The Hills and the Valley

by Janet Tanner

  ‘You think it will blow up, though?’ Barbara persisted.

  Huw executed a neat gear change at the end of Greenslade Terrace and turned out into Conygre Hill.

  ‘I don’t think Hitler will give up in a hurry. But give us a chance to get at him and he’ll change his tune – him and his precious Luftwaffe.’

  Barbara shivered, the night air cold on her flushed face.

  ‘Just as long as the Luftwaffe don’t get at you.’

  ‘Let’em try! Our Spits are better than anything they’ve got.’

  Brave talk. She cheered a little. Then another thought occurred to her.

  ‘Are there any girls at your base?’ she asked, shouting to make herself heard above the roar of the engine.

  ‘Some WAAFs.’ He accelerated over the first of the level crossings and turned left.

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘Plotting. Typing. That sort of thing. And some are batwomen.’

  ‘Batwomen?’

  ‘Glorified domestics. You’d hate that, Barbara, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking.’

  ‘Too right! I’ve no intention of spending my life clearing up after a lot of messy men.’ But it had only been part of the reason why she had asked. She was thinking of pretty girls in flattering uniforms all too readily available … Still, he hadn’t said, as he had the last time they had talked of her joining the services, that she was too young.

  They were almost home now, rattling along the lane past Amy’s yard where the lorries were parked up neatly for the holiday. Barbara did not want to go home. She wanted to go on riding for ever, just her and Huw …

  He turned through the gates and steered the car into its garage. It was a big garage for a fairly small car with plenty of room on each side. She sat for a moment while he turned off the engine and the dimmed lights and suddenly they were in total darkness.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t see where I’m going.’

  He got out and came around to the passenger side.

  ‘Here – take my hand.’

  She reached out blindly and her hand brushed his jacket. There in the dark she was very aware of his nearness. The garage seemed to be full of him – the smell of the leather jacket and the faint aroma of the smear of Brylcream he used to tame his thick dark hair mingling with the oil and petrol smell of the car. His hand found hers and held it firmly and the touch of his fingers, strong and safe, started a thrill of excitement deep inside her.

  ‘OK?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, OK.’ Her voice was slightly breathless. She took a step, stumbled against him, and for a brief wonderful moment felt sure that he was feeling as she was. It was there between them, an electricity that sparked like the touch of bare wires, so potent, so primitive, that it almost took her breath away. She stood motionless wanting to catch the moment and hold it, never let it go. Then they heard Ralph’s car on the drive and the fragile spell was shattered.

  ‘Come on, this way.’ There was a rough note in his voice and he turned, leading her by the hand towards the glimmer of moonlight. To all intents and purposes they were once more the boy and girl who had been brought up together, but Barbara knew with an instinct as old as time that for a moment back there in the darkness they had been more, much more.

  ‘Here we are then!’ Amy called gaily. ‘Let’s go and have our dinner. Christmas isn’t over yet, you know!’

  Laughing, still holding hands, they followed the others into the house.

  I’ll never forget, thought Barbara. ‘Never, ever, as long as I live will I forget this Christmas Day.’

  She was lying in bed in her room, the moonlight slanting in through the open curtains, making patterns on the wall and throwing deep shadows on the shiny linoleum beyond the patterned rug. It was late; the grandfather clock in the hall had long since chimed midnight, but Barbara had no thought of sleep. She wanted to savour and go on savouring every moment of this wonderful day – and especially the evening, imbued as it had been by the aura of those few stolen moments in the dark garage.

  They had dined by candlelight, somehow finding room to do justice to Mrs Milsom’s excellent meal in spite of all they had already eaten, and each time she had looked up from her plate she had found Huw’s eyes on her. The first time she had blushed and looked away hastily, the second she had held his gaze, her lips curving slightly. Nothing had been said, beyond the usual family conversation, yet she had felt the pull of that electric attraction between them once more and thrilled to it. There had been crackers and Huw had pulled his with her, insisting on putting the paper hat it contained onto her honey coloured curls in spite of the fact that he had been the winner and she had a cracker of her own. There were indoor fireworks in the crackers too – little miniature cascades and glows which they lit on a saucer – but it was the tiny sparkler which Barbara liked best for Huw lit it from the candle and held it up to her chin so that its crackling incandescence was reflected in her eyes.

  Afterwards, they sat around the roaring fire reading out the jokes and mottos, and playing that old favourite game Lexicon. There had been a magic moment then, too, for Huw had surreptitiously slipped her the cards she needed to make a word, though Ralph had noticed and accused them both of cheating. Then, at Maureen’s insistence, a half-hearted attempt had been made at playing ‘Man and his object’.

  ‘We’ll be it, Huw,’ Maureen had insisted and though Huw had complied Barbara had felt that he really wished it was her who was going outside the door with him to decide what characters they should assume. In the event their charade had been easy to guess: ‘Mr Chamberlain and his umbrella – I’m the umbrella!’ Maureen had admitted amidst giggles, but they were all too tired to play another round for the warmth, the food and the drink were making them all sleepy.

  They had sat for a while longer in the dying firelight unwilling to end what had been a lovely day, but eventually Ralph had said: ‘Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going to bed!’

  Now Barbara lay with the covers up to her chin, cuddling her stone hot water bottle in the crook of her arm and the warmth from it seemed to spread through to every corner of her body.

  Oh Huw, Huw, today you noticed me – really noticed me! she thought happily. I wasn’t just a little girl today. It was different – special. Oh, as long as I live, I’ll never forget.

  Barbara, thought Huw, and there was a new ring to her name as if over all the years he had spoken it he had never really listened to it before.

  She had been a little girl to him for so long; at first a prissy little madam with clean ankle socks and bows in her hair whom he had despised and yet envied because she had what he did not a home and a mother. Then, as he had settled down and come to accept her family as his own, she had endeared herself to him with her bold mischievous ways and her unstinted adoration and he had teased and spoiled her, watching her grow into an enchanting tomboy and then into a convent schoolgirl who knew how to make people forgive her even when she was doing the unforgivable. Funny, determined and wilful, yet far more vulnerable than she would ever have admitted, Barbara was the person he supposed he cared for more than anyone in the world – except of course Amy, who had given him a home and love and taught him to love in return. Only now, since reaching manhood, could he fully appreciate just what she had done for him and what it had cost her. But Amy had filled the gap left in his heart when his mother had died. (Oh God, the horror of that night could make him break out in a cold sweat even now!) And Barbara – Barbara was just a child.

  Until last night when he had come home for Christmas and seen her through new eyes.

  Lying sleepless also Huw relived again the shock of the moments when he had realised it. Last night, when she had come into the kitchen to greet him had been the first. She had stood there framed in the doorway and though her face was as familiar to him as his own, seen every morning in the shaving mirror, he had been shaken by the change in it. Same fair hair, yet had it
always curled so enticingly and he had never noticed it? Same blue eyes, yet with a tantalising sparkle. Same rosy cheeks he had seen on a little girl who rode behind him, squealing, on a toboggan in the snow, same mouth, yet somehow curving, sensual, appealing. And her figure. That of a young woman without doubt. Huw had felt the shock waves reverberate through his body as he looked at her. Barbara, yet not Barbara. Not a child. A lovely young woman.

  Then there had been today in the garage. All day he had been watching her, trying to equate this strange young beauty with the Barbara he knew. Yet it had still come as yet another shock when they had stood close together in the darkness and he had felt the sudden desire to take her in his arms. He hadn’t done it of course. You didn’t suddenly grab a girl you had grown up with. That was for pretty strangers who had made it obvious with their flirtatious behaviour that it was exactly what they wanted you to do. Yet never had he felt more inclined to recklessness. Maybe if the others hadn’t chosen just that moment to arrive home he would have thrown caution to the winds and kissed her anyway. Maybe …

  Perhaps it was just as well he was leaving tomorrow, thought Huw. Back to the familiar world of mess rooms and aeroplane hangars, back to the young men who talked in the RAF jargon that was now familiar to him. Back to the WAAF girls closer to his own age and the beauties of the nearby town who hung around young men in uniform, giggling and blushing and fluttering their eyelashes. To think about Barbara the way he was thinking about her seemed a betrayal of the trust she had in him and of the home that Amy had given him. Yet not even this creeping guilt could lessen the dark desire which had invaded his mind and senses.

  Barbara, he thought again, and her name sounded like the haunting echo of some half-remembered melody. Little Barbara,

  grown overnight into a woman.

  He was still thinking about her when he fell asleep.

  ‘I’m worried, Ralph,’ Amy said.

  She could not sleep either, drowsy though she had been when they retired to bed. Then she had been lulled by wine and good food and the warmth, both physical and spiritual, which had been generated by the family gathering around the fire. Now, in the quiet of their bedroom, all the tiny pinpricks of anxiety which she had felt during the day yet been able to ignore gathered their forces to nag her into wakefulness.

  ‘What’s that?’ Ralph grunted. He was half asleep already, partly buried under the blankets.

  ‘Barbara and Huw. Haven’t you seen the way they’ve been looking at one another all day?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well they have. I know Barbara has always adored Huw but this was different. And he was looking at her as if he had never seen her before.’

  ‘You’re imagining things,’ Ralph muttered. He disliked Amy’s habit of suddenly launching into full-scale discussions just when he was on the point of going to sleep; it was one of the few things about her that irritated him.

  ‘I hope so,’ Amy said. ‘If there was anything between them I don’t know what I’d do. Do you think perhaps we ought to have been more – well, open about things?’

  Even now, though there were no secrets between them, there were certain subjects that were never mentioned. Too painful, perhaps, they had been consigned to the background of life, accepted and forgotten.

  ‘You’re worrying about nothing, Amy,’ Ralph said, turning over and humping the blankets with him.

  ‘I don’t know. I really don’t know.’

  ‘Well, there is nothing you can do about it tonight. Worry about it if and when the time comes. Which I don’t think for one moment it will,’ Ralph advised testily. ‘And now, for heaven’s sake, let’s get some sleep.’

  Two minutes later and he was snoring gently so Amy could say no more. But it was a long time, all the same, before she too fell asleep.

  Chapter Six

  At the beginning of February Margaret decided she was fit enough to have Elaine and Marie under her roof again and nothing Harry could say would make her change her mind.

  ‘They can’t stay with Mum for ever,’ she argued. ‘It was never meant to be anything but a temporary arrangement and she’s not a young woman to have all the extra work and worry. She’s already wearing herself to a frazzle for the war effort.’

  ‘She’s not the only one,’ Harry said pointedly, but Margaret refused to listen.

  ‘They are my responsibility. It’s not fair to push them onto her.’

  ‘It’s darned unfortunate they aren’t among the ones who have gone home,’ Harry said. As the weeks had passed and no threatened air raids had materialised one after another of the evacuees had returned to London. But Elaine and Marie had not been amongst them. Their mother seemed more than content for them to be off her hands and apart from the occasional letter which was so badly addressed that Margaret was amazed the Post Office was able to deliver it and a small parcel at Christmas they had heard nothing from her.

  ‘I don’t mind having them really,’ Margaret had said stubbornly. ‘It’s not as if I’m at work now and it gives me something to keep me occupied.’

  Harry sighed. It was true that being idle did not suit Margaret. The school board at Sanderley had already appointed a new teacher to take her place before she had had her accident and regretfully the Head had told her it was too late for her to withdraw her notice. But Harry could not imagine that Margaret would have any difficulty finding a new post if she were to look for one. She was an excellent teacher and highly thought of by all who knew her. But she was making no efforts in that direction.

  It could be of course that she did not feel up to it, Harry thought. Although Dr Carter had said she had made a marvellous recovery physically, he knew she was still grieving for the baby she had lost. But he could not help feeling this was not the only reason for her preferring to stay at home.

  Since the day when their mother had failed to arrive on the ‘Parents Special’train to visit them, Margaret had become more and more protective towards Elaine and Marie and Harry suspected she was channelling some of her own loss and grief into becoming a surrogate mother.

  The thought worried him. If she expended too much love on them she would end up by being hurt again for the day would inevitably come when they would return home to their own family, unsatisfactory as it might be. But try telling that to Margaret! She would only snap his nose off and say he was being ridiculous. Since the accident she seemed to snap all too readily.

  The answer would be to start another baby of their own, of course, but it was much too early to think of that, Dr Carter had said.

  So the children returned and Margaret devoted herself to looking after them and helping them to settle down – a mammoth task which meant she often looked tired and worried though she constantly denied that there was any problem.

  One of the things she persuaded them to do was to join the GFS – the Girls Friendly Society – which met every Tuesday in the Church Hall. At first Elaine was prone to complain that the singing games they played were ‘silly’and the first aid lessons ‘boring’, but they went along with surprisingly little argument and wore their badges pinned to their jumpers with something suspiciously like reluctant pride.

  They were at GFS one evening in early March when Harry came home, later than usual, from a meeting of the Urban District Council. Harry had been a councillor now for more than three years and a member of the Labour Party for a great many more. In fact his dedication to politics had been the reason for the change of direction in his career. He had been all set to become the youngest colliery manager in the district when Sir Richard Spindler had called him to his office one day and issued what had been in effect an ultimatum – leave the Labour Party and take promotion, remain in it and see the chances pass him by. The interview had made Harry furious for he could not see that his politics had any bearing on his ability to do his job well, but Sir Richard had been adamant. The Labour Party was the enemy of management and if Harry persisted with what Sir Richard referred to as ‘this political nonsense’he
could not be considered to be serving the best interests of the colliery company. Harry had told him in no uncertain terms that he would not compromise his principles and left with the sick certainty that all the hard work he had put into passing his examinations had been in vain. Then, just when he was feeling at his lowest, Tom Heron, the Miners’Agent, had been forced by a heart attack into early retirement and Harry had applied successfully to succeed him. He enjoyed the new challenge for now he was able to use all his knowledge and expertise to the very end which had always most concerned him getting a better deal for the men who worked the narrow Somerset seams – and it also left him free to work for the community in other ways. When he was elected to the council as one of the ‘Labour Six’, he quickly proved his worth and it was not only the people he represented but also his fellow councillors who were privately convinced that Harry Hall would go far.

  Since the war had started Council meetings had been held in the afternoons – to save having to buy blackout for the Council Chamber had been the official reason, but since the blackout had appeared anyway Harry had the sneaking feeling that the change had been pushed through by some of the members who preferred to miss half a day’s work and be paid for it rather than having to give up an evening of their own time once a month.

  Today, the meeting had gone on longer than it sometimes did thanks mainly to Eddie Roberts who had objected strenuously to one of the resolutions and Harry was still fuming as he sat at the table watching Margaret resurrect the plate of dinner which she had put back over a saucepan of water on the stove to keep warm for him.