Beneath a Frosty Moon

by Rita Bradshaw

  Three faces that were as alike as peas in a pod stared at her, and the weight of the responsibility she’d been feeling all day became heavier. But it would be fine, it had to be, Cora told herself. Whatever was in store, she had to make this work so they could remain together. Failure simply wasn’t an option.

  An hour later Cora was reminding herself of this. The four of them were sitting at the kitchen table with the farmer and his wife, and Enid and Maud. It appeared that Enid was a year younger than herself and Maud was nine years old, but the two looked very different. Enid was small, plump and stocky, and Maud was as slight and ethereal as a will-o’-the-wisp. The two sisters had arrived at the farm the year before after being evacuated from Newcastle, but apart from this Cora had been able to get little out of the pair. It had been difficult enough to have a conversation in the short time which had elapsed between Enid and Maud arriving back from school and Farmer Burns entering the kitchen, but once the farmer had taken his place at the head of the table the two sisters hadn’t said a word.

  Cora glanced at Farmer Burns under her eyelashes, continuing to devour the plateful of food in front of her as she did so. True to her prediction, it appeared Mrs Burns wasn’t going to be a stingy cook. Several big crusty cottage loaves and a round pat of golden butter, along with thick slices of ham, a great slab of creamy cheese and a large bowl of hard-boiled eggs, adorned the table, and Mrs Burns had encouraged them to help themselves to as much as they wanted.

  The food was heavenly, and there wasn’t so much as a whiff of rationing. If it hadn’t been for the farmer himself, Cora would have been congratulating herself that they had landed on their feet this time, in spite of the smells outside and their bedroom and the work they were clearly expected to do.

  Farmer Burns was a big man, in height as well as breadth, and he smelt of the farmyard and stale sweat. His bulk was emphasized by the way his head and neck flowed into his shoulders and he was extremely hairy, like a gorilla. His arms and hands were covered in thick black hair and his open shirt collar sprouted a growth that suggested his chest was the same, unlike his head that was practically bald. But it was his eyes that had caused Cora’s gaze to fall away from his when he had walked into the kitchen. Small and bullet-shaped under beetling brows, they had caused a shiver to slither down her spine. She had seen a photograph of a great white shark once, in a geography lesson at school, and the creature’s black cold stare had chilled her blood. Farmer Burns’s eyes were like that.

  He must have noticed her covert gaze because he suddenly spoke to her. ‘So, what’s your story then?’

  ‘Story?’

  ‘Aye. Any more of you in the family? Brothers? Sisters? And what of your mam an’ da?’

  ‘We’ve got a brother, Horace, he’s at the next farm.’

  ‘Older than you?’

  ‘No, younger.’

  ‘An’ your da? Fighting, is he?’

  ‘In France, yes.’

  ‘An’ your mam, liable to want to visit, is she? We don’t encourage that, too disruptive. You can tell her that when you write. Told their mam the same.’ He nodded at Enid and Maud who were eating with downcast eyes. ‘Enough to do here without pandering to visitors, all right?’

  Cora made no comment to this. She certainly wasn’t going to tell her mother not to come and see them; not that she expected her to do that anyway. Their mam had made it quite clear the last time that she considered it would upset the little ones too much. But something deep inside warned her not to explain this to the farmer although she couldn’t say why. Instead she said, ‘My mam will do what she wants to do, she’s like that.’

  ‘Is she? Is she now?’

  ‘Feisty, my da calls her.’

  This clearly didn’t sit well with Farmer Burns. He stared at her for some moments more and she stared back, determined not to be intimidated even if she was all butterflies inside.

  ‘Strikes me someone needs to know their place,’ he said after the silence became excruciating, and Cora didn’t know if he was referring to their mother or to her. Either way she didn’t like it and as her chin lifted and her lips tightened, her body language spoke for itself.

  It was Mrs Burns who spoke hastily into the tense atmosphere. ‘Finish what’s on your plates and I’ll fetch the apple crumble an’ cream, and then you, Enid, can show Cora and Maria how to milk the cows, and Maud, you take the two little ones to the chicken coop and collect any eggs before getting them in for the night. The fox was about early last night, I saw it with me own eyes when I left the milking parlour. Bold as brass, that one.’

  It was a moment more before Cora did as she was told, and only then because the farmer’s gaze had dropped from hers and he’d begun to shovel food into his mouth again. She ate quickly but not through hunger; funnily enough her appetite was quite gone and the butterflies in her stomach were making it churn. There was something wrong here. She couldn’t put her finger on it but she was sure there was something very wrong. But if Farmer Burns was like Wilfred’s da, if he thought he could knock them about and treat them rough, he’d got a shock coming. She wouldn’t put up with that and she’d tell him so. They would work their socks off doing what was required of them and she would see to it that the farmer had no complaints on that score, but she wasn’t going to stand for any ill-treatment and it was as well he knew that from the beginning. If he was like that, handy with his fists. And he might not be – she might be reading this all wrong but she didn’t think so.

  She thanked Mrs Burns for the bowl of apple crumble topped with thick cream which the farmer’s wife had just placed in front of her, and began to eat with every appearance of enjoyment although in truth she was barely tasting it.

  Chapter Four

  During the month of July the children became familiar with the way the farm operated and with what was expected of them. And that was a lot.

  Stone Farm was a dairy farm, and Mrs Burns demanded that Cora, Maria and Enid rise at five o’clock in the morning to present themselves in the cow yard where Farmer Burns had already brought in the cows for milking. Once they’d pulled thick smocks over their clothes, the three of them, along with Mrs Burns, washed each cow’s udders with warm water and disinfectant, and then squirted a little milk from each of the animal’s four teats into a small can to check for any signs of mastitis or other problems that would mean keeping that cow’s milk separate. Then sitting on their stools, the bucket between their legs, they would begin the milking proper, as Mrs Burns called it.

  Mrs Burns had been surprisingly patient in showing Cora and Maria exactly how to sit on the low, three-legged stools, the exact position of their legs and the right way to balance the bucket between them. They watched as she pushed her head well into the flank of the cow she was milking, keeping her left side against the animal’s leg and one arm ready to ward off a kick. Not that the herd were difficult on the whole; they were used to being handled twice a day and accustomed to human company, and they were a rather matronly bunch. There were two or three that could prove awkward and deliver a stinging blow with their long muscular tails across the milker’s face when the mood took them, but Mrs Burns handled these cows.

  On the first morning she explained the correct way to hold the cows’ teats, showing how fingers and wrists had to work together to draw the milk, but for three or four days it refused to flow for Cora and Maria and all they had to show for their efforts was the sweat of frustration and fingers that were stiff and aching, along with a dribble of milk that barely covered the bottom of the bucket. But then, on the fifth day, there was suddenly the wonderful sound of milk rhythmically thrumming into the bucket with a frothy head like a glass of beer. They went into the house for breakfast that morning on the crest of a wave, and even the farmer’s brooding dark presence at the table couldn’t dampen their joy. Admittedly, Mrs Burns milked twice as many cows as the three girls, but as the lady said herself, she’d had plenty of practice.

  Cora found that she liked the cows; th
ey were peaceful, placid creatures, and one in particular always screwed her great head round to watch the milker intently with her dark, heavily lashed eyes and liked nothing more than having her nose rubbed every so often. The plough horses were gentle giants too in spite of being the muscle power on the farm. The stables had an airy loft to insulate the animals against extremes of heat and cold as well as storing hay and bedding straw. There were head-high hay racks in the stalls and low feeding troughs, along with a tack room where harness equipment was hung on stout pegs and a wooden corn bin for the horses’ fodder. Farmer Burns saw to his precious plough horses and it was clear he valued them more than the other animals, probably more than Mrs Burns too if it came to it. Certainly the farmer and his wife had a strange relationship in Cora’s opinion; only speaking to each other when they had to and in a way that was devoid of even a hint of affection.

  Much to Susan’s dismay, she and Anna took over Maud’s job of feeding the pigs their whey and other waste products, as well as looking after the chickens and collecting any eggs each day. Susan cried and sulked at first – the smell of the pigs made her feel sick and the chickens frightened her when they flapped and squawked – but Mrs Burns was adamant that she needed more help in the dairy, and thus Maud joined the three older girls. Susan, realizing she had met her match in the farmer’s wife, accepted defeat.

  It was a tough life on the farm and the daily routine was grim, especially at weekends when there was no school. The house had no running water or electricity and as the oldest evacuee it fell to Cora to empty the chamber pots onto the fields every morning, which was a filthy task. In the day the household used the outside privy at the end of the rear yard, and this was nothing but a narrow brick hut with a rickety door and a wooden structure holding a plank of wood with a hole in the middle of it. The stench was overpowering and there were always big fat bluebottles buzzing around inside. Farmer Burns only cleared it out once every two or three weeks and the ashes from the range that were dumped down the hole daily did little to disguise the smell. Cora and the others visited the privy before they went to bed and then tried to last until morning, but the farmer and his wife had no such compunction. They made full use of the chamber pots under the beds.

  The first morning that Mrs Burns led her along the corridor and into the main house, Cora stood amazed in the wide tiled hall that had a great grandfather clock ticking away in one corner and framed pictures on the walls. She followed the farmer’s wife up the wide staircase and on to a landing, whereupon Mrs Burns opened the first door, saying, ‘This is Farmer Burns’s room. Before you bring the pots down I expect you to make the bed.’

  The room was full of heavy dark furniture and the bed was a big one, but it was the stench coming from the pot under the bed that took Cora’s attention. It was the same in the next room which was a smaller version of the previous one and was where, apparently, Mrs Burns slept. Again the smell knocked you backwards when the door opened, but Mrs Burns appeared impervious to Cora’s distaste beyond saying, ‘On a fine day open the window before you leave.’

  Compared to this task, which she undertook every morning just before she left for school, milking the cows was a pleasure. Certainly they smelt a lot sweeter. And in the first week or two at the farm, many was the time Cora thought she was going to bring up her breakfast of home-cured bacon and eggs, toast and porridge, which she’d devoured so eagerly after the milking, as she carried the stinking chamber pots to the fields. It was Farmer Burns’s pot that turned her stomach the most, not that it smelt any worse than Mrs Burns’s. It was the fact that it was his, that he had parked his massive backside on it and sat there squeezing out the contents of his bowels, knowing that she would have to empty the pot, that made her feel somehow unclean. And she knew the moment she had begun to feel that way. It had been the first Saturday at the farm when they had been there five days.

  She and Maria, along with Enid and Maud, had spent most of the morning after milking washing the household’s dirty linen and clothes, carrying pail after pail of water from the pump to the boiler. That had been the easy part. Then had come the pummelling and scrubbing in the wash tub with blue-veined slabs of home-made soap that wouldn’t lather, the rinsing, the mangling, then carrying basket after basket outside to hang on the three lines in one of the fields close to the house where the laundry could blow in the wind and the sun.

  After a hasty midday meal of bread and cheese washed down with mugs of milk, the four of them trooped off to scour Mrs Burns’s dairy from top to bottom with hot salted water and disinfectant. Mrs Burns made all her own cream, cheese and butter and sold a good amount, along with milk, to the surrounding hamlets, something – she told the girls with some pride – that was becoming rarer since the Great War. It was all hard work but especially the butter-making. The churning seemed to be endless and every time she did it Cora felt as though her arms were dropping off by the time the precious yellow flecks began to appear in the milk. But there was no denying that Mrs Burns’s butter was better than anything she had tasted before. The farmer’s wife said the finished rolls were so rich and golden because the cows ate the buttercups at this time of the year, and the whey benefited from the flowers and sweet herbs in the fields. Certainly every time Farmer Burns drove off in the cart with his deliveries, he returned having sold everything to the last drop of milk.

  On that particular Saturday, Cora and Maria had tackled the mountain of ironing once the scrubbing of the dairy was finished, leaving Enid to clean the farmhouse and Maud and the little ones doing the umpteen jobs Mrs Burns had lined up for them. At dinnertime they were too tired to speak, eating the delicious pot roast Mrs Burns had left simmering most of the day in silence, and then the older ones had gone to the milking and the little ones to collect the last of the eggs from the chickens and bed them down for the night.

  When they had all gathered once more in the kitchen, preparatory to going to bed, Cora had seen the tin bath set in front of the range. Mrs Burns had left them finishing the last of the milking, and now Cora watched as the farmer’s wife tipped the boiling contents of the big black kettle into the few inches of cold water in the bottom of the bath. She glanced questioningly at Enid and Maud but both had sat down at the table without a word and had their eyes downcast. It was their usual stance, Cora had found. Indeed, she and her sisters had found it difficult to get more than the odd monosyllable out of the two girls since they had arrived at the farm. It wasn’t that they were unfriendly exactly, more as though they were terrified of something, but when she had said this to Maria her sister had shrugged.

  ‘Just the way they are, perhaps, like Alma Potts. She never had two words to say to anyone, did she?’

  Cora had said no more on the matter but she didn’t think Enid and Maud were like Alma Potts who had lived in their street in Sunderland. Alma had been a little simple with a vacant look in her eyes and a constantly snotty nose.

  They always had a mug of milk and a slice of bread and butter for their supper before they went to bed but tonight it wasn’t ready on the table. And Farmer Burns was sitting in his chair with his pipe in his mouth rather than being outside as he normally was at this time of night.

  ‘Right, Enid and Maud, you first,’ Mrs Burns said briskly after bending and feeling the temperature of the water in the bath. And to Cora’s amazement, which rapidly turned to horror, the two sisters stood up and silently divested themselves of every item of clothing until they were as naked as the day they were born. Still without a word they climbed into the bath and sat facing each other, taking the old coarse flannels that Mrs Burns handed them and beginning to rub themselves.

  Cora watched dumbstruck, aware that Maria had moved along the bench and was pressing into her side, and Anna and Susan’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

  The fact that the four of them were so flabbergasted clearly prompted Mrs Burns to say something, because in the false bright voice she had used before, she said, ‘Saturday night is bath night at the farm
, girls,’ but she didn’t look at them as she spoke. Instead she bent and dipped a tin jug into the bath water and then emptied it over Enid’s head before doing the same to Maud, passing them a tablet of soap which the sisters then rubbed into their hair before Mrs Burns repeated the procedure with the jug, rinsing the soap off.

  Cora was aware of Farmer Burns puffing harder on his pipe as the moments ticked by, and as she glanced at his face she was unnerved by what she saw there. She didn’t understand it, but she knew it was bad, dirty. She tried to swallow but her throat was too dry and her stomach was turning over and over.

  ‘Cleaned all over and between your legs?’ Mrs Burns said briskly, and as the girls nodded with their heads bent and their eyes downcast, she handed them a small threadbare towel each. ‘Out you get and dry yourselves.’ And as though they had been programmed, the two sisters stood up and stepped out of the water to stand shivering on the stone slabs, clutching the meagre pieces of towelling.

  Mrs Burns looked at Anna and Susan. ‘You next.’

  ‘No.’ Cora jumped up to face the farmer’s wife, and as she did so Anna and Susan slid off the bench opposite her and Maria and sidled round the table to stand behind her. Young as they were they knew that what they had witnessed was wrong. ‘They’re not doing that, none of us are.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, madam?’ Mrs Burns straightened, her thin body rod-like.

  ‘We’re not washing in front of –’ she had been about to say Farmer Burns, but changed it to – ‘everybody. We haven’t been brought up that way and our mam wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘Your mother isn’t here.’

  ‘That makes no difference. It’s . . . it’s not seemly.’

  ‘You dare to question the way we do things here? You’ll do as you’re told, m’girl.’

  ‘Not in this.’