Opening his eyes, Matthew willed his mind away from the past. Here he was ordained and in his second curacy at Leadburn where he was committed to serving God and his parishioners.
He picked up the magazine where it lay open on the couch. He wanted what was best for Miss Hudson – a life of freedom to do as she pleased, not one of duty serving in the community. He paused. Didn’t he?
20
Frieda
The next morning, Frieda was rather nervous as she waited in the farmyard for Sandra to appear.
At first, Frieda had been shocked at Sandra’s outburst. Then she felt anger that Sandra had turned her rage on innocent Germans such as her. Fraught by the events of the past twenty-four hours, Frieda had fled the situation and sought the reassurance of Aunty Doris.
Her aunt, seeing her distress, had made a pot of tea and the pair of them sat at the kitchen table. Frieda, calmed by the cuppa, had sought her aunt’s advice.
‘Love, why do you think your friend reacted in such a way?’
Looking into Aunty Doris’s caring eyes it dawned on Frieda what she was getting at. ‘Sandra didn’t mean me, did she?’
Aunty Doris shook her head.
‘She lashed out in distress, didn’t she?’
Her aunt had smiled and nodded.
Now, as Sandra walked up the farmhouse track, Frieda noticed her friend’s guilt-ridden face.
Sandra came straight up to her. ‘I’m sorry, Frieda, that was unforgivable of me yesterday. I didn’t—’
‘It’s all right. I did feel hurt at first,’ Frieda cut in, ‘but I understand. Truly, I don’t hold any ill feelings towards you.’
Sandra’s cheeks burned in shame. ‘That’s good of you to say but I still feel bad about my reaction.’
‘You realise,’ Frieda continued, ‘I would probably react the same way if it had been Kurt missing.’ As comprehension dawned in Sandra’s eyes, Frieda smiled. ‘Let’s forget about the incident, shall we?’
Gratefully, Sandra nodded. She brought out her lunchbox from the rucksack she carried and opened it. ‘As promised, I’ve brought a morsel of food so you can try different kinds of food each day.’ She brought out a piece and put it in Frieda’s hand. ‘It’s oat biscuit from last night’s supper at the hostel.’
Frieda, realising this was a peace offering, couldn’t refuse. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and, popping the biscuit in her mouth, gulped it down.
‘Well done. See, the heavens haven’t caved in.’
When Frieda opened her eyes the pair of them smiled at each other – a somewhat relieved smile.
Their friendship was intact.
21
June 1943
A week had passed since Frieda’s visit to South Shields and the traumatic night in the shelter. She was sitting at the breakfast table with Aunty Doris. It was still early morning and she had time to eat something before she left for the Nichols’ farm.
Telling Mrs Goodwin about her last months in Germany and leaving her family behind had lifted a weight from her mind. Just before she’d left the flat, Mrs Goodwin, giving Frieda a bear hug, had whispered in her ear, ‘Remember, lass, a problem shared is a problem halved.’ It must be true because ever since she’d confided her troubles, the nightmares from the night of the broken glass had miraculously stopped, to Frieda’s immense relief.
Though, if Sandra hadn’t been so good and kind as to take her to stay with Olive Goodwin this peaceful state of mind would never have happened. Sandra was a caring friend and Frieda was pleased the pair of them had made up.
‘You’ve plenty of time to eat your porridge before you leave for work.’ Aunty Doris’s voice broke into her thoughts.
Picking up her spoon, thoughts of Antonio filled Frieda’s mind. She was worried that he might not be on the lorry from the prison camp as he’d heard he might be allocated to a different farm.
‘D’you know’ – Aunty Doris looked up from the newspaper she was reading – ‘I really do have high hopes we’re going to win this war.’
The German and Italian troops had surrendered last month in North Africa and Aunty Doris was excited at the notion that it might mean the end of the war. Frieda, though joyful that at last she would be able to search for her family, couldn’t deal with the ramifications – Would she be sent back to Germany? How would she find her family? Were they alive? – and so she buried her head in the sand.
She regarded her aunty and thought how lucky she’d been to be sent here. When she had first arrived Aunty Doris had spoken to her in a crooning voice as if Frieda had understood every word. When she did understand the English language properly, her aunt told her, ‘I’ll borrow you until your own folk turn up and find you.’
Frieda knew when that time came, it would be with great sorrow that she’d leave Aunty Doris and the home where she’d felt secure during the war. Then it struck her that when she did return home, Aunty Doris would be left all alone.
An impulse to please her aunt overcame Frieda.
‘Shall I make you a cup of tea, Aunty?’
Her aunt’s face lit up with pleasure. ‘Why, thank you, that would be lovely.’
Frieda knew what would make her aunt really happy: if she ate a substantial meal.
But it was still a step too far, even to please Aunty Doris.
The weather, after earlier storms, had changed to a few days of brilliant sunshine now that the balmy June days were upon them. With so much work to be done though and the threat of more storms, the Land Girls worked in gangs till nine o’clock at night – even on Sundays.
Only Frieda, Mr Nichol and Mr Jeffries – who had said he’d forgo attending church this morning for Holy Communion – were there for milking. Sandra wasn’t in that morning to milk the cows, because Mr Nichol wanted her to help with haymaking in one of the fields across from the farmhouse.
Then, to Frieda’s absolute delight, the lorry full of prisoners arrived at the farm and, as Antonio climbed down, his eyes locked on hers with a slow smile.
‘I help with horses in the field,’ he told Mr Nichol.
‘Indeed, you will not. There’s milking to be done. You’ve done it before. I’ve plenty of people in the fields.’
Frieda didn’t think Antonio looked very pleased because he preferred messing in the stables or tack room, especially on Sundays when he got paid overtime from the prisoner camp. She knew this from the numerous times she had visited him in the tack room.
Frieda, exhausted before she started, thought milking would never end. She was kept on her toes by the fact that Antonio’s stocky body was never far away. These days, what preoccupied her thoughts was food and Antonio. Smiling like an idiot, she gazed into his glittering eyes whenever he addressed her; then, forever self-conscious, as his eyes roved her slim figure she blushed to the roots of her hair.
‘That’s it. Breakfast,’ Mr Nichol called as he came into the byre. All the work was done, the cows taken to the field.
‘Mr Nichol, you no understand I bring the food. I eat outside in sunshine.’ Antonio surreptitiously winked at Frieda.
A shiver of excitement running up her spine, she nearly dropped the empty pails she was carrying.
Mr Nichol left and made his way up to the farmhouse to join Mrs Nichol for his Sunday morning breakfast of bread and dripping topped with a fried egg.
Frieda, collecting the last pail, was conscious of Antonio’s closeness as he came up behind her.
She turned.
He smiled, flashing brilliant white teeth. ‘I go to the field. You come with me, we eat the breakfast together. It makes me very happy. I like your company when we are together.’
Frieda was taken aback. ‘Erm… I had porridge for breakfast earlier on.’
She saw a spark of irritation in his eye. Perhaps he thought she was giving him the cold shoulder?
She quickly put in, ‘I could keep you company if you like while you eat yours.’
He flashed his smile again and, gazing adori
ngly at him, Frieda felt her legs weaken. He led her up the uneven path to the field where sheep and cows grazed, then through the gate. In the field beyond he patted a grassy spot beside him in the seclusion of a drystone wall.
‘Come, sit beside me, Frieda.’
They had met, the first time, in the stables where she hid every morning when the others went to the farmhouse for breakfast. It was cold on those mornings back in April, but it was the only place she could think to go. Antonio, discovering her one morning shivering in the shadows, hadn’t asked questions but had taken her by the hand to the tack room and put one of the horses’ blankets around her shoulders.
Frieda had met him in the tack room whenever she could after that, to help Antonio with his work and chat with him. Though shy at first, she soon relaxed in his company, with his gregarious and hilariously funny attitude to life, and willed the time to pass every morning so she could meet with him. Each time she saw him, her heart hammered in her chest.
Here in the field, sitting this close together, Frieda smelt a sweaty and curiously manly odour emanating from him, sending a pleasurable thrill throughout her abdomen.
Antonio, crunching an apple and licking juice from his lips, threw back his head and belly laughed as if he understood what she was experiencing. ‘You like the corned beef sandwich. I brought you some to enjoy.’
She didn’t want to offend Antonio. ‘No. It’s for your—’
‘I share it with you.’ He broke the sandwich in two and handed her half.
Luckily, since the other day, when Frieda had eaten the piece of oat biscuit, she’d been experimenting with morsels of food that Sandra brought her. Yesterday’s token was a small piece of ginger and date cake. Frieda had eyed the cake with suspicion. ‘It’ll have loads of sugar in it.’
‘Only a smidgeon.’
‘I can’t,’ she had wailed, defeated.
‘You can. You’ve been doing so well.’
‘Imagine if someone tried to make you eat poison?’
Sandra had taken the cake from her and snapped it in half, handing it back. ‘How about this? It’s no more than a crumb.’
They had looked at each other and the silliness of the size of the cake made them both giggle. When she’d calmed, Frieda took the morsel and with a swift movement put it into her mouth and swallowed.
‘Well done. Only next time why not enjoy the experience instead of wolfing the food down. It makes no difference how quickly you eat.’
Staring now at the half-sandwich, Frieda closed her eyes and took a small bite. She did this for Antonio, she told herself. Chewing slowly, she swallowed.
Antonio, lying back in the sweet-smelling grass, clasped his hands behind his head then, turning his head towards her, gave a somnolent smile. ‘This is good. We do it again, yes, and have more of the… conversation.’
Frieda would like nothing better. She nodded, enthusiastically. ‘Yes.’
That morning, when Mr Nichol had told Sandra she was to work in a gang haymaking in the fields, he’d looked up at the heavens.
‘Aye. Best get finished early tonight. There’s a thunderstorm brewing.’
Sandra, following his gaze, had looked up to a clear blue sky and wondered what she was missing.
When Sandra reached the field, it looked like a war recruitment poster. The field swarmed with Land Girls holding long wooden tools in their hands, hard at work in the brilliant sunshine.
Evelyn’s words came back to her from last night in the bedroom, when Sandra was inwardly fretting because she’d still had no news about her brother and was in a state of limbo. She hadn’t shared her worries as her superstitious mind warned that if you voiced your fears some universal force might hear and act upon them. But Evelyn could tell she was agitated and sought to soothe her.
‘Work is the ticket, my father would say,’ Evelyn had told her, pulling a long face. ‘And for once, I think he’s right about something.’
So did Sandra.
Sandra’s job was to rake hay, which had already been cut and turned, into small heaps. The next day, weather permitting, four heaps would be raked into pikes. When the pikes were completely dry, a chain was wrapped around them and they were winched onto the hay bogey pulled along by a Clydesdale horse who plodded the well-trodden route back to the stack yard.
The best part of the day was when Mrs Nichol arrived in the afternoon with a tray filled with tea and doorstep sandwiches. The lasses, sitting with their backs against the drystone wall in the sunshine, had a singsong after they’d eaten. ‘Show Me the Way to Go Home’ was Sandra’s favourite.
That night, as Sandra made her way back to the hostel, bone-tired, her arms burnt by the sun, there was an eerie silence like just before a storm. Suddenly, lightning flashed, followed by a rumble of thunder that climaxed into an almighty crash, giving Sandra a fright. As she made a run for the hostel, the heavens opened.
‘How did Mr Nichol know?’ she asked Evelyn as she arrived soaked and dripping in the bedroom.
‘It’s called country lore,’ Evelyn told her. ‘By the way, a letter came for you this morning. It’s on your bed.’
Sandra’s heartrate quickened. She reached up to the bed and tore the envelope open. She tried to read what the letter said and she could pick out a few simple words, but she couldn’t get the sense of the letter. Highly frustrated, she looked at the single word at the end and presumed it was the sender’s name.
She spelt the word out under her breath as the curate had taught her. ‘B-RA-D’.
‘Brad.’ She spoke out loud.
Evelyn looked puzzled. ‘Who’s Brad?’
That’s what Sandra wanted to know.
When Sandra arrived at the farm wearing a yellow waterproof the next morning, Mr Nichol gave a frustrated sigh. ‘Seeing how it’s wet, you’ll be back on milking today. Though, you would have been anyway, Mr Jeffries can’t make it in.’
In the byre, the cows already in their stalls, Frieda was sitting milking. ‘Hello, Sandra. I missed you, yesterday.’
‘Me too,’ Sandra replied.
The farm, village life, was her home now and Sandra doubted she’d ever want to leave the area. Days like yesterday, as she sat in the sun with the rest of the gang singing, she felt she was making memories to last a lifetime. Hopefully, one day such memories would help eradicate the memories from the orphanage and the years of servitude at the Kirtons’.
‘Yesterday I ate a piece of corned beef sandwich,’ Frieda told her proudly.
‘Did you bring it to work with you?’
‘No, Antonio gave it to me.’ A dreamy look crossed the lass’s face.
When she didn’t embellish, Sandra answered, ‘Good for you.’ She didn’t pry, though she wanted to.
It occurred to Sandra how close she’d become to Frieda, how she thought of her as more of a younger sister than a friend.
She moved over to the stall where Frieda was milking Daisy. ‘I have a favour to ask.’
‘I am happy to help.’
‘I’ve received a mystery letter. I can only pick out a few simple words and I’m dying to know what it says.’
‘You have it with you?’
‘In my pocket. I’ve spent all night worrying that the letter might have something to do with Alf. I’ve been cursing myself for not being able to read yet. D’you think you could read it out at breakfast time?’
‘I’m… sorry but no, I’m…’ She blushed, and seemed flustered, but then she paused with her head to one side before speaking again. ‘All right, then. I will. But I have to go straight after.’
Sandra, at first mystified at her friend’s reaction, decided Frieda was allowed to have a life she didn’t know about. She suspected her response might have something to do with the Italian.
When the cows were ready to be taken back to the field, Sandra’s suspicion was confirmed as Antonio appeared from the area of the stable.
‘Mr Nichol, he say that I walk the cows to the field. I tell him I have done i
t before.’
Frieda’s look of absolute adoration when she looked at Antonio said it all.
In the byre, sitting on two upturned pails, Sandra handed over the letter to Frieda.
Frieda opened the envelope.
Dear Sandra,
I expect you’ll get a surprise but I wanted to get in touch to thank you for saving my life.
A puzzled frown creased Sandra’s brow, then it dawned on her. ‘Why, it’s from the airman whose plane crashed.’
Frieda nodded then went on.
The situation that day when I saw the earth hurtling towards me, was that I thought I was a goner. After the plane crashed, I was unconscious. Then I heard a voice and I thought an angel called out to me. But it was you insisting that I opened the cockpit. When I turned and saw your face, it brought me back to earth. I knew I had to make the effort to pull through. You kept me going until help came.
They tell me I’m in a Newcastle hospital all busted up and they say I’m getting better by the day. The farmer who brought me here told the staff that the girl who found me made them aware of what happened and that he’d heard she was a Land Girl from a hostel in Leadburn.
No one knew who you were, but I remembered your name. So, that’s it. I sure do hope I’m able to thank you in person one day but who knows where I’ll be posted next. I was on ‘rest’ from operations.
Forever grateful,
Brad
Frieda looked up. ‘He seems nice. What was he like?’
Sandra shrugged. ‘I only saw the top half of him but I seem to remember he had blue eyes. Come to think, he seemed older. Perhaps that was because of the accident.’
‘Do you think he will come and see you?’
With heavy heart, Sandra realised her brother never had the chance. ‘A serviceman’s time isn’t their own in this war.’
‘Are you thinking of your brother?’
The Outcast Girls: A completely heartbreaking and gripping World War 2 historical novel Page 19