by Leah Fleming
Netta walked to the modern end of Gretna, built around a cordite factory during the First World War. It showed a dour workaday face to the world, with plain barrack-like buildings and factory workers milling round a line of shops. There was nothing romantic about the Register Office but it served its purpose.
She was still half an hour early for their appointment, clutching a little bouquet of white heather wrapped in silver paper. Netta looked down the list of banns. They were sandwiched between a couple from Annan and a merchant seaman and his girl from Edinburgh. There it was in black and white: Raeburn Francis Hunter to Jeanette Kirkpatrick Nichols.
For all it was nearly the end of May, the wind from the Solway Firth was sharp and Netta shivered in her finery. Rae was late and as the minute hand of her watch crept from ten to twenty to thirty, the time for them to be going into the Marriage Room drew nigh. The first happy couple came out laughing and friends showered dots of homemade confetti over them. The bride wore a tweed suit with a fox fur round her neck and the groom wore the uniform of a Special in the Police Force.
Netta shivered, her teeth chittering, her heart thudding, feeling tightness like a band of steel close around her chest. He’s not coming, something’s happened… an accident on the way. Surely he wouldn’t jilt me? The Registrar peered around the door.
‘Hunter party step forward.’ He saw her weeping and sat her down. ‘Perhaps there’s a hold up, what with all the troops and lorries. They say there’s a ribbon of trucks from one end of Britain to the other. Just you wait there and see if he turns up. There’ll be some explanation, I’m sure.’
She sat in a side room, listening to the next bride and groom go through their ceremony. They had bagpipes to pipe them out the door and Netta could have wailed with envy. She waited until the doors were shut and the Registrar made her a cup of tea.
‘I’m awful sorry. Still if he’s a soldier… The world’s on the move all right. He has to obey orders.’ She could tell he was looking at her with pity, thinking, Here’s some lassie juped by the swish of tartan and a line of medals.
‘When’s the next bus?’ she croaked, neck stiff from looking down at her feet.
‘There’s one to Carlisle in a few minutes and one to Dumfries on the half-hour. You’re lucky it’s a Saturday, all the young fry will be off to the dancing.’
*
The longest week in her life turned into the longest journey home, scanning the fields and the coast, trying not to howl on the bus and the train. All dressed up and nowhere to go. How was she going to explain Rae’s absence? Peg had even prepared the spare room for them, just in case. Perhaps another half-truth would do again. She was getting used to covering her tracks.
Netta ferreted in her bag, took the ring out of its box and, while none of the other passengers were looking, slipped it on her wedding finger over the engagement ring. A ring but no groom. A blessing but no marriage lines. Not a single photograph to record the event. No proof to get extra coupons to build a home for his return. But only she knew the truth of it and so it would remain. Well, this bride did have the rings and the outfit, the memories and the banns, so Mrs Rae Hunter she was going to be from now on.
Father came to meet her off the train with a worried look on his face. ‘Where’ve you been? There was a telegram just after you left. I had to open it. See.’ He showed her the slip: SORRY STOP LEAVE CANCELLED STOP WRITE YOU SOON STOP LOVE RAE.
That was the point where she broke down sobbing, much to her father’s embarrassment.
‘Wheesht, lassie, the laddie can’t help it. Sounds as if it’s all beginning, right enough. I hear they’re towing some great contraption all the way from Glenluce Bay, down the west coast to Portsmouth. The war has to come first, Netta. Don’t get yersel’ in a state over what ye cannae change.’
Netta was in no state for consolation or company. She changed her shoes and stormed up the hill to the mound of stones behind the farmhouse looking out over the bay. Today the panorama gave her no comfort. She was ashamed of all the blame she had laid on Rae for not turning up. Fear had turned so quickly to fury. How mean she felt to have doubted him. All their plans were scattered like confetti, for try as she might to play it down now, she knew how much that legal piece of paper had meant to her. ‘Mrs Hunter’ shivered in the wind at the lie she must now live to survive.
*
Peg could see the girl was struggling, not herself at all, anxiously scouring the broadcasts and newspapers for news of the great invasion; poring over her husband’s letters as if her life depended on it. This unexpected marriage had not brought a bloom to her cheeks or increased her meagre appetite. She found no joy in the visits of old school pals who came to shower her with gifts. Angus had put a wedding notice in the Galloway News to cheer her up but it had sent her into a fit of weeping. There was no pleasing the girl if there wasn’t a letter from Rae. He was based somewhere in the south of England on manoeuvres, apparently.
It was nothing Peg could put her finger on exactly; a shiftiness about the eyes, a reticence to give information, a reluctance to make plans for war service. No wedding photos were forthcoming which was strange. The two-piece came out each Sunday for church – and so it should, the amount of coupons she had wasted on such a show. But there was something not right with the girl. Perhaps she was now regretting such a harum-scarum marriage or perhaps she was just sickening for something or perhaps… Oh God, surely not that! Not a bairn on the way? That was not fair, not after all the years Peg had prayed for one herself.
How many times had she lain on Dr Begg’s couch, being pummelled inside, only to be told: ‘Sound as an ox. I could drive a coach and horses through your pelvis, dear. Not to worry, it’ll come when it’s ready’? As the years went on there had been a few hopes, all dashed. Now this chit of a girl was going to have a honeymoon bairn by the looks of things. It was just no fair!
All this torment Peg kept within herself for weeks, not wishing to make the tension in the house any worse. Angus kept his daughter busy on the farm, with the calves and the clipping, the hay timing. They waited for the daily bulletins on the news. D-Day plus one… plus five… plus eight. The wireless news was always encouraging but by now everyone knew that reports were shaped and vetted to keep up morale.
*
The morning of the twelfth of July was one of those Galloway glory days: ink blue sky above rolling hills as green as emeralds, and blossoms on the hedgerows as far as the eye could see. Netta kept peering out of the windows of the bedrooms as she went about her chores, trying not to worry that Rae’s letters kept coming out of sequence. She had numbers 28 and 30 but not 29. The Borderers were rumoured to be in some big push eastwards and from the news she knew everything was still bogged down near the French port of Caen. She was following every step of the way in her heart but the dizzy spells and weakness in her stomach, the sheer exhaustion she was feeling just trying to sweep under the beds, made her head spin.
When she stood up Father was framed in the doorway, his face grey and his hand shaking as he held out an envelope. ‘It’s addressed to you – Miss Nichol.’ Netta saw what it was immediately, collapsing on to the bed as she tore open the telegram.
10th JULY. REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT YOUR FIANCÉ CORPL. R.F. HUNTER. K.O.S.B. KILLED IN ACTION STOP LETTER TO FOLLOW STOP NO INFORMATION TO BE GIVEN TO PRESS STOP.
Peg heard a scream like the howl of a tortured animal and rushed in from the yard.
‘No! No! Not Rae! God help me!’ Netta rushed past her on the stairs and fed down the track. The dogs chased after her hopefully.
‘Come back!’ yelled Peg, suddenly alarmed.
‘Leave her be,’ answered Angus, touching her shoulder.
It was such a warm balmy beach day, white puffs of fluffy clouds floating across the sky, the breeze soothing. But for Netta sitting on Carrick Sands it was the dead of winter. Her eyes glinted like ice, her limbs felt stiff as she looked out over a gun-metal sea. Somewhere over the water Rae lay cold, unsee
ing in his shroud. He would make no more footprints in the sand, set no heather afire with his landscapes and portraits, nor warm her body with his loving. She felt the crumpled telegram in her palm and flattened it open again, poring over each word in disbelief. He could still be alive? Perhaps they had the wrong name, perhaps he was a prisoner or in hiding. But, no. Deep in her gut was the certainty that he had fallen and been identified.
She tore the telegram in half in quarters, then fed it bit by bit into the silver-grey sea. The pieces floated away like petals, like confetti… the confetti that would never be showered over her. All that would be poured over her head now was shame.
May 1949, Friday
‘Why are you crying, Auntie Netta? Do you want my hankie?’ Gus whispered, holding out a crumpled square. ‘Are you like that lady on the rainbow bridge?’ He watched her sniff and wipe her hand over her nose, just like he had when the old sheep dog was shot.
‘I suppose so… It was just seeing the helmet that made me sad. It belonged to someone very precious to me. He didn’t come back from the war. You can have it, if you like. I’m sure he would want you to have it.’
‘What was his name? Was he a pilot?’
‘Rae Hunter… He was a soldier and a war artist. I have his sketches on my wall in Griseley. Some of his sketches are in the War Museum. We were going to get married but…’ Her voice went all croaky.
‘Did he get deaded?’
‘Yes. In the battle for the Orne river, near Caen, with hundreds of other brave men from his battalion. It was a terrible campaign. That’s where Dougie Mackay, the Minister’s son, lost his arm. He came back to England and brought back all my letters and Rae’s belongings too. He told me what had happened and brought me a special letter that Rae had given him, just in case.’
‘What did the letter in the case say?’ Gus was curious. Netta shook her head.
‘I can recite every word of it like a poem but it’s so special and so private, Gus, no one’s ever going to see it but me. Wasn’t he kind to think of such a thing? It gave me the courage to go on. You would have liked him and he would have loved you…’
Gus looked down at his aunt. She was sitting there looking hurt like the girls in the nursery class when they played rough houses and fell down, snivelling for their mammies. He cooried into her side and said nothing.
August 1944
It took weeks for Netta to pluck up courage to read Rae’s last letter properly. She had folded it and put it in a metal tin, sticking it tight into a stone dyke by the shore. On bad days, when the dagger of grief in her ribs was unbearable, she walked down to Carrick Sands to meet him by the sea, took the letter from its hidey-hole and read his words for comfort, drawing strength from his belief in her. There, sitting on the rocks, recalling that first meeting, she pored over each sentence, hearing his voice in the wind:
If you are reading this letter then you know now that you must live your life without me, but dream our dreams for me, colour the world with your creations and bear no bitterness in your heart that we are the unlucky ones. ‘What’s for you will no go past you,’ they say. The acid of bitterness corrodes away goodness and resolve. Fight it, my darling. I am so proud to have you as my anvil wife. I fear there will be trouble ahead for you but our marriage was made under heaven and no one can deny us that.
I wish I had more than a few paintings to leave you when I carry your priceless love with me into eternity and that first vision of you on the shore with the dogs, trying to look so cross with me. Press ahead with your plans, my darling, set the heather ablaze for me.
Goodbye, my own dear heart. My love for aye,
Rae
May 1949, Friday
You never love the same way twice, Netta reflected, weeping. No other love however strong could regain this first chunk of her heart. It was fortressed by a stone dyke in Rae’s letter. There had been a terrible price to pay for their loving. Now she felt Gus’s hand sliding into her palm.
‘I think you should go downstairs now, Gus, and play outside while it’s dry. I can finish off here. I’m fine now.’
‘But we haven’t found your photos yet and my head hurts.’
The boy shoved another box along the door and dust puffed out like smoke as sunlight from the tiny loft windows to either side of the roof shone down on the jumble. ‘What’s in here? Yuk!’ He held up a pair of lacy bootees faded yellow with age.
‘Put those down and go and get me a glass of milk if you want to make yersel’ useful, young man,’ ordered Netta in her no-nonsense voice.
He plonked on the helmet and saluted her cheekily. ‘Righty ho, Sarge!’
She smiled reluctantly, wiping away her tears and turning back to a box that had once held knitting patterns. She knew exactly what was in here and it would break her heart.
Ten Days in March 1945
There were rainbows and tears on Strathavar hill as Netta set off stoutly up the steep hillside, breathing breathlessly into the wind. Some things never change: the view over Wigtown Bay, the silver-blue sheen of water and grassy hummocks now torched with wedges of golden gorse edging the sandy machars of the shore. She sat on the stump of a rotten tree, searching for comfort in the familiar, and out of a leaden sky a rainbow arched down to the sea.
It was worth all the huffing and puffing just to see that arch of colour. Where was God’s rainbow handle on the basket of this war-torn world? Did he care what was happening here? All the Minister’s comforting words rang hollow in her ears when she pressed Rae’s last letter to her heart. Her world was a hell of grey shadows and darkness without hope of his return.
This time last year there had been the colours of love in her life; crimson, gold, emerald to purple under the silken arch of Rae’s protection. Today the sight of a rainbow gave no comfort for, hard as she squinted, Netta could see only a half hoop dipping into the sea and that was never a good omen. She was pushing herself to climb the hill just to share the wonder of this Galloway scenery with ‘Baby Bump’ who squirmed and rolled inside her body. She placed a stone on Mother’s cairn which marked the summit of the hill. A girl needed her mother at such a time but Netta’s was gone.
The shadows fell after Caen and Arnhem when more Galloway sons were slaughtered. The blackness came over her in waves of anguish that Rae had died unaware there was a child on the way. How drab now were the colours of war – mourning, blackouts, khaki and camouflage – against the rainbow colours of their courtship. How could she ever set the heather ablaze without his inspiration?
She would never touch a paintbrush or a dress pattern again even though this long war was coming to an end. Netta believed that ‘Bump’ would get a better start here in fresh air and sea breezes. That was why she was staying put.
Everyone seemed relieved to know that she had something of Rae’s to look forward to but a baby was not some souvenir to dust on a mantelpiece. It must be clothed and fed. Good wishes from friends would butter no parsnips, but at least they made up for the dour faces at Brigg Farm at her news.
Father and Peg carried on at her to sort out her widow’s pension and demanded an explanation as to why stuff was arriving addressed to Miss Nichol and not Mrs Hunter. She fobbed them off as best she could in her grief, her lethargy and morning sickness.
‘You’re entitled to his pension at least now there’ll be another mouth to feed. It should be coming to you automatically.’ Father was all for writing to complain of the insensitivity of the Pensions Ministry in not giving his widowed daughter her dues.
‘Rae must not have got round to informing them before they left for France… Don’t fuss. When I feel stronger I’ll make enquiries,’ answered Netta warily as Father gave her one of his quizzical looks out of the corner of his eye. ‘I’ll take in sewing and dressmaking. No bairn of mine will go without,’ she vowed.
‘Now your time’s up, Bump.’ Netta smiled, patting the bulge. The baby was long overdue and she was hoping this strenuous outing would give it the impetus to put in an
appearance.
She felt as useless as the china dogs that sat looking down from the kitchen mantelpiece. Her bulk got in the way of the Brigg dairy routines. Like a galleon in full sail in her maternity smock made from gingham curtain offcuts, she kept knocking over Peg’s precious knick-knacks with the swirl of her skirts. Everyone said Mrs Hunter was the best-dressed expectant mother in the Stewartry, war or no war. Making smocks out of blackout linings, two-piece skirts and tops from old suiting, stopped her hands from shaking. She recalled all Vida Bloom’s sewing tricks as she spent long evenings listening to the Third Programme while she got on with the layette, knitting and blanket making. No wonder they called her ‘Nettie Thimble’ or ‘Mrs Sew and Sew’. Handsmocking by firelight soothed her sad spirits.
Staying in Stratharvar, pregnant and numb with grief, was not an ideal solution but she needed a roof over her head. Once resigned to her condition, Father made few allowances for it and showed scarcely any enthusiasm, though that was nothing new. Lately he wore the expression of a man disappointed in life; the look of a man whose women have let him down: his first wife dying unexpectedly from heart failure, having produced only one lass who had eloped and disobeyed him without so much as a backward glance; Peg no better at producing an heir for him. There would be no future for Brigg Farm once he was gone without an heir, and it had soured him.
Netta stared out to sea, hugging her knees. The March wind was chilly and her ankles were puffed up. This was no place to linger alone. It was time to return to the greystone farm in the hollows, its whitewashed byre and red-painted barns jutting out like arms encircling the house; time to check the suitcase ready for the nursing home by the coast where Nurse Plenderleith was waiting to deliver Bump.
Some things never change. She smiled at the sight far down the track of Wee Alec, the travelling draper, busy on his rounds, lumbering the mile down the bumpy track with three large cases.