The War that Saved My Life (17 page)

“A little too much?” Susan said.

Of course it was too much. It was 833 men too much.

Susan sighed. “Next time we go to the movies we’ll wait in the lobby until the newsreel’s over. I assume that the radio’s still okay?”

I nodded. The radio didn’t come with pictures.

Jamie told Susan his teacher still thought he had the devil in him, and because of that we had to start going to church on Sundays.

“Of course you haven’t got the devil in you,” she said, “but if you go it’ll give the gossips one less thing to talk about. Besides, I’ve been feeling guilty about neglecting your religious education.”

She made us go, but
she didn’t
. She went the first time only, to show us how you had to sit in the pew, and stay quiet, unless there was singing or words to say, in which case we still sat quiet because we didn’t know the songs or the words. A man up front read stories and then talked a long time, and Jamie got in trouble for kicking the pew. That was what the benches were called. Pews. Jamie thought it was a funny word. The whole next week he held his nose and said “Pew!” every time he sat down.

After the first Sunday Susan walked us to the church, then took a walk through the village and picked us up on her way back. She said churches and her didn’t agree.

“You said your father worked in the church,” I said, scowling, on our way home the second Sunday. The lady beside Jamie and me had spent the whole sitting-down part of the service staring at us, and I hadn’t liked it at all.

Miss Smith looked tight-lipped. “Yes. My father has made it clear he doesn’t think I can be redeemed.”

Jamie said, “What’s that mean?
Redeemed?
”

“In my case being redeemed means changing my evil ways and regaining my heavenly crown. It means my parents don’t like me. And yes, my father’s still alive. My mother died.”

“Oh.” Jamie threw a rock, and hit a fencepost half a block away. “Our mam doesn’t like us either. ’Specially Ada. She hates Ada. Ada’s not redeemed.”

I flinched. “Maybe I am now. Maybe now I can walk.”

“Not without crutches,” Jamie said. “You’ve still got that ugly foot.”

“Jamie!” Susan said. “You apologize!”

Jamie said, “But she does!”

“Her foot isn’t ugly,” Miss Smith said. “What a horrid thing to say! And Ada, you’ve done nothing wrong. Your foot is not your fault. You don’t need to be redeemed.”

I watched the tips of my crutches as we went down the road. Crutches, good foot, crutches, good foot. Ugly foot skimming along in the air. Always there, no matter what anyone said.

Butter galloped. He trotted first, and that was so bouncy I had to hold on to his mane so I didn’t fall off. But I kept kicking him, and he trotted faster and faster, until suddenly everything evened out, and he was cantering. If I kept kicking him from there, he went faster still, until my eyes watered and the wind made noise in my ears. That was galloping. It was the best.

I tried to jump the stone wall of Butter’s pasture. I galloped him the length of the field, hard as I could, and steered him right toward the wall. He got close, closer, then slammed his feet into the ground. He stopped dead. I kept going, straight over his ears. I missed hitting the base of the wall, but not by much.

Susan came running into the field. I hadn’t known she was watching me. “Stop that, you idiot,” she said.

I looked at her. Butter was snorting and tossing his head, and I figured I’d better have another go at the wall quickly, before I lost my nerve.

“You don’t have the first clue what you’re doing,” Susan continued. “You get on over to Fred Grimes and get him to teach you something before you get yourself killed. Putting that poor pony at a three-foot wall, when he’s hardly ever jumped in his life!”

“He hasn’t?” I asked. I figured all horses knew how to jump walls. Jonathan’s horse hadn’t had any trouble with it.

“He hasn’t,” she said. She rubbed the end of Butter’s nose. “You’ll hurt him if you aren’t careful. You’ll scare him, and that’ll put him off jumping forever. Not to mention what it might do to you.”

She should talk about hurting the pony. Ignoring him until he was practically crippled. He’d been better as soon as his hooves were trimmed. Better the very next day.

“Yes, I know what you’re thinking,” she continued. “But I know what he needs now and I won’t hurt him again. You know what you need now too, because I’m telling you. You get on over to Fred Grimes.”

So I went on over to see Fred in the stables behind Maggie’s house. He agreed to watch me ride, and help me, for a bit of time after his lunch two days a week. In exchange I’d work for him the rest of the afternoon. Susan gave me a map she’d drawn, and showed me how to trace my route on it, so I wouldn’t be lost again. I tied my crutches to the back of the saddle so I had them for doing chores.

Fred taught me to kick less. He taught me to use one leg only to ask for a canter, so that I didn’t have to get bounced by the trot. He tried to teach me to post to the trot—to rise and fall to the motion smoothly, without bouncing—but that was hard with only one stirrup. He taught me more about steering, and when he was happy with my progress he set up little poles in the field beyond the stable yard and had me practice going over them. It was a long way from jumping the stone wall. Fred said I wasn’t to try that on Butter until he told me I was ready.

Stephen White’s colonel sent another invitation to tea. I declined. “Idiot girl,” Susan grumbled.

Meanwhile the war had become an endless stream of pamphlets the government sent through the mail. How to wear your gas mask. Why to carry your gas mask. How not to get hit by a car in the blackout. (You could carry a flashlight, if you covered over the glass with tissue paper; you should paint curbs white so the people driving the cars could see them.) Why you should give the government your excess pots and pans. (They wanted to make planes from them. Susan refused to do it. She said she had exactly as many pans as she needed. This made Jamie so upset that eventually she relented, and gave him an old nasty chip pan to turn in.)

There weren’t any bombs. What there were was German submarines, circling all of England, trying to blow up any ships heading in or out of her harbors.

This was a big problem, Susan said, because England didn’t grow enough food. Most of the food English people ate was shipped in from other countries. Already there was less food in the shops, and what was there cost more, though Susan said some of that was because the summer was over. We wouldn’t see as many fresh fruits and vegetables until next spring.

You never saw anyone more interested in fruits and vegetables than Susan. We were all the time having to eat strange things. Brussels sprouts. Turnips. Leeks. Peaches, which I loved, but also prunes, which I didn’t. Prunes came in cans and were slimy going down.

Every week that went by without bombs, more evacuees returned to London. Even the ones living with Lady Thorton had gone. In the village Lady Thorton fussed about it, but she couldn’t stop parents from sending for their children. “London will be bombed,” she insisted.

Mam never wrote, so Susan was still stuck with us. When I said so she gave me an odd look. “Your mother’s smart to keep you here, where it’s safer,” she said. “But I wish she’d answer my letters. I find her silence hard to understand.”

By the start of November so many children had returned to London that Jamie’s teacher left too. His class was combined with the other primary class. His new teacher didn’t think he had the devil in him. She said so. She didn’t care at all if he wrote with his left hand.

He still wet the bed.

I thought it was mostly habit by now. Susan had a rubber sheet to protect the mattress, but she was tired of cleaning the regular sheets. I was tired of waking up to the dampness and the smell. Neither of us said so to Jamie. He was ashamed, I knew.

Lady Thorton wanted Susan to join the Women’s Volunteer Service, the WVS. She came to tea and told Susan she needed her help.

“No one needs my help,” Susan said. “Besides, I’m busy taking care of these children.”

Lady Thorton cut her eyes at me. Jamie was at school, but I’d come in from the pasture to have tea. It wasn’t one of my days for helping Fred. “This one doesn’t seem to need much care,” Lady Thorton said.

“You’d be surprised,” Susan said.

I felt cross. I didn’t need her. Plus, she still spent part of each day lying around, staring at nothing. I said, “It’s not like you have a proper job.”

Susan glared at me. Lady Thorton laughed out loud. Then Lady Thorton said, gesturing to the sewing machine still set up in the corner of the room, “We could use you to sew bed jackets for soldiers. All sorts of sewing, actually.”

Susan shook her head. “You all don’t like me,” she said. “The women in this village never liked me.”

Lady Thorton pressed her lips together. She set her teacup down. “That’s not true,” she said.

Susan looked cross. “Don’t be patronizing,” she said. “Becky got along with your set because of the horses, but that’s all.”

“You never gave anyone a chance,” Lady Thorton said. “Most of the village came to the funeral.”

“Oh, the funeral! Bunch of nosy busybodies!”