His face said it all and quickly Cora said, ‘This is a lovely tea. Thank you for going to so much trouble,’ but she didn’t look directly at her mother as she spoke. In truth, it was paining her to see the change in her mam. The last thing she had expected was to feel sorry for the woman who had let her da down so badly, and who had virtually cut herself off from them all in choosing to run off with this other man. She didn’t want to feel sorry for her any more than she wanted to let bygones be bygones as her da had apparently done. It wasn’t fair; it let her mam get away with what she’d done. Her thoughts racing, she forced down a slice of bread and margarine spread thinly with jam and a small piece of the eggless sponge cake her mother had baked. It was absolutely nothing like Rachel’s delicious fare.
Once the meal was finished, the girls went upstairs to unpack and Horace put his things away in his designated cupboard in the kitchen before going upstairs to Cora and Maria’s room. He sat down heavily on Cora’s bed, his face a picture of misery. Cora glanced at him. She had never seen him look so glum.
‘Cheer up,’ she said softly. ‘It’s not as bad as all that.’
‘It’s worse.’ He sucked his lips in between his teeth, then looked at her. ‘Wilfred said they wanted him to stay on at the farm. He said Mr Croft was all for making him like one of the family.’
‘So?’
‘If he’d have stayed, I bet Mam an’ Da would have let me, but he wouldn’t stay without you and he said you wanted to come back. Why did you want to come back to – to this?’
‘It’s our home, Horace. And there’s Gran and Granda, don’t forget. And Auntie Ada and Uncle Cyril and everyone. We haven’t seen them for a long time. Don’t you want to visit them and—’
‘No.’ Horace glared at her. ‘I don’t know them now. I want to live on the farm with Mr and Mrs Croft. I hate it here.’
‘You can’t say that, you’ve only just got back. You have to give it a chance. And what about Mam an’ Da? How do you think they’d feel if they heard you now?’ She sat down beside him, her lips pursing as he purposely moved a few inches along the bed. ‘You’ll be fine once you meet up with all your old friends again, I know you will. Be reasonable, Horace.’
‘Huh!’ He jumped up. ‘You think you know everything. Wilfred didn’t want to come back and you made him and that’s not fair. That’s not reasonable. None of us wanted to come back except you. You always have to have your own way, Cora.’
‘Horace—’
But he had gone, slamming the bedroom door behind him. Cora looked helplessly at Maria who shook her head. ‘Little toad,’ she said with sisterly disgust. ‘Take no notice. Within a day or two he’ll be as right as rain.’
‘He’s right though,’ Cora murmured. ‘Wilfred had a wonderful opportunity with the Crofts and I ruined it for him.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, lass, don’t start feeling guilty about Wilfred. He’s big enough and ugly enough to make his own mind up about what he wants to do.’
Cora stared at her sister. She hadn’t told anyone about what Wilfred had said on VE Day, feeling it would be a betrayal somehow, but now she whispered, ‘Wilfred did come back because of me, Maria. He – well, he asked me to be his lass, you know, properly, with a view to marriage eventually. He said he loved me and if I wouldn’t stay in Northumberland, then he wouldn’t either. But I couldn’t have stayed, not with Jed gone and everything, and if Wilfred had taken Jed’s place at the farm it would have been even worse.’
‘I see that.’ Maria came and knelt in front of her. ‘I absolutely see that, and I’m surprised Wilfred could expect anything different knowing how you felt about Jed. What did you say, when he asked you to be his lass?’
‘I said no, of course. But I don’t think he really listened.’
Maria was silent for a moment. Then she said, very softly, ‘It wouldn’t be right for you even to consider Wilfred, lass. Some day there might be someone, in the future I mean, and I know you wouldn’t feel the same as you felt for Jed, I understand that, but you’re still young and time does heal – but Wilfred? No. A marriage out of pity wouldn’t work for you, and that’s what it would be on your part. You’ve always felt sorry for him, haven’t you? Right from when we were little bairns playing in the back lane. And while we’re talking like this I have to say something more. The way Wilfred is with you? It’s not quite right. I can’t explain it, but Mrs Burns noticed it and said something to me.’
‘Rachel?’ Cora and the farmer’s wife had been on first-name terms for some time, and now Cora said, ‘But she never intimated anything to me. No –’ she paused – ‘that’s not quite true, thinking about it. When we found out Jed was missing she said something about still waters running deep in regard to Wilfred, I remember now.’
Maria nodded. ‘I wouldn’t say she disliked him but she was wary of him where you’re concerned, and to tell you the truth, lass, I agree with her.’
Maria’s face wore a sober look, her pale blue eyes anxious, and now Cora felt obliged to say, and lightly, ‘Oh, Wilfred’s all right, don’t worry about that. He is, Maria, really. And when you think about everything he’s had to put up with, his mam an’ da and all, it’s a wonder he’s such a good person.’
‘There, you’re doing it again. Feeling sorry for him.’
‘No, I’m just saying . . .’ Cora’s voice trailed away. And then she went on more firmly, ‘I’m just saying I can understand why we’re all so important to him. We’re the only family he’s ever had, proper family, that is, because his own is a nightmare.’
‘All right.’ Maria sighed. ‘Have it your own way, but you wouldn’t let him persuade you to start courting one day, would you? You wouldn’t let him wear you down?’
Cora shook her head. She didn’t know how to put it into words, but since Wilfred had spoken about the future, deep inside her a sadness had settled. Maria had said there might be someone in the years ahead and that time heals, and she knew her sister was speaking out of love, but she also knew now with a quiet certainty that it wouldn’t be that way for her. What she’d had with Jed had been so special, so perfect, nothing else would do. And so she had to start thinking about what she was going to do with her life now the war was over, once she let the dust settle, so to speak. But marriage wouldn’t be an option, not to Wilfred and not to any man. She reached out and hugged Maria.
‘I promise you, Maria Stubbs, that I, Cora Stubbs, will not enter into marriage with one Wilfred Hutton. Will that do?’ She smiled. ‘And you know I don’t go back on my promises.’
Maria laughed quietly. ‘It’ll do, lass. It’ll do.’
‘Now, hand me your ration book and I’ll collect the others and take them down to Mam,’ Cora said briskly, but once she had the books she stood for a moment on the landing, looking down the stairs. This had been her home for a good part of her life and yet it felt alien. She didn’t belong here any more; she didn’t belong anywhere and it was a strange feeling. Then she squared her shoulders. It was no good feeling sorry for herself. She had to get on with things because there was the rest of her life in front of her and it couldn’t be faced looking backwards even though, if she had the choice, she would give up all the time allotted to her for one day, one hour with Jed.
It was two o’clock in the morning and Cora still hadn’t gone to sleep. Her mind was churning round and round, reviewing the events of the day in an endless cycle until she felt like screaming. Instead she slid out of bed, pulling her dressing gown over her nightie although she didn’t really need it, and taking care not to wake Maria. Quietly padding downstairs on bare feet, she went silently into the kitchen where Horace was snoring loud enough to wake the dead, and then out through the back door into the yard. And there she nearly did scream, putting both hands over her mouth to prevent any sound emerging.
The shadow she had recognized as her mother a split second after she had seen it sitting on one of the two old wooden chairs in the yard said softly, ‘Hello, lass. Can’t you slee
p neither?’
Cora stood for a moment, hesitating, and then walked over to the other chair and sat down. It was a beautiful night, still, with no breeze, but a faint smell from one of the neighbours’ privies hung on the air. Her mother had always kept theirs so clean her da used to say you could eat your dinner in there, but not everyone was so particular.
As softly as her mother had spoken, Cora said, ‘You’d think that a farmyard would smell worse than anything but after a while you don’t notice it. It’s natural, I suppose, with the animals and everything, but here . . . I never got used to the privies stinking and I don’t think I ever will. It’s different with humans.’
‘Aye, I know what you mean.’ Nancy paused. ‘Were you happy at the farm?’
It took all of Cora’s willpower not to snap back and say, ‘Bit late to ask now, isn’t it?’ as a flood of feeling – rejection, hurt, grief, pain – caused her to tense. Before she had left for Northumberland she had thought their mam loved them, that she was the best mam in the world despite the spats they used to have, but she had been stupid. Her mam hadn’t cared about her or their da or any of them the way she thought she had.
After a moment or two, she said quietly, ‘Not at first, no. The farmer, he was a pervert, a horrible man. He’d been molesting one of the girls who was there when we arrived.’
‘Cora, no.’ Nancy’s voice was high and she lowered it as she said, ‘Oh, lass, lass. Why didn’t you write and tell me? I’d have come and taken you all out of there.’
‘We didn’t know at first, not properly. We knew there was something funny going on but well, you don’t expect that, do you? We were bairns, just bairns. And when it all came to light . . . Well, you weren’t interested in us, were you?’
The silence stretched, and at first Cora didn’t realize her mother was crying, not until she said, ‘I’ll never forgive myself for what I’ve done, never. How your da took me back I’ll never know, and I can’t make it right with you, I know that, but one thing I will say – I never stopped loving you bairns. I was like someone else for a time, that’s the only way I can explain it, and – and besotted, that’s the only word I can use, besotted with a man who wasn’t worthy to lick your da’s boots. I know you can’t forgive me, lass, and I wouldn’t ask you to. What I’ve done is unforgivable.’
She had to ask. Through the pounding of her heart, Cora said, ‘You aren’t going to go off again, are you? Leave Da again? If – if this man should turn up and ask you?’
Nancy was wiping her face and trying to pull herself together. The canker of shame and humiliation she felt about the night of the rape would be with her to her dying day, she knew that, and the fact that only Gregory knew about it had been a kind of comfort. Even now she felt so dirty, so soiled and defiled that at times, despite how happy she was with Gregory, she still had the desire to put an end to it all. Some nights she would lie awake for hours, fighting her thoughts and unwilling to sleep because of the nightmares that plagued her. But something was telling her that unless she explained it all to Cora, from the very beginning to the bitter end, her relationship with her daughter would never be mended. Her lass was eighteen years old now, a young woman, but a distant, hostile young woman, and she couldn’t bear that to continue without at least making the effort to set things straight between them. It was selfish in a way, she knew that, and perhaps she shouldn’t burden Cora with the knowledge of what had happened, but Cora was strong enough to bear it. Her lass was just as she herself had been once.
Nancy cleared her throat. ‘Lass, I’m going to talk to you like I never have before and never will again, not so much as a mam but as woman to woman, you know? And I want you to listen till I’m through without saying anything. It won’t be easy to hear but it’s the truth. And it won’t explain what I did because that’s impossible. Your da’s the only person who knows about what I’m going to tell you and he’s been . . .’ Nancy shook her head. ‘There’s no words to describe how he’s been.’
Cora stared at her mother in the darkness. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything.’
‘I think I do, hinny.’
The old northern term of affection silenced further protest from Cora because it brought a lump into her throat that made it impossible to speak.
‘I’ll start from when I first met Ken. It was like this . . .’
There were a couple of times when Cora murmured, ‘Oh, Mam, Mam,’ through her tears but apart from that she said nothing until Nancy finished speaking. Nancy was holding her tight and Cora’s head was on her mother’s shoulder when Cora whispered, ‘I want to kill him. I want to kill them all.’
‘Your da said the same thing and I’ll tell you what I told him – that’s the last thing I want. Ken would never dare come back to these parts knowing Dan Vickers would be waiting for him, so at least it’s over with. Finished.’
‘I hope he gets what he deserves. I hope they all do.’
‘Me too, lass. Me too. Of course, some folk would say I got exactly what I deserved.’
Cora reared up as though she had been prodded with a stick. ‘No, Mam, no one would say that, no one with a grain of human decency.’
‘Thank you for that, hinny. In the first days and weeks I thought it was a punishment from God, judgement for my sin, you know? But I don’t believe that any more. God doesn’t work like that. What happened was because of my own actions in putting myself into a position where it could happen, nothing more and nothing less. One thing’s for sure, if it wasn’t for your da I wouldn’t be here now. As for ever leaving him again, only death’ll part us and not for a long, long time I hope. I don’t just love him, Cora, I adore him, worship him, and the rest of you too. I’ve been given a second chance to see what is right in front of my nose, what’s always been there. And there’s something else.’
‘What?’ Cora didn’t feel she could take much more. She had never stopped loving her mother, she knew that, but she had stopped liking her. Her mother had talked about being judged for her sin and Cora knew she had been guilty of doing just that. She had wanted her mam to be crushed and humbled for what she had done rather than, as she had thought, her da welcoming her mam back with open arms. Now she felt sick with remorse. Her mam had been crushed all right and all the time she, her daughter, had been on her high horse, dripping self-righteousness with her holier-than-thou attitude. When would she ever learn? she asked herself passionately.
‘Your da and I . . .’ Her mam paused.
Cora stared at her, at the dear face that looked so much older than she remembered and for good reason. ‘What?’ she said again, willing that one of them wasn’t ill with an incurable disease or something. After the last hour nothing would surprise her.
‘We’re gonna have another bairn,’ Nancy said in a rush.
For the third time, Cora said, ‘What?’ but then as her daughter’s face lit up Nancy knew it was going to be all right. She felt herself enfolded in Cora’s embrace, her daughter half-laughing and half-crying as she hugged her. ‘Oh, Mam, a war baby that will grow up in peacetime, a proper new beginning.’ And then grinning, she added, ‘This’ll get the neighbours going, you know that, don’t you? You’ll be the talk of the back yards, the pair of you. I can just hear them now – Have you heard about Mr and Mrs Stubbs? Expecting again, and their youngest all of eleven. That Mr Stubbs is a sly one but there’s life in the old dog yet.’
‘Oh, go on with you,’ said Nancy, giggling, and then they were both laughing helplessly as they had done in the old days, the way they only did with each other, trying to stifle their mirth so they didn’t wake anyone, which only made it funnier.
Some time later, as a pale pink dawn began to creep across the night sky, Cora still hadn’t been to sleep but her mind was at rest now. She and her mother had talked for a little while after Nancy had told her about the baby, and then they had crept indoors so as not to wake Horace who was still vibrating the kitchen with his snores. She had thought about telling her mam about Jed but
had decided it wasn’t the right moment – there had been enough emotion and revelations for one night. When she told her it would have to be the whole story, including the part about Farmer Burns and why Jed had left to go to war, and for that reason it would be better another day. The immediate thing now was for her to look for a job although she didn’t have the faintest idea what she wanted to do, but anything would be all right short-term. Long-term? Her brow wrinkled. Not a factory or a shop, she’d feel buried alive. Maybe nursing? Something that would grow into a career? Something to fill the empty days of the future that weren’t going to be at all as she had thought before Jed had gone.
She looked towards the window as the sky began to turn pink, the thin curtains doing little to keep the light at bay. At the farm the dawn chorus would be in full throttle, the cows would be mooing to be milked and there would be fresh eggs to collect from the coop. She would already have been up for at least half an hour and looking forward to one of Rachel’s breakfasts, after which they’d work in the dairy or in the fields or at another of the hundred and one jobs that needed doing.
A physical ache cramped her chest. She’d felt she had been born to be a farmer’s wife after she’d met Jed, but it wasn’t to be and she had to accept that. She knew she had to accept it – in her head. Her heart was another matter.
Chapter Twenty-One
Wilfred was sitting in the bedroom he’d shared with his brothers before they had left home. He, too, had been awake all night. The room was filthy and the two beds it held stank. Apparently his parents had had a succession of lodgers since he had been away, the last two doing a moonlight flit just a day or so ago owing a couple of weeks’ rent. He didn’t blame them. He’d resent paying good money to live in such a rathole.
He was sitting on the hard-backed chair the room contained. He didn’t want to touch the beds with their soiled covers, let alone lie in one. In his mind’s eye he was seeing the scene in the kitchen when he’d walked in the evening before. His parents had been slumped in their greasy, grimy armchairs in front of the range. It didn’t look as though it had been cleaned since he’d been gone and the smell of the kitchen had nearly knocked him backwards. It was the stink of his childhood; unwashed bodies and stale sweat, food that had gone bad, dirt and decay. It was a smell that permeated flesh and bones, the very pores of the skin.
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