by Angela Huth
Stella was coming back to the table, cocooned in more applause. She was smiling, sparkling, one hand on the white skin visible above the low white Peter Pan collar of her red dress.
Dear God, Joe said to himself, here she was: how could it have happened that she’d been under his nose all this time and he’d never thought twice about her? From time to time he had reflected on the flirtatiousness of Prue, the gentle melancholy of Ag, the kindness of Stella – but it had not occurred to him that any of them was destined for him. Unlike Robert, he had never tried to envisage the perfect girl. He didn’t believe she existed, he used to say. Or if she did, well – he’d recognize her when she appeared.
He recognized her now.
He stood up.
‘Was I all right? You didn’t mind, Joe, did you?’
‘You were very good. They loved you.’
He sat down again, not daring to put out a hand, not daring to touch her. He did not even dare to smile, lest he should give himself away.
Someone handed Stella a glass of wine with the landlord’s compliments. As Joe sat watching her modestly accepting congratulations, revelling in her success, he tried to fathom what it was that gripped him with such physical force it was all he could do to breathe normally. Time, that night, was a smashed globe too complicated to reconstruct. But at some point an explanation of his feelings came to him, blindingly: certainty. Ag’s words, he remembered. I felt such certainty, such conviction, that here was my other half, or whatever the silly phrase is, that in some strange way my life changed absolutely from that day on … She was a wise old thing, Ag. He hadn’t understood at the time. He did now. This was certainty, all right. This was certainty as he had never known it. This was iron conviction, this was light from heaven, this was something so utterly devastating that, on return to the real world, it would take all his strength to hide.
‘Is there anything the matter, Joe?’ The sweetness of Stella’s voice … why had it not reached him before? He cursed the lack of poetry in his soul, longing for words he knew did not exist. Like a man bemused, he kept on looking at her, unable to answer.
‘I’m just a farmer,’ he said at last.
Stella laughed. ‘Farmer Joe! You’ve had several glasses of wine, Farmer Joe. I think it’s time we were going home.’
He could not blame her for thinking him intoxicated. On the walk home, under the arc of freezing stars, he kept his distance. Had not the extraordinary thing happened to him in The Bells, and had he still felt about Stella as he had only an hour ago, he would have taken her arm in polite, friendly fashion. Now, fear of the slightest physical contact was too great. In the silent night he tried to deflect his thoughts by imagining a ghostly gas balloon in their path: their entering it and soaring up to the heavens to the music of its flames … Christ, Stella was right about the wine. Perhaps he was suffering merely an alcoholic fantasy. All the same, having opened the back door, he moved quickly away for Stella to pass, making sure even their coats should not brush.
‘That was such fun,’ she said in the hall. ‘I haven’t sung for months. Thank you for taking me.’
So young, so careless, she sounded. Sometimes, at the end of a long day’s work, Joe now remembered, Stella was subdued as well as dreamy. She ran up the stairs. In the wake of her smile he thought she looked happier than she had for some weeks. But then, completely sober, he remembered that a mind diseased – whether by good or evil – plays tricks. And the possessed lover – what he now felt himself to be – sees what he most desires to see, and foolishly sets store upon it.
Joe gave up all hope of sleep that night. He sat in his room, cold, battered, perplexed, entranced. He put his favourite Brahms clarinet quintet on the gramophone to calm himself. But when the first side of the record was finished, he found himself too preoccupied to turn it over and wind the machine. So he sat in his chair in silence, cogitating upon unconsciously stored pictures of the girl who had blasted his senses: Stella the dreamy one, Stella crying in the orchard over her boyfriend’s letter, Stella surprising them all with her extraordinary dancing, Stella the modest, helpful, quietly cheering one, so kind to Janet … then Stella this evening, casting a spell over a crowd of strangers with those two wistful songs. Why had her perfection not come to him before? The Lord is devious in his revelations, he thought. He keeps a man in the darkness of no expectation, then sends light blindingly. Joe had never expected what he had always regarded as impossible – the force of certain love so great that it changes all perceptions. If he had believed such a thing existed, beyond the poets’ imaginations, he would never have committed the treacherous deed of proposing to the wretched Janet. That was the most unaccountable act of his life, he now reflected, lethargically committed in a moment of misplaced desire to please his parents. And now what could he do?
Nothing. There was nothing to be done. Go ahead and marry the unlovable Janet. Carry on as if nothing had happened. Keep his word. And yet, knowing what he now knew, would that be humanly possible?
Joe pulled back the blackout to watch the first silvery snail-tracks of light trail across the sky. He’d read his Byron: he knew the necessity of keeping a hopeless love secret. His priority must be not to burden Stella with the knowledge of his feelings. She was in love with Philip … wasn’t she? Her feelings for Joe were of friendship, nothing more. To make any indication of the chaotic sentiments within him would be unfair, unwanted. All he could do would be to try to come to terms with the agony caused by such mistiming, to attempt to quell fears and desires. After the war, or whenever Stella and the others left the farm, he would have to try to forget. Forget …? He fumbled among a pile of clothes for his working things. How could it be possible to forget an event as important in its mystery as birth, as death? Joe began to hurry. He wanted to get the cows in before Stella came down. He wanted her to find them all in the shed when she arrived, to surprise. He wanted his first act for her in his new state to be as soon as possible. He smiled grimly to himself, thinking it was hardly a romantic notion, herding the cows. But there was no alternative. Surely she would be as pleased with waiting cows as with red roses …
Soon after four o’clock Joe crept downstairs.
The magic of change in ordinary things, brought about by the existence of another human being, acted with a power, that day, that Joe found as moving as it was remarkable. As the extraordinary hours shifted in their new form he realized, in wonder, what he had been missing until now, and was humbled. The change, he observed, touched everything. It was a heightening of the world that the poets and writers of loves songs are inspired to convey – whether through genius or trite skills – in coded words only understandable to those in a state of love. Nowhere was too lowly for its reach. The kitchen – the kitchen he had known all his life – was almost unrecognizable because at any moment Stella was about to appear. He had found the cowshed, the fields, the farmyard, all equally unfamiliar. He sensed a kind of static in the air, a trembling of solid things, a feeling of glorious hallucination. And the exhilaration of the new feelings, he quickly realized, was an illness both of body and mind. He trembled as he planned how to cross Stella’s path many times during the day without arousing her suspicions.
Suddenly, he could not bear to continue his wait in the kitchen. He was not yet ready to deal with the proximity its size would force upon them. He hurried out to the cowshed, forced himself to concentrate on work. He had already started to milk Nancy, the oldest of the herd, when Stella came in.
‘Joe! You beat me to it. You shouldn’t have – my treat was yesterday.’
Joe kept his head against Nancy’s flanks, not looking at her. He felt her hand, for an infinitesimal moment, on his shoulder.
‘I woke early. Thought I might as well get going.’
‘Well, thanks. I’ll start the other end.’
Joe allowed himself a glance at her retreating boots. His fingers shook against Nancy’s teats. I’m a crazed man … It was far from an unpleasant feeling.
/> As he listened to the whine of milk shooting into the bucket, and struggled once more for calm, he became aware of a certain sense of objectivity. By the time he rose, the bucket full of warm froth, and glanced down the cowshed for a glimpse of Stella’s head leaning against the infinitely fortunate Belinda, he realized there were now two look-out posts within him: one with which to observe Stella at every possible moment; the other to study his own peculiar behaviour.
That evening Prue and Ag returned. For different reasons they were both in high spirits. After supper there was a merry reunion in the attic, a chance for private news.
‘Nice, quiet Christmas with my father,’ said Ag, ‘but … this. Waiting for me.’
She held out a Christmas card for the others to examine. It was an ink drawing of Trinity College under snow. Inside, under the printed wishes, was the signature Desmond.
‘I couldn’t believe it,’ smiled Ag. ‘I still can’t. In the train I kept taking it out of my bag and looking at it. It must mean, surely, he hasn’t quite forgotten me, don’t you think? It must mean something.’
‘Well,’ said Prue, her attention not entirely on Ag, ‘look what I got!’ She rustled among tissue paper in her case, pulled out a dress of ruby velvet with a white fur collar.
‘My mum found this old curtain material in a market, ran it up for me. Isn’t it just heavenly? She swears the fur is rabbit: I say it’s ermine. It’s the most beautiful dress I ever saw …’ She held it up in front of herself, danced about the room glancing in various small looking-glasses as she passed. ‘When can I wear it? That’s the only problem.’
‘New Year’s Eve,’ said Stella. ‘Joe’s asked his friend Robert to supper. There’s the Red Cross dance you could go to.’
Prue’s face relighted. ‘Gosh! How about that? I’ve been thinking … Barry’s time is up. Maybe this Robert … What about you, Stella? How was it having the beautiful Janet in my bed?’
‘We had a quiet time. Nothing much happened. I enjoyed it. I sang in The Bells one night.’
‘You didn’t!’ Prue laughed. She curled up on her bed, hugging her dress, rubbing the fur against her cheek, childlike. ‘It was so strange going home, you know. Did you find that, Ag? So small. Noisy, our street, too: funny how I’d never noticed that before. Lovely being with Mum, of course. She said, Prue, what on earth’s happened to your hands? I said, you try mucking out Sly and keeping your hands in good shape, Mum. I rather missed Sly, actually, though I didn’t tell her that. Anyway, she gave me a shampoo and set. Very odd, with a proper basin and dryer and everything again. Took some getting used to. Funny thing is, I’m quite glad to be back. What about you, Ag?’
Ag murmured agreement. She was concentrating on arranging her Christmas card on the chair by the bed. She found a position which allowed her, from her pillow, to see Desmond’s signature. When the lights were out she secretly kissed the card, just as Stella used to kiss her photograph of Philip. That, Ag noticed, had been moved to the chest of drawers.
On New Year’s Eve, Robert arrived promptly at seven for supper. Just a year older than Joe, he looked like a man of thirty who had suffered illness all his life. He was small, thin, cowered over a concave chest. There were bluish shadows under deep eyes, and his skin had a pale, skimmed look that made it hard to believe he spent most of his life in the open.
The girls, curious about Joe’s friend, arrived in sparkling line to shake his bony hand in turn. Prue had insisted on being the last. She wore her new dress, had curled her eyelashes into spikes of unbelievable length.
‘I’ll give you a kiss, too, Robert,’ she said, ‘seeing as it’s New Year’s Eve,’ and his arms went round her in automatic response.
Later, she told the others, she fell for Robert as soon as her mouth touched his deathly cheek. The attraction was mutual. Prue concentrated her full attention on him during supper, fluttering the absurd lashes, her dimples and pouts working overtime. Too preoccupied to offer any help, she smiled, duchess-like, as Stella and Ag acted as waitresses. Supper over, she and Robert left at once for the Red Cross dance.
‘So that’s worked,’ said Joe, smiling at Ag. ‘I thought it might. No more Barry. Hope Robert enjoys himself.’
‘Really, Joe,’ said Mrs Lawrence, a note of wistfulness beneath her stern look. ‘It’s a very unlikely match. What could a girl like Prue give Robert?’
‘Fun,’ said Joe. ‘Nothing wrong in that, for a time.’ He felt the strength of one to whom the emptiness of mere fun, nothing else, is a thing long past.
Stella and Ag sat with the Lawrences listening to the wireless, waiting for Big Ben to strike twelve. They raised their glasses to each other, conveyed polite formal wishes – but were not the sort of people to seal those wishes with random kisses. This was a relief to Joe. The proximity of Stella this evening – beautiful, a little subdued – was both an ecstasy and a torment. His own, private wish for the New Year, as he raised his glass briefly in the direction of the girl who had ungrounded his life, was for strength.
Chapter 10
Prue, alone in the cowshed, no one around to complain, was taking her chance to sing.
If you want to go to heaven when you die
Wear a pair of khaki breeches and a tie.
Wear an old felt bonnet with WLA on it
If you want to go to heaven when you die …
She was doing her best to whitewash the battered walls. Bloody awful job, but at least better than carting loads of mangolds down to the cows, like Ag. Or harnessing the stubborn Noble, like Stella. They would have rain gushing down their necks, sodden hair, soaking wool gloves. It had been raining hard for the first week of the New Year – Prue had collected enough buckets of rainwater for a month’s hair-washing. Also, it was freezing. Bloody freezing. Prue was the only one of the girls still awaiting a greatcoat. Shortage of cloth for land girls’ coats had still not been overcome: there was no saying when hers would arrive. Mrs Lawrence had made several enquiries to the district commissioner, who held out no hope of a coat in the near future. So Prue had to make do with three jerseys under one of Joe’s old macs, and still the cold cut through her bones.
But Prue had learned as a child that hardship is a challenge. She remembered her mother’s advice: when the going gets tough, remember Winston Churchill. Remember everything you can that he says. He’s an inspiring man. Prue’s mother was given to muttering Now is our finest hour as she strove to overcome the shortage of solution for permanent waves. Now is my finest hour, said Prue to herself, sloshing whitewash over a daunting new area of dirty brick wall. Her arm ached so badly she wanted to cry. But there was no use in crying, or stopping. Mr Lawrence expected the wall to be finished by midday.
Besides, there were thoughts to dwell on that made up for everything: Robert. She and Robert had made a swift start on New Year’s Eve. Half an hour at the Red Cross dance was enough to convince them that his cottage would be a better place in which to celebrate the New Year. Robert had lit the fire and shaken out the rag rug in front of it. He had heated up a tin of soup, and found half a bottle of wine. Thus the setting for her third seduction as a land girl, while not perfect, was both slightly warmer and more comfortable than either the barn or the woods.
Prue found herself much taken by Robert’s shyness. She liked the way he averted his huge, moth-like eyes when, halfway through the revolting soup, she considered it time to stop dilly-dallying, and remove the velvet dress. She laid it on top of the rug, pushing the fur neck into a kind of fairy bolster. For some moments Robert looked so charmingly embarrassed Prue felt herself inclining towards him in a way that immediately alerted her to its inconvenience. Just in time, she remembered that to go falling in love with an anaemic young farmer, penniless to boot, would not fit in with her ultimate calculations. She quickly placed his chilly hand (in all her experience she had never known such icy flesh) on the silken thigh beneath her slip, and was rewarded by an electric reaction.
‘It’s the bombs urge a girl on,’ sh
e said, fluttering lashes winged by three layers of mascara. ‘I’m not forward by nature, but when it comes to a race against the bloody bombs I want to win.’
‘Quite,’ said Robert.
He hastened out of his own clothes while Prue languorously released her stockings from their suspenders, an art she had learned from close study of many film stars. She smiled at the sight of her new lover-to-be’s feet – the smallest, most delicate men’s feet she had ever had the pleasure of observing. Blue-white skin stretched over fine bleached bones. The miniature toes wriggled in the folds of red velvet – crustacean (a word she had recently learned from Ag), somehow, and making Prue giggle. She looked up to see Robert naked but for his watch.
‘Five to twelve,’ he said.
‘And Big Ben ready to strike, I see.’
Prue collapsed into further giggles as Robert lowered himself beside her. As on many previous occasions, she was oblivious of the precise moment of the passing of the old year, but was able to rejoice, very early in the new one, at the presence of a new lover.
Now – the tiresome thought returned to her in the cold of the cowshed – the only thing that had to be tidied up was Barry. She thought of their last meeting – December the tenth. Quite a day for loss, as a matter of fact: Singapore, according to Mr Lawrence, who was a keen listener to the news, and her interest in Barry. She said nothing at the time, just promised she’d be in touch. This new turn of events meant she’d failed to keep her word. Perhaps she would write to him tonight. It wasn’t fair to keep a man mooning about in hope. Hard to know what to say, though.