Self-consciously, Lorna brushed at the skirt of her summer dress and glanced at Paul, slowing her steps. But Lorna’s father strode purposefully forward. And after a moment Paul followed, his head held high, although he walked with less assurance than Lorna’s father.
The path was narrow, so Lorna and Paul had to walk close together, and Lorna wanted to take Paul’s hand, to hold it tight for reassurance—hers and his—but she didn’t dare.
A silence crept over the crowd around the door as the three of them approached. Once they were closer, however, she could hear the whispering and muttering. Lorna was glad that Nellie had not come with them because her bump would have just been another target for the loudmouthed gossips. As it was, Paul’s arrival was causing enough of a stir.
“It’s disgraceful, that’s what it is!” came a voice. “What right has Jock to bring one of them here?”
“And today of all days,” said someone else.
“Exactly! It’s not right.”
“Look at the state of his face! It’s dreadful.”
“Enough to make the children cry.”
“Go get the minister. He’ll sort this out.”
Lorna glanced at Mrs. Mack. There was still a smile on her face, but it was now set hard, as if it was painted on. While she had clearly been taken aback by Paul’s arrival at the church, she was determined not to show it.
Lorna’s father stopped a yard or two away from the gawping crowd and waited for Paul and Lorna to catch up. He stood legs apart and arms folded across his chest as if bracing himself against some invisible force. His eyes never left the people in front of him, his steady expression a challenge to anyone who dared come up against him.
Paul had again withdrawn behind his mask and was looking intently at Mrs. Mack as if she were his sanctuary.
“Take him back, Jock!” a man shouted. “He’s not welcome here.”
There were several cries of agreement, but Lorna’s father did not move.
“And that girl of yours’ll want to watch out as well.” A woman this time. “We’ve all heard what the Jerries do to the lassies in France and Belgium. Nasty devils, they are!”
The memory of Ed’s grasp and stench tore at Lorna’s calm. She wanted to shout back, And what about the Yanks? D’you think they’re all bloody angels? But she knew that would never help, and anyway, she didn’t think her voice would work.
But still, she could show them they were wrong, she could show them how safe she felt with Paul.
Lorna took hold of Paul’s hand and held it tight. Paul did not immediately respond, though Lorna was sure he must have been surprised at her touch. After a moment, his fingers folded around hers and he let out a long, slow breath. She almost didn’t hear it beneath the hiss and murmur of the crowd, which had grown considerably in the minute or two they’d been standing there. People were coming back out of the church to see what was happening.
Suddenly Mrs. Mack walked out from the crowd to stand in front of Paul.
“Good for you, son. I’m glad to see you here,” she said, louder than was necessary, her words aimed at those behind her. “And you too, Jock.”
Paul gave her one of his curt nods, and as Mrs. Mack moved to stand next to Lorna, facing the other villagers, Lorna wished she could tell her how good it felt to have her on their side.
Then Lorna saw that Iris had come to stand at the front of the crowd. Iris lifted her foot from the ground as if she was about to step forward to join them, but suddenly William materialized beside her and took hold of her arm. Iris started at William’s touch, and she didn’t step forward. She just stood silently and did nothing.
“Now, what’s all this?” The plummy voice of Reverend Urquhart rose above the hubbub as he pushed through the crowd. “What’s the fuss? We really do need to get on with the service.”
Mrs. Urquhart followed behind him, her hard-edged purse swinging neatly from her bent elbow, looking more like a lethal weapon than a handbag.
“Oh, I say!” Reverend Urquhart muttered as he noticed Paul. He stopped beside William, who leaned toward his father and whispered something that Lorna couldn’t hear. Without acknowledging that William had spoken, Reverend Urquhart drew in a deep breath, the way he did as he started every sermon, and took up his usual oratory stance with feet wide apart, shoulders back. As he opened his mouth to speak, he forced an unconvincing smile onto his flabby face.
“Anderson—I mean, Jock—it is a welcome surprise to see you here on this historic evening.” The minister’s bright tone was conciliatory as he looked up at Lorna’s father, his shiny bald head barely reaching the big farmer’s chin.
Lorna’s father stood silent, his expression unchanged.
“And of course,” the minister continued, glancing to each side of him, “we warmly embrace each and every soul who comes here to praise the Lord. But in the circumstances, I’m not quite sure that your, em, your companion . . .”
He paused. His mouth was still smiling, but there were tight stress lines wrinkling his forehead and around his eyes. He suddenly seemed unsure of where his sentence was going.
“Do something, Robert!” Mrs. Urquhart hissed in his ear. “This is a disgrace, and you must do something about it. Right now!”
She prodded his arm with a sharp finger and he stepped forward, on the pretext of having more to say, but more probably to escape his wife’s jabbing nails.
“After all, does the camp commander know he’s here?” the minister asked. “There are still rules for these chaps, you know. Or at least, I’m sure there must be—”
“Bugger the camp commander!” said Lorna’s father, and a rippling wave of gasps and giggles swept around the crowd. “The war’s over. I’ve come to give thanks in the kirk that my family has been part of for more than a hundred and fifty years, and the lad is coming in with me to do the same. Or are you planning to stop me?”
Lorna’s father looked around the crowd in challenge.
The minister looked shaken. “Now, Jock, I have no doubt that there will be a time and a place for reconciliation with our enemies . . . em . . . I mean, former enemies. However, I think I can speak for everyone in the village when I say this moment might not be the best one. So I really must ask you to escort the young, em, gentleman back—”
“You’re not speaking for me,” said Mrs. Mack sharply from beside Paul, and the muttering rose in volume again.
“Nor me!” Sheena pushed past Iris and William and went to stand next to her mother, gesturing to her children to follow her.
As Sheena passed, Iris pulled her arm purposefully out of William’s grip, and Lorna’s heart sang.
But as Iris took a step away from him, William was suddenly shoved forward by people behind him. The crowd was splitting down the middle, opening up a path for someone coming through.
“You would not be speaking for me either,” came a woman’s voice from the widening gap.
There was a murmur as people realized who it was.
“And in my opinion, Reverend Urquhart, this is exactly the best time and place,” Mrs. Murray said as she walked to the front. “What better place could there ever be for reconciliation than within the house of the Lord?”
Mrs. Murray was wearing a black coat and a rather old-fashioned black hat pinned to her hair. Her face was gray and drawn, but her eyes were sparking.
“But Mrs. Murray . . . Peggy . . . I don’t know what to say,” blustered the minister. “You of all people should understand how inappropriate it is to have a German soldier among us today.”
Mrs. Murray fixed him with a stare that Lorna knew all too well, and Reverend Urquhart looked like he wanted to dive for cover. His wife, however, appeared still to be pressing sharp nails into his back, so he was forced to stand his ground.
“Of all the people in this village”—Mrs. Murray’s voice bounced off the kirkyard walls like chips of ice against a window—“I am one who is best placed to understand how much we should be thanking the Lord for endi
ng this war. And while we are here, we should also thank him for sparing this boy’s life, and the lives of so many other thousands of mothers’ sons.
“Gregor will never come home to me, to Aberlady. But we should send this young man home to his mother with our songs of praise ringing in his ears to bless them both. And with our prayers, we should be thanking the Lord for bringing wisdom at last to the men who have put us through these six years of hell.”
The minister spluttered.
“Yes, Mr. Urquhart, this hell! So please step aside, because I would like to take my usual seat in the church, and I hope that the Andersons and their young friend will sit with me.”
Mrs. Murray turned and tried to walk back toward the church door, only to find that people had closed in behind her, blocking her path. With the same sweeping hand gesture she used in the school yard when ushering small children back to the classroom, she shooed the assembled throng out of her way.
Lorna’s father offered Mrs. Murray his arm in an unusually gallant gesture, and she took it elegantly as they moved through the crowd. Mrs. Mack ushered her family after them, the green feather in her best hat bobbing as she walked with her nose in the air and defiance in each step.
Beside Lorna, Paul hesitated.
At first, he seemed unsure as to whether he should follow, but as he held out his hand in front of her, she realized that he was in no doubt at all. He was simply indicating that she should go first. But Lorna felt a strong need to protect Paul’s back and shook her head.
“No, you go first,” she said, glancing around. “Please.”
Paul waited only a moment more and then did as she asked without argument, though she noticed that he kept his head turning, just enough for him to see any trouble that might break out around them.
Though the crowd had parted to let Mrs. Murray and her father through, it was quickly closing in again, and Lorna could see that Mrs. Mack was having to hold her elbows wide to stop people jostling her. Lorna went quickly after Paul, keeping close to him. The breach in the crowd had narrowed even further, and Paul was struggling to get through.
Suddenly he stumbled, held up only by the bodies pressing on either side. Lorna too almost tripped over the boot that had been stuck out into their path. She looked up to find that the foot in the boot belonged to Craig Buchanan. Esther Bell was pressed close behind him, her tiny green eyes set deep in her flabby pink face, snorting scornfully.
“Get lost, Craig!” someone hissed from behind Lorna. “Go away and crawl back under your rock! And you, Esther!”
It was Iris, and her hand was on Lorna’s shoulder, helping her push through the throng.
As Mrs. Murray and her father led them into the cool, echoing stillness of the church, Lorna fought to find the same calm within herself. But all she could think about was beating the living daylights out of Craig Buchanan. And out of Esther Bell, for that matter.
Toward the front, Mrs. Murray went into her usual pew, immediately on the other side of the aisle from the Urquharts, and Lorna’s father shuffled along to sit next to her. Paul followed, but Lorna turned to Iris.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For standing with us. At least, I saw you try to.”
Iris shrugged. “I think maybe I should have done that a long while ago.”
“Come and sit here with us then? We can all budge up. And you and me can share the kneeling cushion like we used to.”
Iris looked tempted, but then William grabbed her elbow, his fury ill disguised under a layer of serenity. He bent close to Iris’s ear. “I don’t know what that was about,” he said quietly, “but come and sit where you belong beside me and Mother. You’re making a show of yourself.”
Lorna wanted to slap his hand away and tell him to mind his own business, but before she could, Iris gently pulled her arm from William’s grasp for a second time, smiling sweetly as she did so. Then she kissed him on the cheek.
“You are so right, William, thank you for reminding me,” Iris said in a voice loud enough for even the gawpers at the back to hear. “I would like to be where I belong on this special day, so I’ll go and sit with Mum and Dad, thanks.”
She gave Lorna a peck on the cheek as well.
“And I’ll see you at the bonfire tonight.”
With that, Iris walked to where Mr. and Mrs. Robertson were sitting a few pews back. She squeezed in beside her father and began riffling through the hymnbook.
Lorna followed Iris’s example, smiling sweetly at William and sitting down between Paul and her father.
“Did I miss something?” Paul asked in a low voice.
“I’m not entirely sure,” said Lorna, “but I think Iris just made a very important decision.”
Thirty-One
In his sermon, Reverend Urquhart waxed lyrical about the need for new thinking in this hard-won time of peace, for rebuilding, for reconciliation, and for forgiveness, all the while seeming to take care not to look in Paul’s direction.
After the service, Lorna’s father attempted to guide Mrs. Murray, Paul, and Lorna out of the church as quickly as possible. But to Lorna’s surprise, a number of people stopped him, wanting to shake his hand or Mrs. Murray’s, saying they were proud to see someone stand up to the minister. Several of them wanted to shake hands with Paul too.
Lorna bit back the obvious question, So where were you when we needed you? But better late than never, she supposed.
Out in the kirkyard, they huddled together.
“Bloody hypocrite!” Lorna’s dad muttered about the minister, then grimaced at Mrs. Murray. “Sorry, Peggy.”
“Don’t worry about me. I couldn’t agree more.” Mrs. Murray studied Paul for a few moments.
“I hope you’ll get home to your family soon,” she said, taking one of Paul’s hands in hers, “because I’m sure your mother will have been praying for your safe return.”
“Thank you,” Paul said, his voice choked.
Lorna’s eyes prickled. Here were two people who had lost so much to this war. Mrs. Murray was alone now, and who knew what Paul had lost? His home, his mother and sister, his city and his job, his whole life?
Lorna leaned against her dad and he put his arm around her. They were lucky. They had each other, and they had John Jo and Sandy, and now Nellie and soon her baby.
“Shall we walk you home, Peggy?” Lorna’s dad asked, releasing Lorna and holding out his arm to Mrs. Murray. When she waved away the suggestion, he cleared his throat. “Well, perhaps, you’d like to come over to have some dinner with us on Sunday at Craigielaw? Nothing fancy, mind, but it would be lovely to share what we have with you.”
“That would be lovely, Jock, thank you.”
If Lorna hadn’t known Mrs. Murray so well, she’d have sworn there was suddenly a flush on her pale cheeks, but before Lorna could look again, Mrs. Murray had set off alone toward the High Street.
Lorna looked up at her dad. Was there also a sudden pink warmth to his swarthy cheeks? Imagine that.
Lorna, her father, and Paul set off through the kirkyard, and as soon as they were past the sycamore and onto Coffin Lane, Lorna’s father lengthened his stride toward Craigielaw. He was quickly twenty yards ahead of Lorna and Paul.
When she was sure he was far enough away, and that they were also beyond sight of the church, Lorna slipped her hand into Paul’s and slowed him to a stop.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Paul squeezed her hand but said nothing.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have come today,” she said quietly. “You saw how people were.”
“No. I am glad I went with you, to show respect for your father, and to be with you.”
Lorna pushed up on her tiptoes and pulled down on Paul’s shirt until his lips met hers.
Parp! Parp!
They broke apart, and both looked over the Glebe field to where the road wound to the farm. The familiar green army truck was bouncing along, though only partly visible over
the hedges.
“I wish you could come to the bonfire tonight,” Lorna said. “Can’t they let you out, just for tonight?”
“I wish that they would too, but . . .”
“In fact, perhaps I’ll stay home with Nellie instead. She’s miserable at missing all the fun.”
Paul took Lorna’s hand again.
“But you must go to the party. This is a very big day, a day to tell your grandchildren about.”
For a second, Lorna felt a stab of disappointment that Paul had said your grandchildren and not our grandchildren, but she knew that was ridiculous.
Parp! Parp!
“I had better hurry,” said Paul.
Lorna pulled back on his hand. “Wait!”
Paul hesitated and Lorna laid her hand on his damaged cheek, feeling its coolness against her warm palm.
Parp! Parp!
Paul sighed and leaned his face into her hand. “Really, I must go.”
The truck was in the yard, the dogs barking frantically.
Paul bent to kiss Lorna again, no more than a light butterfly touch. “Enjoy the party. I am sure it will be a night you will always remember.”
“And I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, of course. I will see you tomorrow.”
Parp! Parp! Parp! Parp!
Paul set off at a sprint toward the truck that would take him back to Gosford Camp. The same truck would bring him back again in barely twelve hours’ time, and again the next morning, and the next . . . but for how many more mornings?
How much longer would Paul remain at Craigielaw with Lorna?
The huge bonfire on the Sea Green filled the twilight with orange light as if it were part of the sunset. Logs cracked and snapped, popping hot sap sparks across the surrounding grass, and onlookers jumped back, giggling in alarm. The coastal blackout restrictions were over, so the lamps had been lit all through the village, and burning torches illuminated the field.
The ropey old Scout tent was almost unrecognizable. All the stains and repairs were masked by the invitingly radiant glow of the Tilley lamps that hung from the sloping tent poles. The tea urns on the far tables had been joined by two wooden kegs of beer, and the villagers were holding nothing back in their enjoyment of either.
Wait for Me Page 24
