Free Annie's Promise by Margaret Graham Page B

ever want to leave Wassingham, or this house.’ Sarah was moving towards the door as Annie reached out and pulled her close.
    ‘I felt just like you when I lived here. I never wanted to leave but I did, and then I came back. You do that when you’re grown up you know but the love never dies between families, it’s always there. And I think it’s a very good idea to go to Art College, if that’s what you want to do but there’s plenty of time to change your ideas. Listen to Miss Simpson though, she’s maybe a wise old dragon. Now scoot, you’ll be late.’
    She watched Sarah walk through the yard and out into the alley, knowing she would pick up Davy outside Tom’s, and was moved not only at the thought of the children’s friendship but at the memory of Sarah’s words. That night she wrote to the Australian newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide explaining that she was trying to trace Sophie and Eric Shaw and asking them to print her letter. Later she worked into the small hours because it might not just be the adults’ future she was building up, but the children’s too.
    As November became December there seemed almost no time to eat, let alone sleep. She picked up orders for a further two Madam shops, and five market stalls, and still ran the Gosforn stall, though she never saw Maud or Teresa there. She spent her evenings with Sarah, her nights working.
    She called on the kitchen and craft shops. The manager of one was rude and turned her away, the other took a dozen aprons and gloves, then rang for more. Tom suggested that they sewed holly on to the knickers with Christmas approaching and they did so, though Annie felt they would surely not sell, because there was no way she would wear a pair, or Gracie. But sell they did and once again she made a notenot to allow her personal taste to influence her view of the market place.
    She rang shops and stores offering larger discounts but only a few buyers from the smaller shops saw her and only one placed an order. In desperation she took Davy and Sarah to Newcastle for tea in the restaurant of the main department store.
    They ate meringues with forks and watched the mannequins parade while she told them of the pantomime she had seen as a child and how she had clapped with all the other children when Tinkerbell was fading, and was convinced that it was only because of her longing that the fairy had lived.
    She told how, long before that, she and Don had played jacks on the thick white cloth while they waited for Sophie and their father to finish talking in the front room, how she had wanted to turn herself into gossamer and float beneath the door so that she could listen to all that they were saying.
    ‘I’ve not heard back from Australia,’ she said. ‘Sophie can’t have seen my letter.’
    ‘Mum, you’re just putting it off. Go on, you wanted to talk to the buyer,’ Sarah said, drinking her tea.
    ‘Plenty of time for that,’ said Annie, playing with her meringue. She still had a problem with rich food after the deprivations of the war. So did poor old Prue from the sound of her last letter from India in which she’d told Annie not to send out a Christmas pudding as usual. Just can’t cope, darling. So unfair, she’d said.
    ‘Oh damn,’ Annie said, ‘I haven’t sent off Prue’s biscuits.’ She sat back in the chair, there had been no time, too much to do. ‘I’d better nip off and get a tin and we’ll send it on Monday.’
    Sarah looked at her. ‘Mum, just go and talk to the buyer, she won’t eat you, she’s not like Miss Simpson.’
    ‘So, how is your work going both of you?’ Annie asked, leaning forward.
    ‘Auntie Annie, go and talk, we’ll stay here and we won’tpinch the sugar lumps and we won’t spill our tea.’ Davy was picking up her handbag and scarf.
    ‘Yes, go on, Mum, just put on some lipstick, that’s right, you look great.’
    Annie stood up, her legs were trembling. She hadn’t rung to make an appointment, there