Times of War Collection Read online

  Charlie and I got into real trouble over that. Big Joe would never have found out, not by himself. But, always generous, he went and offered one of the rabbit droppings to Mother. She was so angry with us I thought she’d burst. She put a finger in Big Joe’s mouth, scooped out what was still in there and made him wash it out. Then she made Charlie and me eat one rabbit dropping each so that we’d know what it was like.

  “Horrible, isn’t it?” she said. “Horrible food for horrible children. Don’t you treat Big Joe like that ever again.”

  We felt very ashamed of ourselves — for a while anyway. Ever since then someone has only had to mention rabbits, for Charlie and me to smile at one another and remember. It’s making me smile again now, even just drinking of it. It shouldn’t, but it does.

  In a way our lives at home always revolved around Big Joe. How we thought about people depended largely on how they behaved with our big brother. It was quite simple really: if people didn’t like him or were offhand or treated him as if he was stupid, then we didn’t like them. Most people around us were used to him, but some would look the other way, or worse still, just pretend he wasn’t there. We hated that more than anything. Big Joe never seemed to mind, but we did on his behalf — like the day we blew raspberries at the Colonel.

  No one at home ever spoke well of the Colonel, except Grandma Wolf of course. Whenever she came for her visits she wouldn’t hear a word against him. She and Father would have dreadful rows about him. We grew up thinking of him mostly as just a “silly old fart". But the first time I saw for myself what the Colonel was really like, was because of Big Joe.

  One evening Charlie and Big Joe and I were coming back home up the lane. We’d been fishing for brown trout in the brook. Big Joe had caught three, tickled them to sleep in the shallows and then scooped them out on to the bank before they knew what had happened. He was clever like that. It was almost as if he knew what the fish were thinking. He never liked killing them though, and nor did I. Charlie had to do that.

  Big Joe always said hello, loudly, to everyone. It’s how he was. So when the Colonel rode by that evening, Big Joe called out hello, and proudly held up his trout to show him. The Colonel trotted by as if he hadn’t even seen us. When he’d passed Charlie blew a noisy raspberry after him, and Big Joe did the same because he liked rude noises. But the trouble was that Big Joe was enjoying himself so much blowing raspberries that he didn’t stop. The Colonel reined in his horse and gave us a very nasty look. For a moment I thought he was going to come after us. Luckily he didn’t, but he did crack his whip. “I’ll teach you, you young ruffians!” he roared. “I’ll teach you!”

  I’ve always thought that was the moment the Colonel began to hate us, that from then on he was always determined one way or another to get his own back. We ran for it all the way home. Whenever anyone farts or blows raspberries I always think of that meeting in the lane, of how Big Joe always laughs at rude noises, laughs like he’ll never stop. I think too of the menacing look in the Colonel’s eye and the crack of his whip, and how Big Joe blowing raspberries at him that evening may well have changed our lives for ever.

  It was Big Joe, too, who got me into my first fight. There was a lot of fighting at school, but I was never much good at it and always seemed to end up getting a swollen lip or a bleeding ear. I learned soon enough that if you don’t want to get hurt you keep your head down and you don’t answer back, particularly if the other fellow is bigger. But one day I discovered that sometimes you’ve got to stand up for yourself and fight for what’s right, even when you don’t want to.

  It was at playtime. Big Joe came up to school to see Charlie and me. He just stood and watched us from outside the school gate. He did that often when Charlie and I first went off to school together — I think he was finding it lonely at home without us. I ran over to him. He was breathless, bright-eyed with excitement. He had something to show me. He opened his cupped hands just enough for me to be able to see. There was a slowworm curled up inside. I knew where he’d got it from — the churchyard, his favourite hunting ground. Whenever we went up to put flowers on Father’s grave, Big Joe would go off on his own, hunting for more creatures to add to his collection; that’s when he wasn’t just standing there gazing up at the tower and singing Oranges and Lemons at the top of his voice and watching the swifts screaming around the church tower. Nothing seemed to make him happier than that.

  I knew Big Joe would put his slowworm in with all his other creatures. He kept them in boxes at the back of the woodshed at home — lizards, hedgehogs, all sorts. I stroked his slowworm with my finger, and said it was lovely, which it was. Then he wandered off, walking down the lane humming his Oranges and Lemons as he went, gazing down in wonder at his beloved slowworm.

  I am watching him go when someone taps me hard on my shoulder, hard enough to hurt. It is big Jimmy Parsons. Charlie has often warned me about him, told me to keep out of his way. “Who’s got a loony for a brother?” says Jimmy Parsons, sneering at me.

  I cannot believe what he’s said, not at first. “What did you say?”

  “Your brother’s a loony, off his head, off his rocker, nuts, barmy.”

  I go for him then, fists flailing, screaming at him, but I don’t manage to land a single punch. He hits me full in the face and sends me sprawling. I find myself suddenly sitting on the ground, wiping my bleeding nose and looking at the blood on the back of my hand. Then he puts the boot in, hard. I curl up in a ball like a hedgehog to protect myself, but it doesn’t seem to do me much good. He just goes on kicking me on my back, on my legs, anywhere he can. When he finally stops I wonder why.

  I look up to see Charlie grabbing him round the neck and pulling him to the ground. They’re rolling over and over, punching each other and swearing. The whole school has gathered round to watch now, egging them on. That’s when Mr Munnings comes running out of the school, roaring like a raging bull. He pulls them apart, takes them by their collars and drags them off inside the school. Luckily for me Mr Munnings never even notices me sitting there, bleeding. Charlie gets the cane, and so does Jimmy Parsons — six strokes each. So Charlie saves me twice that day. The rest of us stand there in the school yard in silence, listening to the strokes and counting them. Big Jimmy Parsons gets it first, and he keeps crying out: “Ow, sir! Ow, sir! Ow, sir!” But when it’s Charlie’s turn, all we hear are the whacks, and then the silences in between. I am so proud of him for that. I have the bravest brother in the world.

  Molly comes over and, taking me by the hand, leads me towards the pump. She soaks her handkerchief under it and dabs my nose and my hands and my knee — the blood seems to be everywhere. The water is wonderfully cold and soothing, and her hands are soft. She doesn’t say anything for a while. She’s dabbing me very gently, very carefully so as not to hurt me. Then all of a sudden she says: “I like Big Joe. He’s kind. I like people who are kind.”

  Molly likes Big Joe. Now I know for sure that I will love her till the day I die.

  After a while Charlie came out into the school yard hitching up his trousers and grinning in the sunshine. Everyone was crowding around him.

  “Did it hurt, Charlie?”

  “Was it on the back of the knees, Charlie, or on your bum?”

  Charlie never said a word to them. He just walked right through everyone, and came straight over to me and Molly. “He won’t do it again, Tommo,” he said. “I hit him where it hurts, in the goolies.” He lifted my chin and peered at my nose. “Are you all right, Tommo?”

  “Hurts a bit,” I told him.

  “So does my bum,” said Charlie.

  Molly laughed then, and so did I. So did Charlie, and so did the whole school.

  From that moment on Molly became one of us. It was as if she had suddenly joined our family and become our sister. When Molly came home with us that afternoon Big Joe gave her some flowers he’d picked, and Mother treated her like the daughter she’d never had. After that, Molly came home with us almost every afte
rnoon. She seemed to want to be with us all the time. We didn’t discover the reason for this until a lot later. I remember Mother used to brush Molly’s hair. She loved doing it and we loved watching.

  Mother. I think of her so often. And when I think of her I think of high hedges and deep lanes and our walks down to the river together in the evenings. I think of meadowsweet and honeysuckle and vetch and foxgloves and red campion and dog roses. There wasn’t a wild flower or a butterfly she couldn’t name. I loved the sound of their names when she spoke them: red admiral, peacock, cabbage white, adonis blue. It’s her voice I’m hearing in my head now. I don’t know why, but I can hear her better than I can picture her. I suppose it was because of Big Joe that she was always talking, always explaining the world about us. She was his guide, his interpreter, his teacher.

  They wouldn’t have Big Joe at school. Mr Munnings said he was backward. He wasn’t backward at all. He was different, “special” Mother used to call him, but he was not backward. He needed help, that’s all, and Mother was his help. It was as if Big Joe was blind in some way. He could see perfectly well, but very often he didn’t seem to understand what he was seeing. And he wanted to understand so badly. So Mother would be forever telling him how and why things were as they were. And she would sing to him often, too, because it always made him happy and soothed him whenever he had one of his turns and became anxious or troubled. She’d sing to Charlie and me as well, more out of habit, I think. But we loved it, loved the sound of her voice. Her voice was the music of our childhood.

  After Father died the music stopped. There was a stillness and a quietness in Mother now, and a sadness about the house. I had my terrible secret, a secret I could scarcely ever put out of my mind. So in my guilt I kept more and more to myself. Even Big Joe hardly ever laughed. At meals the kitchen seemed especially empty without Father, without his bulk and his voice filling the room. His dirty work coat didn’t hang in the porch any more, and the smell of his pipe lingered only faintly now. He was gone and we were all quietly mourning him in our way.

  Mother still talked to Big Joe, but not as much as before. She had to talk to him, because she was the only one who truly understood the meaning of all the grunts and squawks Big Joe used for language. Charlie and I understood some of it, some of the time, but she seemed to understand all he wanted to say, sometimes even before he said it. There was a shadow hanging over her, Charlie and I could see that, and not only the shadow of Father’s death. We were sure there was something else she wouldn’t talk about, something she was hiding from us. We found out what it was only too soon.

  We were back home after school having our tea — Molly was there too — when there was a knock on the door. Mother seemed at once to know who it was. She took time to gather herself, smoothing down her apron and arranging her hair before she opened the door. It was the Colonel. “I wanted a word, Mrs Peaceful,” he said. “I think you know what I’ve come for.”

  Mother told us to finish our tea, closed the door and went out into the garden with him. Charlie and I left Molly and Big Joe at the table and dashed out of the back door. We hurdled the vegetables, ran along the hedge, crouched down behind the woodshed and listened. We were close enough to hear every word that was said.

  “It may seem a little indelicate to broach the subject so soon after your late husband’s sad and untimely death,” the Colonel was saying. He wasn’t looking at Mother as he spoke, but down at his top hat which he was smoothing with his sleeve. “But it’s a question of the cottage. Strictly speaking, of course, Mrs Peaceful, you have no right to live here any more. You know well enough I think that this is a tied cottage, tied to your late husband’s job on the estate. Now of course with him gone …”

  “I know what you’re saying. Colonel,” Mother said. “You want us out.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t put it quite like that. It’s not that I want you out, Mrs Peaceful, not if we can come to some other arrangement.”

  “Arrangement? What arrangement?” Mother asked.

  “Well,” the Colonel went on, “as it happens there’s a position up at the house that might suit you. My wife’s lady’s maid has just given notice. As you know my wife is not a well woman. These days she spends most of her life in a wheelchair. She needs constant care and attention seven days a week.”

  “But I have my children,” Mother protested. “Who would look after my children?”

  It was a while before the Colonel spoke. “The two boys are old enough now to fend for themselves, I should have thought. And as for the other one, there is the lunatic asylum in Exeter. I‘m sure I could see to it that a place be found for—”

  Mother interrupted, her fury only barely suppressed, her voice cold but still calm. “I could never do that, Colonel. Never. But if I want to keep a roof over our heads, then I have to find some way I can come to work for you as your wife’s maid. That is what you’re telling me, isn’t it.”

  “I‘d say you understand the position perfectly, Mrs Peaceful. I couldn’t have put it better myself. I shall need your agreement within the week. Good day Mrs Peaceful. And once again my condolences.”

  We watched him go, leaving Mother standing there. I had never in my life seen her cry before, but she cried now. She fell on her knees in the long grass holding her face in her hands. That was when Big Joe and Molly came out of the cottage. When Big Joe saw Mother he ran and knelt down beside her, hugging and rocking her gently in his arms, singing Oranges and Lemons until she began to smile through her tears and join in. Then we were all singing together, and loudly in our defiance so that the Colonel could not help but hear us.

  Later, after Molly had gone home, Charlie and I sat in silence in the orchard. I almost told him my secret then. I wanted to so badly. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I thought he might never speak to me again if I did. The moment passed. “I hate that man,” said Charlie under his breath. “I’ll do him, Tommo. One day I’ll really do him.”

  Of course Mother had no choice. She had to take the job, and we only had one relative to turn to for help, Grandma Wolf. She moved in the next week to look after us. She wasn’t our grandmother at all, not really — both our grandmothers were dead. She was Mother’s aunt, but always insisted we called her “Grandma” because she thought Great Aunt made her sound old and crotchety, which she always was. We hadn’t liked her before she moved in — as much on account of her moustache as anything else — and we liked her even less now that she had. We all knew her story; how she’d worked up at the Big House for the Colonel for years as housekeeper, and how, for some reason, the Colonel’s wife couldn’t stand her. They’d had a big falling out, and in the end she’d had to leave and go to live in the village. That was why she was free to come and look after us.

  But between ourselves Charlie and I had never called her either Great Aunt or Grandma. We had our own name for her. When we were younger Mother had often read us Little Red Riding Hood. There was a picture in it Charlie and I knew well, of the wolf in bed pretending to be Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma. She had a black bonnet on her head, like our “Grandma” always used to wear, and she had big teeth with gaps in between, just like our “Grandma” too. So ever since I could remember we had called her “Grandma Wolf”— never to her face, of course. Mother said it wasn’t respectful, but secretly I think she always quite liked it.

  Soon it wasn’t only because of the book that we thought of her as Grandma Wolf. She very quickly showed us who was in charge now that Mother was not there. Everything had to be just so: hands washed, hair done, no talking with your mouth full, no leaving anything on your plate. Waste not, want not, she’d say. That wasn’t so bad. We got used to it. But what we could not forgive was that she was nasty to Big Joe. She talked to him, and about him, as if he were stupid or mad. She’d treat him as if he were a baby. She was forever wiping his mouth for him, or telling him not to sing at the table. When Molly protested once, she smacked her and sent her home. She smacked Big Joe too, wh
enever he didn’t do what she said, which was often. He would start to rock then and talk to himself, which is what he always did whenever he was upset. But new Mother wasn’t there to sing to him, to calm him. Molly talked to him, and we tried too, but it was not the same.

  From the day Grandma Wolf moved in, our whole world changed. Mother would go to work up at the Big House at dawn, before we went off to school, and she still wouldn’t be back when we got home for our tea. Instead Grandma Wolf would be there, at the door of what seemed to us now to be her lair. And Big Joe, who she wouldn’t allow to go off on his wanders as he’d always loved to do, would come rushing up to us as if he hadn’t seen us in weeks. He’d do the same to Mother when she came home, but she was often so exhausted she could hardly talk to him. She could see what was going on but was powerless to do anything about it. It seemed to all of us as if we were losing her, as if she was being replaced and pushed aside.

  It was Grandma Wolf who did all the talking now, even telling Mother what to do in her own house. She was forever saying how Mother hadn’t brought us up properly, that our manners were terrible, that we didn’t know right from wrong — and that Mother had married beneath her. “I told her then and I’ve told her since,” she ranted on, “she could have done far better for herself. But did she listen? Oh no. She had to marry the first man to turn her head, and him nothing but a forester. She was meant for better things, a better class of person. We were shopkeepers — we ran a proper shop, I can tell you — made a tidy profit, too. In a big way of business, I’ll have you know. But oh no, she wouldn’t have it. Broke your grandfather’s heart, she did. And now look what she’s come to: a lady’s maid, at her age. Trouble. Your mother’s always been nothing but trouble from the day she was born.”