by Dee Yates
Jeannie looked doubtful. ‘I’ll go if you think it would help. But I know what my father’s like.’
‘So do I, Jeannie, believe me. Now have your tea before it goes cold, and then I’ll help you to pack a bag.’
Jeannie took a couple of spoonfuls of soup and pushed the plate away from her. The thought of the coming conflict had replaced all rumblings of hunger with a sick apprehension.
It wasn’t until she was climbing the stairs to her room that she realised she would have to miss the dance the following evening. Now she would never know whether the invitation to dance was real or merely a jest. Trust her father to interfere in her life, even from so far away.
Determined to stand on her own two feet, she slammed the door behind her, dragged her weekend bag off the wardrobe and started to stuff it full of clothes.
6. The Manse
July 1939
Duncan McIver was in his study when Jeannie arrived. He had given orders that he was not to be disturbed as Saturday morning was when he wrote his sermon.
Her mother, dressed in her usual fawn skirt and brown cardigan, looked up in surprise as Jeannie entered the kitchen. She put down the knife with which she was chopping cabbage and wiped her hands on her pinafore.
‘Well now! I didn’t expect to see you today.’ Elspeth held out her cheek for her daughter’s greeting. ‘Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’
‘Because Auntie Christine suggested I come straight away and discuss Father’s letter.’ She gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Anyway, I’ve come to say that I’ve no intention of moving back here.’
Her mother looked at her in dismay and shook her head slowly. ‘Now then, Jean. Why must you always go against your father’s wishes?’ She turned to the bowl and continued rinsing vegetables for the midday meal. ‘He knows what’s right. And he’s got your best interests at heart.’
‘Mother! Father has no idea what my best interests are. He’s never even been to see what I’m doing.’
‘Well, let’s discuss this over dinner. Lay the table, will you, Jean. I shall have to make this go round the three of us.’
Jeannie opened the door into the dining room to be greeted by the stale lingering smell of the previous day’s meal. The heavy dark furniture felt oppressive to her and she looked with dislike at the high-back chairs with their unforgiving horsehair cushions that had always prickled the back of her legs and made mealtimes even more something to be endured rather than enjoyed.
When she had set the table for three, she took her bag from where she had left it in the kitchen, tiptoed past the closed study door and climbed the stairs to her bedroom, passing the rooms that had belonged to her three older brothers. They had long ago left home to further their studies and she had little doubt that her father had given them no such ultimatum as the one he had delivered to her.
At one o’clock, her father entered the dining room and sat down at the head of the table. Jeannie followed her mother into the room with a tureen of soup.
‘Well, what a surprise, Jean. It’s good to see that you’ve attended so swiftly to what I wrote in my letter.’ He watched his daughter walk round the table and smiled at her as she took her place. She glanced at her mother and, ignoring the warning frown, took a big breath.
‘I’ve come to tell you I’m not leaving my job. I like it there and I like living with Auntie Christine. After all, she can’t move and neither can all the other people who live and work there. So, why should I?’
The smile had faded from her father’s face and his lips set in an uncompromising line. He cleared his throat and eased the dog collar from round his neck. ‘You should because I say so. We need you here. As I wrote in my letter, war seems inevitable and I won’t have your mother worrying unnecessarily.’
‘So I suppose you’ve said the same to my brothers?’
‘Your brothers are a different matter altogether. For a start, they are not in such a potentially dangerous place. And, for another thing…’ He glanced at his wife and cleared his throat again. ‘For another thing, they may well be called up to join the forces if war does come.’
Jeannie hadn’t considered this and for a minute she was silent. Her brothers were a few years older than her and she looked on them with awe. All three were doing well in their chosen studies and when they were home she took in their stories of university life with envy and admiration.
‘I still don’t see what difference that makes to me,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘I have a career to think of. None of them has even got a job yet.’
‘My mind is made up, girl. As I said in my letter, you can talk to Miss Stewart about working your notice and then I want you back home. The discussion is at an end.’
Jeannie knew how it would be. It had been a waste of time visiting her parents. Her father was ever thus. Never had she been able to divert him from a course of action upon which he was decided. But she would win in the end. Of that she was certain.
*
The Sunday sermon was interminable. As if her father had known she would be in the congregation, he had chosen for his text ‘Honour thy Father and Mother’. From time to time, his steely eyes rested on Jeannie, dragging her thoughts back to the present. She wished now that she hadn’t listened to her aunt’s advice but had gone to the dance with Moira. She wondered if the good-looking boy had turned up to claim her. She considered whether he had danced with Moira instead and scowled at her friend’s imagined treachery.
Dinner was a meal of interrupted silences. Afterwards, Jeannie excused herself and went to pack her bag. Her father said he would walk with her some way towards the station as he had some parishioners in need of his help whom he must visit. Her mother kissed her perfunctorily.
‘We’ll look forward to seeing you soon, dear.’
‘There are plenty of opportunities for work here,’ her father began, as they set out to walk the two miles to the station. ‘Until you find work, I know of several places that would appreciate your help. Look there, for example.’ He pointed to St. Leonard’s Old People’s Home, looming grey and austere on their right. ‘They are always short of people to spread the milk of human kindness. They would be more than happy if you knocked on their door and offered your services.’
She knew that to disagree would be pointless and so Jeannie said nothing. She would have been more disposed towards her father if he showed her a little of the milk of human kindness that he was suggesting she bestow on others. Apparently unperturbed by her lack of response, he went on to make further suggestions for the application of her talents.
‘Well, Jean, this is where we must part,’ he said when they reached the station. ‘I have to visit the good folk who live along that lane.’ He indicated a distant cottage. ‘Now, be sure and do as I say. Your mother and I will look forward to your return.’ He planted a kiss on her forehead, turned and walked away, leaving her standing on the platform. Still she had not spoken. She stared up the line, fighting back tears, stunned by her father’s insensitivity.
It was while she was waiting in Edinburgh for the connection to Glasgow that the poster caught her eye.
‘We could do with thousands more like you… Join the Women’s Land Army.’ There was a picture of a young woman, hands controlling the bridle of a carthorse, her smile directed at a friendly farmer. In the background, a cow gazed placidly and chickens strutted. A farmhouse stood immaculate in the sunshine. With rising excitement, she considered the picture and its accompanying invitation. It offered a welcome alternative to returning to her father’s domination. What matter that she knew very little about farming? She had grown up surrounded by farms. Only such proximity to a horse gave her any qualms. The rest she was confident she could manage.
Along the bottom of the poster was the address of the recruiting office. It was just up the hill from the station. A distant whistle heralded the approach of her train. There was no time to lose. Jumping up from her seat, she ran out of Waverley station t
owards the offices. It was plain to see that she had reached her destination, for an identical poster to the one in the station was displayed outside. It had struck her as she sped along the road that, it being a Sunday, the offices may well have been closed. But having made her decision, she was not going to turn back, and she was greeted by an open door, from which a flight of steps led upwards.
*
Hurrying along the street, Jeannie could see her aunt standing at the tall window of her living room and felt a pang of conscience at the worry she would no doubt have caused.
‘I’m sorry, Auntie,’ she began, giving Christine no chance to speak. ‘Only I missed my train and had to catch the last one home. And it stopped at every station. Gosh! I’m starving.’
Her aunt smiled. ‘I guessed something like that must have happened, and your supper is waiting on the table.’
‘Thanks, Auntie.’ She kissed her cheek as she sped past to the kitchen.
‘Aren’t you going to tell me how you got on?’
‘Come and sit in and I’ll tell you all about it.’
Jeannie set about the cold meat and salad, while her aunt put the kettle on to make a pot of tea.
‘It was so exciting,’ the girl began, as soon as she could spare a minute from her food. ‘I have to go back for an interview and also, because I’m not yet eighteen, I need to get a reference and I wondered whether you…’ She looked up and caught the look of incomprehension on her aunt’s face. ‘Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ Christine laughed. ‘I was thinking about your father.’
Jeannie’s groan was enough to tell her aunt that things had not gone well.
‘I knew how it would be. He wouldn’t listen to a word I said. It was a complete waste of time. He insisted on having me back.’ She pulled a face. ‘He’s even lined up a number of jobs to keep me out of mischief… sick visiting, helping in the old people’s home, that kind of thing. In the end, I gave up arguing. But I’m not going back… and that’s final.’
‘So, what’s all this about an interview?’
‘And so,’ she continued, as though she hadn’t heard her aunt, ‘I was waiting for the train and there was the answer, staring me in the face!’ She described the poster and her sudden decision to find out what the Land Army was all about.
‘I could have told you,’ Christine interrupted, smiling. ‘I belonged to it myself for a while. It was formed during the Great War, you know… not straight away but after the fighting had been going on for a few years. The country began to get short of food – cargo ships bringing food from abroad were getting sunk by the German U-boats – and there weren’t the men left to grow food. So they asked the women to help. Between you and me,’ she continued conspiratorially, ‘it was great fun. And it was a chance to get away from home!’ They both laughed. ‘So, how did you get on when you found the offices?’
‘Well, because it was a Sunday, they weren’t fully staffed. I was given an application form, but I have to go back for an interview and a medical when I have my next day off. The other thing is that because I’m under eighteen, I have to get written permission and I thought, as I live with you, that it would be sensible for you to write it.’
‘Not just sensible but no doubt the only way you’d get permission at all!’ They laughed again.
‘You won’t say anything about this to my parents, will you, Auntie Christine?’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it!’
*
When Jeannie arrived back at her aunt’s the following Friday, she was grinning from ear to ear.
‘So, how did it go?’ her aunt greeted her, though it was obvious from her face that the interview had been a success.
‘Wonderful! They’ve accepted me. My uniform will arrive in the post and I’ve to await instructions about where I will be sent.’
‘But what about your training?’
‘I don’t need any. I persuaded them that I’d spent all my life in the countryside surrounded by farm animals… and they accepted it!’
‘Surrounded by them but having nothing at all to do with them,’ her aunt said in an amused voice.
‘Well, it can’t be that difficult, as long as they don’t give me some great horse to look after!’
‘So, when do you intend to tell your parents? They will have to know.’
Jeannie hesitated. ‘I shall write to them from wherever I end up. They can’t do much about it once I’m kitted out and milking the cows. And if my brothers join up, as my father was suggesting they might, then I shall be no different, even including the uniform. And I shan’t be in any danger from the bombs, out in the countryside, and that was Father’s main worry. And if he comes complaining to you, you can remind him that you did exactly the same.’
‘I’ll say something for you, Jeannie, you’ve got an answer for everything. My hope is that you don’t end up too far away, else I shall miss your high spirits and no mistake.’
7. Sister
1920
Of the night his baby sister died, Tam remembered every detail. At least he thought he did. But he was still two months short of his fourth birthday, so it was likely that the minutiae of the experience were filled in by his older brother.
He woke to a blast of cold air as Alan’s legs kicked off the covers and he watched his brother creep to the door and peer round it.
‘What’s the matter? Can I come?’ Tam struggled to free himself from the tangle of bedclothes.
‘Shh. Go back to sleep. There’s nothing to worry yourself about. I’m going to give Mum a hand.’ The door clicked shut and plunged the room once more into darkness.
Tam lay in the rapidly chilling bed. From within the living room he could hear his sister Elizabeth’s strangled cries, the rattle of the latch on the outside door, Alan’s voice talking to his mother. Tam sat up and stretched out one foot and then the other, anticipating the cold of the bedroom floor. He tiptoed to the window and peered wide-eyed into the darkness.
Light from the uncurtained living room window was casting a wide yellow arc over the field in front of the cottage. Within the limits of its beam, a million snowflakes danced and whirled. Tam’s belly clenched with excitement. He loved snow – the way it changed the land, turning familiarity into strangeness, the way it slowed everyone down, made them jollier somehow so they spent more time playing with him. Maybe his brother wouldn’t be able to get to school, so he could go around with him for the day. There was one person though who wouldn’t be happy – his dad – especially now, when lambing was just getting started.
A crash followed by a loud exclamation brought him back to the present. It was his mother’s voice. He tiptoed to the bedroom door and, using both hands, managed to open it a fraction without making any noise. His brother had his back to him, obscuring a view of his mother. As he looked on, unobserved, Alan carefully removed the lid from the kettle hanging over the fire. Steam blossomed into the room and Alan stepped back quickly, revealing their mother in her usual fireside seat, his wee sister Elizabeth sitting on her lap. His sister was crying, though not in the way she cried when she had fallen and hurt herself or when she was told it was time for her afternoon sleep and she wanted to stay up and play with him. Her crying sounded as though it was hard work. Her breathing was funny and her lips were blue. And why wasn’t his mother trying to comfort her as she usually did? Instead, she was just letting her sit on her lap and cry and her crying was really scaring him.
Where was his father? He would know what to do. He always knew what to do.
As if in answer to his question, the latch of the door clattered and his father strode into the room. His mother turned her head to look at him.
‘How long has she been like this, Nessie, lass?’
‘She started just after you went out. I can’t do anything to comfort her. I think… Douglas, I think we are going to lose her.’
Tam stared in horror. What did his mother mean, �
�lose her’? How could she lose her when she was right there on her lap? Throwing caution to the wind, he charged into the middle of the anxious group and shouted, ‘I’ll no’ let her be lost. I’ll look after her.’
The next thing he knew he was being picked up in his father’s strong arms. He smelled the sharp stink of sheep on his father’s jacket and knew that he must have been out on the moor, for had he not said that heavy snow was expected and he would need to go out late and check on the ewes?
‘Come on, Thomas. You should be in bed. Wee Elizabeth’s caught a chill. She’ll likely be better in the morning.’ His father carried him away from the warmth and light, tucked the covers round him and, telling him to hurry and go to sleep, left the room, closing the door behind him.
But Tam didn’t sleep. When he was sure that they had forgotten about him, he slipped from the bed again and returned to the window. It was still snowing, although the flakes were smaller now and, the wind having risen, they raced in silent fury across the beam of light. One or two of them escaped the race and sank thankfully to the ground. The rest disappeared beyond the light to he knew not where. What he did know was that the snow would be deep by the time dawn broke over the hills.
Struggling back onto the bed, he pushed freezing feet into the rapidly cooling sheets and lay there unmoving. If he couldn’t be in the room, he was determined not to miss a word of what was being said on the other side of the door. The low-pitched murmur of his father’s voice and the intermittent questioning voice of his brother came to him as though in a dream and Tam struggled in vain to hear what they were saying.
He must have dozed off, for later, much later, he was jolted into sudden wakefulness by the sound of crying. And it didn’t belong to his baby sister.
*
It was the following evening before Tam saw his father again. He came in out of the dusk, his hat and shoulders clumped with snow, his face grim. Under one arm he carried a small wooden box. His wife looked up at him from her place at the fireside. She had sat there most of the day, stirring herself only to get something to eat for her young son. It had been a lonely day for the lad, his mother silent, his wee sister strangely absent. He had asked if he could go outside and play in the snow, but his mother had forbade him on the grounds that he would get a chill on his chest and wasn’t one bad enough? He was right that his brother hadn’t been able to get to school, but Morag Murray from the nearest cottage had heard of their loss and had sent her eldest son across the moor to take Alan off his mother’s hands for a few hours. He had intended to take Tam as well, but the boy had kicked and screamed and made such a fuss that he had been allowed to stay. Tam had to make sure his wee sister didn’t get lost and he wasn’t going anywhere with anyone. So it was several hours before he had heard Alan’s cheerful voice as he approached the cottage. One look from their mother had been enough to silence him.
