by Jenny Holmes
‘That he loved you?’ Grace guessed rightly a second time. She’d pictured the heavy thud of disappointment that Una must have felt standing in the gathering dusk in the pine wood behind the camp and the icy fear that must have gripped her. ‘Try not to worry too much,’ she’d advised gently. ‘Whatever’s wrong with Angelo, doctors can work wonders with the medicines they have these days.’
But poor Una’s face had been a picture of misery – pale with dark circles under her eyes after a sleepless night – and Grace wasn’t as confident as she’d tried to sound. She wondered how much attention doctors in POW camps really paid to their patients and how good the treatment was. After all, what was one enemy prisoner more or less?
Still, she’d done her best to console Una and told her to keep her chin up. ‘At least Angelo is safer where he is than out there in the desert alongside Rommel’s lot, in daily danger of being blown to smithereens.’
Now, she laid a clean cloth on the table and methodically set out the best china in honour of Edith’s visit. Bill was out but expected back at any time. There were scones in the oven and butter and home-made blackberry jam to go with them. Now all she had to do was put the kettle on and pour milk into the jug.
Edith arrived at four on the dot: upright and prim, with a crocodile-skin handbag over her arm and wearing T-strap shoes polished to perfection. As Grace opened the door to her, she removed her hatpin and took off her hat. ‘I don’t see Bill’s car,’ she commented as she handed the hat to Grace.
‘No, he’s not back yet.’
‘It’s not like him to be late.’
‘I know. I’m sure he won’t be long, though.’ Grace led the way into the kitchen, with its welcoming smell of fresh baking. Anxious as usual to make a good impression, she hoped that Edith appreciated the effort she’d made.
‘He’s been looking a bit thin lately.’ Edith sat down at the table, noticing every detail. ‘I don’t mean to find fault, Grace dear. I’m only saying that Bill has lost weight.’
‘He’s working very hard,’ Grace admitted. Of course she did feel undermined; it was as if her mother-in-law was saying that she didn’t know how to feed her new husband properly. ‘He’s eating well, though.’
It was so hard to relax with Edith – Grace had always known this but she’d hoped that things would improve once they’d all settled in to the new situation. But there she sat with her ramrod-straight back, picking at the edge of the tablecloth, dainty as a small bird, without a trace of a smile on her carefully powdered face. A few minutes of ill-at-ease conversation passed before Grace was relieved to hear the sound of Bill’s car drawing up outside the house, then the opening click of the front door. She stood up to welcome him.
The moment he appeared in the doorway, she could tell that he wasn’t his usual self. He seemed on edge and reluctant to look at her or his mother as he took off his jacket and hung it over the back of his chair. When he sat down to tea, he ran his forefinger around the rim of his cup and stared unseeingly at the plate of scones on the table.
‘Come along, Bill, out with it.’ Edith was the one to break the awkward silence. ‘What’s on your mind?’
‘Nothing.’ He took a sip of tea then rattled his cup down into his saucer.
Grace was puzzled. She hadn’t asked where Bill had been going when he set off straight after dinner, but wherever it was and whatever it had been about, he’d returned shrouded in gloomy unease. Perhaps he would work through his bad mood if she changed the subject. ‘I had a chat with Una after church,’ she told Edith. ‘She was down in the dumps over Angelo, poor lamb.’
‘I’m afraid Una has made a rod for her own back,’ Grace’s mother-in-law pointed out. ‘She should have realized that her association with a POW would attract no sympathy in the long run.’
The two women talked through Una’s difficult situation with one eye still on Bill, who continued to ignore his tea and stared out of the window. Then he got up from the table and went to stand at the back door, arms folded.
‘Let’s hope the doctors at the camp sort Angelo out,’ Grace concluded.
Edith was less sanguine. ‘But if they do have to send him to a hospital, Una will have to grin and bear it. It’ll be a test of her mettle.’
‘I drove Maurice out to look at the workshop.’ Bill’s interruption was unusually abrupt.
Edith looked quizzically at Grace. ‘Whatever for?’
Grace’s thoughts raced as she tried to make connections.
‘Maurice knows his way around car engines. We agreed it won’t be a big leap for him to start working on tractors.’
Edith gave an understanding nod. ‘That’s right. It always comes in handy to have an extra mechanic standing by.’
So why was Bill’s expression so tense and his manner so preoccupied? Grace wondered.
‘Maurice is a diabetic so there’s no chance of him being called up at a later date.’ His back was still turned, his crossed arms defensive.
Grace could stand it no longer. ‘What’s this really about?’ she demanded. ‘I know you; you haven’t asked Maurice to stand by just in case, have you?’
He turned to them at last, his chin tucked in and looking out at them from under a furrowed brow. ‘You’re right; I’ve asked him to take over from me,’ he confessed.
‘Whatever for?’ Edith sat stock still, staring at him. ‘Oh Bill, you’re not poorly?’
‘No.’ His flat voice disguised the pressure he was under. ‘Grace, I hope this decision won’t come as too much of a shock.’
She shook her head. Of course, of course! She’d closed her mind to it but this was exactly what she should have expected.
‘Mum, Grace and I talked this through a while back – she knows how badly I feel about not doing my bit. It’s on my conscience day in, day out – the fact that Jack and most of the other lads from the village signed up the minute they got the chance, yet what do I do? I stay behind and tinker with a few tractors, that’s what.’
If anything, Edith’s posture grew stiffer, her face more immobile. Grace, meanwhile, closed her eyes and let her head drop forward. You didn’t listen to a word I said, she thought illogically. I obviously don’t matter to you.
‘Well, it stands to reason – any trained mechanic can do my job, apart from the book-keeping angle. I showed Maurice that side of things and he took it all in. That leaves me free to sign up – for the army, if I have my way, but I’ll go wherever I’m most needed.’
‘You can’t!’ Edith gasped. ‘Your father … I … You can’t!’
Bill’s face remained impassive. ‘I can, Mum, and I will. First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll drive down to the recruitment office in Northgate to enlist.’
‘Your letter told me you’d be here on Monday after work!’ Joyce dashed downstairs to greet Edgar with what sounded like an accusation. Since her heart-to-heart with Grace, she’d kept her own counsel about the letters passing between them and built up as calmly as she could to their arranged meeting, but she wasn’t prepared for his early arrival. ‘I’m sorry, I must look a proper mess.’
Edgar shook his head. Here she was, dressed in slacks and a short-sleeved blouse, her hair roughly pinned up, barefoot but beautiful as ever in his eyes. ‘You look fine to me. But shall I go away and come back again tomorrow as planned?’
‘No, stay!’ She took his hand, not knowing whether to lead him into the common room or outside, where they might be more private. She glanced down at her feet. ‘Wait here!’
He watched her run up the stairs, hovering uncertainly in his uniform, cap in hand, oblivious to the curious glances of other Land Girls as they crossed the hallway. He’d reached home only an hour earlier and hadn’t even got changed, so keen had he been to drive out to Fieldhead and see Joyce.
‘Where are you off to in such a hurry?’ his father had grumbled. ‘No, don’t tell me – there’s a girl in the picture.’
And yes, there was – much to Edgar’s surprise. Ask me six months ago
and I’d have said, ‘You must be joking!’ Back then I was hardly managing to put one foot in front of another. He hadn’t given his father the satisfaction of a straight answer, however. It was early days with Joyce, very early.
She came back down with her hair loose and newly brushed, wearing flat shoes and a cardigan. ‘It’s a nice evening. Let’s go for a walk.’
‘Tea’s at half six!’ Kathleen’s sly reminder came from the common-room doorway as they left by the front door.
Edgar hesitated on the top step. ‘Honestly, I can come back tomorrow if you’d rather.’
‘Ignore Kathleen. Mrs Craven’s in a stew over a burglary that happened while we were all at church. My missing tea will be the last thing on her mind.’
‘What got stolen?’ He put on his cap, then offered Joyce his arm.
‘Some petty cash. In fact the whole money box went missing with eleven pounds, seven shillings and sixpence in it. Mrs Craven keeps careful track of every single penny. She has to, with Mrs Mostyn to answer to.’
Despite the pitter-patter of her heart, Joyce was pleased that she could sound normal as she and Edgar talked of everyday things.
‘What rotten sod would steal money from the Land Army?’ Edgar was at a genuine loss. ‘Were there any signs of a break-in?’
‘Not so far as I know.’ Standing on the gravel drive, Joyce decided which way they should go. ‘Let’s skirt around the side of the house, through the garden and into the wood. We can walk as far as you like up the fell at the back.’
Edgar hesitated. The last time he’d walked through the wood had been on the night the Jerry pilot came down on this very hillside and he’d been determined to join the search party. Dark memories flooded back of stumbling into snow drifts, hardly knowing where he was, bedevilled by sounds and visions of his recent dogfight; the rattle of machine guns, bullets tearing through metal and Plexiglas into Billy’s chest. Billy, his best friend and co-pilot, had been mortally wounded as he sat at the controls of their Lancaster bomber. And now Edgar remembered the silence when the plane’s engines had stopped and their pilotless plane had drifted down to earth.
‘Or somewhere else,’ Joyce suggested quickly.
‘Where you said is fine.’ He’d got over it, hadn’t he? He’d fought through the nightmare, out of his alcoholic fog and wild wanderings on the moors. He’d been declared fit to return to duty.
So they headed around the side of the building, through the stable yard then into the walled garden, neatly laid out with fruit and vegetables. There were hoes and forks leaning against an apple tree and an upturned wheelbarrow standing nearby with a pair of mud-caked wellington boots perched on top. As they passed a row of peas, Joyce paused to pick a ripe pod and hand it to him. He shelled it and they shared the contents.
Edgar threw down the empty pod then walked a little way ahead, through the gate and into the shaded woodland area. ‘You probably think I’m a silly fool, jumping the gun the way I did.’
‘Not at all. You’re only a day early,’ she said with a laugh. A bright sun glinted through small gaps in the green canopy, though the heat of the day was already starting to fade. Ahead of them a fast-running brook tumbled over rocks: too narrow to necessitate a detour, though Edgar paused to offer Joyce his hand. ‘It’s all right; I can do it,’ she assured him as she leaped across.
Then they were out of the wood and ascending the rocky hillside, shading their eyes from the sun, swishing through bilberry bushes, smelling peaty earth beneath their feet.
‘I don’t mean jumping the gun in that way,’ he said, as if there’d been no lapse in their conversation. ‘I mean making a fool of myself in my first letter.’
She walked on, feeling a flicker of doubt. Why had he mentioned it? Was he about to backtrack and settle for a straightforward friendship after all?
‘It wasn’t like me. I don’t usually wear my heart on my sleeve.’
‘No, I gathered that.’ Letting him catch up with her, she overcame her doubts. ‘It took me by surprise, that’s all.’
‘But you didn’t mind?’ As he watched the breeze lift her hair from her face and saw the flush in her cheeks, he hoped with all his heart that she didn’t.
The love contained in his intense gaze swept towards her like a strong wave, threatening to lift her off her feet. ‘I didn’t mind,’ she murmured. ‘When you know me better, you’ll realize that it takes me a while to work things out. I’m like Grace: neither of us acts on the spur of the moment. That’s why we get along so well.’
‘When I know you better?’ he echoed.
‘Yes, if all goes well.’ She set off again with her hand in his. They climbed to a ridge from where the wreckage of the German plane was visible. It lay in rusting pieces beyond a drystone wall, among tall ferns, with one wing and the tail section torn off and the other wing sticking up at a ninety-degree angle. ‘We can turn back if you like?’
‘Not on my account,’ he assured her. Flying, fighting, taking a direct hit, spiralling, crashing to the ground – these were the facts of life that had to be faced. Every time we take to the skies, we dice with death.
She squeezed his hand. ‘I’m glad you’re back on a better footing. And it was brave of you to write and tell me how you felt.’
They came closer to the wreckage. The twisted fuselage revealed a black swastika inside a white circle. One engine lay some distance away, beside a rock. Two rooks perched on the pilot’s shattered cockpit.
‘I’m better than I was,’ he confirmed.
‘But?’
‘I won’t ever be the same as I was before.’
‘In what way?’
He thought for a long time. ‘I’ve got scars down my left side and thigh, for a start. The docs patched me up as best they could, but now … Let’s just say I’ll never play centre forward for Leeds United.’
Joyce smiled as she turned away from the enemy plane and walked on with him towards the rocky summit.
‘Those dreams are well and truly in the past. I’m only twenty-five, but sometimes it feels more like a hundred and twenty-five. Where’s that carefree kid gone? What happened to him?’
‘Likewise.’
Her brief, murmured reply made him stop close to a limestone outcrop and pull her towards him. ‘Is it the war? Is this what it does to us?’
‘We all lose someone,’ she whispered.
‘Who did you lose?’
‘My fiancé, Walter.’
So she’d loved before, he realized. She’d lost. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’
‘I did tell you about him last December, but you weren’t in a good enough state to take it in. Anyway, I’ll remind you. Walter was in the Royal Navy. His ship was torpedoed. It went down with all hands. That was when I lived in Warwickshire.’
‘I see.’ And I’m sorry I was too wrapped up in myself to remember.
‘I did go to pieces for a while,’ Joyce confessed. ‘But then I realized I had to pull myself together. For me that means rolling my sleeves up and getting stuck into hard work. My dad lost the family farm through drinking too much, so in effect I was forced to make big changes. That’s when the idea of the Land Army cropped up. I signed on the dotted line and was sent up here into the wilds of Yorkshire. I’ve never looked back since.’
‘Never?’
‘Not often. I do miss the old farm sometimes and I’m sad whenever I think of Walter. But I’m not cut out to play the tragic heroine; I’ve got too little imagination for that.’
‘No,’ he said quietly, his arms around her waist, remembering how Joyce had been the one to see his suffering and to understand it. ‘I won’t have that.’
‘Well.’ She studied his face more closely. Edgar’s features were even and finely shaped, his brows straight and flat over pale grey eyes, his nose straight, his jawline firm. She’d noticed all this before, of course, but the thing that she saw for the first time was the way everything now combined to create a look of confidence and certainty. ‘At leas
t talking to you about Walter feels like a weight off my mind.’
‘I’m glad you did. And thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For putting your trust in me. I understand much better now.’
‘I hope it hasn’t put you off.’
‘You mean, being the second love of your life, not the first?’ He let a slow, warm smile spread across his face.
She responded by tilting her head back then challenging him. ‘Who says you’re the second?’
‘Am I?’ Say yes. Tell me you love me.
His whispered words swirled around her and carried her safely to the shore. ‘If I say yes, what then?’
‘Then I’ll go back to base a happy man.’ Even though they had only five short days before them and it would be letters that would hold them together during the months of duty, the endless rosters and nightly forays over enemy territory, the hard struggle ahead. A long-distance love.
‘Then yes, I love you.’ She put her arms around his neck and took in the clouds flitting overhead. A kiss would seal it. Blue sky, white clouds, a setting sun.
He put his lips against hers and felt her respond softly. How sweet it was to discover that life’s hard blows didn’t break a man after all.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The news on El Alamein was better than expected. Though Rommel had been closing in on Alexandria, lack of ammunition had held up the German advance and a stalemate was reported on the wireless.
‘It could be worse.’ Hilda sat with Edith in her office on the Tuesday afternoon following the burglary, going through the ins and outs of what had been taken. A news bulletin had interrupted their conversation and drawn their attention to bigger things. ‘We’ve got more American troops to back us up in Europe now and our RAF boys won’t let up after Essen.’
‘That’s right,’ Edith agreed, wishing nevertheless that they could concentrate on the matter in hand. That way she might be distracted from Bill’s shock decision to hand over the business to Maurice. She hadn’t slept for two nights and still hoped against hope that he would change his mind. She’d even taken him to one side and asked him to consider the effect enlisting would have on Grace and their marriage – an unusual step that had flown in the face of her determination not to interfere in the lives of the newly-weds.