A Christmas Wish for the Land Girls

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘Alan will plead with Mama to let him come home,’ Evelyn predicted. ‘She’ll relent and he’ll go back to the bombs and doodlebugs.’

  ‘Is that what’s happened in the past?’ Brenda’s attention turned to Walter Rigg who was shaking hands with each departing parishioner. His white surplice billowed in the wind, his bare, bald head shone.

  ‘Yes. Why, does it bother you?’ Evelyn queried.

  ‘No, it’s none of my business.’ Brenda paused then thought better of this cool response. ‘I mean, it can’t be much fun …’

  ‘It’s not, believe me.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, I’ve seen a few things that I wish I hadn’t.’ Evelyn led Brenda towards the church gate where no one could hear them. ‘The truth is, Walter Rigg isn’t all sweetness and light, especially when he thinks no one’s looking.’

  Brenda felt a flutter in her stomach as she went on watching the smiling, ruddy-cheeked churchman. ‘What does he do?’

  ‘He keeps a ruler tucked into his waistband for a start.’

  ‘For hitting?’

  Evelyn nodded. ‘Across the palm mostly, but once across a boy’s backside. I’ve seen that with my own eyes.’

  ‘But is that allowed?’

  ‘In school, yes. We’ve all had the ruler at one time or another. I don’t know about the rights and wrongs of it in the vicar’s situation, though.’

  Brenda shook her head. ‘What else?’

  ‘There was a boy here in September who didn’t last long. He wrote to his mother to say that he’d been flogged with a cane; six of the best with his trousers round his ankles. The mother kicked up a right fuss, I can tell you. She reported the vicar to his bishop but it seems nothing was done.’

  Brenda had more questions lined up but they were interrupted by Cliff who whisked Evelyn away without ceremony. ‘Shift your stumps if you want a lift home,’ he told her. ‘I’ve to see a man about a dog.’

  Brenda noticed the way he took ownership of Evelyn, catching her by the elbow and marching her away. She was surprised that Evelyn didn’t object.

  ‘Hello, Brenda.’ Geoff distracted her with a genial greeting. ‘How’s old man Huby treating you up at Garthside?’

  She smiled back at him. Here was someone she didn’t mind passing the time of day with, both outside the church and in the evenings at the Cross Keys. She agreed with Joyce that Geoff was an affable sort, knowledgeable about all aspects of veterinary medicine and animal husbandry and not in the least stand-offish, despite his apparently wealthy background. This interested Brenda, as did the question of why he lived as a bachelor in his large house.

  ‘He treats me pretty well,’ she replied, turning up her coat collar and pulling on her knitted gloves. She glanced up at gathering rain clouds and regretted her decision to walk down from the farm instead of bringing Old Sloper. ‘He’s been converted to the idea of keeping rabbits. The only trouble is, we haven’t managed to catch any yet.’

  ‘And where’s fair Dorothy this morning?’

  ‘In bed, poorly.’

  ‘Again?’ Geoff pursed his lips. ‘Give her my regards. Tell her I hope she gets better soon.’

  ‘Oh yes; she asked me to remind you—’

  ‘About the gramophone? It’s all right, I wouldn’t dare forget. I’ve even sorted out some dance records for her: foxtrot, quickstep and a couple of jazz numbers thrown in for good measure.’

  ‘Ta, it’ll buck her up to hear that.’

  As they hovered by the gate, feeling the chill of the winter wind and the first icy drops of rain on their cheeks, they too were interrupted, this time by the sight of a grey Rover pulling up in the village green.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Brenda said swiftly as she hurried towards it. ‘That’s my fiancé’s brother’s car. I wasn’t expecting him.’

  It could only be bad news, she told herself, breaking into a run.

  Donald stepped out into the rain. His mac hung open and he wore a checked blue and grey scarf with a pale grey trilby. His grey eyes were serious as he greeted her. ‘Don’t worry; it’s not about Les,’ he said quickly, allaying her worst fears. ‘It’s Hettie. She’s asking to see you.’

  Brenda’s heart skipped wildly then resumed an even beat. ‘Is she worse?’

  He nodded. ‘I tell her she has to eat but she can’t keep anything down. She’s fading away in front of our eyes.’

  ‘I’ll come,’ Brenda said.

  It was at this precise moment that Alan Evans decided to escape from his stone nemesis by fleeing across the graveyard and vaulting the low, mossy wall. He glanced over his shoulder to see if he’d been spotted and cannoned into the back of Donald who caught him by the scruff of the neck then hoisted him into the air where he wriggled and squirmed.

  ‘It’s all right – you can put him down.’ Brenda saw that the boy was crying and there was a look of abject terror on his face. ‘There, there; calm down. No one’s going to hurt you.’

  Donald eased him down to the ground then took out a silver cigarette case, intending to light up. This was evidently going to take time to sort out.

  ‘Angel!’ Alan said between sobs. ‘Staring at me. Flapped its wings.’

  ‘No, sonny, it didn’t.’ With a flash of inspiration, Brenda saw how to kill two birds with one stone: a way to ensure that Donald didn’t overstep the mark on the journey to Dale End and at the same time offer a rare treat to one unhappy little boy. ‘Does Hettie still have the same girl to help her?’ she asked Donald, who nodded. ‘Very good. Look after Alan while I have a word with the vicar.’

  She hurried back to the church porch where Walter Rigg was saying goodbye to the last of his congregation. Brenda quickly explained that she had the chance to take Alan to Dale End in Attercliffe to see his sister. They would get a lift in a car and be back in time for tea. She said she knew that the vicar would have no objection, thanked him breathlessly and ran back before Rigg had time to frame a response.

  ‘You’re coming with us,’ she told Alan, getting out a hankie to wipe away his tears then bundling him into the back of Donald’s car. ‘You’d like to see Judith, wouldn’t you? So let’s go and give that sister of yours a nice big surprise.’

  ‘You know what they say about parting?’ Edgar walked with Joyce in the wood behind the Blacksmith’s Arms. A wind blew up fallen birch leaves from under their feet and whisked them like dark confetti through the air. ‘That it’s a sweet sorrow.’

  She stuck a sprig of mistletoe through his buttonhole and kissed his lips. ‘Hush,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’

  A different sweetness was still with her – that of their lovemaking, even though they’d got dressed in good time for Grace and Edith’s return and they’d gone on to talk of everyday things: the bootees that Edith proposed to knit for the baby, the two new recruits at Fieldhead and the general goings-on in Shawcross.

  Grace had invited her father to join them for a make-do-and-mend dinner of beef stew and dumplings and there’d been a pleasant family atmosphere in spite of Bill’s empty chair. No one had spoken of the fact that his battalion was at that moment making its way to the Far East, to Burma to fight the Japanese.

  ‘The days are short and getting shorter,’ Cliff Kershaw had remarked to his son as Joyce and Edgar had prepared to set off on their late-afternoon ramble. The old publican and blacksmith had taken to walking with a stick, plagued by rheumatism after a lifetime of shoeing horses and hammering hot metal. ‘It’ll be Christmas before we know it.’

  He’d patted Edgar’s shoulder. ‘Goodbye, son. Look after yourself.’

  ‘Goodbye, Dad.’

  The simple words had been weighted with strong emotion as Edgar and Joyce walked on into the woods.

  ‘Will you be home again for Christmas?’ she asked through the whirl of gusting leaves, though she knew it was a question without a definite answer.

  ‘It all depends,’ he said. ‘I won’t find out until the last minute. But I
’ll write to you as soon as Mike Kirk and I get settled in our new quarters; you can rely on that.’

  ‘Yes. Tell me all about it, every last detail: what they give you for breakfast, dinner and tea; who you share a bunk with; whether or not he snores.’

  ‘All the life-and-death stuff.’ Edgar kissed her cheek, put his arm around her waist and insisted that they swayed their hips and stepped out in unison, left-right, left-right.

  The sky darkened and dusk fell over the silent trees. Foxes stayed in their dens, badgers in their setts. Winter had driven squirrels into deep hibernation. Edgar and Joyce walked on without speaking, wishing that the soft trance of walking through the wood would last for ever, knowing that it could not.

  ‘Donald would far rather I stayed in bed,’ Hettie told Brenda from her settee in the sitting room at Dale End. Today her shawl was pinned at her scrawny throat by a cameo brooch, her straight, dark hair flattened against her scalp. The shawl covered a long-sleeved nightgown that couldn’t disguise the fact that Hettie’s once-strong figure was now skeletal. ‘I prefer to be carried downstairs where I can look out at the garden.’

  Brenda glanced out through the French windows at empty flower beds and lifeless winter lawns. There was a path leading to a fish pond with a fountain and beyond that a vegetable plot and then a yard with several large stone barns. ‘Donald is worried about you. He says you won’t eat.’

  ‘Can’t eat.’ Illness had robbed Hettie of her physical strength but it hadn’t knocked the edges off her sharp manner. ‘I can take a little milky tea, that’s all.’

  Brenda hardly knew what to say. There’d been a marked deterioration since she’d last seen Hettie and, in spite of her sharpness, she gave off an air of resignation to her fate. ‘Has Donald or your father written to Les yet?’

  ‘No, and I don’t want them to. I haven’t changed my mind about that.’ She looked suspiciously at Brenda. ‘You‘ve kept your promise not to?’

  Brenda nodded. ‘But if you let him know how poorly you are, he could apply for compassionate leave; you do realize that?’

  ‘I don’t want him to. It would only add to his troubles to see me like this.’

  ‘But have you thought how Les might feel?’

  ‘Once he knows he’s been kept in the dark?’ Hettie tackled Brenda’s point head-on. ‘Look, when I’m gone I won’t have any further say in the matter. Father will no doubt bring Les home for the funeral if the Navy can spare him. And then will be the time for Les to grieve; not before.’

  ‘Honestly, Hettie, I’m not sure how I’d feel in your position.’ Drawing her chair closer, Brenda spoke earnestly and directly. ‘But part of you must want to see him, surely?’

  ‘Of course.’ Hettie fingered the brooch at her throat. ‘I’ve acted as a mother to Les for a long time, and to Donald too. I’ve looked after those boys and done my best to keep them on the right track, worrying about them and having high hopes for them in equal measure. From the start I felt Donald could fend for himself but Les was the one I fretted over. It came of him being the youngest and more sensitive, I suppose.’

  ‘You two are very close.’

  ‘It’s true, we are. I want to shield him from this, Brenda. You do understand?’ She placed her hand on Brenda’s arm and there was a strong, urgent appeal in her large, dark eyes.

  ‘I do,’ Brenda murmured.

  ‘Good. Then, while my mind is still clear and I have my wits about me, I want you to make me one last promise.’

  ‘Anything.’ With a sore heart Brenda covered Hettie’s cold hand with her warm one.

  ‘Carry on looking after Les for me.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘You won’t do it in the same way as me because you and I are not alike.’

  ‘Chalk and cheese,’ Brenda acknowledged.

  ‘Quite. Our worlds are different. I’m stuck in the past. You stride into the future. That’s one of the reasons why Les fell in love with you.’

  ‘It works both ways. I love him because of the good, old-fashioned values you taught him. Les is true and honest, one of the few men I know I can rely on. That doesn’t sound very romantic, does it? But for me it’s the main thing.’

  ‘This war is hard for us women.’ Hettie withdrew her hand and sank back into the soft cushions supporting her. ‘Mothers, daughters, sisters, lovers; it doesn’t matter. Our duty is to support the men, whatever it costs.’

  ‘And I will,’ Brenda vowed.

  As the time came for her to leave, she felt a surge of tenderness and her eyes pricked with tears. She stooped to kiss Hettie’s cheek. ‘Les won’t ever forget his big sister; I’ll make sure of that.’

  At the sound of the sitting-room door clicking shut, Arnold White came out of his study, cable-knit cardigan hanging open and reading glasses perched on the top of his head.

  ‘Good of you to come,’ he told Brenda without looking at her, instead glancing up towards the landing. ‘Donald, are you there?’

  Donald leaned over the banister to reply. He was silhouetted against an arched window so it was impossible to see his face. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Brenda’s ready for her lift home.’

  ‘Whenever you are,’ she added obligingly.

  ‘Give me five minutes,’ he said, disappearing into his room.

  Brenda smiled awkwardly at Arnold. She was relieved when she heard children’s voices coming from outside the house. ‘That must be Alan and Judith,’ she said to excuse herself before opening the front door.

  Sure enough, the brother and sister sat shoulder to shoulder on the top step, hands clasped around their knees, staring out towards the road and the steep hill beyond. Brenda decided to sit down next to them.

  ‘This is nice,’ she said cheerily. ‘I bet you two have had lots to talk about.’

  Judith flipped her plaits over her shoulders then tucked her pinafore skirt more firmly under her thighs. She screwed up her mouth and didn’t answer.

  ‘What have you been gossiping about?’ Brenda asked Alan.

  ‘Nothing.’ His tremulous voice gave away the fact that he was close to tears.

  ‘Has Judith had time to show you her room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘And did she offer you a drink and a biscuit?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘We could go to the kitchen now, if you like. Shall we?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Brenda’s well-meaning questions bounced off the barrier that the brother and sister had erected. Judith’s nails were bitten to the quick, she noticed. ‘It’s nearly time for us to leave,’ she warned. ‘Shall I arrange another time for us to visit?’

  ‘We’re not allowed.’ Judith spoke in a slow, low voice then hugged her knees more tightly.

  ‘Who says?’ Hearing Donald’s footsteps cross the hall, Brenda stood up to challenge the ruling. ‘Alan is allowed to come here again, isn’t he, Donald? I can bring him over on my day off.’

  ‘It’s not up to me,’ Donald said with a shrug.

  ‘Who, then? Your father?’

  ‘No. The vicar – what’s his name?’

  ‘Walter Rigg?’

  ‘That’s the one. Dad had a telephone call from him saying the boy left without permission and we weren’t to let it happen a second time.’

  Brenda’s response was quick and strong. ‘That’s a load of rubbish. I asked him myself. They’re brother and sister. Who does the Reverend Rigg think he is, trying to stop them from seeing each other?’

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Donald strolled on towards his car while Brenda turned to Judith and Alan. ‘I’ll sort this out, don’t you worry,’ she tried to reassure them. ‘We’ll be back in a week or two.’

  Hearing the car engine start, Alan suddenly jumped up and took flight around the side of the house. He hadn’t got far when Brenda caught up with him and took him by the arm.

  ‘Steady on,’ she in
sisted. ‘What’s the matter? Whatever it is, running away isn’t the answer.’

  By now the boy was sobbing in earnest and tugging to free himself, pulling his trapped arm out of the coat sleeve then twisting free and setting off again. Brenda caught him once more. This time she wrapped both arms around him and hugged him until the sobs subsided.

  ‘I don’t want to go back.’

  With his face pressed against her, it was difficult to make out the words. ‘You don’t want to …?’

  ‘Go back to the vicar’s house!’ he cried, shaking from head to foot. ‘Please don’t make me!’

  She prised him away, held him at arm’s length and tried to speak calmly. ‘Listen, Alan, tell me why not. Is that nasty statue still giving you the heebie-jeebies?’

  ‘Yes!’ he yelped, turning his face away.

  ‘And is there anything else?’

  When he finally looked up at her, his face was a picture of misery. ‘No,’ he said faintly.

  ‘Then let me have a word with Mr Rigg to explain the problem and see if he can put you in a different room.’

  With one abject nod of his head, Alan agreed to let Brenda do what he’d prevented Joyce from doing. He let himself be walked back towards his sister, who hovered on the top step. Judith, too, was on the verge of tears.

  ‘I’ll keep an eye on him,’ Brenda promised. ‘And I’ll put things right with Mr Rigg. I’ll tell him it was my fault we left in such a hurry, so not to take it out on Alan.’

  Judith nodded then adopted a grown-up voice. ‘Don’t be a cry-baby, Alan. Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t like it.’

  He choked back fresh tears.

  ‘I mean it. We have to be brave.’

  He gave a whimper and recoiled as if his sister had delivered a physical blow. Then he broke free from Brenda and walked to the car with his head bowed.

  ‘Good show.’ Brenda gave Judith’s shoulder a reassuring pat then said goodbye. Seconds later, she joined Donald and Alan in the car.

  ‘It doesn’t seem fair,’ Donald muttered with a glance in his overhead mirror at the boy’s tear-stained face. ‘If it wasn’t for Hettie being so poorly, I’d offer to keep the lad here at Dale End.’