by Rachel Malik
A new kind of life and it wasn’t easy. They had to plan and didn’t dare, they wanted to feel at ease but couldn’t risk it and there was no way back. On their last but one night at Starlight, they had raised a big bonfire, Elsie’s idea: all manner of papers from the backs of drawers, her father’s farming magazines, Bert’s letters from the first war and hers, a copy of David Copperfield – won for her reading – a half-dozen cheap romances discovered behind the dresser (Moira’s?). It was a kind of ending. If there had been wires to cut, Elsie would have cut them. If there was ever a time for sabotage, it was then. The Townsends would never have full possession. What Elsie kept of her past and took: her chequebook (never used again), the Smallholder’s Handbook, the uncut Bible, given to her the year before she failed the exam – she couldn’t burn that, any more than she would leave it for Phil and George. These things she took, along with her card and her ration book and her gun, the photograph from the porch and all her clothes and boots stuffed into a navy tin trunk. The trunk was so heavy but she still felt hollow inside.
Elsie, for all her pride, had known she was not a free agent. Weather of course, weather above all, but it didn’t do to forget the man at the bank, the weekly mart, they could all pull her strings. Sometimes the strings were slack, but it didn’t do to forget them. Now, it seemed, they were also subject to the whims of Muriel Parks. Their time here was always going to come to an end; it was hard not to be waiting.
‘It won’t be for a while yet.’ Rene didn’t want Elsie to worry, but she couldn’t make promises – the memory of Ainsley was still too strong.
‘And besides, there are other Muriels, lots of them. They need us.’
‘A row of Muriels.’
They both laughed at that. What a thought, for Muriel seemed to Elsie quite extraordinary, with her purple-and-green plaid scarf and her soft boots. No farmer, no farmer’s wife, come to that, with her tortoiseshell slides and bright red hair.
‘There’ll always be plenty of work. Round here too, if we like it.’
‘Yes.’
They were out together that day, checking the sheep. The neighbouring farm had been losing a lot of lambs to foxes. It seemed to get worse every year. Old Mr Latimer had been out with his gun and his grandson night after night, but with no success. Muriel was on the brink of having all her sheep brought back in, and sure enough in one of Latimer’s fields they found a recent kill. Damson had whined and whimpered.
It was a horrible sight, the little lamb’s legs were still running, a collar of pinky red around its neck. Rene turned away blinking, but over the past couple of months Elsie had also softened. They had bottled some of the weaker ones in the cottage – much to Missy’s annoyance – set them to sleep in a basket beside the stove, wrapped in old scraps of flannel. The lambs made such a funny noise when they sucked at the bottles.
‘Poor little thing.’
They walked on through the soft drizzle and clambered over the ditch that took them back on to the Parkses’ land. Damson stayed close to Rene’s side; his big brown eyes gleamed wet and sad. They were pretty high up now, and from where they stood they could see the lake. Elsie paused, stayed very still for some moments, looking, listening. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of a hawfinch – Rene knew it well by now, it sounded just like scissors cutting through fabric. Across the lake the wind was getting up – the clouds were on the move – and the light was starting to fade.
‘It’s the right time,’ Elsie said.
‘What for? What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to send the foxes away.’
‘Send them away?’
What could she mean?
‘How are you planning to do that?’ Rene asked.
‘An old remedy.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll never believe me if I tell you.’ Elsie smiled briefly but she was serious. ‘You need to stay here and keep hold of Damson. I won’t be long.’
‘But what are you going to do?’
‘Shhhh.’ Elsie was already off up the field, ‘I’ll be back soon.’
So Rene sat down on the grass and waited quietly. She smoked a cigarette and tickled Damson’s ears till his dark eyes filled up with happiness. ‘Silly dog,’ she said, and he whined his approval and lay down in the grass, oddly patient. She listened out for the hawfinch, but he had stopped with his scissors. It started to get colder, the sheep turned darker, the lambs slowed. Rene waited, the dog still and sleepy beside her; she teased out some shreds of wool and plaited them idly, brown and white and brown. Then, from some way away, she thought she heard singing; it sounded far away but she couldn’t be sure, and she couldn’t tell from what direction it came.
‘Elsie?’ her voice called quietly into the dimming.
But there was no reply.
She stood up and looked around but there was no sign of anyone. The song stopped, and after a few minutes began again. It was not quite singing, she thought, more like chanting. An incantation? She felt sleepy then, for all that it was getting chill, and, like Damson, she lay down patiently in the grass, sure that Elsie would soon be back.
There were no more problems with foxes that year. It didn’t go unnoticed. A year passed. A good year, they could approach the coming winter with a little more confidence. They were saving, just – coin and coupons. They called it the Christmas jar, but it was insurance really. Damson lived with them now, not officially their dog, but he had made his choice. Muriel had doted on him, had soaped and rubbed him in her tin bath to bring out the purple in his dark fur. He had never liked that. Now he curled up by Elsie’s chair and tried to slink into their bedroom when no one was looking. A good year. And on Christmas Eve they stayed up late and spiced pears and roasted chestnuts.
If Muriel was resentful about Damson, she said nothing, except that Elsie was a wonder with animals. And sometimes people came up from the village on Saturdays now with limp, furry creatures wrapped in towels, children some of them, or Elsie was asked if she could come and have a look at a cow or a pig or a pony. Slim pickings for the Christmas jar, but she often came back to the cottage with a nice big ham or a round of cheese. ‘I’d rather have the wireless,’ she said, for she missed her old friend terribly and they were trying to save up for another.
Muriel brought them their news now and it wasn’t the same: her voice seemed to echo and vibrate. They missed the bland tones of the man in London, speaking so carefully, so clear.
‘You know, I think she’s lonely,’ Rene said, after one of Muriel’s visits.
Less easy-mannered than Rene, Elsie found Muriel’s presence trying. ‘Why does she come here? She’s so friendly with Josie Rogers and Ivy whatever her name is. But she doesn’t spend half as much time with them as she does here, with us.’
‘She’s the one who calls them friends,’ said Rene. ‘Anyway, I don’t think it’s that. Josie and Ivy are like her, aren’t they?’
‘She doesn’t seem very like them.’ Elsie was in a good mood but she was rarely concessionary. Oh, that red hair.
‘No, I mean they’re on their own too. I know Josie has the land girls, but they’re in the village and she’s not one to mix with people she doesn’t know. No, I think they’re all a bit lost. We’re not like that.’ Rene had maybe run on a little further than she intended.
It was easy to be lonely at a busy table. Elsie knew that.
‘No, we’re not like that.’
‘We have each other.’
‘Yes, we have each other.’ Elsie had caught Rene’s echoes and suddenly she was bold: ‘I’m glad.’
‘I’m glad.’
Elsie made a show of carrying on with the clearing-up. For all that she had spoken first, it wasn’t easy to hear the same words said back.
WE WILL GO FORWARD TOGETHER.
The lake pulled them, as it pulled everyone. In Coniston there was a place that called itself a museum but looked like a shed. On the front door, there was a framed picture of a man in a b
laze of spiky orange sunlight. Under the picture, covered in plastic, was a notice about opening times. They stood by the lapping, slopping shore; the lake was sleeping, waiting, waiting for the war to be over. The patrols, regular as cat’s cradle, only touched the surface, though there was still talk about the German airmen, just boys really, whose bodies had been washed up three days after a spectacular night-time crash.
And there was a disorienting familiarity to be found in some things, the big low skies reminding Elsie of the valley and Starlight. She saw the farm from a distance now, as if she were standing at the bottom of the track that dipped and rose in a ribbon up the hill. Many less painful things were familiar, for they knew the rites and figures of war from elsewhere; here too were the ugly pillboxes, the ration queues, the late-summer lanes suffused with groups of children and later still with the shrill of land girls. Here too, it seemed, women were steady and enduring and men arrived and left with little warning. Muriel told them how the Coniston hedgerows had grown the whole nation’s children strong with rosehips. In the cottage, they ate patriotic ‘perchines’ from Windermere, canned by wild girls rumoured to swim naked in the lake.
On a bright May day in 1945, Rene and Elsie climbed through a wood full of bluebells, in search of High Light Tor. At the top, the views were spectacular, but the wind soon had them huddled in the tor’s shadow. A little while later, a small troop of walkers bobbed over the crest of the hill. Politely, they coughed their presence and settled at a distance. Elderly, practised with their sticks and map; no war was going to stop them, no wind either.
The ramblers were not proprietary – if asked they would have declared that the countryside was for everyone. Nevertheless, they made the two women uncomfortable and they soon stood up, Rene gave up her hard-lit cigarette, and they half nodded a goodbye before returning the way they’d come. As Rene looked back, she glimpsed three small shadow children clambering over the tor – only Mikey grew bigger – still the fear of them falling.
As the two women disappeared from view, a horde of rooks rose, cawing and cackling. Some little time later, one of the ramblers followed Rene and Elsie’s path to the edge and looked over. No sign of the rooks which had spun away, but he did catch sight of the two ladies who had been by the tor. They had reached the trickiest part of the hill some way below. The taller of the two was slightly ahead. She paused, then turned to help her companion, reaching out her hand. The shorter one grasped it, but she must have been a little nervous for she kept hold of it as they continued down the hills. Not an experienced walker, clearly.
‘A gloom of rooks, isn’t it?’ said Rene.
‘A murder, I thought.’
On VE Day, they sneaked off before daybreak to avoid Muriel and spent the day by the lakeside with sandwiches and beer and powdery biscuits. They found a grand place on a little grassy promontory, just outside Coniston, not too close to the excitement. They caught the happy mood and waved and helloed the tour-boat as it came and went, quite a set of calls back and forth, back and forth. Sailboats always looked like a festival. They cheered the boats as they went by – Elsie needed a little encouragement – decorated with streamers and flags. Boys leapt from the pier, knees to chest, shrieking at the dark, cold, cold water. And they cheered them too. The kingfisher, always promised by the tour-boat captain but rarely seen, chose this day to appear. Flitting close by Rene and Elsie, apparently casual, he stabbed at the water and disappeared, reappearing, moments later, with a silver, shiny fish. How they cheered; it would feed them for hours.
Good news at last for Muriel: Mr Parks and her son would soon be on their way home. Muriel was hoping her son would settle in Cuthbert Cottage – it could be a new start for him. As evening approached, Rene and Elsie sat on by the lake, not sure what to do with themselves. They didn’t want to leave, not yet, but the scene was no longer so pleasing. Everything had looked so gay, but there was no one over at the pier now and the flags and bunting were forlorn, just a few boats left on the water, someone singing.
When the lights go on again all over the world
And the boys are home again all over the world
Their own settlement with its remnants of picnic and mackintosh squares also said that the party was over. Earlier they had taken turns to read the detective aloud to each other, Rene had a real gift for it, but now it lay cover up, silent and limp. Elsie was buttoning her cardigan, hunched against the cold.
When the lights go on again all over the world
And the ships will sail again all over the world
So many men were coming home, women too, but there was no going back for Rene and Elsie. Rene tried so hard to look back with Elsie to Starlight, but sometimes the farm melted into mist and there was nothing, nothing behind her at all. Then she felt so heavy, as if her legs were made of lead, and there was no going forward either.
A flurry of letters, two for Rene, one from Manchester – Elsie only found out because Muriel mentioned it and even then she didn’t ask – the other from her brother Leo, from Burma of all places. The ways war takes you, thought Rene. And, you’ll never believe it, Rene, but I’m married, to the prettiest little Burmese girl. Same old Leo: he was planning to settle, there was money to be made, chances to be had. He sent a photo of the wedding with the letter: four rows of brown people and Leo sitting among them, looking thin and sly. She was a very pretty girl, Ruchee, tiny. Were these people her family now?
Rene left Heathwater first: she had to be sure of their next place before Elsie saw it – knew how hard she found leaving. Elsie was left behind to pack up – pain of its own – but Rene reckoned it was better that way.
Cuthbert Cottage
Parks Farm
Heathwater
Dear Rene,
It seems funny writing to you. I don’t think I’ve written to anyone since Bert was in hospital. Well, everything is packed up now and I think I’ve made a good job. I’ll be sad to leave, but as you said, we have to accept that everything is going to be a little topsy-turvy for a while.
Muriel will be sorry to see us go, after everything. Although she’s happy to have her boys home, I think she’s found it all a bit of a shock. She says she’s busier now than she was during the war!
I had a letter from Moira. She sounded as if she was in a bit of a state. I do wonder if she mightn’t be ill. I don’t know how she traced me here – perhaps it was the colonel. I wrote back to her and gave her our new address. I didn’t want to but I felt I had to. I do hope she doesn’t want to visit.
I have been thinking so much about Starlight these past couple of weeks. I know you said that I should not look back and I agree, but at the moment I feel upset by it all over.
Missy had her kittens – only three in the end – on our bed! Two girls and a tom. I chose the tom. His name is Silas. I do not particularly like the name, it was Muriel’s choice. I feel sorry leaving Missy, but she’s too old to move again. I’m not sure she ever forgave us for bringing her here.
The van is arranged now and I will see you next week. I should be with you by the late afternoon.
Elsie
Elsie read the letter back to herself very carefully before she sent it. She always checked the letters she sent. There was still a trace of that girl who had done so well at school, that girl who had written to Bert all those years ago, near the end of another war. Those letters were gone now, burned to ashy nothing in the bonfire. She kept the letters Rene sent to her though, so bold, she thought, so full of news and plans.
At Occanby, Yorkshire, 1947–9
Half an hour from the Harrogate Gaumont by bike, uphill most of the way.
DON’T WASTE BREAD.
Home Farm was much bigger than Starlight, or Parks Farm come to that; there wasn’t the interest of the lakes, they missed that, but everything was fair. That was how they summed up the Laceys. The Laceys were very steady, very correct; you always knew where you were with them. You couldn’t call them slave-drivers, for they slaved themselves first
and foremost. There were cattle here, a small herd of doe-eyed Guernseys for the cheese – Elsie took special care of them – but mainly it was sheep. They had their own sheepdog now, Tomkin. They’d paid a guinea for him as a puppy, but Mr Lacey did most of his training; this included some training of Rene and Elsie, which they had all found difficult. Home Farm was deep-tiring work, as Elsie said, but there was satisfaction in that, and it was steady. The two women settled well enough into their new bungalow cottage. It was situated at the top of a steep hill, reached by a narrow, winding lane. The Guernseys were wary coming down the hill; from behind they seemed to tiptoe on their skitty little hooves, their golden bellies swaying.
And then Leo came to visit. April Showers, He Walked by Night. Since he’d returned from Burma, he’d been on their tails half a dozen times with letters, wheedling, coaxing, pleading. Rene had tried to put him off. He was too curious about Rene and her friend, and how they were placed; she suspected it was money he was after. Yet there was old affection too and she was susceptible. She was nervous he would ask questions she didn’t want to answer, nervous Elsie wouldn’t know how to handle him; he certainly wouldn’t know how to manage her, shades of George Townsend. She kept putting him off, more and more feebly. In the end she asked Elsie direct.
‘I couldn’t have said no to Moira,’ Elsie said.
And so it was settled.
Thin and left oddly pale by the Burmese sun – ‘God, Rene, the heat was something’ – Leo was otherwise unchanged, quick-tongued, slippery, still conjuring. (Before the war he’d bought an act lock, stock and barrel from an old magician; now he was hoping to start over.) He’d fallen out with his father-in-law. Ruchee and the baby had been left in Manchester with Bertha, just for a little while, till he found his feet. It must be crowded in Judd Street now, with Mikey there too and Ernest. He waited till they were alone before he told Rene about the children. Mikey was a quiet boy, loved the football, City. ‘I should have got a photo’ – Rene felt more doors closing. ‘Cheer up, Rene.’ He hadn’t seen Jessie and Stevie – they were still with Alan’s sister in Ludlow. Jessie was working and Steve (as he was now) was getting excited about doing his National Service training. That was all. Nearly grown. Rene bit her lip and wondered about the children who waited for her at stations and passed by on trains, glimpsed in windows, so small, so who were they? Her eyes burned, and she picked up her cigarettes and went out into the garden to find Elsie.
