But she’d promised to help with the teas, so she pointed back into the tent and mimed being a teapot. Iris waved her amused understanding, and Lorna went to find Mrs. Mack.
To one side of the tent, on the makeshift pallet stage, stood William. He was also looking toward Iris, but then he found Lorna. She gave him a sarcastic smile and wave, hoping that Iris wasn’t watching.
Just then a whistle blew, loud and insistent. All the children cheered and pelted toward the tea tent, yelling and elbowing one another aside. Even the little girls with the daisy chains came tearing over the grass, screaming like banshees.
As the ravenous mob tore past Mrs. Urquhart, standing with the whistle in her hand, she threw her arms up as if that might stop her being trampled. Luckily, no child came close to touching her, which was just as well. Mrs. Urquhart was so delicate and brittle, like a china doll, Lorna suspected she would have shattered at the slightest bump.
Mrs. Urquhart pursed her perfectly lipsticked mouth. “You’d think they’d never been fed!” she muttered as the last little girl stumbled past.
Then she caught sight of Lorna, and a disapproving wrinkle creased her forehead.
“Come along then,” Mrs. Urquhart snapped. “These children need to be fed and watered. Don’t expect the grown-ups to do all the work just so you can spend the afternoon gallivanting.”
But the ladies of the village already had every child seated at a table with a paper napkin in front of him or her, piled up with a sandwich and a sausage roll, a fairy cake and a piece of shortbread. Paper cups of rich and sticky orange squash were already being refilled from big jugs by Sheena and the other young mothers. As fast as they could fill them, the sweaty children gulped them down. The noisy chatter rose and fell around each delicious mouthful. For the first time in most of these children’s lives, rationing didn’t exist.
Mrs. Urquhart was tutting again, but this time it was at William. As he approached his mother, her nose wrinkled as if she’d stepped in something.
“William Robert Urquhart!” she said, loud enough that everyone could hear. “What do you look like? We have standards, you know.”
Lorna couldn’t see any dirt on him at all. William looked as conspicuously well-groomed as ever. Even so, he was desperately brushing at nonexistent stains on his pants.
“Go back to the Manse right now and change,” Mrs. Urquhart continued without a breath. “No son of mine will parade around like a ragamuffin. There’s even dirt on your face.”
Mrs. Urquhart pulled a crisp white handkerchief from her sleeve and folded it over her finger. Licking it with the very tip of her tongue, she advanced on William and dabbed furiously at an imagined smudge on his cheekbone. Even though he towered over her, William squirmed away from his mother’s viselike grip like a toddler.
“Mother!” William whined. “Stop. You can’t do this. I’m not a child.”
She held his chin between her bony fingers and inspected his face.
“While you are living under my roof, you are my child and you will do what you are told.”
Lorna knew she should be laughing at this spectacle, especially since it was happening to William, but it was just too humiliating for that.
“Now, go home and change immediately!”
Mrs. Urquhart strode into the tent.
William looked dazed, but when he realized that a number of his classmates had witnessed the scene, his pale cheeks flushed pink.
“What the hell is it to you?” he snarled.
Everyone else followed Mrs. Urquhart into the tent, but Lorna stayed put.
She was trying to imagine how Iris could find anything to respect in that vile woman, and her pathetic son. They would both destroy whatever spirit Iris had left inside. It was just so awful to contemplate.
When the others had gone, William glared at Lorna, his vexed scowl an exact replica of his mother’s.
“And you can shut up, Lorna Anderson!”
“I didn’t say any—”
“You shouldn’t even be at this party. Among decent people.”
“Look, just because your mother—”
“Don’t you dare talk about my mother, or about Iris. In fact, I don’t want you ever talking to Iris again.”
Lorna was stunned. All right, he didn’t like her, but what had she done to provoke this?
“I know you’ve been turning Iris against me.” William was almost spitting. “But it won’t work. Iris is too good for you, you little German whore!”
Lorna’s heart stopped, then a fierce fury burst inside her.
How dare he?
She took a step toward him, but then remembered what Iris had said yesterday, and how much it would mean to her if Lorna did not rip William’s head off right now. So very calmly, or at least, trying to appear calm while staving off the shakes that rippled down to her fists, Lorna drew herself up and looked William Urquhart squarely in the eye.
“I think, for Iris’s sake, you had better take that back. Did your darling mother never teach you that if you can’t say something nice, say nothing?”
“I told you not to talk about my—”
“And I don’t need to turn Iris against you, William. You are managing to do that all by yourself, simply by being the nasty, vindictive so-and-so you are. I need do nothing but stand back and watch you go down in flames. Now are you going to take that comment back? Or shall I ask Iris to come over for a chat? I doubt that she’d agree with you that I’m a little German—”
Before she could finish—thankfully, because Lorna wasn’t sure she could even say that word—William furiously shoved past her and sprinted along the side of the tent. Within seconds he was at the top of Sea Wynd heading toward the Manse, and then he was gone.
Now Lorna’s heart was pounding as if she’d been running the mile. Who had been listening? Who had heard what William had called her? She really didn’t want to know, so instead of going into the tent, she went in the other direction, toward the sea and the road to Craigielaw.
Twenty-Nine
The kettle was whistling, but Lorna couldn’t quite bring herself to stand up. She and Paul were sitting in her dad’s carver chair by the kitchen table, Lorna nestled snugly on Paul’s lap, her head resting on his shoulder. He smelled of carbolic soap and hay, and of the early strawberries he had been picking.
Paul had been nervous at first of coming into the house with Lorna, but she had whined and wheedled and bribed him with the promise of tea. When that hadn’t worked, she had kissed him, and then kissed him again, after which he had allowed her to lead him uncomplaining into the kitchen.
Lorna needed Paul close; his security and his strength mattered to her, especially after what had happened on the Sea Green. No matter how she formed the words in her head, however, Lorna couldn’t bring herself to tell Paul about what William had said to her. Anyway, Paul didn’t need to know. Telling him would upset him; it would spoil this perfect moment. So she cuddled against him, knowing nothing would induce her to move.
Then Lorna’s dad opened the door and stamped into the kitchen, and Lorna was out of Paul’s lap like a scalded cat. Paul rose too, though with more dignity.
Lorna’s dad looked at each of them in turn.
“Eyes in the back of my head,” he said. “I warned you two about that, didn’t I?”
Before Lorna could decide whether he was joking, her father pointed toward the singing kettle.
“So are we listening to that racket as part of a music appreciation lesson, or are you likely to make a cup of tea at any point?”
Reddening, Lorna pulled the kettle off the heat and gathered the teapot and cups together.
“I will go back to the fruit, now I have brought in the strawberries Mrs. Mack asked for,” said Paul, as if expecting Lorna’s father to believe that was the only reason he was there.
Lorna’s dad snorted.
“The strawbs’ll be fine for a wee while longer, so sit yourself back down, lad, and enjoy your cuppa.”<
br />
Paul hesitated and then sat back down, though not in the big chair they had been cuddling in. Instead he sat in the chair on the other side of the table. For a moment or two he gazed thoughtfully at his fingers.
“Mr. Anderson,” Paul said at last, “may I ask you a question?”
“Aye, lad, ask away,” said Lorna’s dad as he took back possession of his own big chair.
“I would like to know more about your watch,” Paul said. “It is a very fine German piece, but I am surprised to find it outside my own country. I hope you do not mind that I am asking.”
Slowly, Lorna’s father undid the buckle on the watch and laid it flat on the arm of his chair before standing and reaching up to the high mantelpiece above him. Lorna thought he would pick up the photograph of Lorna’s mother, but instead, he lifted down the photograph next to it, the one of her grandfather with his four sons. He ran his thumb gently over a smudge on the frame as he handed the photograph to Paul.
“The watch belonged to my father,” he said, pointing at the older man in the center of the group. “Before that, it belonged to a German soldier.”
Lorna was surprised. She knew nothing of that.
“This is Frank,” said her father, pointing at the tall young man to the far left of the photograph. “He was the eldest and then there was Billy, then me, and then Harry. Frank and Billy both went off to the Great War in 1916. Neither of them came back.”
“I am sorry to hear that,” said Paul.
“It was a long time ago, but they were Royal Scots, same as our John.” He stood taller suddenly. “‘First of foot, right of the line . . .’”
“‘. . . and the pride of the British Army,’” Lorna quietly finished the recitation.
“Aye, that’s right. And they were the pride of the British Army, fine boys, and brave. But that did them no good. My parents received two telegrams on the same afternoon. They said that both boys had been killed in the battle for the Somme. Most of their battalion, the Sixteenth, was lost in the one offensive.
“My mother never recovered from the shock. And even though me and Harry were still at home, being too young to join up, I don’t think Mother ever really looked at either of us again.”
Lorna’s father lifted the watch into his palm.
“In due course, my parents received a letter from the company padre, returning the few things that Frank and Billy had left behind. He said my brothers had died as heroes, as if that would console my mother.”
There was bitterness in his voice.
“Then in 1919, a few months after the Armistice,” Lorna’s father continued, “another letter arrived, from a German soldier called Heinrich Wolf, addressed to ‘Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, Aberlady, Scotland.’ In the letter, which was written in fine English, I might add, Wolf told how he met had Frank in a bomb crater in no-man’s-land.
“Wolf’s company went over the top of their trench and he was hit in the leg by machine-gun fire, high in the thigh. He was bleeding badly and crawled toward a shell-hole to find shelter from the cross fire, but the pain was so intense, he couldn’t quite get there.
“But then someone, a British soldier, grabbed his uniform and pulled him down into the crater. That soldier was also badly wounded, his hands bloody, and he kept them pressed against his chest.”
Lorna’s father paused.
“That British soldier was my brother Frank.”
Lorna had lived with that photograph her whole life, but, she realized shamefully now, she’d never once asked to hear more about her uncles.
“From what the German told us,” her father continued, “they passed the night in that damned hole talking about their homes and their lives before the war. He said Frank told him all about Craigielaw Farm and Aberlady as if they were meeting in a pub, not bleeding in a shell-hole.
“Frank was worried about his younger brother, who had gone over the top beside him. He had no idea if Billy was alive, or wounded, or . . .”
Lorna’s father’s voice faded away to nothing, and it took him some moments before he could continue.
“Frank had shared the water in his canteen with Wolf, and he had unwrapped the cloth puttees from his own boots to bind Wolf’s thigh wound to stop the bleeding. At some point, Wolf fell asleep, and when he woke up, my brother was dead.”
Lorna’s father ran his thumb across the face of the watch and swallowed.
“The German stretcher bearers rescued Wolf during a cease-fire soon after dawn, but the doctors had to take his leg off to stop the gangrene. They said that Frank’s tourniquet had saved Wolf’s life, if not his leg. Wolf was sent home to Germany and survived the war, unlike so many other young men on both sides.
“In that letter, he said he owed Frank his life, and as a token of his gratitude, Wolf sent my parents this watch, which had been a twenty-first birthday gift from his father. He wanted it to mark the sacrifice made by a man who had shown compassion and comradeship to an enemy stranger when they met on the battlefield of hell. And he said that he hoped that Billy had made it home safely.”
Lorna’s father slowly placed the watch back onto his wrist and did up the buckle.
“My father wore this watch for almost twenty years. And from the day he died, it never left my wrist. Not until it found its way into the hands of another German soldier, who gave it the care and attention it needed.”
He stood up and held his right hand out to Paul. “You did a grand repair on it, lad, so I thank you for that.”
“Mr. Anderson,” replied Paul as he tentatively returned the handshake, “I am honored to have worked on such a watch.”
The two men stood facing each other, hands grasped for a few moments more. Then Lorna’s father stepped away, clearing his throat.
“Now, what about this service at the kirk then?” he said.
It took Lorna a moment to work through what her father was talking about.
“The church service?”
“Aye, there’s a thanksgiving service at six o’clock. By my reckoning, we’ve just enough time to get ourselves cleaned up, so we can wander along to that. And as long as Fat Bob, I mean, Reverend Urquhart, doesn’t gab too much, we’ll get the lad back here right on time for his pickup.”
What was he talking about?
“Dad, you don’t mean you want Paul to go with us.” Lorna was shocked.
“Why not?”
“Why not?” she almost screeched. “Because we’ve only been at peace since yesterday, so no one in the village will suddenly open their arms wide to an enemy soldier, will they? Paul, you agree, don’t you?”
“What nonsense!” Lorna’s dad replied. “The war’s over, so now Paul’s not really a prisoner anymore, he’s more of a . . . a guest. And I am sure he feels he has a thing or two to be thankful for, even though this war has harmed him more than some.”
“But Dad”—Lorna changed tack—“you never come to church, so why today?”
“Am I wrong to want to go to the kirk with my only daughter to mark such a historic day, and to give thanks that my boys have both come through alive, if not unscathed?”
Lorna knew she was losing the battle; her dad’s mind was set. And even though the idea of walking up Coffin Lane with Paul at her side held a perverse appeal, she still had to have one more go.
“But what will people say? I mean, the Urquharts and the Bells and people like that, you know they’ll be horrible.”
Lorna’s dad took her gently by the shoulders.
“Will having Mrs. Urquhart’s approval govern every decision you make in your life?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then go and change your frock.” He guided her toward the hall door. “The lad and I will get washed up, and perhaps you’ll tell Nellie that we’re away as you pass her door.”
“But Dad, no—”
There was a light cough behind Lorna.
“May I say something?” Paul said, smiling wryly.
Lorna’s face warmed as she real
ized they had both been talking about Paul as if he weren’t there.
“Oh yes, of course. Sorry.”
“I do not want to cause trouble, for you or for myself. But I am honored that you might consider me now your guest, when I have been here as your enemy. And you are right, Mr. Anderson, this war has caused so much damage to me and to many others on both sides. So I would like to walk you to the kirk—or zur Kirche in my language. It is because of you, and Mrs. Mack and Nellie . . .”
Paul swallowed before he could continue.
“And of course, because of Lorna, that I still have so much to be thankful for.”
Thirty
The bells were ringing again as they approached the kirkyard, passing under the fresh green leaves of the sycamore beside the gap in the wall onto Coffin Lane.
At the foot of the bell tower, Mrs. Mack and Sheena stood with what looked like the entire village. Children were chasing one another around nearby gravestones, none of them showing any sign of exhaustion from the earlier party.
Lorna scanned the crowd for Iris, but she couldn’t see her. She had hoped to talk to Iris before the service, to apologize for leaving the party without explanation. Not that she would be telling Iris the truth about her conversation with William, but still, Lorna wanted to say sorry.
The cacophony of the bells was suddenly silenced, though the echo rolled around the kirkyard for some seconds more. Everyone knew this was a sign that the service was about to start and began to make their way to the doors.
When Mrs. Mack caught sight of Lorna, or rather, when she caught sight of Lorna’s father and Paul, the crease between her eyebrows grew deeper than usual. But a second later she smiled and waved. That hesitation, however, set the hornets buzzing in Lorna’s stomach. If Mrs. Mack couldn’t find an immediate smile, something was wrong.
Mrs. Mack nudged Sheena and pointed in their direction. Sheena’s gaze followed her mother’s finger, and one by one, every other face in the crowd turned toward the sycamore. It was the medieval fresco all over again.
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