Bia's War Read online

  “I tried to keep this fear to myself, but as we passed the bright lights of the Red Lion, I could see an answering fear in Sammy’s eyes as he held my arm to stop me moving on.”

  “‘I’ll go in and see if they are sheltering in here,’ he yelled above the noise of the wind, nodding towards the public house. ‘I can ask if anyone has seen them if they aren’t there.’”

  “Peter and I waited outside in the cold. I wouldn’t have been seen dead inside a drinking establishment like that and I knew that Annie wouldn’t allow Peter inside a public house since one of his contemporaries had taken him in as a joke two years before and Peter had drunk beer until he was sick. It was so cold, standing there in the snow and the wind and my inner voice was screaming at me that something terrible was going to happen which I needed to stop, but I didn’t know where to go to stop it. I didn’t care if William was dead drunk in a ditch, as long as Simon was safe. If I could only find Simon and take him home, where we could be warm and safe from any harm.”

  “Peter could feel the fear coming off me. He could often sense the distress of others because his own senses were so simple and clear cut and they didn’t drown out the feelings of others. He stroked my hand as we stood, linked, waiting for Sammy to come out of the Red Lion, hopefully bringing Simon with him.”

  “But that was not to be. Sam came out of the Lion alone, shaking his head when I asked if anyone had seen William and Simon. We continued to tramp along Station Road until we reached the Lord Nelson public house. This time, Sam just nodded in the direction of the front door and I nodded back. He went inside, once again leaving Peter and I huddled together in the wind and the snow. I tried to think about all the poor Tommies sitting hunched together in their trenches as the wind whistled above them and the snow did it’s best to bury them before the Hun killed them, but I was all out of empathy that night. I could only think about Simon and how much I loved him. Even Butcher Dennison and what he had done to me couldn’t penetrate my brain that night. There was a refrain going round and round in my head – Simon, Simon, Simon. Please be safe, my baby, please be safe.”

  “Sam came out of the Lord Nelson and, once again, he was alone, shaking his head at me as I looked at him in hope. So we set off again, quartering the streets around the market place, only stopping at each public house so that Sam could go in and enquire if anyone had seen William and Simon since the market closed and only getting negative answers. Peter and I stood and let the wind and the snow whip our faces as we waited with less and less hope at each bar.”

  “I hadn’t realised how many streets there were in our town or how many drinking establishments and by the time we had tramped each street and visited places like the Cleveland Bay and the George IV, my face was frozen into a rectal grimace and my arms, legs and feet were so cold I could no longer feel them. Eventually, as we reached the corner where King Street crossed Middlesbrough Road for the second time that night, Sammy stopped and held me back. As we hesitated on the pavement, I realised that it wasn’t snowing quite as heavily as before and the wind had dropped to only gale intensity.”

  “‘We’re going back to the shop now, Bia,’ Sam said. ‘I want to go and get Jenny and Alice and leave them with Annie before we go out again. I don’t want them in the house on their own tonight. We can have something hot to drink to warm us up before we go out searching again. We can’t carry on until we’ve thawed out a bit.’”

  “Every nerve in my body was screaming ‘No! No! No!’ to this. I couldn’t stop searching until I’d found Simon, but I knew that Sam was right about us getting something hot inside us. We wouldn’t be able to search if we were frozen to the bone. I could also understand that he was worried about his two girls, but the fact that he wanted them to leave their home and join Annie and Hannah in Queen Street, told me more than he had put into words.”

  “‘You think that butcher Dennison is behind Simon’s disappearance, don’t you?’ I asked him, although I already knew the answer. ‘That pig butcher has got my baby and he’s going to hurt him!’”

  “‘Don’t panic, lass. It won’t help us if you lose your head now.’ Sam replied. ‘I don’t know if Dennison has got William and Simon, but I’m damned sure that he’s involved somehow and I want my girls safe before we go out and track him down. I wouldn’t put it past him to try and use my girls in some way, so I want to stop that happening.’”

  “‘You’re right, Sam.’ I agreed. ‘I’m sure he’s involved in this somehow and it isn’t safe for your girls to be on their own. Let’s go quickly. The faster we get to the shop, the quicker we can be out searching again.’”

  “We walked as quickly as we could along King Street and back to the shop where Annie acted as instructed and wouldn’t unlock the door until she was sure that it was Sammy who was on the outside of it. She ushered us inside and pushed me down into the chair next to the range.”

  “‘Get us hot drinks, will you please Annie?’ Sam asked, while he wrapped his coat tighter around his body. ‘Make sure Bia and Peter get warmed through while I go and get Jenny and Alice and bring them back here. I don’t trust that pig butcher. I’m sure he’s got something to do with this and I want my girls safe before we go out searching again. I’ll have something hot when I come back with the girls.’”

  “‘I’ve got hot soup on the stove.’ Annie answered. ‘I thought you’d need something to warm you through after you’d been out in this weather. Bring the lasses back here and I’ll look after them until you find Simon.’”

  “‘Good lass,’ was all Sam said, but he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him in a bear hug, saying all he needed to without words. He then put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed me, putting such reassurance into it that I felt strangely comforted. Then he put his head outside the door.

  “‘The snow has stopped and the wind’s dropping even more. It’ll be easier going when we go back out.’”

  “He slammed the door behind him as he disappeared into the dark and Annie locked it once again. She moved across to me and helped me to unwrap the layers of my shawl before she pressed a mug of hot soup into my hands. I wasn’t hungry, but common sense told me I needed the soup to thaw my insides and to sustain me when we started our search again, so I forced myself to drink it, even though it was a struggle to swallow. The panic inside me seemed to block my throat, it was so tangible.”

  “Annie had moved across to Peter and helped him out of his winter wrappings before passing him a mug of the soup. He was incredibly eager for it and drank it greedily, holding his mug out for more when he had drained it. As she bustled about refilling it, Annie looked over at me with such compassion in her face I wanted to cry.”

  “‘We’ll find them, honey,’ she murmured. ‘Sammy won’t rest until he’s got Simon back safe for you. Don’t you worry about that.’”

  “‘I know he won’t Annie.’ I replied. ‘But I’ve got such a fear on me tonight. Something really bad has already happened, I can feel it and it’s sucking the life out of me. If something bad has happened to Simon, I won’t be able to carry on without him. He’s my world, my life, my reason for living and I know something’s wrong.’”

  “My voice had risen as I spoke, as the panic inside me started to leach out of me and Peter was watching me with worried eyes and a frown on his forehead, struggling to properly understand what was happening. Annie hurried over to me and sat on the arm of my chair, holding on to me and rocking me as though I was a child.”

  “‘Nothing will have happened to him, Bia,’ she said as she tried to soothe me. ‘They’ll have met someone and likely taken shelter in their house while the weather was so bad. Now that it’s stopped snowing they’ll come home. Just you wait and see.’”

  “I leant against her and took what comfort I could from the shelter of her arms but I knew, deep down, that the damage had already been done. Inside me my heart told me that Simon was dead and I would only get his body back. I would never again hold him as he
laughed, or stroke his soft hair when he was settled in his bed for the night. My heart was as frozen as the ground outside with the pain and the fear of what had happened.”

  “Sammy wasn’t long before he was back with Jenny and Alice and he got them safely ensconced next to the fire before he would have some of Annie’s hot soup. I had risen from the chair as soon as the girls came in and I was wrapped in layers of outer clothing ready to set out again, before Sam had started on his soup. Peter followed my lead and he, too, was well wrapped up against the bitter cold.”

  “Sam drank his hot soup so quickly that it brought tears to his eyes, but he brushed them aside and bundled himself back into layers of clothing.”

  “‘The snow has stopped completely now and the wind’s dropped too,’ he said, before we took our leave of Annie and the girls. ‘The sky is clearing and it’ll be easier to see because it’s a full moon out there now.’”

  “For some unknown reason, these words of Sammy’s twanged the same nerves in my body that thoughts of Simon twanged, although I couldn’t understand then why they did so. I just nodded my agreement and turned and hugged Annie before we set out again into the night. The air was even colder than before, if such a thing was possible, but at least we could walk upright and not have to fight to make any headway against the wind. We re-traced our steps to the end of King Street and turned right, heading for Lorne Terrace and the market place.”

  As Nana paused to draw breath, Victoria heard her mother shouting her name from downstairs and she didn’t sound as though she was in one of her more placid moods.

  “I’ll have to go Nana. Mam’s shouting for me and I daren’t make her wait otherwise she’ll stop me coming back this afternoon,” she said.

  “Before you come back this afternoon, please go to Mr Vine’s office and ask him to come and see me tomorrow. Don’t forget, he’s got to come during the day when the shop’s open and he has to come to the side door where you will let him in. That way, we can get it all sorted out before your mother finds out. Good girl.”

  Victoria promised that she would go to make the appointment as soon as she had had her lunch and Bia was busy in the shop. She very much doubted that Mr Vine would drop everything to call on her grandmother but she would do her best to explain and just hope that he could come soon. It was the only time her grandmother had been agitated about anything recently and Victoria didn’t want to upset her any more. With a final promise to go to the solicitors’ office that afternoon and to make sure that her mother wouldn’t see her go out, she ran downstairs to help her mother make the lunch. If she was biddable over lunchtime, Mam might agree to her spending the rest of the day with her grandmother.

  Chapter Ten

  Victoria was as biddable as she knew how to be that lunchtime, offering to do the washing up before they had sat down to eat and explaining how much revision she had got done while Nana Lymer slept. It was difficult, eating a meal with her fingers crossed, but she managed to do it and was rewarded by being given permission to sit in Nana’s room all that afternoon. Having offered to do the washing up, she did have to do it in actuality, so it was after 2pm before she could go back into Nana’s room, to let her know that Mam was in the shop and she (Victoria) was going to let herself out of the side door and head towards South Terrace, before making for Station Road. That way, she avoided going past the shop and so her mother wouldn’t see her through the shop windows and want to know where she was going.

  Victoria made her way to Station Road and went half way down it before she reached the solicitor’s office. It was a place she had never been in before and she was overawed by the large studded door and the brass plate fastened to the wall. She hesitated on the doorstep, not sure if she should knock on the door or whether she should open it and walk straight in. Then she realised that she looked as though she was loitering by hanging around outside, so she turned the brass door handle and stepped through into a reception office. There was a lady sitting behind the reception desk who looked up as Victoria entered. She had a long, thin face, almost horsey in appearance and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of her nose. Her hair was pulled back from her face into a tight bun on the back of her head and what little of the hair showed was all a steel-grey colour. She wore a dark cardigan over a white blouse, both buttoned up to the neck and unrelieved by any brooch or adornment of any sort. She looked up as Victoria entered and seemed to measure her against a standard, her tight mouth proving that she obviously deemed that Victoria fell way short of the expected level.

  “Yes. Can I help you?” The receptionist’s voice was sharp, as though she was ready and able to send Victoria away with a flea in her ear. Victoria quailed internally, but the thought of having to return home and confess that she had been too scared of the receptionist to ask for Mr Vine to visit, stiffened her backbone and prompted her to step up to the desk.

  “My grandmother would like Mr Vine to visit her at home tomorrow.” Victoria said, more loudly than she had intended because she was nervous of the reaction of the receptionist and was doing her best to hide it.

  “Mr Vine does not conduct business in private houses, nor can he drop everything to answer a summons from all and sundry.” The receptionist was definitely looking down her nose at Victoria now and evidently considered the conversation to be over, as she rose from her desk and started rifling through the filing cabinet which was against the far wall. Her cursory treatment made Victoria’s blood boil and she forgot about being timid as her need to carry out her grandmother’s request surfaced.

  “My grandmother would like Mr Vine to visit her,” she repeated, stepping closer to the desk.

  “And I reiterate, Mr Vine does not visit people in their homes, especially not at short notice.” Once again, the receptionist considered the matter closed and turned back to the filing cabinet.

  “But my grandmother’s housebound, so she can’t come to this office.” Victoria’s voice was rising as she panicked at the thought of trying to get past this brick wall. “Her name is Mrs Lymer and she has been a client for a long time. Surely Mr Vine can make an exception when his clients can’t manage to get to his office.”

  The filing cabinet drawer was slammed shut to emphasise that Victoria had now stepped completely over the unseen line, before the receptionist turned to face her. She opened her sneering mouth to deliver what would probably have been a very cutting remark, but stopped when the door leading to another office was opened and a man popped his head round. He was a tall, dark-haired young man with a pleasant face and he scrutinised Victoria with a smile.

  “Did I hear Mrs Lymer’s name mentioned?” he asked, stepping forward towards Victoria. Victoria heaved a sigh of relief and hastened to answer him before the receptionist stopped her.

  “Mrs Lymer is my grandmother and she wants Mr Vine to visit her at home.” She was gabbling, she knew that, but she was desperate to get the request spoken before the receptionist butted in and stopped her. “She’s housebound now and she needs to see Mr Vine urgently, so he’ll have to come to the shop.”

  The man held up his hand.

  “I’m Mr Vine.” He said. “If Mrs Lymer wants to see me, then of course I will visit her at home. She’s back living in Queen Street, then? At the original shop?”

  Victoria wasn’t sure what he meant by ‘the original shop’, but he had said Queen Street so she nodded her head.

  “Nana came to live with us a few years ago, when she got too frail to continue living on her own. I’m Victoria, by the way, her granddaughter.”

  Mr Vine shook Victoria’s hand and smiled warmly at her.

  “I can remember your Nana when I was a child. My father used to call in to see her regularly and he often took me with him as a treat. Your Nana made the best cakes in the town and she always had time to listen to a small boy’s woes. I will be honoured to visit her tomorrow. Shall we say about 2pm? Do you think that would suit her?”

  “She’ll be very happy with that.” Vi
ctoria answered, smiling back at him. “Can you come to the side door though, not through the shop? Nana doesn’t want you to come through the shop.” She wondered if she should say that her grandmother didn’t want Victoria’s mother to know that she was meeting Mr Vine, but refrained from so doing because it could lead to awkward questions, so she didn’t explain any more, but Mr Vine was there before her.

  “Mrs Lymer doesn’t want your mother to know that I’m visiting, eh? I can understand that.” He smiled again. “No problem. I’ll come to the side door at 2pm tomorrow and no doubt you will let me in. Will you make a note in my diary Miss Talbot, please? I don’t want to let Mrs Lymer down by forgetting our appointment. She was a favourite client of my father and I could fully understand why.” He turned back to face Victoria, missing the sneer that had spread across Miss Talbot’s face when she was requested to enter the appointment into his diary. Victoria didn’t miss it, however and smiled sunnily at the acidic lady.

  “I shall see you tomorrow then, Victoria.” Mr Vine said, shaking her hand. “I’m very pleased to have met you.”

  He smiled again and then returned through the door into the next office. Miss Talbot sniffed disgustedly but there wasn’t very much she could do or say now that Mr Vine had spoken. Victoria smiled at her and left the office feeling much more confident than she had when she had arrived. It crossed her mind that Mr Vine obviously considered her grandmother an important woman, or he wouldn’t have agreed so readily to making a home visit.

  She delivered the message that Mr Vine would visit the next afternoon at 2pm as soon as she had let herself in at the side door and crept upstairs to Nana’s bedroom. She felt very guilty about keeping secrets from her mother, but she could understand her grandmother’s reluctance to let Bia know that she was seeing her solicitor. Victoria still had no idea why her grandmother wanted to see Mr Vine, but instinct told her that her mother would not approve. Nana Lymer took Mr Vine’s acquiescence as her right and Victoria decided not to mention the fight with the battle-axe receptionist before Mr Vine had appeared. She didn’t feel that she had come out of that particular meeting with any degree of success and didn’t want to contemplate what would have happened if Mr Vine hadn’t appeared.