“You can’t be serious. You’ve done that all day?” I glanced outside where the hills were silhouetted against a smoky, orange sky.
“No,” he said sheepishly. “Not all this time. Marion left today. I had to see him to the station or my mother would skin me. We took my father in his chair, though he hates announcing to the tenants he is…”
“Marion is gone? I made you come over here and carry in our sick sheep and fetch the vet on Marion’s last day home?” I couldn’t help interrupting, but I didn’t mean for my voice to come out so high and accusatory. It was then I noticed he was in a new jacket and trousers and tried to imagine what a fright I must look. My hair had dried in waves, limp and unstyled. Instinctively, I drew it behind my shoulders to hide it.
“No. You have it all wrong. I’m so glad you did. It was so good for him. When I came home all tattered he was overjoyed. It made for a light-hearted farewell, which we all needed. Watching him and my father, knowing there might not be another…”
“Please stop!” I cried as I fumbled toward him, looking for something to do with my empty hands. I settled on picking up the crumpled bag from Holton. “I have never felt more ashamed. Please go home to your family and don’t think another minute on us.”
“It is good to think on something else, believe me.” He looked so tired about his dark eyes. I scanned the kitchen, hoping to offer him some refreshment, but saw nothing. I hadn’t cooked a thing all day, which is when I realised I hadn’t eaten, either. “I could heat up some bangers and mash. It’s nothing like you’re used to…”
“I’m used to black coffee and toast when I live in the city. I spend all day at the office and forget to eat.” He sat down in my father’s chair and I stared at him. How displaced and exactly right he looked in our shabby kitchen.
In minutes I had the bangers sizzling in the frying pan and the hot water boiling. Though it didn’t take my full attention, I stayed at the stove, just to avoid looking at him too much. We discussed William and my father, talked over the cost of a dead sheep and the shillings we got for sending a diseased one to the knackerman. No matter how technical the subject he appeared fascinated by it all. Including our kitchen. He roved occasionally, gingerly handling the spit inside the ancient brick oven no one uses anymore and the doors on the boiler, as if trying to figure how they worked. I imagine he’d rarely been in a kitchen and if he had, it was all steel and enamel. I had a quick and guilty idea to feed him first before I called in Dad and William so I could have him all to myself. I dished his food onto our best plate and laid it with a fine napkin I usually save for special occasions. When I set it in front of him he inhaled and raised his nose in the air as if trying to catch all of the aroma from the bangers before it passed by.
“I make them from scratch when the Henrys slaughter. We always have one of their pigs.”
“Aren’t you joining me?” he asked when he saw the lone plate.
“If you like.”
“I insist,” he said thumping down his fork like a gavel.
“Then I’ll eat with you and take over while Dad and William have a bite. We’ll do it in shifts.”
When I sat he was quiet for several bites except for the wonderfully approving noises he made. I kept my eyes on his fingers as they balanced his knife. He cut each bite separately, setting the knife down with a gentle tap while he chewed. His beautiful fingernails fascinated me. Mine are thin as paper, but his shone thick and pink, perfectly sanded down about the edges. Not in a fussy way, but wonderfully clean.
“That went down a treat,” he proclaimed. “If you can make magic like that all on your own, I apologise profusely for ridiculing your age. Lucky man, your Alan.” He smiled down at his quickly disappearing food. “I could bring another vet for a second opinion,” he said, shifting the topic. “But that’s not saying I don’t have great faith in Holton.”
“Why didn’t you leave with Marion today?” I asked quietly.
The mood changed at once to something somber and still.
He gave one polite laugh. “Are you attempting to be rid of me, too?”
I shook my head, not looking up from my food. I think he noticed then I wasn’t teasing.
He cleared his throat as if preparing for unpleasant news. “It looks I will be working for the Crown—food production for the soldiers. Posted to London, but not fighting.”
A great breath escaped me and I clutched my fork harder. “That is such good news.”
He paused just a moment to watch me before he answered quietly, “I’m fighting it as we speak. There are old men who can oversee production. I want to be with my brother.” I opened my mouth to protest but he ignored me. “Which is why I want to see your farm in fair condition before I go. I can make more phone calls…”
“Stop.” I stood with my empty plate, the bangers in my stomach feeling like lead and a taste in my mouth like chalk. “I told you we could manage.”
“Because of your fiancé?”
There was a split second when the word sounded so foreign I was confused and then fast as lightning I remembered Alan. “Yes, of course.”
Jonathon stood and loomed over me and I had to look up to see into his face. I had not noticed until today how well a face comes out when you mix strong and delicate all together. It makes it sound half weak, but it wasn’t. I wanted to press my finger into the soft divot in the middle of his chin.
“I wish you wouldn’t go fight,” I told him. “There are so many people who need you here. And it is so noble to make sure they have good food.”
That made him laugh in a much jollier way than I expected. “You’ve proved to me what a difference good food makes,” he conceded, touching his full stomach. “I’ve overstayed. I should get home to my mother. She’s…the word is dothering, correct?”
I gave him a sad grin. “Please tell her…I mean…did Theo go today?” I’d nearly forgotten all about her.
Jonathon stiffened. “I’m afraid there was a bit of a queue of young ladies at the station. I didn’t see her.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “It isn’t Theo. My brother just seems to have admirers he can’t shake. I wish you’d kindly warn her. I’m not sure he’s the type to fall in love and settle.”
“And you?” I blurted. We both looked shocked I said it, but he recovered first.
“And I am so grateful for dinner,” he finished neatly in his gentlest voice. I wondered if I should apologise or explain when he bent down and put his lips on mine, his moustache as soft as the fur under Skip’s ears where I always run my fingers. I leaned forward, pressing gently into him, the warmth of his face so close to mine. It was different than I’d imagined it earlier in the day, but very much better. I felt like I breathed him all the way into my chest, like good morning air. When he straightened up he smiled. “That was only for dinner,” he murmured, “nothing more.” I could not tell if he was teasing or very serious, so I decided to ignore the wonderful weightless feeling in my stomach and follow his lead.
“And the medicine. And all the help,” I agreed. “Thank you so very much.” With every word my humiliation started to swell, pulling on my shoulders, tugging at my lungs. Would he think me terrible for betraying Alan or so free I kissed any man who gave a favour?
“Goodnight.” His fingers fumbled as he took his hat from the counter where he’d left it. He turned to say something else, but ended up closing his mouth and nodding. Though he moved at normal speed something felt hasty about his retreat. I didn’t follow him to the drive, certain I would make some mistake. Instead I stood in the shadowy light of the kitchen bulb and brushed my fingers to my lips. It sent another current into my shoulders that made me close my eyes, like a second kiss.
Was Jonathon Doran a suitor? I burned one side of Dad and William’s bangers as I stood in front of the stove telling myself that was unfair to Jonathon. There’d been no passion in the kiss at all. Only goodness. And a good man would never break up an engagement. He just found me delightful for a friend. And the
thought that he enjoyed my company made me ring the dinner bell outside the kitchen door with extra cheerfulness. Across the yard and into the sky the sound rose and rose, mounting like the scarlet light above the clouds, and I marveled that just today I had felt alone in the world. Marveled the sheep had any interest in dying. How could they when the world was so good? I pulled my cardie around me like a hug and wanted to embrace everything in creation. It is only kindness, I repeated in my mind. I do love Alan. I am only so very happy because it is so good to know there is kindness in the world, and such good people. When Dad and William trailed inside, their faces drawn, I smiled benignly at them, feeling superior. Whatever happened, all would be well and we could be so happy in spite of it. I longed to tell them, but felt they would have to find out the truth for themselves.
William sat down across from me and took one look at my face before he huffed impatiently and tore into his meat as if to say, “Enjoy it while it lasts, Ducky…”
CHAPTER 5
7TH MAY 1939
Holton found some worms and fluke eggs under his microscope, but certainly not enough to account for all the symptoms. We greased their guts and for two days we scrunched up our eyes and peered so hard we thought we saw improvement. But that was only because we wanted it so badly. We only lost one more to convulsions the first night so we assumed the fluke eggs were getting through their system and would soon clear up. By the third day it was impossible to ignore the trembling, skinny sheep and the lambs curled up in distress, disinterested even in bottles. I held two in my arms and cried rivers because they were our new hybrids and their markings were so beautiful it’d make a grown man weep. My father looked on helplessly and waited every day for Holton, who looked like a haunted man when he showed up. He spent all of his visits muttering and cursing to himself. I heard tetanus, rabies, fungus, arsenic, arthritis, all mentioned under his breath, but nothing fit all the symptoms.
“Magnesium and calcium are too low, but the ones I injected aren’t showing any improvement. Hell, Eve,” he announced in profound frustration when he saw me cradling the sick lambs. “It looks like they all had a breakfast of rat poison, I’ve tested their feed for lead and poisons, I’ve searched the entire barn for anything irregular, but your father is immaculate. There’s nowt!” He raked a hand through this white hair and scowled bitterly around us. “Hell and damnation!” He saw me once more and it looked like he wanted to cry and fight all at once. “I am so sorry. I let my tongue loose.”
“We’re all thinking it,” I replied. “I’m not sure it matters so very much who says it.”
Theo came and fed the lambs with me. It is almost impossible to describe the work of feeding 67 lambs by bottle, alone. William was gone working for Mr. Daily, his school books gathering dust in the corner of the living room. Every time I passed them I thought they looked like a pile of dead thoughts, left unburied and grotesque. Eventually I tucked them out of sight under the side table.
Even with Theo’s occasional help I barely slept. Holton told us Jonathon called his clinic every day to check on things, which I thought terribly kind, but he never did call me, which would have been kinder. I forgave him, however, when the packages started to arrive. I think Dad and I would have starved this week had it not been for the Dorans. Their maid delivered two baskets of canned food, fresh loaves, and even creamy chocolates. It was signed from Mr. and Mrs. Doran with “concern for our misfortune”, which I thought very proper, but since we’ve never formally met them, I knew Jonathon had arranged it all. As I sat with my sheep I tried to imagine Jonathon with his dying father. I’d only seen the man at town festivities when awarding prizes, but I always thought him an exceptionally friendly man, much like Marion. I thought so often about Jonathon at his office, with his parents, sending us food, that I admitted to myself I had developed a childish case of calf love, which worried me until my talk with William.
He found the strength to help me in the barn at night despite his full days at the Daily farm. “It’s not half as hard as a sheep farm, Eve,” he confessed. “I can’t figure why Dad ever chose this when the Daily’s raise cattle for meat and they hardly give them any trouble. I do less than I’ve ever done here and Mr. Daily thinks I’m a fine worker.”
I watched his face in the weak light of the gas lantern since our electricity isn’t wired in that old building. A shadow cast by a high cobweb stretched over his eyes, reminding me of a net. He did look so tangled up in the wrong life at that moment.
“I think Alan had the right idea. You can let a few bloody beasts take the life out of you or you can go get it over with in one grand fight. I want to enlist early.” He gritted his teeth.
“They’ll be nothing left to do by the time they let you in,” I pointed out. “Hitler is a strange little man. He’ll scream himself hoarse soon and we’ll trounce him.” I really had no idea since I’d paid no attention, but I thought I’d heard people say similar things.
Since we were telling secrets I decided to trust him with mine. “I’ve a dilemma. I think perhaps I will be a bad wife for Alan.” He looked none too anxious to delve but I plowed on. “I might not be committed.” The words turned my face hot and I pulled an empty bottle from one slobbering mouth and started to prepare another, avoiding his eyes.
“So?” he asked, his voice bored and irritated.
“So? Don’t you think that a terrible problem?”
“Who can commit to anything right now? The whole world is tipping over. The farm is going. England is going. I don’t see how Alan can be your biggest problem. He’ll get over it.”
I screwed on the rubber teat and shook the formula before depositing it into another mouth. “England and the farm are staying on,” I insisted. “And if I were that easy to get over, perhaps he doesn’t love me?” I can’t explain why that thought gave me so much comfort.
“Oh, he loves you. He loves you like he loves this farm and loves these terrible sheep. And you’ll be glad he does. He’s one of those people the universe favours. Just watch. He’ll walk through walls of bullets and never get touched and end up the richest farmer in Kepsdale. Haven’t you noticed he always gets his way?” William shook two new bottles and offered them to a pair of greedy lambs who eagerly tugged at them.
“How did you come to that conclusion? He had a drunk father, a wretched mother, too many brothers and sisters to keep track of, all of whom turned out the bad sort. If that’s how the universe favours someone—”
“And where is he now? Officers’ training, waiting to get a few medals and come back and marry a nice girl and inherit his own farm. It’s none too bad a setup, Eve, for a poor Mick.” William raised his eyebrows at me in a most provoking way. “And he’ll be home in two days to help us sort this mess out. Things work out for him.”
“So you’re rooting for him?” It came out quite offended.
“It’s not a cricket match. I am completely impartial. What do I care as long as you are happy?” His face twisted on the last word and my heart wrenched. He was so far from being happy. He quickly erased proof of his pain and went back to his normal expression of bland misery. “But if I’m placing bets, ‘d say you only have cold feet.”
I tried to look down at my feet, but they were covered in a tattered wool blanket to keep the chill off. We had thirty-two more lambs to feed before we could put our heads down and try to steal a few hours of sleep. I glanced at my watch to see it was a quarter ten. Outside the insects screamed their night songs so loud it sounded like a plague of locusts.
“When you see him tomorrow you’ll see,” William said in a kinder voice.
And as soon as he said it I thought of kissing Alan at the dance in the snow and it didn’t feel cold in my rememberings. The snowflakes I saw in my memory felt more like moments drifting down than snow. Moments I’d watched him on the farm, dreamed of taking his hand, heard him murmuring comfort to the sheep, all falling from the sky in pieces around us. And how beautiful it looked in my imagination and how lucky I fe
lt. Every time Jonathon stepped into my memories, I ran past him, straight into Alan’s embrace. I told myself the kicking jolts in my stomach were wild happiness at the thought of seeing Alan again. Happiness can make one feel sick.
Dawn had not yet broken and the barn was enclosed in the chill that precedes even the hottest summer days when one of the lambs gave me a firm nudge on my bed of straw. I had learned to sleep through those, but this lamb was different. When I didn’t respond it put a large, cool hand around my arm and lifted me. My eyes shot awake and in the dark grey light that was a mix of day and night I saw Alan’s face, a foot from mine. “Let’s get you to bed,” he whispered, nodding toward a dozing William to tell me not to wake him. My eyes were so wide I could barely blink. He lifted me against his chest and started for the door.
“Alan, you weren’t supposed be here until this afternoon.”
“I took the late train and walked in.”
“All night? From the the station? How could you? Please, I can walk.”
We said it all very quietly and when we got outside he set me down, the wet dew soaking into my loafers. My oldest skirt from grammar school drifted about my shins in the early breeze. It was then I noticed he wore a an army shirt, khaki and collarless, but well cut for him. We looked at each other a moment and I tried to figure out my first words to tell him about the sheep. How there might not be a farm left for him to save. “Alan?”
He looked intently at me, still all a mix of happy and sad, but not a hint of indecision. He bent down and pushed his lips against mine. At first I thought it too gruff, but he adjusted, grew softer and I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on how I felt. I couldn’t concentrate more than a second or two because he pulled me close to him and the only sensation was strength and warmth and all I could hear was William’s voice saying, The universe favours him. And after a moment I couldn’t even hear that anymore. When he let go my heart tugged my chest in every direction, like a testy mare bucking against her lead rope. My hands splayed against his chest, bracing myself as his smile widened.
To Move the World (Power of the Matchmaker) Page 12
