Lost in the Flames by Chris Jory

hill as Norman and the boys came down, two small figures traipsing along in their jackets and their shorts either side of the massive man in whose hands their toy-sized suitcases appeared entirely incapable of transporting the contents of their lives from West Ham to Chipping Norton. Vera held a bundle of her own in her arms, Daphne Miller, born two years earlier, two years after the wedding, just as Norman had promised Alfred. Daphne began to cry, then settled, and as Vera laid her down in her cot in their bedroom overlooking the fields at the back, Norman showed Billy and Bobby up the next flight of stairs to the top room beneath the eaves.
    ‘What do you think?’ asked Norman. ‘All right?’
    ‘Is this all for us, mister?’ asked Bobby. ‘The whole room?’
    ‘The whole room.’
    ‘Flipping ’eck, Billy,’ said Bobby, looking around the room and then out of the window at the front and across the yard towards the pond and the copse beyond.
    ‘Are there fish in there, mister, in that pond?’
    ‘There are a few, but you’ll do well to catch them. They’re old and wise, and very, very big.’
    ‘You’re fucking joking!’
    Billy stared at his brother. ‘Watch your mouth, Bobby, we’re not at home now.’
    ‘Listen lads,’ said Norman. ‘There’s a rule on this farm about swearing, has been as long as I’ve been here and for a long time before that too. The old bloke who ran this place before me would only ever permit two swearwords within his earshot. Bloody and bugger. They both begin with B, so they’ll be easy enough for you to remember.’
    ‘Bloody and bugger,’ said Billy. ‘Like Billy and Bobby.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Norman, smiling. ‘Just like Billy and Bobby.’
    ‘So, mister,’ said Billy. ‘Bugger me! That’s all right then? That’s allowed?’
    ‘Yes, that’s all right.’
    ‘Bloody hell,’ said Bobby, and they both laughed.
    ‘It’s not so bad out here in the country,’ said Billy.
    ‘Unpack your bags, lads. And keep your voices down, the baby’s asleep. You can put your clothes in that chest, and bring your shoes downstairs – they stay in the hall. Be downstairs in ten minutes, I want to show you round the farm.’
    As Norman’s heavy footsteps descended the stairs, he could hear the boys’ voices as they rushed about the room.
    ‘Fuck me, this place is all right,’ said one.
    ‘Watch your bloody language, Billy.’
    ‘Bugger off you stupid … bugger.’
    ‘Bugger you too.’
    ‘Look at all those fucking cows.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In that field.’
    ‘Oh, yes. They’re quite small, aren’t they?’
    ‘That’s because they’re a long way off, you idiot.’
    ‘Bugger off, you bugger.’
    Then the sound of them falling about laughing and unpacking their bags, hurling drawers open and bickering over who would have the top one and on which side of the large shared bed each of them would sleep, and all the while trying out in ever louder tones various combinations of the authorised expletives. Down in the hall, Vera looked at Norman and cast her eyebrows towards the sky as the racket the boys were making set Daphne off in her cot, her cries lifting slowly up into a wail like the slow steady rise of an air-raid siren.
    ‘Cut them a bit of slack, Vera,’ said Norman. ‘They’ve been through a lot, the poor little lads.’
    Norman took them around the farm, first through the yard and the barns and round the pond, then up across the fields and through the woods and down into the shaded valley where the stream ran and the hares scuffed up the grass as they writhed in their traps, then up the far slope and around the main wood and home again along the perimeter fence that ran closest to the Churchill Road. They got back to the farm late for tea and worn out from hours on their feet in the fields.
    ‘Tired, boys?’
    ‘Bloody knackered, miss,’ said Billy.
    ‘Shoes off, lads,’ said Norman. ‘They stay in the hall.’
    The next morning, when they came