The Children On The Doorstep
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It's been decades, yet I think of them all the time. As I nestle into my armchair by the fire, the TV remote resting on the soft padded arm, I hear a distant knock on the door. Immediately, the room is filled with the short sharp yaps of my small, chocolate coloured Yorkshire terrier.
 
"Quiet, Apple!" I snap. Who on earth would be at on my door at quarter to nine on a Sunday evening? I hobble slowly to the front door, and suspiciously tug it open, my hand clutching protectively at the handle, ready to shut it instantly if it's yet another salesman or politician handing out leaflets. 
 
Instead, I see two children, a boy and a girl, the boy quite a bit older. My mind flashes back, more than 80 years, to another evening just like this one.
 
"Good lord, who could that be at this time of night?" my mother said as the doorbell rang incessantly. "Be a dear and see to the door, Irene. If it's Peg from next door, tell her I'm busy."
 
"Yes, Mother." I scurried to the door and opened it, hiding behind it to conceal my nightgown. I stared at our visitors. A large, red-faced woman and two scrappy little children, a boy and a girl, though they were not entirely distinguishable at first glance. They were both wafer thin, all scraped elbows and knees, grubby, with large eyes and hair choppily cut short. However, one was a lot taller and older looking. All three of them stared back at me.
 
"Hello there, sweetheart!" Her voice was broad and booming, and she smiled with a wide mouth that cracked her face and didn't quite reach her eyes.
 
"Um, hello..." I murmured, distracted by the presence of these ghostly youth.
 
"Could you please fetch your mother for me, darling? It's rather important. Tell her it's Mrs Jones."
 
"I... uh... yes."
 
I ran to the sitting room.
 
"Mother, there's a big woman called Mrs Jones at the door, and she's got these dirty children with her!" I told her.
 
"Oh lord, it'll be those London children," she muttered, "Go upstairs to bed, Irene, I don't want you catching something."
 
I reluctantly trailed upstairs and into my room. I tried to listen to their conversation, but couldn't make out any words, apart from the occasional "war effort", "not enough room" or "for King and country!". The conversation went on for a long time, and the voices were raised. I heard the door slam shut and more mumblings. I desperately wanted to go downstairs but knew mother would be furious I wasn't asleep and know I'd been trying to listen in, so I simply settled down into bed. I slipped into a deep, dreamless sleep. 
 
When I woke up, I was so drowsy that I forgot about the events of yesterday evening.
 
Yet, when I entered the kitchen, the children were sitting at the table (with an enormous breakfast) supervised by a tired looking Mother.
 
"Mother?! What are they doing here?" I asked, rather rudely in hindsight.
 
"Irene! Don't be impolite, come here!" She hissed, pulling me into the sitting room.
 
"The lady last night brought them. They've been evacuated from London, because of the war, but no one would have them, so they've been forced on to us, but I've washed them and they haven't got any bugs so it's not so awful. The little one is Nancy and the boy is
Edward. Be nice!" She spoke in a rapid whisper and my mind reeled from all the information. She shoved me back into the kitchen with the order to "make conversation".
 
"Hello, I'm Irene. And you are?" I said, bravely.
 
"I'm Edward, nice to meet you." The older boy garbled through a mouthful of soggy, half-chewed toast. I was disgusted but kept trying.
 
"And how about you? What's your name?" I asked the younger girl. I knew it was Nancy, of course, but I was trying my best to polite, even if Edward wasn't. However, Nancy stared at me silently.
 
"She's Nance, don't mind her not talking, she's just shy, and she's only little." Said Edward.
 
"How old is she?"
 
"She's five."
 
"And how old are you?"
 
"I'm eleven."
 
"So am I!"
 
"You don't look it, you're tiny!"
 
"Well, thanks a bunch! And that's a lot coming from you!"
 
"No offense meant, you're quite pretty, in a country kind of way."
 
"And you're scrawny, even for a city boy."
 
"It was a compliment! Pretty as in beautiful, country as in where you're from!"
 
"It was a pretty duff compliment."
 
"Well, it would've been very strange to call you beautiful in every way or something, seeing as we only met this very morning, wouldn't it?"
 
That was me and Edward's first conversation and there would be hundreds more to come. In a couple of months, Nancy warmed to me too, and treated me like a big sister. School started, and me and Edward were often paired up in projects. We did a special project on India together and got two gold stars each! We squabbled for hours about who did the most work. Edward gave in eventually, saying I'd carried the project, which, looking back now, wasn't at all true. 
 
By thirteen, we were sweethearts, though we never told Mother. He told me about his family back in London, how his father was always out, betting and drinking, and his mother was ill and lay in bed most of the time. He looked after Nancy by himself, and they often didn't get enough to eat, and had no running water to wash. Nancy's hair had to be cut off because she caught nits, and Edward cut his off with her so she wouldn't feel so silly. Her hair grew back while she was with us, and was a beautiful blonde colour. She shined up like a new penny when Mother put her in curling rags and bought her a new dress. We were so proud of her when she played Mary in the school Nativity. Edward cared for her more than anything else.
 
However, Edward took Nancy back to London for a visit when he was fifteen, as a special treat. They caught the train and planned to stay in a boarding house. Mother gave them the money and they left on a Saturday morning, planning to come back on Monday morning. However, on Monday, they did not return. Mother and I were out of our minds with worry, and missed school and work just in case they came home during the day.
 
However, on Saturday, we were visited by a policeman, who told us about the terrible accident. Whilst taking a shortcut through a back alley to get breakfast, Edward and Nancy walked through a bombsite, and an unstable wall collapsed on to them. They were buried under debris and not found for days. The policeman handed us Nancy's favourite necklace, and the contents of Edward's pockets. There was a handkerchief, a pencil, thruppence and, to my bittersweet shock, an engagement ring. We were both turning sixteen in the next two months, and Edward had bought the ring from a real jewellers. He must have saved and done odd jobs for many months. I could have been married before the end of the war.
 
I don't remember much after that. It's all a horrific, haunting blur. I don't remember the funeral, or the months I took off school, or the tidal wave of neighbours, presenting condolences and casseroles. I just remember staring at the ring for hours on end, sobbing. I never fell in love again.
 
"Excuse me, but my sister and I threw our ball into your garden, could we please go and get it?"
 
I'm taken out of my memories, and snapped back into the present by the two children on the exact same doorstep Edward and Nancy stood on all those years ago.
 
"Yes, of course dears, the gate's unlocked."
 
They disappear into my back garden, chorusing thank yous. I walk back into my sitting room, and sink back into my armchair. I glance at the black and white pictures on the mantel piece, on me and my mother in the sitting room, Nancy in her Mary dress, the three of us at the beach, and my favourite, Edward and I sitting beneath the apple tree in the garden, discreetly holding hands. We would sit under there for hours, talking, playing games or even just dozing. Under that same tree now are the two children looking for their ball. I touch the two delicate chains around my neck, I hold onto Nancy's locket with the same photograph of all of us at the beach concealed behind the scratched silver. My hands sliding down to the ring dangling from the other thin chain. My fingertips trace the words engraved upon it, the phrase that I stared at through teary eyes in my room, the phrase that I would repeat to myself everyday for years after, and still do now.
 
 "My Irene, Beautiful In Every Way"