Dragon Land by Maureen Reynolds Read Free Book Online Page A

silence.
    Andy was distressed and looked at Granny. ‘Well, maybe he did. Miracles do happen.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll get off now, but I did want to see you and tell you that your husband was a hero.’
    Granny got his coat and stood at the door speaking to him before we heard the door close and the key being turned in the lock.
    When she came back into the room, Mum and I were crying. Granny looked shocked but, gathering up her courage, she said perhaps we should all go to bed.
    ‘He’s not dead, Mary. I don’t believe it,’ said Mum. She looked pale and her eyes were rimmed red with her tears.
    Granny said maybe things would look better in the morning.
    I thought Mum was going to protest, but she let Granny gently lead her to our bedroom. She waited until she was in bed. I lay awake to the sound of the rain on the window and Mum’s crying.
    After what seemed like hours, Mum eventually fell asleep while I was still awake. I could hear Granny moving about, so I quietly got up and went into the living room.
    Granny was looking at a photo album, and she looked up in surprise when she saw me.
    ‘I couldn’t sleep, Granny,’ I said. ‘Do you think Daddy is dead?’
    She didn’t answer my question but said, ‘I’m just looking at all the photos of your dad. Come and sit beside me and we’ll look at them together.’
    I curled up on the sofa beside her and gazed at the photos all neatly arranged in the album. There was one of the swimming club, and I felt tears in my eyes when I saw how young Dad looked as he held up a silver trophy from a swimming contest. He stood looking so proud and I was able to see the droplets of water from his hair. Standing behind him were the other members. They were all smiling with pleasure and I was shocked to see a very youthful-looking Andy Baxter. He had the world at his feet and couldn’t have known what lay ahead of him. Nor could the rest of the team, Dad included. Now Andy was a broken young man with his terrible injuries and I felt so angry about this awful war.
    ‘I think it’s time for bed,’ said Granny, standing up and putting the album back in the sideboard drawer. She still hadn’t answered my question, but I went back to bed and lay awake for ages until tiredness took over.
    I thought Granny was very courageous in her attitude to Andy’s story. However, I noticed a change in her behaviour when she got ready for church on the Sunday morning. She always wore a black hat, but every week she would pin either a small bunch of artificial cherries or a small posy of silk flowers close to the brim, but on that Sunday and every Sunday afterwards she wore the black hat unadorned.
    I knew it was he r sign of mourning for a son, a husband and a father.

8
A LETTER FROM MARGARET
    As the weeks went on, Mum went off to work looking like a ghost. She had always been slim, but now she had lost so much weight that her dress and coat hung from her slender shoulders. I knew Granny was worried about her, but after the fateful night of Andy Baxter’s visit, Mum seemed resigned to the fact that Dad wasn’t coming back from what the papers were calling ‘the war to end all wars’.
    Then suddenly, a week before Christmas 1921, she perked up and announced she was going out on the Thursday night to meet up with Milly, her colleague. She spent some time getting ready and at seven thirty she went out. I saw her standing at the tram stop across the road from our close. She waved before climbing aboard and I went back to my book. I was rereading Treasure Island and was immersed in the adventures of the characters, wishing I could live a life like them.
    Granny was sitting by the fire, engrossed in her knitting pattern. I could see from the cover that it was a jersey for a child and I suspected it was a Christmas present for me. The pattern looked quite complicated, with a rope-like cable climbing up the front of the jersey. I wasn’t enamoured with it, but I knew I would be expected to wear