Page 25 of Neighbors at War

Helen felt as if everyone could tell she was sneaking meat off the property. As she neared the guard at the gate, she hoped she didn’t look as guilty as she felt. She might not have stolen the meat, but would a soldier believe that if she was caught with it? Even worse, she mused, as the guard waved for her to pass the raised barrier, would be if one of the islanders discovered her with it. Would they accuse her of collaborating for favours? She shuddered at the prospect. She couldn’t bear people thinking her capable of horizontal collaboration.

She hurried along St Aubin’s Road, glad to be away from the villa, and was about halfway home when she spotted Babs coming towards her.

‘Hello, there,’ Babs chirped, clearly in a cheerful mood. ‘Isn’t it lovely to see the sunshine?’

Helen was about to agree when she noticed Babs’s expression change to one of horror. Unsure why, Helen tensed and glanced behind her in case she was being followed. She looked back at her friend, who pointed discreetly at the pram.

‘What?’ Helen asked before following her friend’s gaze. To her horror she saw that small drops of blood were pooling at her feet. She was barely able to breathe. The meat. She should have wrapped it in something else, but she hadn’t had time.

Two soldiers appeared at the entrance of Hansford Lane. They seemed to be deciding which direction they should go. Unsure what to do, Helen focused on trying not to panic. She reached forward and, desperate to stop the blood leaking from the pram, took Bobby’s blanket from him and stuffed it under the mattress, hoping it would soak up any liquid.

As the breeze came in contact with his legs, Bobby’s face crumpled, and he let out a bellow. She didn’t blame him but wished he would calm down and not draw attention to them. She froze when the soldiers looked over in her direction, alerted by Bobby’s infuriated cries as they increased in pitch. Helen knew she was about to be stopped.

She was bracing herself for being arrested for theft as soon as they spotted the blood, when Babs cried out. The soldiers immediately turned their attention to her pretty blonde friend.

‘Go!’ Babs hissed. ‘Now, and don’t look back.’ Realising this was Babs’s way of distracting them to let her escape, Helen increased her pace, grateful to her friend for her quick thinking.

As Helen strode away from the scene, she heard the soldiers asking Babs if she was all right and her replying that she had dropped a couple of Reichsmarks down the drain near her feet. Not daring to slow down and check on the meat, Helen hoped she would be able to reach home before any more blood began to drip. Bobby’s cries were causing people to look at them and reminding her that his legs were exposed. Without slowing down she hurriedly unwound her scarf from her neck and draped it over them.

‘That’s better, isn’t it?’ she soothed. ‘We’ll soon be home.’

He pulled the edge of the silky scarf up to his face and covered it, calming immediately now he had something soft to cuddle.

She pulled his pram up the front steps, adrenalin helping her manage it more quickly than usual. As soon as the front door closed with a satisfying clunk, Helen leant her bottom against it, trying to catch her breath, and promised herself she would never take a chance like this again.

‘Is everything all right?’ Sylvia asked, joining her from the kitchen. ‘Helen?’

She smiled, not wanting to concern her aunt. ‘I’m fine. We both are. But I’ve smuggled something back for our supper and almost got caught doing it.’

Aunt Sylvia scowled. ‘Smuggled? Helen, what have you done?’

‘I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve gathered myself,’ she replied, unbuttoning her coat and hanging it up. She took her scarf from Bobby’s grip, setting his crying off again. Then, unclipping him from his harness, Helen lifted him and carried him through to his highchair, relieved his clothes hadn’t been soiled by the liquid under his mattress.

When she returned to the hallway, she noticed her aunt peering in the pram. ‘Is that⁠—’

‘It’s blood,’ Helen said, shaking her head when her aunt looked at her aghast. ‘From a piece of meat I was given.’

Her aunt’s mouth dropped open. ‘You have meat hidden in Bobby’s pram?’

‘Why don’t you make us a cup of tea while I clean this up, Aunty?’ She lifted the mattress and removed the dripping paper package, trying not to retch at the iron smell of the blood.

Her aunt grimaced. ‘Wait a minute while I fetch a plate for that.’ She disappeared into the kitchen. ‘We don’t need a mess on the floor.’ She returned and Helen placed the soggy parcel on the plate for her aunt to take back with her to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, after cutting the fillet into two, having determined to give half to Babs as a thank you for her help, Helen divided the rest between her and her aunt. Sylvia had refused to eat it unless they shared it.

‘I’m not sure how to cook it to make the most of it.’

Sylvia sipped her tea. ‘I think we should make a nourishing stew,’ she said eventually. ‘We have a few vegetables past their best, but they’ll be disguised well enough in a stew.’ She focused her attention on Helen, who struggled not to look away under her aunt’s scrutiny. ‘You never mentioned who gave this to you. And more to the point, why?’

Recalling their previous cross words over the hard-boiled egg, Helen explained about the soldier overhearing her conversation with Mrs Jeune and wanting to help. ‘I wasn’t comfortable accepting it, but we heard someone calling him and neither of us wanted to be caught. I know it was nicely meant. I just wish I had been able to wrap the bundle up a little better to contain the drips.’

‘You were incredibly lucky not to be caught,’ her aunt said, after Helen explained what Babs had done. ‘Thank heavens that dear girl appeared when she did and reacted so quickly.’

‘I agree. That’s why I thought we should share the meat with her. I know it’ll mean we have less, and there won’t be much at all for Babs once she’s shared it with her mum and sister, but at least we all have benefit from it.’

A knock on the front door made them jump. Sylvia put her hand to her chest, and Helen worried that the two soldiers had been suspicious of her after all and followed her home.

‘You see who that is,’ her aunt said. ‘I’ll hide this lot.’