Free Under the Apple Tree by Lilian Harry Page A

when the war
    ended, and Dick went back to his job in the Dockyard - and
    then our dad died and I don’t think I really noticed much.
    Cis didn’t tell me till I was a lot older, when Dick started to get worse.’
    ‘Poor Dad,’ Judy said softly. ‘Poor, poor Dad.’
    ‘Well, he’s got plenty to be thankful for, all the same,’
    Alice said briskly. ‘He’s not had such a bad life. The gas
    didn’t kill him, he’s got a good wife and two children to be
    proud of, and there’s plenty of others went through the
    same as he did, and worse. I’m not playing it down, mind,
    just saying it could have been worse.’
    ‘You’re right, Mum,’ Cissie said. ‘It could have been a lot
    worse. That’s what I thank God for.’ She rolled up another
    ball of crinkly, unravelled wool and got up. ‘Well, I’m going up now, too. Don’t you be too long, Judy, you look tired. So
    do you, Poll.’
     
    Fifteen minutes later, Judy and Polly were left alone by
    the dying fire. Alice had gone into the front room, where a
    mattress had been put on the floor for her, and a few
    minutes later they heard her snoring. They looked at each
    other.
     
    ‘That’s awful, what Mum said about Dad,’ Judy said.
    ‘But Gran’s right, isn’t she? At least he’s alive. You must
    wish you could have your Johnny back, even if he’d been
    injured.’
     
    ‘I do,’ Polly said quietly. ‘But I’m not sure it’s what he
    would have wanted. He was always so proud of being fit and
    strong - I don’t think he could have put up with being an
    invalid. And I was thinking about you, too. You haven’t said
    anything about Sean, but you must be worried stiff. I saw
    your face when the newsreader said about the ship that’s
    been sunk in the Med. You were thinking about him then,
    weren’t you?’
     
    Judy bit her lip. ‘I don’t even know exactly where the
    Southampton is, but she could be out there, Polly. And they
    wouldn’t let me know, would they - not straight away.
    They’d notify his mum, over in Ireland. I’d have to wait for
    her to write to me.’ She sighed. ‘I try not to worry, but
    sometimes it feels like a great lump of jagged metal inside
    me. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him, Polly. We knew
    each other such a short time.’
     
    ‘I know,’ her aunt said softly. ‘I know just what it’s like.
    All you can do is wait. That’s all any of us can do - wait,
    and do something useful in the meantime. At least we can
    do that.’
     
    ‘Yes,’ Judy said. ‘At least we can do that.’

Chapter Six
    Several of the April Grove residents attended the mass
    funeral at Kingston cemetery the following Friday. They
    were there to mourn Kathy Simmons and her baby Thomas.
    Alice, Cissie and Dick walked down with Freda Vickers,
    from the end of April Grove. Her husband Tommy was an
    air-raid” warden and had been one of the last men to come
    down from the roof of the Guildhall when it had caught fire.
    It had snowed during the week and the pavements were
    slippery with ice. They walked carefully, holding on to each
    other’s arms.
    ‘He was named after my hubby, the baby was,’ Freda told
    them sadly. ‘Tommy was with her in the air-raid shelter
    when he was born, see. Took care of Kathy right through,
    and she was so grateful. Hadn’t lived in October Street all
    that long, but they were a lovely family, and the two little
    girls are dears.’
    ‘It’s terrible,’ Cissie said. ‘All those people killed, and all the families left behind to grieve. What about her hubby,
    then — where’s he?’
    ‘I told you, Cis,’ Alice said. ‘He’s in the Merchant Navy.
    On convoys somewhere.’
    Judy and Polly were at the funeral too. Judy had gone
    down from Southsea with Laura and the rest of the Council
    staff and the Mayor, Mayoress and Corporation, all in
    ordinary clothes because their grand robes had been lost in
    the Guildhall fire. The Mayor’s regalia, which had been
    kept in a safe, had been saved,