by S Block
‘Ma! Look out!’
Little Stan’s cry made Steph sit bolt upright. Six figures were coming round the corner right at them. Steph wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left and managed to steer the old tractor around the group without crashing into the hedgerow, bringing it to a stop. She twisted in the seat to look at who she’d so narrowly missed. The group continued along the lane as if nothing had happened. Steph looked at their backs.
Those clothes. Their hats, coats and shoes. The bundles they’re carrying. The way they walk. City folk. But why here?
‘You wanna watch where you’re going, pal!’ Little Stan shouted after them. ‘It’s not a bloody pavement!’
One of the men in the group turned, raised his trilby apologetically, and called back, ‘Sorry!’ before continuing with the others. Steph looked at Little Stan, his puzzled expression matching hers. They each turned back to look at the group, shuffling up the lane.
‘Who are they?’ he asked.
‘I . . . don’t know,’ Steph replied.
‘Where do they come from?’
‘I don’t know that either, but I’m guessing they are city folk.’
She wished he’d stop asking questions to which she didn’t know the answers. All she did know was she felt a strange sense of alarm. Not that the man had been directly threatening in any way, but his presence in her countryside surrounding her village felt like a form of trespass, only with no form of redress.
‘Why are they here?’
‘I don’t know, Stan.’
‘Because of the war?’
‘Let’s just get home, shall we?’
Though they’d seen them in photographs and newsreels, the man in the trilby possessed the first black face either Steph or Little Stan had ever seen in the flesh. She released the brake and pressed her foot hard on the accelerator, wanting to get home as quickly as possible.
As the tractor moved off, Steph glanced nervously behind her at the receding figures, and reminded herself to load the shotgun after supper.
Chapter 16
Teresa thought that what she was looking at should pass for an acceptable-looking stew, but wasn’t completely convinced. She poked at it with a wooden spoon to see if mixing it up would make it look more enticing. It didn’t. If anything it made it look less appetising as it forced the pieces of meat to sink beneath the surface of what she optimistically thought of as ‘the sauce’. As a wedding gift, Alison had filled a school exercise book with recipes for Teresa to try on Nick, with the words ‘nil desperandum’ encouragingly inscribed on the front cover. Teresa had followed the recipe for ‘stew’ to the letter, give or take a couple of ‘clever short cuts’. Though looking at it now in its near-finished state, she wasn’t altogether sure she was looking at what an experienced cook would recognise as ‘stew’.
It’s stew-ish. Nick might not exactly lap up the final product but he’ll give it a go and he can’t fault my effort. I never claimed to be a good cook. In fact, I specifically warned him on several occasions against marrying me on the basis that I’m terrible at it. ‘Caveat emptor,’ I said, many times. So if he doesn’t like it, he’s only himself to blame.
‘Something smells good!’
Teresa turned to see Nick hanging up his overcoat in the hall. She’d been so engrossed in trying to decide if her cooking could be passed off as ‘dinner’ that she hadn’t heard his car pull up, or Nick enter the house.
‘I’ve seen bombardiers staring into their bombsights with less absorption than you’re looking into that pan.’
‘I’m determined to cook something you can keep down. I’ve been at it since I got back from school. What do you think?’
Nick crossed to the stove, placed his arms firmly around Teresa’s waist and looked at her with mock sincerity.
‘I’ll enjoy every mouthful of whatever you make.’
‘Don’t make that sound like a dare because I’ll win without trying.’
‘I’ve never been a husband before. You’ve never been a wife. This is new for both of us. Don’t put pressure on yourself. I have the stomach of an ox.’
‘That’s not quite as encouraging as you think it is.’
Nick leaned forward and kissed her, in part because he wanted to and in part because he wanted to nip Teresa’s self-criticism about her cooking in the bud. It didn’t bother him nearly as much as it bothered her, largely because he usually took the precaution of having something in the officers’ mess before returning home for supper. It allowed him to nourish himself properly until Teresa either got the hang of cooking, or gave up and allowed him to do more of it when he was able. Unlike her, Nick found cooking a relaxing antidote to the grinding stress of his job.
‘How was school?’ he asked.
‘Two more girls asked when I’m going to have a baby.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said, all in good time.’
She kissed him. She loved him. I do love this man very much. So why must Annie’s face appear in my mind’s eye every time I kiss him?
‘I saw a few more of them on the way back from Tabley Wood . . .’
‘Them?’
‘A whole family of blacks making camp in a field just two miles outside the village.’
‘From where?’
‘I assume Liverpool. I mean, you would know better than I would.’
‘You’d know as soon as you heard them speak.’
‘I would. After all, it was one of the first things that drew me to you.’
She smiled. ‘Not sure your mother was as taken with my voice as you were.’
Teresa had always been unapologetic about her rich, knotty Liverpudlian accent, especially with snobs from the south who affected disdain for anything except RP English. With Nick’s parents she turned it up a notch, to his quiet amusement.
‘It isn’t just blacks coming into the countryside,’ she said.
‘Not at all. There have been reports of Londoners leaving the city at night to escape the Blitz. Returning the next morning for work. Liverpool is taking a terrible pasting at the moment, so it makes sense that something similar would happen.’
‘I sometimes feel I should be there.’
‘You didn’t cut and run when the going got tough. You established a life here before the war.’
‘Only just before. Is that what you think they’re doing – cutting and running?’
One of the characteristics Nick most admired about Teresa was her impulse to come to the defence of people under any form of attack. He had learned quickly to tread carefully whenever he heard her voice harden. It meant she was preparing to strike, having first lured him into an admission of intolerance or prejudice.
‘I don’t. But I’ve heard it remarked in the mess.’
‘Going to a shelter or leaving the area – I don’t see the difference. They both amount to not wanting to be blown to pieces, don’t they?’
‘Yes, my darling. They do.’
‘As long as they’re not causing any trouble it’s no one else’s business, if you ask me.’
‘I agree.’
Teresa looked at Nick’s kind, dog-tired face. He had dark rings under his eyes from lack of sleep, and premature wrinkles were beginning to amass at the corners of his eyes from the sapping concern he carried round the clock for the young men under his command. Teresa wanted Nick to come home and completely forget about the RAF station, but knew it was impossible. She wanted home to be a respite. A sanctuary, as Great Paxford had initially been for her.
‘You don’t have to eat the stew if you don’t want to. I won’t be offended.’
‘I want to.’
‘But if it was a choice between this and a ham sandwich – where no cooking is required – which would you rather?’
Nick hesitated for a moment too long for a woman as sharp as her. Teresa nodded resolutely.
‘Ham sandwich it is.’
‘Can’t wait. I’m sure it will be marvellous.’
&n
bsp; Nick smiled and gently kissed her, then went upstairs to change out of his uniform. Teresa listened to him moving around overhead as she prepared his sandwich. As she did so she thought back to her wedding day with Nick – a memorable one for all the wrong reasons. She had wondered if the Spitfire crashing into the house of Great Paxford’s most happily married couple just hours after her marriage to Nick had been an omen or, worse, retribution against what might be perceived as her mockery of one of Catholicism’s sacred institutions. She’d stood on the periphery of the onlookers with growing dread, as Nick and his men dug into the rubble, and carefully disinterred the buried casualties. As they pulled Joyce Cameron, then Bryn, then Miriam out alive, Teresa became convinced that Erica and Will would be drawn dead from the debris as her own, unique punishment. But when Erica was pulled out still breathing, and then Will, and finally the newborn child, Teresa all but broke down with relief. That night, she had held Nick tightly in her arms as he made love to her. When he fell asleep, exhausted from his exertions at the Campbell house and in bed, Teresa lay awake in the dark. She now believed the crash might not have been a punishment, but a brutal warning to take matrimony seriously or suffer the consequences. If God could flick a Spitfire from the sky to teach her a lesson, think what could be unleashed as a full expression of His anger. She had pulled the covers up, and resolved to do her best to make the marriage work. She had taken Nick’s unconscious head in her hands and gently stroked his soft hair, kissing him tenderly, showing God what a good wife she could be.
She’d worked hard at their new life together in the weeks since, throwing herself into domesticity with a fervour that left her shattered by evening. It was difficult to teach in addition to completing all her chores, but she just about managed. Gradually, Teresa began to convince herself she could survive this.
She finished making Nick’s sandwich and looked at it sitting on the plate, perfectly square, the ham visible from all angles, slices of tomato peeking out, and just the right amount of butter and mustard.
If this doesn’t tell You how seriously I’m taking this, I don’t know what will.
As she looked at her work she thought one corner of the sandwich rose higher than the others. She laid her palm flat on the bread and pressed it back into shape, squashing the tomato and ham into conformity. She removed her hand and looked again. The corner was as flat as the others.
Better.
She turned to prepare a cup of tea for Nick, and failed to notice the errant corner slowly rise and return to its previous, awkward prominence. As Teresa filled the kettle, Nick came into the kitchen, crossed to the table, picked up the sandwich and took a large bite.
‘Mmmm . . . lovely . . .’ he said, chewing vigorously. ‘Just the ticket . . .’
Chapter 17
Alison looked out of her kitchen window across the grassland at the end of her garden, towards a forest half a mile away, from where a few trails of smoke rose into the grey, darkening, autumnal sky. While walking Boris in the late afternoon, Alison, like Nick, had seen outsiders making little camps for themselves within the copses that lined the roads and lanes. From the snatched fragments of the strangers’ conversation she could divine they were from Liverpool and the Wirral. She understood why they were here, fleeing the nightly bombing, but she disliked anything that threatened the equilibrium of her life, and against her better nature felt their presence as unwelcome as any uninvited intrusion. She wondered if she felt that more strongly at the moment, following the fiasco at the Barden factory.
The day the Ministry of War closed the factory, Alison’s relationship with Frances broke down completely when Frances – ignorant of the full extent of what had taken place in the factory – told Alison she held her personally responsible for switching to a parachute silk supplier who turned out to be a crooked profiteer. When the Spitfire had crashed into the Campbell house, Alison had stood within the gawping crowd, transfixed by the silhouette of the dead young pilot in the cockpit. While others were silently praying for the survival of those buried, Alison wondered whether the pilot would have been saved even if he had managed to bail out. Or would he have plummeted to the ground, staring up in horror at a defective Barden canopy that had failed to inflate and decelerate his descent.
Though Frances hadn’t made the scandal widely known, Alison nevertheless felt the taint of shame upon her, and retreated into herself, putting the world at arm’s length. She shopped during hours she knew most of the other women of the village did not. She walked Boris at hours other dog walkers seemed to avoid, keeping to less popular paths and back lanes.
Why did the world always find a way of creeping back in? Out of nowhere, strangers were in the vicinity, encroaching on the fringes of her life. As much as she wanted to ignore them, she couldn’t.
Tonight the weather is fine enough and they’re in the forest. But what about tomorrow when it’s raining and the temperature drops? How long before there’s a knock at my door, seeking shelter from the elements? What do I say then? Come in? Go home? Or do I ignore the knock and hope they go away?
Alison drew the curtain across the window, rechecked the bolts across her front door, and sat at the kitchen table with her meagre supper.
She looked down at the chop and mashed swede and potato on the plate. One of the constants of her life was that whenever she ate, no matter what he’d already eaten himself, Boris would always sit up in his bed and look at her expectantly. Alison had learned enough about canine psychology over the years not to encourage his sense of entitlement where her food was concerned. She knew he was primed to want it as well as his own, but didn’t want to encourage his greed. She gave him treats on a random basis so that his expression would always be one of polite enquiry, never that of the beggar.
Alison looked across the floor and, sure enough, Boris was sitting up in his bed looking at her. His patience and his constancy made her feel a surge of affection for her companion. She picked up her knife and fork, slowly cut a portion from her meat ration and placed it in Boris’s bowl along with his biscuits. She had tried to secure offcuts unsuitable for human consumption from Brindsley’s, but David had told her they were hard to come by in rural areas now all their meat came from wholesale distribution centres, and inedible elements went direct to manufacturers.
If Teresa still lived at the cottage she would have prohibited Alison from giving half her ration to her dog. Alison could clearly hear the teacher’s voice scolding her.
‘Are you crackers?! He doesn’t need it, Alison. You do.’
Alison looked guiltily at the slice of meat in the bowl and thought about taking it out.
But he does need it. He’s an old man.
She picked up the bowl and put it on the floor before she could change her mind, and watched Boris look over, lift himself unsteadily from his basket, and amble to the bowl. He was an elderly dog, and yet his eating speed had never withered with age – he still ate like a pig. Within moments the meat and biscuits were gone, and Boris, exhausted by the effort of his jaws and throat to consume his food so fast, staggered back to his bed and flopped back down with a small sigh, as if relieved to have dispensed with the labour of eating for another day.
Alison picked up her own plate, carried it to the table and sat down. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and felt the empty evening stretch out in front of her like a daily challenge of endurance. She braced herself to get through the hours ahead and reach her bed without feeling lower than she currently did.
One day this business with Frances will pass, and everything can be as it was.
She cut off a piece of potato and put it into her mouth. As she chewed she reviewed her own fortitude in the face of difficulty. From her late twenties, since her husband George’s death at the end of the Great War, Alison had trained herself to be able to tolerate her own company. As a young widow, if anyone questioned how much time she spent alone, she would routinely dispel their concerns by expressing an active preference for solitude. The r
eality was that solitude had been forced upon her, as it had been forced upon every war widow without children to fall back on for love, company and distraction. That had been the case right up until Teresa had come to lodge with her. But Teresa had come and gone.
Without me, would she have gone at all? All ‘that’ talk. All her doubts about marriage. Secrets are a part of life. We learn to bury them, the same as we learn everything else required to fit in. No one in the village knows George and I were never actually married. That his wife wouldn’t divorce him. We lived as man and wife so everyone believed we were. I taught Teresa the importance of appearing like every other couple in Great Paxford. Without me she would have succumbed to her fears, and missed out on a wonderful marriage to a wonderful man. Isn’t she happy now?
Alison turned and looked at Boris, now curled up and lightly snoring. She smiled.
‘We’re fine, aren’t we, boy?’ she said quietly. The loneliness she feared would come back following Teresa’s departure had swiftly taken up residence. Alison had been surprised how quickly she had re-embraced it, like a bad habit.
What choice do I have? Get on with it.
She briefly wondered what Teresa might be doing now, at home with Nick. Eating supper together. Reading together. Listening to the wireless. Going for walks. As indeed she and George used to during the only days she could recall when she had experienced true happiness.
Alison looked down at her plate and calculated how long she could stretch out her modest supper.
An hour might be a stretch. Perhaps not. An hour and it will be dark. Then bed.
Chapter 18
Joyce sat in her armchair with her eyes closed, listening to the rattle of Bob’s typewriter. Once it had been established that the Simms were not going to be able to return to their house, Joyce had offered to house Pat and Bob in her home while they sorted out a new place to live. This made sense to Joyce in three ways.