When she returned home her mother was making porridge, her dyed auburn hair drawn into rollers and her strong matronly figure wrapped in a dusty pink dressing gown. ‘My dear, Friday’s arrived, I can’t believe it. I never thought today would dawn. After all these years. I’m quite overcome.’ She put down her wooden spoon and embraced her child with fervour. ‘God has blessed you, Rita,’ she added seriously, pulling away and fixing her daughter with eyes that were moist with emotion. ‘You must go to church this Sunday with gratitude in your heart. There are many who have not been so lucky. Trees and Faye must be beside themselves with excitement. To think their boy is finally coming home. It brings a lump to my throat.’ She turned back to the porridge, wiped her eyes and sniffed.
Hannah Fairweather was a deeply sentimental woman. She had a wide, generous face, eyes that wept easily, especially where her children were concerned, and a large, spongey bosom that had nursed each of her three daughters for well beyond their first year. She was one of nature’s earth mothers whose sole purpose in life is to raise and love children, which she did with enormous pride. Like a magpie she kept everything: Rita’s first pair of shoes, Maddie’s first drawing, a lock of Eddie’s hair. The mantelpieces and walls were cluttered with memories that would mean nothing to a visitor but which meant everything to Hannah; a veritable museum of her past.
The Fairweathers’ rambling cottage was situated in the small seaside village of Frognal Point, hidden behind tall yew hedges and lime trees, surrounded by a manicured garden filled with birds. Hannah’s youngest child was now fourteen and spent all day at school, so the birds that she tamed and cared for were like children to her. The nightingale who made her home in the tangled hedgerow, the dainty titmice who arrived in the autumn and ate crusts out of her hand, and the swallows, her favourite, who returned each spring to build their nests in the top corner of the porch. As mild and modest as the little hedge sparrows, Hannah had a good heart and a soft one – as is often the case with children raised by overbearing mothers.
‘I wonder why our Rita is glowing this morning?’ said Humphrey as he entered the kitchen, drawn by the aroma of porridge and toast. Short and stocky in grey trousers with scarlet braces over a neatly pressed white shirt, he was almost bald except for the thick white curls about his ears. He bent down, planted a kiss on his daughter’s temple and patted her back with a warm hand.
‘She’s been down on the beach,’ Hannah replied. Humphrey took his seat at the head of the table and poured himself a cup of tea.
‘Nothing to do with the fact that George is coming home then?’ He chuckled and opened the paper, the Southern Gazette, which he edited. He grunted his approval of the front page, emblazoned with a large picture of a young woman kissing a soldier on his return from the war. If George had any remarkable stories of bravery and adventure Humphrey would be only too pleased to put them in his paper. That’s what people wanted now, tales of heroism and victory.
‘I’m so excited, Daddy, and yet I’m frightened too.’
Humphrey peered at his daughter over the paper. ‘There’s no reason to be frightened, Rita. He’ll be delivered home safely.’
‘No, that’s not why.’ She paused and nibbled at a piece of toast. ‘You don’t think he will have changed, do you?’
Hannah spooned porridge into a bowl for her husband. ‘Of course he will have changed,’ she said. ‘He’ll be a man now.’
Rita smiled and blushed. ‘I hope he won’t be disappointed in me.’
‘Who could be disappointed in you, my dear?’ Humphrey laughed and disappeared behind the paper again. ‘You’re home to George, like your mother was home to me. Don’t underestimate that.’
‘I remember when your father came back from the Dardanelles. He was so brown I barely recognized him, and thin too. I had to feed him up like one of Mother’s chickens. But we soon got to know each other again. George will take a while to adjust, but he’ll be home and reunited with his beloved. War teaches you that nothing matters but the people you love. You’ve been his lifeline for all these years, Rita.’ Hannah’s voice faltered and she coughed to disguise it, recalling the horrors of the Great War and the broken spirits who lived to return. ‘Where’s Eddie? She’ll be late for school.’ She bustled out of the room to wake her youngest daughter.
When Eddie wandered into the kitchen, clearly still half asleep, she mumbled a brief ‘good morning’ before remembering that today was the day of George’s return. ‘You must be excited, Rita,’ she said, waking up. ‘Are you going to let him make love to you now?’
Humphrey’s startled face popped up over the paper and Hannah swivelled around and stared in horror at her fourteen-year-old daughter.
‘Eddie!’ she gasped. ‘Humphrey, say something!’
Humphrey pulled an exaggerated frown. ‘What do you know about making love, Eddie?’ he asked, wondering who had polluted her mind.
‘Elsa Shelby’s fiancé got back a week ago and they made love that very day. I know because Amy told me.’ Elsa Shelby’s little sister was as indiscreet as Eddie.
‘What does little Amy know?’ said Hannah, hands on hips, nearly shaking the curlers out of her hair.
‘Elsa told her. She said it was like bathing in a tub of warm honey.’ Eddie grinned mischievously as she watched her father’s face extend into a wry smile.
‘My dear child,’ said Hannah severely, ignoring her husband’s obvious amusement, ‘physical love is for the procreation of children within the union of marriage.’
‘They are engaged,’ Eddie protested, beaming at her sister who had suddenly grown hot and fidgety. ‘After all, she thought he was dead!’
‘They still should have waited. What are a few months?’ Hannah argued.
‘George and Rita will be engaged soon.’ Eddie turned to Rita. ‘You will tell me what it’s like when you do it, won’t you?’ Rita let her long, brown hair fall over her face in thick curls and wriggled in her chair in embarrassment.
‘Edwina, eat your breakfast. You’ll be late for school,’ said Hannah, changing the subject. She was used to Eddie’s tendency to say exactly what she thought, without reflecting on whether it was appropriate. That she had inherited from her grandmother. Eddie watched her mother spoon large dollops of porridge into a bowl then caught eyes with her father. His expression was indulgent.
‘Eddie, dear, do you have to bring Harvey to the table?’ said her mother, noticing the little black bat that clung to the sleeve of Eddie’s woollen cardigan.
‘I told you, Mummy, he doesn’t like being left on his own. He’s used to me now.’
Hannah sighed and picked up her cup of tea, which was as weak as dishwater. ‘The fighting might have stopped but it’s going to take a long time for this country to get back on her feet again. Oh, for a decent cup of tea with a healthy serving of sugar!’
Maddie was nineteen, a young woman of single mind, so there was no need to get up at such an unsociable hour. Although her parents encouraged her to get a job, she felt there was no urgency. Besides, she’d find a husband and then she wouldn’t have to work. She watched Rita leave in the morning to toil away as a land girl on Trees Bolton’s farm; how she’d come home in the evenings with her hands dirty and her hair full of dust, smelling of cows and manure, and was grateful that she had managed to avoid that kind of manual labour. There were enough people keeping the home fires burning for her not to have to add to their numbers. It was a shame the men on the farm were so old and ugly for if they had been as young and handsome as those GIs she might have found something worth doing, like boosting morale in the haystacks. She rolled over and contemplated doing her hair and perhaps painting her nails. Then she remembered that today was the day George was coming home from the war.
Throwing on a dressing gown she padded downstairs to find Rita and her father on the point of leaving. ‘Good luck, Rita,’ she said. ‘I’ll be thinking of you. Four, isn’t it? Leave in good time so that I can do your hair,’ she added, noticing her s
ister’s unkempt appearance. But she knew it was useless. Rita was as natural as the sea she loved and her locks would always be as tangled as seaweed. ‘I’ll help you. You must look your best for George.’ Then she turned to her mother and seemed to wilt with emotion. ‘Isn’t it simply the most romantic thing in the world, Mummy?’
Rita departed on her bicycle, Humphrey in his Lee Francis, and Eddie wandered reluctantly off to school with Harvey so that Maddie was left alone with her mother to eat what was left of the porridge, now cold beneath a thick layer of skin. Hannah hadn’t had the heart to tell Rita to tidy her room and had overlooked her scruffy appearance on purpose. She turned to her middle daughter. Rita might be untidy but at least she wasn’t idle like Maddie. ‘What are you going to do today?’ she asked, wondering how she could encourage her to do something useful with her time.
Maddie sighed and pulled a face. ‘I’m going to do my hair,’ she said, nibbling a piece of toast like her sister had done.
‘My dear, is it really necessary?’
‘I want to look nice for George too!’ she insisted, knowing full well that George had absolutely nothing to do with it. ‘I thought I could do my hair like Lauren Bacall. Besides, it’s George’s welcome home party tomorrow night. You never know who’ll be there. Maybe I’ll meet the man I’m destined to marry. I want to look my best for him.’
‘Why don’t you come to Megagran’s with me?’ Hannah said. Mrs Megalith had been rather rudely nicknamed Megagran by Humphrey many years before. ‘The bluebells are out in the wood and her garden’s looking lovely. We can have lunch. Make the time go faster.’
Maddie screwed up her nose. ‘She’ll only insist on giving me a reading.’
‘And tell you to get a job.’
Maddie rolled her eyes. ‘She never tells me what I want to hear,’ she complained.
‘That’s because she would never lie.’ Hannah began to clear away the breakfast. ‘You know Megagran. She takes those cards very seriously.’
‘Tools for Spirit,’ said Maddie, imitating her grandmother’s deep voice. ‘All right, I’ll come, but only because there’s nothing better on offer.’
Maddie wished those GIs hadn’t gone back to America. She smiled secretly to herself as she thought of them all returning to their wives and girlfriends with her Polyphotos in their breast pockets.
Hannah and Maddie cycled up Mrs Megalith’s drive as petrol was still scarce. Spring had thrown the countryside into flower and painted the trees and bushes with a fresh palette of colour. The pink hawthorn and white apple blossom glistened among the phosphorescent green of leaves and grasses. The sky shone a cerulean blue upon which small white clouds floated like foam on the sea. Hannah breathed in this delightful scene, feeling God’s presence in the beauty and power of nature.
‘Isn’t this rose quartz glorious?’ said Mrs Megalith as her daughter and granddaughter appeared through the kitchen door. She raised her eyes above her spectacles and smiled at them warmly. Maddie looked at the crystals of every colour and size placed in rows on the kitchen table and grimaced at the strong stench of cat.
‘What are they for?’ she asked, scrunching up her nose at her grandmother’s eccentricity. Ever since Megagran had visited India between the wars she had been obsessed with the strangest things.
‘This, for example,’ she replied, holding up the rose quartz, ‘is the stone of gentle love. Its energy is soft and silky and calming. It restores harmony and clarity to the emotions. But the poor little fellow needs a good clean. I’ll wash him with salt then leave him in the garden for twenty-four hours so he can soak up the elements. He’ll feel a lot better after that.’ She patted it affectionately. ‘Still loafing around, Madeleine?’
Maddie rolled her eyes. ‘I’m going to marry someone very rich so I won’t have to work,’ she said, raising her eyebrows provocatively at her grandmother.
‘That might be harder than you imagine. There’s been a war, in case it’s escaped your notice,’ Mrs Megalith replied, digging her chins into her neck. ‘How’s our Rita?’ she asked Hannah.
‘She needs a rose quartz, I should imagine,’ said Maddie, picking up a fulgurite absent-mindedly.
‘So excited,’ enthused Hannah. ‘I doubt she’s been much use on the farm today.’
‘Dear girl. I hope young George marries her this summer. She’s been a paragon of patience. Pass me my stick.’ She waved her bejewelled hand at her granddaughter then struggled to her feet. Her sky-blue dress fell about her legs like a tent, supported by the ledge of her large breasts and her thick shoulders. ‘Now, come and see the garden. It’s like heaven out there.’ They walked down the corridor where cats draped themselves across the sunny window ledges. Maddie sneezed. She didn’t much like cats. Mrs Megalith thought of the two dead cats. ‘Tell Rita to come and see me tomorrow. I want to do a reading. I feel something in my bones. Don’t ask me what it is, I don’t know. But now George is coming back I think she needs a bit of guidance from an old witch.’
‘They would have burned you at the stake a few hundred years ago, Grandma.’
‘I know, Madeleine, my dear. I was burnt during the Spanish Inquisition and it wasn’t pleasant. But I bounced back to live again, many times. Truth withstands flames and one day people won’t be afraid of the power that lies in all of us. Even sceptics like your Humphrey, Hannah. Even him.’
They strolled around the garden, admired the ‘clever little fellows’ that seeded themselves and popped up in such unforgiving places as walls and terraces, and fed the ducks that swam contentedly beneath weeping willow and poplar trees. They sat on the terrace and drank elderflower cordial that Mrs Megalith had made herself. The war seemed not to have touched Elvestree House where eggs, milk and cheese were bountiful. She bartered butter for meat and fish, and managed to buy coupons on the black market for £1 each. She even grew bananas in her greenhouse, giving all the credit to the crystals she placed among them. Everything thrived at Elvestree and, much to Hannah’s chagrin, Megagran’s garden was a rich playground for every possible bird, even those like the puffin and wagtail who weren’t supposed to stop off in England. For some reason, Elvestree was a paradise for migrating birds, even when they had to fly miles out of their way to get there.
They lunched on a succulent chicken and home-grown vegetables, then Hannah and Maddie helped Mrs Megalith clean crystals. By the time they had laid them outside, the air had changed and the light grown mellow. One by one they looked at their watches. It was 3.30 p.m. They had barely noticed the passing of time.
‘Good God, Hannah,’ Mrs Megalith gasped, fiddling with the string of beads she had tied to her glasses to avoid losing them. ‘George!’
‘And I promised I would do her hair!’ Maddie lamented, feeling guilty. But her grandmother turned on her, berating her dizziness.
‘George isn’t going to notice her hair, Madeleine. He loves her just the way she is.’
Chapter 2
Rita stood at the bus stop biting her nails. She was surrounded by George’s family and yet she felt totally alone, isolated on a small island of fear, excitement and hope. She watched Trees and Faye Bolton and knew that they felt much the same as she did. There was always the possibility that he wouldn’t be on the bus, that some misfortune had struck on his way over from France. Anxiety showed in the tautness around their eyes and behind their smiles as they waited with their daughter, Alice and her two small children. George wasn’t the only young man returning from the war; other families waited too, all cautiously optimistic but wary of celebrating too soon. The air vibrated with apprehension, uniting them all.
‘It is agony, isn’t it?’ said Faye to Rita. ‘I’m so nervous I don’t know what to do with myself.’
She cast a motherly glance at her daughter whose husband Geoffrey was yet to be demobilized, and felt sorry for her. Alice had always been an uncomplaining child, standing aside for George, who was impulsive and impatient. Always the centre of attention. She had never had to worry about A
lice and still didn’t. She was serene and philosophical and seemed to drift along on life’s current, avoiding the rocks and whirlpools with ease. She promised herself that she would give her daughter due attention when Geoffrey returned from France. But today belonged to George.
Faye had a beautiful face. She seemed not to have aged at all: her skin was free of lines and as soft as brushed cotton. She wore her blonde hair scraped back into a chignon, which accentuated the fine lines of her jaw and cheekbones. Her eyes were the colour of the sky on a misty morning and used to weeping over beautiful music, a lovely painting or a sad story – she adored Tolstoy, Pushkin and Oscar Wilde. Only her hands betrayed her craft, for they were rough and ragged. But they could fashion anything out of clay as her talent lay in sculpture. She always intended to sell the objects she made – they could do with the money – but she grew too attached to them. ‘I create them with love, they’re a part of me now,’ she would say and so they were placed about the farmhouse among the books, pictures and scores of music she played on the upright piano: a chaotic kaleidoscope of all that she loved.
Trees put his arm around her waist and said nothing, a man of few words. Tall and thin with long arms and legs, he was nicknamed Trees on account of the walnut trees that were his passion. He spent his days on the land, looking after his animals, with his favourite sheepdog, Mildred, at his side. He had a noble face, handsome like a Roman bust, with an aquiline nose and deep-set eyes of a rich, honey brown. Faye leaned into him instinctively. She loved Trees but had never been able to reach him. He was detached and distant and more obsessed with his walnut trees than with any living creature. She didn’t feel in the least bit guilty that she had a lover. A woman needs to be loved and Faye needed affection more than most. For her, love was an inseparable part of music and art and, because she poured all her love into creating sculpture and playing the piano it was only natural that she should require something back.
The Swallow and the Hummingbird Page 2