‘No, not warn you – I wanted you to be sure you loved each other. I didn’t wish this on you, for heaven’s sake. Wartime isn’t the best time for making decisions. Especially about something as serious as marriage. That’s all I meant.’
They went back to camp even though their leave wasn’t over. All of Sophie’s family were at the station to see them off. Her tearful parents, grandparents, Auntie Maggie, Uncle Albert, her brother and sister. The noise of the underground train pulling into the station deafened them to the final sympathetic comments, for which Sophie was grateful. They didn’t even have time to wave as the doors of the crowded carriage closed behind them.
‘At least they’re all together,’ Sophie said. ‘I can imagine them all coping with their days, taking care of each other. I persuaded Gran and Gramps to stay for a few days, just to keep Mam and Dad from grieving. They’re all so upset.’
*
Two weeks later a V2 hit the house, demolishing the whole street. Everyone in the house was killed. Because the house was completely destroyed, the news of the tragedy was a long time reaching her. The funerals had taken place before she was called into the office to be told.
She knew that the reason she had lost the whole family was her insistence that they stay together. If she had persuaded her parents to let Carrie and Frank leave London, allow them to be evacuated to the country, they’d have been safe. If Gran and Gramps had gone home instead of giving in to her pleading to stay with Mam and Dad, they’d be alive.
Numbed by the shock, disbelief gave way to brief moments of relief until the truth re-emerged to shock her anew. She had heard nothing from Geoffrey even though she had written to every address she could think of and asked everyone likely to know. In the midst of this tragedy, she faced the fact that she had been well and truly jilted. Everyone single person she had loved was gone.
When Sophie was given the terrible news about her family, Daphne wasn’t there either. She had been moved to another airfield. Later, before Sophie could receive news of her friend, she, too, had been moved. She was among strangers who had their own troubles to cope with, and there was no one to tell about her own. In a world filled with tragedy, there was no one to offer comfort or sympathy.
On her next leave she went to see the ugly sprawling piles of rubble where her home had once stood, but she spoke to no one. She stayed in a small bed and breakfast that had one wall shored up with huge balks of timber to replace the house that had once stood alongside it, and said nothing, asked no questions. She couldn’t face any surviving neighbours – they’d be aware of her confident insistence that the family should stay together.
Devastated and feeling she was completely to blame, her know-it-all attitude causing the death of every member of her family, with no one to share her misery, she turned away from the shell of her home and returned to camp. She missed Daphne. With so many changes in personnel she hadn’t been close to anyone else. Geoffrey had let her down, and the war had taken away her whole family and the one person who might have helped her. She said nothing to anyone.
She went about her tasks in a dream, refusing any overtures of friendship, gaining a reputation for being standoffish. When she was demobbed, she went from town to town searching for news of Geoffrey and Daphne, but there was no clue to the whereabouts of either.
In the town Geoffrey had told her was his home she tried everywhere, but no one had heard of him. Stupidly, she had lost Daphne’s address during the last sudden transfer, and moving herself, so soon after, their letters had failed to reach their destination and contact was lost.
She wrote to the solicitor to ask about the place of burial and he replied to tell her there was a large sum of money waiting for her. She arranged to have it transferred into a building society and swore never to touch it. It was tainted with her guilt. Once the solicitor had finally discovered her whereabouts, he delivered several letters referring to the money she had inherited, and the compensation to which she was entitled. And it was then, realizing how she had gained financially from the loss of those she loved, that she finally cried.
‘It was my fault!’ she told the solicitor over the phone. ‘I told them to stay. My brother and sister would have been safe if I’d encouraged Mam to let them go. My grandparents would have been in their own home if I hadn’t persuaded them to stay. And you expect me to be rewarded with money?’ she wailed.
She was too distressed to seek company, tears falling when she saw families together, reminding her of the loss of her own. She had nowhere to go; no place to call home.
So she travelled; at first by train and bus, staying in small guest-houses, but once she discovered how many derelict buildings scattered the countryside, she left the towns, surviving on little more than the tramps that wandered the lanes and fields.
It was surprisingly easy to become accustomed to living without a base; with no place to scuttle back to like a wounded animal, she looked no further than the next night’s shelter. She covered her trail, contacting no one with the exception of the solicitor. She made a few calls to finalize her business, and left him no way of finding her again. She looked for no company except those wandering like herself, whom she met on the road. She did work occasionally, when she found a place to stay that appealed, but only as a temporary cleaner. People always wanted cleaners, she discovered.
Leaving the comfort of bed and breakfast places, she slept in abandoned houses, sometimes for a night, on occasion staying for a couple of weeks. It was easy to find shelter: there were always barns or ruined cottages, some even boasted a few pieces of furniture. She gathered what clothes she needed from second-hand shops and the occasional jumble sale and she carried very little; she simply wore all the clothing she owned.
Time passed and she began taking an interest in the flowers and hedgerows. She stayed with a group of gypsy travellers for a few months one winter, listening and learning from them how they lived mostly off the countryside. They earned a little here and there, seasonal work for farmers, selling what they made to earn a few shillings. She remembered helping her gran to make jam when she was small, and an interest was revived.
A visit to a local library added to her growing knowledge and she began to use what nature offered, making meals and preserves and drying herbs for future use. She still had money left in her post office account and she tried not to think about what she would do when it was gone. The other money would not be touched. Her family had given their lives for it, due to her stupid belief that she knew best.
She left the travellers once spring came, when they headed east, planning to work in Kent for hop-picking season. She continued her unplanned wandering, making for the coasts of South Wales, where her parents had been born and where she had lived as a child. Perhaps there she’d find some sense of belonging.
Walking up a quiet lane one March morning she saw a farmhouse and decided to knock and ask for water. As she approached, she saw that the collection of buildings, including a cottage adjoining the farmhouse, was empty. She stepped inside the cottage, which smelled of damp and mice. Then she saw an oven range with a blackened kettle on the long-dead ashes. Outside there was a tap. All around there was a generous supply of firewood, and, against the wall near the staircase, there was an old, mildewed couch. Perfect. What more could she ask of life?
In the long-abandoned garden she found sage and rosemary, mint, fennel, chives and a clump of Welsh onions. Wonderful gifts.
For a few weeks she could live here out of sight, bothering no one. She found a collection of dirty jars and even a couple of battered old saucepans in an outhouse. She could make preserves, dry herbs and perhaps sell them at the market she had passed through at Maes Hir – long field. Work should be easily found in the town just over the hill. It wasn’t far away, but having to go up a steep field and through a fairly large wood meant she could stay unnoticed for a while.
*
At the top of the field a young woman stood watching as Sophie explored the several
buildings around the main farmhouse. She observed that Sophie walked crouched over, and wore layer after layer of clothing including shawls. She noticed the bundle of belongings placed beside the door and decided the stranger must be old and perhaps homeless. Well, she was homeless, too, and this place with its sad regrets wasn’t going to solve her problems – the dirty old tramp was welcome to it. She turned away, forgetting about the woman as she walked on into the town to try to find a couple of rooms for herself and her son.
*
Within an hour, Sophie had a fire burning, rather sluggishly as the chimney had been cold for many months, but the sight warmed her and the food she unpacked on to a rickety table rescued from a barn cheered her even more. She piled her clothes on to the couch, pulled it close to the fire and settled down to sleep. This place didn’t feel like home any more than any other place she had found, but for the moment it would do.
Two
Betty Connors stopped the van in which she had been to collect some extra supplies for the Ship and Compass, and uttered a mild expletive. Steam coming from the bonnet meant trouble. She felt a momentary guilt, remembering how her brother Ed had warned her that the water tank needed topping up rather too often and the van needed to go to the garage. Irritation quickly followed. Why hadn’t he dealt with it? She ran the pub with his help and he shouldn’t have left it for her to do.
She sat back in the worn leather seat and wondered why Ed had been less enthusiastic about his work at the Ship and Compass these past weeks. Something was on his mind, and she had a suspicion that it might be Elsie Clements, who ran the bed and breakfast near the post office. Ed had never married and she thought he’d more sense than to consider it at his age, but he did spend a lot of time there, helping Elsie, when he should have been helping her.
The complaints from the overheated metal gradually stopped and she looked at the road ahead. Not far away there was a lane that led to the old cottage and farm buildings where Tommy and Rachel Treweather had lived until their new farmhouse had been built. The cottage, in which old Fred Yates had lived until he retired, might offer help even if it were locked. She seemed to remember it having an outside tap.
Taking a couple of empty flagons from the back of the van, she walked along the quiet lane towards the neglected yard, but stopped before reaching the door. Someone was there and she didn’t think it was one of the Treweathers. No dog, for one thing. Neither Tommy nor the boys would be out without at least one of the dogs. Silently she backed away. Best if she didn’t confront whoever it was before telling Tommy or Rachel, in case it was someone in whom the police were interested.
She turned away and walked towards the village. Luckily, it was a pleasant spring morning and she wasn’t in a hurry. Her brother would open up if she was late getting back. Unless Elsie made him forget the time! What the heck, she couldn’t be in two places at once. She walked slowly, enjoying the brief freedom.
*
Sophie Daniels walked across the fields from the abandoned farm cottage where she had been living for the past couple of weeks. Her beautiful gold-flecked hazel eyes were filled with sadness, and she walked with her shoulders drooped as though trying to hide. The uniformed, outgoing young woman was lost in memory. She moved slowly, glancing right and then left, then retraced her steps, searching the ground. But what she was seeking eluded her.
She wasn’t tall, and her slim figure, lost in the layers of soft cotton dresses she habitually wore, made her appear waif-like. Her hair flowed around her shoulders, fair, flyaway, framing her pale face in which the dark-hazel eyes were an almost harsh contrast.
She wore a shawl about her shoulders, and another, small and fringed, draped loosely over her head, not to hide her hair or protect her from the chill of the morning, but more as an ornament. From even a short distance she seemed ageless. A dozen guesses would have given a dozen answers. The habit of wearing all those layers had remained with her even though she no longer travelled. She needed the assurance of knowing that if she were moved on she would have most of what was important with her.
After an hour of walking over the field, stopping occasionally to admire the celandines that glowed like golden coins in the morning sun amid their heart-shaped rich green leaves, she gave up her patient search and returned to the cottage. A fire burned in the oven range against one wall, an oven issued tantalizing smells of a vegetable casserole cooking. There was a loaf of bread on the table, which was rickety and dependant on books to keep it level.
The building was small and triangular in shape, having been built against the main farmhouse for one of the workers. In spite of being unoccupied for some time it was still reasonably sound. There were only two rooms up and two down, but behind it was an outbuilding that had once housed a couple of horses.
Besides making the cottage comfortable, Sophie had cleaned the outhouse and whitewashed the walls, and now it had shelves, amateurishly arranged by supporting the ends of wooden planks with old scrubbed and painted bricks. The shelves were filled with jars containing jams and marmalades, chutneys and pickles as well as an assortment of dried foods – tomatoes, mushrooms, onions, herbs and spices. The time of the year limited what she could make, but when summer came she would fill the shelves with fruits and pickles and earn enough to survive the winter.
Tomorrow was market day in Maes Hir. She gathered the items she hoped to sell and put them into willow baskets, which she would carry on her arms. She had lost her purse, so she would have to walk the three miles. At least if she sold her goods she would be able to take the bus home, she thought with a shrug.
Before settling herself to sleep, she stepped outside and looked up at the late-evening sky. Too early for stars – she slept early and wakened with the first light. As she turned to go back inside she saw a movement, and by concentrating her eyes and staring, unmoving, she saw that up at the top of the sloping field, almost hidden in the hedgerow, someone stood watching her. The cottage was in darkness and even the fire had been allowed to die so she slipped cautiously around the door and closed it. Perhaps she hadn’t been seen.
It was a long time before she could relax, listening for the sound of footsteps, afraid of someone banging on the door demanding she left. It had happened before, when a farmer had resented her presence, although never at night. But an hour passed and nothing moved, and she slept.
*
In the post office of Cwrn Derw, Stella Jones sighed as she looked at the queue. It would be difficult to manage a cup of tea during the next half-hour and she was gasping. It was with relief that she recognized Connie Tanner entering, squeezing into the tiny shop and giving a wave.
‘Connie, love, go into the back room and make a cuppa, will you? Sinking I am, and I’ll soon be nothing more than a pile of bones on the floor if I don’t have a drink soon.’
Connie ignored the complaints as she pushed a path through the customers and worked her way to the door leading to Stella’s living room. It was cluttered and untidy but the tray was set neatly and a tin of biscuits was at hand. At the side of the roaring fire the kettle hummed softly and the teapot had been placed close by to keep warm. Knowing how fussy Stella could be about her famous brew, Connie warmed the pot with hot water and dried it before making the tea. Then she sat and cuddled Scamp, the little terrier, for a minute or two before pouring the teas.
When she went back into the shop Stella was serving the last customer.
‘Phew, Connie, I don’t know what’s got into everyone today! They all came at the same time, and the moaning because they had to wait, you’d never believe. Half-day closing and you’d think they were preparing for a siege!’ She took the cup of tea then groaned as the door opened again. This time it was old Mr Francis, and he held out a red leather purse.
‘I found this,’ he said. ‘You must know whose it is if anyone does, you seeing every purse in the town.’
Stella shook her head and offered it to Connie, who did the same. ‘Sorry, but we don’t recognize it, Mr Fr
ancis, but leave it with me, someone will claim it, sure to.’
‘There’s a name inside but not one I know,’ the old man added.
‘The post office is the place, then,’ Stella said. ‘Fount of all knowledge this place is, for sure.’ But she frowned as she read the name inside. ‘Sophie Daniels? That isn’t a name I know.’
‘That’s the crazy woman hiding out in Fred Yates’s old cottage,’ a voice from the door called. ‘Him who used to work for Farmer Treweather.’ A boy of about eight or nine stood half in and half out of the door, feet apart as though preparing to run.
‘Bertie Grange, why aren’t you in school?’ Stella demanded. When the boy ran off, she added, ‘Wild he is, that one. Never where he should be.’
‘His mother doesn’t care. Earns plenty of money in the factory but spends it having fun with her friends. Did you see his shoes? The woman’s a disgrace.’
‘Yes, the poor boy deserves better than Sarah Grange gives him. Look, there she is now.’
A row of women turned and stared as Bertie’s mother walked by with a group of young women. She still wore the overalls she used in the factory and her hair was carelessly pulled back and fixed with a scarf. The disapproving faces swivelled until Sarah was out of sight.
A New Beginning Page 2
