• STELLA •
Thin, cheap paper crinkled in Stella’s hands as she read Joan’s letter again. The kind postmaster, Mr. Jeffries, had brought it straight to the kitchen door when he delivered the afternoon post.
20 April 1944
Dear Estrella,
Writing doesn’t come easy to me and paper’s harder to come by now than ever. With the new string of air raids over London, I can’t risk having Bobby back here in Bristol. The entire city is still a bomb site from earlier raids.
I need you to take him a little while longer. There’s no one to look after him here. I’m working long hours at the munitions factory, and I can hardly get away before dark. Tell him that his mummy misses him very much, and I’ll get up to see him quick as I can. And before you ask, no, I don’t know when that will be exactly.
You asked in your last letter about money for his things. Didn’t you get the money I sent you two weeks ago? Maybe there are light fingers at your post office. I’ve heard of employees stealing envelopes that look like they might have cash in them. You really should be more careful, Estrella.
I’ve been bursting to tell you, a few of us girls were invited up to a dance with some American soldiers the other night. The GIs all looked like movie stars with close-cut hair and the best teeth I’ve ever seen on a man. I danced the jitterbug and…
Stella let the letter fall to the counter. She didn’t know what she’d expected from Joan, but she’d hoped not this.
It’s a wonder Joan’s stayed a widow for so long. The thought should have made her cringe with disloyalty to her sister, but it was the truth. Joan wouldn’t end this war alone. Stella was certain of that.
But what about Bobby? Joan hadn’t sent money two weeks ago, just as there’d been nothing in this letter. Each time her nephew needed something, Stella dipped into her hard-earned savings; the money she’d dreamed of using for a new life dwindled. Books? Gone was train fare to London. He lost his hat on the way to school? There went a week’s dinners at a boardinghouse. A new shirt when he’d torn one climbing trees with Robin? Another correspondence course and more precious clothing coupons.
She was trying so hard to do the right thing by her nephew. He was clothed and had food. She made sure he washed up after she and Dorothy cleaned Mrs. Symonds’s dinner. She could help him with his schoolwork, although she felt woefully under-equipped to keep up with the steady stream of questions that seemed to bubble out of him these days. She went through all of the motions of motherhood, but motions were all she could muster.
The slap of little shoes down the tiled corridor to the kitchen signaled the approach of her nephew. Stella quickly folded the letter and stuffed it into her pocket.
“Hello, Bobby,” Mrs. George called out from the stove.
Beaming, Bobby ran to the other cook and threw his arms around her leg, so different from the frightened little boy who’d arrived at Highbury two months ago.
“Hello, Mrs. George. I saw a hedgehog today,” he announced.
“Did you? In the daytime?” asked the cook, ruffling his hair and then gently pushing him away so she could go back to stirring a muddy-looking soup.
“He was walking across the lane.”
“And how do you know that it wasn’t a lady hedgehog?” Mrs. George asked.
The little boy looked serious. “I know.”
“Hello, Bobby,” Stella called across the kitchen. When he wandered over but didn’t hug her as he had Mrs. George, she busied herself peeking under a tea towel at two loaves of brown bread.
“I had a letter from your mother today. She says that she misses you very much,” she continued. Satisfied with the bread, she reached for the end of an old loaf and cut off a thin slice. Onto it went a scrape of margarine. She set the bread and margarine in front of Bobby, who took a huge bite.
“That’s all you’ll get before tea,” she reminded him.
His next bite was slightly smaller. “Where is Mummy?” he asked around a mouthful of bread.
“She has to stay at home because she has a job at the factory,” Stella said, feeling the weight of all of her sister’s blasé words in her pocket.
“But why can’t she work here?” he asked.
“She has a very important job for the war,” she said. Joan would love hearing her say that.
“I want to help.”
“It’s too dangerous even for big boys like you,” she said.
His eyes went wide, brimming with tears.
“Will Mummy be hurt?” he asked in a tiny voice.
Oh Lord, she’d put her foot in it now. She reached her arms around him awkwardly. “She’s not in danger.”
“I want her here!” he wailed.
“She can’t be, Bobby,” she said.
“But there are bombs!”
She pulled back, shocked. “Why do you think there would be bombs?”
She could sense that Miss Grant and Miss Parker across the room were doing their very best to appear that they weren’t paying attention. At least Mrs. George had the grace to watch this exchange openly, her arms crossed under her bosom.
“One of the boys at school said that the Germans blew up London and they blew up Covertee.” Bobby sobbed into her chest.
“Coventry,” she corrected. When she caught Mrs. George’s look of disapproval, she added, “What a horrid thing for that boy to say.”
“He said Mummy’s going to be bombed.” He continued to cry.
Mrs. George shook her head in disgust at the other boy’s cruelty, and Stella took comfort in knowing that at least on this front they were united.
“Bobby.” She laid a soft hand on his head. “I promise you that nothing bad is going to happen to your mother.” Joan’s far too lucky for that. “In the meantime, you get to live here. Don’t you like it at Highbury House?”
His tears soaked her shirtfront as he moved his tiny head in a nod.
“You get to play with Master Robin and all his nice toys.” When he peeled himself away from her chest, she nearly winced at the river of tears and snot on her clothes. She wanted to run straight upstairs to change, but instead she pulled out a much-laundered handkerchief and wiped his face.
“He’s nice,” said her nephew in a whisper.
“I think your mum wants you to have the best time at Highbury House so that when you go back home, you have all of these wonderful memories. Don’t you?”
“Yes.”
She leaned down so they were eye level. “So there will be no more crying today?”
He nodded.
“Good. Now, would you like another slice of bread?” she asked, although she could hardly imagine that the mealy bread would ever tempt anyone except for a five-year-old who’d never known soft white flour and well-risen loaves.
“Can I have jam, too?” He looked up at her through his lashes.
Despite herself, she snorted a laugh. “Cheeky monkey, yes you can. But just this once.”
She went to fetch the jam jar from the high shelf of the pantry—far away from little hands. Bobby knew how rare jam on his bread was. She hadn’t had more than a taste of it herself in nearly two years. The sugar was far too dear, and twice she’d found that the small Symonds family’s ration coupons didn’t add up to enough for the harvest’s canning, let alone other needs.