A Winter Hope by Sheila Everett

Author:Sheila Everett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

Jenny and Me,

We went to sea –

In a most peculiar craft –

A plank and oil drum raft . . .

Jenny, behind her, sucked her collar in an agony of embarrassment; a dark, damp patch grew around her feet in their scuffed, oversized shoes, inherited from her youngest brother. Junie and Don looked wary, wondering what was coming next. Thank goodness, the Chucklenuts were in the top class, they thought, but someone was sure to tell them, of course.

Then Horst read his essay which was entitled: ‘My Life in a New Country’. He did not use dramatic effects like Glory, but spoke confidently and quietly. The children were hushed. It was quite a revelation. The snide attacks on him in the playground, and outside school, for being different, he mentioned these, but without resentment, or names. The children did not look at one another. He was grateful, he said, for the chance he had been given, to continue his education, to be free. The people here had been so kind. There was an awkward pause, then a burst of enthusiastic clapping. Mr Gray beamed.

The filming went on all day. Glory didn’t have to endure lunchtime play: ‘You come with us, eh, Glory?’ Mr Gray suggested, ‘as interpreter,’ when everyone knew that was a joke. So she sat in the staff room and had lunch with the Head, Horst and the supervisor from the hostel, while the camera rolled. She chattered away, quite unselfconsciously hogging the limelight. Her burbling amused and entertained: Mr Gray winked at Horst this time.

When Horst was joined by his compatriots for their afternoon shift in the classroom, Glory was asked again to stay, to participate in the lessons. Through the window she could see the village boys playing football, and the girls shooting balls into the net. A mad March wind stirred scraps of lunch paper, lifted skirts and blew hair into tangles. She thought how proud Mummy would be when she told her she had played such a prominent part; however, the camera would depart the school after today, to record life at the refugee house. After all, the film was about Horst and his friends. But she couldn’t help dreading the thought of the walk home after school. She knew that the others would resent her even more for what they regarded as blatant showing off. Even Jenny had looked frightened and not responded when they met up briefly after lunch, looking over her shoulder as if expecting a Chucklenut to say: ‘’Ere, take no notice of ‘er – she’s a telltale tit.’

‘Your daughter is a natural, a born actress.’ Mr Gray would confirm Mirry’s aspirations, on Saturday, when they came to film Horst at his music lesson.

Glory did not know then, that the very next day, they would load up Uncle Jim’s car and go back to Number Five just in time for alarming, devastating developments both in the war and on the home front – Dunkirk, the Battle of Britain and the Blitz . . . These would all be a reality before the end of this year.

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