Madge thought at first it was Eddie who’d changed his mind about returning to their table, but the hand that was intent on steering her back towards the dance floor, where couples were now dancing to the much slower notes of the serenade, belonged to James. Madge looked up at him in surprise but knew then, from that first touch on her arm, things could never be the same. Later, much later, he told her that the minute he saw her face, he felt such a pull, such a force inside him that he knew – whereas previously he’d been somewhat cavalier about his sorties over the channel – he just had to survive any future bombing raids to make it back to her side.
James guided her back onto the dance floor, his eyes never once leaving her face until he took her in his arms and Madge lay her head against his chest. She held herself as still as she could, concentrating on following the slow music and his steps, but her heart was pounding at such a rate she seriously thought she must be experiencing a heart attack. Her grandfather had died of one just the year previously; maybe it ran in families. If she were to live just another hour before an ambulance was called to The Ritz and her body scraped off the floor, she was, she knew, from that moment on, spoiled for ever for Arthur. He didn’t stand a chance.
James suddenly pulled her away from him but kept hold of her arms. ‘I have to get out of here,’ he said. ‘I need fresh air. Will you walk with me?’
‘A walk…? What about Francesca? I did come with her.’ They both looked towards James’s cousin, who was being chatted up by two high-ranking army personnel.
James grinned down at Madge. ‘I think you’ll find Francesca is more than able to look after herself.’ He took Madge’s hand and led her back to the table. Eddie had disappeared, but when Madge scanned the room, guilty that she and James appeared to be breaking up the party, she saw that he was deep in conversation with the woman in mauve satin and was in the process of walking behind her towards the bar. Francesca turned briefly from her conversation and waved. ‘Give me a minute.’ James left Madge by the table and she wasn’t quite sure whether to relinquish the chairs to some hovering Wrens or sit down on them. She was saved from her indecision by Francesca appearing at her side.
‘Darling, do take James out for some fresh air. I’m more than happy here with these two.’ She grinned and nodded towards the men. ‘Poor James has been having rather a rough time of it lately and crowded joints like this have never been his thing. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll either see you back here or back on Oxford Street. You’re perfectly safe with James, you know,’ she added as she saw Madge hesitate. ‘He’s been brought up to be a gentleman.’
‘Like you’ve been brought up to be a lady?’ Madge said archly. ‘You kept that one quiet, Fran.’
‘Doesn’t mean a thing, darling. Now, if you’d rather stay here with me, that’s fine too, but it is getting hellishly hot in here.’ She broke off as James appeared behind her, adjusting his cap as he did so.
They walked together in silence out of the palm tree-lined bar and James nodded towards the main entrance. Madge stopped to let four rather fey-looking men, all quite dashingly attired in pin-striped suits, cross her path before they headed as one towards the stairs to the lower floor.
‘Ritzkrieg,’ James muttered as Madge caught him up.
‘Pardon?’
‘Ritzkrieg – it’s the term that’s been cooked up to explain the recalcitrant profligacy of this place. It’s all becoming a bit sordid in here; all rather rank and somewhat depressing.’ He shook his head. ‘Those men who didn’t stop to let you through will be on their way down to The Pink Sink.’
‘The Pink Sink?’ Madge frowned as James ushered her forward.
‘It’s a homosexual pick-up joint.’
Madge felt herself redden at the very idea of homosexuality. She knew such a thing existed but, apart from her dad’s bullocks experimenting in the fields below their farmhouse, she hadn’t ever really given it much thought, let alone known any man who was openly… well, openly that way inclined.
‘I’m sorry,’ James smiled. ‘I’ve embarrassed you and that wasn’t my intention.’
‘So, what was your intention?’ Madge felt slightly cross that she’d been made to appear as a gauche country bumpkin.
‘Oh, I’m just not really a city person,’ James frowned. ‘London is far too noisy and busy, even when there’s not a war on. Now it’s just hell on earth.’ He turned to Madge as they were saluted by the doorman and stepped onto Piccadilly. ‘But thank goodness I was persuaded by Eddie to celebrate our forty-eight hours’ leave by having drinks at The Ritz.’ James stood in front of Madge and smiled down at her from his six-foot height. ‘Something good has finally come out of the place.’ He offered her his arm. ‘Shall we walk?’
13
‘Granny Madge has suggested you and I move in here for the winter.’ I found a sweating Daisy down in the bungalow’s vegetable patch, stripped off to a grubby T-shirt and digging the contents of a compost heap into the newly dug trench in front of her. ‘Gosh, you really know what you’re doing, don’t you?’ I said in admiration. ‘I wouldn’t have a clue.’
Daisy straightened up and wiped her brow with a dirty glove. ‘You just need to be systematic, forking over the bottom of the trench where the soil is very heavy and adding the organic matter in a generous layer before turning in the next spit. The worms will redistribute it to improve soil consistency.’
‘Spit? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ I frowned, eager to get off worms, spits and compost heaps and onto the idea of us moving into the bungalow. Madge had actually fallen asleep on me in the gardens of Almast Haven, tired out, I assumed, with the telling of her tale about meeting James for the first time. I’d wanted her to carry on, but she’d become reluctant to continue and, clutching the RAF badge in her gloved hand, had suddenly dozed off.
‘Ooh, really? Did Granny really suggest that? It wasn’t you putting the idea into her head? I’d love to live here for a few months. Vivienne is already driving me mad back at home.’ Daisy beamed at the thought of moving into the bungalow, but then she frowned. ‘But I thought Madge was hoping to be back herself after Christmas?’
‘I’m not sure she’s quite as fit as she thinks she is. She dozed off on me in Heaven’s garden when we were out for a stroll. I had to get a couple of the carers to help her back in. Apparently, she’s on some new medication for something and it’s making her sleepy.’
‘She’d be far better here, out in the garden, than being drugged up in Heaven. We could look after her here, you know.’ Daisy took off her gloves. ‘I need coffee and a big fat bun. Come on, let’s go up to the house and put the kettle on.’
‘Would you know what to do if she became ill?’ I asked as I followed Daisy back up the garden. The path was slippery with moss and the drizzle that had started to fall as Daisy and I chatted in the vegetable garden. ‘I wouldn’t. And, don’t forget, we’re going to be over at Holly Close Farm most of the day soon; we’ll need to start clearing the site as soon as the sale has gone through. We can’t leave her by herself. What if she falls again?’
The bungalow was warm – very different from how it had been just the week previously when I’d called in with Madge to pick up the key for Holly Close Farm – and felt lived in once more. I could see myself living here.
‘Won’t Mum be upset if we move out again just as we’ve gone back home?’ Daisy bit into one of the enormous chocolate muffins we’d brought with us. ‘It’s not a great compliment, is it?’ she went on through a mouthful of crumbs. ‘Moving straight out again, I mean.’
‘I really don’t think Mum will mind at all. She and Dad have got used to being by themselves and she’s able to spend the time she used to spend on cooking and looking after us on her ceramics. She’s beginning to make quite a name for herself, you know.’
‘Do you think you could live just with me? Who’s going to clean the toilet and wash the kitchen floor?’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Daisy. We’re adul
ts.’
‘Really?’ Daisy obviously thought otherwise. ‘No, I know that.’ She frowned and slurped at her coffee. ‘It’s just that because we’re sisters rather than flatmates, we’ll end up leaving the housework to each other. You know we will. You can’t afford to upset flatmates by not doing your own washing up or leaving your pants and pyjamas in the bathroom, but with sisters it doesn’t matter. You can’t throw your sister out.’
I laughed. ‘Yes, OK, I know what you mean. We’ll just have to be a bit grown-up about it: no leaving half-eaten pizzas under the sofa or not cleaning the bath after you. Bagsy have the biggest spare bedroom.’
‘You see, you’ve started already. Being bossy and bagging the biggest room.’
‘I’m the eldest.’
‘Yes, and the bossiest.’ Daisy popped the remaining bit of muffin into her mouth. ‘Fine, fine. I prefer the little bedroom. It looks out onto the garden and the sun comes into it in the morning. Do we need to pay rent, do you think? I’ve got two months’ wages still owing to me but I really am going to have to get bar work or some other gardening work to pay my way until Seb Henderson signs on the dotted line. Or do you think we can go back to Mum and Dad’s to eat?’
‘That’s being really cheeky. I have a bit of money saved up. Not much, but it’ll keep me going until the money comes through from the sale of Holly Close Farm. I bet Dad will sub you a loan.’
‘Now, are we going to be on an equal footing over the farm? You know, you sort the house and the cottage and I’ll be in charge of the land and gardens. I can’t be doing with you telling me what to do all the time.’
‘One of us has to be in charge. I’m project manager, Granny said; you know she did.’
‘You’re sounding a bit pompous, Charlie. You’re not going to be my boss, you know.’
‘I think you’ll find I need to be. It is my area of expertise, after all, being project manager.’
‘I tell you what you need.’ Daisy folded her arms and glared.
‘A bit of cooperation is what I need.’
‘What you need, Charlie, is a right good seeing-to from Josh Lee. And the sooner the better.’
*
The ‘right good seeing-to’ prescribed by Daisy as a panacea for all of life’s ills happened just a couple of weeks later. Daisy and I spent several days moving our stuff into Granny Madge’s bungalow. Mum and Dad – professing much sorrow that we didn’t want to stay in the family home with them but, we knew, secretly overjoyed that we were leaving – helped us move in, ferrying our bits and pieces as well as the loan of bedside lamps and extra plugs for the plethora of electrical gadgets Daisy and I insisted we needed to survive. Good old Mum, disinclined, as the world’s worst cook, to fill Granny’s fridge and freezer with home-made shepherd’s pies, apple tarts, brownies and the like, did a massive shop at Sainsbury’s and M&S as a starter pack for us both. I think it assuaged her guilt at feeling relief that we were to be no longer under her feet once more – and Daisy and I oohed and aahed over the contents of the myriad orange plastic bags in much the same way as we’d done every term on our return to university years before.
It was now early December, the weather had turned miserably cold and blustery, and Daisy and I were happy to light the wood-burning stove in the sitting room of an evening, draw the heavy Sanderson curtains against the pernicious damp and curl up on the floral chintz-covered sofas. Daisy, always a hard grafter, had done as she’d said she was going to do and found herself a temporary seasonal job as waitress down at Clementine’s restaurant in the village. She was originally only supposed to be doing a couple of evenings a week plus one day over the weekend, but her phone was constantly ringing requesting that she cover staff who’d not turned up because of illness.
The dreaded winter-vomiting bug appeared to have struck with a vengeance in the area, but particularly at Almost Heaven where, because of fear of contagion and the possible subsequent sending of its residents one step nearer to their Maker, the home was off limits to visitors. Poor old Madge was beside herself and telephoned Mum as well as Daisy and me constantly, berating the fact that she was a virtual prisoner and that she’d end up as mad as the other silly old fools if she couldn’t break out any day soon. I was dying to hear more of her and James’s story, but she was disinclined to chat about her past over her mobile phone, saying that once she was ‘out on parole’ she’d tell me – and Daisy who was just as interested – more. Wonderful Granny that she was, she also phoned to say she’d deposited a sum of money in both our bank accounts and that we were to use it to keep our heads above water until the sale of Holly Close Farm went through.
I’d not heard a thing from Josh Lee since our bike ride a few weeks previously. I wasn’t particularly bothered, being happy to hole up at the bungalow, enjoying my own company while Daisy worked in the garden or at Clementine’s. I was getting stuck into the plans for the cottage and, as much as I could without any real idea of proper measurements or square footage or, indeed, what Seb and Liberty had in mind for their new house, for the farm itself. Thanking the God of Architectural Plans that I had my laptop with its PlanGrid app and computer-aided design and drafting software, I was able to fill my time sketching, measuring, drafting and making layouts of initial ideas for designs to create 3-D representations. With my trusty slide rule, compasses, rolls of tracing paper and my set of marker pens I was soon able to put my ideas onto paper and then progress, using graphics software that simulated building materials such as stone and wood, to experimenting with how different materials complemented my visions.
Late one afternoon I suddenly realised I’d had enough of being on my own, talking to myself and ranting at the designs if they weren’t to my liking. I was both bored and lonely and in danger of becoming depressed. Daisy, if she wasn’t working, was spending a lot of her time catching up with old school friends, as well as going out on dates with men she was swiping right on Tinder. I’d spent the day on my laptop, stopping only to make myself a cheese sandwich, and then another, and drinking endless cups of coffee. I felt jittery with too much caffeine, a definite lack of exercise or any meaningful conversation. I wandered into the bathroom and visibly blanched at my appearance in the mirror. Jesus, this was no way to make Dominic come back. My hair needed a good wash and, sniffing my armpits, I realised, so did I. What if he arrived out of the blue, begging me to go back with him to London? He’d take one look and scarper off the way he’d come. I needed taking in hand: a brisk walk followed by a shower, hair wash, leg shave and pedicure would sort me out.
I borrowed one of Granny’s coats – remarkably similar, I mused, to the dog-walking one of Mum’s I’d been forced into wearing on the ash-scattering afternoon – and set off. Almost dark at just half-past three in the afternoon: God, I hated winter. Young mums sporting winter coats, trendily tied scarves and myriad offspring dominated the pavements on their way back from the local school pick-up, and I had to step into the road to avoid them.
This was when I could have done with Malvolio with me: I always felt safer walking in woods and down dark country lanes with a dog, even a cowardy-custard like Malvolio, who would run from the tiniest yapping Yorkshire terrier, never mind a six-foot axe murderer intent on, well, murder.
Once I got into the swing of it, I really enjoyed tramping through the dank undergrowth, kicking up soggy dead leaves, leaping over the stream made fat with the recent rain and trailing a stick across the tree trunks as I walked. My spirits began to revive. By the time I’d done a circuit and arrived back at the bungalow it was fully dark, and I reckoned whatever it was that was supposed to be over the yardarm was definitely well over and poured myself a large glass of Sauvignon Blanc before heading for the bathroom to run a bath.
The minute I lowered myself into the warm water, scented with some rather revolting lavender stuff of Madge’s, the doorbell rang. Jehovah’s Witnesses or the six-foot axe murderer?
Josh Lee.
‘Oh,’ I said, surprised. ‘What are you
doing here?’ I pulled Granny’s towel that bit tighter round my top half.
‘You shouldn’t open the door to strangers. I could have been a six-foot axe murderer.’
‘Hardly, seeing as you’re only five-foot-ten.’
‘Eleven, actually.’
‘And no axe.’
‘I’ll go away and get one if you’d rather?’
‘How did you know where I was?’
‘I saw Daisy in the Jolly Sailor last night. She said you were both camping out here. She said you needed taking out of yourself.’
I glared at Josh. If Daisy had said I needed ‘a good seeing-to’ I’d have her.
‘So, I thought I’d call round on my way home from work and invite you to my place for something to eat.’
‘I’ve no transport.’ Dad was in the process of sorting out Madge’s car insurance so Daisy and I could drive Madge’s little car. Neither of us could afford the exorbitant cost, but Dad had taken pity on us (probably realising he’d be otherwise hauled out of bed at midnight to pick us up, as had been the case when we were teenagers) and said it was an early Christmas present to insure Madge’s car for us for six months.
‘I’ll wait for you.’ Josh stamped his feet a bit on the doorstep and looked meaningfully past me. ‘It is December out here, you know.’
Coming Home To Holly Close Farm Page 12