Early Memories : 1941

Coming home from school walking from the bus stop the mile and a half to her home, she dawdled along the way not really sure of what would or who would be there when she got home. Dusk was falling fast even though it was only four-thirty. The lighted windows she passed fascinated her. Every day she made up stories about the people she saw as she passed by the same windows with the curtains not yet drawn. She called the cozy women pouring tea and the comfortable men reading newspapers auntie and uncle in her mind and pretended she could just knock on the door and pop into the warm and welcoming rooms she saw. As it got darker, she quickened her pace and darted from one pool of light to the next. Quietly she started singing Christmas carols to keep her fears at bay. She imagined people in the houses listening to her voice passing on the wind and wondering who she was.

This night she drifted along the rapidly darkening road from lamppost to lamppost, pretending that the pools of light were islands and she was a ship coming home. She wondered what would be at home when she got there. Sometimes her mother was there with smiles, and toast and cakes for tea, but more often there was thin-lipped silence and she had to get her own tea and feed her baby sister.

But today she had good news. The teacher had told her right in front of all the other children that she would be going into the next class up tomorrow to read with the seven and eight-year olds because, even though she was only six, she was such a good reader. She knew it would make Daddy happy and that he would tell her how proud he was that she was so smart, but perhaps it would please Mummy too. As she came closer to the house, she saw with a lifting of her heart that there were lights in every room and somewhere she could hear the wireless playing. She burst through the door calling, Mummy! Im home!

There was no one in the kitchen and she saw with dismay that there was no food on the table, and, an even worse sign, no plate and knife and fork at her place. She glanced around the kitchen and automatically turned the wireless down. Mummy was probably lying down with a headache and the noise would make her angry. Quietly she checked the living room where sometimes she had found Mummy asleep on the sofa. She had learned not to wake her at these times. But today there was no one there.

Every light in the house was on. The child went back to the kitchen and turned off the ceiling light. The light over the sink was enough. Too many lights on were one of the things that caused Mummy and Daddy to shout at each other, and so, on her way upstairs, she turned off the living room light. The cat startled her as it wove its way between her legs and darted upstairs ahead of her.

She peeped into the room she shared with her little sister. No one there and the babys crib was empty even of the toys. She turned off the lights there and moved on to the room with the big bed where Daddy slept. Empty. As she clicked the light switch off she thought, Please, God! She chanted anxiously in her head. Please, please, God! No one in the room where Mummy slept. Turning off the light, she looked behind her still half-expecting her mother to be standing there and laughing at having frightened her.

She had been hungry coming home, but now there was a big heavy lump in her stomach. Tentatively she called, Mummy? Downstairs, the clock chimed five. The cat came out of her bedroom and ran in front of her. She stood for a moment with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, shivering even though the house was warm. “Mummy? Mummy?

Her voice escalated with her fear. She ran downstairs, tripping and stumbling and darted from room to room again, turning on all the lights and sobbing and crying frantically as she confirmed what she knew was true. She was alone in the house. She was alone in the world. She tried to be good, but she was so bad, everyone had gone, as she always knew they would.

Sobbing and hiccuping, she grabbed her doll and crawled under Daddys big bed. Frantically she pressed herself into the corner and waited…