Was the man sitting next to her, driving with careful concentration, going to be a part of that future?
After the war. That was the promise they’d made to each other.
The route to Two Rivers was familiar to Flora now, as familiar as her walk home to Waterloo Street from the tram stop in Camberwell. The straight stretch of road, then a veer left and a turn right over the dry creek bed. A copse of gum trees that had survived clearing and a stone house in the distance behind an orange orchard.
Australia had been at war for more than five years. Frank had been away for nearly four. Thousands of young men had already been sacrificed, nurses had been killed at Bangka, and citizens in Darwin—and in a hundred thousand small towns and cities around the world—had been bombed and killed, too. But change was in the air and people let themselves imagine, for the first time in a long time, that victory was within reach. Every day, the news Flora heard on the radio seemed more positive. The Americans were winning in the Pacific and the Japanese were reeling. In Europe, the Allies were pushing back against Hitler from every direction. But Frank was still fighting. The young men of Mildura she’d heard about when she’d first arrived, who had signed up in higher proportions than boys from any other town in Australia, were dead or injured or abroad. Farmers still needed labour and there were more girls in the Land Army than ever before.
She pulled her head inside the cabin, smoothed back her hair. ‘I can’t wait for a tour of the new block.’
Charles smiled, finally, and she breathed out. ‘I can’t wait to show you. It’s now officially ours.’ He looked at her for a long moment, the implication of the word ours hanging in the air between them. ‘My dear old dad used to say that war is good for business.’ Charles paused, ruminating over what he’d just said and how it sounded. ‘And the terrible truth is that he was right about Two Rivers. Things were tough for us before the war, when the drought hit.’ Charles’s revelation had embarrassed him. She could hear it in the resigned tone in his voice
‘An army marches on its stomach,’ Flora said with a sigh. ‘It’s the same for me. I’ve only had work in the Land Army because of the war. I’ve thought about that more than once.’ She shook off the melancholy. ‘So, the new block. Is it all sultanas?’
He nodded. ‘They delivered a good crop last year so I’m hoping for the same this summer.’ The truck jumped over the ruts in the dusty dirt road and Flora and Charles bounced on the front seat. In three years, the old Dodge had slowly become more rickety but Charles had clearly been investing his earnings in something far more important: a future for his family.
‘There are more grapes than you and I will be able to pick on our own, so I contacted the Manpower Directorate. We have a couple of new Land Army girls coming to help us this season.’
‘Really?’ Flora was immediately delighted at the thought.
‘Is that all right with you?’
‘Of course. But where are we going to put them?’
‘I’ve thought about that. My girls will sleep in their grandmother’s room and the two from the Land Army can have the twin beds in Violet and Daisy’s room. It’s only for a few weeks. Mum says she doesn’t mind. The girls love the idea of top-and-tailing in the double bed, although my mother thinks she might wake up with feet in her face.’
Flora laughed at the idea of it.
‘They have all sorts of things planned for her, including a night of ghost stories, I’m told.’
‘It might lift her mood, do you think? If she’s still recovering, I mean.’
Charles glanced across at her. ‘That was my plan.’
‘I’m sure they’ll be smashing girls. I’ve met so many these past couple of years. They’re all so hardworking and adventurous and brave. They’ll put up with anything you can think of.’
Charles tipped back his hat and grinned. ‘I can vouch for that. I’ve been pretty happy with my Land Army girl.’
Flora laughed and gripped the door handle as Charles turned right off the main road at the sign saying Two Rivers. No more than a hundred feet after the turn, he pulled over to the side of the road and cut the engine. When he turned to Flora, she knew what he wanted because she wanted it, too.
He slid across the front seat and kissed her. Flora didn’t need words. They had shared thousands of them in the eleven months they’d been parted and now she wanted his mouth and his arms around her. He kissed her lips, her cheek, and down her neck to the collar of her uniform. She pressed her palms to his face and met his urgency with a need of her own, tasting and searching.
He finally pulled back, breathing hard, searching her eyes. ‘I wanted to do this at the station. Right in front of everyone.’
‘So did I,’ she replied. ‘So much.’
‘Do you know how much I’ve missed you, Flora?’
She pressed her hands to his chest and cuddled into his neck. He swung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. She had fought her nerves about seeing him again all the way since Flinders Street station very early that morning. She’d been unable to think about anything else other than this moment, about this reunion, about what her time in Two Rivers might bring this year.
She took in every detail of his beloved face. It was now two years since she’d first met him and she tried to find any signs of alteration in his appearance. Perhaps he was greyer, a little more wrinkled about the eyes, but she hoped that was from laughing with his daughters and smiling at her letters. That first time they’d met, when he’d walked into her room and woken her, he’d taken off his hat and given her a passing smile. She’d thought he might have been taciturn. But she’d been so wrong.
She couldn’t help it. She kissed Charles again, throwing her arms around his neck, tasting him, holding on to his strong shoulders, breathing in his scent, finally letting herself imagine that this month at Two Rivers might change everything.
Flora feigned enormous surprise at seeing Violet and Daisy when they raced over to the truck to meet her.
‘Flora!’ Daisy called out as she ran, delight in her expression. Flora’s cheeks were still flushed from kissing Charles and she slapped her hands to them to hide the blush. She looked Daisy over, from bare feet to her white-blonde hair.
‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ Flora said, deadpan.
Daisy jumped on the spot. ‘Yes we have. It’s me! Daisy!’
‘No, you can’t possibly be Daisy. She was only this big when I was here last January.’ Flora held her hand out flat at hip height. ‘You must be an imposter. Or a vagabond.’
Daisy flung her arms around Flora’s waist and giggled into her shirt. It was so good to have these little arms around her again that Flora had to blink away her tears. ‘Hello, Violet.’ Charles’s oldest daughter had hung back a little and Flora wondered if she already thought herself too grown-up for such displays of childhood affection. How old must she be now? Ten years old?
‘Hello, Flora,’ Violet replied. ‘Nan made afternoon tea. Would you like to come inside?’
‘I would love to. The train journey was so long and I had already devoured my Vegemite sandwich a half-hour out of Melbourne.’ Daisy released Flora and entwined their hands as they walked to the back door. Violet waited, walking behind Flora and Daisy. Flora looked to Charles with a questioning glance and he gave her the slightest nod, which she understood to mean that he’d seen Violet’s reluctance. Flora filed it away to discuss later when the girls were asleep.
Later, after Flora had unpacked her things and washed and changed clothes, after a shared supper of meatloaf and vegetables, the family gathered in the sitting room. Flora had missed its comfortable familiarity. Mrs Nettlefold sat on her armchair quietly. She seemed to have shrunk since the previous January. There were hollows in her cheeks where there had previously been the blush of rude good health and country air and, instead of knitting or sewing or darning, she watched the girls with a distracted expression.
Violet and Daisy had set up a game of snakes and ladders a
nd were lying on the rug, rolling their dice and disagreeing with good humour about the precise square that captured the end of a snake’s tail. Charles was reading an Agatha Christie novel.
When Flora stood at the doorway and cleared her throat, four pairs of eyes turned to her.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ she started, suddenly nervous. ‘I know I’ve missed Christmas by a good few weeks but I have some presents for you all.’
The girls’ eyes widened and Daisy shouted, ‘Presents?’
‘Father Christmas accidentally left these for you at my house back in Melbourne,’ Flora said in an exaggerated fashion.
Charles winked at her and played along. ‘How did he get so confused about where the girls live?’
Flora shrugged, gripping the handle of her calico bag with both hands. ‘It’s a mystery to me.’ She reached inside it. ‘This one has … your name on it, Daisy. And, Violet, this one’s for you.’
The girls hopped up from the rug and accepted their gifts with gracious thanks and smiles of excitement. Daisy impatiently ripped at the newspaper in which Flora had wrapped her gift. ‘Blinky Bill! Blinky Bill!’ She hopped on the spot.
Violet was more considered. She unwrapped her gift carefully. Flora sensed that Violet was on the cusp, sitting on the verge of wanting to be a young woman herself, desiring to cast aside childish things, but secretly longing for them at the same time. Flora remembered that her own confusion had set in when her mother had died. Dear Violet, she thought. The world will come to you all too soon. Enjoy these last innocent and golden moments.
‘Seven Little Australians!’ she exclaimed, looking up at Flora with eyes wide and her mouth agape. ‘I’ve borrowed this from the library over and over but I don’t have my very own copy. It’s my all-time favourite ever.’ She sat back on the settee, staring at the cover.
‘Isn’t Father Christmas clever?’ Charles asked.
Mrs Nettlefold sniffed and patted her cheeks with a handkerchief. ‘He certainly is.’ She smiled warmly at Flora, who thought she saw a little spark in the old woman’s eyes.
‘You might want to thank Flora for bringing those gifts all the way from Melbourne,’ Charles added and the girls went to her and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Perhaps next year he won’t get so mixed up and he’ll send them to the right place.’
He and Flora exchanged a look. She had understood what he meant.
‘I have something for you too, Mrs Nettlefold.’
‘You shouldn’t have,’ she said quietly. ‘Flora, really …’
‘It’s not much, I promise.’ Flora walked to her, bent down and pressed her lips to Mrs Nettlefold’s pale cheek. She gave her a small parcel. Mrs Nettlefold held it on her lap and slowly unwrapped the paper. Inside, was a selection of embroidery thread wound around cards, from a lush apple green to a pale pink.
‘They belonged to my mother and somehow got pushed to the back of the linen cupboard in our hallway at home. I know you embroider things so beautifully, and although I can knit, I’m completely hopeless with a needle. I thought you might be able to use them for something.’
‘What a lovely gift,’ Mrs Nettlefold said, running her fingers along the threads, shuffling them to arrange them in gradations of colour.
Any nervousness Flora had felt at anticipating Charles’s mother’s reaction disappeared in the flash of a smile. For a moment, she watched the girls and Mrs Nettlefold examine their presents. The girls began silently reading, their stomachs pressed to the floor and their legs kicked up behind them. Mrs Nettlefold took a single thread and rewound it on its card. They were too distracted to see Flora mouth the word Later to Charles or to see him nod in return. He didn’t return to the pages of his book but leant back on his chair, his head on the headrest, one leg crossed over the other. He and Flora allowed themselves the luxury of staring at one another for as long as they wanted.
Later that night, when the rest of the household was asleep and the moon was high in the sky, Charles knocked on Flora’s door. She had been sitting on the edge of her bed, twisting her fingers around each other in frustrated knots, waiting for him. She opened the door as quietly as she could and he entered wordlessly, immediately reaching for her, wrapping his arms around her, lifting her off her feet and kissing her.
‘I thought you’d never come,’ she whispered, her lips pressed to his cheek.
‘You doubted me?’
‘No, never.’ He lowered her feet to the floor and she took his hand, guiding him to the edge of her bed, where she pushed him to sit down. Despite his reluctance to let go, tugging at the pocket of her trousers, the puff of her sleeve, he released her and gazed at her with loving eyes as she disentangled her fingers from his. She went to her chest of drawers and found something in among the soft rustle of her clothes. ‘Here’s your gift.’
Charles took it, darting his hand to her shirt to hold the fabric and pull her close. When he spread his legs wide, he pulled her into the space he made between his thighs, pressing his face into her breasts. She moved against him, kissing the top of his head and holding his face in her hands. His stubble grazed her palms and made her shiver. In the dark of the night they were operating by touch, not sight.
‘You’re all I want and all I need.’
‘Open it,’ she teased.
‘You haven’t been knitting again, have you?’ He let go of her long enough to rip the paper open.
‘I can always knit you more socks if you want them.’
The rustle of paper stopped. Perhaps his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark for he sat silently, staring at the small sphere in his open hand.
‘Do you like it? It’s from the Atkins family Christmas tree this year. It’s a decoration. I know it’s not much but it’s something that’s hung from our tree at home since I was a little girl. I thought you might like it for your tree. The girls might like it, too.’
She heard him swallow. ‘I don’t want to wait any more. I can’t, Flora.’ He pulled her closer, wrapped his arms around her waist and held tight. There wasn’t an inch between their beating hearts.
‘I’m here now.’
‘But you’ll go.’
‘I made a promise. Until Frank is home safe—’
‘I understand. I do. I know how much your family means to you. I had hoped the war would be over by now, you see?’
‘So did I,’ she said quietly.
‘I don’t just want your Christmas bauble on my tree. I want you here, always.’
‘Charles …’
He pulled Flora into his lap and she dropped her head onto his shoulder. She pressed a hand to his chest to feel his heart beating beneath her fingertips. He stroked her hair as he spoke. ‘I’m not a young bloke any more, Flora. Years seemed to go by so fast until I met you. Now, they go so slow I can hardly bear it.’
‘I’m here now.’
‘Could you love me?’ Charles asked, his voice gruff.
‘You need to ask me that?’ she replied softly, kissing his forehead, his neck, his mouth.
‘I need to hear you say it.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly into his lips. ‘I could and I do.’
She felt for the buttons of his shirt, slipping them through their buttonholes, one by one.
Chapter Thirty-Four
‘Miss Atkins!’
Flora wiped her brow and turned. She was hanging her wet clothes on the drooping clothes line by the chook shed, squeezing wooden pegs onto the thick cotton fabric of her overalls. She peered across the yard.
‘I thought it was you. It’s me! Betty Brower. Don’t you remember? Back in ’43. We met at the Red Cross ball here in Mildura.’ And before Flora could place the face, the young woman who had raced across the yard had whipped off her hat and thrown her arms open wide for a hug.
Flora remembered. Betty, the young woman from Sydney who’d been scared and teary all those years ago. Look at her now. A young woman, strong and confident, wearing her uniform with pride instead of apprehension. ‘My good
ness me. Of course I remember!’
The two women exchanged a warm embrace, then Flora held her at arm’s length. She looked her over. ‘It’s your hair. It used to be longer.’
Betty laughed and took off her hat. ‘People say I look like a boy with hair this short but I don’t care in the slightest. When you can only wash it once a week, who wants to fuss with anything longer than this?’ Betty ruffled a hand over her black locks, perhaps only two inches long all over.
‘It’s perfectly practical. I approve. I’m so pleased to see you here, no matter now long or short your hair is. How are you?’
‘I’m very well, thank you. And all the better for seeing you here. I didn’t want to go back to a place with lots of girls this time. It wouldn’t be the same without my dear friend Gwen. We met here back in ’43 and travelled all over. She’s retired from the Land Army now.’
‘Is she married?’
Betty pulled her lower lip between her teeth. ‘Her fiancé was killed. She was too broken-hearted to go on. She needed to be back home with her family, which I understand. I didn’t want to go back to the Stock’s place without her.’
‘Of course. And what about you? If I recall, you had someone special serving abroad? How is he?’ It had become a habit to connect one who was serving with one who was left behind. Everyone was linked to someone away in the war: brother, sister, husband, fiancé, sweetheart, neighbour, cousin, uncle, mate.
Betty clapped her hands together. ‘I do. Michael Doherty. But he’s no longer just a friend.’
Flora gasped. ‘You mean …?’
The Land Girls Page 30
