Storm Clouds Over Broombank

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘What is this then?’ Jeffrey Ellis jovially teased. ‘Secrets?’

  ‘Not any more. Connie has done me the honour of agreeing to become my wife,’ Joe announced, very properly, and there was a small shocked silence, then everyone started to talk at once, and laugh and slap him on the back.

  ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘Well done.’

  Meg found herself hugging her father and wishing him every happiness. And to her own surprise realised that she meant it. ‘I hope you will be very happy, both of you,’ she said, dutifully kissing Connie on the cheek.

  If only Tam was here, she thought suddenly, the aching need for him so strong that she had to turn away and pretend to busy herself with pouring more punch so that she didn’t make a complete fool of herself. He would be home soon, they all would. Charlie and his young bride. Kath. And Jack?

  Mr Ellis made a toast. ‘To absent friends and loved ones. May they return to us soon.’ He half glanced at his wife but Rosemary only sipped at the bland punch with pursed lips, almost as if it might poison her.

  It was a day of happiness. Songs were sung, jokes told, reminiscences exchanged. Nothing was permitted to spoil it. After the Ellises left, the other ladies sat and drank tea while the men swopped war stories and the children stayed up far too late.

  After a while Meg crept up to her room to read her letter. ‘Darling Meg,’ it began, and she gave a grunt of disbelief. How could Kath so address her, just as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed between them? She smoothed out the paper and prepared herself for the worst. The words spun and blurred before her eyes so that she was forced to close them for a moment to bring her jangled emotions back under control.

  I know you will be delighted for me when I tell you that Wade and I got married last Saturday. We still have some months to do before we are demobbed but hope to be out late next year. It is our plan to go to Canada since Wade has a home and family there. I’ll write again with a date.

  I would like to see Melissa. How is she? I know it must have been difficult for you but we can talk about what I owe you later. Perhaps it would be best if we took her out occasionally, when we are finally demobbed, to let her get to know us a bit first. Look forward to seeing you again.

  All my love, as ever, Kath

  Meg sat rigid on her bed and read the letter again. She read it three times before the contents had finally been assimilated into her brain.

  Kath was coming for Lissa.

  And for the first time a small knot of burning anger lit deep within. Owe? What I owe you. How dare she suggest that Meg should be paid for loving and caring for Lissa? The insult of it was humiliating, as if you could buy love. And the calm assumption that Kath could call and collect Lissa, like a doll, and take her out for a walk. Well, Lissa wasn’t a doll, Meg thought rebelliously. She was a living, breathing person with a mind of her own.

  Yet Kath was the child’s mother. She had the right to take her if she wanted.

  Folding the letter with trembling fingers, Meg put it into her handkerchief box. She didn’t want Lissa to find it. Not until she’d had time to prepare her.

  But how did you prepare a five year old to meet a mummy she has never seen? A stranger who is coming to take her to a faraway country?

  How did Meg begin to prepare herself for the shock of losing this beloved child? She lay down upon the bed, every muscle, every limb shaking. She mustn’t cry. She mustn’t let anyone, Lissa most of all, see that she had been crying.

  ‘Oh, Tam. Please come home soon. I need you.’

  A day or two later Meg called upon Kath’s parents. Rosemary received her in the kitchen. No cosy fireside chairs in the drawing room on this occasion. There was a coolness between them these days, all signs of their original friendship quite gone.

  Meg laid the letter out on the table. ‘I thought you might wish to see this.’

  Rosemary glanced fiercely at the letter, without touching it, then turned away to reach for the kettle. Jeffrey walked in at that moment, picked it up and took it to his chair at the head of the table to read it in silence.

  ‘I wondered if you would want to see her, when she comes?’ Meg said.

  ‘Why would we?’ Rosemary said, filling the kettle with a fast jet of water. ‘She hasn’t troubled to keep in touch all these years.’

  Meg swallowed. Whatever her personal quarrel with Kath, this she knew to be unfair. ‘Did you give her reason to think such contact would be welcomed?’

  Rosemary sniffed disdainfully. ‘She made her choice years ago. And she chose not to come home. Best to leave it at that.’

  Meg met Jeffrey’s bleak gaze. ‘You could make things change, if you wanted to. Put the past behind you, as we all must with many things that have happened during this war. You could welcome your daughter home.’ She made no mention of Lissa. Meg could not have borne to hear Lissa criticised simply for existing.

  Rosemary set the kettle carefully on the solid fuel cooker and started to set out blue and white kitchen cups and saucers. ‘Katherine brought shame upon us all with her dreadful behaviour. For a time I could not bear to go out, to look my friends in the face. I have no wish to go through all of that again.’

  ‘Have you heard from her?’

  Rosemary looked uncomfortable and Jeffrey glanced at his wife in surprise. ‘You have, haven’t you?’

  ‘There was a letter, last year. And another a day or two ago. I burned them both unread. It’s for the best,’ she cried, when she saw her husband’s devastated expression.

  ‘Oh, Rosemary. How could you do such a thing?’

  ‘She intends to go overseas, to Canada,’ Meg said. ‘You might never see her again. Don’t you care?’

  Rosemary tightened her lips in the familiar way and began to pleat and unpleat her fingers. ‘It’s best not to open up old wounds.’

  ‘Perhaps so,’ said Jeffrey cautiously, seeing how agitated his wife was becoming. ‘Let things lie, for the moment.’

  ‘She says she wants Lissa.’ Meg made the announcement, unable to hold back her fears any longer.

  They both stared at her, the one with compassion, the other uncomprehending of her distress.

  Jeffrey Ellis reached out and squeezed Meg’s hand. ‘She is the child’s mother. I suppose she has that right.’

  ‘No! She doesn’t. Lissa is my child now. I have brought her up. I was the one who nursed her when she was sick. I was the one she came to for love and understanding, the one who taught her to read, fed her, bathed her, took her to school that first day. She is mine!’

  Only the sound of the humming kettle coming to the boil could be heard in the small kitchen.

  Jeffrey Ellis clasped his hands in his lap and stared down at them in misery. ‘There’s nothing I can do, Meg. Much as I would like to, I can’t help you with this one.’

  She ran from the room.

  The following months were the longest in Meg’s life. Waiting for another letter from Kath. Waiting for Tam to come home. Waiting to hear if Jack was alive. Always waiting.

  Fortunately they were busy with the clipping and harvesting, and her tired body made sure that she slept.

  The war with Japan ended in August 1945, but then a long winter crawled by before Tam came home on his last leave in March of the following year. Meg fell into his arms with relief. The joy of having him with her was enough to banish all other concerns from her mind, at least for a while.

  ‘When will you be demobbed?’

  ‘In just a few weeks,’ he promised, kissing her.

  ‘Then I shan’t ever let you go away again.’

  ‘I shan’t ever want to.’ They lay together in the big bed in her parents old panelled room, and if they slept at all that night Meg had no recollection of it. It felt so good to be held in his arms again. She loved to taste the sweetness of his lips and relish the scent of his skin against her own. All their past quarrels seemed silly now. She couldn’t think of anything
that she would let come between them. Not ever again.

  Joe and Connie’s wedding took place at the little dale church on a perfect spring day. The sun shone, bees droned and the song thrush sang its heart out. The woodlands that enfolded the tiny church flowed with gentian and silver pools of bluebells and garlic flower.

  They should by rights be working of course. But for today all was celebration. A respite of much needed joy.

  Charlie had come home on leave with his own young wife, Sue, looking flushed and excited over the discovery that she was pregnant. Meg held Charlie tight in her arms till the tears rolled over her cheeks and dampened the collar on her new dress. ‘There were times when I never thought we’d see this day,’ she said, rummaging for her handkerchief up her sleeve.

  ‘Oh, fickle-hearted woman. I never doubted it,’ boasted Charlie, but his eyes and the strength of his hug told a different story. ‘I’ll be demobbed soon,’ he said, but then, casting a glance at the keenly attentive Joe, drew in a deep breath.

  ‘Might as well own up to it now, Father. I won’t be coming back to Ashlea. I’ve got a job lined up in the aircraft industry. A good one too.’

  Meg held her breath as she waited for Joe’s response.

  ‘Aye, just as well. I don’t reckon your sister would welcome you back here. Place is crowded enough already and you know how she likes to be in charge.’

  They all laughed then, releasing the tension. Perhaps the war had taught Joe something too. Or Sally Ann had asserted a greater influence upon him over the years than even he realised.

  His daughter-in-law came to kiss him, the only one who dared do so without fear of being rebuffed.

  The wedding went off smoothly. The bride and groom looked suitably happy. Lissa, prettily dressed as a flower girl in lemon seersucker, carried a basket of buttercups and daisies made up by Hetty, as was the bride’s posy of yellow iris and sweet-scented orchids. Nick and little Daniel were page boys, though not without some protest at the bow ties.

  The happy couple were planning a prolonged stay in Connie’s house at Grange-Over-Sands, by way of honeymoon and convalescence for Joe. They were being taken by taxi to the station, at Charlie’s expense, as a treat.

  ‘We’ve got our minds set on a nice little bungalow by the sea,’ Joe said.

  ‘Bungalow?’ Meg’s eyes widened. ‘You’re not thinking of retiring, are you, Father?’

  ‘Aye, I thought happen I might. Doc MacClaren seems to think it a good idea. It’s a touch warmer down Grange way and it suits Connie better.’

  She folded her hands possessively upon his arm. ‘Your father isn’t as young as he was, Meg, and that stroke was a bit of a shock to him.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that it was,’ Meg agreed, finding the thought of Joe Turner retired hard to assimilate.

  ‘I thought we’d take a place with a bit of ground. Just enough for a dozen sheep,’ he explained, and everyone laughed at Connie’s shocked expression.

  ‘Sheep?’

  ‘Aye. To keep lively like.’

  ‘That’s more like it, lad,’ said Will Davies. ‘Farmers never retire. Not properly.’

  ‘Well,’ said Connie, but in a tone that meant she was prepared to concede defeat on that one.

  ‘Thee can manage the farm without me, I suppose?’ Joe said dryly to Meg. ‘I seem to remember you wanted me out of the way all along.’

  ‘That’s not true. I just wanted my own bit of independence. A place in life of my own,’ she protested.

  ‘Aye, well, I reckon you’ve got it.’

  Had she? Right now it didn’t seem as if she had anything of her own. The home that she’d struggled so hard to buy had been bombed. Old loyalties and ties with the past prevented her from marrying the man she loved. And her lovely Lissa was to be taken from her by the end of the year. Not exactly what she’d had in mind when she’d pleaded for an independent life all those years ago.

  Everyone stood and cheered as Connie climbed into the taxi, tossing scraps of confetti into the wind.

  Joe came to Meg where she stood quietly, in the porch of Ashlea, before going to join his bride. ‘We’ll be off then,’ he said.

  ‘Bye, Father. Be happy.’

  Joe cleared his throat. ‘We’ve had our differences in the past, you and I’

  Meg couldn’t help but smile. ‘You could say so.’

  ‘Aye, well, sometimes a lass has to be kept in place. It’s just that you were harder to keep to it than most.’

  ‘A chip off the old block maybe?’

  ‘Aye, happen so.’ He turned to go then seemed to hesitate. ‘Broombank is yours and always will be. I’ll acknowledge I didn’t win that one.’

  Meg tried to look happy about that.

  ‘But Ashlea is for Dan’s boys. I haven’t persuaded Jeffrey Ellis to sell me the freehold yet, but he will when I’ve had time to work on him. You have to appreciate that.’

  Meg met his gaze steadily. ‘I’ve already said as much, haven’t I?’

  ‘I just wanted it understood.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘That chap of thine wanted me to lend you money for the rebuilding. I told him no. I need it for me own retirement. I’m not made of brass.’

  Meg froze. ‘Tam had no right to do that.’

  ‘Aye, well, he happen thought you wouldn’t have the guts to ask me theeself.’

  ‘It’s not a question of guts. I don’t need your money, Father. You helped me with the mortgage payments when I was ill, for which I am truly grateful. But I’ve nearly paid you all that back now, so I’ll manage on my own, thanks very much. As for Broombank, I intend to take the problem to the War Committee. It’s not my fault a German plane unloaded its bombs on my house by accident. So it’s not my place to put the roof back. The Government can do it.’

  ‘Pigs might fly!’

  Meg straightened her back and a light came into her eyes, one that Joe couldn’t help but admire. ‘Oh, they’ll do it all right.’

  He gave a shout of laughter. ‘Mebbe they will when they come face to face with your stubbornness. Happen I were wrong, all them years ago. Happen you’re the best son I’ve ever had.’

  Meg gasped and took an instinctive step towards him but he turned quickly and climbed into the taxi, waving to his family and friends as it drove away.

  ‘Did you hear what he said?’ Meg asked Sally Ann. ‘Did you hear?’

  Sally Ann laughed as she linked an arm in Meg’s. ‘Perhaps he’s seen the truth at last.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  1946

  Meg and Tam had separated the lambs from their mothers and the ewes were now being pushed through the dipping trough. The clean warm water was well laced with the necessary chemicals to kill the keds and mites that would damage and possibly kill the sheep if left to fester and grow undisturbed.

  It was an unpleasant operation, disliked by shepherd and sheep alike, particularly on a hot August day like this.

  Tam pushed them through one at a time while Meg held each head under water with a bristleless brush for a few moments, whilst trying to keep the sheep’s mouth closed to stop it swallowing the stuff.

  ‘What a way to spend my leave. How many sheep do you have now?’ Tam asked as they stopped for a breather and Meg grinned. ‘Not counting Ashlea sheep which I’m also taking care of at the moment, near five hundred.’

  Tam gaped at her. ‘And I thought you were a poor woman.’

  ‘I would be without you,’ she said. ‘It’s been hard building up the flock but I never thought for a moment that I wouldn’t do it. One day, sooner than you think, I mean to have twice that. That will be a day to celebrate, eh?’

  ‘Looks like everything is going right for you at last.’

  In some respects,’ she murmured.

  ‘I’m proud of you, Meg. You’ve done what you set out to do. To own the finest flock in the district. It humbles a mere man to see your success.’

  She looked at him in surprise then gave a shout of laughter an
d struck at him with the brush in playful disbelief. ‘You were never humbled in your life, Tam O’Cleary, and certainly not by a woman. What blarney you do talk.’ And grinning broadly he pulled her to him.

  ‘Sure and I’d take you here and now on this damn hillside were it not for the fact that you stink to high heaven.’

  ‘Get off with you.’ Content with each other, catching glances and smiles as they worked, they put the next sheep through the deep pool and chuckled with sympathy as it stood on the side afterwards, miserably dripping and shaking itself while the surplus dip ran back into the trough.

  ‘You’d think yourself too grand to wed a poor Irishman now, I suppose?’ Tam called across to her.

  Meg lost her grip on the poor sheep she was holding so that it very nearly escaped a proper ducking, until she bethought herself and recaptured it.

  ‘You choose your moments to ask,’ she said. ‘How romantic, to be proposed to over a sheep-dipping trough.’

  ‘When are you not with your precious sheep?’

  ‘There have been other times when you’ve had my undivided attention. Perhaps you would care to repeat your offer then.’

  ‘Huh. Take it or leave it now, Meg Turner. I’m not a man to beg.’

  ‘I never thought you would ask me again,’ she said quietly, suddenly nervous in case he didn’t mean it. ‘After me refusing you once already.’

  ‘If you don’t know a good thing when it’s offered, the more fool you. But then, as I said, you’ll be thinking yourself too grand perhaps, for the likes of me.’

  ‘Do you want to be dipped in this pool, Thomas O’Cleary?’

  Tam backed away. ‘Indeed I don’t.’

  Meg put back her head and called out in a clear, ringing voice: ‘Carry my words, wind, to anyone who cares to listen. I love this man, Tam O’Cleary, and he is to be my man for all time.’ She looked at him then, at the broad strength of his shoulders as he casually lifted a sheep and tossed it into the water, at the warmth in his soft green eyes, the curl of his smiling mouth. Oh, how she loved him. ‘All mine. To have and to hold from this day forth. Is that right, Tam?’