The Roads They Travelled

By Susan Day

A moving saga about the lives of four young women who live through the precariousness of the Second World War, telling how the events that unfold in the following fifty years shape them and their children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Leaping Boy Publications
• Release date: Feb 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9780993594779

Susan Day

Susan is an author, canine behaviourist, and a storyteller. She lives with her family and dogs, in particular, Rocky the Border collie and Stella, the blind dog. She spends her time blogging, writing and illustrating; training and counselling dogs and being bossed around by the family cat, Speed Bump Charlie and his sidekick, Furball (see Dogs in Space). Susan travelled around the world twice before she was seven years old. It seemed only fitting that the wonderful events she experienced and the places she visited on these journeys be recorded for history. Thus, her story telling skills began. Firstly, to Rupert Bear, her lifelong companion, and then to a host of imaginary friends and finally to her pet dog once the family finally set down roots in Australia. Susan is passionate about children's literature and wants to inspire children to be better people and encourage them to follow their dreams. She runs workshops for children teaching them how to form the wonders of their imaginations into stories. Susan lives in a small country town where there are more kangaroos than people. She shares her country property with four dogs, three cats, three rescue guinea pigs and a very large fish and her patient husband. More about her adventures are reflected in Clarence the Snake from Dunolly.

Book preview

Part 1

CHAPTER ONE

IN WHICH MILES ARE COVERED AND STORIES EXCHANGED

Here’s Sadie Singleton wheeling her bike out of the alley and into the street. Squinting into the deep shadow on the other side she can see someone – a girl and a bike. Good, she thinks, Kath’s out already, no hanging around. But as her eyes adjust to the shadow it’s an unknown girl she sees, and she is looking at the door as if unsure whether she’s at the right house. They both stand, not looking at each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. Then Sadie – it is her street after all – says, ‘Are you looking for Ginny?’

The girl shakes her head. ‘Kath?’ As if not quite sure of the name.

‘Oh Kath,’ says Sadie. ‘Have you knocked?’

The girl nods, her hair falls in her face and she tucks it back behind her ears.

‘I’ll knock,’ says Sadie, and just then Kath opens the door, with her hair still wrapped up in a scarf.

‘Hello Nell,’ she says, looking over Sadie’s shoulder. ‘Won’t be long. Looking for hairclips. Wait here.’

The girl moves out of the shade and sits down on the kerb. Sadie makes a face, nose twitching, lips thin. Now Kath’s sister Ginny appears in the open doorway. ‘Still here? I won’t be long.’

‘Is she coming?’ says Sadie. Nell – still as a dog in the sunshine – barely shrugs as Kath reappears, apparently ready.

‘Is she coming?’ says Sadie again.

‘I can’t help it,’ says Kath. Sadie watches her big face crumple up because she can’t please everyone.

‘Why don’t we go?’ says Sadie. ‘She can catch us up if she wants to.’

Kath cheers up. ‘I’ll tell her.’

‘Don’t tell her,’ shouts Sadie to her back. ‘Let’s just go.’

‘It will be all right,’ says Nell. Sadie makes the face again. It was supposed to be just her and Kath today, but first this Nell has been brought in, and now Ginny, and Kath hasn’t even hinted at, Do you mind? or, If it’s all right with you. Whose outing is it? Sadie would like to say.

Nell puts her shoes back on and sits on the saddle of her bike, ready to go. Her long brown legs touch the ground easily. Sadie is smaller than Nell but her bike is bigger and she stands next to it, irritably spinning the pedal. But hers is a good bike with all its spokes and two working brakes, even if her feet don’t touch the ground. Kath’s bike, waiting for her propped up against the wall, somehow could not be anyone else’s, such a heavy black unmanoevrable machine it is. You need hands as strong as Kath’s to work the brakes on this one.

Ginny has still not caught them up when Marcie MacNee steps off the kerb in front of Nell.

‘Where you going?’

Nell shrugs. ‘Just for a ride.’

‘I’ll come,’ says Marcie. ‘Just let me go for my bike.’

‘If she’s coming,’ says Sadie to Kath, ‘then I’m not.’

‘What’s up?’ says Kath.

‘She’s a big bully. I should know. She is. I was at school with her.’

‘We’re not children now,’ says Nell. ‘We won’t let her do anything.’

Sadie looks at Kath but Kath says nothing. She stands looking back along the road as if she’s worrying about Ginny, but Sadie knows she is trying to work out whose side to be on. Kath likes there to be a lot of people, every one of them her friend.

‘If she’s coming,’ says Nell, ‘she’ll need some sandwiches. I’ll go and tell her.’ She props her bike up and ambles down the alley, just as Ginny arrives.

‘What are we waiting for?’

‘Nell and Marcie MacNee.’

‘I’m going home,’ says Sadie.

‘We can’t go without you,’ says Kath. ‘You’re the one what knows where we’re going.’

‘I’ll go next week,’ says Sadie, feeling the lump of disappointment thicken in her throat.

‘She’s scared of this girl Marcie,’ explains Kath.

‘If she’s coming I’m going home,’ says Sadie again.

‘Can I borrow your bike then?’ says Ginny. The one she has is a bit like Kath’s, a man’s, big and black and heavy. ‘I’ll look after it, and I’ll give you something.’

‘She won’t,’ says Kath. ‘She says things like that.’

‘Can I though?’

‘You might as well,’ says Sadie sulkily. No one has asked her to stay, she might as well go home. She and Ginny swap bikes, move the contents of the baskets and Sadie is ready to go home, waiting only for some sign of friendship from Kath, when Nell reappears, with Marcie and a bike. Following them a boy of about twelve who is clearly Marcie’s brother, same red-brown face, same black lank hair falling in his eyes. He doesn’t speak but grabs the handlebars and starts to wrestle the bike from his sister. Marcie holds on. The others – even Sadie – look on, not joining in. The siblings kick each other, unable to use their hands, then Marcie leans forward and bites his hand. Now he does make a noise – a sort of roar – and punches her with the injured hand, sobbing. Then a stout woman appears with a coal shovel.

‘Let it go you little cow. It’s his bike, not yourn.’ She goes to whack Marcie’s backside with the shovel but the girl steps off the bike.

‘Take it then, I don’t want it.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ says Nell to Marcie as they prepare to ride off.

After a small hesitation, Sadie goes with them, on Ginny’s bike. ‘I’ll have my bike back,’ she calls to her, but she is being left behind and Ginny in a rare burst of energy is leading the girls up Nags Head Road towards the High Street. Marcie runs along beside them for a while but has to stop and stands on the kerb watching them go.

‘Her brother’s a dumbie,’ says Sadie when she comes alongside Kath.

‘Was that their mum?’

‘No, one of their aunties. They’re diddikois you know.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I don’t know, that’s what everyone calls them.’

Two boys, sleeves rolled up to their elbows, wave to them from the pavement and Kath stops.

‘Hello Eric.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re escaping from the Germans,’ says Kath.

‘Go on.’

‘No, not really. We’re going to the country.’

‘To stay?’

‘Don’t talk barmy. We’ve got to go to work tomorrow.’

‘Whose idea was this then?’ People said Eric was worse than a girl for wanting to know everyone’s business.

Kath indicates Sadie.

‘I know her,’ says Eric.

‘She works with me,’ says Kath, making it sound as if she’s some sort of boss, thinks Sadie, which she isn’t. ‘Her brother’s been evacuated. We’re going to see him.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Bumbles Green,’ says Sadie. She likes the way it sounds, countrified, like something out of a Rupert Bear cartoon.

Eric’s friend, leaning against a lamppost, winks at Nell and she looks away.

‘Let’s go,’ she says, but Eric hasn’t finished.

‘I’ve seen you before. Don’t you work in the bread shop?’ Nell nods. ‘And that only leaves you,’ says Eric to Ginny.

‘She’s my sister,’ says Kath. ‘And she’s older than you so don’t go getting any ideas.’

Eric runs an eye over the bikes. ‘Well I hope you make it there and back.’ He laughs, meaning he doesn’t think they will, and the friend laughs too.

‘Who’s he?’ says Kath.

‘Gus.’

Nell and Ginny have simultaneously had enough and push their bikes away from the kerb. Sadie follows and after a moment Kath simpers at the boys and follows too.

‘Don’t be late for church,’ Eric yells after the group, and doubles up with laughter, which they fail to notice.

‘What do you think of him?’ Kath says to Sadie.

‘Nosey.’

‘I don’t mean Eric,’ scorns Kath. ‘What about Gus? Handsome isn’t he? I didn’t know his name before.’

‘I know where he lives.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Just along from me. I’ll show you.’

They pause before they reach High Street, to gather and re-establish themselves as a group. Kath and Ginny have a small dispute about who should carry their sandwiches, which Kath wins by threatening to put Ginny’s share in the pig bin by the side of the road.

‘Do you know the way?’ says Ginny to Sadie.

Sadie has a written list of places to go through but she’s resentful of Ginny for taking her bike and doesn’t want to let her take over the direction of the journey as well. ‘My dad’s told me how to get there. It’s the other side of Nazeing.’ She is unaware that her father has not the best grasp of geography.

‘You been there before?’

‘In a car,’ says Sadie, showing off.

‘Whose?’

‘My step-grandad’s.’ This appears to silence Ginny’s questions.

It’s about nine-thirty, too early for the church people, and there’s no motor traffic moving. The sky is hazy, it will be hot later. Front gardens, railings sawn off, are still fluffy with blossom. Cats and dogs amble about, the dogs sometimes following the four bikes, barking. One is so insistent that Kath kicks out at it.

‘You shouldn’t do that,’ says Sadie.

‘Not yours is it?’

‘Course not. But you don’t want to hurt it.’

‘Who says I don’t?’

As they ride over the railway line Nell whispers to Sadie, ‘She argues all the time doesn’t she.’

Sadie shrugs. She doesn’t seem, Nell, to be quite the same sort of person as us. Something different about her. Something different about the way she talks. Sometimes you’re not sure what she said, and then it dawns on you. Not that she’s said much yet. And she’s friendly with Marcie, which doesn’t speak in her favour.

There are no houses now on either side of the road. A lorry goes past, with a single soldier sitting on the tailboard, waving to them.

Sadie stops, letting the others go on, and takes the list out of her skirt pocket. ‘Stop,’ she shouts. Nell hears, calls to the others.

‘We’ve gone wrong,’ says Sadie. ‘I knew we shouldn’t have crossed over the railway. We’ve missed Waltham Cross.’

‘Let’s see.’ Ginny, of course. ‘Waltham Cross, Cheshunt, Broxbourne. Oh it’s all right. I know the way from here.’

‘How do you?’ asks Kath, but Ginny ignores her.

Sadie feels entitled to moan, it being Ginny’s fault as she sees it. ‘We’ve missed seeing the Cross. I always like seeing the Cross.’

‘We’ll see it on the way back,’ promises Ginny, leading off again.

Half a mile further she calls, ‘Stop.’

Kath, yards in front, applies the difficult brakes. Nell stops her bike with her foot. ‘What?’

‘I want to show you something.’ She turns to Sadie. ‘This is better that your old Eleanor Cross.’ Ginny turns up a green lane and when the grass gets longer and the going more difficult they leave the bikes and continue on foot.

‘Where are we going?’

‘It’s not far.’

‘What?’

‘Something. Wait and see.’

Kath, not one for waiting and seeing, grumbles, but keeps up with the others. Here, away from the road, birds are singing as if demented.

‘Why do birds sing?’ says Sadie to Nell, but Nell only shrugs and smiles as if she knows but there’s no point telling someone as stupid as Sadie.

Ginny was right, it wasn’t far. Kath has managed to get stung by a nettle and rubs crossly at her leg, but even so is impressed by what she sees. ‘Blimey,’ she says. ‘Will you look at that?’

They all are. It’s a white marble archway, ornate, two-storied, one wide arch and a smaller one each side, surrounded by weeds and brambles and barbed wire, like something out of a story book, a fairy story, a fairy war story. Ginny waves an arm, as if it’s hers, and waits for questions.

‘What is it? How did it get here? What’s in there, behind the wire?’

‘It’s some sort of arch, or gate, or something. This woman who lived in the house -’

‘What house?’

‘Big house, you can’t see it from here, this woman brought it from London, had it put up here. She’s gone now, it’s Royal Engineers in there now, training.’

‘How do you know all this?’ asks Kath sharply. ‘How did you know it was here?’

‘Someone showed me.’

‘Someone,’ jeers Kath. ‘Some Royal Engineers someone I bet.’ She throws herself down on the grass among the buttercups and bees and sings, loudly ‘Roll me over in the clover, roll me over, lay me down and do it again.’ Ginny ignores her, Nell and Sadie giggle. ‘I’ll tell Mum,’ says Kath.

‘Suit yourself.’ Ginny turns to the other two and says, ‘They say that this woman, Lady Someone, entertained Churchill in that room up there.’

‘Entertained?’ says Sadie. ‘What, like, sang him songs?’

Ginny’s turn to shrug. ‘I don’t know. It’s just what I’ve been told.’

‘It looks haunted,’ says Sadie. ‘I want to go now.’ She walks back down the lane and Nell runs to catch her up.

‘Bees buzz, birds sing,’ she says. ‘It’s just what they do.’ Behind them they can hear Kath and Ginny alternately bickering and laughing. It’s what they do.

Starting off again, Sadie hoped that she would get her own bike back, but Ginny appears not to hear her when she asks, and sets off in the lead, as official route finder. Sure enough, she leads them into Cheshunt, and by asking a woman sweeping a step, finds the right road to take them to Broxbourne. They begin to feel far from home. Their wheels spin more freely, Kath starts to sing (I’ll Be With You in Apple Blossom Time), the sun comes through the mist, birds fly above the hedges plucking insects out of the air.

‘Swallows,’ says Nell.

Sadie giggles and Kath and Ginny look sharply. ‘What you talking about?’

‘Those birds. Swallows.’

‘Are they?’ Kath is as far into the countryside as she has ever been.

Sadie explains. ‘Their name, Kath and Ginny, it’s Swallow. Kath Swallow. See? She thought you were talking about her.’

It’s nice, it feels like another step nearer to being all friends together. Nell smiles. She has a pleasant face, though her hair is not fashionable, being still cut in a straight bob. Kath and Ginny have theirs permed, they do each other’s, at home, the kitchen reeking of ammonia. Sadie’s hair is long, rolled and pinned when she’s at work but today loose and wavy past her shoulders.

‘Let’s have a rest.’

They sit together on a wall, feet in the grass.

‘Shall we eat something?’ Everything they could scrounge from their mothers is in their baskets, along with their gas masks.

‘Better not yet.’

‘Drink then.’ Kath and Ginny have cold tea and offer it round, but the other two prefer water.

‘Anyway,’ says Ginny, ‘what’s this about a step-grandad? How do you get one of them?’

‘Sadie’s family is really – well you won’t never believe it,’ says Kath.

‘Don’t be daft,’ says Sadie. ‘It’s easy if you get it in the right order.’

‘Go on then.’

‘All right. But don’t interrupt me cos I’ll lose where

I am.’

‘Go on then.’

‘First my mum married this man.’

‘Your dad?’

‘No, this other man, this is back in the other war, the Great War.’

‘Was he killed in France?’

‘I don’t know – no he couldn’t have been, he died after my sister was born.’

‘Well how old’s she?’

‘I’m not sure, I don’t see her any more, she’s about twenty, more than twenty. She’s married, they live in Camden Town. So then, my mum got married again to my dad.’

‘Your dad, the one that lives in your house?’

‘Of course that one, I couldn’t have two could I? And then, when I was about five my mother died.’

‘What did she die of?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t remember it. No one talks about her.’

‘Do you remember her?’

‘Well I do, sort of, but only little bits. I remember holding her hand and looking at her shoes walking along and I remember pulling her apron tie, you know, to make it come undone, and running away.’

‘Was she in hospital?’

‘I think she was. I think they took me to see her. There was this noise all the time, trolleys and things, rattling, and the windows were high up so you couldn’t see out.’

‘We’ve been to a hospital,’ said Kath. ‘Our Uncle Ernie, he got taken to the North Mid when we got bombed. But they wouldn’t let us see him. Our mum went in, just to say who he was, and then he died. She said it was just as well.’

‘What did she mean?’ asked Nell.

‘Well he wouldn’t have had no legs so what would he have done? And we couldn’t look after him with all them stairs. And at least he never knew about Auntie Glad.’

‘So,’ says Ginny, ‘after your mum died, your Dad married again. What’s her name?’

‘She’s called Ivy. I have to call her Stepmother.’

‘What a mouthful. What’s she like?’

‘She’s all right. I suppose. She’ll be glad when I get married and leave home.’

‘Did she say that?’

‘Not exactly, but I know it. She’s all right, she lets me wear her clothes but she’s not properly friendly if you know what I mean. These are hers.’ Sadie stretches out her legs to show her brown leather sandals. The other girls nod.

‘So your brother, what’s his name?’

‘Maurice. He’s eight, nearly nine.’

‘Short work,’ says Ginny.

‘Is he a nice boy?’ asks Nell.

‘He’s nice. I’ve always looked after him. I do miss him, but you see, he wasn’t going to be evacuated, he didn’t want to go and Stepmother didn’t want him to, and Dad said if there were bombs they’d fall on the docks, you know, in London, not this far out, but we didn’t know what it was going to be like, you see, hearing it wherever it is and sometimes one coming down over here. Maurice was getting nervy. So his grandad – that’s my step-grandad – he knew these people out in the country – they had a ‘vacuee but he went back home – they said they’d have Maurice.’

‘Does he know we’re coming?’

‘No. How could I tell him?’

‘Send a postcard.’

‘Oh. I never thought of that.’

‘Never mind,’ says Kath. ‘It’s Sunday, he won’t be at school, he’ll be there. Let’s go.’

As they ride past churches now people are coming out of them – posh people says Ginny – with prayer books, the women with hats and handbags, men in suits and trilbies. They stand round in little groups before shaking hands and moving off to their own homes.

‘I wonder what they talk about,’ says Sadie to Ginny.

‘The war,’ says Ginny confidently. ‘They say prayers that we’ll win.’

‘Do you think we’ll win?’

‘Well they don’t think so do they? If they thought we could win why would they need to pray about it?’

‘But do you think so?’

‘I don’t, no. They’ll starve us out.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Where I work. That’s all I can say, I’m not allowed to talk about it, it would spread alarm and despondency.’

Kath, prompted by the sight of churches, albeit with bells silenced, is singing. (The Bells Are Ringing, for Me and My Gal.) She is in front now and her voice comes back to them, strong and tuneful.

‘She gets it from our mum,’ says Ginny proudly. ‘Me and Billy, we can’t hold a tune, but she always has done, from being a baby Mum says.’

Kath brakes at a crossroads. Which way? The others catch her up and stop too, wondering. Kath now – it must be something about being in front – takes a decision and scoots her bike across to a couple sitting on a bench. The others hear her plainly.

‘Ere mister, what way is Bumbles Green?’

Mister does not reply, though he looks ready to, but Missis, if that’s who she is, stands up and comes over the verge to Kath.

‘Just one moment, young woman. Is that any way to ask a question of someone?’

‘I only asked.’

‘No you did not only ask. You rudely interrupted a conversation, without a please or an excuse me. Bad manners like that will not obtain you an answer.’

‘Blimey,’ says Kath. ‘If that’s how you want it.’ And cycles on, blushing.

‘She’s got no manners,’ says Ginny, and they all follow Kath as she speeds off down what proves to be the wrong road.

But they are cheerful enough. This is proper countryside, green and breezy, bright with flowers and for the most part tidy with money. There are no destroyed buildings here, no piles of brick rubble. Even the shabbiest of cottages and most tumbledown of outhouses are not as depressing as the sooty and jerry-built back streets with their taped up windows and damp comfortless shelters.

‘Of course we’re a target,’ Sadie’s dad would say, disregarding that he’d previously said they wouldn’t be. ‘There’s industry here ain’t there, the Small Arms, and the Gunpowder, and the electricals, and the gas works, just think if they hit the gasometer, what a bang that would be.’

‘Shut up Wilfred,’ said Ivy. ‘No need to go on about it. I’m trying not to think about it.’

‘That’s right,’ he said, maybe sarcastically, maybe not, ‘you try not to think about it.’

A mile or so down the road Ginny makes a discreet enquiry of an old man walking his dog and is able to get them back on track for Nazeing. And now it really is time to eat so they sit in a row on the grass, tucking up their skirts – except Nell who wears shorts – and getting themselves outside of their sandwiches. They have bread and dripping, or bread and cheese, and Kath and Ginny also have bread and jam for later. Sadie has a piece of cake, another piece of which is wrapped up for Maurice. Nell has some stale doughnuts, enough for one each.

‘Marcie gave them to me,’ she says. ‘She works at the bakery. It’s a shame she couldn’t come with us.’

‘That’s what you think,’ said Sadie, quietly.

‘We’re in the country,’ says Kath, ‘you’d think there’d be apples or blackberries or gooseberries or something.’

‘Not in May,’ says Nell.

‘What do you know about it?’ Kath doesn’t mean to be rude, it’s just the way it comes out. Nell seems to know this.

‘I used to live on a farm.’

‘A real farm?’

Nell shrugs – because she doesn’t understand the question? Or because she can’t be bothered to come up with an answer?

‘Look at our legs,’ says Sadie. ‘Don’t they look funny?’

They consider the eight legs in front of them. Ginny’s are the longest, but her ankles are very solid, as are Kath’s. Nell has long skinny legs without any shape, Sadie’s are short but her ankles are so slender as to look breakable. The sandals borrowed from Stepmother are too big and have rubbed red marks on the top of each foot. Nell wears plimsolls and Kath and Ginny stout black shoes, the ones they wear to work.

‘What’s funny about them?’ says Kath.

‘I was just thinking, if you cut the legs off us, and mixed them up, would you know which ones went with which body.’

‘I’d know which ones were mine,’ said Ginny. ‘I can see where I cut myself shaving.’

Then they can’t be bothered any more, and all together lie back in the grass and look at the sky.

‘We had this Auntie,’ says Ginny, ‘Aunt Em she was called, she used to tell us clouds were angels. Do you remember Kath?’

‘No,’ says Kath. ‘Is she the one who chased Billy with an axe?’

‘That’s her. But she didn’t mean it, she was just doing it to frighten him cos he was giving her cheek.’

‘Who’s Billy?’ says Nell. ‘And where did she get an axe?’

‘It was always by the back door, for firewood. Billy’s our brother.’

‘He’s my twin,’ sighs Kath. ‘He’s always been awful. He’ll say anything, he doesn’t care.’

‘He never said anything to Aunt Em again,’ says Ginny. ‘It’s years ago now, when she did that but he won’t be in the same room with her. If she comes in the front door, he’s out the back. But we don’t see her any more, it’s too far for her to come.’

‘I’ve never seen Billy,’ says Sadie, ‘even though I live across the road to you.’

‘He goes out early,’ says Kath. ‘He has to be first at the station to unlock the waiting room. And anyway, he don’t use the front door, he climbs over the back wall.’

‘What for?’

‘Just what he likes to do. He likes climbing. He’s joining the army soon. October.’

They go quiet, thinking of people they know, watching the angelic clouds drifting pacifically overhead.

‘Well,’ says Sadie, ‘shall we go?’ So near now to Maurice, she feels entitled to chivvy them a little bit.

So they ride through Nazeing in the sunshine, the air filled, you might think, with the smell of roast – such little roasts nowadays – and gravy, though actually, all that has been available has been eaten and is now getting washed up.

‘Where now?’

Poor Sadie looks helpless. This is not how she remembers it. How can she find the right house when the landmarks she remembers – hedge with an arch cut in