Orphans of War

by Leah Fleming

  With not a word from Mike Delgado for years, Mam marched up to the depot in the camp and demanded support for her baby. They took photos of little Mikey and she filled in her complaint. They accepted her claim but closed ranks, making it impossible for her to get any information about the soldier. Trust Mam to find herself in Dickey’s meadow again. Sid was pining to come back to Sowerthwaite when he left school and Gloria was going to help him find a job on a farm.

  Now she was back living in the hostel but it was dull after Leeds. There were no theatres, no big shops, but it was better than Peel Street and watching Mam back to her old tricks, entertaining strange men in the night. Some of them eyed her up with interest and it scared her, but she’d not told that to Maddy.

  What Gloria wanted was never going to be found in this countryside back of beyond. She wanted what Denise Gunn had acquired: a husband who made money, enough to live in a big house, have a daily and a gardener and someone to mind her kids as and when they came along. Gloria had already planned to have just the two, a boy and a girl.

  She wanted pretty dresses and shoes, time to have her nails painted and long visits to the hairdressers, to be taken to expensive restaurants in a fur coat, like film stars wore in Picturegoer.

  She could just see herself in a white fox fur wrap, fluffy, warm and soft to the touch, a long sable with matching hat or a short mink for visiting friends in town. Gloria laughed at herself; dream on, lady, but her heart was set on this goal. If you didn’t make big plans how could dreams ever come true?

  She’d keep herself straight, pick up tips and good manners, and one day find a fella as would make it all come true. But until such times she’d have to up her game and learn to be a lady herself. After all, she was as good as Maddy any day.

  They were still friends even though she thought Maddy daft to go mooning over a Jerry. Nothing would come of it. Old Mrs Belfield would make sure of that.

  The few late summer days seemed to go on for ever, the green grass tinged with gold. The sky was bright and everything shimmered in the heat. Hay time had been poor and the lambs were still puny. It had been one of those dismal summers so the sunshine was welcome. They’d chosen a good day for the youth club charabanc outing to the Lakes and the seaside. They’d all strolled down the prom at Morecambe and sang on the coach back. Maddy had sat with Gloria, and Dieter with the vicar’s wife, both trying not to draw attention to themselves. It was as if the summer hovered to enjoy one last fling before the morning dews drenched the grass and the long trek into winter began.

  When the school bell rang out on the first day of term, Maddy was glad her own schooldays were over. How could she ever have continued her studies when she was in a torment of confusion over her stolen kisses with Dieter?

  His sister had recovered but there were barely two weeks until he returned to Germany. They had walked the heels off her brogues, talking and reading poems together, sharing their beliefs. He gave her a list of the books that had convinced him that Christianity embraced the whole of life, not just Sunday worship; how it should be at the centre of daily life and work. Most of his philosophy just went over her head because she just wanted to be close to him.

  They held hands and kissed, lying side by side, sharing thoughts. She’d never met anyone who thought so deeply about everything. He knew so much more than she did about real life.

  Sometimes he told her a little of how they had survived the war, living on scraps and hiding from marauding soldiers, who wanted to grab young girls for their pleasure. His mother had died for want of medicine when her wounds became infected. They had sold everything just to live, and his faith had been tested to its limits, but just when things could get no worse, someone would help the family, take them in and shelter them. His father died in an internment camp but for months they’d hoped for good news. There were so many people to thank for kitting him out to come to England and he was determined to go back East and thank them before he went to college.

  ‘You will write to me?’ Maddy pleaded one evening.

  ‘Of course, but our words are censored. It will not be easy to write. A thank you letter perhaps.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that.’ She sat up, suddenly afraid. The thought of never seeing him again became real. ‘You are so wise. I wish I knew all you know.’

  ‘Liebchen, I am full of envy. You have everything here for a happy life: food, beauty. No wonder your soldiers fight so hard to keep it safe.’

  ‘Stay then, don’t go back…you can do your studies here. We need ministers too.’

  ‘It is not possible. I must see my family, what is left of it. This is just a holiday for me. I owe many people for this wonderful time.’

  ‘Am I just a holiday romance?’ she snapped.

  ‘Of course not. We are alike, you and me, with serious loving hearts. I will write to you and we will find some way to be together.’

  ‘And I will come and see you all,’ she smiled.

  ‘It will not be possible…not yet. In a few years—’

  ‘A few years! We’ll be so old then,’ she cried, snuggling into his side.

  ‘You are a funny girl, so…what is the word?…never wanting to wait. All good things have to wait. It is God’s will.’

  ‘But there’s only two weeks left, Dieter!’

  ‘Then let us make the most of what we have been given.’ He rolled over to kiss her and they wrapped each other in a parcel of arms and legs and hugs. How they got to undressing, she’d no idea but it was so natural to peel off the layers and lie on the prickly ground almost naked but for underwear. Dieter fingered her white skin, gazing down with a frown on his brow.

  ‘This is not right. Mr Murray will be angry with me to treat you so. I am their guest.’

  Dieter was uncertain but Maddy was unrepentant. ‘We love each other, no one is to know. “Come live with me, and be my love, And we will some new pleasures prove”,’ she whispered Donne’s daring poem into his ear whilst fingering down into his shorts, feeling the hardness underneath.

  ‘No, Maddy…This is for marriage. We must contain ourselves.’

  ‘Yes, but we’re doing what our bodies want us to do. What is so wrong with that?’

  How could she be so brazen? But if John Donne could make love to his mistress when he was a minister, then so could she to her love.

  ‘I’ve never taken a woman, it isn’t right,’ he protested, but she kissed him and stopped his words.

  ‘And I’ve never done this before but we have so little time and who knows when we can meet again?’ she whispered, pressing his hand on her thigh. ‘What is wrong in giving each other pleasure?’

  ‘I don’t know…’ he groaned as she caressed him.

  ‘Like this?’

  He groaned again and she placed his hands deeper between her thighs and squirmed until he was touching the very centre of her excitement. They rolled together, feeling the tension mounting, writhing until they both burst with relief.

  ‘That was good, and we didn’t break the rules,’ Dieter sighed.

  ‘Oh, you are so strait-laced,’ Maddy laughed, and he looked at her and grinned. Then he became serious. ‘One of us has to be careful. We must not do that again.’

  But they did. Every evening she rode out at dusk on Monty to the bank overlooking the foss where there was cover and shade and the rush of falling water.

  They brought each other to climax and lay content as if there was all the time left in the world.

  When Maddy looked back on those tumultuous days it was as if there was only sunlight and shadows, probing fingers and spilling fluid as he spilled over her and she lay, letting it soak into her. There was no risk, no blame, no breaking of the chastity rule against penetration. She was still virgo intacta in name but not in deed. How could such blissful innocence ever end? When he left she would write to him, and they would meet when visas and permits allowed.

  On the last night they clung together, hardly daring to breathe, watching clouds scudding across th
e moon through the rustling trees, listening to the night sounds, the whinnying of the horse, the cascade of water over rocks.

  They made love but not fully, and each time it got harder to resist that final joining of bodies, but Dieter pulled back and came with care.

  ‘How can I ever leave you after this? It is the most wonderful summer of my life.’

  ‘And mine too…I’ll see you to the station.’

  ‘Better not to come, Maddy. I might cry and everyone will know.’

  ‘I don’t care who knows that we are lovers,’ Maddy protested.

  ‘You will have to live here after I am gone. No one will thank you for choosing me.’

  ‘Time will change it, you’ll see.’

  ‘I hope so, Maddy. I pray so, Madeleine. I love your name. Always be proud of that beautiful name. You will send me pictures?’

  ‘And you will write to tell me your address. You have my new address in Leeds.’

  ‘It is in my wallet next to my heart.’

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening: that we should find each other and grow up like this. In spring I was just a girl, now I’m a woman and you have given that to me.

  ‘We are not as we were, Liebchen. I have wonderful memories to take to my grave, precious loving times. What we do I see now it is sacred and special.’

  Maddy shivered. It was dark and damp and chill. Summer was over.

  ‘Don’t say that. We’ll be together soon. I’ll come to you, I promise. But we’d better go. It’s getting late.’

  They walked the horse back slowly and Maddy felt sick that it was time for their dreaming to end.

  Plum was anxious. It was dark and Maddy was still out with Monty. What on earth was she doing till this hour, wandering over hills getting lost? The girl had seemed to be living in a dream for the past few weeks. She had that starry-eyed, half-listening head on her as if she was far away in another world of poetry and novels and private daydreams. Her cheeks had bloomed in the fresh air and sun, her skin tanned with the wind. Maddy had changed so much in the last year.

  Why begrudge the child a bit of respite from exams and beginning real study? If the truth were told she was disappointed that Maddy wouldn’t go on to study for university but the girl was adamant she wanted to do the secretarial course in Leeds.

  ‘I want to come home every weekend.’

  ‘But London would be more exciting, or Oxford. Leeds is so…well, ordinary,’ Plum had argued.

  Maddy had given one of her steel-eyed truly Belfield stares when roused. ‘Yorkshire is my home now.’ End of discussion.

  At least she’d had a good summer and done Vera a favour in taking Dieter to the youth club. They taught him to play darts and she accompanied him at the piano in duets, laughing and giggling together.

  ‘That girl’s not getting silly over him?’ sniffed Pleasance after one performance.

  ‘Of course not. They’re still children,’ Plum had snapped back. She didn’t want to think of Maddy as growing up and away, especially as the child was at an awkward age. Poor girl was more aware of the imperfections of her shape and height, her bunches were gone and she’d jumped at the lipstick when it was offered: nearly seventeen was a funny age, being neither one thing nor another.

  When Plum was that age she was put out into the débutante circuit to hunt balls and cocktail soirées. She’d met Gerry, when she was barely more than a child bride herself. Thank goodness the war had changed all that nonsense. Girls were no longer just objects to be auctioned off like useless ornaments and had proved themselves in war work equal to men. Now they must make a future for themselves, homes or jobs, or both perhaps. Maddy was right to insist on practical training. When all the men came home, they’d have to compete in a different marketplace.

  Plum leaned on the portico with her cigarette, relieved as horse and rider trotted up the avenue without a care in the world.

  ‘Where’ve you been, darling? I was getting worried.’

  ‘I went to say goodbye to Dieter. He leaves tomorrow.’

  ‘I know. You’ve been a good friend to him.’ Plum smiled, sensing there might be more in this but saying nothing.

  ‘I’ll just see to Monty.’

  ‘Cocoa?’

  ‘Super…Can we have a chat?’

  ‘Of course. You know you can talk to me any time,’ said Plum, suddenly feeling flushed. Was this going to be one of those birds and bees jobs? Oh Lord! What had she been up to?

  Plum trusted the biology mistress had sorted the details out long ago on the section on rabbit’s mating. Maddy was a country girl; she’d seen foals born, tups with the rams. Oh hell!

  How Plum wished she’d been more informed on her wedding night. Her mother only whispered one bit of advice: ‘Don’t move, let him get it over with. It won’t hurt too much, you ride horses, you’ll be fine.’

  Gerry had always been a bit of a tally-ho galloper, riding rough on her until he was satisfied. Not much fun in that department. How could she sour Maddy’s innocence with such details? The flushing spread over her body as it did lying in bed. Was this a sign of that time of life when her hopes for a baby would be over for good?

  Gerry was coming home soon and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. They’d just have to make a go of it for the Brooklyn’s sake–and Pleasance. Divorce was unthinkable.

  If only there’d been a son. Maddy was the nearest to an heir. It was all so complicated. Then she smelled burned milk in the pan and a hiss as it all boiled over.

  Hell’s bells! I can’t even make a cup of cocoa.

  Her job at the hostel was finished, but she was still warden, clearing up the debris of years, wondering what they would do with the building. Mainly it was back to listening to the moans and groans of her mother-in-law. She would have to find something for herself or she’d go mad. There was only so much voluntary work she could do. What would happen when Maddy left?

  Maddy and Plum sat in the kitchen, as they did most evenings. It was easier to heat and less distance to carry things.

  ‘Here you are. It’s a bit skinny on top,’ she apologised.

  ‘That’s OK,’ Maddy smiled. ‘Do you think I could visit Germany?’

  ‘To see Dieter?’ Plum smiled too. So it was this after all. ‘You’ve taken a shine to each other. I did wonder.’

  Maddy was blushing. ‘We’re going to write to each other, pen pals like Greg. Golly, I’ve not written to him for ages. Gloria has…But can I go and visit Dieter?’

  ‘Has he asked you?’ Plum was fishing now.

  ‘Not really. It’s difficult for them with permits. His family’s very poor now.’

  ‘I don’t think you’d be allowed into Germany yet. Why all the hurry? Are you sweet on him?’

  ‘We’re a bit sweet on each other. He’s my first proper boyfriend and he’s so clever. Not like any of the other boys round here.’ Maddy was blushing as she spoke.

  ‘That’s because he’s a foreigner, a stranger from a far-off land…a Sheikh of Araby,’ Plum laughed.

  ‘But he makes the other boys look silly.’ Maddy looked so serious in his defence, it was touching.

  ‘I always thought Gregory was your special friend?’ said Plum.

  ‘Yes, but we’ve not seen him for years. He’s never bothered to visit us and his letters are grown up, all about making his fortune in bricks and mortar or some such. He thinks we’re still kids.’

  ‘You’re nearly seventeen, I suppose things are stirring…’

  ‘That’s old enough to die for your country and grown up enough to…’ She paused trying to avoid the word.

  Plum was on alert. ‘Enough for what? You’ve not done anything you shouldn’t, Maddy?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Maddy was on the defensive again. ‘It’s nothing like that. We know what’s right and wrong.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a relief. Only things happen when young love gets carried away.’ Plum smiled, trying to sound relaxed, but her heart was thudding. Take it easy now
.

  ‘Like Billy Forsyth having to get married to Eunice Billington?’

  ‘How did you know about that?

  ‘It doesn’t take a mathematician to work out little Sam was christened only six months after they came down the aisle, but there’s nothing wrong with making love, is there?’ She looked directly into Plum’s eyes.

  There was still a slight turn in Maddy’s left eye but it was hardly noticeable now. Plum was trying so hard not to blush and fluster.

  ‘Of course not, in the right time and place within marriage.’

  ‘That’s just what Dieter says,’ Maddy replied.

  Phew! What a relief, thought Plum. No danger there then. ‘He sounds a thoroughly decent chap with a sensible head on his shoulders. You must correspond with him, perhaps take up German again to improve your letters. A secretary with good German might be able to get a position—’

  ‘Abroad! Brilliant, Auntie Plum. I could go and work in Germany while he is studying. I can do a night school class.’

  ‘That’s not quite what I had in mind. It’ll all take time and you’ll know then if this is just a crush or the real thing,’ Plum said, hoping Maddy would take the hint that first love never usually lasts, especially when separated by the Channel.

  ‘Oh, it has to be the right thing. Love comes just once,’ Maddy sighed.

  ‘You’ve been reading too many romantic novels.’

  ‘Just Romeo and Juliet and sonnets…’

  ‘And look how that ended. First love is special, intense, and you think it’ll never end but it’s a sort of practice loving to set you up for the real thing later,’ Plum said, thinking of how she’d fallen head over heels for the gardener’s son. They’d barely had time to blush at each other before Daddy whisked him away to farm work. ‘It’s like a firework, a burst of flame and then nothing.’

  ‘But it feels so wonderful. Dieter is kind and clever.’ I hope he’s been a gentleman too, thought Plum, seeing the ecstasy on Maddy’s face, luminous with rapture. What on earth did they get up to? Still, it all sounded innocent enough–stolen kisses in the park. How sweet!