***chapter 25***

***Friendship***

It always saddened Jimmy to know Davey and Beth were atheists, falling in with the modern way of thinking that religion was, at best, for gullible fools. Davey had even told Jimmy and Rose that the only reason they'd married in a church had been to "please Beth's Ma and Da".

The sun was pleasantly warm and Regal Gardens, with its majestic trees, wild flowers and birdsong, held a timeless beauty to captivate the coldest heart and music to soothe the weariest soul. But Jimmy found himself sighing. He and Davey enjoyed many friendly debates, over sport, over whether or not the Loch Ness monster really existed, over whether sausage and mash or hotpot was the most filling meal, over a dozen and one other inconsequential things, but religion, something which mattered a great deal to Jimmy, was the one topic on which they strongly disagreed. It worried him that his friends never prayed or attended church or even owned a Bible. Keep holy the Sabbath day, the Commandments said, but Davey and Beth would have laughed at anyone who even suggested they should. Rose would of course ensure the children kept their faith but what sort of influence would Davey and Beth's views have on Peggy and Johnjo in the years to come?

Yet as he stood on the wishing bridge that day and a little scene unfolded he couldn't help but wonder if the young folk had it right.

Beth was deep in conversation with Rose and from her giggles and Rose's amused smiles, he suspected they were discussing their menfolk. Davey was leaning against the bridge, talking with Peggy and Johnjo, who each held one of the wooden horses he'd sculpted to represent Beauty and Magic. And, it seemed, they were not destined for Fairytale Copse after all."

"'Cos it wouldn't be right if we said they were the King's Horses when they weren't," Peggy was saying gravely.

"Mam and Dada say we should never lie," Johnjo chipped in.

"So now…" Davey scratched his ear and screwed up his face, feigning bafflement, but he knew perfectly well what they were hankering after. "This is a knotty problem and no mistake. If we're not allowed to put Beauty and Magic in Fairytale Copse 'cos they never got to be famous and never got to be in a book or on the flicks, I don't rightly know what we're gonna do with 'em."

"Well…I s'pose I could look after Beauty…" Peggy drawled, as though the idea had only just occurred to her.

"And I could keep Magic!" Johnjo finished.

Stifling his amusement, Davey raised his eyebrows in askance at Jimmy. It had been by happy coincidence that he'd met the Turner family in Regal Gardens today. He and Beth had planned to follow the old Yorkshire tradition of placing the sculptures in Fairytale Copse and to take the children there at a later date to surprise them with the carvings of Beauty and Magic.

"Seems the only solution, mate," Jimmy shrugged, and laughed at Peggy and Johnjo's delight. Espying two large gull feathers on the wooden platform of King's Bridge, he stooped down to pick them up. Regal Gardens teemed with birdlife and dozens such were often to be found here.

"Well, I'm blowed, Davey!" He declared, placing them in his children's hair. "Peggy and Johnjo have turned into a couple of Red Indians!"

"Oh, Dada!" Peggy sighed, as she immediately untangled the feather from her toffee-coloured tresses again. "I'm eleven now, I'm too big to play Red Indians! Though I might use it to make something some time." She added kindly, with a tolerant smile as though the roles had reversed and she were the parent and Jimmy the child.

Johnjo too pulled the feather out of his hair.

"My name is John!" He said tearfully. "It's John James, Dada, not Johnjo!"

Poor Jimmy felt his heart surely snap in two. He hadn't realised just how fast Peggy was growing up and he'd forgotten Rose told him Johnjo's friends had been teasing him lately over his "baby" name. He'd been so busy with his chauffeur duties, ferrying Arthur and Prudence Maddocks to and from their important political meetings. Some nights he got back so late and was required so early in the morning that he never had time to go home at all and stayed the night at Follyfoot Farm.

Rose and Beth, who had been walking a little distance ahead, came back to see whatever was the to-do with Johnjo, but Davey already had the little boy laughing again.

"You're lucky 'cos yer got two names like me and only special people got two names like that. Me mates call me Davey and me family calls me David. Yer can be John with yer mates and Johnjo with the family. As for this feather now…" he tickled Johnjo's chin. "Me old Ma always said angels leave 'em for us to find to let us know when they're thinking' of us."

"Exactly what my grandma used to say too!" Beth said.

Peggy gasped, enchanted. "Do you think it could be the very same angel who collected Beauty when she died and took her to Heaven and the very same angel who collected Magic when Magic died to take to Heaven?" she asked, without pausing for breath, while Johnjo waited in wide-eyed anticipation for Davey's answer.

"Could be," Davey said gravely, and winked at Beth. "What d'yer reckon then, girl?"

"Could be!" She chided, slapping his shoulder teasingly. "Why, Davey, of course they were the very same angels!"

"Well, that's that then, it must be so," Davey said firmly. "And seein' as all this magic is around and we're standin' 'ere on a wishin' bridge we'd all best close our eyes and make a wish."

"You know, all that really matters is true friends," Rose whispered to Jimmy, slipping her arm around his waist and smiling with him at the little group, Davey and Beth half laughing, half peeking at each other, Peggy and Johnjo with eyelids shut tight in concentration.

Jimmy nodded agreement. Rose was right, he realised. What did it matter if Davey and Beth were non-believers? What did it matter that they weren't worshippers? They would teach Peggy and Johnjo far greater values like love and kindness. And the world was full of hypocrites. Only last year there had been the terrible scandal in Ashtree when a bank official, known as a "churchgoing pillar of the community" was discovered to have been embezzling charity funds for years, stealing thousands of pounds meant to help the families of men killed or wounded in the Great War.

"You know what I wish for, love?" Rose remarked, snuggling closer. "That this evil man Hitler could be stopped in his tracks. That the whole world could be friends."

"Me too, Rosie, me too," Jimmy murmured, and kissed her cheek gently. "Who knows? Maybe it will come to pass. Maybe another great war will never be."

But even as he looked up at the perfect azure sky and sent a silent prayer for peace, the sun slipped sadly behind a cloud as if it knew.