A Strong Hand to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  Peter’s car pulled up alongside Sam’s in the farmyard and before Sam could say a word he said, ‘Got a call just a few minutes ago. Sarah said your Ruby had cut herself on the scythe.’

  Sam raised his eyes to heaven. ‘She’s a good girl that,’ he whispered to Linda. ‘But clumsy isn’t in it. If there’s anything to be knocked over, Ruby will oblige, and anything to be spilt, she’ll be the one to do it. As for cuts and bumps and bruises – she’s an expert. Being a land girl was a bad choice for her. She’d have been better off working for the Red Cross, rolling bandages instead of continually wearing them.’

  But for all Sam’s flippancy, he was very concerned for Ruby, who sat in the kitchen with her arm raised under Sarah’s direction. The blood had stopped running, but thick lines of it had crusted on her arm. ‘Um – nasty,’ Peter said. ‘I think it needs a stitch or two in that.’

  ‘Can we watch?’ Charlie and Sally said together, and Peter smiled grimly and said, ‘If Ruby doesn’t mind.’

  But Ruby had had a shock and wasn’t up to saying much, and Sarah whispered to Linda, ‘This is your chance to say goodbye finally to Max while my little ghouls are being entertained. He’s in the barn.’

  And Linda knew it was her last chance once and for all to make Max realize that whatever had been between them was over and done with. She had moved on and so must he. He had his back to her when she entered and she saw he wore his overalls with nothing underneath; the ripple of his muscles as he forked the hay into the troughs made her stomach do a somersault. ‘Steady,’ she cautioned herself, and very softly she said, ‘Max.’

  He turned slowly as if he hadn’t really been sure he’d heard right; his face was red and running with sweat and brown hairs from his chest peeped above the bib of his overalls. His mouth fell open in astonishment. ‘Linda?’

  She’d forgotten how her name on his lips made her feel, and when he crossed the ground in three easy strides, tossing the fork to one side as he did so, and held her tight in his arms, she made no move to stop him. Nor did she stop his lips that descended on hers. In fact, she wound her arms around his neck and pulled his head down and when eventually Max released her, she felt as if she were on fire. She told herself she was stupid. It was madness!

  She stood slightly breathless, staring at him as he said, ‘Oh my darling, how I have longed for just the sight of you.’ His hands held her shoulders as he went on, ‘Soon I shall be a free man, Linda. I will go home and find out how rich or poor I am, then I will come back for you.’

  ‘No, no,’ Linda cried. ‘I came just to say goodbye.’

  Max shook his head. ‘You do not kiss goodbye the way we did,’ he said. ‘That is a kiss you keep for the one you love. I love you now and I will do so till the day I die.’

  ‘Max, please listen to me,’ Linda said. ‘We haven’t long. I’m … I’m getting married,’ and as if to prove it, she showed him the ring.

  ‘What is this nonsense – getting married?’

  ‘It’s not nonsense,’ Linda said. ‘Please believe me. I’m getting married to a man called Charles Haversham.’

  Max stared at her in shock. His face had gone a ghastly grey colour. ‘And do you love this Charles Haversham?’

  The slight hesitation was Linda’s undoing and Max pounced on it. ‘So, I see you do not,’ he said triumphantly. ‘And does this Charles Haversham know what a fool you are making of him? Does he know your heart belongs to another – to me?’

  Linda realized Max was angry: she’d never seen him angry before. His eyes flashed and his brow was puckered. She put a hand on his arm placatingly and said, ‘I’m sorry Max, truly sorry, but it’s better this way.’

  Max shook her hand off. ‘Better this way!’ he repeated sarcastically. ‘You break my heart, but it’s better this way. How? Explain it to me. How is it better this way?’

  ‘Max, it would never work for us,’ Linda said. She was desperately near to tears. ‘We don’t belong to each other, you must see.’

  ‘Because I am German and you are British,’ Max said. ‘But hearts do not care which country you come from, and our hearts are bound together and have been from the first day we met.’

  ‘Oh Max.’

  Max took Linda in his arms again and kissed her eyes gently and tasted the tears on his lips. ‘You’re crying?’ he said.

  ‘Not really. I’m just upset for what might have been.’

  ‘Don’t talk like that.’

  ‘I must Max, for there’s no future for us. I told you this a long time ago,’ Linda said. ‘Please, let us part as friends. Let’s remember the love we shared and then put it behind us.’

  In answer Max’s lips descended on Linda’s again and as she kissed him back she forgot all her resolutions. This was here and now, and all that mattered. She had no thought for Jenny and the rest of the family and their disapproval. She felt Max’s strong shoulders and as his tongue probed her mouth, shafts of desire went shooting through her body. She waited to feel Max’s hands on her body and when they slid over her bottom, she sighed in contentment.

  ‘Don’t let me interrupt or anything!’ The sharp voice jerked them apart and Linda turned to see Peter framed in the doorway. He ignored Max totally and said coldly to Linda, ‘I came to find you.’

  Guilt caused Linda’s face to flame. She cared about Peter’s opinion. What did he think of her? He didn’t know about Max. How could he? Did he feel she’d just go around kissing anyone?’

  ‘And you,’ Peter said, casting his eyes at Max, who stood defiant with his head up, wondering what right he had to speak to Linda that way, ‘you’re wanted in the fields.’

  He stood still and Peter barked, ‘Did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Yes. I heard,’ Max replied and he put his hand out to Linda.

  She pulled back from it as if she’d been stung. ‘You’d better go,’ she said.

  Max’s eyes clouded over and Linda could have cried at the hurt expression in them. He gazed at her for a moment longer and then, squaring his shoulders, he walked out of the barn without looking back. Linda had the urge, regardless of Peter and his opinion, to lie on the floor and howl like an animal, for she knew she loved Max Schulz with a love deeper than she’d ever felt for anyone else, and she knew equally she’d never see him again.

  All the way home Peter let rip and Linda cried. She cried because everything Peter said was related to how it would affect Jenny. Had Linda no thought to the grievous loss she was still coming to terms with, he demanded. Had she thought of the shame of it all for Jenny, Linda carrying on with a German of all people? He said ‘German’ as if it was something venomous that slithered across the floor; that you’d like to put your foot on.

  ‘Haven’t the German nation done enough to you, too?’ Peter said angrily. ‘They took your whole family and Jenny offered you a home after her own brother had been killed. God, Linda, hasn’t she suffered enough? If she’d witnessed what I interrupted at the farm, I dread to think of the consequences. Girl, what were you thinking of, throwing yourself at that fellow like that? It’s even worse now that you have another man’s ring on your finger. I hope you’re thoroughly ashamed of yourself.’

  And Linda was. She was mortified. She should never have gone near Max, she knew that now. She’d forgotten the power he had over her. Peter glanced at her. The tears had stopped, but dry sobs were still escaping from her and his anger began to evaporate. She was, after all, he reminded himself, still very young and Sam had treated the young German like a member of the family. Sleeping in the house no less, as Sam had said the barn was too cold for him in the winter, and he sat at the table to eat with the family and the land girl, Ruby. Little wonder he had got ideas above himself.

  Linda, like many other girls of her age, had lived in a world without men for a long, long time. True, she’d sung to hordes of them, but that wasn’t the same as courtship with one special boy, holding hands at the pictures and walks in the park, getting to know one another. That’s what
Jenny was worried about in this engagement with Charles Haversham. ‘She’s known no one, Peter,’ she’d said. ‘No boys, I mean – not that that’s her fault, for after all, there’s not been many around. But then she chooses a man nearly old enough to be her father. I’m sure she’s doing it for me, you know. It’s like a payback, isn’t it? It’s just the way Linda’s mind would work. I offered her a home when she needed one and now the tables are turned, she has the chance of doing the same for me and has taken it.’

  Remembering that conversation now, Peter was almost certain Jenny was right. You couldn’t kiss someone with the type of intensity he’d witnessed if you loved another man enough to marry him. Not that he was totally happy about Charles Haversham anyway. There was something strange about the man – but he couldn’t put his finger on it. But then it wasn’t his business. More gently he said, ‘You can’t go in like that, Linda. Jenny will know you’ve been crying. Have you anything with you to try and repair the damage?’

  Linda drew her compact from her bag and looked into the mirror. Peter was right, her nose was bright pink, her cheeks stained with tears and her eyes red-rimmed. She could do nothing about the eyes, but she dabbed the powder puff over her face and pulled a brush through her hair, tousled by Max. And as she tidied herself, she felt she had to tell Peter how it had been.

  ‘I do know Max and whatever you saw, or think, it wasn’t meant to be that way. I’ve known him since I was in the concert-party, but I really got to know him when I came up with the kids after Dan was killed. And’, she added accusingly, ‘that was your idea.’

  She shrugged. ‘There was something between us from the start. I didn’t encourage it, I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening at first. But it was no good. You can’t help loving someone, even if they’re unsuitable or don’t love you back. You of all people must know that.’

  Oh yes, Peter knew that, all right. He didn’t deny it. For five long years he’d loved Jenny. Linda went on, ‘We just talked at first. I’d never spoken to a German person before. They were always held up as bogeymen, like the baddies in the stories I used to tell Rosemarie and Jamie. But Max wasn’t like that and it gave me a shock. But don’t worry,’ she said with a sigh. ‘He leaves in the morning, and I know however much we love each other, we can’t do anything about it. And,’ she added resentfully, ‘you don’t have to tell me how much I owe Jenny. I’d never do anything to hurt her.’

  ‘I know,’ Peter said. ‘I’m sorry I yelled. It was just …’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Linda said tiredly. ‘I’m glad you roared at us in the barn. It brought me to my senses. I was behaving like a prize idiot.’ Then as the car was just about to turn into Grange Road, she said, ‘I’m not going home, Peter. Jenny will want to know what has brought me back so soon.’

  Peter knew that was true. His anger and Linda’s mortification had been so acute that neither of them could have stayed to make polite conversation after the confrontation in the barn.

  All in all, Linda had only been away just over half an hour, and Jenny was bound to ask her why. ‘I’ll go to Gran’s,’ she said. ‘She didn’t know I was even going to the farm today so she won’t ask any awkward questions. Drop me in Pype Hayes Road and I’ll walk around.’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ Peter said sarcastically, and was thankful to see the ghost of a smile at last playing around Linda’s mouth.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘And thanks for the lift and the lecture.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t appreciate both?’ Peter said.

  ‘Yes, I did,’ she told him. ‘It’s nice to know someone cares at least.’

  Peter drew up in Pype Hayes Road and Linda got out and waved her hand as he drove off. Then she stood for a moment to compose herself, before walking round to Westmead Crescent.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  It was hard for the people of Britain during the first summer of peace to remember that the war was still going on in Japan. It was brought sharply to their attention on 7 August 1945, when they heard that the previous day, an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima. Jenny and Linda were in the sitting room with Francesca and Malcolm, as they listened to the details on the wireless. No one knew how many had died that day, but official US estimates put the number at 78,000.

  ‘How can so many people be killed with one bomb?’ Linda had asked. ‘It’s unbelievable.’

  Malcolm, who knew more about the capabilities of atomic warfare than the others, commented, ‘Seventy-eight thousand is just the number who died today. The death toll will go on for years, believe me.’

  But no one believed him, not really. What they did want to believe was that this highly destructive bomb might shorten the war. A second atomic bomb was dropped on a smaller city called Nagasaki on 9 August, where it was estimated 35,000 people died.

  But even after the atomic bombs had been released, there was still no sign of surrender. Then on 13 August, 1,600 Allied aircraft attacked Tokyo. The Japanese surrendered unconditionally the following day, and VJ Day was declared on 15 August 1945. To most people in Britain, VJ Day meant little, although everyone was glad the war on all fronts was finally at an end.

  ‘So many dead,’ Jenny said morosely, one evening just after VJ Day. She became very depressed when she considered all the people killed, not just in the Japanese cities but worldwide. And every time she thought of the wedding, she felt sick. If it had been anyone else’s but Linda’s, far from being a bridesmaid and helping her celebrate the damn thing, she would have turned tail and run away somewhere until it was all over. Peggy’s mother had fashioned a beautiful dress for Linda, and had enough material over to make a dress for Jenny, too. But though she thanked her, she didn’t care what she wore. She still felt an incredible sense of loss. The sorrow of it all invaded her dreams when she did eventually drop off to sleep at night. She woke every morning with a leaden weight in her heart but said nothing to anyone; it did no good.

  Everyone except her had something to look forward to, Jenny thought in a moment of self-pity. Gerry was talking about buying a house. ‘He has a wee bit put away,’ Maureen said. ‘You know, with all the overtime he worked in the war, and Peggy’s money that she’s saved as well.’

  ‘Do you want to move, Gran?’ Jenny asked anxiously.

  ‘Well, it’s not a question of wanting to, is it?’ Maureen said. ‘With Peggy on again, we’d be best looking for a bigger place before all the men come back. Gerry says houses will be in short supply then.’

  Jenny supposed he was right, it made sense, but she didn’t know how she’d cope without her gran just down the road. She’d miss Peggy too, for she’d become a good friend, the only friend Jenny had ever really had, except for Linda, who was as close as a sister and much closer than Geraldine had ever been.

  Gerry came in then and put his arms around his wife, and a stab of sheer envy pierced Jenny. The love between Gerry and Peggy was deep and strong. She knew whatever life threw at them they’d weather it as long as they were together. She could hardly bear to look at them and had the urge to put her head on her gran’s shoulder and cry her eyes out. It wouldn’t do, this feeling sorry for herself. She had to begin to get over Bob’s death. She wasn’t the only one to suffer like this, but that fact hardly made it easier to bear.

  Even Beattie was looking forward. ‘I’ve put my name down for one of those new prefabs,’ she said when she came to visit. ‘With my Alan and young Bert expected back any day, I had to get something organized. They could hardly come and live at our Vera’s. She always stuck up her nose at my kids. Even when the lads came home on leave she never made them welcome.’ She gave a sniff and went on, ‘Well, now she ain’t got nothing to be proud of. My girl at least never got her belly full before the ring was on her finger.’

  ‘How is the baby?’ Linda felt compelled to ask.

  ‘Well enough, I suppose,’ Beattie said. ‘I mean, I was a bit worried it might come out coffee coloured, ’cos some of those Yanks were as black as coal, weren’t they?�
��

  They were, and a bit of an eye-opener for the people of Birmingham, who hadn’t really had any dealings with black people before then. ‘Turn-up for the book that one, wouldn’t it have been?’ Beattie chuckled. ‘But he weren’t, and all in all he ain’t a bad babby. But my sister and her husband … Well, you’d think there’d never been one born before him, and it’s not as though he has a father to take him about. Nowt to be that proud about, if you ask me. And fancy calling him Hank! What sort of a name is that for a babby? I told our Vicky it makes him sound like a bleeding ball of wool.’

  Linda roared. Oh, Beattie was marvellous, a real tonic. She hadn’t had a good laugh for ages. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you’ll be moving into a prefab?’

  ‘I might be,’ Beattie said. ‘Then again, they might be keeping them for people with children. Mind, I quite like those flats in the Lyndhurst Estate as well, and if we move there and my Bert misses his garden, he can always take an allotment on. Any road, I ain’t going far away. I’ve lived in Pype Hayes too long and I want to come back. To be honest I think I’ve been a bloody saint, putting up with our Vera all this time and living in snobby Sutton Coldfield. Any road, I can’t sit here all day,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I ain’t collected my rations yet.’

  Linda saw Beattie to the door. She had called at the Masters’s house before, when Jenny first had news about Bob’s death, but she didn’t make a habit of it and Linda knew she felt uncomfortable in the large house. ‘Jenny ain’t much better, is she?’ she whispered in the hall, for Jenny had sat virtually silent during Beattie’s visit.

  Linda gave a sigh. ‘I don’t think all the talk about weddings is helping,’ she said. ‘She’ll be better when we’re away from here on our own and the wedding’s over and done with.’

  ‘And your Charles knows that Jenny’s going to live with you, does he?’

  ‘’Course. He’s known that from the start.’

  ‘And he don’t mind?’