‘I don’t know what was wrong with the cow. He didn’t say.’
‘Queer way to go on if ye ask me. He wouldna accept a cheque so he was lucky Billy had just drawn the money from the sale o’ his pigs. That’s why he had enough on him to pay in cash. He said it was his lucky day.’
He moved on to talk to some other farmers. Eddy stood still, his mind refusing to accept what he had just heard. His head swam but there was no getting away from it - Fred was not only mean and spiteful with his own brother, he was a thief and a liar. Slowly he made his way back to the place he had arranged to meet Hannah. She was already in the van, drumming her fingers nervously, although she hadn’t expected Eddy to return for another half hour or more.
‘Eddy, you look frozen.’ Worse than that, he looked blue around his mouth. ‘Let’s get home. I don’t suppose you found the man you wanted but it’s not worth all this worrying.’
‘It will be a bigger worry if those dratted animals have carried any disease to Steven’s place. I did see the dealer though and he’s agreed to take back the two scraggy wee heifers but he’d only offer for fifteen pounds each.’ He hadn’t meant to tell Hannah about Fred’s dishonesty but he couldn’t keep it to himself. It was going round and round in his head until he thought it was going to burst.
‘So he must have pocketed the cash,’ Eddy’s voice trailed away. He looked defeated. Hannah was speechless. She couldn’t believe even Fred would stoop so low. She reached out a comforting hand to Eddy but at that moment a small lorry came skidding down the incline towards them. The driver couldn’t control it on the slippery surface. It caught the rear end of the van and slewed it around before it continued on its way slithering down the hill. One rear wheel of the van was stuck in a shallow ditch on the opposite side of the road. Hannah and Eddy climbed out to survey the damage. The snow was falling faster now.
‘Such weather for March!’ Hannah muttered, setting her shoulder against the van in an effort to force it back onto the road, but she was too small and her strength too puny to have any effect.
‘You get back in,’ Eddy said, ‘and be ready to drive it off as I lift, and keep it going until you have it under control. I’ll catch you up.’
Hannah obeyed and on the third heave from Eddy the van shot forward, skidding until it was almost facing the way it had come but Hannah managed to get it straightened up and continued driving as slowly she could. She was almost afraid to stop in case the van wouldn’t draw away. She reached the top of the incline and pulled the van to a halt to wait for Eddy, keeping the engine running. Her fingers and toes were so frozen she had little feeling in them in spite of her woollen gloves and thick stockings. It seemed to take a long while for Eddy to manage the few hundred yards but at length he climbed into the van.
‘Let’s get home,’ he gasped and slumped into his seat. His face looked a strange purple colour now but Hannah assumed it was due to the cold wind and the effort of lifting the van. She was truly thankful when they reached the road up to Willowburn. She noticed the milk churns still on the stand at the road end and knew the milk lorry had not managed to get through yet so some of the roads must be even worse than theirs.
It was a relief to drive into the open fronted shed next to the house.
‘Come on Eddy, I expect you’re as ready for a cup of hot tea as I am.’
He opened his eyes and looked at her vacantly. In the dim light of the garage it was difficult to see but she thought his face looked grey and haggard.
‘I can’t let it go, Hannah. I’ve been thinking what to say to him. I have to confront Fred this time, and without Edna listening in. Those two are getting too friendly and too smug. I wouldn’t be surprised if she knows what he’s done and thinks he’s smart but she’ll find out that a man who has no respect for his parents will have none for a wife, if that’s what she’s aiming for. She’ll be as doomed to disillusion with Fred, as I’ve been.
‘Oh Eddy,’ Hannah said softly, ‘I’ve never heard you so cynical before. Don’t think about Fred now. You look shattered to bits. Money isn’t everything. Come inside and get something hot inside you then you can decide what to do.
Fred and Edna were already sitting at the kitchen table, their dirty dinner dishes strewn around them. They were drinking tea and they had eaten almost the whole of the cake which Hannah had baked early that morning. Fred eyed his father with sullen defiance. The sight of them sitting there so warm and comfortable seemed to light a torch in Eddy Caraford. He looked at Edna.
‘Get out to the byre and do the work you’re paid to do. Now!’
The land girl stared at him in amazement. He was always so polite and gentlemanly. She opened her mouth to protest, closed it again, glanced at Fred and shrugged as she made for the door. Hannah busied herself shoving the soup pan onto the hob and making fresh tea but her heart was pounding. She had never seen Eddy so angry or upset. Fred didn’t care for his father’s expression either. He stood up.
‘Stay where you are!’ Eddy ordered, ‘I never thought I’d have a son who is a cheat and a liar. I expect you thought you were clever to send Steven the cheapest rubbish you could buy. It was a dirty selfish trick.’
‘It’s as much as he deserves.’
‘Shut up and listen to me for once. You’re jealous and spiteful and you’ve never had any reason to be. Today I discovered that my own son is a thief and I can’t forgive that.’
‘What d’ye mean by that?’ Fred demanded belligerently but Hannah saw the wary look in his eyes.
‘I mean the cash you pocketed and said nothing about, pretending you’d spent it on cattle for Steven.’
‘I did…’
‘You bought a good cow and sold it again for cash. Where’s the money now? I’ll tell you where! You pocketed it. That’s stealing, stealing from your own family.
‘I’ve earned it,’ Fred sneered. ‘Stop your ranting, old man. You know you can’t farm Willowburn without me. You can’t even drive the tractor and -’
‘I can manage without you,’ Eddy snapped. ‘You find yourself a job and see how you like working for a boss and earning your living. You’re the one who should have gone to the army. I see that now. It would have done you good!’ The veins were standing out on his temples as he became more and more agitated.
‘Hush Eddy, sit down and I’ll pour you some tea,’ Hannah said soothingly. She looked at Fred and jerked her head towards the door.
‘You’d better get on with the work until your father calms down,’ she said quietly. Fred scowled at her.
‘I’ll go when I’m ready.’
‘Get out! Get out of my sight!’ Eddy shouted, then before either of them could move he seemed to crumple and crash to the floor. In a flash Hannah was kneeling beside him, her heart pounding. She stroked back the wisps of white hair. When had Eddy gone so white? She saw his mouth working but no sound came and his face looked strangely lopsided.
‘Phone for the doctor, Fred,’ she ordered.
‘He’ll not come out in this weather.’
‘Phone him! You must meet him with the tractor. Tell him… Tell him I-I think your f-father has h-had a stroke.’
***
The next few days were a nightmare to Hannah as she watched over her husband with tender care. She had telephoned the McGuires with a message for Steven, telling him Eddy had suffered a stroke but he was holding his own. Steven longed to visit his parents. Instead he had to struggle with the snowstorms which blocked the roads and isolated him and his fellow smallholders from the rest of the world. He blamed himself for his father’s stroke, but how could he have prevented him from seeing the animals Fred had sent. After all it was their father’s money Fred had wasted.
He longed to tell him the cattle didn’t matter, nothing mattered in comparison to his health and peace of mind. Many of the phone lines were down and he didn’t like pestering the McGuires to use their telephone. He wished he had put his name down for one of his own now instead of penny pinching.
‘No news is good news, laddie,’ Mrs McGuire comforted him.
‘I know but Mother could have talked to me whenever she needed if I’d applied for a phone connection.’
‘Och laddie ye’d never have been in the house to answer it,’ McGuire said. ‘You’ve spent every spare minute shovelling snow.’
This was true. The remaining prisoners of war from one of the local camps were working to clear the main road but the side roads were piled high with drifting snow. All the Schoirhead Loaning smallholdings shared the same side road running from the main road almost to the shore. The milk lorry had been unable to get through to collect their milk. Steven’s holding was the nearest to the main road but it was still a couple of miles away. On the second day of being snowbound they all assembled at Schoirhead and worked together to dig their way through. Then they worked their way back making a track wide enough for a careful driver to get through with his horse and cart. After the next milking, each of the farmers brought their milk across the fields to Steven’s yard, where they helped him load the churns onto his cart. He and Daisy did a valiant job of getting the milk to the main road but the frozen surface was treacherous and exhausting for both horse and man.
Mrs McGuire had telephoned the creamery and arranged for the lorry to collect the milk at the junction with the main road and asked for empty churns to be dropped off ready for the next milking. She contacted the grocer, promising they would give him their ration cards when he next delivered to the farms if he would send some emergency supplies to help them through the week. He met Steven with stocks of bread, flour, oatmeal, lard and various other commodities. The meat ration had been cut to a shillings worth per week in January but the butcher had sent what he could as well as two tins of corned beef to share between them all.
The Loaning wives did their best to repay Steven for getting their milk away. Mrs McGuire made him a large pan of barley broth, the Kerr family sent two fruit pies and the three other wives, whom he barely knew yet, had sent bread and scones, a dozen eggs and a savoury dish which he couldn’t identify but he was hungry enough by evening to eat almost anything.
‘Everybody rallies round to help when there’s trouble and we all like to repay a kindness,’ Mrs McGuire said. ‘Ye’re young but ye’re truly one of us, laddie. At least your Ma doesna need to worry about you going hungry. She telephoned this afternoon but I told her ye were taking our milk to the main road. Your brother had taken his across the fields with his tractor.
‘Did she have any other news?’ he asked eagerly.
‘The doctor hasna been back on account o’ the snow drifts but he told her every day your father survives without having another stroke is a step nearer surviving. He still canna speak clearly though, and he gets agitated when your brother goes into his bedroom.’
Steven nodded. He knew now that Fred had cheated his father out of more than fifty pounds in cash to hide the fact he had bought the cheapest cattle he could find. He knew it was not the loss of the money which would have distressed his father but the disappointment he must feel at being deceived by his own son.
‘I told your Ma you would come round here tonight and telephone her after you finished milking.’
‘Oh thanks, Mrs McGuire,’ Steven said with real gratitude. He felt like hugging her.
‘I thought ye’d be pleased. I took the liberty of asking the telephone people whether you could get a telephone installed. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’
‘Yes it is. What did they say?’
‘You’d have to agree to a party line if you want one soon.’
‘What does that mean?’ Steven asked with a frown.
‘You’d share a line. We’re nearest and we’re the only ones using this one. I’m not sure how it works except you can’t use it when the other party is telephoning. We only use ours for emergencies and a few messages. You’d probably do the same so we dinna mind sharing a line if ye want to go ahead. They’re going to write and explain, and tell us what it will cost.’
Later that evening Steven telephoned his mother but he was conscious that the McGuires could hear his half of the conversation. He sensed how upset his mother was and it didn’t sound as though she was getting much support from Fred or the land girl, Edna. He longed to go to Willowburn to see them but with snow still lying and his animals to tend he knew it would be foolish to risk setting out on his bicycle.
‘Come and have a cup of tea and a biscuit, laddie, and stop fretting,’ Mrs McGuire urged as soon as he put the receiver back on its cradle. ‘Your mother is a capable woman. She’s bound to be anxious but it sounds as though your Pa is holding his own. She’ll not want you worrying.’
***
Steven had always enjoyed writing to Megan and getting her letters, but he hadn’t realised how much he needed her until now. He had been hoping for a letter from her but the postman hadn’t got through to any of the small holdings for the past two days. He sat down with his pad and his Conway Stewart fountain pen. It had been a gift from Megan and her parents on his twenty first birthday and he used it regularly. It was one of his most treasured possessions and he filled it carefully from the ink bottle.
Megan was shocked to learn Mr Caraford had suffered a stroke when the letters belatedly arrived from Steven and her parents. Fred’s trickery was despicable and she gasped when she read Steven’s account of him pocketing the cash. Although he had no respect for his half brother, and he was often ashamed of him, Megan knew Steven was intensely loyal when it came to family so she felt honoured that he trusted her enough to confide in her, but she could tell he was terribly upset about his father.
At times like this Megan wished she had taken a job locally instead of having to stay away at college. She hadn’t minded so much for the first eighteen months when Steven was still in the army but knowing he was upset and on his own made her yearn to be nearer and to offer comfort and help. Then the doubts crept in as they did so often these days. She knew Steven valued her friendship or he wouldn’t write so often or confide in her, but would he ever see her as more than the younger sister of his best friend? She knew he and Sam had confided in each other about many things and sometimes she wondered if Steven saw her as a substitute confidante. He never spoke of the future or of his feelings for her.
Pauline Cameron, one of her college friends, had an elder brother who worked in a bank. He had been transferred to a branch about six miles away and he lived in lodgings so he often came to see Pauline. He had been taking them both out in his car, trying to teach Pauline to drive but she was terrified the car would run away with her. When he asked Megan if she would like to try she seized the opportunity. If she could get her licence she was sure her father would let her borrow his car to drive down to Steven’s when she was at home during the holidays.
Derek lost patience with his sister’s nervousness but to Megan’s surprise he seemed happy to continue taking her for lessons. Pauline was content to sit in the back but as the end of the Easter term drew nearer and examinations loomed she said she needed to stay in and study. It was true she found the work difficult so Megan accepted her decision. She had no qualms when Derek suggested she should continue the lessons on her own. It never occurred to her that he found her attractive. Her only aim was to learn to drive so that she could visit Steven. She was hoping the weather would have improved enough for her to help him with his vegetable garden during her vacation and she looked forward to the two of them working together.
One evening, Derek leaned forward and ran his hand down her leg to her ankle while she was driving. She gasped but she was unable to shrug him off when she was driving.
‘Don’t do that, Derek! We might have an accident.’
‘I couldn’t resist. I’ve noticed what shapely ankles you have,’ he grinned, watching her, waiting for her response. She muttered and stared at the road ahead, her cheeks pink with embarrassment. He laughed. ‘I could almost believe you’re shy but Pauline tells me you had a boyfriend who was in the
army?’
‘Yes, I have, but he’s not in the army now.’ She hoped that had quelled any ideas he might be harbouring for a mild flirtation with her. When he started teaching them to drive, Pauline had confided that he was pleased to fill his spare time with them because he had parted from his long term girlfriend when he got promoted and had to move away. His familiarity made her feel uncomfortable so she was thankful when he reverted to his usual casual friendliness. Derek had a nice car and he was good looking so she assumed he probably had lots of girl friends. She decided she was being conceited if she thought he had any interest in her, other than as his sister’s friend. She assumed the driving lessons were his way of repaying her for helping Pauline, who found the work and the exams such a struggle. The short drives continued when they could be fitted in and Derek behaved impeccably.
At last the exams were over. They were all in high spirits, preparing to go home for the Easter holidays. Megan had packed her case so she would be ready to leave early the following morning. She was surprised when one of the girls brought a message to say Derek was waiting outside in his car to take her for a last driving lesson before the holidays. The weather was still cold and snow lay in shady hollows beneath the hedges but the roads were clear. She grabbed her coat and ran down to the front entrance.
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you, Derek.’
‘You said you wanted to surprise your father with your driving and you’ve been busy with your exams lately so I decided you should have a refresher before you go home.’ He climbed into the passenger seat, indicating she should get behind the wheel. A group of her fellow students were strolling down the road and they waved merrily.
‘I’ll wait for you in the entrance hall in the morning,’ Maryanne called. ‘Don’t be late. We don’t want to miss the train home.’
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