Storm Clouds Over Broombank

by Freda Lightfoot

  Charlie walked with her up the street. At the corner where their ways parted he put a hand on hers. ‘I know this has been a shock to you. But maybe we can talk again later, about ordinary things?’

  Kath nodded, and turned a bright smile upon him. ‘That would be lovely. What about the farm? Ashlea? Now Dan isn’t there to...’ Charlie shuffled his feet, looking uncomfortable for a moment. ‘I can’t live Dan’s life for him. He’s gone. Father will have to find some other solution for Ashlea. I don’t want it, never have. I’m an uncle now, did you know?’

  Kath punched him playfully in the chest. ‘Good for you. How many?’

  ‘Two boys, so that should keep Father happy.’

  ‘Not thought about it yourself then?’ she asked, and as she saw the bright young face darken a shade, wished the words unsaid.

  ‘I’m married.’

  Kath gasped and hugged him. ‘Why didn’t you say? Congratulations.’

  He shrugged, giving a half laugh. ‘She’s called Sue, and in the ATS. We kept it secret because we didn’t want her moved. Only they did move her. To Scotland, would you believe? Haven’t seen her in six months. There’s talk her lot might go overseas. God knows where. In the thick of it she’d be then.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry. Still, it might never happen. She might be lucky and get another posting. It happens all the time.’

  ‘Bloody war.’

  He left her soon after that, swinging up the street whistling, determined to be strong, as they all were. But sometimes she wondered. What was the point?

  One evening that September Jack heard that Italy had surrendered. Never with any real heart for the war, Lina’s neighbours celebrated as if they had won it.

  ‘Eet is good, yes? Now you will be safe,’ she murmured, flinging her arms about Jack’s neck in the excitement of the moment.

  Mama Ruggierri advised caution. The country was still overrun with soldiers, she said. ‘The Germans will not give up. The Germans have not surrendered.’

  At the end of September they heard that the American Fifth Army had broken through the German lines on the Salerno Mountains, and entered the Plain of Naples but there would be no speedy end to the war in Italy. Winter was coming on again and German patrols were holding their own.

  Papa Ruggierri liked to explain to his guest what he learned from his customers as they bought their bread in his shop. Lina quickly translated, her dark eyes wide with fear.

  ‘The Germans are quickly taking over some of the Italian prisoner-of-war camps. They are searching houses and barns, picking people up and taking them to Moosburg in Bavaria, and to camps in Czechoslovakia and Germany. We should make plans to get Jack away.’

  ‘Soon,’ she protested. ‘Not yet, Papa, Mama. Soon.’ And the old couple sighed together, looking anxious.

  It became even more important after that to keep Jack well hidden, and he began to worry about the danger he put these good people in. But the thought of leaving filled him with dismay.

  He had come to love this area, the cypress trees, the warm musky scents of oleander and pine, the sight of a lizard basking in the hot sunshine. He didn’t want to leave. Not ever.

  One evening Lina came to where he was sleeping in the loft, begging him to hurry, to wake up, dragging him to his feet. Jack’s heart jumped with terror. Was this the end? Had they discovered him?

  ‘Tedeschi, tedeschi, Germans, Germans. It is a patrol of soldiers, wanting food, I think. Quick, quick.’ She pushed him, loudly protesting, out into the yard and under a dung heap, piling the fortunately dry material over his head.

  ‘You must make no sound. If they hear you they will kill you.’ She kissed him briefly, and left him to his fate.

  While the Germans tucked into a delicious supper and laughed and joked with the Ruggierri family, Jack lay like stone beneath the straw-caked manure, thinking of England and Broombank, Meg and Kath. And of Lina and her family,

  ‘Buongiorno, Jack.’

  Impossible as it seemed he must have fallen asleep for here it was morning and Lina and Giovanni were laughingly tossing aside the stinking straw.

  ‘I think perhaps a bath, sì?’

  Now Jack was laughing. He was still alive and a beautiful girl was smiling down at him. The German soldiers had moved on and he had survived. Life at this time consisted of such sweet pleasures. Britain must be winning if Italy had surrendered. He only had to keep quiet a short while longer and he would be safe.

  Jack sat naked in the stingingly cold river while Giovanni helped him scrub himself clean. Little more than sixteen, he nevertheless was not short of the famous Latin charm and Jack supposed the village girls fell at his feet for a smile or a kiss. He said as much and the boy blushed and laughed.

  ‘You like my sister, yes?’

  Jack gave a non-committal shrug but something in his expression must have given him away for the boy continued in a hoarse whisper:

  ‘Then you must get her away from here. Take her with you when you leave. My family, they are kind to you, but they mean to marry her to the butcher. He has had two wives already and is fat as a sow.’

  ‘Pig.’

  ‘Sì.’

  This information troubled Jack more than he would have expected. He had put all thought of leaving from his mind. Why should he consider it when he was content here? He had no wish at all to return to the killing. Whenever he gazed upon the surrounding blue-grey mountains, daunting and alien, a chill would settle about his heart at the prospect of crossing them, into the unknown.

  ‘Why would you marry this butcher if you don’t love him?’ Jack asked one morning when Lina brought him breakfast. The fresh scent of coffee and rolls made the juices run in his mouth, but his appetite for good food paled beside his delight at seeing Lina each day. He waited always in anguish until she came, worrying that something might have happened to her in the night.

  ‘He has asked for me and young men are in short supply in thees village. They have all gone to the war. Carlo, he has money, and a kind heart.’

  ‘But you don’t love him.’ Jack broke off a piece of bread and held it out to her. Lina pursed her lips and caught the bread between her pretty white teeth.

  ‘No, but I think he will not let me go hungry.’ She laughed but Jack did not. He looked into those velvet dark eyes and recognised the glaze of sadness in them..

  ‘You haven’t thought it through properly,’ he told her. ‘No woman can marry a man she doesn’t love. If I were Italian I’d offer for you myself.’

  Startled eyes opened wide. ‘What you say, Jack?’

  His head was soaring. He knew well enough what he was saying and he didn’t care. He took Lina in his arms and cradled her, as if she were made of some precious material and he was afraid to tarnish her. ‘You know what I’m saying. You feel it too.’ His voice was gruff with emotion.

  ‘Oh, Jack. You are so preetty.’

  Her lips were warm, trusting, and Jack was hard put to control his need. ‘I want you, Lina. How I want you. I will speak with your family. Ask them if I might come into supper tonight.’

  ,Oh, but...’

  ‘You must ask them, Lina.’ He kissed her again, his hand smoothing the length of her silky thigh, wanting to remove the pretty patchwork dress.

  But when she came to him that evening it was all too evident that she had been crying.

  ‘I am sorry, but my family they not want you in the house again.’

  ‘Why? What did they say?’

  Lina sat down upon the straw, her skirt sagging between her knees, the heart-shaped face a picture of disaster and despair. ‘They wish for you to leave. They mean you no harm, you understand? You can stay no longer. It is too dangerous, they say. They have others to theenk of, my grandmother, my brothers, my sisters…’

  Jack interrupted before she felt duty bound to recite the entire family to him. ‘I get the picture. I do understand.’ The thought of losing her brought an odd tightness to his chest. He didn’t want to leave Lin
a. The thought of never seeing her again appalled him. Dear God, was this what he had spent a lifetime avoiding? Was this love?

  She was talking again, giving him instructions. ‘I will bring you food, and a map that I will draw for you, to point the way.’

  A map? Point the way to where? ‘Through the mountains, do you mean?’

  ‘Sì. It is the only way to go.’ She was crying again, turning from him, scrambling to her feet in the straw.

  ‘Lina.’ He grasped her hand, pulled her down beside him. She was warm and fluid in his arms, smelling of sunshine and sweet hay. The patched dress slipping easily from her shoulders, the breasts almost leaping to be caressed. No more words were spoken. None were necessary. They clung to each other, biting, tasting, loving, needing. Knowing that death might come at any moment made the coupling doubly sweet.

  He plunged his fingers into the mass of her glossy curls and held her to him while he kissed her throat, her arms, her lips, her breast, as if he could not get enough of her. Only when he had spent himself, shuddering inside her, did he lie unmoving, unwilling to end this amazing moment of fulfilment and love.

  It was then that he heard the sound outside. ‘The soldiers, they are back!’ Lina cried, scrambling to her feet and quickly adjusting her dress.

  The loft doors burst open and Jack knew that this time there would be no escape. Surprisingly, his last thought, before they took him, was of Meg. If he’d stayed at Broombank to marry her, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

  Chapter Twelve

  1943

  Meg sat in her chair by the empty hearth. It was where she always sat. From the moment she finished milking the cows and doing her few morning chores, to the moment when she could thankfully return to her bed, she sat in this chair.

  What else was there to do?

  She’d moved back into Ashlea because there was nowhere else to go. But there seemed little point in anything. She could still smell the acrid smoke, the scorched air, still hear the terrible silence. Still see the flames devouring her home, clinging to the walls and running over the grass towards Effie’s garden. Meg flinched, as she always did at this point.

  A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Sally Ann. Dear Sally Ann had lost her husband and then her baby, and all she ever thought about was whether Meg wanted a cup of tea or a bite of something to eat. She was constantly complaining about the weight that had dropped off her. ‘You must eat.’

  ‘Why? What would it matter if she didn’t?’

  There was nothing for her at Broombank now. In the long year since it had happened Meg had never been back but she could imagine how it looked. A broken-down building with tarpaulin where once the roof had been. The great inglenook fireplace with its shining andirons that Lanky had so loved still flanking the living room but giving off no warmth now. Grass would already be starting to grow between the cracks. The new kitchen stove she’d bought with such pride a twisted lump of rusted metal. And the old scullery and dairy flattened beneath a pile of rubble. It had taken near a day to find Effie and pull her out.

  She still had the rowan twig and butter churn in her hand.

  Not even the sheep remained. The bomb blast had sent them running, crazy with fear, probably back to the safety of their old heaf. Meg didn’t know and didn’t greatly care. She had done nothing about getting them back. What was the point? It was people who mattered, not land nor sheep. Who was there left to work for, or with?

  ‘Come on now,’ said Sally Ann, urging Meg from her chair. ‘Come up to the table. I’ve got a nice bit of fish to tempt you today. Here, take Daniel while I carry a tray up to Father.’

  Father. Still suffering from the stroke he’d had when he heard that his son had died in the blast. Nevertheless Joe Turner was a survivor. He sat in his bed at the top of the house, half his body paralysed but issuing orders as ferociously ever. Still a bully. Why did only the good die?

  Tears filled Meg’s eyes. She hadn’t the energy to hate him any more. She felt only pity for this half existence that drove him to the abyss of despair. To be dependent upon two women for his every need was, for Joe Turner, worse than death.

  But this was war. They had to accept terrible things in wartime. Oh, but it was hard. So very hard.

  ‘It’s Will Davies.’

  Meg, eyes closed, pretended not to have heard.

  ‘Will Davies,’ Sally Ann said again. ‘He’s at the door. He’d like a quick word.’

  Meg opened her eyes and brought them into focus. Lissa was busy setting out her tea things, pouring out imaginary cups of tea for Nick and Daniel to sip politely. She was telling them, in her bossy way, how to hold the cup with the saucer neatly poised beneath. Effie had taught Lissa her own hard won etiquette, and the child had never forgotten. There was a lot that she hadn’t forgotten. Things that woke her screaming in the middle of the night. She still asked for Effie, wanting to know where she was and when they would be going home. It broke Meg’s heart every time.

  But at least Lissa was alive. Every day Meg thanked the good Lord, and Jeffrey Ellis, for saving her lovely child. Nowadays Meg never left her side, not even for a moment. It wasn’t safe.

  ‘Tell him to come in.’

  Will Davies stood before her, cap in hand, fidgeting his booted feet, clearing his throat.

  ‘Sit down, Will,’ said Sally Ann cheerily. ‘I’ve got the kettle on. And I’ve a carrot cake made we can cut into.’

  ‘Don’t bother about me, lass. What I have to say won’t take more than a minute.’

  ‘Take the weight off your feet while you do it then,’ Sally Ann smiled. ‘Go on with you.’

  Will cleared his throat again. ‘I was wondering, Meg, what you wanted doing about your gimmers.’

  She stared at him, uncomprehending.

  ‘You’ll recall as how your sheep – well - they were a bit startled like and…’

  ‘I know,’ she cut in, sparing him, and herself, the agony of reminiscence.

  Will took a deep breath of relief at her response. Worried him it did, to see her so blank and shut off from the world. Did no good at all. Like it or not, life had to go on. He only wished they could stir some life into Meg. ‘You’ll know that most of those new Swaledales you bought went back where they come from, to their old heaf? When we had our Autumn Meet ... not that it were a merry one I should add, as it usually is. Wouldn’t have been proper, that, in the circumstances. We found out where they were. So we took the chance to deal with yours, along with the other lost sheep, even though you weren’t there.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Will,’ she said dully. ‘Only...’

  ‘Oh, it’s no trouble. What are neighbours for, after all? I’m sure you’d do the same for me if the boot were on the other foot as it were. I spoke to Joe about it. I hope that was right, since you were, well, not quite yourself at the time.’

  Meg nodded and smiled, trying to be polite but not really listening to what he was saying. Her head was aching again and she felt so unutterably weary she wished only for him to say what he had come to say and leave her in peace.

  ‘Nobody wanted to trouble you last backend. What with one thing and another, we thought happen you had enough on your plate. You’ve been ill for so long... Anyroad, Joe said as how you wouldn’t be wanting them back.’

  Something seemed to penetrate then. ‘Joe? He said what?’

  Will tucked his cap in his pocket and sat down at last, relieved that she’d responded at last. ‘Said as how you’d had enough of farming and wouldn’t want to start all over again. We agreed a price, a fair one, mind, and took your sheep off your hands.’

  Meg held up a hand, wanting to stop him, but not able to find the words for a moment or two.

  ‘You took my sheep?’

  Will looked perplexed. Perhaps she hadn’t quite taken it in. ‘We didn’t pinch them,’ he stressed. ‘Paid a fair price. Joe took care of all that like.’ He half glanced across at Sally Ann, his old eyes be
gging for support.

  Sally Ann at once stepped forward to rest a hand upon Meg’s arm. ‘You couldn’t expect folk to look after them for ever, Meg, and you weren’t up to it. Then there were the mortgage payments to find.’

  Meg blinked, struggling to unfog her mind. Mortgage. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Who had found the monthly payments to the bank? She asked Sally Ann now.

  ‘Joe, of course. Who else?’

  Joe. Meg was struggling to her feet. ‘Are you telling me that my father has been paying the mortgage on Broombank, my farm, for the last year? And that he has sold my sheep?’

  ‘For a good price,’ Will cut in, worried now by her response. ‘We thought that was what you wanted.’

  Meg found that she was trembling. What had she been thinking of to sit here and do nothing for months on end while Joe Turner took over? ‘Who is looking after my land?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve kept me eye on Broombank. You don’t have to worry about that.’

  ‘But the ewes are gone?’

  ‘Aye,’ Will agreed, nodding and shaking his head sadly all at the same time. ‘Those that Joe sold have all lambed again, done well this spring they have. Course, they’ll have taken to another heaf now. Wouldn’t be worth your while to buy ’em back, even if you wanted to. Not now.’

  Meg slumped into her chair again. Will was right. A lamb gave its loyalty to the land on which it was born and spent its first formative year. It was of vital importance on these high fells where a sheep could roam for miles if it chose, with little to stop it. Its homing instinct was its means of survival.

  ‘So I must start again,’ she said bleakly, wondering if she had the energy.

  ‘Well, not exactly. That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Meg. The lambs born that spring on your own heaf, before the bomb - before - they all came back. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Those gimmers didn’t know any place else to go. Question is, do you want to keep them or do you want me to sell them on for you this backend?’ He waited for her decision.

  For a long time it seemed that she would never speak and then Meg blinked and focused properly upon Will. ‘They’re not all lost then?’