Lorna rubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead. Panic was building in her chest. She’d been so näive to be taken in by Paul, to have so easily forgotten where her real loyalties lay—with her father, with John Jo and Sandy, with her country.
She had to find out the truth. Leaving the teapot where it stood, she strode out into the yard just as Nellie and the cows were crossing it toward the milking parlor.
“Any chance of a cup of tea?” asked Nellie. “I’m parched.”
“Where’s Paul?”
“Paul?”
“Yes, Paul. Where is he?”
Nellie looked taken aback at Lorna’s sharp tone but pointed toward the barn.
“Behind there, last I saw him. Is everything all right, love? You look like a bulldog chewing a wasp.”
Lorna ignored Nellie and headed through the barn. Sure enough, Paul was on the other side, chopping wood.
His shirt was hanging on a nail, and he was wearing only his undershirt as he heaved the ax over his head. But Lorna’s temper would not let her be distracted by that. Not for more than a second or two anyway.
Paul kicked pieces of split log to one side, and he must have caught sight of her as he did, because he smiled.
But Lorna was focused.
“So what other trinkets did you find lying around that you decided to keep?”
Lorna had not intended to accuse Paul of stealing so directly, but the words came out anyway.
Paul looked surprised. “I do not understand,” he said, though she noticed that his hand went to his pocket, almost protectively. “Have I done something wrong? I did not think your father would mind if I cleared pieces of metal from the ground.”
He pulled out a handful of the scraps to show again to Lorna. “These pieces of metal, they are worth no money, are they?”
“They might not be worth anything,” she said, “but what about his watch? Did you help yourself to that little piece of metal too?”
For a moment, Paul didn’t move, but Lorna knew she had hit the mark, because he dropped his chin down onto his chest. Guilty. Then he propped the ax against the wall and slowly walked into the barn. At the bottom of the ladder to the hayloft, he stopped. He didn’t look back at her, but he was clearly expecting her to follow.
Lorna hesitated as Paul climbed up and disappeared through the hole at the top. Why was he leading her up to where he slept? How was this an answer to her question? Lorna knew her father would not be happy if she went up there with him, alone.
Paul’s voice came back down to her. “Come, and I will show you.”
Lorna put an uncertain foot onto the ladder but hesistated only a moment before she climbed.
The hayloft hadn’t seen any hay for years. It had been used as a workshop for longer than Lorna could remember, though she and Sandy had also used it as their hideout when they were younger. It had barely changed since she was last up there, yet it was also not the same place at all. For a start, it was tidy, with tools hung up on nails, and cans of paint stacked carefully to one side.
The old camp bed was against the far wall, made up neatly with blankets and a pillow as if ready for a sergeant’s inspection. On an upended crate sat a stack of three books, against which was propped a ragged photograph. It showed a woman sitting primly on a high-backed chair with a pretty young girl standing beside her, her blond hair in two tight braids. Was that Paul’s mother and Lilli?
Paul was standing on the other side of the loft, leaning against the waist-high wooden bench on which her grandfather’s hand tools had always been kept.
Now, however, on the bench lay a neat arrangement of other tools, many of them miniature versions of her grandfather’s. There was a small hammer, numerous fine metal files, and two tiny screwdrivers with wooden handles. She nervously picked one up. It seemed to have been made by hand out of a thick nail and a piece of wood.
Paul was studying her as she approached the bench.
“Did you make these?” she asked. “But why?”
“I like working with your father on the farm,” Paul replied. “I have work for my body, but I do not use my hands and my brain. I said I would clean your father’s tools, so I oiled them, and sharpened them, and I enjoyed that also. But I miss working in fine detail. I miss working on things so delicate, so perfect, they can capture time.”
“Clocks,” said Lorna.
Paul nodded. “So when Mrs. Mack gave me your father’s watch—”
“Mrs. Mack gave it to you?” Lorna was feeling queasy. “Why would Mrs. Mack have given it to you?”
He seemed surprised that she would ask that question.
“She knows I am a watchmaker, and she asked me to repair it. I thought she told Mr. Anderson. But it is clear she did not.”
Paul lifted a small bundle from the shelf and laid it on the workbench.
“I should have told your father myself and asked his permission to touch it, but I will tell you it felt wonderful to have such a beautiful watch in my hands after months of guns and grenades, and spades and axes.”
As he spoke, he opened the white linen bundle, and there lay the watch. Its gold and glass face glinted in the late afternoon sunshine that filtered through the dirty window of the loft. Paul wiped the corner of the fabric across the glass.
Lorna gingerly picked it up, as if it were a relic of immense value. It was heavy and trustworthy, and she could feel movement on her fingertips, slight and rhythmic. She lifted the watch to her ear and listened. Yes, there it was, the tick tick tick of the second hand.
“You—you fixed it?” she stuttered. “Here, in our hayloft? With these little tools?”
“And with things like these,” he said, putting his hand into his pants pocket. When he took it out again, he let all the small pieces of metal and wire pour from his hand onto the bench.
“Paul, that’s amazing.”
Lorna was feeling very uncomfortable now. Why hadn’t she waited to talk to Mrs. Mack before racing off to accuse Paul?
“Once I took the watch apart,” Paul explained, “it was not difficult to clean it and put it back together again. As I said, it is a very fine watch, and your father is right to value it.”
“It was my grandfather’s,” Lorna said.
“Yes, but did you know that it is German?” he asked.
How had her grandfather come by a German watch? He had never even left Scotland, as far as she knew.
“It was made around 1900, I think,” Paul explained, “by the Glashütte company—one of my country’s finest watchmakers.”
“So will you come to give it back to Dad now?” Lorna asked, placing the watch carefully back on the linen. “He will be very grateful, I know. He’ll want to say thank you.”
She wrapped up the watch again and held it out to Paul, but he didn’t take it.
“He does not owe me his thanks. I enjoyed the work. I am just sorry that I did something to make you angry. I do not want to be sent away from Aberlady.”
Something wistful in his tone made Lorna look up at him.
“Really? I’d be away from Aberlady like a shot, if I could. I mean, haven’t you even once thought about escaping?”
Probably not a question she should ask a German prisoner.
“I would only think about escaping,” said Paul, a smile tweaking the corner of his mouth, “if I could fill my bag first with dozens of Mrs. Mack’s tattie scones.”
He laughed, and Lorna joined in.
“Tattie scones?” she said. “You are sounding like a real Scotsman now. You’ll be one of us before you know it.”
“Maybe.” Paul looked thoughtful. “But no, I think I will always be German. But I know I would also be happy if I never left Aberlady. It is very beautiful here.”
Paul’s gray eyes held hers fast, as they had done that very first day.
“Very beautiful.”
“So it turns out your watch wasn’t stolen, after all, Dad,” Lorna burst out as she went back into the house with Paul.
“It’s a funny story, but—”
“—the lad here was fixing it. Aye, I know. Mrs. Mack told me.”
“Oh, when—?”
“When she came back with the eggs, just after you tore off with a face like a bulldog chewing—”
“A bulldog chewing a wasp, yes, I heard that already. But look, Paul’s done a lovely job.”
Lorna waved Paul forward. He placed the white bundle carefully on the table and stepped back respectfully.
Lorna’s dad studied Paul for a second or two, then drew the watch from its linen swaddling. He ran his thumb over the gleaming glass, then lifted it to his ear. As he listened, Lorna noticed that he looked up at the two photographs sitting in tarnished silver frames high on the mantelpiece, next to the certificate of thanks that His Majesty King George had signed and sent to every member of the Home Guard.
One was a picture of Lorna’s mother, taken on her wedding day, but Lorna’s dad seemed to be focusing on the other. It was a picture of her grandfather standing proudly with his four sons—her father; her uncle Harry, who was now the police officer in Port Seton; and her dad’s two older brothers, Billy and Frank, who had gone off to fight in the Great War not long after the photograph was taken. Neither had come back.
Her father seemed lost in the photograph, but after a moment, he looked back at the watch, and carefully placed it on his wrist. He said something as he fitted the brown leather strap exactly onto the white circlet of skin, but it was too quiet for her to hear the words.
As he secured the small gold buckle, Lorna’s dad looked up at Paul and nodded once. Paul nodded back. Nothing more.
“They’ll be delivering the wire to repair the fence over yonder in the morning.” Suddenly Lorna’s dad was all business. “So we’ll get a start on that straight after breakfast.”
He turned to Lorna.
“I’ve to run over to Luffness in a wee bit, but I’ll be back by seven for my tea and the news.”
Lorna’s father stalked past her and turned on the water in the scullery sink to wash his teacup. She was stunned. He hadn’t even said thank you to Paul. But was she one to talk? She hadn’t yet apologized for accusing Paul of being a thief either, had she?
“Paul”—she dropped her voice as she turned to him—“I’m sorry, you know, that I—”
Before she could say any more, the kitchen door was thrown open and Nellie rushed in, muddy boots and all, panting and holding her waist on one side.
“You ain’t never going to believe the news!” she gasped. “I didn’t believe it myself, excepting I got it from the very best source.”
She gasped again and rubbed the sleeve of her sweater across her forehead, adding a wide smudge of dirt to the sheen of perspiration.
“What news, Nellie?” Lorna asked, hardly daring to guess. Was the war over? Would John Jo and Sandy be coming home? “Come on, tell us!”
The old water pipes clunked and rattled as her father slammed off the faucet. In the resulting silence, Nellie drew an enormous breath and let it burst out again.
“They’re throwing a dance!” she crowed. “The Yanks! At the air base! On Saturday! This Saturday! I just met my friend Doris cycling down the road there, and she told me. Isn’t that something? A real-life American dance!”
A disgusted grunt came from the scullery, and Lorna guessed that her father too had been hoping to hear that piece of news that would bring their boys home. Two seconds later, the back door slammed shut and he crunched away over the gravel.
Nellie was hopping around the kitchen, trying to pull one of her boots off while still standing up. After a couple more hops, she collapsed into a chair, pushing off one boot with the toe of the other. She was giggling like all her Christmases had come at once.
Even in her disappointment that the news was not more important, Lorna was finding Nellie’s delight infectious, and she glanced up at Paul to see if he too was caught up in Nellie’s enthusiasm. She found no smile, however, no emotion at all. It was as if the Paul she knew had stepped behind a mask.
For her part, Nellie did not seem to have noticed Paul was even in the room. With a huff, she finally kicked off her other boot and spun to face Lorna, grasping the back of her chair.
“There’s going to be a band, and drinks,” she trilled happily, “and food, and dancing. Well, obviously there’ll be dancing, it is a dance after all. And guess what?”
She leaned toward Lorna significantly.
“What?” Lorna shrugged, though her pulse was quickening.
“Guess!”
“Nellie, just tell me.”
“Since it’s an American Air Force dance, there’s going to be lots of American pilots needing partners to dance with,” said Nellie hungrily, “and lots of navigators and mechanics, I shouldn’t wonder. So guess what that means?”
“Nellie!”
“It means that we’re invited! You and me!” She winked provocatively at Lorna. “What d’you say? You game?”
“Really? Me go to a dance with you?”
“Just call me your fairy godmother, duckie.”
Lorna couldn’t suppress her smile any longer, but then something struck her as not quite right. “Hold on, how can we already be invited? You’ve only just heard it’s happening.”
“All right, Miss Fussyknickers, I can make sure we get invited when I see my Charming Charlie later tonight in the pub. Yes? You up for it?”
“Oh, Nellie, yes please!”
Nellie jumped out of her chair and whirled Lorna around, giggling.
Even through Nellie’s squeals, Lorna heard the kitchen door click shut. By the time she looked round, Paul was gone.
Eleven
“I’m telling you, duckie, it’ll be crawling with gorgeous blokes, all desperate to dance with a beautiful girl.”
Nellie was still talking about the dance at teatime. Lorna put two plates of rabbit stew and dumplings onto the table, suddenly hoping the food might distract Nellie, for a while at least.
Ever since the US Air Force’s arrival last December at the East Fortune Airfield, Nellie had been raving about gorgeous American airmen. Nellie and her Land Army pals had tracked the Americans down to a couple of pubs in Haddington and North Berwick and had been regulars there ever since. For a while, Nellie had talked about different airmen each time, but recently only one name was on Nellie’s lips.
“My Charming Charlie will work it all out,” Nellie said, stabbing a plump suet dumpling onto her fork and waving it at Lorna. “He’s got a dozen gorgeous pals who’d be perfect for you, and by all accounts, they’ve been having a rotten time of it this last week or two, so they’ll be looking for some fun.”
She stuffed the whole dumpling into her mouth, chewing it quickly.
“In fact, Charlie told me about a certain gentleman friend of his just the other day. Except when he says it, his American accent makes it sound like ‘gennel-man’—isn’t that cute? Cute—that’s another of his funny words, you know, he has lots of them. Cute, and swell, and soda pop.”
Lorna smiled at all these Hollywood words, but below her bubbling anticipation, something else was stirring.
Had Paul left so suddenly because she hadn’t apologized? She had tried to say sorry before Nellie interrupted, but then she’d got so caught up in the invitation, she hadn’t finished. Then he’d stalked out, though only after she had said yes to the dance invitation. But why should that upset him?
She hadn’t got the chance to talk to him when she had taken his tea over. She’d shouted that she’d brought his meal, but he’d called from the back that she should just leave it on top of the barrel.
Even as she’d left the tray in its usual place, she’d still been tempted to go check he wasn’t sulking.
Sulking? Why would he have been sulking?
It wasn’t like Paul could go to the dance with them, so why was she even thinking about Paul just now? She should be concentrating on Saturday’s dance, not worrying about him.
“This
dance is going to be so exciting,” Lorna said as she sat down beside Nellie at the table, determined to make herself believe it. “Thank you again for including me. Dad’ll be back soon, so I can ask him if I can go.”
Nellie raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “You need to ask your dad?”
“No, no, of course not.” Lorna fought to keep her voice from rising, suddenly embarrassed in front of Nellie who went anywhere anytime she pleased. “Of course I don’t need to ask his permission. I just need to check that he can spare me that night. From the farm, I mean. Because we’re so busy.”
Nellie nodded as if she understood, but she was also pressing her lips tightly together as if she were fighting a smile.
At that moment, Lorna’s dad kicked his boots against the wall outside, and Lorna leaped up to get his plate from the oven.
“Perfect timing,” said Nellie. “You can ask him now, I mean, check he can spare you. Unless you’d like me to.”
“No, Nellie, I’ll do it,” Lorna whispered as her dad opened the kitchen door. “I’ll just give him his tea first.”
But her dad looked so tired and anxious when he came in that Lorna decided to bide a while before asking him about it. She set his plate on the table next to his newspaper and sat back down to finish her own meal. Perhaps she’d ask him after he’d listened to the news.
“Now, Mr. Anderson, about this dance on Saturday,” Nellie blurted out before Lorna’s dad had even picked up his fork. “You don’t mind if I whisk young Lorna away with me, do you?”
Nellie! Lorna wanted to clap a hand over that unstoppable mouth.
“You know, for an evening of very-well-chaperoned entertainment.”
“And which one of you will need chaperoning, I wonder,” Lorna’s dad muttered without looking up. Nellie gave a hoot of laughter.
“Mr. A., you are funny sometimes.”
But Lorna’s dad wasn’t laughing, and neither was Lorna. She was silently cursing Nellie.
After an eternity, he looked at Lorna.
“So, lassie, are you wanting to go to this dance too?”
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