Alice's Girls

by Julia Stoneham

  ‘Me and Mr Bayliss what?’ Alice asked, blushing. Georgina was laughing now, unable to control her amusement at Alice’s unconvincing attempt to conceal the obvious facts.

  ‘You and Mr Bayliss were in the forest on the night of the storm! You got as far as the fallen tree and you recognised the bike and you fled! Right?’

  Alice could not deny it. Absurdly embarrassing as it was, she remained in doubt about precisely what Georgina and Christopher had deduced or how they had interpreted what had happened.

  ‘We thought we heard the motor of some sort of vehicle above the noise of the gale,’ Georgina told her. ‘By morning the rain had washed away most of the tyre tracks. We guessed it was the farm truck but couldn’t work out why whoever it was had driven up. Then we twigged that it was someone who recognised my brother’s bike.’

  Alice dusted flour from her hands and sat, facing Georgina across the large circle of rolled pastry.

  ‘It was entirely my fault,’ she sighed. ‘We’d been to the Brewsters’ party and you know what Margery is like where alcohol is concerned. She’d laced the punch with God knows what and we all got a bit … well, mellow! Roger was not as bad as I was, but … Anyway, I got it into my head that he should insist on Christopher coming home for Christmas and, bless his heart, he agreed to drive me up to the cottage to fetch him …’ Georgina was staring, round-eyed. ‘I know, Georgie! It was madness – but actually rather fun at that stage … We had to use the truck, of course, and there was floodwater in the lanes and the forest track was half washed away! We got as far as the fallen tree, decided to walk the last bit and then saw the bike! I knew at once that it was Lionel’s. Your scarf was hanging out of the pannier, so I was certain you were there! Poor Roger … I insisted that we shouldn’t intrude on Christopher’s privacy or some such nonsense and dragged him away! He must have thought I was insane!’ Georgina was looking slightly more serious now.

  ‘You mean … Mr Bayliss didn’t know I was there?’

  ‘No! And he still doesn’t!’ Alice hesitated. ‘You see, I don’t know how Roger stands on moral issues. My own views have been, shall we say, broadened by some of the things you girls have got up to since I’ve been warden – but Roger’s … You have to remember, Georgie, that Queen Victoria was still on the throne when he was born and if you and Christopher … what I mean is … how would he react to the fact that his prospective daughter-in-law was … what do they call it …?’

  ‘Sleeping with his son is what they call it, Alice!’ The warden had suggested to Georgina, some months previously, that she might like to use her Christian name, but the ‘Mrs Todd’ habit, once established, had proved hard to shake and it was only now, perhaps because their relationship seemed to have subtly altered, that ‘Alice’ came easily to her. ‘Yes,’ she continued blithely, ‘we are sleeping together. We are lovers – and we are incredibly happy! I suppose it’s odd, how we took so long to sort ourselves out, but he was rather horrid when I first met him, you know.’

  ‘He was ill, Georgie!’

  ‘Yes, he was ill. But then he got all fragile and clingy and I was such a brute to him!’

  ‘My dear girl, you were never a brute! You couldn’t have been expected to know what was going on in his poor head! He didn’t even know himself!’

  ‘But then there was Fitzie!’ Georgina murmured, guiltily. ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘Squadron Leader Fitzsimmonds was an attractive man who offered you a light-hearted flirtation at a time when that was exactly what you needed.’

  ‘It went a little further than that, Alice!’

  ‘But … not …?’

  ‘No. Not!’ Georgina confirmed. Then she was laughing again.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Alice demanded, half seriously.

  ‘You are! One moment you’re all “modern woman” condoning fornication! Oh, yes you were! And the next you’re sighing with relief because I didn’t misbehave with poor Fitzie … who just got married, by the way! To my flying friend Lucinda! So now they’re off somewhere, looping the loop together. So sweet!’

  ‘Good heavens, Georgie! The way people talk these days! The things they do!’

  ‘It’s the war,’ Georgina said, suddenly serious. ‘It’s driven us all out of our minds.’

  They sat for a while in silence, Georgina picturing the handsome Canadian flier with whom she had come close to having a serious affair, and how she had understood, quite suddenly, one morning when she was ferrying a Mosquito cross-country, from the RAF storage unit at Little Rissington to the airfield at Filton, that it was Christopher Bayliss who mattered most to her, and not only most, but hugely.

  It had been a short flight and the visibility was good. A blustery wind had moderated considerably since she had taken off and she was relaxed and enjoying the unusually stress-free assignment when the image of Neil Fitzsimmonds came into her head. There he was, self-confident and handsome, enviably at ease with the way he was moving through what he described, almost affectionately, as his war. When they had met, nine months previously, and he had been a senior member of her group of fliers and she a new recruit, they had been mutually attracted to one another. He had sought her out, and despite their heavy workloads and constant movement between the various airfields and repair workshops, they had contrived to see a lot of each other. When their feelings had deepened they had planned what Georgina regarded as a voyage of discovery – a week of leave, which was to be spent alone together, in a borrowed cottage on the North Devon coast. However, on that morning flight, as she glimpsed, through broken cloud, the southern Cotswolds and the meanderings of the River Avon, the image of Neil Fitzsimmonds became replaced in her mind by Christopher Bayliss, and she understood suddenly, and without doubt, his overwhelming importance to her.

  ‘Fitzie took it very well,’ Georgina explained to Alice, ‘and quite soon afterwards discovered Lucinda. So all was well. Except that Chris had changed. When I first arrived at the cottage I thought it was going to be a disaster.’

  ‘Well of course he had changed, Georgie! Six months had passed and he had recovered.’

  ‘I know, and I was stupid not to have expected him to be different. It was a bit embarrassing at first, getting to grips with how our relationship had altered … But he was so adorable, Alice!’ She remembered the scene, only weeks previously, when she and Christopher, having found their way through the confusion and near tragedy of the previous year, had comprehended each other and understood what the result of that comprehension was going to be.

  Rose’s footfalls, as she moved about the bedrooms on the floor above them, and the squabbling of the farm jackdaws at the top of the kitchen chimney stack, were the only sounds.

  ‘We’re very happy, Alice,’ Georgina said solemnly, and Alice told her she had always believed they would be and asked whether they had got as far as making any plans for the future.

  ‘Chris has a plan, and of course, I’m included in it now. I can tell you but we are not going to make any announcements to our parents until—’

  ‘Announcements?’ Alice queried. ‘That sounds a bit, well, formal!’

  ‘It’s just until … until things are more definite. Dates and things. Dates of sailings, Alice. Of ships.’ She was watching Alice’s face.

  ‘Ships?’ Alice echoed.

  ‘Yes. To New Zealand.’

  Alice was speechless. Then Georgina was explaining that Christopher, always fascinated by trees, had been studying arboriculture intensively over the past year. ‘He’s completed all the practical stuff and got some sort of diploma which he needed in order to qualify for a job he’s applied for with the New Zealand Forestry Commission.’ She paused, watching Alice’s astonishment. ‘He’s working on his final thesis now and it’s almost finished … We don’t want to tell anyone until everything’s settled …’

  ‘And …’ Alice was hesitant, ‘you’re going with him?’

  ‘Of course I am! I can’t just walk out on the ATA, of course. But as soon
as I can, we’ll just … get married and go!’

  ‘Have you thought … really thought, about leaving everything – everyone – behind? Your parents, Georgie? Christopher’s father?’ She paused, watching Georgina’s face. ‘Oh, dear! That’s what’s at the bottom of all this, isn’t it! This wretched problem between father and son.’ Georgina sighed. After a moment’s silence she admitted that it was true that Christopher now found his relationship with his father impossible and felt the only solution was to get away from it.

  ‘He’s always been a bit weird, apparently, but since Chris was chucked out of the RAF his father can’t even look him in the eye, Alice! You saw what he was like when it happened. It’s no better now. Chris has had enough of being treated as though he was a coward when he was not a coward! Of feeling a failure when he never failed! It’s just … intolerable! His father has virtually driven him away, Alice! Chris loves this place! Post Stone valley is his home! He would probably have taken on the farms when his father wanted him to. But now he says he simply cannot bear to spend the rest of his life facing that look! The accusation, Alice! The reproach! So he’s going. And I’m going with him. Only you must promise not to breathe a word just yet.’

  It was at this point that Rose, having finished sweeping the bedrooms, entered the kitchen.

  ‘All right, Georgina?’ she enquired, curtly.

  ‘Yes, thanks, Mrs Crocker.’

  ‘Well that’s good then, isn’t it?’ Rose continued, making an irritable clatter with dustpan and brush as she returned them to their cupboard. Whether Rose disapproved of Georgina’s recent behaviour, or whether she was miffed because she felt excluded from the latest developments in the story, Alice was unsure. ‘Only, your father was very worried about you, the night of the storm when no one knew where you was,’ Rose continued, shooting a sharp glance at Alice who contrived to avoid it. ‘Very worried indeed, he was, poor gentleman.’

  ‘The track was blocked,’ Georgina said, truthfully, if lamely, ‘by a fallen tree …’ She floundered on, unsure of precisely what Alice had told Rose about the deception of that night.

  ‘A fallen tree, was there?’ Rose muttered, sourly. ‘Well, that’s as maybe, I daresay.’ She had replaced her plimsolls with the rubber boots she wore in the yard and was moving towards the kitchen door. ‘I’d best go see if them ’ens ’as got round to layin’ again. Proper tardy they be, lately …’ Her voice trailed into silence and she closed the yard door, more firmly than was necessary, behind her.

  Chapter Two

  It was a Friday night. Edward John Todd normally left his weekly boarding school early enough to catch the four o’clock bus from Exeter to Ledburton village where, although it meant making a slight detour, Mr Jack, his lorry laden with tired, muddy land girls, would pick him up and deliver him to his mother, where he would spend the weekend with her at the farm. Today there had been a telephone call from the school matron. Several of the small boys who shared a dormitory with Edward John had developed chickenpox. Although he was not one of them, the matron, who knew about the girls in Alice’s care, suggested that until it was certain that Edward John was not infected it might be sensible for him to remain at the school. Alice had agreed.

  ‘Has anyone ever had chickenpox?’ she asked her girls as they devoured the steak and kidney pie – which, because the butcher had been able to supply only a very small piece of stringy meat and one kidney, consisted mainly of onion, swede and carrot.

  ‘I have,’ Gwennan murmured with her mouth full. ‘You gets spots.’

  ‘And you itch,’ Winnie told them. ‘I ’ad it when I was a nipper. You did too, Marion.’ The two of them had known each other for as long as they could remember, living next-door- but-one in the same grimy street.

  ‘I never!’

  ‘You did too! And your brother Herbert.’

  ‘That were mumps!’

  ‘Mumps too! We all ’ad everything, we did! Mumps, measles, croup and the chickenpox!’

  At ten o’clock Alice, assuming that all of the girls who had gone out that evening had returned together, was surprised, when she went to lock the outer door, to find a latecomer hurrying up the path.

  ‘You only just made it, Evie!’ she laughed. ‘I thought you came in with the others!’ Evie seemed disconcerted and apologised, stammering out some complicated explanation for her separation from the other land girls until Alice interrupted her, assuring her, as she turned the lock in the door, that there was no harm done. She had called goodnight as the girl went quickly up the stairs, after which she thought no more about it, made herself a cup of cocoa and carried it through the quiet recreation room and into the bed-sitting room which, when he was home from boarding school, she shared with her son. Alice’s room was on the ground floor of the farmhouse and ran the width of the squat, old building. There was a window at each end of it and a small fireplace broke one wall, its breast intruding into the oddly shaped space and suggesting two areas. A pair of threadbare armchairs faced the fireplace and there were divan beds, disguised with rugs and cushions, under each of the windows. Usually, at this time on a Friday night, Edward John would be in his bed, often still reading, sometimes already asleep. Alice had grown to accept his absence from Sunday evenings until late Friday afternoons, but treasured the two nights in each seven when he was with her. Tonight his absence depressed her.

  Although the room was still warm, her fire was almost out. It would have rekindled easily enough if she had thrown a handful of twigs onto the embers, but she did not and sat, sipping the cocoa. She wondered why she was missing Edward John so keenly and realised suddenly that this was not what was lowering her spirits. The ramifications of the news Georgina had confided were, she realised, more serious and more complex than she had at first thought and, worryingly, indirectly involved Alice herself.

  It was not simply that Georgina had sworn her to secrecy but that Christopher’s plan to emigrate was the direct result of his father’s treatment of him, which, although the father might not realise it, was about to drive the son from his home as surely as if he had been banished from it. It was possible, too, that Georgina’s assumption of the basic qualities of care and sympathy which Roger Bayliss had failed to deliver at the time of his son’s breakdown, had made Christopher more aware of that failure than he might otherwise have been. His girl had provided concern and support when his father had failed to do so. As a result, Christopher had cast Georgina in a role that had been at odds with a more conventional boy-girl relationship. This had proved too challenging for her and she had, for a while at least, withdrawn from it. Eventually, with Christopher recovered and Georgina recognising the strength of her feelings for him, they had rediscovered each other. Alice’s concern now was for Roger Bayliss who, if he could not be persuaded to address the difficulty between himself and his son, was going to lose him, possibly for ever. Yet Alice’s promise to Georgina made it impossible for her to warn Roger of Christopher’s decision or to disclose the reason for it.

  As she sat, her cup of cocoa growing cold between her palms, turning the problem over and over in her mind and finding no solution to it, the rain began. There was no wind behind it. It fell in a steady and increasingly noisy torrent. Its impact on the farmhouse itself was muffled by the thatch, but it hammered, deafeningly, on the iron roof of the lean-to where logs for the fires were stored. Downpipes spluttered and water barrels overflowed, flooding the patch of sodden grass between the porch and the low wall which separated it from the lane.

  As dawn broke behind a leaden sky, and the girls, whose waterproofs would be no match for this downpour, ran, heads bowed, out to the truck that would take them up to the higher farm, Alice could see that the whole of the floor of Post Stone valley, barely visible through the solid wall of rain, was already inundated by a sheen of shallow water.

  Rose, stumbling under her warped umbrella, crossed the flooded yard, the puddles almost overtopping her rubber boots, and announced that she’d never seen such rain.


  ‘And it’ll not stop, Alice, not with cloud like that it won’t! And no wind to shift it! You mark my words!’ And she was right.

  Mostly, the Post Stone girls laboured as a team, working in uneven lines, hoeing their way down the long rows of brassicas, lifting the potato crop, filling hessian bags with sprouts, turning the hay, or stooking the barley and the oats at harvest time. Sometimes, when the work required it, the girls would be split up into smaller groups of four, three or even two. When it was two, Marion and Winnie usually contrived to work together on whatever task was assigned to them, and so it was, that on the first day of the flooding, the pair of them were in one of the lower meadows where the ewes were huddled miserably, their fleeces, despite their resistance to water, already heavy with it.

  Marion and Winnie had been instructed to open the small gate that gave onto a field where the land rose steeply towards the area of the Post Stone farms known as ‘The Tops’ – where the sheep would be safe from the rising water levels in the lower meadows – to drive them through the gate and fasten it behind them.

  The girls, rain running off their waterproof coats and dripping from the wide brims of felt hats – which, dusty, warped and dating from the First World War, they had bought for sixpence each from an army surplus store in Exeter – could barely see through the downpour. Their rubber-booted feet slithered dangerously on the muddy riverbank.

  ‘Watch out, Win!’ Marion shouted above the roar of the flooded stream as Winnie struggled to keep her balance. ‘Don’t think I’m comin’ after you if you fall in!’ In fact, if either Winnie or Marion ever did need rescuing, then Marion or Winnie would instantly have volunteered. Closer than many sisters, the two girls had grown up together, walking to school along the bleak streets of the north-country suburb in which they, like their parents, had been born and bred and where, had it not been for the outbreak of Second World War, they would probably have seen out their days: working in a nearby factory, marrying a local likely – or possibly unlikely – lad and raising a clutch of undernourished and undereducated kids whose fate would have been similar to their own. But these two small girls had soon grown to be different from their peers. Whether it was the effect of one upon the other, or whether each possessed similar characteristics which would have emerged independently, no one would ever know, but the fact was that these children both began, at an early age, to develop a strong sense of ambition. They had aspirations. There were things for which, even when they were very young, they longed.