ron, Ernie and Jonny stared at their loot. Joseph returned with the newspaper, and hurried back to find a spare seat.

  Phyllie divided the newspaper, handing out sheets to the three boys, but keeping one for herself. ‘First you will rescue the money and place it here.’ She spread her sheet of newspaper on a seat. ‘You will use the rest to sort that out.’ She pointed at the puddle.

  Ron started to object but she wagged her finger at him. ‘One more word and you’ll be cleaning it on your own.’

  When the floor was almost respectable, she marched them along to the toilet, the boys holding the newspaper at arm’s length, dripping. It went in the bin. Ron washed his sock, shoe and his leg. The money was also washed, and finally their hands. They were marched back to the same compartment, leaving the note and coins in Phyllie’s care. She opened the window a notch. They sat, holding their hands out for their money. Phyllie shook her head. ‘Oh no. This goes to whoever takes on the poor wretched animal, one that you will have nothing more to do with.’

  ‘I’m telling ya, the Yid brought the dog on, didn’t ’e lads? You know how they’ll do anything for money. Paid he was. Gave it to us to keep safe.’

  The other boys said nothing, just looked at their feet. Phyllie shook her head at Ron. ‘Be quiet. It’s not nice, true or clever, it’s just something you’ve heard and are copying.’ She stopped, taking a deep breath, striving for calm and somehow finding it. ‘Now, boys, this is a bad start, but it can improve. I won’t tell Mr Stevens, who as you know all too well will resort to the strap. But if I have more of your nonsense it will go further. Do you understand?’

  She waited. No one said a word, or looked at her. Ron kicked out at an imaginary something, his arms crossed, his chin on his chest, glowering. She waited. At last they nodded, and said, ‘Yes, miss.’

  ‘You’ll stay in here except for toilet use. I’ll come along frequently, and if not me, then one of the WVS. You won’t know when the visits will occur. This door remains open so I can hear any shenanigans.’

  As she left she heard Ron mutter, ‘I’ll get the Yid. I’ll get him, you hear me.’

  She hesitated. Had she done more harm than good?

  ‘Oh, put a sock in it,’ Ernie grunted. ‘Fed up with the whole thing, we are, ain’t we, Jonny? Stinks of bloody pee in here and no money in me pocket for all the hassle of it and it weren’t the Yid. And if miss tells me mum, I’m for it.’

  She half smiled to herself, calling into the next compartment, explaining to the curious children who had witnessed the comings and goings, that yes, there had been a bit of a problem, but it was sorted now. On she went, until she reached the guard’s van. The guard was unscrewing a flask. ‘Tea, miss?’ he asked, gesturing to a canvas stool next to his own. She accepted. He smiled. ‘No sugar, mind.’

  ‘I’m lucky; I can’t stand it in tea.’ Phyllie sat, rocking with the train, sipping the tea, and it was better than brandy.

  ‘You can come again then, miss.’ His laugh was long, and he removed his cap. His windows were wide open and the draught was glorious. Phyllie relaxed at last. He said, ‘Bit of a hullabaloo going on in the corridor. Everything tickety-boo?’

  Phyllie nodded. The children’s cases had been piled to the ceiling but seemed as solid as a wall. She drained her tea to the dregs, and then explained the whole situation, finally asking for a mop. He insisted he would sort it, and the toerags too, if he heard any more bloody nonsense from them. He’d make it his business to be passing frequently.

  ‘You’re very kind,’ Phyllie said, rising, returning her enamel mug.

  He shook his head. ‘Poor little buggers, the lot of them. Can’t be much fun leaving everything you know, and your mum and dad. Even those toerags, you know, are probably as miserable as sin and just kicking off.’

  She walked back along the corridor, knowing he probably spoke the truth. How sad Ron must feel, she guessed, because his mother had not come. She balanced as the train rattled and swayed. The silver birch had given way to open countryside baking beneath a sky pale with heat. Scythed hay lay in rows. In one field men were pitchforking hay onto a cart already piled high. One load fell short and tumbled to the ground, but they were past before she knew what happened. Yes, poor little devils, the lot of them.

  She lingered, leaning on the rail, studying her reflection. She touched her l
ips, remembering the reassurance of Sammy’s presence, the look in his eyes, the feeling in her heart. She felt such a longing, a longing that was turning minute by minute into a great loneliness. She remembered his grin as he perched on one knee, heard his whisper, ‘Me knee’s killing me.’ If he had meant it, what would she have said? She felt herself relax. If he had meant it, somehow her world would have opened out into something different, something she had never even imagined. If he’d meant it, that was, but he hadn’t, or not to begin with, but his eyes had said …

  ‘Miss, miss?’ It was Melanie. ‘I need to do a wee. I told you.’

  When Melanie came out of the toilet she held her dripping knickers in one hand. ‘I’m sorry, miss. I was too late.’

  It was one of those days. Again the sink was deployed for washing before Phyllie hurried along to the guard’s van. He looked from the pile of cases to her. ‘I’ve no idea which is hers,’ he said.

  She took Melanie’s hand and they returned to their compartment, where she said, ‘I’ll be back to deal with the question of the dog soon, Jake.’

  ‘Francois,’ Jake said.

  She rooted around in her bag. ‘Who is?’

  ‘Le chien,’ he said. The smaller children were looking from one to the other, giggling.

  Jake looked at them and nodded. They said in unison, ‘Le chien est magnifique.’

  ‘I decided that he hasn’t got a family so he should have a name to feel less alone,’ Jake explained.

  She laughed and said, ‘My word, I think you’ll have to wear a hat that says ‘‘teacher’’ soon, my lad. Now, everyone, don’t get too attached. We’ll have to find someone to take care of Francois. You might be lucky, Jake, and go to the same home. We’ll have to wait and see.’ She watched the boy’s expression change from despair to relief.

  ‘Can I say he’s mine, for now, miss?’

  ‘Why not? I’m going to go and find Dan. You must be missing him?’ The other children were stroking Francois now. He sank to the floor, his tongue lolling. There was a fine layer of sand on the compartment floor. Dunkirk. Poor everyone who had been there. She pulled the dog’s ears gently. ‘You’re safe, lad,’ she whispered. ‘For now at least.’

  She found a cotton headscarf in her bag, and a safety pin. She also tucked the tallit beneath the clipboard, her notebook and the kitchen sink, sneaking a look at Jake, who was holding the rope, and counting the strokes that Francois received. ‘Not too many, now, Sarah, just three for everyone; I think he has fleas.’

  Oh joy, she thought. Yet again she took Melanie by the hand, and trudged out of the compartment, stopping at the next and asking the WVS woman, who introduced herself as Shirley, to swap half the seven-year-olds in Jake’s compartment for some of her eleven-year-olds, including Dan, Jake’s best friend.

  Phyllie peered into Ron’s compartment as she passed. The smell was unable to compete with fresh air from the window. She spoke to the WVS lady in the next-but-one compartment, and passed the guard, who muttered, ‘On patrol, I am, miss. Not having that sort of Nazi nonsense, I’m not. He’s been to the lav, but that’s all.’

  She touched his arm. ‘You can stand down now. We have the WVS babysitting.’

  He laughed. ‘Even better, lass. Wouldn’t like to cross them on a dark night, or in the daylight, come to that.’

  In the toilet she and Melanie giggled together about wearing a nappy, and as she finally led Melanie back to the compartment, she checked her watch. A mere hour had passed. Just let her mother tell her she was running away right now and she’d have a proper answer ready. Indeed she would.

  Jake and Dan sat with Francois at their feet. The others were talking quietly, and Phyllie had strolled along the corridor again. Jake had seen circles under her arms, now she’d taken off her jacket. She was sweating but didn’t smell. His dad did, when he came back from the submarine. It was a smell of diesel and sweat and lots of other things. His dad said they couldn’t wash on the submarine, but that he always had a bath before he came home.

  He was glad Sammy was going to marry Phyllie. His mother would be pleased. He stopped. He didn’t like to think of her. He’d heard them talking before she went. His dad had said, in Polish, ‘No, stay with us, we’re happy and safe here. You should think of our family, our boy.’

  His mother had cried as she said, ‘But they’re my parents. Have you forgotten that in Berlin, they cut off my cousin’s beard before the war, making him wipe the pavement with it? These Nazis will not stop. They and the communists will take Poland. Don’t think for a minute I don’t love you, and Jakub. You are my world.’ She said she would be back, so she would be. But it was still best not to think about it.

  Dan said, ‘I’m hungry.’

  Jake replied. ‘I’ve got Marmite sandwiches, what about you?’

  Dan had Marmite and tomato. They opened their Oxo tins, undid the greaseproof paper and swapped their sandwiches, half and half. Francois sat up, sniffing the air.

  ‘You can have one, Francois,’ Jake said. ‘It’s very salty but it’ll be all right if I pour some water from my flask into the tin so you can have a slurp.’

  He eyed Phyllie’s basket, knowing the tallit was there. Melanie looked at him. ‘I’ve got egg in my sandwiches; my auntie queued,’ she said. ‘Francois can have one, instead of Marmite.’

  Jake tapped the lid of his Oxo tin. ‘Thank you, I think Francois would like that. So you can have two of my Marmite to make up for it.’

  Melanie shook her head. ‘You’re older than me, with longer legs, and my dad said before he went to the war that legs need to get filled up to the top.’

  Phyllie came back and sat next to Dan, taking out a small tin from her basket and passing wet flannels around all the children. ‘When we’ve all wiped our hands, we can begin, and what’s all this about legs?’

  After they’d explained Phyllie said, ‘Tell you what, let’s give Francois two of my sandwiches, and you children keep yours. Then we can give him water in one of the empty tins.’ So that’s what they did.

  They had to let Francois out when they came to a station at which they stopped. He did a number two along the embankment, as well as a long number one. Leaning from the window to make sure Phyllie brought him back onto the train, Jake heard Phyllie say to one of the WVS ladies that if she had to deal with anyone else’s bottom today, she’d scream.

  He told Dan and they laughed, but then, when the train started moving again, and the wheels clattered, Jake’s eyes closed. He dreamed of his dad, in his submarine, and when he woke, as the train’s brakes screeched to a stop in a station hours later, he thought of the poster of the seaman in the water. He hoped that no one talked and sank his dad and Sammy.

  Chapter Three

  PHYLLIE COUNTED UP her children yet again on the platform of Little Mitherton in Dorset, or so the billeting officer, pristine in her WVS uniform, had called it in a posh voice as she welcomed them. Shirley, the WVS helper, murmured to Phyllie, ‘All the signposts have just been removed just in case the Nazis arrive. Disturbing, one feels.’ With that, she clambered back on the train, wishing Phyllie well.

  Phyllie ticked the last name, tucked away her clipboard, picked up her case, and waited for Mr Stevens, with his crocodile of children and their suitcases, to leave first. It was seven o’clock in the evening and still daylight. Mr Stevens said as he passed her, ‘I would pay a great deal for a gin, wouldn’t you, Miss Saunders?’ He did not wait for her reply, but marched on briskly, calling, ‘Left, right, like soldiers, please, but without the language.’

  Phyllie was so surprised that she laughed aloud. ‘Come along then, children,’ she called to her charges, ‘I know you’re tired but the lady said we’d have sandwiches, cake and barley water at the village hall.’

  They followed in the footsteps of the billeting officer as she led them out through the exit and onto the narrow lane that led to the village. The children wore their mackintoshes rather than carry them. Melanie walked at Phyllie’s side
, and Jake the other, Francois at his heels. The smell of urine was high. She’d have to wash Melanie again and perhaps her dress. Had some splashed on that when she had her accident? What she didn’t want was for the child to be the last to be chosen because of it. She’d heard that that sort of thing had happened during the September 1939 evacuation.

  They passed hay fields in which men still worked. Somewhere sheep were bleating and the children hesitated, scuffling their feet, dropping their cases, looking back at her. Jonny shouted, ‘What’s that noise, miss?’

  She explained.

  Ron started to yell, ‘We need mint—’

  Ernie elbowed him. ‘Put a sock in it.’

  As the clouds gathered and the light faded Francois barked as bats flew across the track and the children screamed.

  Ron sniggered, ‘It’s all right; they’re after the Yid.’

  ‘Silence,’ roared Mr Stevens from the head of the column. He stopped and turned to face the children. ‘Any more of that and you’ll be up here with me, Ronald Cummins, so no one needs to think they will copy such nonsensical rubbish.’ He marched off again.

  ‘Come along, we need to keep up with Mr Stevens,’ Phyllie insisted. They continued, their gas masks banging against their sides. Melanie was amongst the many who dragged their cases in the dust, for that’s what the lane was, an earthen track. Silently, Jake took Melanie’s case from her, managing Francois’ lead and his own case, and Phyllie gave her a piggy-back. Marjorie was crying, and now Dan took her case, while Phyllie carried Marjorie, on her hip, feeling like a camel and as though she would stumble full length at any moment. All along the crocodile the strong were helping the weak and she straightened her back, touched by the goodness of them all.

  At that moment she heard a man’s voice booming, ‘Stand to the side, for pity’s sake, and let m’cart through.’ It was only then that she heard horses’ hooves, and the grinding of wheels coming up behind them. At the head of the column, Mr Stevens swung round, the billeting officer too. The cart came alongside Phyllie, and the billeting officer barked, gesturing towards the verge, ‘Yes, yes, into the side, everyone. Come along now. We don’t want to lose any of you under the wheels. Mind the nettles. About time too, Joe Bartlett.’