Wait for Me

by Caroline Leech

  Paul, however, stepped out from behind her and walked toward John Jo, right arm outstretched, offering a hand to shake.

  “Hello, I am Paul Vogel. I am pleased to meet you.”

  John Jo glanced down at Paul’s proffered hand but didn’t take it.

  “Christ! I heard you were ugly—”

  “John!” Lorna was horrified.

  “Get into the house, Lorna!” John Jo bellowed.

  “John Jo, stop this, please.” Lorna again stepped between the two men, close enough to her brother to catch the reek of the pub on his uniform—stale beer and cigarette smoke. “Paul was just helping me. I hurt myself—”

  “Into the house, NOW!”

  Caddy barked another sharp warning, but John Jo paid no attention. He just stood, swaying slightly, muscles locked so tight he looked like he might explode.

  Lorna was scared. She had seen John Jo drunk before, but never this angry, his face red and contorted, almost unrecognizable, his fists balled at his sides.

  “John, stop it! Please. You’ve got it all wrong! And where’s Dad?”

  The dog barked again.

  “Caddy! Here!” Paul patted the side of his leg, and though she went to stand beside him, Caddy was focused on the intruder.

  “Lorna fell.” Paul’s voice was calm but firm. “I cleaned the wound. That is all. If you allow her to—”

  John Jo lunged forward, right into Paul’s face. His bulky, dark frame cast an ominous shadow over Paul, so pale and blond.

  “Don’t you dare tell me what to do, on my own farm, in my own home!”

  Spit flew from John Jo’s mouth, spattering his chin. For a moment he reminded Lorna of a rabid dog, slavering and vicious.

  “You are here to work,” he snarled at Paul, “not to backchat me and NOT to put your filthy Hun hands on my sister. So get on with that damn fence, and if I see you within half a mile of her again, I will tear the other half of your ugly face off.”

  John Jo lifted his fist as if to strike Paul, but Paul didn’t flinch. He raised a hand, his palm open in a conciliatory gesture. For what seemed like a year, the two men stood facing each other, carved from the same granite as the barn wall behind them.

  With a final growl of contempt, John Jo grabbed Lorna by the arm, exactly where another man’s bruises had so recently faded, and pulled her away.

  Now it was Paul who looked angry.

  “Let Lorna go,” he said firmly, following them. “She did nothing wrong. Let her go.”

  Without releasing Lorna’s arm, John Jo thrust the flat of his other hand into Paul’s chest and shoved him backward, sending Paul sprawling. A grunt of air was forced from Paul’s lungs, and then there was a sickening crack as his head hit the ground.

  “Paul!” Lorna cried, struggling to free herself, but John Jo dragged her back toward the house. Her embarrassment and fear vanished, replaced by a hot flare of anger.

  “What are you doing? You’ve hurt him! John Jo, for God’s sake, let me go!”

  The dog was now crouched beside Paul, barking furiously and teeth bared, ready to attack at his first signal.

  As John Jo dragged her to the corner of the house, Lorna watched as Paul pushed himself up onto his knees unsteadily and pressed his hand to his head, wincing.

  Lorna swung at her brother with her free hand, trying to push him away, but his grip was like steel. The stench of beer and tobacco threw her back to Ed and the dark hallway and to the sickening, petrifying fear.

  But Lorna wasn’t scared now, she was bloody furious.

  “Stop!” she shrieked. “You pig! You are a stinking bloody mucking pig, John Anderson. Now LET. ME. GO!”

  As John Jo threw open the kitchen door, Caddy came tearing across the yard after them, snarling and yapping. Pushing Lorna inside, John Jo aimed a kick at the dog. It glanced off her flank, but still sent her sliding over the cobbles.

  The dog yelped as John Jo slammed the kitchen door behind them and locked it. She couldn’t believe that he had just kicked the dog, that he would kick any dog. John Jo loved dogs, he always had. He’d wept for days when Bess—her father’s old sheepdog and Caddy’s great-grandmother—had died after being hit by a car in the lane. The John Jo she knew would never have deliberately hurt any dog, any animal.

  So who was this man in front of her now? She didn’t even know.

  “You beast!” she yelled. “She’s only a puppy, for God’s sake. You didn’t need to kick her! Dad’ll kill you for that.”

  “Well, Dad’s not here, and that bitch is a working dog, not a pet. No dog should turn on her master to protect an outsider.”

  “You’re not her master. She doesn’t even know you.”

  “Aye, well, she’ll know me soon enough. When I’m back, these dogs will learn to work damn hard or they will feel my boot. And the same goes for every other traitor on this farm.”

  The two of them stood glaring at each other, as they had done on so many occasions as children, but this fight was something else entirely.

  “Traitor?” she spat. “You are calling me a traitor? Are you really that drunk?”

  John Jo hissed through his teeth, “I have not spent the last four years sitting in mudholes, getting my arse shot at by Jerry, to come back here and find my little sister getting felt up by one of those bastards.”

  “Getting felt up? What are you talking about?” she screeched, her throat grating raw. “For goodness’ sake, Paul was wiping blood off my knee because I fell. He wasn’t groping me.”

  “Yeah?” John Jo shouted back. “Well, only because I stopped him. And I am telling you right now, if I ever see that dirty filthy Hun anywhere near you, or if I catch him even looking at you, I will rip his head off. Do you hear me?”

  “How dare you!”

  “And as for you, have you lost your bloody mind, or your eyesight? I don’t know how you can even bear to look at him. It’s just disgusting!”

  Lorna was shocked by the manic hatred distorting the face of her much-missed brother.

  “He is not disgusting, he is burned,” she screamed. “His face was burned in an explosion caused by Allied soldiers just like you. And it doesn’t matter if he looks that way, because inside he is a nicer and kinder man than you could ever be.”

  “So you do fancy him. My God! It’s you who’s the freak, not him. You get your kicks from letting some Hun bastard stick his filthy hand up your skirt!”

  “You are such a hypocrite, as well as a dirty pig!” Lorna screamed. “You seemed happy enough to stick your filthy hand up Lizzy Crichton’s skirt, and your tongue in her mouth, didn’t you?”

  John Jo’s furious face registered the shock she had hoped for.

  “Yes, I saw you, all over each other. That was disgusting! But of course, that was just fine, because Lizzy was the love of your life, wasn’t she?”

  Lorna’s fury was so intense, she didn’t even hesitate before she delivered the deathblow.

  “Or she was, right up until she dumped you for that short-arsed Welsh sailor!”

  John Jo recoiled as if she’d slapped him.

  “Or was it for the American soldier? Or the Polish pilot? She certainly had them all, from what I heard.”

  “You little bitch!” he spat, but Lorna hadn’t finished.

  “And for your information, Mr. High and Bloody Mighty, Paul was not feeling me up. Paul has never even touched me.”

  The lie registered in Lorna’s mind, but she hoped it didn’t show on her face.

  “And even if he had, and even if I wanted him to, it would be none of your damn business! Don’t you dare come in here, John Joseph Anderson, shouting the odds at me. You have no right. No right at all! So go on, piss off back to your bloody mudholes and let Jerry shoot the arse off you some more.”

  Lorna’s throat was agonizingly hoarse now, and she had to fight to get any volume at all.

  “And if you never come back? Well, I DON’T CARE!”

  Lorna pushed past her brother, but he stepped
in her way. She tried to move toward the scullery, but again, he blocked her. Suddenly feeling tears coming and determined he would not see them, Lorna turned and crashed up the stairs to her bedroom. Slamming the door behind her, she sat down hard on the bed, the iron springs of the mattress screaming under the sudden weight.

  She took off her shoes, throwing one hard at the wall, then the other. Lying down, flat on her face, she pulled the pillow over her head and screamed the worst swearwords she could muster into her mattress.

  She thought she heard banging on the kitchen door and pulled the pillow off, listening for the knocks to come again, but there was nothing. A short while later, however, the kitchen door slammed again and the percussive ring of army boots stamping away from the house echoed around the farmyard.

  “Just piss off then, you git!” she tried to shout, but her throat could barely croak the words.

  Then the tears finally came, and the guilt flooded through her.

  How could she have said such a terrible thing to John Jo? Of course she cared about what happened to him. But then again, he had no right to treat her like that. She and Paul hadn’t been doing anything wrong.

  Not yet, anyway.

  And what about Paul? Was he okay? Was his head badly hurt? Would he ever want to talk to her again? How could John Jo have said those awful things about Paul’s face? How could he? She had to find Paul and apologize, to see if he was okay. But how could she face him?

  At that moment, she heard the roar of the army truck in the farmyard.

  Parp! Parp!

  The driver was clearly keen to be off.

  Parp! Parp!

  She jumped to her window and looked down into the yard just as Paul climbed onboard and slammed the tailboard. Then the truck roared off up the lane.

  Paul was gone and she had missed her chance to say sorry. Lorna lay down on her bed and wept herself to sleep.

  Eighteen

  When Lorna woke up, it was dark, though pale moonlight filtered through the window. The bedside clock read almost midnight. She felt wrung out, though calmer, as if a more rational voice had soothed her misery as she slept. Yes, she would have to face Paul when he returned to the farm in the morning, but first she needed to talk to John Jo. He would be leaving again the day after tomorrow, and she couldn’t let him leave without apologizing.

  She had to make him realize, though, that she would be eighteen in less than two weeks, an adult, and he would have no right to interfere again.

  Lorna padded into the upstairs hallway. The door of John Jo’s room was ajar and the room dark, so she went down to the kitchen, but it was empty as well. The dinner dishes had been washed and stacked to dry, and the house was completely quiet, but the kitchen lamp was still on. John Jo’s big army boots were not beside the others by the door.

  He couldn’t still be down at the pub, because last orders would have been called a couple of hours ago. All the same, she slipped her bare feet into her shoes and walked down to the gate.

  It was a cold, clear night, and the moon was full—what they called a “bomber’s moon”—so the road was well lit, but empty. Panic rose inside Lorna. She ran back to the house and up the stairs, pushing the door of John Jo’s bedroom fully open. The room had been stripped. Not one piece of John Jo’s uniform remained, no kit bag, no dirty socks and undershirts tossed in the corner, and no pile of freshly ironed laundry stacked by Mrs. Mack on the chair.

  John Jo had gone, back to his unit and the war, and Lorna was the one who had driven him away. She went to her room. How would she tell her father? How could she admit what had happened, what she’d said that made him leave? Without bothering to change into a nightdress, Lorna lay down, staring at the moonlight on the wall until wretched sleep eventually came again.

  Lorna woke to raised voices. Thinking John Jo had come back, she ran to the window and looked out.

  It wasn’t John Jo. It was her father shouting at two of the cows, which had wandered away from the milking line and were headed for the vegetable garden. Nellie, who should have been supervising them, was bent double over a tin bucket, her body jerking as she vomited into it.

  Lorna hurried downstairs, stuffing her feet into her shoes and grabbing her coat as she went. By the time Lorna reached her, Nellie was leaning heavily against the wall, her face gray and shining with sweat. She was shivering, so Lorna wrapped her coat around Nellie’s shoulders.

  “Are you feeling poorly, Nellie? Because you look awful,” Lorna said. “What have you eaten recently?”

  Nellie shook her head.

  “I’ve hardly eaten anything for days.” Her voice was pathetic. “I’ve been feeling so sick.”

  Nellie glanced down at the tin bucket and heaved again.

  “I think you should go back to bed right now,” Lorna said, rubbing Nellie’s back.

  “No, no, really, I’ll be fine,” Nellie said, wiping the sleeve of Lorna’s coat across her forehead. “I’ve the milking to do.”

  Lorna looked pleadingly at her father, who was herding the stray cows into the parlor with the others.

  “Dad, will you tell Nellie to go back to bed? I’ll help her upstairs and come and do the milking instead.”

  “I’ll not have you late for school,” he grumped.

  “But it’s Good Friday.” With all yesterday’s drama, Lorna had forgotten that herself until now. “No school today, so I’ve loads of time. And remember, church doesn’t start until ten, not that you’ll be coming with me, of course.”

  Lorna’s father tutted loudly.

  “Fine! We’ll let Princess Nellie off this once, but you’ll not do it alone. Away up and get your brother out of his bed now so he can help. You might have to fire off a shotgun to wake him, though. He was back so late from the pub, I gave up waiting and went to my bed.”

  It took a moment for Lorna to realize that Dad didn’t know John Jo had gone. Goose bumps rose on her arms. Her father would hate her if he knew why. And he would be right to.

  She couldn’t tell him the truth.

  “But Dad, did John Jo not tell you?” Her throat was rough as she spoke. “A message came saying he was needed back immediately, an emergency.”

  Lorna busied herself doing up the buttons on the coat around Nellie so she didn’t have to look at her dad.

  “He got the bus back up to Edinburgh at teatime, but he must have missed you.” Lorna could only imagine the disappointment that must be crossing her father’s face. “Where did you go anyway, after you dropped him off? John Jo didn’t tell me.”

  When her dad didn’t answer, Lorna put her arm around Nellie and guided her toward the house.

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” she said over her shoulder. Still her father didn’t reply.

  Once Nellie was settled with a cup of tea, Lorna headed back outside. She picked up the bucket Nellie had thrown up in, rinsed it out, and left it to be disinfected at the end of milking. Having washed her hands, Lorna fetched a couple of clean buckets from the shelf and got on with the job.

  It felt good to concentrate on something. She didn’t mind doing the milking now that it was warmer—she had been glad to escape it through the bitter dark mornings of winter. There was a welcoming stink to the milking parlor, one of the familiarly comforting smells that always clung to her father’s clothes and skin. And the rhythm of the milking saved her mind from wandering back to the awfulness of the previous afternoon. She had almost finished when she heard boots on the cobbled floor. Lorna froze. It was John Jo—he’d come back! But when they appeared on the other side of the cow, the boots were Paul’s.

  She hadn’t heard the truck, and she hadn’t had a moment to prepare. She’d have to apologize for John Jo’s behavior. But how?

  Until she could work that out, she would keep her head lowered and pretend not to have seen him.

  Paul stood there for almost a full minute, but still Lorna did not lift her head.

  “Your father told me to help you,” he said finally.


  Lorna searched those words for anger or upset, but Paul’s tone was neutral, as if their last meeting had been nothing but everyday.

  She could put it off no longer, so she looked up into Paul’s eyes, or rather into his right eye. The left one was swollen completely shut. The scarred and shiny skin was puffed even tighter and had darkened into a dreadful red-and-purple bruise, making the rest of Paul’s skin seem even paler.

  “Oh my God, Paul, your eye!”

  She leaped to her feet, the low milking stool toppling over with a bang.

  Paul shrugged.

  “It will mend quickly. My face has healed before.”

  He gave her a slight wry smile, clearly knowing she didn’t believe a word.

  “Did that happen when you fell? When John Jo pushed you . . . ?”

  But that couldn’t be right. He had banged the side of his head as he hit the ground, not his face.

  Paul walked over to wash his hands at the sink. Lorna noticed a raw red patch of blood-matted hair just above his right ear and knew for sure that his swollen eye couldn’t have been caused by the fall.

  “He hit you, didn’t he? My brother punched you. Tell me, that’s what happened, wasn’t it?”

  He didn’t respond, but put his hands under the spout to rinse off the carbolic soap lather.

  “Paul, tell me!”

  She grabbed his sleeve and tugged it hard enough to make him turn around and face her, his hands dripping. His silence told her she was right.

  “Why didn’t you fight back?” she demanded. “If it had been me, I would have punched him so hard . . .”

  She balled her hands into fists as if to show him, and Paul took hold of them with wet fingers.

  His knuckles were crowned with swollen and bloody grazes.

  “Who says that I did not?” he said, gazing at her. “Your brother loves you. He wants to protect you, as he has spent years protecting his country from men like me. Remember, Lorna, he was trained to kill Germans. I am his enemy, so perhaps I was lucky to get from him only a blue eye.”

  “A black eye,” Lorna corrected him tersely. “That git gave you a black eye.”