it ain’t safe. All yer mates are going, and you don’t want to be left out, do ya?’
Ernie shrugged and pulled a face. ‘Why can’t Mum come with me?’
‘Because she can’t – now, where did you put your school cap?’
He pulled it out of his pocket and rammed it on his head before tugging on his blazer. ‘Will I ’ave to go to school? Billy Warner says there ain’t no school in the country, just cows and sheep and lots of poo.’ He giggled.
Sally giggled too and gave her little brother a hug. ‘We’ll have to just wait and see, won’t we?’ She made him a sandwich with the last of the bread and dripping. ‘Eat that while I tidy up, then we must be going.’
It didn’t take long to strip the bedding off the couch, finish the washing-up, and collect the last few things to take with them. Their home consisted of two rooms on the top floor of a house, which was in a sooty red-brick terrace overshadowed by the gas-works and Solomon’s clothing factory, where she had worked for the past two years alongside her mother.
Florrie had the only bedroom; the sitting room, where Sally and Ernie slept, doubled-up as a kitchen, with sink, gas ring and cupboards at one end. There was no bathroom, water had to be fetched from the pump at the end of the street, and the outside lav was shared with four other families. Baths were once a week in a metal tub on the strip of lino in front of the gas fire.
Sally had lived there all her life and, as she helped Ernie on with his mackintosh, she felt a tingle of apprehension. The journey they were about to begin would take them far from London, and although she’d run the house and raised Ernie since his illness, she was worried about the responsibility of looking after him so far from the close-knit community which could always be relied upon to help. She had never been outside the East End, had only seen pictures of the country, which looked too empty and isolated to be comfortable – or safe.
Putting these doubts firmly away, she covered the precious sewing machine with a cloth and gave it one last, loving pat. It had been her grandmother’s, and the skills she’d taught Sally had meant she could earn a few extra bob each week. But it was part of a heavy, wrought-iron table which housed the treadle. It had to be left behind. She hoped it survived – and that Florrie didn’t take it into her head to sell it.
With a sigh, she squashed the worn felt hat over her fair curls, pulled on her thin overcoat and tightly fastened the belt round her slender waist. She then gathered up handbag, gas masks and suitcase before handing Ernie his walking stick.
‘I ain’t using that,’ said Ernie with a scowl.
‘It ’elps you to keep yer balance,’ she said, tired of this perpetual argument. ‘Come on, luv. Time to go.’
He snatched the hated stick from her and tucked it under his arm. ‘Do I ’ave to wear this, Sal?’ He plucked at the cardboard label hanging from a buttonhole on his school mackintosh. ‘Makes me look like a parcel.’
‘Yeah, you do. It’s in case you get lost.’
‘I ain’t gonna get lost, though, am I?’ he persisted. ‘You’re with me,’ he retorted with the blinding logic of the young.
She smiled at him. ‘Just wear it, Ernie, there’s a good boy.’ She locked the door behind her and put the key under the mat before helping him negotiate the narrow, steep stairs that plunged into the gloom of the hall.
‘Yer off then.’ Maisie Kemp had just finished scrubbing the front step, her large face red beneath the floral headscarf knotted over her curlers. She groaned as she clambered off her knees and wiped her hands down the wrap-round pinafore, before taking the ever-present fag out of her mouth. ‘Give us a kiss then, Ernie, and promise yer Auntie Maisie you’ll be a good boy.’
Ernie squirmed as the fat lips smacked his cheek, and he was smothered in her large bosom.
‘No sign of Florrie then?’ The blue eyes were knowing above the boy’s head, the expression almost smug.
‘Mum’s meeting us at the station,’ said Sally, unwilling to admit it was highly unlikely she’d even remembered they were leaving today. ‘Cheerio, Maisie, and best of luck, mate. See you after the war.’