Shelter

by Sarah Franklin

  Could he make Connie understand? ‘I wanted to bring something for you.’ He looked steadily at her.

  ‘This isn’t much use to me, is it?’ She dropped his gaze. ‘It’s for the baby, not me.’

  ‘It is for you both. Joyce is right, it can last you for another time, another baby maybe.’

  Her eyes flashed. ‘Is that what you think of me? That I’m going to stay here, popping out sprogs?’

  Joyce came to the rescue.

  ‘Rightio, then, let’s see what the baby thinks of it. Come on, Seppe, you put him in it.’

  Him? Really? But he couldn’t resist the honour. He lifted the baby gingerly and hovered with him over the crib. ‘Here is your new bed, little – what is his name?’

  Amos grunted.

  ‘Hasn’t got a name yet.’

  Connie sat forward. ‘I know you think I can’t do anything right with the baby, Amos, but I’ve got this bit sorted.’ She darted a smile at Seppe, missile-quick but wavering. ‘What was it you said your name was in English? Joseph?’

  Seppe nodded. His heartbeat drummed so hard the baby must be about to vibrate.

  ‘Well, then. He’s going to be Joe. Maybe he’ll build someone a swanky cot one day, too.’

  There was a pause. Seppe blinked hard and handed the baby – Joe – to Joyce before the infant slipped through his hands. Had Connie been planning to name the baby for him, or had that been an impulse? Did it matter? She must think something of him to entrust her child’s name to him. He approached the bed, but words thinned and wilted away.

  ‘Connie – I –’ Dust motes danced in glistening rays. ‘I will take care of him. Of Joe. This is a distinction for me. If he needs something, you let me know and I will help.’

  ‘What’re you on about? Needed a name, didn’t he?’

  ‘Does he need something now? To be made clean? To go for a walk?’

  ‘He’s fine, Seppe. Don’t take it all so seriously.’ She couldn’t look at him again. Joyce threw a worried glance at Connie, but said nothing.

  Every time Seppe looked at Joe he would know his responsibility. He wanted the weight of him in his arms again, but Joyce had placed him in the cradle where he seemed more than happy. It would be better not to disturb him, no? He had so much to learn.

  ‘Forest baby in a forest cot; born inside the Hundred and now sleeping surrounded by our trees. Not bad, is he, eh, Amos?’ Joyce beamed into the cot.

  ‘Now that you’ve all rearranged my room d’you think I could get a bit of kip?’

  Joyce stepped over to Connie, put a hand on her forehead as if checking her temperature. ‘You need anything, our Con?’ Connie shook her head, spoke so quietly that Seppe had to crane to hear her.

  ‘Just to kip. Honest, Joycie.’

  Seppe’s heart ached. She was going to cry the moment the door shut, he was certain of it. He had upset her, and there was nothing he could do to comfort her …

  Amos peered at Seppe as if he’d never properly considered him before.

  ‘This lad here needs a haircut, Joyce.’ He took Seppe by the shoulders and steered him out of the room before he’d had a final chance to see Joe – Joe! – in the cot again, or to work out Connie’s reaction. Was the baby going to be all right, alone there at the end of the bed? Seppe would constantly be on the alert now. He listened hard as Amos led him downstairs, straining for every last gurgle. Maybe Connie had picked Joe up again, was singing to him? But there were no songs amidst the baby noises.

  Seppe was so caught up that he barely registered being sat down onto one of Amos’s kitchen chairs, a dishtowel draped round his neck. Joyce prowled behind him.

  ‘Need to make this quick, like. I’ve got the washing half hung out and all the darned pegs keep falling apart. Don’t they have barbers up at that camp?’

  They did, but all his tokens had been used on extra food for Connie recently. Chocolate was expensive, and the inevitable ‘tax’ Fredo levied cost him more, too. Seppe hadn’t visited the barber for weeks.

  Amos swatted at Joyce.

  ‘You saw that cot; it must have taken hours to build. How’s the lad had a chance to worry about his grooming? He needs a quick tidy up same as you always give our Billy.’

  ‘All right, all right, keep your hair on.’ Joyce laughed and there was a tug on the back of Seppe’s head as she ran the comb through his hair. ‘Get me a jug of water, Amos, there’s a love? Tangled as a ewe in gorse, this is.’

  When had Seppe last washed his hair? He’d avoided the ablutions huts as much as he could since last week, when Fredo had jammed his uniforms into the drain. Please God let there be no lice crawling white and blind over the silver of Joyce’s blade.

  The scissors tickled his neck and he tensed. With his hair gone, Joyce would see how filthy his collar was. Seppe willed himself not to cough, to be still. The silence was thick like leaf sediment, but soft as it, too, no threat pending. Fear of lice, shame about his collar, worry about Connie’s reaction; they were all clipped away with his hair, for now at least. How long since he’d been taken care of like this? He closed his eyes and let himself be seven again, sun streaming in through the kitchen window in Livorno, his mother relaxed for once, singing Rigoletto as she cut his hair ready for communion. The tune came up his throat; he hummed along sotto voce with its memory. The heat warmed his face and he could smell the polish on the hard back of the chair, hear Alessa chattering in the background about all the curls she’d have to keep once her hair was cut. If things could only have stayed like that. If he could preserve seven for ever – but it didn’t work like that. A sadness settled around him.

  ‘There!’ Joyce broke the moment just in time, stepped in front of him to admire her own handiwork, her expression his mirror. ‘Not bad, if I do say so myself.’

  Amos joined her. ‘You’ve sheared the lad as if he’s a sheep. Bit late in the season for that, mind.’ He smiled at Seppe, tentative.

  ‘You do be welcome here any time, lad, you hear that? No matter what them guards say about POWs not being allowed in people’s homes; if you want to see that babby, you come here and you see him.’ Amos patted Seppe on the shoulder and for a moment he almost believed it was achievable. To see the baby again, to be near all that possibility, the newness and cleanness of him. A bead of optimism pooled.

  Then he remembered Connie, arms folded tight across her body, a deep frown as she considered the crib.

  ‘But Connie –’

  ‘Connie gave the baby your name, didn’t she?’ Amos jerked his hand. ‘Yours, nobody else’s. Looks like she could do with all the hands she can get, tell you the truth. Don’t you go worrying about her.’

  Seppe was too choked up to speak the words if he’d known them, so he nodded, almost a bow. He would make them things; a crook for Amos, perhaps a scoop for Joyce’s chicken feed to replace that jaggedy old can she used.

  ‘Goodbye, Amos, Joyce. And thank you.’

  The distance to the camp was shorter on the way back.

  The baby and his mother were both fast asleep and the kitchen was clean enough to suit the king – or his May, more like – so there was nothing left but to get on with it. Amos sat down at the table and smoothed the notepaper over the grain of the oak. Could you use normal paper to write to soldiers? Soon find out, he would.

  The light hadn’t faded yet from the bottom of the garden. That bit of wall still needed fixing where a branch had fallen onto it in the last of the spring storms. How was he supposed to start this letter? ‘Dear son, Sorry I haven’t been in touch. There’s a baby living in your bedroom …’

  He sighed and rested the pen on the table. The look on Seppe’s face when the girl had named the baby for him. It was spur of the moment, any fool could see that, but that hadn’t bothered the lad. He was a loner by Frank’s account, kept himself to himself, and now he had something that mattered to him. Must be hard being away from home, and being a prisoner and all. Didn’t seem the type to have ended up in the war – there mus
t be a story behind that, just like there was with his Billy.

  Billy wouldn’t mind the baby. Frank was right: Billy had always loved lambing time, insisted on bringing home any orphaned lambs and bottle-feeding them. He’d probably missed hearing about them. If Amos wrote to Billy about the goings-on here, it would give him something to hold on to. You needed that if you couldn’t be at home, even if you’d chosen to go, Amos saw that now. His Billy hadn’t had a crib nearly as fancy as that, but he’d been a right bonny baby, and it wasn’t just Amos and May as did say so. Happy little chap, he’d always been; terrible to think that he might be feeling lonesome and fearing that Amos had all but abandoned him.

  Foresters didn’t bear grudges; living with the trees showed you how it all kept moving on whether you wanted it to or not. He picked up the pen again.

  Twenty-Six

  JOE LET OUT A burp Cass in the factory would’ve been proud of and chundered a stream of milk over them both and the bed.

  ‘Not again, babba!’ She couldn’t lose the habit, even though he’d had a name for a week now.

  Connie grabbed an edge of the bedspread and daubed at him. Even her fingers felt exhausted, and she couldn’t remember the last time her eyes hadn’t felt salty from being open all night. And from the tears, if she was being honest. Nobody had told her she’d turn into a leaky tap when she gave birth. One of the dozens of things she’d found out on the job.

  Downstairs, a door opened and shut. ‘Coo-ee! You up there, Con?’

  Thank God.

  ‘We’ll come down, Joyce!’ Connie clambered out of the bed, lying the baby on the counterpane. Joyce had taken to popping in, had simply turned up one morning not long after Joe had been born. ‘Right messy job it can be, looking after a newborn. I’ll take them clothes for you, save Amos the trouble.’ Connie had come to rely on these visits. She could say what she wanted to Joyce; nothing seemed to faze her.

  Joyce had the kettle on the range already. ‘Looks like you were up half the night again.’

  ‘He doesn’t believe in sleep and I can’t leave him to cry, got to do my best by him.’ She looked down at Joe, tied to her in the counterpane. His yelling had turned to whimpers. She stroked his head, looped one of his curls over her little finger, his big blue eyes spearing her with a trust she didn’t deserve. She wondered if his eyes would stay blue. Joyce said all babies came with blue eyes, but they didn’t always stay that way. Shamefully, secretly, she couldn’t remember the colour of Don’s eyes so she’d just have to sit tight and see how things turned out, she supposed. Just like she’d have to do with this whole big mess. Connie resisted the urge to put her own head down on the kitchen table and wail for a week.

  ‘Poor little sod, saddled with a mam who can’t get even the basics right. Wish he could see me cutting down the big oaks. He’d know I was actually good at something, then.’

  Joyce tutted. ‘You’re better at this than you’re giving yourself credit for. It’s just darned hard work, that’s the truth of it. As for the trees – there’s nothing stopping you showing him, is there?’

  ‘What are you on about?’

  Joyce blew a raspberry on Joe’s cheek and he giggled, settled down right away. That never worked when Connie tried it.

  ‘You haven’t been farther than the back garden for days. I’m not saying you should get out there and start felling again yet, but there’d be no harm in you taking our Joe out to the felling sites, show him where he was born. Do you both the world of good.’

  Connie didn’t need telling twice. She paced down the corridor and stuffed her feet into her boots, Joe tilting in the counterpane pouch. ‘I’ll have that tea another time, Joyce.’ Joyce had made her see sense, more than she knew. Why shouldn’t she be out there felling again? All she had to do was persuade Frank.

  Everything had gone berserk since Connie had last been in the forest. The trees were greener than she’d known anything could be, and the birds were having an enormous shouting match. The ferns – that’s what they were called, weren’t they, those big flat leaves that waved at you? – were gangly and bloody giant. For the sheer hell of it she took Joe off the path and marched through the centre of them for a bit. They brushed her waist, giving way easily, and she giggled, free again. It was like being in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, bounding through the grass.

  It took ages to get to Frank’s hut, and she wasn’t as fit as she had been, either. By the time she got there she was all puffed out.

  Connie pushed at the door to Frank’s hut with moist hands. A corner of the bedspread was caught on an old stump and as she tried to yank it free it pulled tight over the baby’s mouth, setting him off again. Connie bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and refused to give in to the urge to scream. Or cry, which would be worse.

  ‘Connie! That you, girl?’ Frank came to the door of the hut, his arms outstretched. ‘I swear our Joe grows a bit bigger every day. I’ve been telling Seppe all about him.’

  Oh! Was Seppe there too? Yes, there he was, behind Frank. He smiled at her in that sorry-I’m-alive way that made her want to sigh in frustration and protect him all at once and she waved, a bit shy all of a sudden.

  ‘Taking the little one out for some fresh air, are you? Sure you’re not overdoing it?’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I’m here to get going again. Thought I could start with that stand of oak up at Mitcheldean.’

  Frank shook his head. ‘You’re not back on duty yet, Connie.’

  Her toes clenched in her boots. ‘What do you mean? I was never off-duty. Did you see me sign off, Frank? I had a baby not an illness – and to be straight with you, it was a lot harder work than getting down a few poxy trees.’

  Frank put up a hand. ‘Connie. You’ve just had a littlun and –’

  She rubbed her eyes. Frank meant well. ‘I know, and he’s wearing me out. I’m up half the night whilst he screams at me. What’s that got to do with getting trees down?’

  Frank crossed his arms, his boots blocking either side of the doorway.

  ‘That baby’s but weeks old and you need to be resting inside with him.’

  Connie bit down hard on the inside of her cheek, but the words came anyway.

  ‘Resting from what? From having my bits torn apart like someone shoved a bomb up there? From ending up with a belly like a blimp and breasts rubbed raw?’ Frank was looking every which way but at her. She needed to calm down, but the words wouldn’t stop pouring out. ‘Who do you think I am, Frank? Did you stop when your finger got lopped off, when you did your leg in?’

  ‘This isn’t the same as that.’ But he shifted his weight off his bad leg.

  ‘Course it is! You don’t stop because things are a bit sore, and nor do I.’

  ‘If you want something to do, our Joyce has been taking in sewing for the POWs. It’s not much, money-wise, but it’s better than nothing.’

  ‘But I don’t want sewing. I’m as useless at that as I am with the baby. I want to be out here, as soon as I can be, doing proper work.’ Her eyes were dry with the tears she didn’t dare shed, and her throat was lumpy with panic. ‘Come on, Frank. I’m going mad stuck inside with him yelling at me all the time. If I don’t do something I’ll lose my mind.’

  ‘What about Joe?’ Frank’s arms dropped to his side. Was he going to give in?

  ‘What about him? I’ve told you, I’m doing my best by him.’

  Frank sighed. Didn’t he believe her?

  ‘Not that. Who’ll be minding him when you’re out here?’ He stopped her before the words were out. ‘Don’t go saying our Joyce – got enough to do already, she has.’

  ‘Amos could take him out with the sheep.’ When Connie had woken up yesterday Amos was out in the garden singing some old hymn to the baby, holding him up to the blossom as if showing him what was what. ‘They get on well.’

  But Frank was shaking his head and her guts collapsed again with the weight of it. ‘That baby’s yours, and yours alone. We’re here to help, you kno
w that, but to my mind, giving you an axe and a saw when you’ve got that babby there to mind isn’t help, it’s hindrance.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Connie jumped and the baby jumped too, whacking her in the face. Why did Seppe have to skulk everywhere? She rubbed her cheek.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Joe could come out with us.’

  Frank’s face furrowed and Connie couldn’t blame him. What was Seppe on about?

  ‘Out with you where, lad?’

  ‘Out here, to the felling sites.’ Seppe squeezed past Frank and came right up to stand close to Connie. He picked up one of the baby’s hands and stroked it. Joe gurned at him in that way he had and Connie almost smiled.

  ‘He could come here with Connie and I can help. Perhaps they both take two, the trees and the baby. The baby is my responsibility too, and it will mean Connie doesn’t have to do it so much.’

  It was a good plan, even though Seppe was more or less agreeing that she was no good at dealing with the baby. Connie’s cheeks grew hot but she forced herself past the humiliation.

  ‘That’s a good idea, Frank. Look!’

  She tugged at one end of the counterpane. Good job she’d brought it. That proved she thought about what the baby needed – right? ‘Joe can lie on this under a tree and when he’s older he can help.’

  The counterpane wouldn’t budge where it was tied round her waist. She yanked again and it gave way in a whoosh. The baby tipped sideways and she lost a grip on him.

  ‘Don’t worry! I’ve got him.’

  How did Seppe make it look so easy? Connie turned to Frank.

  ‘You know it makes sense. I’m one of the best woodcutters you’ve got, and if I’m out here with Seppe again, it’ll improve his work rate too, you know it always does.’ She smiled at Seppe, suddenly unsure. ‘No offence – you know what I mean.’ He nodded and smiled, and her heart relaxed its grip on concern.

  Would Frank go for it? She could hardly get the words out round the great big rock of longing that was stuck in her throat.