by Jenny Holmes
Dorothy had stared at her brother as if he were a simpleton. ‘No, silly, not with a real live band. We’ll make do with a gramophone and some up-to-date dance records.’
‘Cliff might have a point, though,’ Evelyn had pointed out. ‘It’s a lot to organize in the space of a fortnight.’
‘Where there’s a will there’s a way,’ Dorothy had insisted with a hint of petulance.
‘Who will we get to come?’ Joyce had been able to envisage no more than a handful of people under thirty who would be interested in a village hop.
‘Everyone. Leave it to me.’ Dorothy had spoken and her word was law.
At least Brenda had been in a good mood, Joyce recalled as she worked alone in the dairy next morning, wrapped up in scarf and overcoat, with her hair concealed beneath a grey and red checked headscarf. Brenda had been buoyed up by the delayed letter from Les that had been written on the eve of learning that his leave had been cancelled and forwarded to her by Donald or Arnold, assuring her that he was safe and was missing her dreadfully.
‘Wasn’t I right?’ Joyce had squeezed her hand. ‘Didn’t I say he was still head over heels?’
Brenda had let her read the precious letter. ‘He doesn’t mention where he is, of course. But do you see the part where he says that he might be allowed home for Christmas?’
‘Yes, right here.’ In amongst the protestations of eternal love was the information about Les’s rearranged leave. He’d closed the letter with a carefully drawn heart pierced by an arrow decorated with the initials ‘LW’ and ‘BA’.
‘Wouldn’t that be a dream come true?’
‘Marvellous,’ Joyce had agreed.
Now she placed milk pails into the sterilizing apparatus and heard the hiss of steam. Knowing that it was safe to leave the machine to do its job, she judged she just had time to nip over to the house for breakfast.
She was halfway across the yard when she heard voices through the open kitchen door.
‘It’s not what I hoped for.’ Laurence sounded strained. ‘You hear me, Alma? This isn’t right.’
Alma’s reply was calm and firm. ‘I’m sorry. It can’t be helped.’
‘I’ve been patient.’
‘And I’ve done all you asked.’
‘Not all.’
‘I made it clear from the beginning.’
The altercation stopped Joyce in her tracks. The snatched phrases were hard to make full sense of but this was the first time that she’d heard Alma stand up to Laurence and she feared the worst. What if he were to lose his temper and lash out?
‘How do you expect us to go on living like this?’ Alma continued. ‘You watching me like a hawk, me afraid to put a foot wrong. If I’d have known what I was letting myself in for …’
He gave a short bark of mocking laughter but there was no follow-on.
‘I mean it, Laurence. I wouldn’t have said yes. I would have listened to Aunty Muriel.’
Joyce had heard enough. She turned tail and was about to retreat into the dairy when she got the shock of her life in the shape of Edgar’s car driving into the yard. Edgar himself sat at the wheel dressed in RAF uniform, leaning his head out of the window and calling her name.
She stood rooted to the spot. It couldn’t be him; it simply wasn’t possible.
‘Joyce!’ He stopped the car, stepped out and slammed the door.
It was a mirage. She would blink and he would vanish.
‘Joyce, it’s me.’
He was walking towards her, holding his arms wide, inviting her into the embrace that she dreamed of day and night. He was laughing.
‘Oh!’ she breathed as she took a small step forward.
‘They gave me twenty-four hours’ leave. I wanted to surprise you.’
Edgar! Her Edgar; tall, too thin by far, his face pale and smiling. Oh and the smart air-force-blue uniform, the upright stance of a man who was proud to wear it, opening his arms and hugging her as she stumbled forwards. She had to feel those arms wrapped around her before she could believe that he was really here.
‘Don’t cry,’ he murmured as he tilted her chin back and kissed her wet cheeks. ‘I thought you’d be happy.’
‘I am,’ she managed to whisper, eyes closed, clinging to him. ‘Does Grace know?’
‘Not yet. I drove straight here.’
His voice, deep and slow, the smell of carbolic soap on his skin.
‘Can you have the rest of the day off?’
She nodded then opened her eyes. ‘I’ll be five minutes. Wait here while I get changed.’
She left him standing in the yard, no longer caring about the interruption to Laurence and Alma’s disagreement. She ran into the kitchen and flew across the room, up the stairs and up again to the attic where she tore off her clothes and changed into her light brown woollen dress, nylon stockings and tan-coloured shoes. She didn’t even run a comb through her hair; she simply dashed downstairs again with a few words of explanation – ‘My fiancé. Home on leave’ – for the two astonished onlookers.
Miracle of miracles: Edgar was still there in the flesh. It had not been a dream.
They drove away from Black Crag Farm in thrilled silence, hearts pounding, snatching rapid glances at each other. She reached out to touch his arm.
‘Where to?’ he asked.
‘Anywhere. I don’t care. Somewhere quiet.’
They sped between walls, around bends, by the river and over hills into the next dale.
‘They’re sending me to join a new squadron,’ he explained.
‘Where?’
‘Down south, to Biggin Hill to fly a Spitfire.’
‘You’ve lost weight.’
‘Yes. More than a stone. This time last week I was in Malta. The Luftwaffe are bombing hell out of the place, trying to wipe us out. Messerschmitts come at you from the sun – that way they blind you and gain the advantage. There are no supplies coming in so we were on ship’s biscuits for four weeks solid. The bloody things damned near break your teeth if you’re not careful.’
He talked as if being bombed and coming close to starvation was nothing. She sat and held her breath.
‘If Malta falls, then so does North Africa, the Suez Canal, the Middle East – the whole bang lot. Starving or not, we were still scrambling four times a day.’
‘Why Biggin Hill?’ she asked quietly.
Edgar looked straight ahead. ‘We lost all the men in our squadron bar two: me and my gunner, Mike Kirk. The two of us limped back on one engine after the last scramble. I’ll be better off in a Spitfire – they’re lighter and faster than a Lancaster.’
He talked and she listened, not shying away from the gravity of war and the risks he took. Words spilled from his mouth as if at any moment they would run out of time to say what must be said to seal their love.
‘Just last week Jerry saw me and Mike run out of ammunition as we flew over one of their reservoirs. He was after us in a flash. In the end all I could do to get away was spiral down, hoping and praying that I could level out at the last second.’
‘And?’ Joyce almost felt the impact of Edgar’s plane hitting the water.
‘Luckily Jerry ran low on fuel and had to turn for home.’
She thought how different he’d become; how much going back to war after his convalescence had changed him. A year ago, when she’d first met Edgar, he had been in despair, badly wounded and drinking heavily; a brooding, isolated figure brought low by the loss of his co-pilot in a crash over Brittany. What had crushed him the most was the feeling that he hadn’t deserved to come out alive. He ought to have died alongside his pal, Billy. Eventually, just before Christmas of the previous year, he’d emerged from his bouts of drinking and bitter silences, restored by Joyce’s patient tenderness and the knowledge that he could both love and be loved in spite of all that had occurred. In the New Year an RAF doctor had examined him and declared him mentally fit for combat.
Now here he was, dicing with death again, talking of ship’s bi
scuits.
‘You’re quiet,’ he said as they drove along the wide-open sweep of Swinsty Edge.
‘Yes. It’s a lot to take in.’ His sudden appearance, his change of squadron … new dangers to be faced. ‘Where are we going?’
‘To Burnside. I thought we ought to drop in on Grace, to see how she is. After that we can do whatever you want.’
‘It’s nice to be back on our old stomping ground.’ Joyce had missed the familiar landmarks. ‘And it’ll be good to see Grace again.’
‘Let’s see if she’s in.’ Edgar drove into the village and stopped the car outside Grace and Bill’s terraced house. He and Joyce went together to knock on the door and wait.
No one came so Edgar nipped across the road to the Blacksmith’s Arms to speak to his father.
‘Dad says she’s driven into town with Edith Mostyn,’ he reported back. ‘There’s a key under the plant pot. He said to go in and make ourselves at home.’
Joyce looked up and down the street. Strains of organ music came from the church next door, a reedy rendering of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, but other than that the village was deserted.
‘Ought we to?’
‘Why not?’ Edgar found the key and opened the door. He stood aside to let Joyce step in first. She went down the narrow corridor into Grace’s spick-and-span kitchen. There was a crimson chenille cloth on the table and the net curtains at the window were freshly washed and starched. A set of watercolour paints, brushes and a sketchpad on a shelf near the window reminded them of Grace’s artistic streak.
‘Sit down. I’ll make us a pot of tea.’ Edgar drew out a chair from under the table.
‘Are you sure Grace won’t mind?’ It felt odd to be in someone’s home without their knowledge,
‘Of course she won’t mind.’ He got busy with kettle and tea caddy.
‘She’ll be sorry she’s missed you.’
‘But it means I have you all to myself.’ He presented her with tea in one of Grace’s best cups. ‘This beats keeping in touch by letter, eh?’
‘It does.’ She looked at his face as he sat down beside her: in need of a shave but still irresistibly attractive, his eyes clear and alert, a smile playing on his lips. She reached out a hand to hold his. His fingers were warm. One touch was worth a thousand words.
‘I can’t wait until all this is over,’ he confessed with a toss of his head towards the window and the grey sky beyond. ‘Though I don’t suppose it’ll be any time soon. Jerry left Stalingrad in a rotten state, by all accounts.’
‘Yes, I heard Mr Churchill’s broadcast last week. And they’re not letting up in London either.’
‘It’s Italy for us next; Turin or Naples.’
‘Shouldn’t that be top secret?’
Edgar shrugged. ‘It’s common knowledge. Do you know what will get me through this? It’ll be you, Joyce.’ He unbuttoned his top pocket and took out a small, creased black-and-white photograph of her. ‘This comes with me on every mission. You see this smile? This is what keeps me going, and the sound of your voice inside my head, telling me that you love me.’
She grasped his fingers more tightly.
‘One day it will be over. No more raids, no more dogfights. Just blue skies and summer days, back here in Burnside with you.’
‘No more digging ditches for me,’ she murmured. ‘Or getting up at the crack of dawn to mend Laurence Bradley’s stone walls.’ She told Edgar a little about her situation at Black Crag Farm. ‘I expect to have to work hard but it’s his manner that sticks in my craw. Never a smile, never a thank-you. And his poor wife.’ She shook her head and sighed.
‘Joyce?’
His questioning look penetrated deep under her skin and squeezed her heart. He took her by both hands and they stood up to embrace, his arms wrapped around her waist, hers around his neck. They kissed softly, drifting towards a space where time and place didn’t exist.
Gently he released her and she took him by the hand and led him upstairs to the small bedroom at the back of the house.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Totally.’
It was natural and inevitable, a completion. To kiss and touch and kiss again, to gaze and give, not to think.
He felt the soft warmth of her dress against his hands. She raised it over her head, her face disappearing under its folds before she cast it aside and lay down on the bed. She watched him as he took off his clothes. Then they lay quietly together, not hurrying, absorbing every loving moment. Her hair against her neck, curling into the hollow created by the angle of her collar bone. The scar across his chest. The strength of their arms as they clung to each other.
And when it was over, the quiet, pure joy.
CHAPTER NINE
Les’s long-awaited letter carried Brenda happily through the early part of Sunday morning. What did it matter that the cockerel woke her before dawn and she had to break the ice in the barrel in order to carry water into her primitive billet? Cold water was good for the complexion, she told herself as she splashed it on to her face. Soap would have helped, but that, like everything else, was in short supply.
She looked round the goods wagon that she now called home. Colourful pictures from magazines adorned the grey walls; fashion plates and photographs of the film star Ingrid Bergman who was a recent favourite of Brenda’s. There was a pale blue eiderdown on her bed, donated by Dorothy once she’d learned how cold Brenda was at night, and a failed attempt at basket weaving lay cast aside in one corner.
‘I’ll come clean with Mrs Waterhouse at church,’ she announced when she went into the house to discover that Dorothy had developed another cold and had stayed in bed. ‘She won’t be getting a contribution from me for the bring-and-buy sale after all.’
Dorothy’s eyes were red and swollen, her voice thick with catarrh. ‘Remind Geoff Dawson that he’s promised to lend us his gramophone on the nineteenth. Don’t let him forget.’
‘If I see him,’ Brenda promised. It irked her that Dorothy took to her bed so readily and that she didn’t lift a finger to help her father run the farm. She’d begun to suspect that she played on her so-called delicate constitution in order to get her own way. Her babyish, round face, with its small, curved lips and wide-apart brown eyes fell naturally into a pouting, petulant expression that did little to counter this impression.
‘And tell Evelyn from me that I’m cross with her.’
‘Why’s that?’ Brenda regretted popping her head around Dorothy’s door to see if there was anything she needed before she went to church. The room was stuffy and the bed cluttered with magazines, hair curlers, vanity mirror and hairbrush.
‘She promised to bring us a fresh load of logs – when was it? Anyway, ages ago.’
‘I’ll remind her.’
‘Tell her we’re still waiting. Cliff would do it but he’s far too busy.’
‘All right.’ Brenda closed the door on Dorothy’s complaints. When she went downstairs, she found Bernard hovering anxiously in the kitchen.
‘Well, how is she?’
‘Full of cold, but otherwise not too bad.’
‘Has she got a temperature?’
‘She didn’t say.’
‘Did you bank up the fire for her?’
Brenda shook her head. ‘It’s half past ten. We’ll be late for church.’
‘You go ahead. I’ll fettle Dorothy’s fire.’
Brenda heard the old farmer mount the stairs, his joints stiff with arthritis. Each to his own, she thought as she donned hat, scarf and gloves. But I wouldn’t pander to Dorothy in that way, even if she is under the weather.
She emerged on to the yard and sent Rhode Island Reds clucking in all directions. The black goat brayed and strained at her tether. Later that day Brenda would have to remember to check the humane traps she’d set in the rabbit burrow behind the farmhouse. Until now the wily little blighters had evaded capture and the deluxe new hutch still awaited its first occupants. But before that there was th
e morning service: the social highlight of her week.
The ancient church had stood at the centre of village life for seven hundred years, through feast, famine and civil unrest. Damage to the medieval stone carvings behind the altar was said to have been caused by Oliver Cromwell’s men, intent on destroying popish symbols. A Plantagenet king had been decapitated, the wooden rood screen depicting saints torn down. The rest of the interior was intact, complete with an eighteenth-century marble plaque to a Sir Thomas Weatherall and his wife, Jayne, and a recent stained-glass window dedicated to the men of Shawcross who had fallen in the Great War of 1914 to 1918. The pulpit from which Walter Rigg spouted his sermon was Victorian – a monstrosity in Brenda’s eyes as she stared with a glazed expression at its elaborate carved eagle during the vicar’s rambling explanation of the meaning of Advent.
There was no Joyce at this morning’s service, Brenda noticed, though there were some faces in the congregation that she didn’t recognize: old farmer types with their weather-beaten faces and stooping shoulders, their wives in cloche hats and coats with fox-fur collars, twenty years behind the times. She noticed hardly anyone of her own age, other than Evelyn, Cliff and Geoff Dawson. Alan Evans was in the front pew, presumably where the vicar could keep an eye on him. The boy clutched his hymn book so hard that his knuckles turned white. He stood to attention to mouth the words of the hymns then knelt down to pray before sitting and staring straight ahead while Rigg droned on. At the end of the service, Emma Waterhouse ushered the boy out into the graveyard and stood him next to the dreaded white angel to wait for the vicar.
‘Don’t move,’ she instructed as she went to round up more support for the bring-and-buy.
‘Who’d be an evacuee?’ Brenda collared Evelyn on her way out of church. She pointed to the lonely, sad figure hunched beneath the imposing statue.
‘Not me.’ Evelyn was in Sunday best, which consisted of a fitted light brown coat, belted at the back, with a matching trilby-style hat perched at a jaunty angle with a cockade of pheasant feathers pinned to the hatband. ‘I’ll give him one more week at most.’
‘What then?’ Brenda scanned other members of the congregation gathered outside the porch, intending to waylay Geoff and remind him about the gramophone.