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‘And I think I want you, Tim. When you touch me and kiss me something goes boing inside me and I think how lovely it would be to make a baby with you.’
They had stopped walking again and she stepped away from him because all at once she knew that if he held her close, laid his mouth on hers, there would be no crying, ‘No, Tim!’ because she wouldn’t want to say it.
‘Make a baby! Are you mad? I could get killed any night and then where would you be?’
‘Pregnant and alone, I suppose, and people would call me a tart.’
‘And would you care?’
‘Only that you were dead,’ she said softly, sadly. ‘But it doesn’t arise because I wouldn’t know what to do. I’ve never done it before …’
The pulsating need between them had passed now. They linked little fingers and began their upward climb and she didn’t know whether to be sad or glad.
‘I’d teach you, henny. And there wouldn’t be any babies. No mistakes – I’d see to that. They tell you how to keep your nose clean in the RAF – if you don’t already know, that is.’
‘So you know how?’ She felt mildly cheated. ‘You’ve made love before, Tim?’
‘Aye. It was offered, so I took it. It wasn’t lovemaking though, because I didn’t love her. It would be different with you, sweetheart. We’d be special together.’
‘We wouldn’t. I’d spoil it thinking about Grandmother Petrovska.’
‘Not when I make love to you you won’t!’
They scuffed the lately flowering heather as they walked, not looking at each other.
‘So shall we, Tim …?’
‘Aye. When the mood is on us. It doesn’t happen to order, you know – leastways not for a man.’
‘And will I know when?’
‘Oh, my lovely love – you’ll know when.’ He threw back his head and laughed. ‘Darling lassie, we’ll both know.’
‘There, now.’ Catchpole straightened up, hands in the small of his back. ‘That’s them seen to. Plenty for the house and for me and Lily, and two score extra for the vegetable man. Just got them in in nice time for the rain.’
‘But how do you know it’s going to rain?’
‘A gardener alus knows, Gracie. Don’t need no newspapers nor men on the wireless to tell me what the weather’s going to be like. A drop of nice steady rain towards nightfall and them sprouts’ll be standing up straight as little soldiers in the morning. You’ll learn, lass.’
‘I hope so, Mr C. I like being here.’ She liked everything about being a land girl except being away from Mam and Dad and Grandad. ‘I had a letter from Drew this morning. He said he’d write, but I never expected him to.’
‘Why not? Drew don’t say things he don’t mean.’
‘I’m sure he doesn’t, but he’s a sir, and I come from mill folk.’
‘He’s a sailor and you’m a friend and sailors like getting letters. You write back to him and tell him about the garden and what we’re doing, so he can see it all as if it was real.’
‘But he didn’t give me an address. He just put Somewhere in England and the date, because he’s expecting to be sent to a ship, he says.’
‘Then he’ll send it later, or you can get it from Daisy Dwerryhouse. She’ll have it, that’s for sure, her being related.’
‘Mmm. I know she’s his half-sister, but how come?’ Gracie concentrated on wiping clean her fork and spade before putting them away; one of Mr Catchpole’s ten commandments. ‘What I mean is – well, I know Mrs Dwerryhouse is Drew’s real mother, but she’s the gamekeeper’s wife now, and you’d think the gentry wouldn’t be so friendly with their servants – and I don’t mean that in a snobby way,’ she hastened.
‘I know you didn’t, lass. And to someone as don’t know the history of the Suttons – both families – it might seem a bit peculiar. But Daisy’s mam came to Rowangarth a bit of a lass nigh on thirty years ago. Worked as a housemaid till they realized she’d a talent with a needle and thread, and so made her sewing-maid.’
He rinsed his hands at the standtap then dried them on a piece of sacking with irritating slowness.
‘And then, Mr Catchpole?’
‘Well, one summer – before the Great War it was – Miss Julia went to London to stay at her Aunt Anne Lavinia’s house. A maiden lady, Miss Anne Lavinia Sutton was and alus popping over to France, so her ladyship sent Alice with Miss Julia – Alice Hawthorn her was then. In them days, a young lady couldn’t go out alone, not even to the shops. Alice was a sort of – of …’
‘Chaperon?’
‘That’s the word! Any road, Alice went as chaperon and to see to Miss Julia’s clothes and things, and there was all sorts of talk below stairs when the two of them got back. For one thing, they’d got themselves into a fight with London bobbies and for another, Miss Julia had met a young man and them not introduced neither.’
‘So Daisy’s mam wasn’t very good at chaperoning?’
‘Nay. Nothing like that. Miss Julia had fallen real hard for that young man and her mind was made up. Headstrong she’s always been and not ten chaperons could have done much about it. A doctor that young man was, name of MacMalcolm. Was him seen to her when she got knocked out in the fight. That was the start of it.’
‘But I can’t imagine Mrs Sutton fighting, nor Mrs Dwerryhouse. What had they done?’
‘Gone to a suffragette meeting, that’s what. Those suffragettes were agitating for women to get a say in things. Women couldn’t vote, in those days.’ Jack Catchpole wasn’t altogether sure that giving votes to women had been a wise move, though he’d never said so within his wife’s hearing.
‘So then what?’
‘Then nothing, Gracie Fielding. It’s a quarter to six and time us was off home. Lily’ll have the supper on and her can’t abide lateness.’
‘But you’ll tell me some more tomorrow?’ The Sutton story had the makings of a love book about it, but unlike love stories it was real.
‘Happen I will. But what’s told within these walls isn’t for blabbing around the hostel, remember!’
‘Not a word. Hand on heart.’ Besides, she liked Drew and Daisy too much to pass on scandal about them – if scandal there was to be.
‘Right then, lass. We’ll shut up shop for the night. See you in t’morning.’
Amicably they walked together to the ornate iron gates that Catchpole regarded as his drawbridge and portcullis both, though Gracie knew they would not be chained and padlocked until he had made his final evening rounds – just to be sure. On the lookout for cats an’ things he’d assured her, but it was really, she supposed, to bid his garden good night.
‘Wonder what’ll be on the six o’clock news,’ Gracie murmured. ‘It’s worrying, isn’t it?’
‘It is. All those German bombers coming day after day cheeky as you like in broad daylight!’
‘But they aren’t getting it all their own way!’
‘No.’ And thank God for a handful of young lads and their fighters and for young girls, an’ all, that were in the thick of it. He wouldn’t want a lass of his firing an anti-aircraft gun. If they’d had bairns, that was. Happen, he thought as he clanged shut the gates, if him and Lily had no family to laugh over then they had none to worry over now. It worked both ways. ‘Good night, Gracie.’
‘’Night, Mr Catchpole. Take care.’
Reichmarshal Goering had sent a signal to his commanders that his Luftwaffe was to rid the skies of the Royal Air Force, though how the papers knew what Goering was saying to his underlings, or how our own fighter pilots knew the German bombers were on their way – as soon as they had taken off, almost – no one rightly knew. All the man in the street could be sure of – and the Ministry of Information could, sometimes, get it right – was that for every fighter we lost, the Luftwaffe paid three of their bombers for it. Talk even had it that one German bomber ace had asked Goering for a squadron of Spitfires to protect them on their raids over the south of England and that fat Hermann Goering hadn’t been best pleased about the request!
Only talk, maybe, but it lifted people’s hearts. Because we were not only going to put a stop to German air raids, Mr Churchill had growled in one of his broadcasts to the nation; we were going to win the war, as well! Even though we might have to fight on the beaches and in the streets we would never give in. And such was his confidence, his tenacity, his utter loathing for Hitler, that people believed him completely – about not surrendering, that was – though how we were going to win the war and when, took a little more time to digest. And as farmers and land girls cut wheat and barley and oats, battles raged in the sky above them – dogfights, with fields in the south littered with crippled German bombers. They became so familiar a sight that small boys stopped taking pieces as souvenirs and returned to more absorbing things such as searching for conkers, raiding apple orchards and queueing at the sweet shops when rumours of a delivery of gobstoppers circulated the streets.
Yet hadn’t Mr Churchill warned, years ago, that Germany was becoming too strong and too arrogant and no one took a bit of notice of him, except to call him a warmonger? He’d been right, though, people reluctantly admitted.
So now the entire country listened to what he said and believed every word he uttered. We would win this war, no matter what, because good old Winston said so. One day, that was.
11 (#ulink_39a16111-dd8c-5e1b-a762-2aa99c57c176)
My darling Daisy,
Thank you for the birthday card. I did as you told me and didn’t open it until the twelfth.
Once, we thought we would be together for my twenty-third birthday and the two of us house hunting and planning a wedding. Instead, you are going into the Forces and it seems immoral, almost, that I am away from it all and that we who need each other so much cannot be together. So I promise you this my lovely girl – somehow I will get home. There has got to be a way.
‘Keth, no!’ Daisy whispered. ‘Don’t do anything stupid – oh, please.’
She screwed up her eyes tightly, refusing to weep. There were thousands of women whose man had gone away and might never come home again; at least Keth was not in uniform and was safe in a neutral country, though Dada said it was a peculiar kind of neutrality that sent us tanks and guns and food and asked no payment in return. The Americans would get their fingers burned taking such risks, if anybody was interested in what he thought, and it would need only one incident at sea and before they knew it, America would be drawn into the war. Remember the Lusitania last time?
‘But would it be such a bad thing for us to have an ally?’ Mam had wanted to know, and Daisy supposed that for us, beleaguered as we were, to have someone on our side would be nothing short of a miracle.
But why should the United States become involved again? They had the wide span of the Atlantic between them and Europe. They were far enough away from Hitler so why should Bas, even though he was half-English, help fight our war?
Daisy jumped impatiently to her feet to stand at the wide-open window, gazing out into the August evening.
At least the weather was kind. There had been little rain for weeks. A farmer who hadn’t got his harvest in wasn’t trying, Dada said. And why, she demanded irritably, had she been so stupid; why was she leaving her home, her parents? Why had she lost her temper that dinnertime because an arrogant woman and her totally unimportant account upset her?
Because she was her father’s daughter, Mam said; because she had the same stubborn streak in her and his quick temper, too.
Mam understood about being in love. Mam was silly and sentimental, too; had buttercups pressed in her Bible, still, just as her daughter pressed a daisychain between the pages of the Song of Solomon beside words written for a lover, by a lover. ‘Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away’; words about winter being past and flowers appearing and birds singing, yet now it sometimes seemed as if flowers had never bloomed and birds would never sing again. But nothing lasted, Mam said; neither bad times nor, sadly, good.
‘Our time will come, Keth,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll be together again, one day …’
The telephone began to ring, calling her back from her dreamings.
‘For you,’ Alice called. ‘It’s Tatiana.’
‘Hi, Tatty,’ Daisy smiled into the receiver. ‘What’s news?’
‘The dance tomorrow night at Creesby – okay?’ Tatiana Sutton’s voice was low and husky as if she were whispering into the mouthpiece. ‘I’m going with you and Gracie – all right?’
‘But I’m not going.’
‘That doesn’t matter. I don’t suppose Tim and I will be there, either. But if he isn’t on ops. – and there’s a good chance he won’t be – I’ll need an alibi.’
‘But couldn’t you just say you were coming over to Keeper’s?’
‘And have Mother ring me to check up? She might. She’s getting suspicious.’
‘Okay. It’s Creesby, then. But be careful, Tatty – you know what I mean? ‘Bye …’
‘And what did Tatiana want, or shouldn’t I ask?’ Alice fixed her daughter with a stare, one eyebrow raised.
‘No you shouldn’t ask, Mam, but I’ll tell you. She’s meeting Tim Thomson and she wanted to know if I’ll be at the Creesby dance on Wednesday. Her mother’s a bit stuffy about her going there.’
‘So she told her mother that you were going?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you aren’t, Daisy. It’s your medical the day after. Now you mustn’t get drawn into things!’
‘Mam, Tatty knows what she’s doing. And I don’t know why her mother tries to wrap her in cotton wool all the time.’
‘Happen it’s the way Russian mothers do it.’
‘Well, it’s stupid of her because Tatty’s as English as I am! And Tim’s a decent sort, though I don’t suppose Grandmother Petrovska would approve of him.’
‘What do you mean – approve?’ Alice looked alarmed. ‘Are things getting serious between them?’
‘Don’t think so, but you know what Tatty’s like. If it’s got anything to do with aeroplanes or aircrew, she’s mad about it. And Tim’s a good dancer, too.’
She turned to fidget with the cutlery on the table, straightening it, shifting the cruet so her mother should not see the flush that stained her cheeks. Mam knew she always went red when she told a lie, and Tatty was serious about Tim. Head over heels, truth known.
‘I still think she’s too young to be out alone.’
‘She’s eighteen, Mam!’
‘Yes, but she’s so – so unworldly to my way of thinking. They should have sent her to school instead of having that governess teach her; let her see how the other half lives!’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Tatty. And what’s that? Smells good.’ Deftly she steered the conversation into safer channels as her mother took a pie from the oven.
‘Woolton pie. Again.’ Once she’d have been ashamed to serve such a poor dish, but needs must these days. There had been a small piece of meat left over from Sunday dinner and a jug of good gravy, so a little meat, gravy, and a lot of vegetables were covered with a suet crust and heaven only knew what they would do if suet went on the ration! She glanced towards the window as the barking of dogs told her her husband was home. ‘Get the plates out of the oven, there’s a good girl, whilst I strain the carrots. And, Daisy – tell Tatiana to be careful. You know what I mean …?’
‘She is careful, Mam.’
‘Yes – well that’s as maybe.’ Alice had not forgotten what it was like to be eighteen and in love. She offered her cheek, smiling, for Tom’s kiss.
Come to think of it, she was still in love.
‘Sorry I’m late, Mr Catchpole.’ Gracie arrived, breathless, pulling her bounty behind her. ‘Found it in Brattocks Wood. It looks good and dry – thought it would do for the fire. Hope it was all right to take it?’
‘Course it was, as long as nobody saw you with it.’ Jack regarded the branch of fallen wood. ‘Get it stuck behind the shed and us’ll get the saw to it later. And Miss Julia was asking for you.’
‘I’ve seen her. Home Farm is letting her have six pullets so she’s going into Creesby to the Food Office and getting their egg coupons changed to hen-meal coupons. Seems there’s a shed at the back of Keeper’s Cottage that no one uses. Said it needs a bit of repairing and she asked me to – er – mention it to you.’
‘And I suppose her expects me to see to it? Well, I’m a gardener; no good with hammer and nails. You’d best see Will Stubbs – he’s the handyman.’ Jack shook his head mournfully. ‘I mind the time when there was an estate carpenter here, but not any longer. And when you see Will Stubbs, tell him as how Miss Julia’ll need chicken wire and posts for them birds. I suppose Alice Dwerryhouse doesn’t mind having hens in the shed at the back?’
‘Don’t think so, Mr C. Mrs Sutton said that Daisy’s mam would be saving her scraps and peelings for me.’
‘And where are you goin’ to boil the stuff for the hen mash, then?’
