‘Yes,’ she admitted.
‘Oh, my word.’ Edna looked appalled. ‘An American, coming to take you away. What’s he going to say? What’s he going to do? What am I going to do without you?’
Annie was bombarded with conflicting emotions. Guilt, fear, resentment, but, most of all, desperate hope. For though her mother seemed to assume that Bobby Joe was coming back to take her home with him, Annie was not at all sure that this was going to happen. Bobby Joe had answered none of the five letters she had sent to him.
‘You could come too, Mum,’ she said in answer to her mother’s last question. ‘You could come with me.’
Her mother stared at her in utter amazement.
‘Me? Go to America? I couldn’t do that.’
‘Yes, you could. Why not? You could get away from him.’
It was as if she had suggested that her mother should sprout wings and fly.
‘Oh, no. I couldn’t do that, dear. I couldn’t leave him.’
‘It’d serve him right. When there was no one to look after him he might get to think what he was missing, instead of just hitting you all the time.’
For a moment Annie almost believed it could happen. Bobby Joe would come rolling up to the farmhouse door in a Jeep and take her and her mother away from Marsh Edge for ever.
‘I can’t just leave him, dear. That’s against the wedding vows. And anyway, he only hits me when I deserve it. I’m clumsy. I do things wrong.’
They were back on familiar territory. Tears of frustration rose in Annie’s eyes.
‘He shouldn’t hit you! He shouldn’t! You say wedding vows—hitting isn’t in the vows, is it? I thought you were supposed to love and cherish. Hitting isn’t cherishing.’
Edna shook her head sadly.
‘Wives have to obey, dear. You’ll learn that when you marry your American. It will be soon, dear, won’t it? Because you’ll start getting a lot bigger soon. People will notice.’
Annie didn’t have the heart to disillusion her.
‘I expect so,’ she said.
After all, it could still happen. Bobby Joe had said he would marry her. He might be on the way back to her right now.
Her mother put her hand to her mouth again.
‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘What is he going to say when he finds out?’
‘I don’t know,’ Annie said.
As it happened, they didn’t have to tell him. Somebody else did the job for them. A few days later a letter was delivered to Marsh Edge Farm. It was in an anonymous brown envelope and the address was typed. It looked like a business letter. Edna put it by Walter’s plate for him to open when he came in for midday dinner.
Annie was helping her mother bring the food to the table as her father opened it. There was silence as he scanned the contents. He was a slow reader, needing to run his finger along the page under the words. Annie picked up a dish of potatoes and started carrying it across the room. There was a roar of anger from her father and the next thing she knew, his hand crashed into her face.
‘You bitch! You filthy little bitch!’
Annie squealed with shock and pain. The dish slipped from her hands and smashed on the stone floor of the kitchen.
‘Now look what you’ve done—that cost good money, that did!’ Walter yelled.
Edna scuttled across the kitchen and began picking up the pieces. Walter’s foot sent her sprawling.
‘What do you know about this, eh? Eh? You been keeping it from me, have you? Been making a fool of me so’s I don’t know what’s going on in my own home?’
‘No—’ Edna shuffled along the floor to the shelter of a fireside chair. ‘No, I never—’
‘You leave her alone. It’s nothing to do with her,’ Annie screamed.
Behind her, she half heard her mother gasp with horror at her outburst.
Walter rounded on her.
‘You, you shameless little whore—you dare talk to me like that when you’re standing there bold as brass with a Yank bastard in your belly? I’ll show you who’s master round here. By the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll never give me lip ever again!’
He swung at her, but Annie dodged round the big table. She held on to the edge, her eyes on her father, ready to move as soon as he did. She had to stand up to him, for the sake of the child inside her—Bobby Joe’s baby.
‘You come back here. I’ll make you wish you’d never been born,’ Walter threatened. ‘Bringing a bastard into the family—!’
‘It’s not a bastard. He’s going to marry me,’ Annie yelled back at him.
‘Marry you? A Yank? You stupid little whore—he’ll do no such thing.’
Walter’s harsh voice dripped scorn. Try as she might to withstand it, Annie couldn’t help but shrivel inside. Those unanswered letters seemed to mock her.
‘He will. He said so. He promised,’ she insisted. She needed it to be true so badly. She was speaking to convince herself even more than her father. ‘He’ll come back and marry me, and then I’ll go to America and you’ll have to get someone else to slave for you.’
There was a whimper of fear from her mother. Out of the corner of her eye, Annie caught sight of her terrified expression. The moment’s distraction gave Walter his chance. He lunged across the table and caught Annie on the side of her head. The blow made her ears ring, but she bit back a cry.
‘Coward,’ she hissed. ‘That’s all you can do, isn’t it? Hit us. Just you wait. I’ll go to America and I’ll take Mum and all and you’ll be left all alone. You won’t have no one to take it out on then.’
The moment the words left her mouth she regretted it. Now she had turned his attention back to her mother, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. Already, her father was swinging round to look at her mother as she cowered behind the frail cover of the chair.
‘You—you thought you’d leave me, did you? You need teaching a lesson—’
Edna cringed away from him, retreating into the corner.
‘No, I never—I wouldn’t leave. I never said—honest—’
Annie raced from the dubious safety of the table to grab his arm.
‘Leave her alone! I want her to go but she won’t!’
Walter’s other arm whipped round to hit her on the jaw. Her teeth cracked together, catching her tongue, bringing tears to her eyes. Her head was swimming and her mouth was full of the salt taste of blood. Confused, Annie let go of him and staggered back. Immediately, Walter was after her, raining blows on her head and body, calling her every name he could fling at her. Instinctively, Annie’s arms wrapped round her belly and she made for the door, wrenching it open and slamming it behind her, then stumbling across the yard. Desperately, she cast about for a refuge. There was nowhere, nowhere … He would get her wherever she went. Her father was behind her, coming out of the back door, yelling.
‘I’ll get you, you harlot—giving me cheek like that. I’ll make you sorry—’
Annie caught sight of her bike, propped against the upright of the old cart shed. With terror driving her, she darted across the yard, scattering squawking hens, and grabbed the handlebars. One foot on the pedal, a push with the other and she was off. Walter uttered a curse as he grabbed at the back mudguard and missed, and Annie wobbled away, out of the mercifully open gate and down the track, her knees shaking, her head reeling, but safe. Somehow, she cycled till she was off Marsh Edge land. Her legs gave way as she got off the bike. She collapsed into the long damp grass of the roadside verge and wept.
There were further humiliations in store for her. When she went into Wittlesham the following Thursday, still bruised and aching, her first stop was at the grocer’s where they were registered customers. She pushed open the door with its jangling bell and stepped into the cool shop with its tiled floor and its mingling smells of bacon and cheese and coffee. The three assistants were in their usual places and there were half a dozen customers either being served or waiting their turn. All of them were women whom Annie had met in there be
fore and knew well enough to pass the time of day with. As she entered the shop, one of them saw her and nudged her neighbour, who turned to look. They both stared at Annie for a moment, then turned away without saying a word. The shop fell silent. The only person to greet her was one of the assistants, and she only gave a curt nod. Annie was left with the smile dying on her face.
Cringing inside with hurt and loathing, Annie wanted desperately to walk out and never come in the place again, but she couldn’t. There were provisions to buy and their ration books would not be accepted elsewhere. So she just had to stand there and pretend she hadn’t noticed the atmosphere as she made her purchases. With relief she put the last blue paper wrapped parcel into her basket and made for the door. As she went out, animated talk broke out behind her. She knew just what they were saying, and it wasn’t pleasant.
It was the same story at the butcher’s when she went to buy their tiny allowance of meat—the stares, the turning away, the silence. Expecting the same treatment, she went into the fishmonger’s, and was pathetically grateful to find that news of her disgraced state had not yet reached there. The cheerful owner joked with her as usual. Revived a little, Annie went to deliver a skirt that had been altered to one of her mother’s customers. The woman looked her up and down as she stood on the doorstep, and sniffed.
‘Well, I wonder you have the gall to show your face. Your poor mother. How she can bear it, I do not know. Wait there.’ She shut the door in Annie’s face and came back a minute or so later with an envelope, which she held out to Annie as if not wanting to contaminate herself. ‘I think your mother will find that is correct. I won’t be using her services again.’
Flabbergasted, Annie was left staring at a closed door again. She finally found her voice. ‘It’s not my mother’s fault!’ she yelled at the stained-glass panel. ‘Don’t take it out on her!’
Swallowing back tears, she got on her bike. In need of comfort, she made for the road to the back of town. Her errands were done now, and she had time to catch the Sutton’s girls before they started their afternoon shift. The only problem there, of course, was that Jeff might turn up. He had a habit of doing that—standing there talking to her in front of all the factory girls, so that they teased the life out of her when he went.
‘Ooh, our Mr Jeffrey’s soft on you!’
‘When are you going to be Mrs Sutton, then? That’ll put Princess Peril’s nose out of joint.’
‘Can we all be bridesmaids?’
But with a bit of luck, he wouldn’t be there, and the girls would cheer her up.
A group of them were sitting on the wall, waiting till the last minute before going in to work. Annie waved as she approached and called out. Her heart sank as she saw there were no answering waves. As she got nearer, she heard the mocking remarks.
‘Oh, look who’s here, the dirty cat.’
‘We know what you’ve been up to.’
‘Or what’s been up you.’
‘Didn’t take you long to get your knickers off, did it?’
She almost cycled off again without waiting, but something made her stop and challenge them.
‘Is it you lot who’ve been spreading lies about me all over town?’
‘Lies, is it?’ one girl said, staring at Annie’s stomach. ‘So what’s that under your jumper? A cushion?’
The others sniggered.
Annie felt herself going hot. ‘You got no right to go gossiping about me. I thought you were my friends,’ she said.
‘We’re not friends with little tarts,’ she was told.
‘Not with unmarried mothers, we’re not.’
Annie wanted to fly at them and scratch and bite and hurt them as much as they were hurting her, but there were six of them and one of her, and a sense of self-preservation honed by a lifetime of living with her father held her back. She got back on her bike.
‘You’ll see—he’s coming back to marry me. You’ll be laughing on the other side of your faces when he takes me with him to live in America,’ she flung at them, and cycled off.
Mocking laughter followed her down the road.
‘In a pig’s ear!’ somebody called.
Annie stuck her head in the air and did not reply.
She would show them, she told herself. They would be so jealous when they heard she had gone off to Illinois to be a real American wife with a car and a refrigerator and a front porch. They’d all want to be her friend then and she would tell them where to get off.
She had to believe it, because the alternative was too dreadful to think about.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
‘Do YOU think your father will make you manager now you’re back for good?’ Moira asked.
‘We’ve got to discuss it,’ Tom said.
‘Yes, you have. I mean, things are very different now, aren’t they? Before the war, you were still at school. Now you’re an adult, and perfectly able to help him run the company.’
An adult, went the silent line, soon to have responsibilities of your own.
They were sitting by the river. It was a lazy August afternoon of blue skies and puffy white clouds. The air was warm and buzzing with insects and a slight breeze stirred the leaves of the trees along the river bank. A perfect English summer’s day, and here Tom was with a pretty girl by his side. It was everything he had dreamed of during those long freezing nights in the Stalag. And yet …
‘Tom?’
Moira was expecting an answer.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ he said.
‘Of course I’m right. And your father’s not in the best of health, you know. He could really do with someone to take the load off his shoulders.’
‘I know,’ Tom said.
She was right, there was no doubt about it. He had been shocked at how much older his parents looked. His mother had been through that major operation and, though she had recovered well, she didn’t seem to be the woman she used to be. And his father looked tired and worn as well. But then everyone did. Six years of war had taken its toll. They had won, thank God, but the end of the fighting hadn’t brought instant ease and abundance. Now there was the peace to be won, and it needed the young and fit and enthusiastic to get started on it. People like himself, and Moira.
‘And I could come and help in the office, if you like. I’d sort out all your systems in no time. I’d really enjoy it,’ Moira volunteered.
‘That’s really sweet of you, darling, and I’m sure you’d be wonderful, but we couldn’t sack Iris, not after all the faithful service she’s given,’ Tom said hastily.
He could just imagine what his father would say to having his right-hand woman replaced. Iris ran the office like her private kingdom.
Moira sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right, darling. You’re so loyal. That’s one of the things I love about you.’
She laid her head on his shoulder, and Tom put an arm round her. She was a lovely girl, and devoted to him. He was a lucky man.
‘Isn’t it wonderful that it’s really all over at last?’ she said.
‘Certainly is,’ Tom agreed, glad to have the subject changed. ‘Terrible thing, that A-bomb. They say people are still dying of the effects. I’m glad I never had to drop anything like that.’
‘They deserved it, the Japs,’ Moira said.
‘Mmm—’ Tom said. There were some terrible stories circulating now about how prisoners of war had been treated in the Far East. They made the Stalag seem like a summer holiday.
‘And now everybody’s going home,’ Moira said, neatly sidestepping any discussion about bombing. ‘You know that evacuee family my aunty Winnie had in her cottage? They’re off back to London next week. The woman wants to get their house ready for when her husband comes home, she says, but she doesn’t know whether she’ll be able to get any builders to do it. They’re like gold dust down in London, apparently. But anyway, that means my aunty Winnie will be looking for new tenants …’ She paused, looking sideways at Tom to gauge how he was taking this piece of
information, then added, ‘She’ll not be asking much for the rent, but she does want someone who’ll take care of the place. Someone responsible.’
‘Mmm—I expect she does,’ Tom responded.
He stared at the brilliant turquoise damsel flies darting and hovering over the brown water of the river. He knew the cottage Moira was talking about. It was a nice little place—a bit damp, and it had an outside toilet and only one cold water tap inside, but houses were in short supply and most young couples would jump at it. Most young couples. That was the sticking point. He just couldn’t quite make the jump to seeing himself and Moira as a couple, a proper engaged-to-be-married couple.
Beside him, he could feel Moira’s disappointment that he hadn’t taken the cue and suggested that they go and see the cottage together.
‘Isn’t it amazing,’ he said, nodding at the damsel flies, ‘the way they spend all that time underwater as larvae or whatever, and then they just emerge for a few hours to mate and die?’
‘Fascinating,’ said Moira. There was a definite edge of sarcasm to her voice.
That night, Tom lay awake for hours, mulling over the situation in his head. Everyone expected him to marry Moira—his friends, her friends, their two families and, most of all, Moira herself. She would have that cottage spick and span in no time, she would be an excellent mother and a great support to him in running Featherstone’s Coaches, plus he found her attractive and exciting and good company. But. He came constantly back to that big But. Moira wasn’t Annie. Moira didn’t seem like the other half of himself the way that Annie had. The sensible part of him told him that it had just been a boy-and-girl thing, that Annie had never written to him in Germany and had probably forgotten about him, but still he couldn’t let go. Some time in the early hours of the morning, he came to a decision. He would go to Wittlesham and see Annie. He felt an enormous sense of relief. If he could just see Annie, then he would know which direction his life ought to take. His way clear now, he went to sleep.
And so he found himself retracing the journey he had taken down to Wittlesham all those years ago when he should have been on the cycle club tour. The trains were no more frequent than they had been in wartime, and certainly no cleaner or more comfortable, but one thing was different. The English seemed to have gone back to their old habit of not looking at, let alone speaking to strangers. The wartime spirit of camaraderie had evaporated with the peace.
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