by Posy Lovell
“. . . so I told him where he could stick his bloody job,” Reg was saying, hooting with laughter. He pushed his empty beer glass across the bar. “Stick another one in there, Jeanie.”
The barmaid, Jeanie, pushed it back. “Not unless you show me your money.”
Bernie hid his smile. He liked Jeanie, who took no nonsense. She had a little boy, a sad-eyed lad called Peter who was missing his dad dreadfully while he was away at the Front. Bernie sometimes sat with Peter and read to him, or just chatted to the boy about what he was up to. He was a sweet child.
Reg sighed.
“Things are a bit tight now, Jeanie love,” he said. “I’ll see you right, though. Don’t I always?”
Jeanie glared at him. “Never.”
Reg turned to the bar. “Hear that, lads? She says I never pay up. Anyone stand this old friend a drink?”
There was a pause and for a moment, Bernie thought no one would offer. But eventually one of the farmhands from down in the valley raised a finger to Jeanie.
“Put it on my tab,” he said in a resigned voice. Jeanie nodded and filled Reg’s tankard. Bernie could see Reg trying to look down the front of Jeanie’s dress as she pulled his pint, and he felt repulsion. Matthew obviously recognized the expression on his face because he grinned at Bernie.
“He’s a waste of bloody space, that man,” he said. Bernie chuckled, enjoying feeling part of something with the farmer.
But then everything changed. Reg took his tankard full of beer and turned, raising it to the pub, and as he did so, he spotted Matthew and Bernie in the corner.
“Matt,” he said. “My brother’s in the bar, lads, and he’s not even said hello.”
“I’m not your brother,” Matthew said quietly through gritted teeth. Then: “Hello, Reg.”
Reg came over to their table. Matthew didn’t ask him to sit down.
“How are things on the farm?” Reg said. “Bet it’s hard work, with the lads away. I heard Alex went.”
Matthew nodded, looking into his pint. “He did. Things were tough for a while.”
“Need any help?”
Matthew drew in a breath and met Reg’s red-rimmed stare.
“You can stay in the barn over winter, but you need to go in the spring,” he said. “And I don’t need your help because it’s winter now anyway, so there’s not as much to do. And frankly, Reg, you’re a liability on the farm. You always end up costing me money. We’ve got Bernie now, anyway.”
Reg’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s Bernie?”
Bernie gave a small wave.
“Hello,” he said nervously. “I’m Bernie.”
Reg turned his bloodshot stare on to Bernie, who felt himself recoil from the beery breath. Reg had sunk a few beers since he arrived and he’d not been sober then. He looked to Bernie’s inexperienced eyes like he was spoiling for a fight. Matthew clearly thought so, too. He stood up and put his hand on Reg’s arm.
“Let me buy you a drink,” he said.
Reg shook him off. “In a minute,” he said. “First, I want to take a look at the runt who’s taken my job.”
Bernie’s heart was pounding. He hated confrontation and aggression of any sort.
“What can he do that I can’t?” Reg asked Matthew, his glare still fixed on Bernie. “He’s only small. Skinny fella like that can’t lift baskets of apples like I can.”
“You’d be surprised,” Matthew said. “And he certainly doesn’t drop apples like you do. Bernie’s stronger than he looks, he’s fitter than you, younger than you, he doesn’t drink away the profits like you do, and he’s sober.”
Reg snorted. “Sober.”
Then he looked round at Bernie again.
“And younger.”
Bernie froze as Reg thumped on the table with his two fists.
“Younger,” he repeated. “Young enough to enlist, eh?”
Bernie wasn’t sure what to say. At a loss he looked to Matthew for help, but he just shrugged.
Sensing weakness, Reg pounced. “So why haven’t you, then?”
“Why haven’t I?”
“Enlisted.”
Bernie wasn’t ashamed of being a conscientious objector; he was certain in his beliefs and he knew he was doing his own bit by working at the farm. But he found he couldn’t quite get the words out now, faced with Reg’s red, angry face and the knowledge of what this man had done to Louisa.
“You’re a conchie,” Reg said in triumph. A bit of spittle flew from the side of his mouth and landed on the table in front of Bernie. “You’re a bloody conchie.”
He grabbed hold of the front of Bernie’s jumper and pulled him upright.
“I ought to take you outside right now and give you a good hiding,” Reg growled. “I should beat the living daylights out of you.”
Finally, Bernie found his voice.
“Why don’t you, then?” he said. “Why not punch me? Go on. Or do you only hit women?”
Reg’s face got a bit redder. “I’m a real man. Not like you, you bloody coward.”
Bernie, filled with courage he’d never thought he had, laughed in his face.
“I may be a conchie,” he said, “but at least I’ve never hit a woman. I’ve never beaten my wife black and blue, or punched her so hard she lost her baby.”
Reg’s face was purple now. He twisted his hand so his grip on Bernie’s jumper increased, and it tightened round his neck. Bernie raised his head to free himself slightly, but he didn’t move.
“Louisa’s told me all about you, and what you did,” he said. “You drank away your inheritance—the farm your father worked hard to build up—and you drank away your marriage and you killed your baby. I’d rather be a conchie than a baby killer.”
Reg let go of his jumper and Bernie stumbled backward, putting a hand on the table to balance himself.
“Listen to the lies he’s spouting about me,” Reg declared to the pub. Everyone was standing still and silent, watching the altercation. All Bernie could hear, apart from Reg’s drunken ranting, was his own breathing and his own heart thumping. “He thinks he can say rotten things about me—him a newcomer to Cassingham and me having lived here since I was a lad, and my father and grandfather before me. What kind of a man must he be to make up such shit?”
Matthew took a step forward so he was standing next to Bernie.
“A good man,” he said. “A truthful man. A better man than you, Reg Taylor.”
Reg spluttered with anger. “A coward and a conchie, more like.”
“Bernie works hard on the land, just as you should have. His efforts feed the families in this village. What have you done, Reg?”
Bernie felt a warm glow of friendship, hearing Matthew speak up for him. Reg was still spluttering, mumbling about knowing your own and family.
Behind the bar, Jeanie raised her voice. “Bernie’s been so good to my Peter, looking out for him while my Kenneth’s away. He’s a treasure.”
“Peter’s a good lad,” Bernie said, not wanting to take credit.
Mrs. Lannister, who’d been standing by the door, having arrived to track down Stevie just as Reg started his rants, came over and gave the drunk man a prod in the ribs.
“You could do better than take a leaf out of Bernie’s book,” she said. “He helped Stevie with the thatching last week. Wouldn’t take nothing for it, neither.”
“I was interested to learn,” Bernie told her, but she waved his comments aside.
The landlord of the pub, a thickset man called Ernie, with heavy eyebrows, who Bernie was more than a little scared of, appeared at Reg’s side.
“Right,” he said. “I think that’s quite enough of that.”
Bernie’s shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
But Ernie put his huge hand on Bernie’s shoulder.
“Y
ou’re going nowhere,” he growled in his ear, and Bernie stayed exactly where he was, barely moving a muscle. His heart pounded harder.
Ernie reached out an arm and took Reg by the collar. “Bernie’s part of Cassingham now,” he said. “He’s one of us, and he’s doing as much as he can to help. Whereas you are a despicable, no-good baby-killer and a wife-beater and if I ever see you in here again, I’ll kick you into next week. Understand?”
Reg seemed to shrink under Ernie’s glare. He nodded, and without another word, he turned and slunk out of the pub.
“I’m not sorry he’s gone, even though his drinking is always good news for my takings,” Ernie said. He slapped Bernie on the back, so hard Bernie almost fell over. “What will you have, lad?”
* * *
The next morning, Bernie found he couldn’t stop thinking about the previous night’s events.
“Do you know where Reg might have gone?” he asked Matthew. “Could he be in your barn?”
“Probably.” Matthew shrugged. “I should move him on, really.”
But Bernie shook his head. “Don’t, not yet.”
“Bernie, he’s a nuisance and a drunk. He needs to go.”
“He deserves a second chance.”
“He’s already had a second, third, fourth chance and he’s blown every one.”
Bernie was determined, though. “Can I have a chat with him? See if I can get through somehow.”
“If you really want to.” Matthew looked dubious. “But this is absolutely the last time. If he can sober up and start helping, he can stay. Otherwise, he needs to go. However bad the weather is.”
“Thanks,” Bernie said.
Matthew rolled his eyes but in a good-natured way. “It’s the old barn behind the hops poles.”
So Bernie trudged through the poles in the wind and rain to the barn and found Reg sitting on an old cider barrel, smoking a cigarette.
“Look who it is,” he said as Bernie approached. “Bloody Bernie, the conchie.”
Undeterred by the hostility, Bernie upended another barrel and sat down next to him.
“Matthew wants to throw you out,” he said. “Thinks you should move on.”
“Come to help me pack?”
Bernie smiled. “No,” he said. “I talked him into letting you stay.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Because everyone deserves a second chance and because everyone’s got something to offer.”
Reg snorted. “And he agreed, just like that, did he?”
“No. There are some conditions.”
“Course there are.”
“If you can stay off the drink and help around the farm, you can stay.”
Bernie expected aggression from Reg, but what he actually got was resignation.
“I can’t, can I?” he said. “I’ve tried to stay away from booze so many times, but each time it gets harder.”
“I can help you, if you’ll let me.”
Reg looked up at Bernie and the younger man felt a wave of sympathy as he saw the hope in those red-rimmed eyes.
“Will you?”
“It won’t be easy.”
“I know.”
“Then come with me. Bring your things—you’ll be away for a little while.”
“Where are we going?”
Bernie thought about whether to tell Reg or just take him, and he decided it was better he knew.
“Salvation Army in Maidstone,” he said. “They’re good people, Reg. Caring, considerate. And they understand men like you and your issues. They can help—if you’re ready to try.”
Reg nodded. “I’m ready,” he said.
“Let’s go.”
With his head bowed, Reg gathered up his belongings, which were scattered across the barn, and gave Bernie a half-drunk bottle of whisky he produced from somewhere.
“Will you throw this away for me, Bernie?”
“Course.”
Together they walked across the front of the barn toward the hops, but then Reg stopped. “Will you do something else for me?” he said.
Bernie looked at him suspiciously. “What?”
Reg took a breath and for a moment, a fleeting moment, Bernie thought his eyes were filled with tears. But surely he was mistaken?
“Can you tell Louisa I’m sorry. About the baby. About everything?”
Bernie shook his head. “That’s something you can do yourself, Reg. When you’re better.”
“When I’m better,” Reg said in wonder. “When I’m better.”
“Come on,” Bernie said. “Sooner we’re there, sooner you’ll start recovering.”
He strode off down in between the hops poles, and after a moment’s pause, Reg followed.
Chapter 28
January 1917
Louisa stared at the wonky handwriting on the envelope. Reg had never been one for penmanship and the mix of upper- and lowercase letters meant she recognized his scrawl immediately. But why was he writing to her? What could he possibly have to say?
She was alone in the break room at Kew, having come in to find a pair of dry gloves; hers were wet from clearing snow from the path and her fingers were icy cold. She’d found the letter sitting on the side, along with some others. Many of the gardeners had their post delivered to Kew—they were there so often it just made sense. But what didn’t make sense was Reg writing her a letter.
She pulled out a chair and sat down at the table, turning the envelope over in her hands. She hated the way any remembrance of Reg brought back all the old feelings—the fear, the impotent rage, the helplessness. When she was feeling charitable, as she found she was more often these days, she could see that though his actions sent her life off down a different path, it wasn’t a bad one. She had her friends at Kew, and the Suffragettes, and now she had Teddy. She smiled, thinking of her beau. But she didn’t have her baby. And she still had nightmares occasionally where she was back on Reg’s family farm, listening for his footsteps coming up the stairs and trying to work out if he was drunk just from the sound of his tread. She frowned again as she looked at the letter.
“Just open it, Louisa,” she told herself. “How bad can it be?”
She knew Reg had briefly returned to Cassingham and then had gone again. From Matthew’s letters, it sounded as though Bernie had something to do with it—though what he’d done, Louisa couldn’t imagine and she’d not asked. Sometimes, with Reg, it was better just to let sleeping dogs lie.
Taking a breath, she slid her finger under the envelope flap and pulled out the letter inside. There was just one sheet of paper, covered in Reg’s unruly writing with a few words crossed out and one small ink spot. She blinked at the address on the top—the Salvation Army mission in Maidstone.
“What on earth . . . ?” she mumbled as she read.
Dear Louisa,
I am writing to say sorry for all the wrongs I have done you over the years. I am living in Maidstone now and working at the mission. They are good blokes and they have helped me stop drinking and see that I had to change my life. Your friend Bernie brought me here after we had a bust-up in the pub and though I was angry at first, I see it was the right thing to do. He is nice though a bit of an odd one and I owe him a lot.
Louisa, it is not easy looking at what I’ve done with sober eyes. I was a bad bloke back then and a bad husband. And when I think about the way I treated you, I feel so guilty. I am sorry for hitting you. And Louisa I am so sorry that you lost the baby. Our baby. I know nothing I say now will ever put that right, but you should know that I think about it every day and wish things could have been different.
I don’t blame you for going away, not one bit. And I won’t blame you if you rip up this letter and put me out of your head forever. But I just wanted to say sorry.
Your husband,
&nb
sp; Reg
Louisa sat for a little while, reading and rereading Reg’s words. She thought about the terrible day when he’d lost his temper so badly and hit her, over and over again, even though she cried out to him, reminding him she was carrying his child. And when her stomach started cramping and the bleeding started, she’d wept for so long that her eyes swelled and she could barely see. The day she’d delivered their baby was the worst day of her life. She had only been just over halfway through her pregnancy, with a tiny bulge to her stomach. But the labor pains had been searing and the pain in her heart worse. She didn’t see the baby; the midwife bundled it up and took it away before Louisa had really known what was happening. There had been no funeral; there was no grave to visit. But it had felt like a death to Louisa.
She breathed in deeply. Could she forgive Reg now? She tested her feelings gently and decided that no, she couldn’t. She suspected she would never forgive him for what he’d done. But knowing he was sorry, that he, too, thought about their child, who had never taken a breath, that helped a little. She smiled, a small, sad smile. She was glad he’d had help to stop drinking and she was glad Bernie had been the one to do it. He was remarkable, that man.
“What’s that?”
Louisa looked up to see Ivy, longing in her eyes. “Is it a letter? Is it from Jim?”
There had been no word from Jim all winter, just endless reports from the Front of awful conditions, gas attacks, and daily casualty lists. They’d visited Jim’s mum and been half relieved and half devastated to discover she’d not heard anything, either. Things felt very bleak as far as Ivy was concerned, and though Louisa and Win tried to keep her spirits up, it wasn’t easy.
“I’m afraid not, my love,” she said, hating to dash her friend’s hopes. “It’s from Reg.”
Ivy forced a smile. “Silly, to keep thinking he’ll write,” she said. “I just can’t help it.”
Louisa reached out and took Ivy’s hand. “I know,” she said.
There was a pause as Ivy took in what Louisa had said. “Reg?”
