by Roland Moore
Ellen tried not to show how vexed she was by this development. That wouldn’t do at all. What was she supposed to say to people now? The agents obviously didn’t care about the wagging tongues in the village.
Bartholomew tipped his hat to Ellen and made towards the door. Lady Hoxley nodded her thanks to them and saw them out. Then she called for her maid to take the tea things away.
Feeling awkward in the silence of her room, Lady Hoxley put a record on the player. It would comfort her to hear the song one last time before she packed it away.
‘White Christmas’ played, the tune wafting through Hoxley Manor.
The song could be heard as vague, ethereal whispers in the large ward of the hospital, as if it was almost the memory of the song and not the real thing. Joyce opened her eyes and looked at the coving above her; white and ornate. This was a place where she expected to see angels. But the light diminished and instead of heavenly bodies, she was aware of the Earthly rattle of the medicine trolley in the distance.
A small, Scottish doctor in a patterned waistcoat was explaining that she’d passed out from exhaustion at the station. She’d been out cold for quite a while. And after the ordeal she’d been through, it wasn’t surprising.
‘But you’re going to be fine,’ the doctor reassured her.
‘How long have I been here?’
‘Not long. Nine hours or so,’ The doctor nodded as a nurse appeared. She wrote some things on a clipboard as the doctor moved to leave the bedside.
‘I thought I’d died.’
‘You were lucky to survive. The train missed you by inches by all accounts.’ The doctor indicated a small distance between his thumb and forefinger.
‘It was funny though …’ Joyce hadn’t intended the words to be heard by the doctor or the nurse, just by herself, ‘In those last moments on the platform, I saw my husband. He’d come to tell me it was all right to let go. He was holding out his hand for me. It made me feel calm, happy during what I thought would be my last moments. So now I know if anything does happen to me, that my mum, Gwen and my husband will all be waiting. And that’s a comfort, I suppose.’
‘That’s reassuring to hear, isn’t it?’ The doctor was leaving. But then he stopped and turned; a look of confusion on his face. ‘But that’s odd you say that.’
‘Why?’
‘About your husband waiting. Well, the man who brought you in said he was your husband.’
‘No, he’s the station master. You must be mistaken.’
‘Of course.’ The doctor conceded. ‘But anyway, he wanted to see you when you woke up. He’s been waiting to check you’re all right. I’ll send him in anyway, shall I?’
The doctor and nurse left. Joyce pulled herself up in bed. She primped her hair, ready to make small talk with the station master. She felt gratitude towards him for helping her and it was good of him to bring her to Hoxley Manor for treatment. It was kind of him to wait, especially so late on Christmas Eve. She would thank him and perhaps invite him to lunch at the farm sometime.
The door opened.
But the man who entered wasn’t the station master.
It was John Fisher.
Joyce’s mouth gaped open in disbelief; a lump in her throat; tears pricking her eyes.
‘John …?’
She felt that she might pass out again. This couldn’t be happening. It didn’t make any sense. What sort of hallucination or trick was this?
‘Darling Joyce,’ John sat on the bed and took her hand in his. ‘You must have been so worried. I came as soon as I could.’
He looked like John. The voice sounded like his. And his hand felt soft and familiar. He felt warm. He didn’t feel like a ghost or an angel.
‘But it’s impossible.’ Joyce’s voice was breaking, ‘The fire. They said you died in a fire. They found your belongings. Your kit bag was next to you. They told me!’
‘But it wasn’t me.’ Tears filled his eyes.
‘But— I don’t understand.’
‘I was attacked a few days before Christmas and my things were stolen. It was the man who robbed me who must have died in that fire. I didn’t know anything about it until this morning. Teddy was up and about, and he’d gone to the butcher’s and some people were saying – they were giving him condolences because they heard I’d died. He told them not to be so stupid. And he told me. And I found out the Police had found my bag at the scene. I realised they must have put two and two together and made five. So I came back as soon as I could.’
‘Oh my god.’
‘You must have been so worried.’
Joyce couldn’t speak. Instead, she wrapped her arms around her husband and pulled him towards her. They both sobbed and kissed and held each other. It was the happiest moment of Joyce’s life. The happiest moment of both of their lives. They knew that love could conquer all.
Neither of them would ever let go.
Chapter 18
Christmas Day, 1944.
It was a day that Joyce Fisher never thought she’d see.
Paper chains, borrowed from the event at the village hall festooned the kitchen in Pasture farm, where it was a hive of activity. Steam belched out from an ill-fitting saucepan lid as the potatoes finished cooking and Esther mopped her forehead with the back of her hand. Iris was helping, slicing carrots on a breadboard. The smell of cooking filled the room with every oven on the range in use.
The wireless was playing in the parlour. Finch had got it working after the Germans’ tinkering and a man with a severe, clipped voice was wishing the listeners a very merry Christmas. He didn’t sound very merry himself.
Martin was supposed to be laying the table, but he was spending more time talking to Iris than putting out cutlery. He was outlining the tentative idea for a date. A bold move.
‘There’s a dance over in Brinford, day after tomorrow, if you fancy it?’ Martin quickly expanded the invitation to cover his awkwardness. ‘If any of you fancy it.’
‘Oh, sounds nice. I might come along.’ Esther was being devilish, offering a smirk to Iris.
Martin’s face fell.
‘I’m teasing you!’
‘Anyone else?’ Martin was hoping the answer would be no.
‘I think my dancing shoes are at the menders, so count me out. Unless there’s a free bar. Then I’ll bring my drinking shoes.’ Finch chuckled.
Iris saved him from his torture.
‘I’d love to come to that. Thank you.’
Martin’s face lit up and then he struggled to hide the fact it had lit up. ‘That’s wonderful.’
‘Yes, it will be,’ Iris bit a carrot suggestively. Martin’s mouth almost fell open with shock. Then Iris realised that she hadn’t meant to be so suggestive, so rude. She shook her head, red-faced with embarrassment. He looked embarrassed too and then they relaxed slightly and looked at each other for a long moment, until both of them felt self-conscious. Iris returned to her carrots and Martin returned to his knives and forks.
Joyce came downstairs. She’d put on a cream coloured dress decorated with a red rose pattern; her hair and makeup were done. Her wrist was bandaged and she had some abrasions to her face, but they were only visible if you looked for them. She felt much better for taking time to pamper herself a bit.
‘How are you feeling, lovey?’
‘Good.’ There was a knock at the door. Joyce straightened her hem. ‘In fact, I think I feel really good.’
Joyce went to the back door and opened it.
John was standing on the threshold with Connie and Henry. He’d brought them over in Finch’s van. Joyce invited them all in, kissing her husband as he passed the threshold.
‘Got to pay the toll.’
‘I’ll go out and come back in again, if that’s the case.’
Everyone welcomed Connie to the table with a chorus of ‘how are you’ and Finch pushed out a chair for her to sit down. She looked frail and delicate; her skin was whiter than usual in contrast to her ruby red lipstick. Her
arm was in a sling and the dressing on her shoulder was visible in the opening of her blouse. But whatever her current physical discomfort, there was no denting her spirit.
‘Here, I hope you haven’t skimped on lunch. I’m starving,’ Connie announced to the room.
‘No, we’re having rabbit pie, potatoes, carrots and cabbage. And a Christmas cake to follow.’ Esther was fighting to see through steam that was rising from the open oven in front of her.
‘Sounds better than what they going to serve in the hospital!’
‘We got the dried fruit for the cake,’ Martin announced.
‘From Birmingham,’ Iris added.
‘Oh, did you go to Butler’s Tea Rooms?’
‘We did, Joyce. And it was lovely.’
Joyce thought how she should visit the tea room herself. The owner didn’t know how much help she’d given Joyce, and by turn, Connie and Esther, in sending that photograph. Joyce needed to go there and say thank you.
But that would wait for another day.
Today, she had Christmas to celebrate!
‘Here, Connie, if you’re hungry, start with this then,’ Finch chuckled, pouring some dandelion wine into tumblers for everyone. He handed a glass to Connie and she took a sip.
‘That’s the ticket!’
‘Is that wise?’ Henry asked.
‘No one said I couldn’t drink, Henry. And seeing as what we’ve all been through, I think we’re entitled to a little drink, don’t you?’ Connie raised her glass.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Joyce replied. ‘Come on everybody.’
Everyone raised a toast and the kitchen echoed with the chinking of glasses. Soon they were singing and laughing around the table as they waited for lunch. Through the window, the winter sun shone onto the farmyard where it illuminated a moving flash of white feathers. A loose hen ran across to the stable block, squawking loudly. No one saw it, but it was the other chicken intended for the table; the one that had been accidentally released by Siegfried Weber.
The hen would never know that that one action had changed the course of its life. Some days change your life forever.
The hen ran off into some hedgerow looking for grubs.
Epilogue
Twenty two thousand and eighteen days after that Christmas.
Joyce Fisher watched as her granddaughter, Chloe, tucked into a Kentucky Fried Chicken dinner. She held the drumstick in a serviette and diligently worked her way around it, stripping off the meat. She was eighteen and a student. Joyce guessed that she didn’t feed herself very well when she was away at university. She was enjoying the fast food that her gran had bought for her.
Joyce’s daughter, Gwen (named in honour of her sister) had insisted that Joyce get a meal too, but Joyce didn’t eat much these days. Besides, she’d had a sandwich at home before she came out. She liked to know what went into the food she had. But she was grateful that they’d stopped at the service station. She needed to stretch her legs, use the loo and get some air. She was excited about this trip and was struggling to keep her emotions in check. She’d looked at the photograph on her mantelpiece a lot this morning before she’d set off.
The photograph of Friday Street with John, her mum and her sister. It was faded and dog-eared now, but Joyce had never let it out of her sight since she got it back. She’d looked at their faces and she’d told them where she was going today. It wasn’t Friday Street, but she imagined that they would have wished her well.
‘Did you have toilet paper?’ Chloe’s question interrupted Joyce’s thoughts.
‘Don’t ask that!’ Gwen didn’t like her mum being pestered with inane questions.
Joyce was amused, used to her granddaughter’s incessant questioning about what life was like in the war. To Chloe it was all so fascinating. But for Joyce it all seemed such a long time ago now and she sometimes struggled to remember everything. But she remembered the answer to that one.
‘All the loo paper had pictures of Hitler on it,’ Joyce looked as if she was reminiscing. ‘That was the law.’
‘Really?’ Chloe shovelled chips into her mouth.
Joyce shook her head. ‘Not really, you soppy date.’
She watched her granddaughter wash the chips down with a good swig of Coke; knowing that another question was forming in her young mind.
‘What happened to the other girls?’
Chloe’s need for information was as voracious as her appetite for food.
Joyce chuckled. It would take too long to go into it now. And she’d be talking about people that they didn’t know. And some of it would make her sad. And some of it would make her happy. But she thought, as she often did of Esther Reeves, Connie Carter and Iris Dawson. She’d even managed to get back in touch with Bea Finch and Annie Barratt a long time ago. She’d never managed to find Nancy Morrell though. Some of them were names on Christmas cards, others she knew would never write to her again. Lives had moved on; different paths taken. But she often thought of the girls at Pasture Farm.
‘It’ll be dark soon, we should get a wriggle on.’ Gwen cleared her tray. Chloe picked up a final bunch of chips and gave her tray to her mother. Joyce watched as Gwen walked to the tray station. She was proud of her daughter. She was a human rights lawyer. Joyce wasn’t certain of what that entailed, but she was proud. Chloe was studying agriculture. Joyce liked to think she got that from her.
Chloe helped Joyce onto her feet, and they walked through the service station, past the boxes full of plastic hoops and teddy bears, past the children coming in with their parents, past the business people coming for a quick coffee. Joyce marvelled at Chloe’s striped tights. If only they’d had such a thing in her day.
Gwen drove with Joyce in the passenger seat. Chloe and her mother argued about the choice of radio station. As they always did. This time, Gwen got her way and managed to tune into Radio 4. A man was explaining about how to increase the yield of potatoes. Joyce thought that wasn’t how they’d done it in her time at the farm. But she didn’t say anything.
After an hour, they reached a turning that led past a new housing estate. There had been an argument about developers encroaching on the land and a small group of identical, new homes with few features and small windows had sprung to life. Welcome to the Gorley Woods Estate said the sign.
‘What were the GIs like, Gran?’ Chloe’s voice came from the backseat of the car.
‘Just like all the stories you’ve heard. But they were as scared as the rest of us; desperate to make the most of things in case they died the next day.’ Joyce scanned the horizon for landmarks. ‘I didn’t have much to do with them because I was married. Your mother’s half-American though,’ Joyce said drily.
‘Mum!’ Gwen squealed in mock horror.
‘Only joking.’ Joyce smirked to herself.
‘But what about that Connie, Gran?’
‘Ah, she’d have given any of them a run for their money,’ Joyce thought of her old, indomitable friend. ‘But she was married too for most of the war. And she behaved herself.’
They took a country lane, past neat hedges. Joyce thought that they rarely had time to trim the hedges in her day. The countryside looked a lot neater now. People had more time for that sort of thing.
Finally, the car slowed down. They had arrived.
A large metal gate was over the front of it, replacing the wooden one that had been there sixty years ago. On the metal, a sticker warned people to keep out and fencing all around made it hard to see inside. Heavy chains were threaded through the front of the plates and a sign promised that guard dogs would be on patrol. Joyce couldn’t hear any barking though.
She took a deep breath.
Joyce had come back to Pasture Farm.
She got out of the car. Chloe brought her walking stick and Joyce stepped carefully over the uneven ground. She could see past the gate.
‘We should have checked before we came. I told you we should have got permission.’ Gwen looked disappointed. ‘It looks like it
’s derelict now.’
‘There must be a way to see.’ Joyce wasn’t going to give up. ‘I only want to see.’ She peered through a gap in the wooden boards, but shook her head. She needed to get a better view. ‘Chloe?’
‘Yes, Gran?’
‘Will you bring my wheelchair?’
‘What do you want that for?’ Gwen was starting to get worried.
‘I’ve got a plan.’ Joyce shot Chloe a mischievous look. Chloe opened the boot of the car and pulled out a foldaway wheelchair. Joyce knew she should use it more than she did, but she was reluctant to give up walking. So she liked to use her stick and then moan about the pain in her joints. It was preferable to sitting in the chair all the time.
Chloe pushed the centre of the wheelchair down, locking it into place. She placed a cushion on top and wheeled it over.
‘Do you want me to push you, Gran?’
‘No,’ Joyce looked at the fence. It was seven foot tall and solid, with few places to peek through the metal. ‘Bring the chair here, would you?’
‘Mum? What are you doing?’
Joyce ignored the question.
Chloe wheeled the chair to the fence.
‘Hold it still,’ Joyce lifted a foot and tried to position it on the seat of the chair. Her foot wavered in the air uncertainly.
‘Mum! You can’t be serious?’
‘She bloody is!’ Chloe was impressed with her gran’s determination. Chloe held the chair and indicated for Gwen to do her bit. ‘Help her, Mum!’
‘No, I’m not going to help! Get down this minute. You haven’t been feeling well and this is the last thing you need!’
‘Help me. It’ll only take a moment.’ Joyce had one leg on the chair and one on the ground. She wasn’t going to listen to her daughter’s protestations. She knew what she wanted to do.
Reluctantly, Gwen put out her hand and Joyce took it, using it to push herself up so she was standing on the seat of the wheelchair. Chloe held the chair steady. Gwen looked worried at the sight of her octogenarian mother standing on a wheelchair.
Joyce held onto the top of the fence and looked over.
‘What can you see, Gran?’