Christmas at Emmerdale

by Pamela Bell

  ‘He must be finishing his training soon, too?’

  ‘I think so.’ She hesitated. ‘I don’t know if he will come home before he goes to the front or not. He did mention embarkation leave a few months ago, but I haven’t heard anything since.’

  ‘So it’s just you and Frank Pickles?’ Mrs Haywood looked concerned when the other woman nodded. ‘You must be so tired, Maggie, my dear. I wish you would think again about employing some more help.’

  ‘No one will come and work at Emmerdale farm,’ the woman called Maggie said. ‘Ava Bainbridge has seen to that.’

  ‘You mustn’t pay too much attention to Ava.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she said briefly, ‘but other people do.’

  ‘Why don’t you think again about the possibility I mentioned to you before?’

  Maggie stiffened with hostility. ‘The conchie?’

  ‘Hugo is a Quaker,’ Mrs Haywood corrected gently. ‘His conscience won’t permit him to fight but he is very willing to help the war effort in other ways. He is an acquaintance of friends of mine in York. I don’t know his story but I gather that he would like to get away from the city. He would be a strong man, Maggie. You could put him to good use.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Haywood, but Frank and I are managing all right for now.’

  Levi felt sorry for the unknown Hugo. A strong man who wouldn’t fight? He wouldn’t receive a welcome in Beckindale, that was for sure.

  Edging round the crowd, he passed Ava Bainbridge, the landlady of the Woolpack, who had given him the white feather. She was wearing a ridiculous hat, a monstrosity of which she was clearly very proud, and Levi was delighted to see her register that one of her neighbours was coming towards her sporting exactly the same model. They stared at each other in outrage, like a couple of cats, arching their backs and hissing and spitting.

  ‘Where did you get that hat, Mary Ann?’ Ava asked with awful dignity.

  ‘In Ilkley, same as you did, I don’t doubt. You’re not the only one allowed to buy yourself a new hat, Ava.’

  Glad that someone was standing up to the poisonous Ava, Levi sidled onwards. Beckindale had shut him firmly out, but eavesdropping on all these conversations was teaching him a lot about the community that was to be his home, whatever they thought.

  A weeping woman was being comforted by a friend. ‘You shouldn’t have come, Betty. It’s too soon after losing your Alfred.’

  Betty dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled handkerchief. ‘I just wanted to show my support. I complained about the training camp, I know, but look at them. They’re just boys, and they’re going out to fight them blasted Germans, just like Alfred did.’

  Children ran excitably through the crowd, weaving between legs and skirts. ‘Iris Bainbridge, come here at once!’ Levi heard Ava shriek as a little girl darted giggling across the street in pursuit of a boy. ‘Iris!’ she called again, but the child ignored her. Pursing her lips, Ava turned to a sulky looking girl beside her. ‘Sarah, go and get her.’

  ‘Get her yourself,’ said Sarah.

  The women beside Levi, who were also listening to the exchange, sucked in their breath audibly. ‘Ava’s got no control over those children, Janet,’ one of them said.

  ‘Stepchildren,’ Janet corrected. ‘It’s not the same.’

  ‘I see why Percy married again – he can’t look after t’pub and three children – but he’d have been better off with Lizzy Clark, don’t you reckon? Ava doesn’t know owt about being a mother.’

  Janet sniffed. ‘Too busy being queen bee of Beckindale.’

  ‘Oh, Ava’s all right,’ her friend said comfortably. ‘She just likes to know what’s going on.’

  ‘What’s with her and Maggie Sugden anyroads, Joan? I know Maggie’s a bit hoity-toity like, but Ava hates her.’

  ‘I can’t believe you don’t know that!’ The other woman leant closer. ‘Ava had her eye on Maggie’s brother at one point.’

  ‘Andrew Oldroyd? Died of diphtheria?’

  ‘Pneumonia, I think it was. Anyway, Ava asked Maggie if she would put a good word in for her, like. Fancied herself up at High Moor. And Maggie said no, Andrew would rather dig out his liver with a spoon than get involved with a sly spiteful madam like Ava. Or words to that effect.’

  ‘Ava wouldn’t have liked that.’

  ‘She didn’t.’

  Levi was beginning to feel quite kindly towards Maggie, who was presumably the same Maggie who refused to have a conscientious objector working on her farm.

  The crowd stirred at the stamp of boots as the troops fell in. Levi heard the vicar’s booming voice – ‘They’re off!’ – and slipped back to stand behind Rose who was waving her flag while people started cheering and whistling.

  She was tense, Levi could tell. Doubtless still looking for Mick. Craning his neck to look past her, he saw his brothers at last. There was Nat, and there, next to him was Mick, cock of the walk as always.

  Rose had seen him too. He knew because her shoulders relaxed and she started waving her flag with extra fervour.

  Mick had spotted her too. His face lit up and he grinned back and blew her a kiss.

  The vicar bristled. ‘Damned cheek! Sorry, my dear,’ he added as his wife raised her brows at his swearing. ‘But how dare he!’

  ‘I don’t think he was blowing you a kiss, dear.’ Levi was sure he picked up a sardonic note in Mrs Haywood’s voice and he looked at her with interest. She seemed so meek and mild-mannered, but perhaps there was more to her than appeared.

  ‘I’m aware of that, Edith.’ The vicar was plainly in a very bad mood. ‘He was blowing Rose a kiss, and I was objecting to that. The insolence of it! Treating my daughter as if she were one of his …’ Feeling his wife’s eye on him, Charles Haywood broke off with a harrumph. ‘These fellows are getting above themselves. Blowing kisses at young ladies! I’d like to see him horsewhipped.’

  ‘Oh, Papa,’ said Rose. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’

  But when she turned her head to watch the troops march out of sight, Levi knew with a vicious twist of envy that she was lying. Of course Mick’s casually blown kiss had meant something to her. It had meant everything, as the vicar would have understood if he’d been able to see his daughter’s expression as Levi could see it.

  One day, he swore, Rose would look at him like that.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  No sooner had the battalion marched out than another moved into the training camp and the cycle started again. The war had become almost commonplace, Maggie began to think. She was getting used to long columns of men in khaki tramping along the lane or climbing over her walls, to the sound of bugles and rifle shots and barked commands from the camp.

  The notices in the newsagent’s window were full of events in strange sounding places far, far from Beckindale, not just in France and Flanders but further east: Constantinople, the Dardanelles, Gallipoli. Next to the notices was pinned a list of the most recent casualties, some of them appallingly long. When Ralph had marched out, the war had seemed a matter of honour and of glory. Now Maggie wondered if anyone remembered what they were fighting for.

  Then came news of the Zeppelin raids on London and the war seemed commonplace no longer. Maggie had never been to London or seen an airship, but she could imagine how terrifying it must be. She looked up at the blue spring sky and pictured an unearthly machine floating overhead, like something from another world. She thought about what it would be like if it rained fire on the farmyard, exploding the stable and the byre, reducing the farmhouse to rubble, killing the cows and the hens and Fly. Killing her.

  Every time Maggie thought she was getting used to the war, there was a new horror. Walking down to the village to buy soap one day in May, she saw a cluster of people around the notice board. That was never a good sign.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked Mary Ann Teale, who let her through.

  ‘Read it for yourself.’

  ‘Them blasted Germans!’ Janet Airey was saying, her voice shaking
in outrage. ‘They’re savages, they are. A thousand killed! A thousand! Women and children!’

  Polly Warcup had a hand over her mouth and her eyes were full of tears. ‘Oh, those poor children. Babies too. I can’t bear to think of it!’

  Maggie’s mouth tightened as she read the notice for herself. The Lusitania, sailing from New York to Liverpool, had been sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland and more than half of the two thousand people on board had perished, including many women and children. She walked back up the track thinking of how terrified they must have been as they thrashed in terror and the cold, dark Atlantic closed over their heads.

  So many young people had left Beckindale already to help fight the enemy one way or the other: Dot, George, even Joe. Should she join them? There was no reason for her to stay at Emmerdale Farm now. Ralph was dead.

  She had no one to wait for, no one to miss her if she left.

  But still the animals had to be fed and the land tended. She couldn’t abandon them. Wasn’t she doing as much for the war effort running the farm as she would working in a factory? Maggie put down her basket to struggle with the gate that Joe had never fixed. Her fight against the Germans would be here, helping to feed the country.

  It was a struggle with just Frank to help her, though. There were times when Maggie was so tired at the end of the day that she thought about going back to Edith Haywood and asking again about the Quaker. But Ralph had given his life to the war. How could she contemplate working with someone who refused to fight as Ralph had done?

  There had been no word from Joe for weeks. Maggie had sent the occasional brief letter to tell him what she and Frank had been doing but it was so long since she had a reply that she stopped writing and began to hope that he had abandoned interest in the farm altogether. He had said that he hated being a farmer. Maggie would be happy if he stayed a soldier, if that was what he wanted. After what Joe had done to Toby, she would be glad never to see him again. Let him go away and start a new life after the war. That would be fine by her. They wouldn’t need to go to the trouble of a divorce. It was not as if she would ever want to marry anyone else. Her capacity for love had died with Ralph.

  It was a warm evening in May when Maggie wished Frank goodnight and watched him walk across to his room over the stable while she pumped five big buckets of water from the well. It had been a long day and she was tired, but she had promised herself a bath.

  Together she and Frank had shovelled all the muck from the privy and the farmyard manure onto a sledge before harnessing it to Blossom. The horse had dragged it up to the fields where the cows had been enjoying the young grass and they had spread the muck out as a fertiliser. It wasn’t the nicest of jobs, but it had to be done and it would be worth it when the grass grew long and sweet for hay to see the stock through the winter.

  They both stank afterwards. Frank had stripped down to his trousers and washed under the pump before milking the cows while Maggie cleaned the muck from her face and hands and exchanged her filthy work trousers for a cool skirt. Tying on an apron, she had put together a supper of cold beef and bread with a slice of plum pie.

  She couldn’t wait to sink into that bath and scrub away the stench.

  The evening light slanted over the fells and touched the dry-stone walls with gold as she filled the buckets. While she pumped, she watched the swallows swooping in and out of their nests under the eaves. It felt good to know that the animals were all fed and safe. Even Fly had curled up in her bed in the barn, while Frank, she guessed, would be asleep already. She had the farmhouse to herself and the prospect of a bath to ease her aching muscles.

  After labouring backwards and forwards with the water for the tin tub, she heated a kettle on the stove and poured that into the tub. It would be worth the effort, she told herself. And it was. She lowered herself into the tub with a long exhale of pleasure as she slipped into the warm, clean water.

  Soaping herself all over, Maggie luxuriated in the feeling of self-indulgence. It had been so long since she had made the time to have a bath instead of scrub in the bowl with a jugful of warm water.

  She had left the door open to let the evening light flood into the kitchen. It striped the flagstones and slanted across the tub where she lay. Closing her eyes against the golden dazzle of it, she tipped her head back against the rim. Don’t think about anything, she told herself. Don’t spoil the moment. Don’t remember Ralph now.

  But it was no good. He was there in her mind, impossible to dislodge. Ralph smiling at her. Ralph holding out his hand to help her jump down from a rock. Ralph pulling her towards him, sliding his hands through her hair, bending to kiss her.

  Ralph blown to bits.

  Ralph dead.

  Ralph gone.

  Grief twisted cruelly inside her. During the day she could forget him but as soon as she was alone like this, the longing for him rolled over her. Maggie pressed her fingers against her eyelids, but still the tears leaked out.

  There was no point in crying. It wouldn’t change anything. Fly was barking, at a fox perhaps, and the water was cooling. She should get out, but she couldn’t summon the energy to move.

  ‘Hullo, Maggie.’

  Maggie’s eyes flew open and she sat up with a gasp of fright, making a grab for the towel she had laid ready on the chair nearby.

  A dark figure was silhouetted against the light in the kitchen door but she recognised the voice.

  ‘Joe!’ Maggie’s heart was hammering in her throat. The towel had slipped from her fingers onto the floor and she groped for it desperately while covering her breasts with one arm. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘It’s my farm, in’t it?’

  Joe stepped into the kitchen. He was leaner than she remembered, now that she could see him properly and the khaki uniform made him look bigger. Meaner.

  ‘I thought you were training in Hull,’ she said. Where was that towel? She was horribly exposed like this and her fingers felt thick and clumsy as she felt for the towel.

  ‘Got embarkation leave, haven’t I? Thought I’d come back and say goodbye to my wife.’

  ‘I wish you’d let me know you were coming.’

  His face darkened. ‘I don’t have to ask permission to come to my own home.’

  ‘No, but I could have got a meal ready for you.’

  Maggie spoke as evenly as she could but she was scared. He was looking at her in a way that made her skin crawl, and something unpleasant was shifting behind his eyes.

  ‘Give me a minute and I’ll get dressed,’ she said as casually as she could.

  Joe moved forward without taking his eyes off her. ‘No hurry,’ he smirked. ‘Don’t be shy. I’m your husband, remember?’

  ‘It’s been six months. We’re more like strangers now.’ Maggie set her teeth and lifted her chin. ‘I’d be obliged if you would look away.’

  ‘You’d be obliged!’ he mocked her. ‘You haven’t changed. Still Lady Muck, looking down your nose at me. I’ve been away training to fight for t’country, and the least I deserve is a decent welcome home by my wife,’ he said, kicking the towel out of her reach.

  ‘You forfeited any welcome when you killed Toby,’ said Maggie.

  There was nothing for it but to get up, naked as she was. She couldn’t sit in the tub all night. Forcing herself not to flinch as he leered at her body, she reached calmly for the towel but he flicked it away once more.

  ‘Don’t bother to get dressed. It’s a long time since I’ve had a woman.’

  Maggie’s eyes snapped, anger vying with fear. ‘You’re not having one tonight,’ she told him and looked around for something – anything – to cover herself.

  ‘You don’t get to say no.’

  ‘I do,’ she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. ‘I say no.’

  ‘You’re my wife,’ he reminded her. ‘You promised to obey me and I’m telling you to come here.’

  He was like a bull with a lowered head, practically pawing the ground, his
eyes hot and dangerous. Maggie’s pulse was pounding in her head, her heart jerking with horror. She had let herself forget about Joe. What a fool she had been!

  Could she reason with him? ‘Let … let me get you something to eat first,’ she managed but Joe shook his head. He had stripped off his jacket and was fumbling at his shirt, at his fly.

  ‘I want you down on your knees,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘It’s the least you owe me.’ He ran a tongue over his lips and Maggie shuddered in disgust.

  She stood, naked, her eyes flickering frantically around the room as she considered her options. She could scream, and Frank might hear, but what if he tried to help her? Joe was capable of killing the boy when he was in a rage. And what if Frank let Fly out? Fly would come to protect her, Maggie knew. She couldn’t bear to lose another dog to Joe. At least in the barn, Fly was safe.

  She could run for it instead, but where could she go with no clothes? The last few months had made her strong and fast, but Joe had been in training too. He would be stronger, faster. He would catch her.

  What if she could hide? The parlour? Perhaps she could pull something in front of the door or find something to defend herself with. Her eyes flickered to the kitchen knives but sensing what she was planning, Joe shifted around the table. He was stalking her the way he would try and catch a pig.

  Making a split decision, Maggie feinted left and then ran for the kitchen door, but Joe was even quicker than she had thought. She was barely at the door before he had grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her round, bringing her naked body against the rough khaki of trousers where he was hard against his fly.

  ‘Let me go!’ she spat and beat at him with her free hand but Joe’s blood was up, and he fetched her a backhanded blow that sent her sprawling on the flagstones.

  ‘By God, I should have done this a long time ago,’ he muttered, pinning her down with his knees while he unfastened his fly.

  ‘No! No!’ Maggie bucked desperately against the weight of him. She beat and clawed at him, but he batted her hands away. He was panting and his eyes were glazed. Struggling was only making him more excited but she couldn’t stop herself.