must be so used to it that they didn’t even see it, she thought, staring and staring… and sank into a quiet dream of nothing, with her eyes wide open.
And then they were at Little Overton. The bus went down a long steep hill, Anna saw a great expanse of sky and sea and sunlit marsh all spread out before her, then the bus turned sharply and drew up with a jolt.
“Not far now,” said Mrs Pegg as they picked up the cases and the bus roared away down the coast road. “Sam’ll be expecting us now. He’ll have heard the bus go by.”
“Buses go by all the time at home,” said Anna.
“That must be noisy,” said Mrs Pegg, clicking her tongue.
“I don’t notice it,” said Anna. Then remembering the people on the bus, she asked abruptly, “Do you notice it when you see the sea?”
Mrs Pegg looked surprised. “Me see the sea? Oh no, I never do that! I ain’t been near-nor-by the sea, not since I were a wench.”
“But we saw it from the bus.”
“Oh, that! Yes, I suppose you would.”
They turned in at a little gate no higher than Anna’s hand. The tiny garden was full of flowers and there was a loud humming of bees. They walked up the short path to the open cottage door.
“Here we are, Sam, safe and sound!” said Mrs Pegg, shouting into the darkness, and Anna realised that the large patch of shadow in the corner must be an armchair with Mr Pegg in it. “But we’ll take these things up first,” said Mrs Pegg, and hustled her into what looked at first sight like a cupboard, but turned out to be a small, steep, winding staircase. At the top she pushed open a door, which opened with a latch instead of a handle. “Here we are. It ain’t grand but nice and clean, and a good feather mattress. Come you on down when you’re ready, my duck. I’ll go and put kettle on.”
Anna saw a little room with white walls, a low sloping ceiling, and one small window, so low down in the wall that she had to bend down to see out of it. It looked out on to a small whitewashed yard and an outhouse with a long tin bath hanging on its wall. Beyond that there were fields.
There was a picture over the bed, a framed sampler in red and blue cross-stitch, with the words Hold fast that which is Good embroidered over a blue anchor. Anna looked at this with mistrust. It was the word “good”. Not that she herself was particularly naughty, in fact her school reports quite often gave her a “Good” for Conduct, but in some odd way the word seemed to leave her outside. She didn’t feel good…
Still, it was a nice room, she decided cautiously. Plain but nice. Best of all it had the same smell as she had noticed downstairs. A warm, sweet, old smell – quite different from the smell of polish at home or the smell of disinfectant at school.
She hung up her mackintosh on the peg behind the door, then stood for a moment in the middle of the room, holding her breath and listening. She did not want to go down again but there was no excuse for not. She counted six, gave a little cough, and went.
“Ah, so there you are, my biddy!” said Mr Pegg, peering up at her. “My word, but you’ve growed! Quite a big little-old-girl you’re getting to be. Ain’t she, Susan?”
Anna looked into Mr Pegg’s wrinkled, weatherbeaten face. The small pale blue eyes were almost hidden under shaggy eyebrows.
“How do you do?” she said gravely, holding out her hand.
“A-ah, that’s my biddy,” said Mr Pegg, taking her hand and patting it absent-mindedly. “And how’s your foster-ma keeping, eh?”
Anna looked at Mrs Pegg.
“Your mum, my duck,” said Mrs Pegg quickly. “Sam’s asking if she’s well.”
“My mother’s dead,” said Anna stiffly. “She died ages ago. I thought you knew.”
“Yes, yes, my maid. We knowed all about that,” said Sam, gruffly kind. “And your gran too, more’s the pity.” – Anna’s face stiffened even more – “That’s why I said your foster-ma – Mrs Preston. Nancy Piggott as she used to be. She’s your foster-ma, ain’t she? A good woman, Nancy Preston. Always had a kind heart. She’s a good ma to you, I’ll be bound. Keeping nicely, is she?”
“She’s very well, thank you,” said Anna primly.
“But you don’t like me calling her ‘ma,’ eh? Is that it?” said Sam, his eyes crinkling up at the corners.
“No, of course she don’t!” said Mrs Pegg. “Ma’s old fashioned these days. I expect you call her ‘Mum’, don’t you, love?”
“I call her ‘Auntie’,” said Anna, then mumbled as an afterthought, “sometimes.” It was difficult to know how to explain that she seldom called Mrs Preston by any name at all. There was no need, it wasn’t as if there was a crowd of them at home. Only Mr Preston, who called his wife Nan, and occasionally Raymond, who worked in a bank now he was grown up and always called his mother “Mims”, or occasionally “Ma” to be funny. Anna thought “Mims” was a silly name to call your own mother… She stood there now in front of Mr Pegg’s chair, her eyes troubled, wondering what to say next.
Mrs Pegg came to the rescue. “Any road, I’m sure she’s as good as a mother to you, whatever you call her,” she said in her downright, comfortable way. “And I’m sure when all’s said and done you love her almost as much as if she was your own mother, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes!” said Anna. “More,” and felt a sudden pricking behind the eyelids as she remembered her last sight of Mrs Preston running to keep up with the train and reminding her about the postcard.
“That’s right, then,” said Mrs Pegg.
“I’ve got a postcard to post,” said Anna, her voice coming out suddenly loud – she had been so afraid of it cracking – “will you show me where to post it when I’ve written it?”
Mrs Pegg said yes, of course she would. Anna could write it now in the front room while she got tea ready. “Come you here,” she said, “and I’ll show you.” She wiped her hands down the side of her dress and showed Anna to a room on the other side of the passage. “There’s a little table in here under the windie.”
The tiny room, over-full of furniture, was in half darkness. Mrs Pegg pulled back the curtains and moved a potted palm from the small bamboo table. Then she bent admiringly over a large white bowl full of pink and blue artificial flowers, which half filled the window.
“Wonderful, ain’t they?” she said, blowing the dust from the plastic petals. “Everlasting.”
She gazed at them for a moment, wiping the scalloped edges of the boat-shaped bowl with a corner of her dress, then smiled at Anna and went out, closing the door behind her.
This must be the best room, thought Anna, as she tiptoed carefully over the polished linoleum and slippery hearthrug; like the lounge at home, which was only used at weekends or when there were visitors. But very different.
She sat down at the bamboo table and brought out her postcard addressed to Mrs Stanley Preston, 25 Elmwood Terrace, London, and wrote on the other side, Arrived safely. It’s quite nice here. My room has a sloping ceiling and the window is on the floor. It smells different from home. I forgot to ask can I wear shorts every day unless I’m going somewhere special?
She paused, suddenly wanting to say something more affectionate than the conventional “love from Anna”, but not knowing how to say it.
From the kitchen came the low rumble of voices. Mrs Pegg was saying to Sam, “Poor little-old-thing, losing her mother when she was such a mite – and her granny. It’s a pity she’s so pale and scrawny, and a bit sober-sides