Storm Clouds Over Broombank

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘That’s right, my lovely.’

  The following Saturday, when Meg went out to do the morning milking she found Jack sitting on the doorstep.

  A wind was gathering the black clouds over Bowfell to Fairfield, like an impatient farmer with his flock. The chill feel of a storm in the air echoed in the beating of Meg’s heart.

  ‘Jack?’

  He was sitting with his head resting on folded arms, raised his head, blinked, and focused sleep-dulled eyes upon her. ‘Where have you been?’ he complained. ‘I’ve been waiting here for hours.’

  She was taken aback for the moment. ‘It’s only six o’clock in the morning. Why didn’t you come in? The door was unlocked.’

  ‘I didn’t want to risk a blasting from that father of yours.’

  Meg held open the door. ‘He isn’t here as a matter of fact. Come in, Jack. I’ll make you a mug of tea, you look half frozen.’

  He was dressed in an ill-fitting suit, a soft trilby hat on his head. It sat oddly with the way he picked up a battered suitcase and rolled, sailor fashion, into the house. Meg could feel her heart pumping as she moved between kettle and teapot, mugs and milk. Her mind felt frozen, unable to focus upon a single sensible thought. What could she say to him?

  When she had settled him in a chair by the fire with a hot mug of tea cradled in his hands, she stood back and smiled at him, in what she hoped was a welcoming manner. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well.’ It wasn’t true. He looked pinched and thin, skin pale almost to the point of yellowness. The once handsome features had slipped somehow, sunk inwards to a gaunt mockery of their former beauty. The glossy black curls had lost their shine and even the violet eyes looked paler, without their usual lustre. ‘Did you have a hard war, Jack?’

  His glance seared her, condemned her as a well-meaning, silly female who knew nothing at all about it. Meg cringed at the bitterness in that gaze. He didn’t answer her question.

  ‘What happened to Broombank? I went up there first.’

  She sat on the edge of her seat, aware that the cows needed to be milked, the hens let out. She could hear their noisy cackle already, yet did not like to desert him the moment he’d arrived. ‘It was bombed. A stray bomb some German pilot let drop, probably on his return home from the West coast.’

  ‘Anyone killed?’

  She told him about Dan and Effie. He looked at her blankly and made no comment, offered no condolences. ‘So that put paid to the idea of your owning Broombank.’

  Meg stood up. She had a desperate need for fresh air. ‘Will you excuse me a moment? I have to do the milking. Sally Ann will be down shortly and she’ll start on breakfast. But I must...’

  His smile was more of a smirk. ‘It’s all right. I well remember how you always put the animals first.’

  ‘That’s the way it has to be,’ she said, with commendable serenity, and left him.

  Meg found she was shaking when she got outside and had to lean against the dry stone wall, pulling in deep breaths before she could bring herself to walk a step.

  After she had let out the hens it was a relief to hide herself in the byre and feel at one with the lowing warmth of the cows. Jack had clearly had a hard time of it and she must be patient. It was no good thrusting all her own problems upon him the moment he walked through the door. She must tread with care.

  It proved to be easier said than done. Jack was not in the mood to make concessions, and he had little time for anyone else’s war but his own.

  ‘You don’t know what it was like, being shot at, bombed, taken prisoner. Safe as houses you were, up here,’ he said, choosing to ignore the inappropriate choice of phrase in view of their tragic loss.

  Meg agreed that they’d had an easy war, apart from the loss of Effie and Dan, and Broombank.

  ‘We’ve worked hard though,’ she said, feeling irritated by his high-handedness, as if they’d been enjoying themselves on some long party all these years. ‘But then women have had to pull their weight with all the men away fighting. Some even built tanks and aeroplanes. That’s good, isn’t it, to see women taking a full part? If this war does nothing else, I hope it will win us equal pay and health welfare for ourselves and our children. Education for all. These things are important to fight for too. As for us, well, we ran a farm. Produced food for people to eat. And proud to do it.’

  ‘You can stop all of that now I’m home. You can sell Broombank, give up Ashlea too if there’s no one to take it on, and go back to being a proper woman.’

  Meg felt her hackles rise. This was not the time for a political argument yet she could not resist standing up for herself. ‘I never stopped being a proper woman and I’ve no intention of throwing away everything I’ve built up. Why would I? What would I do?’

  Jack glared at her. ‘So Broombank is still more important to you than me?’

  She sighed and got up to go. ‘We have to talk, Jack. But perhaps now is not the time. Later, when you are well enough.’

  But somehow the right moment never presented itself. He made one visit to Kendal to look for work, at Meg’s suggestion. But when he failed to find employment, he said it wasn’t worth trying again because of all the other returning soldiers.

  ‘This town is too small. We need to get away. All I want is a quiet life. A bit of peace, and a wife to look after me. Is that too much to ask?’

  Meg said nothing. Perhaps when Tam came in she would find it easier to broach the subject.

  The moment Tam walked into the kitchen, the air positively crackled with tension.

  ‘Glory be,’ he said, in his quiet, lilting voice. ‘So this must be Jack.’

  ‘And you must be an Irish conchie.’

  Tam’s ready smile froze. ‘It’s not how I’m normally thought of, as a matter of fact.’

  Sally Ann, setting out the warmed plates for breakfast, clucked her tongue at Jack as if he were a naughty child. ‘Tam fought on the side of the Americans, Jack, you’ve no call to make such accusations.’

  The once handsome lips curled into a sneer. ‘The Americans? Then he’s had a pretty short war, and an easy one.’

  Meg, coming through the door in time to capture the taut atmosphere, took off her coat and shook the raindrops from it. ‘Would you believe it’s raining again? When does it ever stop? Oh, scrambled eggs, lovely.’ She smiled brightly at everyone as though there were nothing untoward in the two men standing facing each other as if about to embark upon mortal combat. Sally Ann fussed the children into place at the table, hoping they wouldn’t notice.

  The meal was a sample of the climate they were to endure over the coming days. Whatever was said to Jack he disagreed with it. Whatever opinion you offered, it was the wrong one.

  The children irritated him by standing and staring at him, as children will, and every day he asked if there were any letters for him. When he was told there was nothing, he slumped in the chair and sulked for the rest of the day. Perhaps he’s hoping for the offer of a job, Meg thought sadly.

  They tried to be understanding but it was difficult. If Sally Ann mentioned a friend or neighbour whose son or nephew had not returned, he quickly capped it with a story of an entire household being lost.

  Mostly he said nothing, only sat and stared into the fire, his legs thrust out, one side of his mouth lifted into a sour curl of displeasure. After a few days of this Tam took Meg for a walk.

  ‘We have to talk,’ he said, marching her off before she had time to protest.

  They walked up towards Whinstone Gill. The beck gushed beside them, as it had done on that day six years ago when Kath had tried to warn Meg to leave Jack well alone, and she had refused to listen. An icy froth of water was racing down from the mountain tarns above, which were no more than melted glaciers from a past age and about as cold, Meg thought, as her own feelings towards Jack.

  ‘Why can’t I feel sorry for him?’ she asked. ‘Why don’t I feel compassion for what he has obviously endured?’

  ‘He fills me with rage ju
st sitting slumped in that chair, swamped in his own self-pity, expecting you to wait on him hand, foot and finger. Can he not see how hard you have worked? Can’t he see that you have suffered losses too?’

  And might yet lose Lissa, Meg added to herself. She had received no more letters from Kath on the subject so had tried to put it from her mind, not even mentioning it to Tam. But the thought had set off another worry.

  ‘I should tell him, I suppose, about Lissa. But how? What do you think his reaction will be?’

  Tam gave a snort of derision. ‘If you want the truth, entirely selfish. The pity of it is, he doesn’t give a toss for anything or anyone but himself. Probably never has. The sooner you ask him to leave the better.’

  Meg stopped and grasped Tam’s arm. ‘He’s hurting, can’t you see? So much he can’t even bear to talk about it. We should try to get him to unload the pain then he’ll start to heal. It does no good to bottle it up inside. It certainly will do no good at all to throw him out. Where would he go? He has no home now that Broombank has gone.’

  Tam growled with exasperation. ‘He wouldn’t have had a home even if Broombank was still standing. Lanky left it to you, not to Jack. You and him are finished, old history. Aren’t you?’ Tam’s face became suddenly very still. ‘You have told him about us? You have given him back his ring?’

  She stared at the stones on the path at her feet, kicked one and watched as it rolled along the path to fall with a plop into the beck and be swallowed up by the gushing water. ‘Not yet. There hasn’t quite been the right moment.’ She shivered.

  Tam whirled about, putting his hand to his head in despair. ‘Right moment? For God’s sake, so that’s why you creep to my bed like a guilty creature? Don’t you see that you make it worse the longer you leave it? You must tell him. Explain that things have changed.’

  ‘I will, I will, Tam. As soon as he seems well enough to take it in. Can’t you see how ill he looks? He barely touches his food.’

  ‘He’s been a prisoner of war, his stomach has shrunk. But he hasn’t been a prisoner all that long, and not in the worst type of concentration camp. He’ll survive. Tell him. About us at least. I’m not sure about Lissa.’ He grasped Meg’s shoulders and gently shook her. ‘You have to be fair with the man, and with us.’

  Tears stood proud in her grey eyes. ‘I know you’re right. It’s just so difficult to face a man with the fact that he has nothing left. Leave me alone with him this evening and I’ll do the deed then. Now kiss me, Tam, please, to make me feel better.’

  The moment supper was finished Jack got up and announced he was going out for a walk.

  ‘Oh, where are you going? Up to the tarn? I’ll come with you,’ Meg said. ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘No.’ He glanced desperately about him, like a ferret caught in a trap. ‘Not now, Meg. Not yet.’ And he was gone. Much later, she heard him come in. It was about two o’clock in the morning and judging by the noise he made, he was drunk.

  ‘Who is that man, Meg?’ Lissa asked one morning as they walked to school. ‘Why has he come to live with us?’

  Meg swallowed. She couldn’t tell the child the truth, she couldn’t say, ‘He’s your father.’ Not just like that. Jack looked so awful. Nothing like the handsome, swaggering rogue he had once been. He had taken to going out every evening and coming home rolling drunk. Where he got the drink from she did not know, nor care to ask. His mornings were spent in bed and his afternoons in a sullen sprawl by the fire so Meg still hadn’t had the much needed talk with him. Tam was right though, as each day slipped by, the decision to do so became harder to make. So she said nothing to Lissa. No child deserved to have a drunkard foisted upon her as a father.

  ‘He was a sailor in the war. He’s staying with us because he has nowhere else to go just at present and he needs time to rest.’ He could go to Connie, Meg’s inner voice said. She had suggested it at breakfast only this morning and Jack had turned on her in a spitting rage.

  ‘Want to be rid of me, do you?’ he’d shouted, making Rust growl and Lissa flinch at his harsh tone. ‘My own girl wants me out of the house. The woman who has promised to wait for me for ever. Only you can never trust a woman, can you?’

  That had been the moment she should have seized, should have told him that she was no longer his girl, could no longer wait for a man she didn’t love. But he’d dropped back in to the chair, put his head into his hands and sobbed like a child. How could she, after that?

  ‘Get that dog out of here. I can’t stand the way it glares at me.’

  So Meg had despatched Rust to the barn and given Lissa a reassuring cuddle before getting her ready for school.

  ‘Will the sailor go when he’s found a house of his own?’ she persisted. She liked to have things tidily sorted in her mind.’ He isn’t very happy, is he?’ She wondered why Meg let him stay. It was all very puzzling.

  ‘He’s hurting inside. We must try to be kind to him, try to understand. We don’t know what he may have suffered during the war.’ Meg smiled at Lissa.’ Here we are. Is it country dancing today?’

  Lissa’s small face lit up. ‘No, Miss Shaw is going to teach us how to make potato prints. Won’t that be good?’

  Meg laughed. ‘Oh, I remember enjoying that. So lovely and messy.’ They had reached the playground and she leaned down to kiss Lissa. Two small arms clung about her neck and soft lips returned the kiss.

  ‘I love you, Meg.’

  ‘I love you too, darling.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘More than all the world.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ Lissa said, and as Meg watched her skip away, small bottom wriggling importantly, an almost unbearable tightness stretched across her heart.

  ‘Jack, we have to talk. I know things are not quite what you expected. Will you walk on the fells with me so we can be private?’ He sat moodily staring into the fire, not answering, the square jaw showing a four day stubble and the violet eyes shot with red. ‘You can’t keep all this pain inside you. We need to talk it out.’

  A short grunt of impatience was his only response but Meg was determined. Something had to be done and she might never find the courage again. She glanced across at Sally Ann who made encouraging signs. On the pegged rug at Jack’s feet, Daniel zoomed up and down with an empty packet of soap flakes cut and stuck into the shape of a car. He was making loud noises in his piping, toddler’s voice.

  ‘We’ll get no peace here,’ she laughed, and tugged gently at his sleeve.

  It took some persuasion but at last she got Jack to put on his coat. Out in the yard Rust got up to follow, as he usually did.

  ‘No, boy. You stay here.’ He looked affronted but obeyed, lying down again with a sigh of hurt resignation.

  They walked up to Brockbarrow Wood. It was here that she had first let him kiss her. How young she had been then, how foolish. It seemed like a lifetime ago. She still remembered the satin smooth bark against her skin, the sound of lapping water, the scent of spring in the air. Such an innocent she had been. Naïve. She had thought the signs of sexual desire on his part were the evidence of love. Now that she had Tam’s love, she knew better. She had learned many things over the years. How to survive was one.

  Jack sat beneath the same tree and leaned back against it while she sat on the grass some distance away. He was silent. How to begin?

  ‘We can’t go on like this, Jack.’

  ‘Too much of a nuisance to you, I suppose.’

  ‘It’s not that. You know you are welcome to stay as long as you like, at least... until you find your feet.’

  ‘And how do I do that? Where do I start?’ Tears suddenly filled his eyes and a wash of sympathy flooded through her.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about whatever is paining you? I’m sure you’ll feel better for it.’

  Very slowly, the story began. She heard how his best friend, Len, had been killed. How Jack had to row a small boat to the mainland of Italy, and how he was the only one to s
urvive the operation.

  At first she made a few sympathetic noises but then lapsed into silence as he told her about finding the village, and the bakery. Of Lina saving his life and how they became lovers.

  ‘I never meant it to happen,’ he said, staring bleakly out over the hump of the fells, tracing the lines of dry stone wall that traversed them while he thought of Italian mountains, biting hunger and soft, pouting lips. ‘It was the war. Where she is now I’ve no idea. Probably married to the damn butcher. Or dead. The Germans would find her as they found me.’

  He said very little about the camp the German soldiers took him to, except to say that they were fed scanty rations and their captors took every pleasure in making life difficult for them. He obviously didn’t want to talk about it and Meg didn’t ask.

  ‘Even after the war ended it seemed to take ages for us to get home.’

  ‘Have you tried to contact her?’

  ‘I wrote once or twice while I was in the camp and then again when I was in hospital in England. She’s never replied.’

  Meg couldn’t find a word of comfort to offer. All these years she had suffered agonies of guilt for finding she had come to love Tam. She had backed away from ending their engagement by means of a heartless letter and all the time Jack had been making love to another girl. Probably not the first one he had enjoyed during the six years away.

  ‘I suppose you want me to go now?’ He gazed at her out of those terrible eyes, the bruises beneath black and awesome. ‘Though God knows where. Certainly not to Connie. She would only lecture me all day long.’

  ‘I suppose we’re related in an odd sort of way, now she’s married Joe.’

  Jack gave a bitter laugh. ‘Nothing on earth would induce me to go and live with your father.’ The eyes lit up for a second with a touch of their old wicked humour. ‘Life plays funny tricks, eh? Who would have believed it? My sister and your father.’