Joe Wainwright was, as he had said, good at his work. In a few hours the thatched roof was repaired.
As he climbed down his ladder, he remarked, ‘I see you’ve had a bit o’ trouble with that there wall. Eddie mend that himself, did he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah well, ’spect he has to watch the pennies like the rest of us. Specially with Bertha Tinker for a wife.’ He sniffed contemptuously. ‘By, she’s a shrew and no mistake. Just like ’er mother. No wonder poor old Wilf Tinker used to look elsewhere for ’is comforts.’ He gave a huge wink and tapped the side of his nose as he added, ‘If ya know what I mean.’
For once, Anna could not stop a twinge of curiosity. She did not venture any questions, but Joe needed no prompting and she made no attempt to stop him. ‘Mind you,’ he went on, warming to his subject as he found a new ear to listen to his gossip, ‘he’s a bit of a lad in more ways than one, is Wilf. Ended up in the nick, he has.’
Anna’s eyes widened, but still she ventured no comment.
‘Aye, black market in the war, y’know.’
Anna bit her lip.
‘Course, lots o’ folk dabbled a bit in a harmless sort of way. Most of us got away wi’ it.’ He winked again, indicating that he, Joe Wainwright, had not been above making a bit on the side. ‘But poor old Wilf Tinker was ’is own worst enemy. Couldn’t tell a lie, see. Not a convincing one at any rate and o’ course when he was faced with the law . . .’ He shrugged and spread his hands. ‘They saw right through ’im. Pity, really. He’s not a bad sort in lots of ways. He certainly wasn’t a real crook, if you knows what I mean.’ He nodded knowingly. ‘There was some hard nuts in the war, lass. Real spiv types that’d sell their granny if they thought they could get a bob or two for her.’
A shudder ran through Anna and she felt suddenly sick. She turned her head away before Joe should read her expression.
‘And this Wilf Tinker was Mrs Appleyard’s father?’ she asked, recovering herself.
‘Tha’s right. Him and his missis had two lasses. Bertha and Lucy. Lucy did well for herself. Married an office worker and lives in Ludthorpe. Quite the lady, Lucy is. I reckon poor old Bertha envies her. Though give me Eddie Appleyard any time. He’s all right, is Eddie. But I dun’t reckon I need to tell you that, lass, do I?’
Anna turned back slowly to meet his steady gaze. ‘No, Mr Wainwright,’ she said. ‘You don’t.’
By shearing time Maisie was out in the bright, early summer days, sitting up in the deep, black pram that Pat had brought for her.
‘Jessie Dawson doesn’t want owt for it.’
Anna had eyed the district nurse sceptically. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Course I am.’ Pat laughed. ‘Mind you, I had a job to get her to part with it. She shed tears as I wheeled it away. “All my bairns have been in that pram,” she said.’
Anna frowned. ‘Are you sure she won’t want it again? I mean, she sounds very fond of children. She might—’
‘I’m sure Jessie’d love another half-dozen given the chance. But she won’t have the chance, love. She had to have a hysterectomy after the last baby.’
Anna put her hand onto the well-worn handle. The pram sagged down at one corner where a spring had weakened.
‘It’s a bit battered, ducky, like I told you.’
‘It’s fine.’ Anna smiled as she rocked the pram gently. ‘Maisie will love being outside.’
The local farmers all helped one another at certain times of the year: haymaking, harvest and, for those who kept sheep on the Wolds’ hills, shearing. But with Eddie’s small flock, only Sam Granger, an acknowledged ‘dab hand’ at shearing, would come. And, of course, Joe Wainwright, who seemed to turn up at every event, would no doubt be there.
On the day before shearing was to begin in the yard at Cackle Hill Farm, Anna wheeled Maisie into the warm sunshine and parked the pram just outside the gate in the fence surrounding their home. She glanced back towards the cottage garden with a small stab of pride. Despite her intention to leave as soon as she could, she had not been able to stand the sight of the neglected garden. In front of the cottage, she had scythed the small patches of grass and was able to keep it short now with a battered old lawnmower that Pat had brought her.
‘I’ve treated myself to a brand-new one,’ the nurse had said, beaming. ‘I’ve got quite a big lawn and this one was too much like hard work. But you’re young and strong. You’ll cope with it.’
Anna had weeded the flowerbeds and now Canterbury bells, cornflowers and convolvulus sprouted happily, whilst lupins and irises were just coming into flower. At the side of the building, there had once been a square of kitchen garden. Whilst Anna was adamant that she would not be here long enough to enjoy the fruits of her labour, she had nevertheless cleared the ground and planted onions and lettuce.
‘Why don’t you plant cabbage and caulis?’ Eddie had suggested in March. ‘And what about runner beans and . . .’
‘It’s not worth it,’ Anna said quietly. ‘I won’t be here to enjoy them.’
Eddie’s face fell.
‘Unless you’d like me to plant them for you?’ she added.
Eddie shook his head. ‘No, lass,’ he said heavily as he turned away. ‘Don’t bother.’
But she had dug the kitchen garden over anyway and now, unearthed from the choking weeds and nettles, a rhubarb plant flourished in one corner flanked by two gooseberry bushes.
Buster, usually so boisterous, sat by the pram whenever Maisie was outside, as if guarding the child. Today, however, Anna had other work for him.
The sheep had all been washed in the stream a few days earlier in time for their fleeces to dry in the summer sunshine. It had been hard work, for the sheep hated being plunged into the water and had fought and struggled. Panting and soaked through, Anna and Eddie had laughed at each other.
‘You look like a drowned rat,’ she had giggled.
‘So do you,’ he had countered, grinning. ‘Go on home. Go and get dry.’
‘Why don’t you come too? There’s a sharp breeze. You’ll be chilled by the time you walk back to the farm.’
‘Aye, mebbe you’re right.’
They walked together towards the cottage, Eddie pushing the pram containing a sleeping Maisie.
‘D’you know,’ he mused. ‘I don’t reckon I ever pushed our Tony in his pram. Not once.’
Anna laughed softly. ‘Not reckoned to be man’s work, eh?’
‘Wouldn’t have bothered me,’ Eddie said and there was a note of regret in his tone as if he thought he might have missed a special moment.
As he manoeuvred the pram through the back door, Anna said, ‘I’ll get a blanket for you. Could you set up the clothes airer? And get those wet things off.’
Eddie grinned. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Anna changed into dry clothes in her bedroom and Eddie sat wrapped in a blanket whilst his wet garments steamed in front of the fire. Anna handed him a cup of hot cocoa and sat down beside him.
‘A good job done.’ She smiled.
Eddie glanced up to meet her eyes. As he took the cup, their fingers touched briefly. ‘Aye lass,’ he said. ‘A good job done.’
They sat together in companionable silence and even when his clothes were dry enough to put on Eddie seemed reluctant to leave.
He paused in the doorway on his way out and said softly, ‘Thanks, lass, for everything.’ Very gently, he touched her cheek and then turned and walked away up the slope.
‘Oh, Eddie, what a lovely man you are,’ Anna whispered to herself as she watched him go. For the first time in many months she suddenly realized that she had not been afraid to be alone with a man.
And now the day for shearing was almost here. Anna surveyed the sheep contentedly grazing in the field near her cottage. Then she shaded her eyes and looked up to the top of the rise, where she could see Tony standing looking down the track towards her. Rip was sitting obediently beside him. She had often seen the two of them at the top of the h
ill, but not once, since the day he had been sent by his father to fetch her to help with the difficult birth of twin lambs, had the boy visited the cottage.
Now she saw him glance, just once, over his shoulder as if checking to see if anyone was watching him. Then suddenly he launched himself down the hill, running pell-mell towards her, Rip bounding along at his side barking joyfully.
The dog reached her first and jumped up to lick her face. Then Rip capered with the half-grown puppy. Anna held out her arms and, as Tony flung himself into them, she lifted him bodily off the ground and swung him round.
‘Oh, I’ve missed you,’ she said impulsively as she set him on the ground and breathlessly they leant against each other, laughing together. She pulled back and held him at arm’s length. ‘You’ve grown. I’m sure you’ve grown.’
Tony grinned. ‘Nah.’
‘You have, you have,’ she insisted and then laughed again. ‘But if you haven’t then come and look at Maisie. She certainly has.’
As he reached the pram, Tony gasped. ‘Oh. She’s sitting up and she’s smiling. Really smiling now.’ He held out a finger to her. The baby gripped it and tried to pull it towards her mouth, but the boy laughed and gently eased it from her grasp. ‘No, no, dirty.’
Maisie blinked at him. Her smile faded. Her chin quivered and she began to whimper, huge tears welling in her dark brown eyes.
‘Oh don’t. Don’t cry, little Maisie. I didn’t mean to make you cry, but my finger’s mucky.’ He leant towards her and tickled Maisie until she chuckled once more.
Watching the young boy’s tenderness with her child, Anna felt a lump come to her throat.
‘Come on,’ she tried to say briskly, though she didn’t quite manage it for her voice was unsteady. ‘We’ve work to do.’
Sixteen
‘Sam’s coming tomorrow to start the shearing,’ Tony said. ‘And Dad says he wants you to come down to the yard and wrap the fleeces for him.’ The boy put his head on one side and regarded her thoughtfully. ‘Do you know how to do it?’
Anna closed her eyes for a moment as the memories came flooding back, threatening, not for the first time, to overwhelm her. She knew just how it would be. The yard alive with activity: sheep bleating, men laughing and ribbing one another, yet all the while the fleeces would be falling from the sheep as if by magic under the expert hands wielding the shears. She opened her eyes again, but, not trusting herself to speak, she merely nodded.
‘We’ve to round up about half the flock tomorrow morning. Joe Wainwright comes an’ all. He cuts all the clags off and opens up the necks for Sam. We do about half the flock one day and the rest the next.’
‘Oh.’ Anna raised her eyebrows. ‘I’d have thought an expert shearer could do your dad’s flock in a day.’
Tony grinned. ‘He could easy, but he doesn’t start till midday. Ses he likes the sheep to have the sun on their backs for a while. Makes the shearing easier, he ses.’
Anna smiled, for a moment her thoughts were far away once more. ‘So it does,’ she murmured. ‘I’d forgotten that.’ Then she brought her wandering mind back to the job in hand. ‘So, are you coming to help me round them up in the morning?’
Tony nodded. ‘I’ll be here early.’
The following morning Anna and Tony worked together, leaving Buster sitting beside the pram. For once, the little dog was restless, wanting to join in the rounding up. At last, unable to sit still any longer, he bounded across to Rip, startling the five sheep the older dog was guiding up the track. Anna and Tony burst out laughing, imagining they could see an aggrieved look on Rip’s face.
‘Just look at him,’ Tony spluttered. ‘He looks like me dad when I’ve done something daft.’
‘I know just what you mean. He looks as if he’s saying, “Look what you’ve done. Now I’ve got to start all over again.” ’
‘And poor Buster hasn’t a clue what he has done.’
‘Here, boy. Here, Buster,’ Anna called and the young dog came slowly towards her, head down in apology. But Anna fondled him. ‘It’s all right, but you’ve got to learn. Now, stay.’
The dog lay down whilst Anna, holding the crook that Eddie had lent her, moved to the right and began to whistle to Rip. With a series of shouted instructions and whistles, they rounded up the five sheep again.
‘Yan, tan, tethera, fethera, pethera . . .’ she murmured to herself as her eyes misted over once more. But Tony had heard her.
‘Oh, you can count like the shepherds, an’ all.’
‘What?’ Anna turned startled eyes upon him, hardly realizing that she had spoken aloud. ‘Oh – er – yes.’
‘Then you can teach me. Dad only knows “yan, tan, tethera”, then he forgets. How far can you count?’
‘Only to about twenty . . .’
‘That’ll do.’ Tony grinned.
Anna smiled. ‘You follow Rip up the hill and see he gets them into the barn whilst I get the next lot. And I’ll try to get this little rascal to do as he’s told.’ She turned towards the young dog. ‘Come on, Buster. High time you learned to earn your keep.’
Anna felt very nervous about going down to the yard. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she owed Eddie Appleyard so much, she would have stayed in her little haven, safe from inquisitive eyes. But, she sighed, she had no choice. So she put Maisie in the pram with a bottle for her feed and set off up the track. Joe Wainwright and a man Anna had not met before were already at work in the yard.
Eddie made the brief introduction. ‘This is Sam, Anna.’ Eddie made no reference to the baby in the pram, which she had parked at the edge of the yard.
‘Morning, lass,’ Joe greeted her cheerfully, but Sam glowered briefly at her and then turned his back.
As she was making ready the table where she would lay the fleeces to wrap them, Joe came and stood beside her. ‘Tek no notice of old Sam, lass. He’s got a daughter of his own about your age. And he’s a better guard dog than Eddie’s sheepdog ovver yonder.’ The man gave a wheezing laugh. He leant a little closer. ‘Won’t let the poor lass even speak to the young fellers, ne’er mind walk out with any of ’em.’
Anna’s mouth tightened as she glanced towards Maisie sitting contentedly in her pram. ‘He doesn’t approve of me, you mean.’
Quite unabashed, Joe nodded. ‘Summat like that, aye, lass. But you mark my words, he’s stacking up a barrowload of trouble for ’issen. The more you try to keep ’em tied down, the more they’ll try to slip the leash. ’Tis only nature, lass, ’tis only nature.’ Joe laughed again and leant closer to whisper, ‘But what he forgets is that some of us round here have long memories. When he was a young feller his wife’s father went after him with a shotgun one night.’
Anna turned to stare at Joe.
‘You’ve heard of a shotgun wedding, lass, ain’t ya?’
Anna nodded.
‘Well, that was a real one, an’ no mistake, ’cos their first bairn was born only six months after they was wed.’ Joe winked and tapped the side of his nose. ‘So Sam’s the last one to be disapproving, ain’t he?’
Anna said nothing, but let her head drop forwards to hide her face. Then she felt Joe’s friendly hand rest briefly on her shoulder. ‘Chin up, lass. You’m got a lovely babby there. Be proud of her.’
Then he turned and walked away, but the man’s bluff kindness had brought tears to her eyes.
The men worked hard, with Anna alongside them pausing only to feed and change Maisie and to grab a quick bite to eat herself. She watched in admiration as Sam tipped each sheep onto its rump. So sharp were his blades and so experienced his hands that he didn’t even seem to work the shears, but swept the blades down with long easy strokes, deftly turning the animal so that the fleece came off in one whole piece. Then it was Anna’s turn to pick up the fleece and take it to the slatted table. Taking it by the hind legs, she flung it upwards and outwards, as if shaking a rug, so that dust and loose fibres floated around her. Then she picked off all the bits of briar and grass
that still clung to it. She folded the flanks towards the centre to form a rectangle and rolled the fleece from the back end up towards the neck, where she drew out the neck wool to form a tie long enough to encircle the rolled fleece and tuck back in under itself.
All afternoon she worked steadily, until Eddie called a halt and Bertha appeared in the yard carrying drinks for the workers. Anna turned away, but not before she had seen the look of fury on the older woman’s face.
It was late in the evening when Anna climbed the track wearily, with scarcely the strength left to push the pram up the slope. Even when the shearing was done for the day and the men had gone, the work was not finished. The sheared sheep had to be driven back to the field and the next lot brought down to the farm for the night, ready for shearing the following day.
‘Dad, Dad,’ Anna heard Tony shouting. ‘There’s three lambs can’t find their mothers. They’re crying.’
The high-pitched bleating of the lambs as they darted from one ewe to another, unable to recognize their newly shorn dams, was pitiful. But Eddie only chuckled. ‘It’s all right, lad, I’ll make sure they’ve found the right ones afore I leave them. But you run on home now. Ya mam’ll be wanting you away to your bed. And you too, Anna, you take that little one home. You look all in, ya’sen.’
‘Goodnight, then, Eddie. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Goodnight, lass. And thanks for all your help today.’
Anna smiled and turned away. As she entered the cottage, she leant a moment against the closed door, glad to be back in her little sanctuary. And yet it hadn’t been a bad day. Despite Sam’s obvious disapproval and Bertha’s malevolent glare, Joe had treated her kindly. It had been a good day.
There had only been one moment that had caused her anguish, but no one could have guessed. At least, she hoped no one had noticed that for a moment her heart had seemed to rise into her throat and her hands had trembled.
Joe had unwittingly brought about the stab of fear. He had been admiring Sam’s skill at shearing and had commented lightly. ‘You remind me of a young feller that lives over Lincoln way. By, I’ve never seen a better shearer in me life. Like a knife through butter, it is, to watch him and he never leaves so much as a nick on the sheep. But blessed if I can remember his name.’
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