Above Us the Sky

by Milly Adams

  She still felt that, day after day, as these women looked after children, foster children, visiting parents, while all the time making preserves, chutneys, and baking something out of nothing. You would never know they tucked away telegrams bearing bad news of their sons and husbands, and smiled. They were completely wonderful.

  Once the pails and their contents were returned, she replaced her load with that of the metal salvage the WI had helped the Scouts to collect on Saturday afternoon. She cycled it to Mrs Symes’s back gate and now they both trundled to the town collection area in her old Morris, its boot filled.

  On their return it was time for morning service and while the vicar said prayers for those who had embarked on the first major British land offensive against the Italians in the Western Desert, she and Jake walked. They headed for the pond and she thought of the bombs falling on so many provincial cities, including Bristol. She remembered that day and night in London, and was amazed that anyone had survived, and was surviving the bombing of Britain’s cities. She phoned the new presbytery from time to time, and Frankie always said that her mother would be pleased to hear her news on her return, but was off out – busy, busy.

  While she mulled, Jake made notes for the nature journal he was preparing for his mother and father, and for the school. Miss F and the vicar had suggested he kept a diary of God’s work during wartime, together with the occasional drawing. They didn’t say ‘just in case’, but why not? It might be something to cherish if the Germans came: Britain how it once was.

  He was drawing the old man’s beard, growing in and over the as yet uncut hedges, as they reached the pond. He had shown a talent for art as the months had passed, which was hardly surprising, because his mother had designed wallpaper in Berlin, he had told Phyllie. Francois leapt over the ice and in after a duck. ‘Out of there,’ she and Jake shouted together, fearful that Andy Bartlett would come to hear of it.

  Jake said, ‘We should whisper it, you know. It’s a dead giveaway, yelling like that. Mr Andy’s all right sometimes, but you still never know, do you? He’s very up and down.’

  Francois was out by then, shaking himself all over them. He was shouted at again. They laughed together. Jake pointed to the horse chestnut on the edge of the woods. ‘Race you to the tree, Phyllie.’ He took off and she followed, and it was easy to let him win, because her oversized gumboots slopped and flopped and it was like wading through treacle. She snatched off her hat and threw it at him when she arrived. He laughed. He laughed a lot now.

  They collected ivy and the old man’s beard that was growing within the wood and once they reached the centre, half a mile from the pond, they risked life and limb to yank down some mistletoe. They would store it, then use it for Christmas decorations. They noted exactly where the best holly trees were.

  ‘The birds might take the berries before then,’ Phyllie said, ‘but at least they’ll have full stomachs, and the branches will look good anyway. We could make paper-chains by cutting paper strips, then colouring them. We can then make paste out of flour to stick them together. Perhaps write that down too.’ He did.

  In late afternoon, all three of them were in the kitchen listening to the wireless while Miss F did the WI sugar accounts, Jake made paper-chains, and Phyllie cooked. She was preparing a pie for supper from a couple of rashers of streaky bacon, parsnips and carrots, with sage and thyme they had dried in late summer, when the telephone rang. Phyllie looked helplessly at her pastry-covered hands. Francois barked, while Jake grimaced and waved his paste-covered fingers, to which a strip of paper had stuck.

  ‘Paper-chain making,’ he said.

  Miss F looked up. ‘Well, all right, I think I’ve got the message. I’ll go, shall I?’ She called from the hall, ‘Phyllie, it’s your brother for you.’

  Jake swung round, his fingers seemed to be stuck together. ‘You’re not going to London? They still bomb it. Say you’re not going?’

  Phyllie washed her hands, wiping them on her apron as she hurried into the hall, calling, ‘Just wait. We know nothing.’

  The hall was freezing. Miss F was holding the receiver as though it might explode at any moment, which Phyllie suspected was pretty much her expectation of this new-fangled thing.

  ‘He seems agitated.’ Miss F’s whisper would reach the end of the village. She thrust the receiver at Phyllie and hurried into the warmth of the kitchen.

  Phyllie said, ‘Hello, Frankie. Is everything all right? Mother?’

  Her brother’s voice was strained as he said, ‘Miss Featherstone is correct, I am rather agitated, and I wonder if it wouldn’t be a good idea for Mother to visit the countryside for a few days. Perhaps over Christmas, if that is possible?’

  ‘Here?’ Phyllie said, and now it was she who felt strained.

  He muttered, ‘Well, you’re in the countryside, Phyllie. Must you be so obtuse?’

  Phyllie spoke before she thought. ‘I’m not aware I’m being obtuse, Frankie, but here is the last place Mother would want to be, and you know that very well. In spite of bombs raining down, she sees her place as beside you, especially at Christmastime, like a good Catholic, I would think. Certainly not here, with a heathen like Jake, and, indeed, me.’ She was surprised at her bitterness, and felt ashamed.

  There was a pause. ‘Phyllie, dear Phyllie. It’s as much of a burden to be the favourite, you know. She’s exhausted, and needs some noiseless nights, and the company of her daughter, though I know she finds it difficult to say this. What’s more, I am not a saint, and I could do with a bloody break.’

  Phyllie stared into the mirror, and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear in the glow of the electric light. They were only electrified downstairs. Upstairs she had grown to like the smell of the oil lamps. She knew she was being manipulated but it was her own mother they were discussing. ‘Heavens, Frankie, you do sound stressed.’ She half laughed. ‘Is it Mother or the bombing?’

  ‘A bit of both, my dear. She can be remarkably difficult, but I don’t need to tell you that.’

  Phyllie laughed; at least her brother was feeling the heat for a change. ‘Of course, put her on the train and I will meet her. She may come on the twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve, and if she is unkind just once to Jake, I will put her on the first train back. She may stay for a week. Don’t hang up. I need to confirm first with Jake, and Miss F, not forgetting Francois.’

  Frankie said, ‘Francois? You have some French evacuees too?’

  ‘We have a dog evacuated from Dunkirk.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, how can a dog object?’

  She laughed again. ‘You’d be surprised. Wait a moment. I’ll be back.’

  The warmth and light of the kitchen was welcome. She explained. Jake and Miss F exchanged a look. Francois appeared concerned at the sudden tension in the room. Miss F smiled suddenly. ‘Of course. Perhaps she could have your bedroom, Phyllie, if you can manage with the sofa? It could be a blessing; she might come to accept the things she should.’

  Jake stood up. ‘She can have my boxroom. I can go on the sofa with Francois. He’ll settle by the fire.’

  ‘You’re very kind, both of you. We can sort out the details.’ Phyllie headed back into the hall.

  Miss F followed her and now her voice really was a whisper. ‘We don’t want any of her nonsense about Jake killing Christ. I won’t have it, not in this village now everyone loves the boy and understands his culture and is mortified at their previous reservations. Well, I say everyone, but it seems to me Ron is building the bullying again, which I’m sure is because his mother might not be coming for Christmas. Why that ghastly woman can’t commit as the other mums have done, I do not know. It’s making the lad so … Well, so angry.’

  Phyllie nodded, but she needed to finish the telephone call. She picked up the receiver, the line was crackling, and there was the sound of bangs. ‘A raid?’ she asked.

  Frankie laughed. ‘The Nativity in the hall being put together.’

  She said, ‘Mum will be wel
come, as long as we have no nonsense about Jews and Christ, is this quite clear?’

  She could almost see her brother nodding, with a finger in his ear, as the banging heightened. ‘I’ll have a word, and I will telephone you once we’ve sorted times. She can get the first train in the morning, or perhaps a little later?’

  Phyllie murmured. ‘It would be excellent if she could be in time for the carol service, after which is the children’s party. In addition there’s to be an adults’ knees-up. God bless the WI for contributing the costs, and organising both beanos.’

  ‘Sounds like fun. The WI seem a formidable bunch.’ He sounded relieved, but exhausted.

  She thought that indeed they were, and if any bunch of people could contain her mother, it would be them.

  Once the pie was ready and supper eaten, Phyllie set out once again, with a note for Joe from Miss F, and her own begging words carefully rehearsed in front of both the others. As she cycled, Jake’s warning that Joe might say she needed to talk to Andy about it rang in her ears.

  The moon was bright, so there was no need for the minuscule amount of light the bicycle lamp was allowed. She pedalled off, through the blacked-out village. She wore the gumboots again, and felt sure she’d be left with permanent welts on her calves from the slapping. Owls hooted, and the breeze stirred the bare branches as she took the left-hand turn to the farm. Yet again she wondered why she had opened her mouth, and even Sammy had said when he telephoned from Harwich, ‘Well, the one that suggests it has to carry it through, daft glorious girl.’

  Tonight, if he rang, she would tell him that the jeweller had promised that her ring would be ready for collection by Christmas and now the smile faded. Would she have the courage to wear it in front of her mother? The farmyard was in darkness too, but from the milking shed came the clanking of pails, and the mooing of the cows, as she leaned the bicycle against the stone wall of the yard. It would be Joe and Old Stan because Andy left that to the two-handed brigade, or so he had snapped at her when she was last here.

  He had added, ‘I’m left with the accounts, the cooking, and things like ditching or driving the horses. I’m safe to do that. What a bloody life.’

  The geese came flapping, but knew her so it was only a token gesture. ‘Just which of you will be here after Christmas?’ she murmured. The dogs waited patiently for a stroke. There was a duck quacking somewhere. She banged loudly on the milking-parlour door. Joe opened it at crack, slipping through, and shutting it quickly so that darkness resumed. He dragged his cigarette from his ear, and lit it.

  She explained to Joe that in summer there was plenty of room outside for children to play, and they’d been managing with the school hall and the village hall in the cold of winter. ‘But now, the Home Guard need the village hall more and more, and the Scouts and Guides need the school hall and it’s not big enough anyway, for all our children, especially with the new evacuees from the cities. I am thinking of your old barn for a sort of indoor play area. I know the roof is damaged at the far end, but I wondered whether we could all come and tidy it up, draping a tarpaulin …’

  She faded to a halt as Joe put up a hand, dragged on his cigarette, looking not at her, but over to the house. ‘Not sure our boy would like that, but it might be an idea to ask. I’m sick of trying with t’lad. He used to be a goer, but the going’s gone out of him. It might stir something.’

  She thrust the letter from Miss F at him. ‘Miss F has thoughts about the wood burner. Perhaps it could be brought out of the stable store, where it’s doing nothing. We could incorporate it into the barn, safely, because Mrs Speedie knows someone who can rig a flue. The straw could be cleared, with just a few bales for seats, and one of us will be on duty all the time.’

  Joe read the note from the light of another match. He tucked it in his pocket, smiling slightly. It was the smile he kept for Miss F. She had her own in reply. Not for the first time Phyllie wondered why they didn’t just get on with it?

  The match spluttered and died as he tossed it onto the muck of the yard. He noticed her boots. ‘Big enough, are they? Setting yourself up as the woman who lived in a shoe, and had so many children …’ He was laughing.

  ‘Never mind my boots, Joe, let’s just concern ourselves with the children.’ She was smiling. ‘What do you think? These children are far from home – the evacuees, anyway – and all of them seem to have a member of the family away on active service, which means they worry. They’re vulnerable.’

  He waved her down, and drew on his cigarette. ‘I read the note, got me orders, but it’s not me you need to convince, lass. We need to get him pushing himself. It’s no good hiding away when you think you’ve done something wrong. You have to face it.’

  She stared at him. ‘How can it be wrong to be wounded? That’s absurd.’

  ‘That’s not quite the ruddy story, lass. Time you knew, like the rest of the village. On occasion Miss F can hold her tongue, you know. She’ll have left it to me to decide a good and proper moment to fill you in. You see, he was driving a lorry, a damned dog ran across t’road, he swerved to miss the bugger, went arse over tit the bloody lorry did and into a ditch. Two of his mates died, ’e togged along for help, though he was injured right badly. He thinks he ran away, on top of killing ’em. Don’t like dogs now, he don’t. Don’t like much, he don’t. He never even got to the war, you see.’

  He dropped his cigarette. It spluttered and died. He dug into his pocket and offered her one from his pack. She shook her head but at this moment she wished she smoked. How sad war was.

  As he lit up again, Joe said, ‘We need to get him out and about. He used to be a nice lad. He’s not now. He be a bugger.’

  ‘He’s feeling guilty.’ She knew how he felt. Well, not to that extent. ‘Poor man.’

  ‘Aye, stands to reason, we all know that, but it’s not going to get any better sitting nursing it like a bleeding ’obgoblin, and ’e’s paid his price. He’s lost his bloody hand, and has a buggered leg. They’re healing but ’is head’s a bit behind his body, if you get my drift. Seen it with me beasts. The head takes longer to mend, it does.’

  Old Stan called through the door: ‘These danged udders ain’t going to milk themselves, boss. But we’re nearly done. Just need an ’and on the home straight.’

  Joe shrugged, patting the pocket that held Miss F’s letter, looking around the yard, then stroking the dogs’ heads. ‘Look, it’s all right by me. We’ll just shut our lugs to complaints from the lad, and I’ll give you an ’and with the tarpaulin. You and me, Phyllie, with our Miss F at the bottom of t’ladders, darting from one to t’other and giving us the benefit of her advice.’

  She grinned. ‘Not a happy thought.’ She was eyeing the farmhouse as he made to open the milking-parlour door. ‘He’s in your kitchen, is he? Maybe best that I go and ask. Bit rude otherwise.’

  Joe grunted. ‘If you’re looking for an early death, lass.’

  She felt her way across the yard, as a cloud went over the moon. It cleared. She was at the porch. The dogs licked her hands, and returned to their kennels. She knocked. There was no reply. She entered, and shut the door behind her quickly to keep the blackout. Andy sat at the table, reading the paper, one edge of which was propped up between two empty beer bottles. There was an oil lamp set in the centre of the pine table. He looked up. ‘What the hell …?’

  She yanked off her boots and tiptoed across the cold flagstones. She left damp patches. Her feet probably smelled, but you wouldn’t notice in this mess of unwashed dishes piled high in the sink. Rubbish overflowed the bin. The range was exuding heat, so that was one good thing. The old sofa, to the right of the range, was covered with dirty – or were they clean? – clothes. Certainly unironed, anyway. Oil lamps lit the rest of the room. She pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and sat opposite him, uninvited.

  He returned to the Daily Mail. She said, ‘If it’s all right with you, Miss F and I would like to use the old barn as a play area for the children after school.
It just needs a tarpaulin slung over the bad end. Your dad said we could drag out the old wood burner, and we’re sure we can find someone to sort out a flue. Thought I’d just check with you that you are agreeable to having us all after school and at weekends.’

  He put the paper down, shaking his head. ‘No, it’s not going to happen. We can’t have kids messing around here. They’ll get into everything, hurt themselves, and you had no bloody right to set this up with Dad without talking to me first.’

  ‘I haven’t really set it up, just sorted things out a bit. Here I am, running it past you. I’ll be here to stop them getting into mischief, or one of the others will be, all the time.’

  He stared at her, his grey eyes as cold as the sea. Oh, Sammy, if only it was you. You’d get that tarpaulin up in no time. She shook her head, and concentrated.

  He said, ‘Why would you think that having you or one of the others here makes it any better? We have enough WI women fluttering about being busy. I repeat, you didn’t bloody ask me before you launched into action.’

  She shook her head. ‘You know very well the women have stopped preserving and pickling for the winter now. Which means they have more time to keep a check on the children.’ She went into the speech she had practised for him. ‘We need help, you see, Andy. These children are vulnerable, scared and living away from their families. They need somewhere to play, somewhere to spend time, safely. The Home Guard, Scouts and Guides are so busy for the war effort, we thought you might consider that it could be part of the farm’s war effort.’

  He said, ‘We have morons from the ministry telling us how, where and what to farm, and what’s more, we work our fingers—’ His laugh was harsh. ‘Well, some of my fingers to the bone, and that’s enough of a war effort. Bloody cheek of you to suggest we have children on top of that. You’ve talked to Dad, and now you’ve talked to me. I’ve answered no.’ He was looking down at the newspaper.