The Twisted Way Read Online Free Page A

these children. Her head was beginning to spin and ache. She hadn’t realised that the villagers would pick and choose and squabble with such ferocity about which children they would allow to share their homes. Poor kids, they were all needy in her opinion.
    ‘Thank goodness,’ she said. ‘The whole thing is getting me down. I need a couple of aspirin.’
    Some of the girls who had still not been allocated billets were crying, their sobs getting louder by the minute, whilst several bold and cheeky older boys ran round the room playing tag until they were cautioned by the village vicar who had arrived with obvious reluctance and fingered his dog collar with nervous jabs for a few moments before attempting to make himself useful.
    ‘Can I help?’ his deep voice boomed out after he had composed himself. He was not anxious to become involved but had been coerced into helping by his wife. ‘We must do our bit, set an example in the village,’ she had insisted but did not herself offer to take in any of the London ragamuffins, as she had labelled them.
    ‘Some of those have dirty habits,’ she said with disdain. ‘What a scruffy looking lot I saw arriving. They probably never change their underwear or clean their teeth. Ugh, they are not for me. Just say, dear, that we do not have a spare bedroom.’ The vicar thought with sadness and shame about the latter remark. The vicarage boasted five bedrooms, all quite well furnished as most of the villagers knew. His two sons had joined the forces. At least they were doing their bit and that salved his conscience. He sighed. His wife was a stubborn self-opinionated woman who made his efforts to follow his vocation very difficult.
    Tom put his small cold hand into Alicia’s with relief. She gave it a reassuring squeeze and spoke gently.
    ‘Don’t worry dear. I’ve nearly finished here and we can go home, get you a proper meal. The toilet is over there if you want it.’ She pointed to a wooden door in the corner of the room and patted his hair, looking with undisguised and sincere interest at his earnest thin little face with the deeply dimpled chin. What a dear little boy. She smiled at him, her warm generous face lighting up, and he began to relax.
    Thus began Tom’s stay with the Merryweather family, first with Alicia and Will in Honeysuckle Cottage and five years later, when they were no longer able to take care of him, with their daughter Janet and her husband James Anderson in Primrose House on the edge of the village.
    Tom’s mother was not able to write to him as planned. Before she made her way to the Anderson shelter that evening a bomb hit the house. She lay crushed and mutilated beneath the rubble, covered by the home that she had loved and imagined invincible. Her brief funeral in a local churchyard was attended by Tom’s father and his two aunts who were of the opinion that the service would not be suitable for a child. There was too much sadness in London and he would only fret.
    ‘Not right for kids, ’e’s better off in that there country place,’ Robert’s old Aunt Aggie had urged and he had agreed.
    Tom’s father visited him shortly after his arrival in Enderly. ‘Your mother son, she’s gone ...’ He held his head in his hands and didn’t know how to continue.
    Tom understood.
    ‘Dad,’ he said with a wisdom beyond his years, ‘don’t fret about me. I’ll be all right.’
    Tom could not cry. The misery foisted upon him was deep and frightening. He felt lost and alone.
    His father handed him a small cardboard box. ‘Keep this safe Tom. It was your mother’s.’ Tom looked inside the box where his mother’s silver cross and chain nestled in some cotton wool; it was the one she had always worn round her neck and once told him had belonged to her mother.
    ‘Course, Dad.’ His small face crumpled though his eyes remained dry and expressionless. ‘I’ll keep it safe.’ Reality would confront him later.
    When it did Alicia Merryweather