by Amy Myers
‘I suppose,’ she said unsteadily, ‘we could go tomorrow instead?’
‘But why?’ He looked anxious. ‘Are you not well?’
‘Quite well.’ Her voice seemed to be a croak. ‘I thought – since Luke is at work and Ellen out, we might make hay.’
‘Make hay?’ He stared at her in astonishment. ‘You make teacakes of hay?’
‘No.’ She was torn between laughter and blushing. ‘An English phrase. It means to take advantage of a situation for—’
‘For what?’ He still seemed perplexed.
‘Love!’ she bawled at him in exasperation. Really, men could be so stupid.
His lips began to twitch, his eyes to gleam. The next moment she found herself upside down over his shoulder, staring at his boots.
‘Ma mie,’ he said softly, as he dumped her on the bed, ‘I shall make a whole haystack.’
Hampstead Heath Railway Station seemed full of toboggans and people wrapped up like Eskimos, obviously bent on the same purpose as them. As they approached Parliament Hill Fields, they could see well-worn tracks in the snow, and queues of tobogganers. They must have been the oldest, but it didn’t matter a jot.
She lay face down on the toboggan, in a way of which Mother would most surely not have approved, but which was easily the most fun.
‘George always used to push me off with a “Steady the Buffs”,’ she yelled at Yves. ‘I thought he was talking about chickens at first, not being brought up on toy soldiers.’
‘Then Vive La Belgique!’ Yves gave the toboggan a mighty push and she was off, flying into a white sky.
She hurtled onwards, exhilarated, as the snow churned up around her and stung at her face. She seemed to be rushing through life itself, unable to control her path, until at last she came to a sliding halt at the bottom of the hill and tumbled off into a soft pile of snow. At the top she could see Yves’ tall figure waving, and she waved back, setting off on the long trek upwards, dragging the toboggan behind her. She watched as, his long legs splaying out over the toboggan, he propelled himself off on the same journey. Her heart was in her mouth as she saw him tumble off into deep snow and the toboggan careering on without him. Her ridiculous worry that he would never emerge from the drift was laid to rest as he reappeared, looked round for the toboggan in vain, and set off in leaps and jumps to retrieve it. His lanky figure looked so ridiculous, she was still laughing when he returned.
‘What amuses you, cara?’ he asked breathlessly as she hugged him.
‘Nothing, I’m just pleased to see you return from the Antarctic.’
‘There are very few polar bears in Parliament Hill Fields.’
‘How strange,’ she remarked later, as they returned to the railway station, ‘to think while I was tobogganing in Ashden Park as a child, you were a young lad doing the same thing in the Ardennes, and we neither of us knew that we would meet one day.’
‘Are you glad you came here now, cara?’
‘Yes. It still makes me feel guilty that everyone can’t be here today, but I’m glad we are. We could have a bigger double toboggan one day—’ She stopped, realising what she’d said. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just talking nonsense.’
His face relaxed. ‘Nonsense is necessary from time to time, to make us forget not only today, but tomorrow.’
He was right. She longed for a double toboggan, and for a tandem to ride through the countryside together like Daisy Bell and her swain. She longed for Yves’ baby. All three wishes belonged to a tomorrow that would never be. Yves took painstaking precautions to ensure she would not conceive, and each time he did so, wise though she knew it was, that bleak tomorrow grew a little closer. In return, she had his love not only for today, but for ever, even though they would be parted. Sometimes that seemed enough, and sometimes it did not. It was her private war effort to make it appear enough for always, and for Yves not to see the struggle this cost her.
‘The maroons!’ Caroline groaned. Improving weather at the end of January brought its drawbacks. The air raids would begin once more, and here came the warning! At least they were not yet in bed. In the autumn they had slept badly, half attuned for the sound of the maroons, the government system to warn them of approaching bombers. This was a belated improvement on the previous methods which, looked back on, were laughable: a bugler standing in the back of an open car, or a policeman on a bicycle, pedalling furiously with a notice to take cover. There had been no raids since before Christmas, however, and this was an unwelcome reminder that spring was on its way with the consequent hotting up of the military war as well as the air war.
They rushed to gather blankets to shelter in the basement cellars. Many people took shelter in the Underground railway stations. At the time of the full moon they were usually gathering from early evening onwards, causing problems for late home-goers, as they stumbled over recumbent bodies.
Tonight Luke and Ellen had beaten them to it, and they promptly joined in the consumption of the iron ration cocoa and biscuits that Ellen routinely provided there. Occasionally, if the warning came early enough, they took down their small gramophone and some records to dance to, but jollification at such times took a lot of determination.
London’s anti-aircraft batteries and its balloon barrages had done much to allay fears in the inhabitants at first. Now the Gothas and Giants seemed to have things all their own way, and despite the formidable defences erected around London, they seemed to roam wherever they liked.
‘I don’t hear anything,’ Caroline said hopefully after a while.
‘Don’t leave yet,’ Luke said. ‘They’ve got a new technique – they’re cutting down the noise of their approach by stopping and starting their engines to circle in silence. And they’re reducing engine noise. We just have to wait for the guns to start.’
They did, and for two hours they listened to their noise, and those other duller sounds that meant exploding bombs.
‘Did you hear,’ Ellen asked brightly, ‘about that fellow in Piccadilly last autumn who heard the bomb drop on Swan and Edgar’s and saw a woman’s head rolling towards him?’
‘Don’t be so gruesome,’ Caroline said sternly.
‘I’m not. It was one of the dummies from the window. What a coup for the Kaiser, eh?’
The next night the Kaiser sent yet another Gotha and Giant raid across. It meant another night short on sleep as they all trooped to the cellars. It had not been a good day either. When they arrived in the office, there was no fire lit. A bomb had hit the Odhams printing works in Long Acre. Although not many people were working there, the cellars were crowded with people sheltering from the raid. Most of the dead were children, and of the women killed one was their office cleaning lady. That was why there was no fire. Out of respect, they left it unlit for the rest of the day.
The death of Mrs Hopkins depressed Caroline greatly. That unlit fire symbolised for her the whole stupid wastage of human life this war had caused. On the 30th, the day after the second raid, there was more bad news at work too, especially for Yves. The Germans had scored a victory in Brussels in their long-running battle against the clandestine newspaper La Libre Belgique. Arrests were not uncommon, but this time they had tracked down not only the two most wanted contributors, code-named Fidelis and Ego, but hundreds of others too, distributors, organisers and printers.
Caroline moped for several days over the general gloom of this winter – until Yves produced a bag from behind his back, and flourished it. She had finished work early since it was a Saturday and returned home to tea to find Yves just arrived – he had been out of the office since early that morning.
‘What’s that?’
‘See!’ Proudly he tipped the contents onto a plate on the living-room table.
‘Muffins!’ she shouted in delight. ‘We can have real tea. Where did you get them?’
‘Cara, I cannot provide the Rectory for you, but I can be second best,’ he said seriously. ‘Stolen muffins are a small price. I acquired them in the Belgian
Embassy. There is good news to celebrate.’
‘Good news?’ Was there such a thing nowadays?
‘Sir John told me that Daniel is bringing Felicia home to Ashden Hospital.’
For a moment she could hardly take it in. Then all at once the full glory hit her. ‘She’s going to live!’ she cried in triumph.
‘She’s well enough to make the journey.’
‘That does mean she’ll live. Oh, how wonderful.’ She promptly burst into tears.
Yves regarded her anxiously. ‘There is more good news too. Can you bear it? On Thursday night Governor von Falkenhausen was toasting their victory over La Libre Belgique with champagne when a special delivery arrived. It was a copy of the next issue of the newspaper with a photograph of the Governor on the front page and a jeering message. The editor, whom the Germans mistakenly thought they had arrested, has found new printers, and business is to be as usual. Now you can have your muffin.’
‘Did you really steal them?’ she asked when she could speak again after all the excitement.
‘I cheated. I put in an order for them to feed couriers bearing vital intelligence from Belgium.’
‘This courier is very grateful.’ Caroline promptly bit into one. ‘It’s real,’ she said contentedly. ‘Not made of potatoes.’
‘Nor am I.’ He put his arm round her and kissed her.
‘I wish you hadn’t done that,’ she complained.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to leave this fire.’
‘Why should you? There is a comfortable sofa here.’
She laughed. ‘Suppose Luke comes in?’
‘He will not. He is on a special mission chasing wild geese, and it’s Ellen’s day off.’ By this time his lips were on hers, and she wouldn’t have cared if the Kaiser himself had come in.
‘All this – and muffins too,’ she purred, as he took her into his arms.
It was her turn for office duty on the Sunday, and she set out for work early. Today she lit the fire. It was her personal signal to the enemy that the embers of England still glowed, and would burst into flames once more – no matter what they did.
Chapter Four
‘Watch what you’re doing with that milk, Myrtle.’ Margaret spoke more sharply than she intended.
‘It’s not on the rationing list.’ The mutter was scarcely audible but Margaret caught it.
‘Butter will be, and you already need ration cards for it in London. And to think you were brought up on a farm.’
Myrtle departed sullenly, and for once Margaret couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t the girl’s fault, it wasn’t hers either. It was the whole Rectory. It was turning into a mere boarding house, its inmates wrapped up in their own concerns. They came and went at all hours, which meant meals had to be kept hot and set times went down the drain quicker than Sanitas cleaning fluid. Once Mrs Lilley used to refer to the Rectory clock, so regular were its routines. That was the proper way of doing things, to Margaret’s mind. Rector ran the village by the Church Year clock and Mrs Lilley ran the Rectory. Tick-tock, tick-tock, time for morning prayers. Tick-tock, tick-tock, time for Fred to clean the lamps. Margaret swallowed hard for she hadn’t meant to think of him. Anyway, Mrs Lilley seemed to be more intent on running the war than the Rectory now; she was present in person, but preoccupied most of the time with her work on the Agricultural County Executive Committee under the Ministry. She would be working in her glory-hole or receiving callers in the morning room. It wasn’t just village women for her rotas now; she had a little empire of Land Girls, army corporals in charge of soldiers whom the government were now eager to get working on the land because of the food shortage, and that wasn’t all.
Thereby hung a tale. To think the day would come that Ashden would be harbouring the enemy. Prisoners of war they may be, and although she conceded that while they were in the Ashdown Forest camp Germans might as well be put to work, to expect decent folk to pass the time of day with them was too much. Yet she’d actually seen Mrs Lilley talking to a group of them, when she popped into the village yesterday. They were, so Mrs Lettice of the general stores informed her, on their way to The Towers to work on renewing poles and wire, and dressing the hop plants. She supposed it was a good thing that the hops hadn’t been grubbed up to grow potatoes, but the thought of good English beer being produced by the enemy turned her stomach right over. It was a relief The Towers was an army officers’ HQ now; they’d be keeping a strict eye open for any sabotaging or poisoning of the plants. This was one year she wouldn’t be producing hop soup from the waste sproutings.
Topsy-turviness caused by the war wasn’t the only reason for the cloud that lay over the house nowadays. Nor could it be blamed on its being early February, always a dark hour before dawn.
What had gone wrong Margaret didn’t know, but Miss Caroline hadn’t been home since Christmas, and even then she had left earlier than intended. Margaret had come to the conclusion it was all something to do with that Belgian officer. Most likely Miss Caroline had announced her intention of marrying him, and he being a foreigner was most likely a Roman Catholic. That would set the cat among the pigeons in the Rectory, for that meant Miss Caroline would have to convert her faith, and what would that do to the Rector? Margaret hadn’t been entirely happy with this reasoning, and then yesterday Mrs Isabel had talked too freely. She’d wandered into the kitchen as she often did nowadays.
‘You sit down, Mrs Isabel, you’re doing too much.’
Once upon a time you couldn’t have said that about Mrs Isabel, far from it, but now she was changed out of all recognition. Running about all over the place she was, and her having a first baby at nearly thirty. She’d been no more than a big baby herself, married or not, until she took over the cinema.
‘It’s good for me,’ Mrs Isabel laughed, though she sat down at the table all the same. ‘Where’s Agnes?’
‘Still doing the dusting.’
Mrs Isabel had taken to chatting with Agnes. Margaret wasn’t sure she approved, but after all, they were more of an age and seeing as how Agnes was having her second the month before Mrs Isabel was due, naturally they were close. All the same.
‘You have one of these buns,’ Margaret continued, concerned how thin the girl’s face was getting. When Mrs Isabel shook her head, she decided the time had come to speak out. ‘You’re looking after two, remember,’ she pointed out.
‘Good, can we have dumplings for luncheon?’
‘Dumplings but not much more, most likely.’ There were more dumplings than stew nowadays, even though this wasn’t a meatless day. Meat would be on the rations list for them sooner or later, that was for sure. She’d read so much about the new cards and coupons for butter, marg and meat in London and the Home Counties that her mind whirled. It wouldn’t take long to reach Sussex, and although Mrs Lilley thought everyone would get more once it was distributed more fairly by enforced rations, Margaret was not convinced.
‘You’ll have Miss Caroline jealous,’ she replied to Mrs Isabel, highly pleased. ‘She’s always one for a dumpling or two.’
‘She’ll have to make them herself now,’ Isabel said soberly, tucking in to the bun after all.
‘She’ll be down shortly, I suppose?’ Margaret wasn’t exactly fishing for information: it just slipped out.
‘I doubt it.’
Isabel was leafing through The Lady. The family had given up their copy, but Percy insisted on buying it for Margaret – to take her mind off things, he explained vaguely, as though a magazine could take her mind off Fred. Still, she had to admit she looked forward to reading it every week, and there was no doubt it kept you in touch with how best to fight the war at home. There were times when even Margaret’s mother’s handed-down resourcefulness failed to cope with what was going on nowadays. What was the use of recipes for nettle soup when no weed would dare show its face in good ploughable land?
‘These waistless dresses’ – Isabel scrutinised the sketches – ‘will be just right for me
. Harrods Bargain Floor are advertising serge and silk dresses at forty-nine and six.’
‘They won’t fit you for long, Mrs Isabel,’ Margaret said daringly.
‘Oh well, I’ll just have to ask Agnes – no, I’ll ask Mrs Hazel – to cut a hole in it with a flap,’ Isabel said carelessly. ‘Mrs H needs the work, with everyone doing their own repairing and turning nowadays.’
Well, who’d have thought Mrs Isabel would ever learn to ‘make do’, and to cast a thought for poor Mrs Hazel struggling to make a living? In her hoity-toity days, she never saw eye to eye with the village dressmaker.
‘Miss Caroline and that captain are busy, I expect.’ Margaret meant working together, but Mrs Isabel took it in a different way.
‘Don’t let Mother hear you say that. There’s a silence like the Great Wall of China about it.’ Mrs Isabel put down The Lady and blurted out: ‘I don’t think I can stand it much longer, Mrs Dibble. After the row when Caroline walked out, neither Father nor Mother said a word to me about it. I had to pump Phoebe for information. It’s too bad. Just when the Rectory ought to be happy because of my baby, Mother’s thinking about Caroline, as usual. I know she is. I can sense it.’
That was more like the old Miss Isabel. Margaret had been quite taken aback. ‘Oh, Mrs Isabel, I’m sure you’re wrong.’ It was inadequate, especially since Margaret had more than a suspicion that she wasn’t wrong at all.
‘Phoebe’s cheering Caroline on, too,’ Mrs Isabel swept on. ‘Of all the people in the world to fall in love with, why on earth did Caroline have to pick a married Roman Catholic and make our lives a misery?’
Margaret nearly dropped the basin with the dumpling dough. Married? She’d always known you couldn’t trust the Frenchies, and the Belgians were almost the same thing. Look at that couple who arrived here just after the war had broken out. Tricky customers, all of them. She’d said so then and she’d say so now. And now one had got poor Miss Caroline in his wicked clutches. And to think she’d let him cook in her kitchen.
