‘There’s something else. I think it would be best, less embarrassing, while Jack is staying with us, if we occupied separate rooms. Would you mind?’
Tam’s green eyes narrowed, sparkling like shards of ice. He released her then, and his hands fell to his sides in a gesture of despair. ‘You’re telling me you no longer want me in your bed?’
Meg felt a stirring of disquiet but stubbornly kept to her request. ‘I’m saying that for the moment at least, our privacy is gone, and I can’t cope with that. It won’t be for long, just till we work out a way of getting him started some place else. I can’t bear the thought of Jack at the other side of the wall, listening to us. You do understand, don’t you?’ Her cheeks were a hot pink but Tam’s were frozen white.
‘Yes, I understand perfectly. You’ll fight for the land and Broombank. You’ll fight for Lissa. But will you fight for me?’ He shook his head, slowly, from side to side.
‘Damn you, Tam O’Cleary.’ She was near to tears and hated herself for this show of weakness. ‘That’s not true and you know it.’
He made a disbelieving grunt deep in his throat. ‘That’s exactly the way it is, Meg Turner. I hate to sound melodramatic, since you’ll only accuse me of more Irish blarney, but it’s long past time I said it. It’s him or me. Plain and simple. Either he leaves or I do.’
‘You’re right. That would be melodramatic. Certainly very silly.’ She turned to go. ‘If you want your supper you’d best be quick about it. It’ll be stone cold by now.’
‘Have I not made myself clear?’
‘Abundantly,’ she said. ‘But I don’t answer to threats.’
‘I’ll not wed you while your former lover is living in your house. Is that plain enough for you?’
‘Tam!’
‘It’s the truth, is it not? If you don’t want me in your bed, then it seems to me that mebbe you don’t want me in your life at all. It’s as simple as that.’
‘No, it’s not.’
‘It is to me.’
‘Go then, if that’s what you want,’ she said, anger making her reckless as tears brimmed. And she stalked off, head high, back to the house. Tam did not follow her.
Meg moved his things into the small loft room she had used as a girl, and lay alone, unsleeping, in the big bed that night. In the morning, she found that he had packed his bag and gone. As it turned out it was only to the lodge house on Lord Carnsworth’s estate a few miles up the road, but it might as well have been a million miles.
Christmas 1946 was quiet and dull. Sally Ann, Meg and the children, still with Jack present, spent it alone. Joe was too ill to travel but, it seemed, had quite taken to life in Grange-Over-Sand, and for the time being at least meant to stay.
Meg had seen little of Tam in recent months. Busy settling in to his new job, she caught tantalising glimpses of him taking the horses out as she walked Lissa to and from school. He would nod to her from a distance as if they were strangers. She begged Sally Ann to take on this task so that she need never be taunted by the sight of him, so near and yet so far. Heavily disapproving, her sister-in-law agreed.
‘I hate to say it but I would even welcome Connie right now,’ Meg confessed as the two women sat together on New Year’s Day alone by the fire. Jack was out, drinking as usual, and the children were tucked up in bed, hopefully asleep.
‘The children enjoyed it. Did you see their faces when they found oranges in their stockings for the first time ever?
‘You perform miracles, Sal, you really do. Sometimes I wonder what we won the war for. Things have seemed to be tougher than ever this year. The rationing goes worse, even bread now.’
‘It’ll get better soon.’
‘And look at us. What a pair we are. It seems ironic that Ashlea has become almost an all female household when once it was very much male, with women kept very firmly in their place. Sad in a way. Is this how we are doomed to spend our lives, Sal? As women with children and no men?’
Sally Ann gazed shrewdly at Meg. ‘You could get Tam back tomorrow if you really wanted.’
‘By turning Jack out in the snow? I couldn’t be so heartless. I’m disappointed in Tam.’ Her voice broke. ‘I thought he’d more patience, more compassion, and more love for me.’
Sally Ann gazed morosely into her sherry glass and sighed. ‘More patience? He’s waited near six years for you. What can you expect? He’s jealous.’
‘He’s behaving foolishly. How can that be love?’
‘He still works on your land every day, after he’s finished with the horses. What’s that if not love?’
Meg shook her head, feeling bleak and empty inside, almost taking pleasure in hurting herself as much as possible. ‘It won’t last, I know it won’t. Once the spring comes, before lambing starts, I’ll have to find someone else to replace him.’
‘There’s something else, I can tell. I’ve sensed an edginess in you for weeks, and it’s gone worse over Christmas. It’s not like you to be so gloomy. Come on, Meg, what is it? What else is troubling you?’
Meg set her sherry glass carefully on the mantelpiece and drew in a shaky breath. ‘Perfectly simple, actually. As well as losing Tam, I’m going to lose Lissa. There was a letter in Kath’s Christmas card. She’ll be here soon, in the New Year.’
‘Kath? What has Kath to do with Lissa?’
Finally, at last, Meg told her the secret, all of it. She emptied her heart while Sally Ann sat open-mouthed.
‘Oh, my God.’ Sally Ann was on her feet, wrapping her arms about Meg, and despite a very decided determination not to cry, her tears were flowing fast. ‘Why didn’t you tell me before? Does Tam know?’
Meg nodded, struggling to find a handkerchief to stop the flow. ‘Tam and Effie were both there when I brought Lissa home. He’s always known. But Lissa doesn’t and I still have to find the courage to tell her. And how can I, with Jack behaving the way he is? Oh, it’s all too terrible for words. What am I to do, Sal? What am I to do?’
Chapter Seventeen
1947
Katherine Ellis drew up to Ashlea in a smart little Morris on the first day of February. She had given due notice of her arrival, asking to take Lissa out for the day, and Meg had been ready hours too soon, so tense was she about the forthcoming meeting. The bitterly cold morning had dragged by in an agony of suspense, Meg unable to settle to anything. How would she feel about facing Kath again? What would she say about Jack and the betrayal? What would Kath say? And how would Lissa react?
The night before, Meg had sat Lissa upon her lap and explained to her, as simply and honestly as she could, who Kath was. She decided to make no mention of Jack at this stage.
‘Didn’t I tell you that your mother would come for you one day?’
Lissa had said nothing for a long time. Almost seven years old now, her baby chubbiness was being replaced by a schoolgirl legginess that would one day blossom into beauty. Her black curls were kept cropped short and though these and the pansy eyes were all Jack, there was much in her that Kath would recognise as her own.
‘Will she love me?’ It was a most reasonable question and Meg answered it promptly.
‘Of course she will love you. How could she fail to love you? You don’t want me to tell her how naughty you really are, do you?’ Meg teased but Lissa didn’t giggle in response, as she usually did. She turned and looked at Meg with her direct gaze so like Kath’s own.
‘More than all the world?’
Meg swallowed. After a moment’s panicking thought, she let her shoulders sag with resignation. ‘That’s not a fair question, Lissa, and you know it. Come on, let’s go upstairs and choose which dress you are going to wear tomorrow. Shall it be the blue or the pink from your extensive wardrobe?’
Lissa had been unusually quiet as Meg tucked her into bed that night and was equally so now as they both stood, hand in hand, listening to the high heels clicking over the slate slabs of the yard. Suddenly making a decision, Meg turned to Sally Ann.
‘Tak
e Lissa and the other children upstairs. I’d like to speak to her first on my own.’
When Sally Ann had gone, Meg drew in a shaky breath and opened the door.
Had she not been so concerned for her own feelings, she might have seen evidence of Kath’s own nervousness. In the way she picked at the tan kid gloves, or flicked unseen dust from her warm swagger coat with its smart fur collar. But Meg’s head was filled with panic and her eyes saw only a beautiful, carefully composed woman standing on her doorstep, like a threat. True there was some evidence of change. The wide, smiling lips did not sport the usual scarlet lipstick, and the hair was mouse brown beneath a leaf green beret, though that was still tilted provocatively to one side.
The one-time friends stood and assessed one another as the long years between fell away. It seemed only yesterday that they had stood, awkward and unspeaking, on Lime Street Station, the baby thrust into Meg’s arms as Kath ran from her life.
‘Hello, Meg. How are you?’ In the ensuing silence she answered her own question, as had ever been her style. ‘You look well.’
Meg held open the door for Kath to step inside.
She took a few steps into the room, glancing about her. ‘It’s just the same as I remember it. Where’s Tam? I thought you said in your letter that he was working here.’
Meg cleared her throat, though emotion still blocked it. ‘He is. He was. He’s out at the moment.’ Her voice tailed off into misery. I still pray nightly that he will return, her mind continued silently.
Kath turned on her in surprise, reading much more in to Meg’s expression than she was intended to see but tactfully not commenting upon it. ‘Have you seen Jack?’
‘Yes. He arrived some months ago. Looking pretty sick.’
‘He’s still here?’
‘He has nowhere else to go.’
‘So you, soft hearted little fool that you are, let him in. Darling Meg, if I was too selfish, then you were always far too generous. Mix us together and we might make one good one, two sides of one coin. Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. Let Jack go. He’s no good.’ She was shaking her head at Meg, her eyes sad but very certain. ‘You know all that, deep in your heart. And it’s not the first time I’ve said it.’
Meg felt a surge of resentment that Kath should walk in to her house and immediately start issuing advice. Perhaps she hadn’t changed so much after all. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I could murder a strong whisky but I’ll settle for tea if that’s all you’ve got.’
Meg looked startled for a moment, then let out a burst of laughter. ‘My, you have changed. Gin and tonic was always your tipple.’
They sat together over the tea, not speaking for a long time. The log fire crackled and the grandfather clock ticked away the minutes, while both remained locked in their own private thoughts.
Meg couldn’t quite frame the words that tumbled about in her brain. Why did you do it? What was it about our friendship that permitted you to hurt me so cruelly? She stayed silent.
It was Kath who finally spoke. ‘Is she here?’
‘Yes. She’s upstairs, with Sal.’
‘I heard about Dan, and your friend Effie. I’m sorry.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It was a sod, this war, wasn’t it? Thank God it’s over at last. I suppose I was lucky. Didn’t lose anyone I loved. Though right at the end a Mosquito burned to a crisp on landing and Wade only just got out in time. One of the ground crew who helped him wasn’t so lucky.’
She was talking for the sake of it. They both knew it. This wasn’t the moment for swapping war stories.
‘She doesn’t like being called Melissa,’ Meg said. ‘I’m to tell you that. And she doesn’t care for cheese. It brings her out in a rash.’
Kath stared at Meg, her gaze haunted but she made no comment.
Meg continued to speak now, very quietly and methodically, as if she had worked it all out. ‘Sometimes, at night, she wakes up and cries. She has only a half memory of the bomb landing on Broombank but it has affected her. I still send prayers of thanks that she was out walking with your father at the time. But she still hears the sound of the plane sometimes, sees the bright light, the terrible flames that brought death. But then at other times when she wakes it might just be a tummy upset or worry over a mental arithmetic test at school.’ Meg smiled. ‘Sums aren’t her strong point.’
‘I understand what you’re trying to tell me,’ Kath said softly. ‘I know that if I take her with me, I shall have a lot to learn.’
Meg swallowed. It had to be said, and now was as good a time as any. She straightened her spine and looked Kath straight in the eye. ‘I have brought her up as if she were my own child. ‘I love her as if she were. But Lissa is six, very nearly seven, and she wants to have a say in her own destiny. If she goes with you to Canada, it has to be her decision, not yours. I’m aware of your rights as her natural mother, but if you try to force her, to exercise those rights, then I shall fight you to the highest court in the land, even if it costs me every last penny I have.’ Meg stopped to draw breath. There, she had said it. Tam would be proud of her. She was proud of herself, for all her heart was pumping like a traction engine.
Kath simply stared at her, unblinking. ‘I would like to see her now.’
Meg sat all day in the same place. She chose a comer of the dry stone wall that ran from the back of the house to the bam. From here she would get the first glimpse of the car returning up the lane without being seen herself. It had been the longest day in her life so far. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t talk, she couldn’t even think. Nothingness seemed to fill her mind and she wanted to go on feeling nothing, being nothing. It was less painful that way. The alternative, to consider what her life would be like without Lissa, without Tam, was too terrible for words.
Now that she was faced with losing everything she wondered at her own lack of ability to make a decision. She was decisive enough with the land, with the sheep. Why so vulnerable when it came to her personal life?
She looked at her beloved land, how it had been lifted and tipped sideways as if by some playful giant’s hand, causing rocks bigger than a house to slide and roll and settle in dangerous heaps. Her life felt like that, as if it were slipping out of control.
In her hand she held Lanky’s Luckpenny. Usually she kept it safe, on her dressing table in her room. Today she had felt the need of it by her. It was all foolish superstition, of course. She knew that. But somehow it helped. As if Lanky were still here with her when she needed a friend, wishing her well.
At long last the little car came into view, bumping up the stony track into the farmyard. It pulled to a halt at the door and Lissa was out in a second, scampering towards Meg, her small face alight with excitement. Meg’s heart shot through with pain. Did this joy mean that the day had gone well?
‘What do you think, Meg, we saw some horses.’
‘Did you, darling? Where was that?’ Meg pulled stiff lips into a smile.
‘We went to Appleby, to watch the harness racing. It was so exciting. Kath says I could perhaps have a pony of my own one day, when I’m old enough to look after it properly.’ The cheeks were flushed pink, aquiver with delight. ‘Wouldn’t that be lovely, to have a pony of my own? Wade has plenty of horses in Canada, Kath says. He’s a lawyer but wants to have a whole farm of them. Wouldn’t that be grand?’
Meg was unable to speak for fear of it coming out all croaky. Kath came to join them. ‘I wasn’t trying to bribe her,’ she said. ‘She could keep the pony here, if she wanted to. It would simply be a gift.’
‘Here?’ If she stays, Meg thought. If she isn’t enticed away to Canada by stories of riches, and horses in plenty. Meg responded to Kath’s warmth with coolness. ‘I’m sure Tam could find her a pony when the time was right.’
‘I suppose he could.’ Kath’s face looked suddenly haunted and she turned away, to gaze out over the mountains, and there was a new rigidity to the figure, a stiffness about th
e mouth that hadn’t been there before. Meg turned to Lissa. ‘Go inside, sweetheart. I think Sally Ann has your tea ready. I’ll be in later.’
‘Bye, Kath,’ said Lissa. ‘Wait till I tell Nick where I’ve been today. He’ll be green with jealousy.’ And she ran off, filled with eagerness to tell her tale.
When the kitchen door clanged shut, Meg faced Kath. ‘Well? How did it go? You seem to have made a good impression.’
‘Very well. She is a delightful child, Meg. You should be proud of her.’
‘I am.’
‘Do you mind if we walk a bit, away from the kitchen window? Show me your sheep, or whatever you are doing with Broombank. I’ve heard enough about them today.’
Meg tried a chuckle but it came out sounding forced and unnatural. ‘I can believe it. Lissa loves the farm and is proving to be a great help already.’ Everything she said sounded as if she were trying to make a point. One that Kath did not fail to miss.
‘She loves the lambs best, she told me.’
‘Yes.’
They walked for a while and Meg started to tell Kath, hesitantly at first, of her efforts to make a go of the farm. She told of how she had struggled with her first lambing season, helped by Effie, the loyalty of Rust, at this very moment with his nose at her heel, as usual.
She spoke of the obstinacy of the bank in refusing at first to give her a mortgage. ‘Your father put in a word for me there. You’ll be going to see him before you leave?’
‘I - I hadn’t decided.’
‘I think you should. Your mother is as intransigent as ever, but your father... Well, he’d really like to see you, Kath. In all these years he’s never said a word against you, not once. And treading a path between you and your mother has not been easy for him.’
Kath laughed. ‘I can well believe it.’ She stared down for a moment, at her smart shining town shoes, unsuitable for stony sheep trods. ‘All right, I’ll call in. I’d like to see how they are.’
They reached the bend in the road where a stile into the field led down to Whinstone Gill and Kath gave a sad little smile. ‘Do you remember that day when you found me sunbathing? Jack was hiding in the bushes. Rust realised it but you didn’t.’
Storm Clouds Over Broombank Page 24