‘We could carry more stock for a start.’
‘The farm is well-stocked enough as it is.’
‘If I can’t get the lime,’ Charlie said, ‘all my work will have gone for nothing.’
‘You should’ve thought of that before. I never asked you to plough up that field.’
And of course it was true. There was no denying it. But Robert, seeking his mother out in the dairy, took the matter up with her.
‘Why d’you always set your face against everything Charlie wants to do?’
‘We don’t need that extra ground.’
‘Why not let Charlie decide that? He’s the one that does the work. He’s slaved like a black these two or three years, pulling this little farm together, and what thanks does he get from you? ‒ Nothing but jeers and sneers all the time!’
‘I don’t know why you should take Charlie’s side against me.’
‘I don’t want to take sides at all, but I reckon I have to speak my mind. Charlie’s been a good friend to me. When I hurt my back that time it was Charlie who got me walking again and that’s something I don’t forget.’
‘I know what Charlie did for you. I don’t forget it, either.’
‘Don’t you? I ent so sure!’ And then, in a gentler tone, he said: ‘I reckon I’ve been pretty lucky in the step-father you chose for me and I don’t much care for the sharp way you speak to him sometimes nowadays.’
‘It seems to me a very strange thing that a son should take it upon himself to scold his mother in this way!’
Abruptly she turned to face him, and he looked at her with his deep dark gaze, distressed by the hint of tears in her eyes. But he showed no sign of giving way. It was Linn whose feelings had to yield.
‘I suppose you’re in the right of it and I’m in the wrong as usual. It always does seem to work out like that.’ Briskly she resumed her task of cleaning out the separator. ‘Charlie shall have his way,’ she said. ‘Sooner or later he always does.’
In October 1937 Robert had his eighteenth birthday and was old enough to go to the pub.
‘You know my stepson?’ Charlie said to Billy Graves. ‘He’s eighteen today. I’ve brought him in to celebrate.’
‘Teaching him the way he should go?’
‘Yes, that’s right, just a half at a time.’
‘He won’t go far wrong in your company.’
‘I’ll buy you a drink for saying that!’
The pub was busy for a Monday night, because Saturday had been Mingleton Fair Day and now the fair-people, moving on, were encamped for the night on Scampton Green. Many of them were in the bar and Charlie, somewhat carried away, lost a lot of his pocket-money to a man performing the three card trick.
Because of the merry company, and because it was a special occasion, he and Robert remained there until closing-time. By then he had only a shilling left and stopped in front of an old man who had a bunch of coloured balloons, painted with jokes and comical faces, fastened together by their strings.
‘I’ll give you a bob for the lot,’ he said.
‘Right, they’re yours,’ the old man agreed.
Charlie, rather pleased with himself, carried the balloons triumphantly home, a journey not without its dangers, especially when climbing stiles, but with Robert always close behind, only too ready to lend a hand and make matters more complicated. They had even more difficulty getting the tangled bunch of balloons through the low doorway into the cottage and there was a good deal of laughter between them before, with a final fumbling flourish, Charlie presented them to Linn.
‘There you are! Balloons!’ he said.
‘You’re terribly late,’ Linn said.
‘Well, look what I had to carry home!’
‘I was getting quite anxious about you both.’
‘I was getting quite anxious about myself!’
Charlie and Robert exchanged a glance and again the laughter spluttered up.
‘Robert’s no good, he’s drunk,’ Charlie said.
‘And you’re quite sober, I suppose?’
‘Me? I’m as jober as a sudge!’
‘Oh, yes, I can see that!’
‘Here, take your balloons,’ Charlie said.
‘I don’t want your silly balloons!’
‘But I just spent my last bob on them!’
‘More fool you, then!’ Linn exclaimed.
‘Look at this one,’ Charlie said. He pointed to a round smiling face painted in white on a red balloon. ‘Don’t you think it’s like Sam Trigg?’
But Linn refused to look at the balloon. She pushed it aside impatiently.
‘Wasting your money on rubbish!’ she said. ‘Keeping Robert out so late, drinking and smoking until all hours!’
‘He’s got to learn some time, hasn’t he? He’s eighteen today, that makes him a man. And Billy Graves said to me ‒’
‘I don’t want to hear what he said!’
‘H’mm,’ Charlie said, frowning at Robert. ‘The wind’s in the east here and no mistake!’ He gave the bunch of balloons a shake and they bobbed about on their strings. ‘What the hell shall I do with these?’
‘Take ’em to bed with you!’ Robert said.
‘I’ll have to put them in the wash-house.’
‘Shall I come with you and give you a hand?’
‘I’ve got too many hands as it is!’
Charlie bundled his way through the kitchen and out into the wash-house beyond. He removed the wooden lid from the copper and dropped the balloons into it. He did his best to press them down but they only kept bobbing up again, so he put the lid on top of them, leaving it perched at a rakish angle. When he returned to the kitchen, Robert stood on the hearth alone, hands deep in his jacket pockets.
‘Mother’s gone up to bed,’ he said.
‘Best place for her,’ Charlie growled.
‘I don’t think she’s too well pleased with us.’
‘Me, not you,’ Charlie said. ‘She thinks I’m leading you astray.’ He looked at Robert sheepishly. ‘We didn’t have all that much to drink.’
‘We had what we wanted. There’s no harm in that. It’s not every day a chap is eighteen.’
‘I wish I was eighteen again,’ Charlie said. ‘A bachelor chap. No cares in the world.’ He turned to the door and bolted it. ‘I reckon I’d better go up to bed and put matters right while I’ve got the chance.’
‘Goodnight, Charlie.’
‘Goodnight, young Rob. Don’t forget to turn out the lamp.’
Linn was already in bed, lying with her face to the wall, when Charlie went quietly into the bedroom. He got no response when he spoke to her so he blew out the candle and undressed in the dark. Groping his way into bed, he sensed that she was still awake, and at first he lay flat on his back, teased by a stirring in his flesh as his shoulder and arm and part of his thigh met and just touched her warm soft body. After a moment he turned on his side and they lay back to back in utter stillness, a little cold space between them where the air ran down under the bedclothes. Was she pretending? He never knew. His eyes closed and he slid into sleep.
In the morning, at breakfast, he defended himself. Robert had already gone to work. He and Linn were alone at the table.
‘We were nowhere near drunk, neither of us. We were just a bit merry, that’s all. You must’ve seen that often enough, living with Jack all those years.’
‘There’s no need to bring my dad into this.’
‘At least he’d have seen the funny side.’
‘You must have had more than a pint or two if your money’s all gone as you say it has.’
‘That’s another tale altogether. I lost a good bit to a fair-chap who was doing the three card trick.’
‘Does it make it any better that you spent it on gambling and not on drink?’
‘No, nor worse, if it comes to that. My money’s all gone and that’s all-about-it.’
‘And what’ll you do for the rest of the week?’
‘I shall g
rin and bear it,’ Charlie said.
Money was not that important to him. He would certainly not ask his wife for more. When his last cigarette was gone he would just go without, and as for having a drink now and then, he could take it or leave it, there was no problem there. It was easy enough, he told himself, to get through the week without any money.
On the following Friday, however, when Linn had gone down to the village, the vicar’s wife called at Stant, selling poppies for Armistice Day. Charlie had to go indoors and take some money from Linn’s cashbox. He wrote a note on a scrap of paper: IOU 2/-; and put it inside with the three poppies.
Linn, coming home from the village, tired, was cross at finding the note in the box.
‘Since when has an IOU been needed between a husband and wife?’
‘I just wanted to have things straight. It’s your money. I owe it to you. You can stop it out of my wages tonight.’
But Linn, that evening, paid him full, and he looked at her enquiringly.
‘Have you forgotten the sub I’ve had?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I’ve forgotten it.’
‘Seems I’ve been forgiven, then, for coming home merry on Monday night?’ Lounging back in his chair, he put his money into his wallet, looking at her with his slow-spreading smile. ‘That’s good news. I’m relieved about that. I was wondering what I had to do to get back into favour again.’
Linn, with her account-book in front of her, was making an entry on the page. But she was well aware of his gaze and she sent him a bright glimmering glance with just a hint of mockery in it.
‘I’ll tell you what you can do,’ she said. ‘You can get rid of those silly balloons that are bouncing about in my scullery.’
Charlie tilted his head and laughed. Her glance had kindled new warmth in him, and his coolness of the past few days, which had shielded him from her disapproval, melted away like snow in the sun. He rose lazily to his feet and, passing close behind her chair, put out a hand to touch her, letting his fingers lightly rest on the smooth soft skin at the nape of her neck.
‘There is just one other thing,’ she said.
‘Oh, and what’s that?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t go to my cashbox when I happen to be out of the house.’
There was a hard silence between them. Charlie stood looking down at her. Then, at last, he found his voice.
‘I wouldn’t have gone to it today if it hadn’t been that I had no choice.’
‘No, I know. I realize that. I just thought I’d mention it, that’s all.’
She was bent over her accounts again and was dipping her pen into the ink. Charlie went out to the scullery and soon there came a series of bangs as, one by one, he burst the balloons. She did not look up when he came back but spoke to him over her shoulder.
‘I suppose you feel better, doing that?’
‘I’m going down to the Hit and Miss.’
‘It’s getting to be a habit,’ she said. ‘Is your money burning a hole in your pocket?’
Charlie went out without answering her.
Chapter Eleven
1939. A year of world-wide anxiety. The people of England learnt a lot about Europe during the spring and summer that year. Places they had not heard of before now became familiar names and simple maps in the newspapers illustrated their significance.
‘Exactly where is Albania?’ Linn asked.
‘It’s between Yugoslavia and Greece,’ Charlie said. ‘See, it shows you on the map.’
‘And what is this big arrow for?’
‘It’s to show how Italy invaded her.’
‘Italy? Not Germany?’
‘It seems they’re both as bad as each other. They’re carving Europe up between them and helping themselves to what they want.’
‘And one of these days,’ Robert said, ‘we shall be on their chopping-block.’
Linn turned from the small map in the newspaper to the large map in the atlas which Charlie had opened on the table before her. Albania, she saw, was a tiny place and quite a long way from Great Britain. She closed the atlas and set it aside and reached for her basket of needlework. She had learned enough geography for one day.
Out in the yard, later that night, Charlie and Robert stood talking together.
‘Mother thinks the war won’t come. She’s not facing up to reality.’
‘I can hardly believe it myself. I thought we’d dealt with all that but it seems we’ve got it to do again.’
‘It’ll be my turn this time.’
And Charlie, looking at him, was grieved. Robert was now nineteen. Just the age Charlie had been when he had fought in Gallipoli and seen so many comrades die. Was another generation of young men to be swept away like grass into the furnace? Was the whole world to erupt again?
‘I went into town today and put my name down on the Army Reserve.’
‘Shouldn’t you tell your mother that?’
‘Not till I have to,’ Robert said.
At the Hit and Miss these nights there was a great deal of war-talk and the chief pundit was Major Shaw.
‘Hitler ought to be stopped now before he gets any further,’ he said. ‘It’s no good throwing the mastiff a bone when he’s got his eye on your game birds.’
‘You going to tackle him yourself, Major?’ Billy Graves asked, with a wink all round.
‘I should certainly hope to play my part,’ Shaw replied affably.
‘It’s easy enough saying Hitler ought to be stopped,’ said a labourer from Flag Marsh Farm, ‘but just how is it going to be done?’
‘A well-aimed turnip in the right place, that should fix him,’ somebody said.
‘Tie him up to Berenger’s bull.’
‘Get my missus on to him!’
But as that summer passed away, and the newspaper headlines became more stark, and the little maps with their sinister arrows appeared with greater frequency, the general talk began to change; and although there were still plenty of jokes, they now had an underlying grimness, as though they had reached the bedrock of truth. And on Sunday the third of September, the jokes, the rumours, the fears, the ideas, the theories and the prophecies, were overtaken by reality. England and Germany were at war.
Robert was called up immediately. He had to report at the Drill Hall in Baxtry and from there he would go into training at an Army camp in the north of England.
‘But you don’t have to go!’ Linn said. ‘If Mr Madge was to speak for you, you could get exemption, I’m sure you could!’
‘There are plenty of older men there who can do my job until I come back.’
‘Won’t you even ask Mr Madge? Not even for my sake?’
‘Mother, you don’t seem to understand ‒’
‘It’s you that doesn’t understand! I was a nurse in the last war, out in France, in the thick of it! I know better than you what it’s like!’
‘And why did you go as a nurse?’ he asked. ‘You felt you had to, didn’t you? Well, that’s what I feel about going to fight, and nothing you say will change my mind.’
In no time at all he was gone. Linn and Charlie were left alone and her bitterness overflowed on him.
‘If you were in a proper job, Robert would still be here,’ she said. ‘He’d have had to stay to run the farm.’
‘I guessed you were thinking that,’ Charlie said.
‘Of course you guessed! It’s true, that’s why!’
‘Rob would have gone just the same, whether I was here or not.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘I know our Rob.’
‘And I don’t? My own son?’
‘Seems like that by the way you talk.’
Linn’s gaze fell before his. She knew he was only speaking the truth. Nothing would have kept Robert at home.
‘I’m sorry I said those things to you.’
‘That’s all right,’ Charlie said. ‘I know you don’t mean them half the time.’
Linn became resigned in time and wh
en Robert came home on leave, she welcomed him with a smiling face, betraying only a mother’s pride at seeing him in his uniform.
‘How handsome you look! And how smart!’ she said. ‘And how lucky you managed to get your leave just in time for your birthday!’
Robert was twenty that October but looked a lot older than his years. She felt a little shy with him until he changed into old corduroys and gave her a hand in the dairy, and then he was just her son after all, teasing her in his quiet way and looking down at her from his great height.
He still played his boy’s tricks on her: hanging her skimmer up out of reach and putting potatoes into her shoes; but he would never really be a boy to her again. He was now a soldier and she looked at him with new eyes. In his hands, and in the hands of others like him, lay England’s defence against the enemy and, God willing, her deliverance. ‘What do you do in the Signals?’
‘I’m learning to operate radio. Setting up field communication systems and that sort of thing.’
‘Over there, in France,’ she said, ‘in the trenches, eventually?’
Robert and Charlie exchanged a smile.
‘There’ll be no trench-fighting this time, Mother. Everything’s mechanized nowadays. Tanks. Aeroplanes. Long-range guns. It’ll all be quite different this time.’
‘But there’ll still be danger, won’t there?’
‘Not in the Signals,’ Robert said. ‘It’s a cushy number, as they say.’
Linn did not believe him, but she asked no further questions. Instead she talked about the farm and when his forty-eight hours were up she sent him away with butter and eggs and pots of home-made damson jam.
During the first months of the war, rumours abounded in Scampton and the district around, but all were without foundation. No hordes of enemy aeroplanes had come to bomb the towns and cities. No enemy troops had been dropped by parachute out of the sky. Nor had any spies been caught trying to blow up the Mingleton Power Station. The war as yet, in those early days, was being fought a long way off, and only its terrible tragic echoes were heard in quiet English homes when people read their newspapers or listened to their wireless sets.
Still, the war brought changes, nevertheless, and these could be noted everywhere. Sign-posts had been rooted up and place-names removed from railway stations, and many goods trains nowadays carried mysterious humped-up loads covered over with camouflage sheeting. More barges were seen on the river; land-girls arrived to work on the farms; and an aerodrome was being built somewhere outside Chantersfield. Windows were blacked-out everywhere and the nights were lit only by the moon and the stars.
Seedtime and Harvest (The Apple Tree Saga Book 5) Page 19
