by Jenny Holmes
‘Is that your car?’ Grace asked the bespectacled man who had ordered the beer.
He turned casually then nodded. ‘Oops – someone’s not happy,’ he commented, seeing Cliff and the equally irate driver of the Land Rover. He took a long swig from his glass before sauntering out to remedy the situation.
‘You just drove out here for the afternoon?’ Grace asked the second customer. She assumed that the two middle-aged men were town types, possibly civil servants – but then again no, because they had too much swagger, and besides, lowly pen-pushers wouldn’t be swanning around in a brand-new car. So maybe they were mill managers or munitions manufacturers from Bradford, responsible for churning out uniforms and arms for the forces and thus exempt from serving on the front line.
‘That’s the ticket,’ the man readily agreed. The froth from the top of his beer left a thin white line on his moustache, which he ignored. ‘There’s nothing like a breath of fresh air.’
Grace took up a tea towel and wiped some glasses. ‘Have you come far?’
‘No, not far.’ He leaned across the bar and winked. When he spoke it was with uninvited intimacy. ‘What about you? Do you live far away?’
‘No – just across the street.’
‘With some jammy fellow?’ He’d spotted her wedding ring but his tone didn’t change. When his companion came back, he winked again. ‘What’s your name, love? And what a shame that you’ve been snapped up by some lucky blighter before we turned up.’
‘It’s easy to see why,’ his friend said with a suggestive nudge of his elbow as he appraised Grace from the chest upwards.
‘Go on – tell us your name,’ the first one continued. ‘I bet you’re a Gloria or a Miranda.’
‘Grace,’ she answered, eyes lowered and hoping that the men would soon find other means of entertaining themselves. When she looked up again, she was relieved to see Doreen breeze in through the door ahead of Donald.
‘Hello, you two; what can I get you?’ Grace called out before they’d reached the bar.
‘I’ll have a Dubonnet if you have one.’ Unlike Grace, Doreen invited the attention of the two strangers. She pronounced the last two syllables of the drink’s name as if it were something you wore on your head.
‘Doo-buh-ney,’ the man with the glasses corrected.
‘Who cares? It all goes down the same way.’ Her laugh filled the room as she tilted back her head to take her first sip. She wore a rose-printed skirt and a white blouse with frills at neck and cuffs. Her white, sling-backed sandals had high, wedged heels.
Donald, meanwhile, took the pint of bitter that he’d ordered and quietly scrutinized the day’s opposition. ‘You’re not from these parts,’ he observed to the smaller of the two men – the one with glasses.
‘Ten out of ten for that.’
‘Are you here on a visit?’
‘No.’
‘So you’re just passing through?’
‘Yes.’
Donald got no more out of him than Grace had out of his companion.
Moments later, out of the corner of his eye, the taller stranger spotted a movement in the yard. He quickly downed his drink and indicated to his friend that it was time to leave.
‘Where are they off to in such a hurry?’ Doreen pouted.
‘Why not go after them and find out?’ Donald was in a sulk. It was all very well her dressing up to the nines for his benefit, but not at all the thing for her to toss her hair and use her throaty laugh to attract other male admirers. ‘Go on, why don’t you?’
‘All right, I will.’
As fast as her heels would allow, she was out through the door, leaving Donald to pass the time of day with Grace. He deliberately kept his back to the window and acted as if he couldn’t care less. ‘How’s married life?’ he asked.
Grace’s smile was self-conscious. ‘It suits me very well, ta.’
‘That’s all right then.’ A small muscle in Donald’s jaw twitched until he clenched his teeth to stop it. Then he took a swift pull at his beer and went to join Maurice and Bob at the other end of the bar.
The sun shone in Doreen’s eyes as she left the pub. She shaded them and made out the Morris across the yard with its bonnet up and boot lid raised. Then she spotted three men bending over and peering at the engine.
‘What’s up?’ she called. ‘Shall I call the AA?’
All three turned to face her. She was surprised to discover that the third man was Alfie Craven and that none of them seemed pleased to see her. In fact, Alfie had the cowed look of a man whose past had just caught up with him. There was a tension in the air that she could have cut with a knife.
‘No need for that. Run along now, there’s a good girl.’ The taller visitor spoke between clenched teeth while his shorter friend gave his jacket lapels a sharp tug. Alfie, meanwhile, gave her a distinctly nasty look.
‘You heard him – run along.’ The stockier one obviously expected Doreen to turn tail immediately.
But they hadn’t reckoned on her digging in her heels over what she recognized as a slight. ‘Oh, Alfie,’ she cajoled as she sidled up to him; the tall man went swiftly to the boot and slammed the lid. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me?’
He gave a quick nod and seized her by the arm with an unexpectedly tight grip. ‘Gents, this is Doreen,’ he announced.
She held out her hand to the one with the moustache.
‘Howard,’ he grunted.
‘Pleased, I’m sure.’
‘Talk about, if looks could kill,’ Doreen told Grace later. ‘Alfie would be laid out in that yard, dead as a door nail!’
The stocky man gave his lapels another tug then shook her outstretched hand. ‘Clive.’
‘Charmed,’ Doreen trilled. Then, before she knew it, Alfie was whisking her back the way she’d come.
‘He frog-marched me right through the door!’ she complained to Grace.
There was another slam as the bonnet closed then more activity in the yard. Grace’s father led two newly shod hunters out of the smithy, closely followed by the Fosters’ groom in flat cap, waistcoat and corduroy breeches. The horses backed away nervously from the Morris as its driver succeeded in choking the engine into life. The groom, who was dwarfed by his sturdy charges, took matters in hand by leading them round the corner out of harm’s way. After some coughing and spluttering, the car eventually pulled away.
‘Honestly, that Alfie doesn’t know his own strength!’ Doreen rolled back her sleeve to show her upper arm to Grace. ‘I’ve got the bruises to prove it!’
‘You’re asking for trouble,’ Grace warned Doreen as the afternoon wore on. She’d watched the way Doreen had played Donald off against Alfie, keeping them both dangling on the end of a string, smiling and laughing her way through three more Dubonnets until Grace had at last refused her what would have been her fifth. ‘Have you seen the look on Donald’s face?’
Out came the scarlet, pouting underlip. ‘What’s wrong? He often looks like that.’
Donald sat by himself in a window seat, staring glumly across the yard and ignoring Doreen and Alfie’s recent antics at the bar.
‘Sometimes wringing a smile out of him is like getting blood out of a stone.’
‘Just now I don’t blame him,’ Grace persisted. Doreen might be right – Donald did have a morose, brooding look when you caught him unawares – but on this occasion she could understand why. So, while Alfie was making a quick trip to the Gents, she’d seized the chance to intervene. ‘You can’t go on the way you do and expect Donald to be happy about it.’
‘Why not? I can talk to who I like, can’t I?’ Doreen’s balance was unsteady. ‘He’s not my keeper.’
‘Still.’
‘Neither are you, Grace, so leave me alone.’ Launching herself away from the bar, she stumbled against a table, to be steadied by Donald just in time to stop her from falling flat on the floor.
Donald muttered something under his breath then sat her down in the window seat a
s Alfie came back.
Grace beckoned him across. ‘I’d leave them to it for a bit,’ she advised. Alfie put up his hands in surrender then looked around for someone else to annoy. When he didn’t find any other candidate, he settled on a stool close to the bar. ‘So, Grace,’ he began, ‘how’s marri—’
‘Don’t!’ For once she was snappy and impatient to reach the end of her shift. ‘Everyone asks me that and it really is none of their business.’
‘Oh, touchy!’ He stretched his lips into a smile that left his hooded eyes blank and dull. ‘What’s up, Grace, had your first argument with Bill?’
‘No, and while we’re at it, I’ve been meaning to have a word with you.’ Taking off her apron, she hung it on a hook under the counter. She was tired, really tired. ‘It’s about Poppy. She told me what you did to her in the woods behind Fieldhead.’
Alfie burred his lips dismissively. ‘What can I say, Grace? I’m just your average, red-blooded chap.’
‘I don’t want to hear it!’ Her hand went up in warning. Here was her father at last, making his slow way out of the smithy and across the yard, not a moment too soon. ‘All I’m saying is that Poppy has only just had her eighteenth birthday. She’s struggling to cope with Land Army life as it is, without you frightening her half to death. She almost ran back home to her mother because of you.’
He shook his head. ‘Hark at St Grace,’ he muttered, ‘gathering up waifs and strays, taking them under her wing.’
Her hand tingled with a powerful urge to slap his fleshy cheek. ‘Leave her alone, you hear? If you go near Poppy again, I’ll call the police and you’ll find yourself twiddling your thumbs in a prison cell!’
‘My!’ he said, top lip curled, dead eyes staring. That was all – nothing else.
‘Now then,’ Cliff said as he squeezed his bulk behind the bar then rested his hands on its copper surface. He glanced at his pale-faced daughter and a sneering Alfie. ‘You look tired, Grace. Why not get yourself off home?’
Una had done as she planned and secretly swapped shifts so that she could be at the hen farm on the Saturday morning. She’d made the arrangement with Kathleen on the understanding that she wouldn’t spread any gossip.
‘Mum’s the word,’ Kathleen had promised once she’d understood Una’s reason. ‘Who am I to stand in the way of true love?’
For Angelo had answered Una’s note. ‘Cara mia’ and ‘darling’ were scattered throughout his reply like bright confetti. Yes, they must meet as soon as possible. His heart longed for her. He would wait for her in the woods behind Beckwith Camp after supper on Saturday evening.
How she’d got through the day she didn’t know. Her fingers were all thumbs as she collected eggs from the coops and placed them in a basket. She hadn’t heard a word Elsie and Jean had said as they’d worked alongside her.
‘Have you gone deaf?’ Jean had bellowed over a cacophony of clucks and squawks as they finished their shift in the musty, dust-filled hen hut at Winsill Edge. It was twelve o’clock and she was impatient to get back to Fieldhead to begin her afternoon off. ‘I said, get a move on if you’re planning to cycle home with Elsie and me.’
Hardly recognizing the sound of her own voice, Una had told them to go on ahead without her then she’d sought out Thomas Turnbull, Horace’s ancient father. She’d found him sitting on a stool outside the door to their poky cottage, smoking a pipe. Well into his eighties, Thomas was hunched and toothless, more of a hindrance than a help whenever he volunteered to work alongside the Land Girls in the hen huts. Hopelessly vague about the job in hand, one of the girls would be obliged to follow him with an extra basket to pick up the eggs he’d missed.
Despite the fluttering of her heart and her light-headedness at the prospect of the reunion with Angelo, Una had managed to lay these careful foundations for her evening visit to the camp. ‘Mr Turnbull, is it all right for me to take this extra order of eggs for the Italian prisoners? I promised to save Horace the job of driving them over.’ She’d shown him two trays of eggs – four dozen in all – that she’d kept back specially.
No such promise had been made – indeed, the camp cook had no idea of his forthcoming good fortune. But Una relied on the old man’s hazy understanding to execute the next stage of her plan.
Thomas had sucked on his pipe and nodded without comment. It was doubtful if he even realized that eggs were on ration these days. He would certainly forget to mention the under-the-counter arrangement to his son.
‘Ta very much!’ Una had cleared her conscience and been off in a flash, stashing the trays in the front basket of her bicycle before riding off at speed. She’d arrived at the hostel five minutes after Jean and Elsie, still breathless at her own daring.
Once in their shared room, Kathleen had taken a quick look at the contraband eggs then pretended to be shocked. ‘Blimey, you’ll soon be giving Alfie Craven a run for his money!’
‘They’re not for me,’ Una had protested.
‘I know they’re not, silly.’ One glance at Una’s flushed cheeks and the hectic red patches on her neck had softened Kathleen and she’d gone over to the alcove where she, Una and Brenda hung their dresses. ‘Come on, let’s decide on what you’re going to wear later on. How about your blue cotton with the white daisies? Or this? Or, if you like, you could borrow my pink and white striped? No, maybe not – it’s a shade too big.’
And now the sun was sinking behind the elms and it was time. Una’s thick auburn hair was brushed to silky smoothness, her legs and arms were bare and she’d added a white belt and white canvas sandals to the daisy dress – Angelo’s favourite from last year’s Christmas show. At the last minute she remembered to pick up the two trays of eggs: the pretext for her visit.
‘Don’t you need a cardigan?’ Kathleen suggested as Una took one last look in the mirror.
‘I don’t have one that matches.’
‘Here – take mine.’ No sooner said than done and Kathleen ushered her out of the door, all the way along the corridor then down the stairs. ‘Good luck!’ She leaned over the banister and called after her.
All was a blur – the lanes, the trees, the hills – as Una cycled away from Fieldhead, through the village then along Swinsty Edge. She was aware of nothing except the thumping of her heart and a vision of Angelo’s face as they met in the shadows of the pine trees; how he would smile and his brown eyes would crinkle. His features would blur and his lips would be soft. The moors rolled ahead of her, the white clouds were tinged with pink.
After many twists and turns, dips and hollows, heathery moorland gave way to a sea of green ferns then to fields of ripening wheat until at last she turned into Penny Lane, into the full glare of the setting sun. And then the fear rose like a lion: would her lie about the eggs get her past the prison camp sentry? Might it be the same British Tommy who had seen her fall off the wall and land in the brambles? Worst doubt of all: would Angelo be there to meet her as promised? Her heart pounded on and she gripped the handlebars more tightly than before.
Two Canadian pilots drove a grey Land Rover out of the entrance to the old isolation hospital, giving her a curious glance as she cycled on without acknowledging them. The guard on duty called out a friendly greeting. On she rode to Beckwith Camp.
Her worries proved groundless as the fresh-faced British corporal on duty prepared to raise the barrier without a moment’s hesitation. He said that Una was a sight for sore eyes and wished that all deliveries could be accompanied by a smile like hers.
‘It’s a Saturday night. Shouldn’t you be out with your pals, enjoying yourself?’
‘Later,’ she managed to mumble. Surely the sentry could hear her heart knocking against her ribs?
‘Good for you. You know where the canteen is – in the hut behind the main house.’
Una nodded and cycled on between neat rows of long, low wooden huts. She saw the original building straight ahead – a large Georgian farmhouse with wide entrance steps flanked by pillars – and as she pass
ed, she looked through the long, low windows to glimpse prisoners still at supper, heads bent over their meals. Sure enough, there was a Nissen hut behind the house, connected to it by a covered pathway – the canteen and storeroom that the soldier had mentioned. But instead of stopping there to deliver the eggs, Una glanced over her shoulder to make sure that the sentry wasn’t still watching then rode on towards the far edge of the camp.
Almost, almost! Angelo was within reach, quietly waiting for her in the lengthening shadows. She leaned her bike against a boundary wall then entered the wood. Her footsteps fell silent on the bed of pine needles.
‘Una?’
It was Lorenzo who called her name, not Angelo. She saw his tall figure as it stepped out from behind a tree.
She ran to him. ‘Where is he? Where’s Angelo?’
Lorenzo laid a hand on her arm. ‘He sent me to tell you – he will try to come.’
‘But where is he? Why isn’t he here?’
‘He will do his best.’
‘That doesn’t answer my question!’ Desperately she looked around, as if Angelo might materialize out of nowhere. The tall, straight trunks rose high over their heads.
Angelo’s fellow prisoner took out a cigarette then lit it. He inhaled deeply. ‘He is not well.’
‘Not well – how do you mean?’
‘He is not strong. But he wishes to see you.’
‘How long has he been ill?’ A different kind of fear clutched at her – not the hot, hammering at her heart as she’d cycled here but an icier grasp that made her shudder. Still she searched for Angelo among the trees.
