A Mother Forever by Elaine Everest (free children's online books txt) 📕

her eyes. The long road of bay-fronted houses was a mess. Gates were hanging off, windows were missing their glass. One house had lost its roof completely, while others, like hers, had only lost a few slates. The road seemed to be shrouded in dust and smoke, and she wrinkled her nose at the smell of burning. Looking around in disbelief, she heard the shouts of residents as they emerged from their homes. Further up on their side of the road was a gap where once there had been a family home. Ruby put her hand to her mouth to stop herself screaming in shock as the policeman took her by the elbow and guided her to the small wall between her house and next door. ‘I need to go and help,’ he said. ‘Will you be all right?’

‘Yes, yes, I’ll be fine. You must go and do your job. Thank you for looking after me, Sergeant . . .?’

‘Jackson – my name is Bob Jackson,’ he said as he gave her a nod and went to retrieve his bicycle from where it still lay on the pavement, luckily undamaged.

Ruby hurried across the road to number fourteen and was pleased to see that everyone was fine. The shock of the raid had brought Stella to her senses and she was busy making hot drinks for everybody. ‘I’ve never been so pleased that I’ve still got my coal-fire stove,’ she remarked. ‘With all this damage, they’ve turned the gas off.’

Ruby smiled. With all that had happened out in the street, she was relieved that Stella seemed more like her old self. Frank and Wilf looked out the front door. ‘We need to go and give a hand,’ Wilf said. ‘Will you be all right here with Ruby?’

‘You go,’ Stella said. ‘There are lots of people that will need help, I would think, going by all the noise we’ve heard this evening.’

Ruby helped Stella make a tray of tea using all the cups she had in her cupboard. ‘People will be glad of something hot as they help with the clearing up,’ Stella said.

‘I’ll go and get my cups as well. Then there should be enough to go around. Would you like to come and help me, Pat?’ Ruby asked.

‘You stay here; I’ll help your mum,’ Stella told her. ‘We can carry more between us,’ she added as they headed back across the road. Stella stopped for a moment to look up at the destruction and tutted in sympathy. ‘We definitely need more cups,’ she said as they walked up the path to Ruby’s house. ‘Goodness, next door’s windows are a mess. Almost every pane has been broken.’

‘Oh, I do hope Miss Hunter is all right. I know she is the most irritable person on earth, but I’d hate to think she’d been injured. Do you think it will be all right for us to look through the window?’

‘Well, we’re not going to know otherwise, are we?’ Stella said, and rather than go back round through the gate, she lifted her skirt and climbed over the low wall. As Ruby followed suit she heard Stella gasp in horror. ‘Oh, my Lord, she’s been hurt. Quick, call my Frank – he knows a bit of first aid and might be able to help.’ She started to pull shards of glass from the window frame to clear a way to get through to Miss Hunter.

Ruby rushed off to find Frank and was dismayed to see two bodies laid out on the pavement further up the road, covered with ripped curtains that must have been pulled from the bomb-damaged house. She told Frank what had happened and he hurried back with her, beckoning to a couple of men nearby to follow, calling out that someone had been injured as they all approached number fifteen. Frank shouted to his mother to step back out and away from the window, and with the aid of the other men, they broke the front door down. Ruby and Stella followed Frank into Miss Hunter’s front room.

Frank bent down and felt for a pulse. ‘She is still alive, but going by the blood and the way she’s lying, she’s been injured badly. Can you get a cup of water, Ruby? And Mum, you pull those cushions off the settee so we can make her more comfortable.’

A couple of the other men went out to flag down an ambulance as Ruby returned with the water, passing it to Frank. He propped up Miss Hunter’s head. ‘Here, take a sip and you may feel better.’

As the water touched her lips, the woman’s eyes shot open. As she looked around her she recognized Ruby and then looked at Frank, pulling away as she did so. ‘Get your hands off me,’ she muttered, her lips covered in dust from where the lath and plaster had fallen from the ceiling. ‘I don’t want the likes of you touching me. I’m a God-fearing woman, and men that share beds with other men will burn in hell for eternity. I’ve seen the pair of you coming and going from that bookshop. You should think about closing your curtains of an evening,’ she spat out, before collapsing back against a chair.

Stella looked at her son and frowned, then turned to see Ruby’s shocked face. ‘I can’t believe she knew,’ Ruby blurted out before stopping dead, realizing that Stella would have heard her perfectly.

Stella glared at Ruby and then turned to her son. ‘It all makes sense now,’ she said harshly as she got to her feet and pushed past Ruby to get out of the house.

Ruby started to follow, but Frank called her back. ‘Leave it for now – we have much more important things to deal with. Nothing that’s said now will alter what my mother thinks of me.’

13

Christmas Day 1917

Ruby looked at the table. She had done her best to make their Christmas Day meal festive. In years past, there had been more people sitting