Shelter

by Sarah Franklin

  ‘What a turn up, eh?’ Frank picked up the stew fork, poked it into the pot. ‘Our Joyce reckoned she’d had a notion. Slow to catch on, I was. Joyce had got into the habit of giving me extra dinner for the girl, to feed her up, like. I thought she was simply looking out for her. You know Joyce. Wish she’d have told me.’

  ‘Aye, well, wouldn’t want to be caught gossiping, would she? Your Joyce keeps her nose out of other people’s business, and you should be glad.’

  ‘Don’t go telling me you knew and all? Right dozy sod I must be.’

  ‘Didn’t know nothing for sure, like. And she ent never mentioned a fellow, nor a family come to that. Get the sense she’s on her own down here. But that time I told you about, when she and the POW were out there sawing? There was something off about the way she was bent over. I put it down mostly to cack-handedness, tell you the truth. But when I came across her yesterday, I had half an idea what I was looking at, put it that way.’ Amos had told his suspicions to May’s picture, and all, but he wasn’t going to tell Frank that.

  Frank took off his cap and twisted the brim through his fingers. Amos waited. Let him spit it out.

  ‘She’s a solid little worker. The way her and Seppe get down them oaks – hard to teach that, it is.’

  Amos nodded, sniffed again. That was better; you could smell the carrot and onion now, blocking out the napkins.

  ‘I’m not going to kick her out, if that’s what you’re wondering. What do you take me for, Frank Watkins?’

  The relief shook off Frank like dew off a ewe’s fleece. ‘Cheers, Amos. Appreciate that.’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘What’s your Billy going to make of this, then? Always one for the newborn lambs, weren’t him? This is even better’n that!’

  ‘Aye, well, he’d have to know about the girl first.’

  ‘You mean you haven’t told him about Connie being here? You still haven’t written to your Billy?’ Frank came closer and Amos moved to the other side of the pot. ‘Cripes, Amos, the lad’s not out there on his holidays. How long you going to keep this up?’

  ‘I do know it’s not a holiday.’ Fragments of Billy’s letters floated into Amos’s head, gritted any sense of contentment with guilt. ‘What goes on between me and our Billy is up to me and him, nowt to do with anyone else.’

  Amos speared a likely looking chunk of meat. Nice and hot it was now. Bit gristly, but that wasn’t to be helped.

  ‘Was that it? Girl’s got a bed here as long as her do want it, and that babby too.’

  He waved the fork at Frank and plunged it again into the stew pan. ‘Tea’s ready. This baby, he’s Forest-born. And Foresters stay here in the Forest, you know that.’

  Twenty-Four

  CONNIE YAWNED, THEN WINCED. Every morning the same robin trilled her awake from the tree outside her window, which might be all right if it wasn’t usually ten minutes after she’d finally got the baby off. Her breasts were like barrage balloons again, but cement ones, hard and lumpy. The baby had wailed half the night, jerking his head away every time she heaved him on to an aching nipple, his face scrunched up whatever she’d tried to do. Had the milk in them curdled because the baby wouldn’t take it? He was a week old – shouldn’t he know how to do this by now? And shouldn’t she? Honest to God, next time he cried she was going to join in, she was sure of it, and then she’d never stop.

  She sagged against the pillow.

  Mam would know.

  As clearly as if it had happened, she saw Mam on the train down here, her best hat hastily shoved over that ruffled dark hair. She had tried so hard not to think of Mam, but only Mam could help.

  It took a minute to get the tears under control.

  ‘Come on, then.’ Lying around in bed wasn’t helping anything, and however early it was, if the robin was shouting then Amos would be out dealing with the sheep.

  Amos. You’d go a thousand years and never meet someone like Amos. When she thought how he’d pushed that barrow through the shadows of the oaks the night the baby was born, Bess up ahead as if guiding the way and her bundled inside in a pile of blankets, clutching at the baby in case Amos tipped them out. But Amos was silent and steady and got them home without either fuss or jibe, had made no mentioned of it since. Sometimes she wondered if she’d dreamed the whole thing, but there was no way she’d walked home and when she’d held the blanket to her face, it smelled of old wood and sheep’s wool.

  Connie padded downstairs and creaked open the door into the parlour. The blackouts stayed up in here all the time and the room was thick and musty. She fumbled her way to the heavy bureau in the corner and pulled down its slanty top. Right at the back, behind an ancient bottle of God only knows what, she found it – a pencil and a wodge of paper and envelopes. Years of dust swirled up and caught in her throat as she pulled them out, and the noise of her coughing barked back at her in the gloom. Connie shivered and hotfooted it back up the stairs to the still-warm bed where she pulled the pencil and paper to her.

  She hurtled to the end of her letter and stuffed the paper into the envelope before second thoughts crept up on her like those Messerschmitts. No point in reading it back. Her breasts were killing her now, really killing her, and the baby’s grunts had turned into proper squawks. She really ought to give him a name; she knew the looks Amos and Joyce shot her when she called him ‘the babba’ were code for ‘name your child, you useless baggage’, and she didn’t blame them. But she wasn’t going to call him after his own father, nor hers, and she was so wiped out all the time and so close to tears that it just felt too overwhelming.

  Fierce little tyke, the babba was; got to like him for that. Just as well, too, given that he was a boy, not a girl after all, and likely to end up fighting for his life in some foreign country the way this war was going. Connie scooched forward on the bed and got hold of the baby under both armpits, hauling him out of the cot. He stopped screeching for a minute to scowl at her and she stuffed her swollen breast towards his mouth. For once it worked and he chomped down, pain splintering her nipple even as the throbbing eased off a bit. She looked down at him, attached like that, just as the babba lost his grip on her. A jet of milk squirted out and by the time he snuffled back into place her hand was drenched.

  ‘Oh, baby!’ After a few minutes she plonked him back in the cot and got out of bed. On the chair beside her bed, crisp and useless, her dungarees reeked of starch and carbolic where Joyce had pinched them to wash. They should smell like the outside, of sawdust and sweat.

  The baby caught a fist on the wooden slats and yowled, then arched, heels and head on the mattress, his body twisting like he was trying out the jitterbug. What was going on? Was he choking? In the dead of night – and Lord knows she was greeting the dead of night often enough – she knew it was all her fault, that he knew she hadn’t meant to keep him and was punishing her for it. She hadn’t been out of the house yet, let alone made it back up to that church with him to put him there safely and scarper. And lately, tell the truth, she felt like crying (again! What had happened to her?) if she thought of leaving him, just as much as she did if she thought of being stuck here with him forever. Her plan was in tatters and there was nobody, nobody at all, she could talk it through with because they’d all think she was round the bend to want to leave the forest in the first place. Even Seppe, steadfast and understanding, but the gentlest person she knew would turn against her if he knew the plans for survival that went through her head. She was on her own with this one and she was scared something rotten.

  Twenty-Five

  ‘SCALCO! YOU COMING?’

  Seppe’s thumb caught against the scratch of his sleeve as he jumped and his mouth watered tinnily. Where had Gianni sprung from? The camp was usually half-empty on a Sunday these days, the guards laxer and laxer because they knew the prisoners would come ‘home’. Gianni was spending more and more time with his sweetheart, Mary, a good-natured girl whose father owned the pub in the next village. Word in the camp was that Gianni had fallen on his
feet. Nobody was surprised by this and nobody begrudged him it, either. Relationships between campmates and civilians were strongly forbidden, but somehow none of the usual rules – however few they were – ever applied to Gianni, who was simply too charismatic to be bound by these things. Even those guards with relatives in the war, who hated the ‘foreigner’ prisoners and what they stood for with a fervour that matched Fredo’s reverse enmity, were won over. ‘We don’t mean foreigners like you,’ they’d say, opening the gate for him as he squeaked in a shade after curfew. It was a gift.

  Blood dripped down the handle of Seppe’s knife onto the wood no matter how tightly he pressed his thumb into the wad of his sleeve. What a stupid thing to do, and after he’d worked on it for hours, too, as night slipped into beckoning dawn day after day. He’d had to hide it from Fredo. But despite the sick feeling in his stomach at the thought of what Fredo would do if he discovered such evidence of friendship with the enemy, the urge to please Connie pervaded. At least the stain was on the underside of the carving. Connie would never notice, not once it was screwed into place.

  Gianni plonked down next to Seppe. He smelled of pomade – how on earth had he procured that? Would Connie like it if he, Seppe, smelled like this? Seppe frowned at such base thoughts. Connie had a child to care for now. This was the important thing.

  ‘My cara Mary says the Bell has new cider now the apples are coming off the trees. We’re off to see if this apple drink is as good as the inglese claim.’

  The bleeding had stopped. ‘Not me.’ Seppe’s mouth watered at the thought of the fruit. August was the ripest month in England, no question. But now his thumb was staunched, the end was there for the taking. This last carving to finish then he could deliver it. No resting now.

  ‘What? It’s Sunday afternoon. Come with us, play a little football, have a little fun.’ Gianni moved closer, peered. ‘What are you up to this time? Carving a feather?’

  Gianni must be at an odd angle; Seppe turned it so that the latticing was more obvious.

  Gianni peered.

  ‘Oh yes! Now I see; it’s more like a hand than a feather.’

  ‘Eh, idiota!’ Seppe scrabbled on bone-dry earth, thrust a handful of last year’s treefall and the smell of almost-gone summer in front of Gianni. ‘Look, it’s an oak leaf, like these.’

  ‘Well, up to you, my friend. If you’d rather stay here there’s nothing I can do. But you’re crazy; there are enough leaves in this place without you carving wooden ones.’

  ‘You have a good afternoon, OK? Tell me about this cider stuff.’

  Gianni winked. ‘Don’t worry. If it’s good, I’ll be working out how to make it tomorrow.’ He picked up his pace to catch up the others as they neared the far gate.

  Seppe pulled the sandpaper from his pocket and drove it firmly against the carving. Tiny filaments whistled and he swallowed hard.

  Another twenty, twenty-five pushes and the leaf was acorn-smooth. He craned his neck to see the parade ground clock. It was listing again; must have got knocked by the football training, but he wasn’t fixing it today. It was time to get going. He took a deep breath and stood up.

  Seppe pulled his fingers through his hair, shifting from foot to foot as the echo of the door knocker coursed from fingertip to toe. His boots were filthy and his hair stank where it straggled into his eyes. He should have scrubbed his boots, at the very least. It had been too long since he’d been to visit anyone in an actual house; where were his manners?

  ‘What are you doing here?’ The air coming through the crack in the door was dense, domestic, full of memory. Seppe’s voice seized up.

  ‘What you got there, then?’ Amos pushed the door wider, and crouched down. ‘A cot?’

  Amos lifted the end closest to him and the cot creaked. Seppe stiffened, but there was no attendant crack.

  ‘Crikey-oh, lad, there’s some weight to this, isn’t there? Let’s get him inside.’

  All of a sudden the cot looked so big, so polished here in the gloom of the tiny stairwell. Trepidation bittered Seppe’s throat, sludged his thoughts. Would he even be able to get it up the stairs? But Amos was at one end of it already, knuckles swollen around wooden slats, steps creaking as he crabbed his way up, the cot making its steady way behind him like a hearse on a cart. Seppe lifted the other end and heaved up the stairs.

  As soon as Amos backed open the bedroom door, Seppe was cocooned in the smells emanating from it. It was far from the opera of the bark, worlds apart from the guttural notes of Campo 61. It was a lullaby. Seppe blinked it away and looked into the room.

  ‘What’re you doing here?’ Connie was in the bed, covers tucked under her arms. She didn’t sound any different. He craned further, saw only a bed, a rickety closet and a packing crate. No baby. What had happened to the baby?

  ‘If you’ve come to see me rather than prowling the landing, come in, why don’t you?’

  Seppe’s pulse beat in his fingertips, already sore from heaving the cot through the forest. Amos tutted at Connie, moved to the end of the bed and picked up the crate. Seppe edged into the room, lifting the cot in the middle so that it didn’t scrape the floor.

  Amos, crate cradled under one arm, stopped and spoke, apparently into the crate. ‘This is Seppe. Have a looksee at what he’s made for you.’

  Seppe looked again at the crate. In the crate. A fist barrelled out at him and he flinched. Connie laughed from her throne of a bed. He smiled up at her, but she was looking past him, past the baby, towards the door, as if planning an escape.

  ‘He’s not going to get you, not yet, anyway.’

  ‘This is him?’ There was a baby in there. The one he’d helped survive.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Amos placed the crate down on the end of the bed. Connie edged up the pillows, fisting the covers tighter around her.

  ‘Don’t give him to me, he’ll start bawling.’

  Amos eased out the baby as if he were birthing him again, smiling down at him with a gentleness Seppe recognised from that day in the dell. Seppe could barely watch, couldn’t look away.

  ‘Here, take him a minute.’

  Did Amos mean him? Seppe put out his arms, elbows bending to meet the weight of the child. The baby was heavier than he’d have thought; and warm; really warm. He was the epicentre of this new scent, too. The newborn smell radiated milkily as Seppe pulled him against his chest. The baby squirmed into the crook of his arm, curled up against him like the first shoot of a germinating acorn. Seppe gazed down. He was so new, so untainted.

  ‘What in the name of God is that?’ Connie stared at the cot, which Amos had placed where the crate had been. Her voice was shrill, but tears brimmed. Had he upset her? Seppe reached for the comfort of the knife.

  Amos gave Connie another of his looks and stamped off down the stairs. The urge to beg him to stay nearly overwhelmed Seppe. He couldn’t do this alone!

  ‘It’s a – a culla.’ He tensed, and looked at Connie. She met his gaze with a thousand spikes.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A …’ Oh, come on, what had Amos called it? ‘A bed, for the baby. A-a cot.’

  ‘I can see that. What’s it doing here, I mean?’

  She hated it; he’d got it all wrong. He needed to leave.

  But the baby snuffled and squeaked in his arms and he couldn’t move his feet. This wasn’t about Connie.

  ‘It is for him. To say welcome.’ The cot loomed over the foot of the bed, looking much bigger in this cramped room so full of Connie. He’d tried to make it as much like an Italian cradle as possible, like the one that he had been sanding again in preparation for Alessa’s child. But it was a misfire, a palm tree amidst the old-growth.

  ‘The baby’s already got a bed.’ Connie gestured at the crate. ‘Don’t hear him complaining. What would he want with something that posh?’

  ‘I –’ The silence between them stretched, arced, sucked the air from him. The baby shifted in Seppe’s arms, snuggled back down. The mov
ement triggered a new wave of the baby smell, fresh and so hopeful.

  The door opened and Amos slipped back into the room.

  ‘Budge up then, Amos, let me see it.’

  Joyce too. Oh, thank heavens. Seppe’s grasp on the whittling knife eased. Joyce read people the way Frank read trees. The little room full of newborn smelt again of the outside coming in, of bark and mulch, sharp and comforting. He could breathe now.

  ‘This it?’ She bent over, peered at the crib with its four pillars. ‘Them’s Forest of Dean leaves on each of the corners, aren’t they?’

  She looked at Seppe and he nodded, careful not to dislodge the squirming baby. The air came back to his lungs but he still couldn’t meet Connie’s eye.

  ‘Ash, beech, oak and yew. I omitted the softwoods because Frank says they are new, not so much from our Forest.’

  ‘Frank’s right.’ Joyce straightened up and came over to Seppe, right up close. He tensed, ready to jump out of the firing line. She stroked the back of the baby’s head, her fingers cracked and red, smelling of carbolic. ‘This is a real nice bed you do have here, my poppet; you’ll know the names of our leaves before you can walk under them.’ Joyce straightened up and addressed Connie, one hand still on the baby’s head. ‘Proper heirloom, this is; do you well for however many more you go on to have.’

  ‘Heirloom? What does the likes of me want with an heirloom?’ Connie’s voice quavered the tough words and her fingers plucked at the covers. Did she not like it? Seppe scrutinised the cot again for the source of this fear, but could only see what he’d always seen. Joyce and Amos were clustered at it now, lifting bedding from the crate and fussing it into the cot.

  Joyce ran her fingers over each of the carved leaves. Thank goodness he’d spent that extra time with the sandpaper. At Connie’s words, Joyce lifted her head.

  ‘You pack that in, Connie Granger. Bit of gratitude wouldn’t kill you; this much workmanship didn’t get done in a day.’