Conkers and Grenades by Hilary Lee-Corbin

Author:Hilary Lee-Corbin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2017-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

The next morning, I found my kite leant up against the front door with a note:

As good as new. P

I was delighted.

Doris had left that morning as she was needed back at the house in Westbury. Ma was still carrying on as usual but at times I noticed a distant look in her eyes and knew she was thinking of Dad. Although she tried to keep things going, an air of sadness hung over the house and affected us all.

Monday came and we were needed by J.J. once again; we had to watch Kendal’s house on Pembroke Road and to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible, of course. We thought that it would look better if both of us were there; then we could pretend to be playing a game. Our pockets were full of things to do – marbles, cat’s cradle, cigarette cards, so we could always think of something.

We found it easily enough, having made our way to the Tramway Centre, up Park Street and then into Clifton and Pembroke Road. The house itself, which was very grand, was a white building. It stood in private grounds and had four storeys in all; the basement, ground floor, first floor and then the attics. It had large spacious windows reaching almost to the ground for the main rooms, with arched windows either side. The first floor had a balcony made of wrought iron, running around it in the front and the main entrance was to the right of the house. Luckily for us, it could easily be seen from the pavement opposite.

The garden was entered through large wrought-iron gates in which stood trees of every hue, from the dark red of the copper beeches to the light green of the limes and every shade in between. How my dad would love to be tending plants in a place as grand as that. Where was he? Was he even alive? Then I remembered what Ma said; carry on as normal and all will be well. We all had to try to do that.

There was an avenue of trees either side of the street which gave us partial cover and we settled down to watch carefully, intent on our game of marbles, or so anyone might have thought. We were going to walk along the road, changing our watching place every so often. There was very little going on at the house. We’d seen Kendal and some of the servants but that was about all.

During the afternoon we took it in turns to watch and each of us had a break. Appy went first to help his Ma and came back at about four o’clock and I left. I was about to visit Gran, back in Bedminster, when who should I see but the young girl from the house in Pembroke Road. She’d been seen on a couple of occasions with a shopping basket and we’d taken her for a maid. Perhaps she was on an errand now. I followed her past the police station and into Dean Lane where she stopped at a house and went in.

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