A Strong Hand to Hold

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Your lives might have been totally different if your father had agreed,’ Linda said, gulping at the hot tea, glad of the warmth of it seeping through her body.

  ‘But yes,’ Max said. ‘I would be an all-American boy right now, fighting the Japanese.’

  ‘Do you wish you’d gone?’

  ‘Sometimes. I didn’t like the things the Nazis did to the Jews. Many of my friends disappeared from school. Our family doctor was a Jew. We didn’t know. I mean, as far as we knew, he was German – he had a German name. But one day we arrived for an appointment and he just wasn’t there.’

  ‘Why didn’t you do something about it?’ Linda cried angrily. ‘I can’t imagine that happening here.’

  ‘We didn’t know they were being killed,’ Max said. ‘I still find it hard to believe, but Auschwitz is not a lie told by the Russian Army. I know this. We were told the Jewish people were being resettled. I remember asking my mother where my friend Rudi was going to be resettled, because he considered himself a German rather than a Jew, and my mother told me to hush. It was better not to ask questions. Children were encouraged to inform on parents and schoolteachers who didn’t toe the line. Our teacher turned Hitler’s picture to the wall one day – there was one in every classroom, you see. She said it put her off teaching to see that evil man’s face, and then one day she just disappeared. We were told she was a bad woman and an enemy of the state.’

  ‘That’s terrible!’

  ‘That’s how it was. People were frightened all the time. You said nothing, not even to your family or your friends,’ Max said.

  Linda listened, horrified. Germany sounded a dreadful place to live, even for the non-Jewish people, a place where you’d be fearful of speaking against anything or anyone and where you could trust nobody.

  No wonder Max had no burning desire to return to his homeland. Wherever he went she would wish him well, but it was not her concern. She took the empty flask cups, folded up the greaseproof paper and stood up, brushing the crumbs from her skirt. ‘I must go back,’ she said. ‘Sarah will be worrying.’

  ‘I know,’ Max said, getting to his feet too and holding Linda in a tight embrace.

  She responded to his kiss with passionate intensity but allowed it to go no further, and with a wave was off back to the farmhouse. She wondered what she should say to Sarah, but the farmer’s wife only had to look at Linda and see the glow in her pink-tinged face and the look in her eyes, to know that something had happened between the two young people and she was surprised and a little alarmed.

  But Linda said nothing to her and Sarah felt she had no right to ask.

  Later in bed, she told Sam she thought Linda and Max fancied themselves sweet on each other. Sam was outraged and far too perturbed to sleep. Max was there on trust, to work on the farm. He was not there to make eyes, or worse, at young innocent British girls.

  He didn’t blame Linda. He knew she was a healthy girl with normal needs, who was growing up in a world sadly lacking in boys near her own age. Max, he had to admit, was a handsome, well-set-up chap and probably the fact that he was a German, and a prisoner at that, lent a romanticism to the whole thing.

  He knew any relationship between them – if Sarah had got it right, and she usually had – must have been instigated by Max. Linda could have gone out with any number of servicemen, but she never agreed to, nor encouraged them, nor had her head turned by the attention, as many others would have done. So in his opinion, she’d been taken advantage of and he’d have something to say to the chap about it in the morning.

  The next day, Max was surprised to find an angry Sam waiting for him in the cowshed. He didn’t try to defend himself as Sam tore a strip off him for encouraging Linda’s affection, when he had nothing but heartache to offer her, nor did he deny it. When Sam’s fists shot out, the first blow blackening his left eye and the second causing his nose and lip to spurt with blood, he didn’t retaliate. He staggered but didn’t fall from the power of the blows and faced Sam unafraid, and Sam felt ashamed of himself. Whatever Max had done, he knew he shouldn’t have hit him, for if the camp were to find out, he’d be in big trouble. Max thought the treatment quite justified; he knew he should never have allowed himself to have got so carried away. Linda was little more than a girl and a virgin, and all night he’d worried about it. He felt better when his eyes throbbed and his lip and nose smarted and stung.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sam said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’

  ‘You had a right.’

  ‘I had no bloody right!’ Sam cried. ‘Don’t you see? Oh, what’s the use. Look, go down to the house and get yourself tidied up.’

  ‘The milking …?’

  ‘One of your eyes is closing up, man,’ Sam growled. ‘And I don’t want you dripping blood into the milk. I left Ruby having breakfast, she’ll be along shortly.’

  Max left him without a word and as he neared the farmhouse, Ruby came out of the door. She stared at him for a moment or two, but when she gave a grin and said ‘God, Max. What did the other feller look like?’ he walked straight past her without a word.

  Ruby went on to the cowshed and wondered why Sam Phelps had hit his German farmhand, for that’s what had so obviously happened. She’d never known anything like it before. Sam was the most easygoing of men and so, she would have said, was Max – yet they must have had words, and strong words for it to come to blows.

  Yet she noted Sam’s face had not a mark on it, though it was set. His mouth was a thin angry line and his brow puckered, and Ruby knew it was no good asking him any questions. He glowered at her and almost snarled, ‘You took your time.’ She bent her head to the task in hand, knowing that Sam wasn’t really mad with her, but if she wasn’t very careful, she knew he might snap the head off her.

  Later that night he said he’d decided to send Max back to the camp. ‘You can’t,’ Sarah complained. ‘Look, blame me if you like. I asked Linda to go and take him his tea and told her where she’d find him.’

  ‘Don’t talk so bloody daft,’ Sam snapped. ‘Taking his tea is one thing, but taking advantage is another. God, Sarah, it doesn’t matter whose bloody fault it was.’

  ‘You care, and you’re blaming Max.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Sam said, and more truthfully admitted, ‘all right then, maybe I am. I think it’s all his bloody fault, if you must know.’

  ‘Sam,’ Sarah said, ‘we’re coming up to the busiest months on the farm. You’ll miss Max.’

  ‘I’ll get another prisoner.’

  ‘Not like Max, you won’t,’ Sarah said. She laid a hand on her husband’s arm and said, ‘I’ll talk to Linda. They’re young, they fancy themselves in love. It will pass, they’ll get over it.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Sam snapped, shaking off his wife’s hand. ‘And what if Linda’s left with a bleeding broken heart and, God forbid, something worse – a German bastard to bring up before they get over it. What then?’

  Charlie and Sally sobbed bitterly when Sam told them Max must leave. ‘But why?’ they cried and Sam could not give them an answer.

  But in the end Max didn’t go, because Sam couldn’t think what reason to give the camp for his return. Not the truth certainly, for he’d really be for the high jump, and what else could he say? Sarah was right, it was the busiest time of the year in farming, excluding the harvest, and so he couldn’t say he no longer needed him; they’d know that to be a lie.

  So, the next day he told Sarah that if she wasn’t to actually forbid Linda to visit the farm again, she was to make absolutely sure she and Max were never to spend time alone again. And Sarah assured him she would.

  TWENTY-TWO

  All through the next week, Linda went over the events of that day. She couldn’t believe what she had done – and with Max, of all people! She’d never even kissed a man before, and had a horror of appearing fast; some of the exploits the girls at work boasted of had shocked her to the core. Now she was no better than them. In fact, she was worse and she couldn�
��t understand why she’d let Max take such liberties or to kiss her in the first place, never mind run his hands down her body the way he had. God, she must have been mad! And what if there were repercussions? All week, that thought had been with her, but it was on Saturday that she realized that she was safe.

  She didn’t want to go to the farm the following week, and certainly didn’t want to see Max; she’d be too ashamed to look at him. But she could think of no excuse for either her or the children, and Sam came to fetch them as usual. Normally, he’d laugh and joke with the children and chaff her a bit – for after all, he’d known Linda some time. But that Saturday he was silent, not a laugh or joke out of him, and when Linda, in an attempt to open up a conversation, spoke to him, his answers were brusque.

  She didn’t associate Sam’s behaviour with what had happened to her the previous Sunday; she simply presumed that he and Sarah had had words. However, she hadn’t been at the farm half an hour when she knew that wasn’t so. There was an atmosphere about the place. She didn’t see Max till dinnertime because he’d kept working well away from the house, and then he seemed very awkward. She was embarrassed too and glad when the meal was over and he was sent to work again. She was more than ever convinced that the tension running through everyone was somehow connected to Max and possibly herself. Max’s injuries had healed and Ruby might have let on what had happened if Sarah hadn’t cautioned her that Sam would get into big trouble if the news leaked out. Ruby knew he would, and she also knew Sam to be a mild-mannered man. If he’d hit someone, she reckoned he must have deserved it and she agreed to say nothing about Sam’s little misunderstanding with Max.

  Linda was hurt and confused, and for the first time felt unwelcome at the farm, though nothing was actually said because Sarah couldn’t think how to broach the subject. Eventually Linda asked Sarah if she’d done something to offend her, but Sarah, embarrassed, told her she hadn’t because she didn’t know what else to say.

  Linda knew Sarah wasn’t speaking the truth. Somehow she had guessed that there was something between her and Max, and she went hot with embarrassment at the thought that she might find out how far it had gone. She knew there was only one thing to do. ‘I don’t think I’ll come up to the farm for a little while,’ she said. ‘The children are a lot better now and I’ll find other things to do with them.’

  Sarah was relieved. It would take a great worry off her mind, though she said, ‘I’ll miss you.’

  Linda heard the relief in her voice and knew that what she’d guessed was right. ‘I’ll miss you too,’ she said. ‘But we can’t rely on you all the time and anyway, it’s coming to the busiest time of year on the farm and we’d just be in the way.’

  What she really wanted to do was to cry out, ‘I love Max Schulz with all my heart. I know it isn’t sensible and in fact, it’s the stupidest thing in the world, but there it is.’ She wanted Sarah to put her arms around her and say she understood, because no one else would. But now, she wasn’t even sure of Sarah’s reaction.

  Sarah saw the sadness in Linda’s eyes and could have cried for her. She wished Linda had had a normal peacetime adolescence because then this feeling she had for Max would be put into perspective. She wanted to say she’d probably fall in and out of love many times before she had to settle down, but she couldn’t. She didn’t want to start any sort of conversation about Max Schulz. One thing she was sure of – Linda had to forget him and as quickly as possible.

  She remembered the man Charles, whom Linda had once mentioned, and she said, ‘What about what’s-his-name at the restaurant?’

  ‘Charles Haversham?’ Linda said with a sigh. ‘Oh, he’s still there.’

  ‘Still asking you out?’ Sarah asked, and Linda nodded mutely. ‘Why don’t you go, pet?’ she urged.

  ‘I told you …’

  ‘No, listen,’ Sarah insisted. ‘Do you like this Charles?’

  ‘He’s all right.’ Linda was noncommittal.

  ‘You don’t dislike him, or think there’s anything odd about him?’

  ‘No, not really.’

  ‘He’s not made a pass at you or anything?’

  ‘No never,’ Linda said. ‘I can say that. He’s been a perfect gentleman.’

  ‘Then go to the theatre, or out to dinner, or anywhere else he wants to take you,’ Sarah suggested. ‘Soon all our lads will be home and the place will be flooded with men. Now though, they’re in short supply, but you can practise on your Charles.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ Linda said.

  One of the hardest things, Linda found, was that having made her decision not to visit the farm and Max again, she could tell no one of the heartache she was suffering. No one knew she’d loved a German prisoner and had let him make love to her in any icy muddy field, and no one knew he’d taken her heart. Her normal confidantes Jenny, Peggy, Maureen and even Beattie would have had no sympathy for her plight at all, and would have been totally shocked at her behaviour, but as the weeks passed, most of the family became aware that Linda had lost her sparkle.

  Jenny noticed her malaise, but put it down to the tedium of the last few weeks of the war. They knew they’d almost won, the outcome was in no doubt, but it dragged on and on. She was too worried about Bob to have much energy left for Linda, because she hadn’t seen her fiancé for months and though he wrote regularly, it wasn’t quite the same. In every letter she sent him she begged him to take care, for Hitler always seemed to have something up his sleeve.

  So Linda struggled on desperately, feeling very alone. Rosemarie and Jamie didn’t make it easier because disappointment made them play up when Linda told them they’d not be going to the farm for a few weeks. Linda could have done without the tears and tantrums, but she held firm and said the Phelps were very busy in the springtime, there was a lot to do and they’d only be in the way.

  They eventually accepted it, as children do, and after a week or two no longer spoke of the farm and Linda was grateful. She knew it would fade from their minds in the end and remain just a pleasant memory.

  The third week away from the farm, she decided to visit her mother’s grave. She was grateful to Beattie who had been keeping it tidy for her while she’d been dealing with the children at weekends. She hadn’t intended to take Jamie and Rosemarie with her, partly as she was going fairly early on Saturday morning – it being a busy day – and partly because she thought it might upset them. Jenny said if they went it might make them realize they were not the only ones to lose loved ones and to take them if they wanted to go.

  Rosemarie had been a little girl, four years before, when Linda had lost her mother, but now she read the headstone with horror – a little boy of three and another of twelve months and their mother. All of Linda’s family had been wiped out, because she remembered Jenny telling her of her father dying from TB and her stepfather at Dunkirk.

  It seemed a terrible shame and Linda was so nice and kind. Rosemarie helped her tidy up the grave and arrange the flowers she’d brought in the pot that Mabel Sanders had given her years before. She wished she had a grave to tend for her daddy, it would be the best-kept one in the cemetery, but still, she reminded herself, a grave was all Linda had.

  By the time they’d got back on the bus, Rosemarie was deep in thought. She’d always miss her daddy, like Linda must miss her mammy and wee brothers, but the older girl was brave and strong and had managed to live her life without them. Rosemarie decided that she would have to do the same and help Jamie, for he was still only a wee boy and maybe wasn’t quite up to it yet.

  Jenny could see the change in her niece right away and thought it a pity Linda hadn’t taken Geraldine up there too, for the constant melancholy was getting to her. Also, her mother had been in a funny mood since the post had arrived that morning when she’d retrieved a letter from the mat.

  Norah was standing in the living room when Linda went in with the children, pink-cheeked and windblown from the fresh air and laughing together over something. She was holding a
letter in her hand and fair shaking with temper. ‘I’m glad you’re back,’ she snapped. ‘It will save me having to tell the news twice.’

  ‘What is it, Mother?’ Jenny said impatiently. ‘You’ve been going on all morning and told me nothing.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you now, miss, you and that brazen hussy you foisted on me years ago. It’s over, do you hear? You’re out, the pair of you.’

  Jenny and Linda looked at Norah as if she’d gone mad and she went on, ‘I’m giving up the tenancy of this house and moving into Geraldine’s.’

  ‘Moving into Geraldine’s,’ Jenny repeated. ‘But the boys …?’

  Norah flapped the letter she’d been holding in front of her face furiously. ‘The boys are not coming home,’ she said. ‘Francis has written to tell me that Martin is going to marry a most unsuitable girl called Dora as soon as the war is over. He presumed Martin had already told me, but he’s not said a word. But the best bit is, the girl is in the Salvation Army. Can you believe it – and him brought up a good Catholic boy? Well, that’s the finish for me, he’s no son of mine.’

  ‘Oh, Mother.’

  ‘Don’t you “oh Mother” me,’ Norah cried, turning on Jenny savagely. ‘You’ve probably encouraged him.’

  ‘I know nothing about it,’ Jenny said truthfully. ‘But he’s well old enough to marry.’

  ‘Yes, a good Catholic girl,’ Norah snapped. ‘Francis said they’ll be staying down south where her parents live. Well, he can stay where he likes for I’ll never see him again.’

  Jenny hoped she’d get over the shock of Martin marrying given time, but doubted it; her mother’s memory was long and she bore grudges for years. She wondered why Martin hadn’t written to tell his mother himself. Maybe then she’d have been less upset, but looking at Norah’s outraged face she knew nothing could lessen the shock, not of Martin marrying, but marrying someone in the Salvation Army. ‘I’d rather see him dead than that,’ Norah said emphatically.