by Pam Weaver
‘I’m starving!’ he said, and proceeded to tuck into the sponge cake sitting on the table. He was still sitting there when Ben carried in Sylvia, who was sucking her thumb.
‘She’s had a fall and wants her mum,’ he said, and then stopped, seeing who was sitting there. ‘Now then, Jack, the warrior returns.’
‘Not before time,’ said Jack. ‘Come here and let’s have a look at you, young lady.’
Sylvia hung back and started to cry, clinging to Mirren’s skirt.
‘This is your daddy,’ said Florrie, trying to be helpful, but the little girl hid even more and wouldn’t go near him.
‘She’s just tired,’ Mirren explained, seeing the hurt on his face. ‘If I’d known I could have prepared her.’
‘Looks to me as if she’s been spoiled rotten while I was away; doesn’t know who to turn to,’ Jack answered, ignoring the child and sipping his tea. ‘She’ll soon change her tune when she sees what I’ve brought her. I see you’ve got a house full,’ he said seeing Margery and her boys creeping through the kitchen, trying to be invisible. ‘It looks a right pig sty in here.’
‘We’ve made a few changes,’ Mirren smiled.
‘So I see,’ he said, and his eyes looked so disappointed that she signalled to Ben to get everyone out.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll all get out of your hair,’ said Florrie, taking the hint. ‘It’s the harvest do and there’s a pile of stuff to go down. You’ll be giving it a miss,’ she winked. ‘Sylvia’s a bit young to be out late. Daddy and Mummy can put you to bed tonight. Won’t that be grand?’
‘I go with Denny and Derek,’ Sylvia said, wanting to follow the evacuees.
‘No, love, not now. We’ll play with Daddy instead,’ Mirren tried to appease her but the minx could be wilful when crossed.
‘No…no. He go away.’ She stared hard at Jack, then buried her head from him again. No one knew what to do to salvage this reunion. Sylvia was kicking and screaming, and then Mirren smacked her bottom and everyone disappeared quickly to leave her to it.
Jack got up, making for the drawing room with his kit bag, upset. ‘She can wait for her present after that little exhibition.’
‘Don’t take on,’ Mirren whispered. ‘She’s just flummoxed by all the fuss.’
She was caught whichever way. Better to calm down the child first, feed her and get her into bed, then let Jack have her full attention. What an unexpected turn-up! How many nights had she dreamed of his return and now he was here and she looked like something the cat had dragged in, the house was a mess and his daughter was playing up.
Sylvia needed no rocking and was tucked up without a murmur. Mirren did a quick change out of her farm muck and dabbed some lavender water on herself, brushed out her hair from her scarf and pinched her cheeks. She wanted to look her best for Jack, and tiptoed down the stairs expectantly.
Jack was snoring by the fire, flat out with a half-bottle of whisky, half empty on the side table. Poor love was exhausted and needed peace and quiet, she thought, and left him to it. She took up her mending and sat opposite, watching him sleep, the expressions flickering across his face, twitches and gasps. Let their lovemaking wait. Her husband was home and all was right with the world.
Over the next few days they pieced together his wartime travels: how he was trapped near Arnhem and escaped capture, got himself back to England with help from the brave Dutch underground. Now he had two weeks’ leave before he must return to barracks.
Her heart sank at the shortness of his stay. After four years they needed months to get to know each other again, she feared. Florrie fussed over him every second she was free. They never seemed to be alone.
‘You’ve lost some weight, lad. Just look at you, all skin and bone,’ she said, shoving another ladle of soup into his bowl. He looked up, his eyes dull and his skin sallow.
‘Don’t fuss, Mother. I’m not that hungry. I’ve eaten enough broth to last a lifetime. You’ve had it easy here,’ he sneered, looking at the pile of bread and butter, the mound of cold cuts. ‘Our Sylvia’s getting quite the little fatty.’
‘No, she’s not, she’s just perfect for her age,’ Mirren argued, hurt at his comment. He was so snappy in the mornings, sitting about smoking, getting under her feet as she went about her chores.
‘When are this lot going home to Scar Head?’ he whispered. ‘It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here. When are we going to get time to ourself? I’m sick of tripping over Big Ben and his farm hands. I didn’t think we’d be reduced to having prisoners of war in the house. I spent enough time fighting them in Italy. Now I’ve got to hear a wop singing in the yard.’
‘Jack!’ Mirren went hot knowing Umberto was in earshot.
‘Berti is one of the family and he’s so good with Sylvia.’ That was a mistake.
‘I don’t want no Eyeties fondling my kiddy. It’s bad enough she chases after Ben. She looks through me when I try to play with her.’
She could see the hurt in his eyes. You couldn’t force a child to warm to a stranger. It took time and patience, and Jack wasn’t showing anything but frustration.
‘Tom and Florrie have let out the farmhouse. It made sense with all the shortages. This house is big enough for all of us, but I’m sorry it’s such a bus station.’
He did look so weary and edgy, the mischief gone from his dark eyes. The Jack who went away was not the one who’d come back. Poor man had been to hell and back and here they were living the same old life but different too. How could he not be disappointed?
He was trying so hard to woo Sylvia but the more he stalked her the more she ran from him. He’d brought her a dress that was too big and some dolls she wouldn’t look at. She preferred to play with farm animals and build bricks with Dennis and Derek. She was not the girly girl Jack was expecting at all.
‘Leave her be and she’ll come round,’ Mirren offered, but Jack ignored her advice.
They managed some walks out together, up to World’s End, and made love by the rocks and under the moon but it was a rushed and chilly coupling, not the passionate embrace Mirren was longing for. It got off to a wrong start when she insisted he wear a French letter.
‘No more babies for a while, Jack,’ she whispered. ‘Not till you’re settled. We can start again then.’
‘Aye,’ he agreed, ‘when we get ourselves out of this madhouse and away from all our relatives. You can’t breathe for Yewells on yer back.’
This outburst took Mirren by surprise. The thought of leaving Cragside never entered her head. Farming was the only life she knew and the thought of moving back into a town made her shiver, but she said nothing. This was the war talking, and his weariness, so she held him close.
‘It’ll all be different when the war’s over,’ she smiled.
‘It better had be,’ snapped Jack, buttoning up his trousers. ‘I didn’t fight a war to come back to shovelling muck for the rest of my life. There’ll be training schemes on offer. We can make a whole new life down south. The lads I’ve met live the life of Riley down there. I didn’t realise just how backward everything is up here: no electricity, telephones, bathrooms and indoor toilets…You should see London, the shops and flicks and shows. There’s nothing but hills here. It’s so primitive.’
‘It suited you before,’ she replied, seeing the strained look on his face. ‘Be patient.’
‘Patient! I’ve seen good men die for nothing. I’ve seen starving kids with bones sticking out, and horrors…Don’t get me started, Mirren. I need a drink.’ With that he rose and took her hand. ‘Shall we go down The Fleece?’
‘You know I don’t go in there,’ she snapped. ‘Come home and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’
‘Tea? I’m sick of it! I need something a bit stronger than char, love. You go off and see to the kiddy. I’ll go and get my medicine at the bar.’
This was his pattern, which had been going on for days. Mirren was close to tears, torn by wanting to keep him company but knowing she was needed back o
n the farm.
‘Don’t be long,’ she waved. ‘I’ll make us a nice supper.’
All the way home she felt guilty that Jack had not got the welcome he deserved. Tonight she would make something special for him, lay the table, get Sylvia to sleep in her proper bed for once, and they could talk and be alone. Then it would be all right.
She waited and waited in her best red frock. She had cooked a rabbit pie with her best topping, and a blackberry and apple crumble. She watched the clock crawl round to nine o’clock. She felt sick and anxious and unnerved, hurt and then cross. The supper was put back on top of the stove and she undressed, climbed into bed with acid in her throat. How could he spoil a wonderful night? She waited and waited until he crept up the stairs and fell through the door drunk, smelling of a taproom; the smell that took her back to being a child and frightened her.
‘You are my Lily of Laguna!’ he sang, lurching forward to kiss her.
‘Shush! You’ll wake everyone. Where’ve you been till this hour?’
‘Having a good time for once…’ His speech was slurred.
‘I cooked you a lovely meal,’ she whispered. ‘I waited and waited…’
‘Don’t nag…not back five minutes and I’ve got a nagging wife,’ he said.
‘I’m not nagging. I wanted tonight to be special,’ she replied.
Jack leaned over and grabbed her arm. The stench from his mouth was stale. ‘Come and make your hero happy again,’ he laughed, trying to ease himself over her.
‘No! Not like this and you, drunk. I’m too tired and not in the mood.’
‘I didn’t come all the way through Europe, ducking and diving with the devil’s fire bursting over my head…enemy fire, with half a dozen bloody buzzards hovering, wanting to peck the feathers off my back, darting from hedge to hedge with guns blasting us to kingdom come…running like hell. I didn’t come all this way home to a wife who was too tired, so get on your back and do your duty for once!’
‘Jack! Don’t talk to me like that!’
‘Like what?’
‘As if you hate me. I didn’t start this war. You could’ve stayed here on the farm. I’m so proud of you doing your duty but I’ve never seen you so angry. Don’t blame me!’
‘You’d be angry if you’d seen what I’ve seen…I want to just blot it out,’ he said, and for a second she saw the old Jack in his eyes: Jack who hid the kittens from the drowning bucket; who wiped her tears when Jip, her collie, died; who sat with her at World’s End after Dunkirk, who’d promised her the moon, the sun and the stars if she’d only be his wife.
‘But getting blathered isn’t the answer,’ she offered and then wished she hadn’t.
His body stiffened at her reproach. ‘What do you know about it?’ His voice was angry and hard, the voice of a stranger, and he held her so tight that her body recoiled at his embrace. There was no point in struggling. He wanted comfort in the only way he knew. No point in resisting, and she felt used, opened up and rammed by his hard demanding sex. There was no love, no tenderness, just brute force.
Mirren lay there afterwards, shocked, trying to understand. He’d suffered and he was still suffering. She must make allowances for his drunkenness. This was not the real Jack but a wounded Jack, and he needed understanding not rejection. Why did it feel as if she was being punished? What had she done wrong?
She waved him off at Scarperton with a heavy heart, his last words ringing in her ears.
‘When I come home again I want them all out, all them Yewells. If I hear that child call Ben her dad one more time…It makes me wonder what you’ve been up to behind my back!’ he said, gripping her tightly on the arm.
‘Oh, Jack, how could you even think that?’ Mirren’s eyes were brimming with tears and her arm bruised from his grip. He was so rough when he held her, as if she was his possession, not his loving wife.
‘Think on…I need some peace and quiet, not a house full of strangers. And tidy the place up a bit. It looks like Paddy’s market.’
This was not the Jack she had yearned for, this sad, angry soldier. Even his own mother said he had changed and not for the better.
‘He’s that sour, he’d turn milk. He doesn’t listen to a word his mam says. He’s not right in the head, anyone can see that. You’ll have to be patient with him.’
Every night Mirren had tried to reach out to him, suffering his rough lovemaking without protest, but it had done nothing to bring them closer together. Now the thought of Jack returning for good filled her with unease. Perhaps when the war was over, with fresh air and good food, the old Jack would return once more.
As the train chuffed out of the station she turned her back on the smoke and soot with relief. Time to climb back to Windebank and normality. Six weeks later she realised she was pregnant again. This time there was no joy, only fury that she’d been caught and trapped. Christmas was coming soon; another wartime Christmas and bad weather to come. Only the thought of Sylvia’s excitement gave her any incentive to plan ahead. She wasn’t bothered if Jack came home or not, and that was what shocked her most of all.
It was another hard winter with blizzards and hard frost. Ben sensed that Jack’s visit had not gone well and Mirren dragged herself around, not looking him in the face when he asked if she was OK to lift loads. It was as if she didn’t care what happened to the coming baby.
Margery and the boys went home to London and Uncle Tom decided to return to Scar Head. Now that Jack would be home soon, it was felt the couple needed time to settle down. There were wild tales of Jack’s drinking sprees down at The Fleece on his leave. Nothing escaped the gossips of Windebank: how he came out on all fours one night and jumped on someone’s motor bike and left it in a hedge; how he had a fight with one of the lads from the artillery battery and left him with a bloody nose; how he was a barstool bore and cadged drinks in exchange for gruesome war tales; how he could sort out the army better than Monty himself. If only half of them were true, Mirren was in for a rough time.
War had done terrible things to Jack and Ben wished he could talk to him, but the fact that Sylvia clung around Ben’s legs had not gone down well. Sometimes he thought he saw a flash of hate in his eyes. When Jack returned he was going to keep a weather eye on him.
Once they were settled, though, Ben had his own plans to leave. It was time to train himself up. They were advertising for trainers in the college near York; to find experienced workers who could get agricultural courses onto a better footing. He fancied a change away from all that held him at Cragside. Mirren needed time to lick her husband back into shape and he needed a change of sky.
Funny how he had always thought his life would be forever at Cragside, but once Jack returned he would not be welcome. Sylvia must learn to turn to her dad for comfort and treats, not him. The new baby would have a father around and would get a better start. Mirren could run the farm with Uncle Tom just as well as he could.
Two’s company, three’s a crowd, they said, and it was true, but he would see to things for awhile longer, make sure Mirren got her proper rest. She was her own worst enemy, always on the go, skipping meals when everyone else sat down.
He hoped Jack appreciated what he’d found in her. She was a farmer’s wife without equal in his eyes. None of the girls she’d thrown at him could measure up to her standards and he wouldn’t settle for less.
Mirren took her troubles to World’s End, climbing high away from the farmhouse, leaving Sylvia with Granny Florrie. Most days now she felt stiff and sore, and angry inside. Nothing was turning out as she planned for her family. How she wished she could have turned back the clock to when Gran and Grandpa were alive, when things seemed simpler and Jack was Jack-the-lad, shinning down the window on a sheet, when they were all full of dreams and schemes.
Now Sylvia needed new clogs and gumboots.
There was a new coat to buy and eventually another baby to clothe. Why did she resent now having to do it all on her own?
Why did Jack now get mix
ed up with her own dad in her dreams? It was weird and scary. Had she married a man like Paddy, who made promises and never kept them, who spent pound notes as if they were loose change? Oh God, she was going crazy! Her stomach tightened like a drum skin and she was afraid. If the two of them did leave Cragside how would they manage?
12
VE Day, 8 May 1945
There was so much to do before the afternoon’s party on the village green, and Mirren was that thronged with jobs she did not know where to start first. There was a bowl of trifle to be made for a start.
Jack was making himself useful, building the great scaffold arch out of greenery and flags that was the centre piece of the display on Windebank Green, giving a hand loading trestles and chairs onto the back of their wagon, from the church hall down the road. No doubt he’d drop in to The Fleece for a quick half before he came to collect the family for the fun and games.
He was home on leave and seemed to have turned a corner since his last visit, thrilled at the prospect of another baby on the way. There was no talk of moving away and his mother seemed to have talked some sense into him, telling her son they were much better off living in the country for the moment, with a roof over their heads and an income from the farm.
Even Sylvia was getting used to him sleeping in her mother’s bed. Jack’s seeing her alongside Uncle Ben always stirred things up for the worse, though.
If ever there was a young farmer in the making, it was Sylvia. In her corduroys and wellies with a flat tweed cap cut to size and a pretend crook, she looked like a miniature shepherd. So far she showed no leanings at all to wear pretty dresses, even for the afternoon party. If it didn’t have four wheels or four legs she wasn’t interested.
Jack looked on in dismay but held his peace, leaving her well alone, and she in turn began to answer when he called her and take his hand now and then. Mirren decided long ago not to keep her child too close to the hearth as some farmers’ wives did with their daughters. They made cakes and buns together and went walking the fields but Sylvia was shared out between the grown-ups. Jack was persuaded to read to her each night.