Letters to Alice

by Rosie James

  And above all – he was clever and courteous. And kind…had been, to Alice, from the very beginning. Over the years he had taught her so much, passing on all sorts of important things he learned at his boarding school. Had shown her how to form opinions and hold her own in any discussion, to contrast and compare, to give due consideration to other points of view…to think…

  And he’d shown her how to dance. The waltz and the quickstep. And the foxtrot – the foxtrot had an elegant, unhurried, movement. Alice liked the foxtrot best of all.

  The farmer was staring down at the girls, now, sizing them up, and Alice noticed how red and fat and swollen his hands were as they gripped the back of his chair.

  ‘First thing t’morrer I want ee all up the field, diggin’ spuds,’ he announced. ‘Second crop’s ready, and I don’t want no ’angin’ about. But you’ll have to wear summat decent on your feet.’ His lip curled slightly. He’d noticed their sandals, what they were wearing. He glanced at his wife. ‘They boots did arrive, didn’t they, Mabe?’ he added.

  Mabel nodded. ‘Came last week,’ she said.

  The heavy boots were the one item which had been delivered to the farm separately. They certainly wouldn’t have fitted very well in a suitcase.

  Now Roger Foulkes stood as well. He was a tall, good-looking lad in his late twenties, with a twinkle in his dark eyes and a readiness to laugh if anything remotely amusing was said by anyone. Of course, Fay, who’d sniggered at the piece of human behaviour just now, was already on his wavelength, and Alice noticed how easily the girl had got Roger’s attention.

  Alice had also noticed Eve’s reaction to Mr. Foulkes’ crudeness…she’d seemed thoroughly embarrassed, keeping her eyes on her plate. Poor girl, Alice thought, this was going to be a completely different world from the one she obviously knew in dignified, cultural, Bath, and maybe she just would not be able to stick it. Land Girls giving up on the job before they’d barely begun was not unheard of – but Alice hoped Eve wouldn’t give up. For some reason that she couldn’t really explain, Alice wanted them, the three of them, to get through this together.

  The farmer clumped his way to the back door and went out without another word, and Mabel said as she started clearing the table –

  ‘’Ee’s gone to look around last thing for the night,’ she said. ‘Always does.’ She piled the pudding dishes one on top of the other. ‘And don’t mind ’im,’ she added. ‘’Is arthritis always plays him up in the heat, but ’ee’s all right, really.’ She turned to Roger. ‘Now Rog – why don’t you just show them…Alice and Fay and Eve…around for a few minutes…’fore it gets too dark? Give ’em some idea about what we’ve got ’ere? An’ what they might be going to do…’

  The three got to their feet, and Alice said – ‘But can’t we help with the washing up, Mrs. Foulkes?’ Alice had never been used to leaving chores to others.

  Mabel smiled broadly. ‘No, that’s a’right, luvver. You just go out, now, with our Rog. And then it’s ’eads down for all of you! Tis gonna be a long day tomorrer!’

  Doing as they were told, the three girls followed Roger out of the farmhouse. It was not quite dark, and still very warm as they made their way around the immediate precincts…Roger pointing things out as they went. The chicken enclosure was huge, all the birds roosting quietly, and Alice said tentatively –

  ‘How many chickens are there, Roger? It’s an enormous pen, isn’t it?’

  Roger grinned. ‘Hundreds and hundreds,’ he said cheerfully. ‘They have the life of Riley, and they’re all my mother’s babies – though there are far too many for her to give them all names! And when her geese have their goslings you can’t keep her away from the nursery!’

  The farm was larger than it had seemed at first glance as they walked around the cow sheds and milking parlour, past the goat pen, and the pig sties where the animals were still shuffling and rooting around for food. Three massive barns were already stacked right up to the top with hay and straw, and as Roger began leading them further away up to the crop fields, Alice couldn’t help thinking how hard and relentless working on a farm must be. Well, they were about to find out, weren’t they, but it was all right for them. They were only going to be here temporarily, while for Roger – and his parents – it must be a gruelling lifetime’s work.

  But Roger wasn’t grumbling – and certainly not today. Thanks, Mr. Hitler, he thought, there’d never be another time when three gorgeous girls would be living on their farm! He glanced down at them as they all made their way across the fields.

  ‘I bet you all groaned when you were told what you were going to be doing for the war effort,’ he said lightly. Then, after a moment, he added, ‘I should have thought they could have found something a bit more…well…lady-like – tidy – for you than sloshing around in mud. Because it does rain here, you know. And then it’s not nice.’ He looked down at their pretty sandalled feet. ‘You’ll certainly be needing your boots.’

  ‘That’s why they’ve been provided,’ Fay said smartly, ‘and don’t you worry about us, Roger. We’re perfectly prepared for what’s ahead – aren’t we, girls? – and it’s insulting of you to think we’re only fit for “lady-like” jobs! What do you think we are? A trio of pointless twerps?’ She strode on ahead a few steps. ‘Just lead us to it! We’ll cope with whatever you throw at us!’

  Roger caught her up, longing to hold her hand but not daring to. ‘OK, OK, sorry I spoke,’ he said teasingly. It stirred something in him to be challenged by a woman.

  Eve, who’d been rather quiet, spoke up. ‘Could we turn back now?’ she asked plaintively. Well, they seemed to have been walking for ages, with Roger pointing out which crops grew in which fields and when, and her feet were tired.

  Roger nodded, turning around reluctantly. He’d liked to have gone on walking for another hour – in the present company! He looked down at Alice, sizing her up. Of all of them, it was she who seemed to be really taking in her surroundings, he thought, seemed really interested in everything she was being shown, and had been asking him questions as if she was preparing for an exam.

  Roger took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the sweet country air. He hadn’t felt so up-beat for years.

  Later, the girls made their way up the narrow, dark wooden staircase to their room. As they went inside, Fay flicked the switch on the wall and the one bulb hanging from the ceiling struggled to emit a pale yellow beam.

  ‘Oh dear, there’s not much light in here, is there,’ Eve said slowly, going over to her bed and sitting down. She looked around her. ‘It makes everything look, well, eerie, doesn’t it,’ she added, giving a little shiver of distaste.

  ‘Spooky, you mean,’ Fay agreed. ‘Hey – perhaps there’s a resident ghost lurkin’ about! I’d love to see a ghost, I really would! This whole place is ancient enough for all sorts of weird goings-on!’

  ‘You don’t really think there is one, do you?’ Eve began worriedly, and Alice interrupted, laughing.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Fay,’ she said, shooting the girl a warning glance. Eve didn’t need anything more to unsettle her.

  Just then there was a tap on the door, and Mabel stood there holding three saucers, some candles and a box of matches.

  ‘I just thought maybe these might be useful,’ she said. ‘The light’s not so good up ’ere, is it?’ she added.

  After she’d gone, the girls each melted the end of their candle until the wax dripped, then stuck it onto a saucer. And soon the room glowed even more atmospherically, throwing strange, moving shadows into the corners and walls.

  Eve shivered again, putting her candle down on the floor by her bed. And thinking of her home, her room, of the life she’d left behind her…for who knew how long? Thinking of her parents.

  This was the time they’d be getting ready for bed, deciding whether they wanted Horlicks or Ovaltine last thing…or whether to have a pot of tea for a change if they thought the evening meal had been a bit heavy for a milk drink. And Eve s
upposed that by now they’d be lining up their tablets…four at night for her father, three pink, one white, two for her mother, both pink, then two white ones for both of them next morning, the glasses of water at the ready on the bedside tables. Eve sighed inwardly. They were perfectly capable of sorting out their tablets by themselves, but they’d always insisted on her doing it for them. And it wasn’t as if they really needed them…they just bought packets of the things each time they went to the chemist – laxatives, sedatives, anything for aches and pains and sore throats and headaches – convinced that every advertisement they read was genuine.

  Well, they’d have to rely on each other without her now, Eve thought. They would have to try and think for themselves for a change. But she hoped they’d enjoyed the tin of pilchards and the salad she’d prepared and left for their supper.

  Getting up, she went over to the cupboard where she’d put her nightdress and wash bag. The sooner she got ready for bed and went to sleep – if she was going to be able to manage a single wink – the better. She glanced over her shoulder.

  ‘Although the meal was very nice, and very appetizing, I did think there was far too much food on the table tonight for everyone, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘It was rather – well – extravagant, wasn’t it.’ Although nobody was starving in Britain, the rationing system had made people more careful with what they had, no one expecting huge portions of food at meal times any more. And obesity in the population was virtually unknown. Eve had certainly been very circumspect with helping herself from all the dishes on the long kitchen table earlier.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t complaining,’ Fay said flatly. ‘It’s a long time since I had a jolly good old blow-out, and as far as I’m concerned we can have more of the same tomorrow.’ Holding her candle aloft, she marched across the creaking floor to the basin. There was still plenty of water in the jug left over from their earlier wash, and she swilled her face and hands quickly, then started doing her teeth. Dipping the brush in and out of one of the tin mugs of water on the table, spitting into the bowl, then tipping everything into the bucket beneath. It was all a bit laborious and a lot more inconvenient than having access to taps and flushes, she thought – they’d made their second walk past the cabbages after Roger had said goodnight – but they’d get used to it. They’d bloody well have to.

  Finally, she cleaned the bowl around vigorously with her flannel and squeezed it out, then turned to glance at the others.

  ‘Bathroom’s vacant!’ she exclaimed. ‘’S’all yours!’

  Presently, after Alice and Eve had undressed and taken their turn at the basin – which it had to be said was big enough to bath a baby in – all three lay down, glad to stretch out after a long and tiring day, even if it did feel as though the beds were made of hard core.

  Fay reached into her bag for another cigarette, lit up, then looked up at the ceiling, blowing out a long plume of smoke.

  ‘Well, I s’pose my ARP pillar-of-society father’s out doing his stuff for the war effort,’ she said. ‘Mr. Civil-Defence-on-two-legs. Showing everyone what a great man he is.’ She snorted derisively. ‘I’ve stopped asking whoever’s up there to finish him off with a direct hit, because no one’s been listening.’ She took in another lungful of smoke. ‘As far as I know, not a hair of my father’s head has been put out of place – despite bomb blasts and falling shrapnel. But I live in hope.’

  Eve looked utterly shocked. ‘Goodness me,’ she said, and Fay turned to look at her.

  ‘Oh, don’t look like that!’ she snapped. ‘I suppose you two got perfect families and everything in the garden’s lovely! Well, my family’s never been lovely…that’s why I moved out a few years ago. I live a couple of miles away with my gran in Knowle, now,’ she went on. ‘Gran thought it’d be safer if I cleared off, because if I stayed at home much longer I’d have killed my father, and then I’d have been hanged for it.’ She paused for a moment. Then – ‘An’ you know something? Next time round, I am coming back as a man! That’s all I’ll ask of whoever’s in charge up there. Because being female ’ idn’t no fun – and it ’idn’t fair!’ She took another drag on her cigarette and sat forward, warming to the subject. ‘D’ya know what? The geezer I was working with last was doing exactly the same job as me, exactly the same job – but he got nearly twice the pay! Just because he’s bloody male!’ She threw out her arms in exasperation. ‘Who can explain that?’

  By now Fay was on her high horse. ‘But things are gonna change,’ she said hotly, ‘the saintly Nancy Astor is our only woman MP at the moment, but where she went, others can follow! We’ve had the right to vote for more than ten years, and as soon as this bloody shindig is over our voices are going to be heard, loud and clear! There’s no doubt about it!’

  ‘You might be right there, Fay,’ Alice said. ‘Helena…my employer where I once worked…she was a suffragette…used to go on marches, and deliver leaflets, and help to break up meetings…she was convinced that one day Britain would have a woman prime minister!’

  ‘Pigs might bloody fly,’ Fay said, flopping back down on the bed.

  Alice laughed. ‘It could even be you, Fay,’ she said. Fay certainly had strong opinions. ‘But until then – where do you work, Fay… or rather – where did you work – before this lot?’

  ‘Woolies,’ Fay said promptly. ‘I’m a shop girl… I’ve worked at a bakery, been at Boots, Dolcis, Lennards, Stead and Simpson, Bata…done the shoe shop rounds.’ She half-sat, resting on her elbow for a moment. ‘I like being with people, see, but I’ve never been in one place for very long. ’S’pose I’m a bit restless.’ She glanced at Alice. ‘And what’s your job? Something a bit more special than mine I imagine.’

  Alice smiled, glad that the subject of killing someone and being hanged for it had passed on to something more acceptable. Eve’s face had been a picture as she’d been listening to everything Fay was saying. ‘My job’s not particularly special, Fay,’ she said in answer to the girl’s question. ‘When I was sixteen I took a Pitman secretarial course – learned how to do shorthand and typing.’ She shrugged, not wanting to sound any more elevated than Fay. ‘It’s not exactly exciting, working in an estate agent’s office, but the people are nice and the pay’s not bad…not bad at all.’ She glanced at Fay. There was a lot more to Fay than the girl wanted anyone to believe …if Fay wanted to, she, too, could get herself a credential that might be more fulfilling than flitting from one retail job to another. As if she knew what Alice was thinking, Fay said –

  ‘As a matter of fact, I nearly worked in an office once. Passed an interview at one of the big insurance companies in Berkeley Square, but that stopped before it even started.’

  ‘Why?’ Alice asked curiously.

  ‘Well, they told me what my duties would be, offered me the job – which I accepted – and just as I was leaving, they informed me that if I should ever get married, I’d have to leave! That I’d be chucked out! Company policy, apparently! Well – I told them they could stick their bloody job up their ’ooter – because that did not appeal to my sense of justice! And it’s not as if I ever intend getting married,’ Fay went on, clearly still upset at the memory – ‘but that isn’t the point. The point is that it was unfair! Unfair to women! Because I know for a fact that there are married men working there. They haven’t been chucked out!’

  Alice could understand why Fay was still so cross. She turned to Eve

  ‘Do you have a job to go back to, Eve?’

  For once Eve didn’t hesitate. ‘Oh, mine’s only a part-time job, actually, when I can get away,’ she said. ‘I work at Milsoms music shop in Bath…we sell sheet music, and records, and I help customers find what they’re looking for. And we stock musical instruments as well, and people come in and try them out. That’s the bit I like best.’ She looked pensive for a moment, then – ‘But often I’m at home looking after my parents who are never very well…you see, they were quite old when I came along.’ She frowned briefly, adding, ‘ It must have bee
n a terrible shock to them when I turned up, but at least they’re reaping the benefits now because I’m always there trying to make amends for being alive.’ The comment was made only half-jokingly and the others exchanged glances. It was unusual for Eve to be so forthcoming.

  ‘Well – we’re glad you’re alive Evie…because if you weren’t here, we’d be one wise bloody monkey short!’ Fay said.

  Eve actually laughed, obviously delighted at that. ‘Oh - only one person ever called me Evie before,’ she said, ‘because my parents don’t like it. But I like it!’

  ‘Well, you’re Evie from now on,’ Alice said, pleased to see the girl begin to look happy. She decided to push a bit further. ‘Was it a boyfriend who liked to call you that?’ she asked.

  ‘Not exactly…it was just one of the men I worked with at Milsoms,’ Eve said casually, ‘but he was called up straightaway. He’s with the RAF somewhere abroad now, I believe.’ She paused, clearly thinking about that. Then – ‘He’s married to a woman called Diana. I met her once. In the shop. She’s…very beautiful.’

  No one spoke for a minute, then Eve said, frowning –

  ‘I hope digging potatoes isn’t going to be too hard. That’s what Mr. Foulkes said we’re going to be doing tomorrow, didn’t he?’

  Alice sat up, hugging her knees. ‘Oh no! It won’t be hard at all, I promise you! It’s fun…really fun!’ She leaned closer towards the others. ‘ We had a kitchen garden in the Clifton house where I used to live, and once or twice I helped dig up some potatoes. And what you do is, you tug at the plant – it’s quite bushy – but it comes up easy as anything. Then you shake the earth off and all the potatoes – dozens of them – emerge and roll away like lovely little golf balls! It’s quite exciting! A little miracle!’ Alice ran her tongue over her lips. ‘And they are just scrumptious to eat…and don’t need peeling at all! Cook used to just rinse them under the tap until the skin almost fell off – then, when they’d been boiled, and cooled down a bit, we’d eat them in our fingers just as they were – dipping them into some salt first.’ Alice’s mouth watered at the memory.