The Land Girls at Christmas

by Jenny Holmes

  ‘So, Flight Lieutenant Mackenzie?’ What’s so funny? He was pretty darned good-looking, staring at her from under heavy eyelids, with a cleft in his clean-shaven, square chin and sporting the typical Canadian crew cut. But it felt odd for them to be squashed in a corner of a storeroom – not much more than a cupboard – with two glasses and a bottle of whisky.

  ‘Are we all ready for the big event?’ His hand rested loosely around the glass but he didn’t drink.

  ‘Oh – you mean the show? Yes, almost ready.’ She drank again without thinking. Once more there was a burning sensation and this time she couldn’t help coughing.

  He didn’t hide his amusement. ‘I can’t wait to see you doing a star turn. I guess you’ll be in costume?’

  She raised an eyebrow and told him that he would have to wait and see. ‘About those tablecloths …’

  He shrugged then leaned across the table to murmur words that at first she didn’t pick up. ‘You’re my dream girl – you know that?’

  The phrase sank in slowly. ‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ she countered gamely. Events were moving fast and definitely in the right direction. But keep your feet on the ground, she reminded herself. Don’t let him think that a few sweet words are all it takes.

  ‘What I mean is – you’re beautiful and you’re fun too. I’m a sucker for that combination.’

  ‘About the tablecloths,’ she said again, but in a way that let him know she was flattered.

  ‘You’re my kind of girl, Brenda. I knew that the first time I saw you.’ Mac stood up and raised her to her feet. He put his arms around her waist and moved in for a kiss. ‘And you didn’t really come for table linen, did you?’

  She leaned the top half of her body away and put a finger against his puckered lips. The space around them seemed to have contracted, as if the walls were closing in. Or maybe it was the whisky that had already gone to her head. ‘Steady on.’

  He laughed and held her tighter. ‘What am I – a horse? Gee-up, Neddy. Steady on!’

  Before she knew it, he was kissing her long and hard on the mouth.

  She pulled back and looked at him in astonishment. The kiss had taken her aback but now that it had happened she realized that she’d enjoyed it. ‘You’re a fast mover, Flight Lieutenant – I’ll say that for you.’

  Yeah, Miss Appleby, you know what they say – “Seize the day”.’ He leaned in and snatched a second kiss – a quick touch on her mouth before he moved his lips to her cheek and then her neck.

  The soft, nibbling sensation made her almost coo with pleasure, but when one of his hands moved up her back and round to her front, she drew the line. ‘I really can’t stay long,’ she insisted. He didn’t release his hold so her only way out was to duck down and dodge sideways – not very dignified but an effective end to the petting that she’d been in danger of enjoying too much.

  Mac frowned. ‘Come on – you like it, I can tell.’

  ‘I like you.’ The difference between ‘it’ and ‘you’ mattered to Brenda. ‘I’d like to get to know you better.’

  ‘Then come on, what are we waiting for?’ he wheedled, making another grab for her.

  Brenda backed out of the storeroom. She came up against the hot stove and had to dodge again as Mac pursued her. ‘That’s not what I mean and you know it.’

  At the far end of the room, Squadron Leader Aldridge came down the ramp connecting the Nissen hut to the main building. He took in the scene without comment. ‘Mac, the kitchen needs to see the roll-call for the guys who got in earlier today – name, rank and number.’

  ‘You bet,’ he said with a last lingering look at Brenda.

  ‘Right away.’ Aldridge kept his eye on him as he walked the length of the room then switched his attention to the visitor. ‘And how can we help you, young lady?’

  Brenda cleared her throat and hoped that she wasn’t blushing too fiercely. ‘Table linen,’ she said in a clear voice. ‘For the buffet at the Institute tomorrow night – that’s the reason I came.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Bill couldn’t remember when he’d felt more tired. His limbs ached, his head felt heavy and he was shaking with cold. ‘It’s not even as if I’ve done a hard day’s work,’ he told Edgar when he encountered him in the pub yard. ‘All I’ve done is drive my mother to the hospital and back then catch up with some paperwork.’

  The two men stood in the cold night – one in a trilby hat, sports jacket and slacks with a woollen scarf tied high around his neck, the other bare-headed in his heavy RAF greatcoat – both tall and looking older than their years. In Bill’s case it was his face that showed the strain of recent events – his posture was still upright, his shoulders broad and strong. But he frowned deeply and there were shadows under his eyes. Edgar, however, was thin and stooped. His limbs moved stiffly as he delved into his pocket, drew out a packet of cigarettes, tapped the bottom then pulled one out with his lips. He struck a match and the light flared to show his gaunt face and unshaven chin.

  ‘It must be something to do with the late night we had last night.’ Bill struggled to make conversation. ‘How’s your hand, by the way? I see you’ve still got it strapped up.’

  ‘What will they do with the Dornier?’ Edgar’s non sequitur came between deep drags on his cigarette. ‘Will they leave it where it is?’

  Bill nodded. ‘It’s not worth anyone’s while trying to move it. It’ll rust away to nothing soon enough.’

  ‘What about the pilot and his gunner? What will they do with them?’

  There was a glittering intensity in Edgar’s eyes that Bill thought it best to ignore. ‘Don’t worry – a bunch of POWs saw to that.’

  ‘And the one that got out?’

  ‘He’ll live. They’re holding him at Beckwith Camp for the time being.’

  Edgar had almost finished his cigarette before he spoke again. ‘His problems aren’t over yet.’

  ‘No? Surely he’s the lucky one?’ Bill saw Edgar’s lips stretch in a thin, humourless smile and quickly understood what lay behind it. ‘I’m sorry – I wasn’t thinking.’

  ‘Jerry won’t forget. I don’t. No one does.’ His throat constricted and his voice croaked with emotion.

  ‘In time, maybe?’

  Edgar blew out the last cloud of smoke then ground the butt under his foot. He looked at Bill, nodded briefly then walked off towards the forge.

  Weary, overburdened and unsure, Bill was on the verge of turning around. It seemed he couldn’t get anything right. He’d just upset his mother. She’d said he should stay in and get an early night. He’d snapped back that he wasn’t a kid and would go to bed when he liked. He’d stormed out of the house and left her in tears.

  To hell with it, he thought – a drink would do him good. There was also a glimmer of hope that he could spend time with the woman he loved, who might, in her most secret heart, still have feelings for him.

  So he went into the bar, into a warm fug of tobacco smoke and the hum of voices, to the dull glint of pewter tankards displayed on a shelf behind the bar and to Grace, neatly dressed in a white blouse and grey skirt, serving pints to Jack and the Baxendales.

  ‘Now then, Bill – what’ll you have?’ Maurice had been in the middle of praising Grace for keeping calm in the face of the enemy. Now he generously included Bill in the scenario that had led to the capture of the gunner. ‘I didn’t know you were a rugby fullback. That was some tackle you made last night. I saw it all from a safe distance – Jerry jumping out of the barn in a last-ditch bid for freedom and you bringing him down with a wallop.’

  ‘I’ll have a pint of bitter, please.’ Bill smiled a nervous hello at Grace then watched the amber liquid foam and froth into the dimpled glass. They hadn’t spoken since he’d dropped her and Edgar off in the early hours so he quietly answered her questions about his father then mentioned that he’d just had a short talk with Edgar.

  Grace nodded hopefully. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Not much. I put my
foot in it, though. I said Una’s gunner was lucky to get out alive. He soon put me in my place.’

  ‘He wasn’t Una’s gunner,’ Grace said with a frown.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I do, but others might not.’ Signalling to her father that she was taking a short breather, she came out from behind the bar and went with Bill to the inglenook seat by the fire. ‘I’ve overheard some nasty rumours,’ she told him. ‘Two of the girls I was working with seem convinced that, far from helping to capture that gunner, Una was trying to help him escape.’

  ‘Come again?’ Bill rolled his eyes and held his glass midway between the table and his mouth. Her physical closeness was all he wanted – to be able to breathe her in and to listen to her soft, rich voice.

  ‘Just so – it’s ridiculous. But Dorothy and Jean aren’t the sort to let the truth get in the way of a good story. Horace and Joe were as bad. If we’re not careful, Una will be taking the blame for something she didn’t do – guilty until proved innocent.’

  He put down his glass without drinking. ‘It’ll soon blow over. Tomorrow night’s show will take everyone’s mind off it.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’ Grace studied his face in the flickering glow of the coal fire. ‘You’re tired,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve got other things on your mind.’

  ‘You could say that.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘As you well know, most of my problems are of my own making. I’m talking about you and me, Grace. I’ve been a fool as far as that goes. That’s why I went to the hostel to clear the air with Brenda.’

  ‘Let’s not go through it all again.’ It didn’t seem the time or the place to delve deep into emotions – something that neither of them was good at, in any case. Bob and Maurice had just found a seat at a nearby table and newcomers were trickling into the pub every few minutes. Before long, Grace would have to start serving again.

  ‘I think Mum knows about us,’ Bill said in a sudden, confessional rush.

  Grace’s eyes widened. ‘Why?’

  ‘She must have seen us through the curtain – when we walked up the path together.’

  ‘I thought as much. What did she say?’

  ‘That we looked very “friendly”. She didn’t even seem surprised – she just shook her head and then went up to bed.’

  ‘And nothing since?’ Grace remembered Edith’s frostiness towards her at the Institute, when she’d dropped by with the two Foster women and the box of decorations.

  ‘No. We haven’t had a chance to talk about it.’ Bill’s weariness was partly to do with the hospital business, but also the result of the growing realization that, despite his visit to the hostel and despite the hours he and Grace had spent together searching for the missing gunner, he might after all have left it too late to mend things with Grace. It brought with it a crushing mixture of guilt and self-loathing, combined with a yearning to go back to what they had once been.

  Grace thought she read defeat in his eyes. It unnerved her. Why was he so ready to give up after the efforts he’d made to put things right?

  ‘I’m sorry, Grace. I can’t seem to help letting you down.’

  She didn’t demur and instead made a confession of her own. ‘I still can’t rid myself of the notion that you felt something for Brenda. Did you?’

  He shook his head then frowned. ‘Something, I suppose. I’m not sure what.’

  ‘But something?’ Her heart fluttered then began to pound. This was a strange sort of self-punishment to subject herself to but she couldn’t help it.

  ‘A spark, I suppose. It was there and then it was gone. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Please will you stop saying that?’

  ‘I’m telling you the truth. Yes, Brenda made an impression, but no, I didn’t want to follow it up. I was engaged to you.’

  In her present mood, Grace read this not as a victory, but as another defeat. She had a vision of him drifting away from her, out to sea, and she lacked the strength or the certainty to pull him back. ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to do,’ she murmured. Quietly she asked him to come into the empty forge with her. He followed with a sense of dread, breathing in the ashes of the day’s fire, the lingering smell of red-hot metal and a thread of cigarette smoke curling out of the shadows.

  Grace dipped her hand into her pocket and drew out the small box containing her ruby and emerald ring. ‘I’ve been meaning to return this as soon as I got the chance.’

  A sharp pain shot through him – through his heart, his spirit, the centre of his being. ‘Keep it,’ he pleaded. ‘Maybe we can still work things out.’

  ‘I can’t keep it, Bill – not with things as they are.’ She forced him to take it and make an ending, feeling her bruised heart break. ‘I can’t be sure of anything any more. It wouldn’t be right for me to hang onto the ring.’

  Their whispered words rose into the dark rafters. Grace turned and quietly left the forge.

  Watching from the door that led out onto the back field, Edgar saw Bill bow his head – a strong man brought low.

  After dinner that evening, Dorothy and Ivy collared Jean in the common room. ‘Did you notice – you could’ve cut the atmosphere in there with a knife,’ Dorothy began as Ivy made sure that there was no one else in the vicinity then shut the door for a private chat. ‘Everyone sat as far away from Una as possible – well, everyone except Joyce and Brenda. They were the only ones prepared to risk sitting near her.’

  ‘Yes, no one wants to get tarred with the same brush as Una.’ Ivy’s nostrils flared in disdain. She was a narrow girl in figure and in mind, with a long, pale face and a down-turned mouth. ‘Even Kathleen went and sat at Elsie’s end of the table. Oh, and by the way, I’ve made a complaint to Mrs C.’

  ‘About Una?’ Jean was taken by surprise. ‘Weren’t we supposed to do that altogether – all three of us, once we’d worked out what we were going to say?’

  ‘Not about Una, silly.’ Ivy picked up the poker and gave the fire a stir before carelessly chucking on more coal from the scuttle. ‘I complained about Joyce and what she did to me in the outhouse – coming at me the way she did.’

  ‘What did Mrs C say?’ Jean felt queasy as she got a clear picture of the way things were lining up – her, Ivy and Dorothy versus Joyce, Brenda and Grace – three of the most popular Land Girls in the area. They would have to tread carefully if they wanted to get other Fieldhead girls on their side.

  ‘She made a note of everything then she had the cheek to ask me what I’d said to make Joyce snap.’

  ‘I hope you didn’t tell her.’ Dorothy’s face was flushed from sitting too close to the newly stoked fire as she smirked at Jean. ‘Mrs C doesn’t need to know the full details, eh?’

  ‘Do you take me for a simpleton? No – I steered well away from our theory about what Una and Jerry got up to in that barn and stuck to the part about me finding Una’s scarf in the outhouse and Joyce threatening me and trying to choke me to death.’

  ‘That’s the ticket. In the end, it’s just your word against Joyce.’

  ‘And Kathleen,’ Jean reminded them. ‘Didn’t you say she was there as well?’

  Ivy frowned then jabbed the poker into the fire again. ‘Yes, but she was long gone before Joyce muscled her way in. Dorothy’s right – it’s my word against Joyce’s.’

  ‘We all know what’ll happen now.’ Jean’s all too apparent cautiousness irritated Ivy. ‘Mrs C will have to report the incident to Mrs M and Joyce will be dealt with. Meanwhile, we’ll keep on sending Una to Coventry and if anyone asks us why we’re doing it, we’ll tell them outright – Una is far too friendly with the enemy. Girls of her sort can’t be trusted.’

  Dorothy agreed. ‘It’s not just us who are thinking it. Jean, you’ve heard what they’re saying in the village. There must be something in it for Joe and Horace to pin the same label on her.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Why then was Jean still feeling uneasy?

  ‘It’s our duty to keep an eye on Una,’ Iv
y asserted. ‘For King and country, and all that.’

  ‘Yes.’ Jean’s long sigh was the sign that she’d brushed away her doubts. ‘You’re both right. Goodness knows, we ought not to trust Una Sharpe or, for that matter, anyone else who fails to do their utmost to bring Jerry to his knees.’

  ‘Would you like me to cheer you both up?’ Brenda asked her glum room-mates.

  Kathleen had fretted her evening away by putting the final touches to tomorrow’s programme while Una had written what might be her last letter to Angelo before Beckwith Camp was cleared of prisoners. Her hope was that they would be able to spend a few minutes together during the interval and that she would be able to hand the letter to him then.

  ‘Come on – let me tell you about my latest amorous adventure.’ Brenda sat cross-legged on her bed with her newly washed hair tucked behind her ears, her skin glowing and scented from her recent soak in the bath. ‘It involves our Canadian friend, Flight Lieutenant Mackenzie, who, it turns out, has quite a way with the ladies.’

  ‘Oh, Brenda – what have you done now?’ With an exaggerated, exasperated sigh, Kathleen looked up from the closing speech she was writing for the show. It was almost eleven and by rights all three of them should be fast asleep.

  Una broke out of her latest reverie about Angelo. ‘Have you been over to Penny Lane?’

  ‘I certainly have. And who took me under his wing when I got there, but Mr Wonderful himself!’

  ‘Oh, dearie, dearie me!’ Kathleen put her speech to one side and steeled herself to hear the details. ‘Are you ready for this, Una?’

  ‘Yes, hold onto your hat,’ Una said with a slow smile. There was no stopping Brenda when she was in this mood.

  ‘Picture this. There’s me in my dungarees and leather jacket and there’s the handsome John Mackenzie, off duty with his shirt collar open and a smile as broad as you like, leading me into a titchy little storeroom and before you know it, he’s handing me a glass of whisky and telling me I’m his dream girl. Five seconds later I’m swooning in his arms and he’s kissing me like I’ve never been kissed before. Cross my heart, he—’