The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  Grace gave a quiet tut.

  ‘What?’ Brenda retorted. ‘I can’t help it if she didn’t want me to stay, can I? Anyway, the POWs were due any time.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ Grace bent to pick up stray turnips that had fallen from the cart. She tossed them into the nearby wheelbarrow and they landed with a clunk. The Christmas show was due to start in less than three hours. She glanced down at her frayed woollen mittens and felt her damp scarf flap against her cheek. Her feet were frozen solid despite three pairs of socks. ‘Not long now until show time,’ she said with a hollow laugh.

  It came as the best Christmas present imaginable when Angelo found Una alone in the hall, putting the finishing touches to the Christmas tree. Coloured streamers looped down from the ceiling and at the far end of the room shabby green velvet curtains were drawn across the stage where the Land Girls were due to perform.

  She sensed his presence before he spoke and her heart lifted. She turned with a smile.

  He saw her framed by the green tree. Lights reflected in the delicate glass baubles. A white angel was perched on the top.

  ‘You are here.’ He opened his arms wide.

  ‘I am.’ There was nothing more natural than going to him and feeling his arms close around her, than tilting her head back and sinking into his kiss.

  ‘I came. I did not hope to find you,’ he murmured, his lips against her cheek.

  Everything melted away when she looked into his eyes – the cold hours on the fell side, the sound of bombs thudding to the ground, the grip of death.

  ‘I wrote my love for you.’ He stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, cradling her head in his hands. In his eyes there was no woman more perfect, with her silky skin so smooth and soft and her eyes the colour of dark honey, flecked with gold.

  ‘I wrote too.’ The letter was in her coat pocket, slung over the back of a chair. Now it seemed not to matter what she’d written because everything she’d said was held here in this moment, needing no words. Here, in the village hall with red and green streamers, fresh white walls and a pine tree glittering silver for Christmas. Gazing at him, knowing that she was loved in body, heart and soul.

  Lorenzo opened the door from the kitchen and saw them together. He closed it quietly and left them in peace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Fifteen rows of chairs were set out in the hall and the buffet tables were laid in the kitchen when one by one the Land Girls arrived. Kathleen came early to allocate pegs in the small anteroom overlooking the football pitch where the Burnside team got changed for their Saturday matches. There was a pungent smell of damp plaster mixed with liniment, old sweat and brilliantine. A toilet cubicle in the far corner smelled even worse. Kathleen tried not to breathe in too deeply as she greeted Joyce.

  ‘Pooh, can we open a window? It smells like a farmyard in here.’ Joyce held her nose as she hung up her coat. As piano player for the evening, she’d decided to dress conservatively in a plum-coloured, jersey-knit dress with long sleeves and a sweetheart neckline and to keep her thick brown hair up in an elegant chignon, leaving it to those onstage to dazzle with their bright summer silks and cottons. She sat down to take off her Land Army brogues and slip on a pair of grey leather court shoes with a small heel.

  ‘Elsie, you can take peg number three,’ Kathleen told the next arrival, who had shown up in her uniform so as not to spoil her evening attire during the ride into the village in the back of the CRAF lorry.

  She took her peg and quickly slipped out of breeches and jumper and into a peach-coloured silk dress overlaid with cream lace. Then she used the mottled mirror above the mantelpiece to put on rouge and lipstick.

  After this, the dancers and singers arrived thick and fast. Jean came in a bright green, tight-fitting dress with wide shoulder pads – a hangover from the days before clothing coupons came in. She claimed to have lost her voice and croaked out a protest that she wasn’t fit to sing but that she was happy to stay in the kitchen preparing refreshments for the interval.

  Knowing that this was no great loss, Kathleen agreed. ‘We’ll need you for The Skaters’ Waltz straight afterwards,’ she reminded her fretfully.

  Joyce saw that nerves were getting the better of Kathleen. She’d already snapped at Dorothy when she took the wrong peg then panicked when she thought she’d forgotten her copy of the running order.

  ‘I’ve looked everywhere,’ she wailed, her usually perfect blonde hair messed up and two top buttons of her royal-blue dress undone.

  Joyce produced her own version for her to look at. ‘Everything’s in hand. Nothing is going to go wrong.’ However, she didn’t feel as calm as she sounded. It wasn’t butterflies fluttering in her stomach so much as a herd of baby elephants. She looked around the room, glad to see that Grace was there and looking lovely in a knee-length lilac dress trimmed with white and white shoes to match. And here was Brenda, breezing into the room in a sleeveless yellow frock printed all over with white daisies as if it was the middle of summer. There was a big white bow to finish off the daring, asymmetric neckline and a white silk camellia pinned in her dark hair.

  Kathleen ticked names off on a list. ‘Dorothy – here. Ivy – here. Una … Where’s Una?’

  ‘Here I am.’ Una had waited until the last possible moment to say goodbye to Angelo, making herself useful in the kitchen where he and Lorenzo were setting out the buffet with two Canadians. Hilda had been there too, cutting up sandwiches and arranging Victoria sponges that she’d baked herself. Meanwhile, inside the hall, the full contingent of prisoners and Air Force men had begun to file in and take their seats.

  But here she was, present and correct in a pale-blue summer dress that fitted her perfectly, her dark-auburn hair shining, her cheeks glowing.

  ‘Five minutes to curtain up,’ Joyce warned. She took up her sheets of music, ready to make her entrance into the hall and sit at the piano. ‘When you hear me play the opening bars of “Back to the Land”, that’s your cue to take your places for the first number.’

  ‘Curtain up!’ Kathleen echoed faintly. ‘Oh, Lord – who’s going to do that?’

  There was a flurry of skirts and the clicking of shoes as, nerves tingling, twenty girls climbed three wooden steps onto the stage.

  ‘I will,’ Brenda said with a wink. ‘Then I’ll enter stage right!’

  Quietly Joyce parted the green curtains and slid into view of the audience who immediately started to clap and stamp their feet. The POWs took up the first five rows, dressed in their uniform of grey trousers and jackets, all smiling and whistling as, clutching her sheet music, she made her way down the steps then settled herself on the piano stool. The Canadian airmen occupied six or seven rows behind them, looking relaxed and eager in their civvies – mostly open-necked shirts, slacks and sports jackets. Mac was there, Joyce noticed, but not Jim Aldridge, the senior officer at the base. She busily arranged her music then glanced again at the audience and was surprised to see that several locals had shuffled in and occupied standing room at the back of the hall – Bob and Maurice Baxendale, for a start, with Neville hoping not to be noticed in the corner by the tree. Finally, hovering in the doorway, she spotted Bill. No one’s invited them, but who cares? she thought. The more the merrier. Taking a deep breath, she struck the first chords of the Land Army song.

  Brenda tugged at the rope attached to the pulley that raised the curtain. It jerked and moved slowly at first so she pulled harder and whisked it up.

  ‘Back to the land, we must all lend a hand!’ Twenty voices sang as one. The Land Girls stood shoulder to shoulder under the spotlights in bright summer dresses of every colour of the rainbow, voices raised in praise of their work, air filling their lungs to tell of hoeing and ploughing, going back to the land to grow barley and wheat to feed the nation and do their bit to help win the war.

  Brenda waited in the wings ahead of Una and Elsie as Kathleen pranced her way through ‘Anything Goes’. All sign of nerves had disappeared as she twirled a
nd winked, cooed and looked coyly over her shoulder at her appreciative audience. ‘Glimpse of stocking’ she sang, and an accompanying action raised a raucous round of applause and filled the hall with wolf whistles, as did her pert march towards the front of the stage, inviting the audience to join in the last chorus of her Cole Porter song.

  Brenda pulled a face at Una. ‘Blimey – I have to follow that!’

  Una quaked in her high-heeled shoes. ‘Good luck,’ she whispered as the applause for Kathleen died away and Brenda took her place onstage for her solo from The Wizard of Oz.

  The footlights glared up at her, dust motes dancing in their bright beams. She found her spotlight and waited for Joyce to play the introduction. It was worse than facing a firing squad. Her knees shook, her palms were moist with sweat. Help! So much for breezy, couldn’t-care-less me! I was an idiot to agree to this. Fearing complete disaster and total humiliation, she opened her mouth to begin.

  She sang with her gaze fixed wistfully on the battery of spotlights overhead – floating over the rainbow to a sunny dream world filled with happy bluebirds. ‘Why-oh-why?’ sang the lonely, sad girl, looking for hope in the skies beyond. The slow song held the audience of homesick men in its gentle grasp. They swayed and began to hum the chorus then to join in with the words. Back home on Italian shores and in the Canadian mountains and forests there was someone, somewhere who every man missed – a mother, a girlfriend, a daughter for whom his heart yearned.

  The song ended and Brenda clasped her hands in front of her and gave a solemn bow.

  The hall erupted into applause. At the piano, Joyce saw Lorenzo get to his feet, followed by Angelo beside him and then the rest of the front row. Soon everyone in the hall was standing and clapping. Mac put his fingers to his mouth and whistled. More men from the village had joined Bill in the doorway – too late to hear Brenda’s soulful rendition. Joyce registered with a small start that the newcomers included Edgar. She smiled to herself then quietly and carefully arranged the next piece of music on the stand.

  Brenda bowed again. Elated as she skipped from the stage, she whispered good luck to Una and Elsie.

  After ‘Over the Rainbow’, the jaunty feel of ‘I Get a Kick out of You’ went down a treat. The girls matched the words to a carefully rehearsed routine of dance steps and cheeky actions, perfectly in time to the music – especially the kick with the right foot that coincided with every repetition of the title line. ‘I get a kick – kick – kick out of you!’ they concluded, with pointed feet, two neatly turned ankles and the brightest of smiles.

  Angelo and Lorenzo were on their feet again, calling for more. The airmen stamped their feet and whistled. Maurice told his brother Bob that Elsie was the girl he’d had his eye on for some time – he liked the look of her curly bob and her impish smile. ‘I’m going to go up to her and talk to her during the interval,’ he bragged.

  ‘What about the other one – the one in the blue dress?’ Bob asked.

  ‘Una Sharpe? Too late, mate – she’s been snapped up by an Eye-tie,’ Maurice told him as the curtain came down for the interval.

  After that there was a scrum for refreshments – everybody jostling to get first choice of sandwiches and cakes in the kitchen. Standing at a trestle table in front of two arched, leaded windows, Jean poured tea from a giant brown teapot, her voice miraculously back to normal. She even smiled at Jack Hudson as she handed him a cup, but once a gaggle of performers had joined the queue, she was back to her dour self.

  Joyce stood by the door and surveyed the noisy scene – voices raised above the chink of cups, the tinkle of cutlery and the hiss of steam from the Ascot boiler in the corner. She spotted Neville, his plate piled high with food and Bill standing back, waiting for others to be served – but where was Edgar? He was nowhere to be seen. Never mind – he’d come to see at least part of the show and that was better than nothing.

  ‘Hello, Joyce.’ He came up behind her and spoke quietly.

  ‘Edgar.’ Her heart skipped a beat. He was at her shoulder, not looking at her but frowning at the bun fight in front of them, smartly dressed in a blazer and slacks.

  ‘Are we going to hear you sing later on?’

  ‘No. I’ll stick to playing the piano.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’ He did look at her then, with a self-conscious glance. He smiled then he was gone.

  Voices babbled in Italian. Lorenzo reached the head of the queue but with a gentlemanly gesture stood to one side for Brenda who claimed she was dying of thirst. Mac stepped in to praise her for the ‘Rainbow’ song and said no, he had never seen Judy Garland in the film. She looked and sounded wonderful, he said. Then they were away, chatting ten to the dozen, with the gas jets behind the counter bursting into flame and steam hissing from the top of the boiler.

  Lost in the bustle, Una tried to find Angelo. Where was he? Every minute was precious. She wove between Dorothy and a Canadian airman, her heart beating rapidly until she saw him stepping up onto the low stone windowsill to look for her. She waved. He smiled then jumped down. Five seconds later he was with her and they were slipping away, fingers entwined, out through a side door into the cold, silent night.

  Then, looking up at the stars, it hit her that this might be the last time they would be together – the last time before they moved him to Scotland in a crowded lorry to work in a munitions factory or on a shipyard building battleships. The thought made her shiver then tighten her fingers around his.

  He looked at her and understood, folded his arms around her and let her rest her head against his chest.

  ‘I give you this,’ he said softly – a piece of paper with an address written on it.

  She read the words – ‘Angelo Bachetti’ then the number 36, followed by ‘Via’ meaning ‘road’, she thought, then an unfamiliar word: ‘Torrione’. Underneath this line came his home town – ‘Pisa’.

  He handed her a pencil and a blank piece of paper. ‘You write your casa, your house.’

  She printed her name and address with a shaking hand. ‘Una Sharpe, 15 Wellington Street, Millwood.’

  He took the paper from her and folded it carefully.

  Two separate worlds. Two lives colliding. Two lovers entwined.

  ‘This fight is not for ever.’ He enfolded her in his arms again.

  War would end in great men talking and signing papers, in counting the dead and drawing new lines on the world map – in Africa and the Far East, in Poland, Russia and Germany.

  ‘After, I come to this place.’ He patted the paper with her address. ‘I find you.’

  She believed him and hoped for it with all her heart. ‘When do you leave the camp?’

  ‘Two days more,’ he said as he stroked her hair and looked deep into her eyes. ‘On Christ’s day.’

  No one forgot the words to their song; no one fell over in the middle of The Skaters’ Waltz. By popular demand, they followed up the original Vera Lynn finale with another rendition of ‘Back to the Land’, wearing their slouch hats and marching and waving from stage left to stage right then back again.

  The whole ensemble did two choruses then Kathleen thanked everyone for coming. Still there were cries for more, so they marched one last time then flung their hats into the air during a final rousing burst of the Land Army song. The boards creaked under their feet and off they went, with Brenda at the helm as the curtain fell and the girls disappeared down into the damp annexe.

  From there they heard the scrape of chairs as their audience stood up, ready to leave. The POWs filed out of the hall into their waiting lorry, followed by the Canadians, all except four men who had been assigned by Mac the job of clearing away the chairs and packing up the leftover food from the buffet.

  ‘Well done, Kathleen – that was a topping show.’

  ‘We couldn’t have done it without you to knock us into shape.’

  ‘Thank you, Joyce. And Happy Christmas, everyone!’

  Satisfied comments filled the annexe as girls changed out of the
ir dresses, back into trousers and pullovers.

  Anticlimax soon followed elation, however.

  ‘I’m worn out,’ Elsie said with a sigh as she buttoned up her coat.

  ‘Is that it? Is it really all over?’ Jean was the first to leave, soon followed by Dorothy and Ivy, who stuck together like glue. Others drifted out after them, leaving an almost empty room.

  ‘Put a big pan of hot chocolate on the stove if you get back before us,’ Brenda called after Elsie. She was still in her yellow dress, helping Una check underneath benches to make sure that nothing had been left behind.

  Elsie left the door open and cold air rushed in.

  ‘Brrr. I’m going to be the last out of here at this rate.’ She closed the door then looked at Joyce, who had just come out of the toilet, and Una, already in their outdoor clothes.

  ‘We’ve got a lift back with Mrs C. We’ll ask her to wait for you if you like,’ Una offered.

  ‘No ta, I’m on Old Sloper.’ Brenda thought that Una looked sad so she gave her a sympathetic smile. ‘I’ll see you back at the hostel and we’ll have a good natter.’

  Left alone, she swiftly started to get changed. She kicked off her shoes and was out of her dress, standing in her petticoat when she heard someone walk across the stage and come down the three wooden steps.

  ‘Good – you’re still here.’ It was Mac.

  With one swift movement Brenda took her leather jacket from its hook and held it up in front of her. ‘Hey, a girl needs some privacy here.’

  Instead of retreating, he sat down on the steps and watched her closely. It was the same way of sitting as before, in the storeroom – legs akimbo, one hand thrust deep into his trouser pocket. For a while he didn’t move – simply lapping up the sight of her in her underclothes, hiding behind her jacket.

  ‘Mac, you can’t come in here,’ she said. ‘This room is for ladies only.’

  ‘You don’t say.’ He sniffed the liniment in the air then contradicted her by jerking his head towards the framed photographs of Burnside football teams that hung on the far wall.