When the wind was in the right direction, the church bells at Hinton Half Moon could be heard at Hallows Farm. The hamlet was no more than a straggle of stone cottages, one of which had been converted into a small sub-post office. It offered little in the way of provisions: Bird’s custard, Horlicks, Bovril, a few pads of Basildon Bond, soggy from their long shelf-life. These basic provisions were sometimes enhanced by a few luxuries which appeared according to the mood of Mrs Tyler, who ran the shop. On a good day, she would be up early, baking, and set a few brown loaves on a sheet of greaseproof paper in the cloudy front window. The smell of baking would hail the neighbours at dawn. A queue of some half-dozen buyers would hurry to the door at eight thirty, official opening time. Mrs Tyler, a law unto herself, as she was so fond of saying, would wave a plump hand urging patience. Not until eight thirty-five, or even eight forty, would she at last turn the rusty key very slowly, and let the eager buyers in. There were never enough loaves. There was always an argument, disappointed voices. It was known that Mrs Tyler enjoyed these small dramas played out in her shop once or twice a week: it was her measure of power in an uneventful life.
From time to time, Mrs Tyler’s annoying ways so incensed the other members of the community that they vowed to boycott her wares. But this plan never worked for more than a day or two. They needed stamps, their pensions, they needed to add a few shillings to their savings accounts. And once in the shop they would be tempted by a surprising cauliflower or cabbage, a punnet of tomatoes or Russet apples from the Tyler garden. These were put out, they knew, by way of a bait. The ploy succeeded. Despite their good intentions, the inhabitants of all the eleven cottages that made up Hinton Half Moon found themselves sneaking back into the post office, greed overcoming principle quite easily, to purchase Mrs Tyler’s trap of the day.
Ratty Tyler, married to the post mistress for fifty-one years, was party to his wife’s small triumphs, because she described them to him with untiring glee every evening. His reaction was neither to encourage nor to discourage. A dignified neutrality, he had discovered over the years, was the wisest attitude to adopt in matters concerning Edith. In the past, in the heat of youthful loyalty, he had found himself in many a scrape through lending her support. It was due to an unwise act on Edith’s part that he had been forced to give up his thriving butcher’s shop in Dorchester just before the last war. A question of slander, though the exact circumstances had long since evaporated in his mind. Total boycott of customers. Confusion. Shame. Ratty hated ever to remember it, though sometimes the whole horrible business came back to him when Edith was in a particularly tricky mood. He warned her that if she went too far they would be driven from Hinton Half Moon just as they had been from Dorchester. But Edith seemed not to understand the danger. She continued taking her risks.
When the Great War was over, the Tylers had found the cottage they still lived in today. Their first Sunday, Ratty signed up as a bell ringer, and it was in the cold vestry of the church that he met the young and energetic John Lawrence. In those days, the Lawrences, too, lived in a cottage in Hinton, but they owned a few acres of land on which they kept a small flock of sheep. The two men had a brief conversation in the churchyard. Ratty sensed Mr Lawrence’s ambition: already he had his eye on Hallows Farm, occupied at the time by a senile old woman.
‘And your line of country?’ Mr Lawrence had asked.
‘We’ve just moved here, sir. Casual labour’s what I’m after. Any farming work, I’d be pleased.’
‘We’re beginners ourselves, but I could offer you a few hours a week.’
‘Righto, sir.’ The two men shook hands.
‘John Lawrence.’
‘Ratty Tyler.’
‘Ratty?’
‘Term of affection, sir, should you suppose otherwise. Adopted at the time of our engagement by my now wife.’
Ratty allowed himself the lie. The truth was that Edith had chosen the name for him as soon as they had been introduced. Reginald, his real name, she said at once, she could not abide. Ratty had been rather taken by her busy little head of blonde curls and her pretty ankles, and he feared his objection might have blasted the plan that was beginning to form in his mind. So Ratty he was from that day forth, though in the secrecy of his soul he often thought the name was more appropriate to Edith than to him.
It was plain from the start that he and Mr Lawrence understood one another. He began with three hours’ labour a week, two shillings an hour. When the sheep did well and the flock increased, this was increased to a day and a half. By the time Mr Lawrence acquired Hallows Farm, Ratty was working every day, all hours. Within a few years, things became too much for the two of them: it was Ratty who suggested they should hire more hands. He found the two keen young lads himself – one from Hinton, one from a couple of miles west – and thereby earned himself the title of Farm Manager.
These days, although Ratty still thought of himself as Farm Manager, and Mr Lawrence would never do anything so inconsiderate as to suggest there was any change in the position, both men understood the title was now more honorary than practical. What with his arthritic hip and the bad pains that sometimes struck his eyes now, Ratty would only come up to the farm a couple of days a week. When the boys had been called up, he had reluctantly agreed that Mrs Lawrence’s idea of land girls might be the solution.
Every working day of his life Ratty rose at four o’clock in the morning. He liked the silence of the dawn, the silence of the kitchen as he boiled water in the huge black kettle for tea, and ate a chunk of Edith’s rich brown bread. Just before leaving he would take a mug up to the bedroom under the eaves, leave it on the table beside her. Sometimes he would pause for a moment to study the now white curls of his wife, and the creased face, cross even in sleep. Years ago, without disentangling herself from drowsiness, she would ask him for a kiss. He would oblige, and be rewarded with a sleepy smile. She had not smiled for years now, properly, Edith. Not with happiness. The only thing that brought a shine to her eyes was triumph. Scoring over the neighbours, her customers. Scoring over anyone she could find, not least Ratty himself. What was it, he sometimes wondered, that caused a carefree young girl to turn so quickly into a crusty old woman? Nothing Ratty could put his finger on: he did his best to please her. But marriage was a rum business, he had learned. At the time – foolish young lad – he had no idea what he was letting himself in for. But it had never occurred to him to desert his barren ship. He had made his promises to the Lord, and they would not be broken. Besides, if he tried hard enough, he sometimes thought, everything might miraculously change, and Mr and Mrs Ratty Tyler might become as happily married as Mr and Mrs John Lawrence.
Fortunately for Ratty, he was blessed with a compartmentalized mind. He was able to abandon the tribulations of his marriage as he shut the front door behind him. At four thirty precisely he hobbled into the lane that led to Hallows Farm, limping slightly, hands scrunched into the familiar caverns of his pockets, ears stinging cold beneath his cap.
For twenty years Ratty had been walking this lane, witnessing thousands of early mornings, each one so infinitesimally different that only a habitual observer could feel the daily shiftings that formed the master plan of each season. Since he had been forced by health and age into semi-retirement, and now only made the journey twice a week, the privacy of dawn was more precious than ever before to Ratty. He listened to his own footsteps on the road – no longer firm and brisk – and the scattered choir of birds. Sometimes a blackbird would soar into a solo, his song only to be muddied by a gang of jealous hedge sparrows. Sometimes an anxious mistlethrush would call to its mate, and be answered by a cheeky robin. There were few unseen birds Ratty could not identify by their song, and their sense of dawn competition made him smile.
He slashed the long grass of the verges with his stick and noted, as always, the neatness of Mr Lawrence’s hedges. In the sky, a transparent moon was posed on a belly of night cloud. But the dark mass was beginning to break up where it touched the low hills. Streaks of yellow, pale as torchlight, illuminated the line of fine elms that protected Hallows Farm from northern winds. Over the gate that led into the meadow Ratty could see the Friesians, legless in a rising ground mist, intent on their last grass before milking. By the time he had walked the last half-mile the mist had all but evaporated, and the familiar outline of the old barn was black against the sky. A strand of smoke rose from the farmhouse chimney. In the old days, Ratty always arrived before Mrs Lawrence lit the kitchen fire. His current lateness troubled him. Although he knew Mr Lawrence would have understood, and urged him not to hurry, he took the precaution of disguising the precise time of his arrival. This morning, for instance, he would go straight to the barn to sort out some stacks of foodstuff. When Mr Lawrence dropped by some time between five thirty and six, he would have no idea when Ratty had started, and could be counted on not to ask.
This morning, too, Ratty had another reason for wanting to start off in the barn. The girls would be here this morning, and he wanted to get a look at them before they saw him. See what he was up against, as it were. Get their measure. He had never worked with women on the land, and could not imagine how it would be. But as a man who could be stimulated by very small changes, he was not against the idea – not as against it, in fact, as Mr Lawrence. Chances were they wouldn’t be up to much – he couldn’t see a girl on a tractor, himself. But in all fairness, he must give them the opportunity to prove their worth. And if they weren’t up to the job, they’d be out. As he had agreed with Mr Lawrence, there’d be no mucking about with second chances. There was no time for mucking about with a war on.
Full of benevolent intent, Ratty reached the barn. His enthusiasm to tidy a pile of heavy sacks had waned. He could deal with them later. For the moment, he felt like a rest.
Ratty leaned up against the high bumper of the red Fordson tractor. Once a handsome scarlet, its paint was now chipped and dull. He fished for his pipe from an inner pocket, spent a long time lighting it. Its sour smoke joined the smells of the few remaining piles of last year’s hay, rotting mangolds, tar, rope, rust. Up in the dusky beams, the dratted pigeons carried on with their incessant silly cooing. (Ratty’s love of birds did not extend to indolent pigeons.) A cow screamed in Long Marsh: Betty, by the sound of her. He kept his eyes on the empty yard, looking forward to the entertainment of one of the girls getting down to sweeping. Confident his position would not be observed, he took a long draw on his pipe, began his patient wait. After a while he was conscious of a slight agitation in his heart. The feeling reminded him of something. Ratty struggled to remember. That was it: the long-ago event of his wedding. Standing at the altar, waiting for his bride, he had experienced exactly the same thunder of anticipation, excitement. And look where that had landed him …
At five fifteen, Stella, Ag and Prue presented themselves at the kitchen table. They stood stiffly in their new uniforms. Ag folded back the sleeves of her green pullover: its wool scratched her wrists. Stella was having trouble with the collar of her fawn shirt. Prue stamped her feet in their sturdy regulation shoes.
‘Each one feels heavy as a bloody brick,’ she complained. ‘It’s these I became a land girl for …’ She stroked her corduroy breeches, gave a small wiggle of her narrow hips.
Prue was the only one who had taken the liberty of adding to the uniform – not against the rules unless deemed inappropriate. She had tied a pink chiffon scarf into a bow on top of her head. Although she wore no lipstick today, the mascara was thick as ever.
Mrs Lawrence poured mugs of her dark, hot tea, and passed a plate of thickly cut bread and butter. Her look at Prue made her silent opinion quite clear. Then her husband came in and spoke her thoughts for her.
‘That thing on your head,’ he said, ‘won’t stand much chance up against the side of a cow.’
Prue fluttered her eyes at him, defiant. ‘I’ll take that risk,’ she said.
‘Very well.’
Mr Lawrence found himself curiously moved by the sight of the three girls, eager to work for him, lined up in his kitchen so early in the morning.
‘Besides,’ said Prue, helping herself to a second slice of bread, ‘I thought it was agreed I’d have a go on the tractor. I told you I was good at that.’
‘This isn’t a fairground, I’ll have you know. You don’t “have a go” on things. You do a job of hard work. What’s your name?’
‘Prue. Prudence.’ She raised her chin.
Mr Lawrence sniffed in distaste. ‘And what’s that smell, for Lord’s sake?’
Prue, her cheeks two pink aureoles that matched the chiffon bow, was delighted he had noticed. ‘Nuits de Paris,’ she smiled.
Her employer was silenced by the prettiness of Prue’s cocky young face. ‘This is a farm,’ he said at last, his voice less rough than he had intended. ‘I don’t want my cowsheds smelling of the Moulin Rouge, thank you. You’re a land girl, you understand, not a film star.’
Mrs Lawrence kept her eyes on her tea.
Prue smiled on, pleased Mr Lawrence should find something of a film star in her. ‘Perhaps Roman Days’d be more up your street?’
‘I want none of your fancy scents, just your mind on the milking, thank you, Prudence.’
Mr Lawrence was brusque now. He nodded towards Ag, not wanting to ask another one her name. ‘You’ll get going with the yard broom, and muck out the pigsty, young lady, and you, Stella—’ he remembered her name all too well – ‘will have to learn to milk before we can let you loose among the cows. Headquarters provided us with the wherewithal, didn’t they, Faith?’ His mouth twitched in a limited smile. He allowed himself a glance at Stella’s knee. The jewel was now disguised by corduroy breeches, though its sharp edges were just visible. Again Mr Lawrence nodded towards Ag. ‘You – you’ll find Ratty Tyler out there somewhere. He’ll show you the brooms, get you going. As for you, Lady Prudence, you’ll take yourself over to the milking shed where my son Joe will sort you out in no time. Stella can come with me.’
Stella saw Mrs Lawrence’s eyes raised to her husband’s flushed face.
He went with the girls out into the cold early air of the yard. Stella followed him to the shed where she would receive her ‘training’, as he called it.
As she walked beside him, the squelch of their gumboots in step, the farmer felt an acute sense of betrayal.
He kept his eyes from Stella, and cursed the war.
Ag stood alone in the yard, hands in her pockets, wondering what to do. She could see no one who might be Ratty Tyler, and did not feel like shouting his name. Ratty? Mr Tyler? What was she supposed to call him? And who was he? Ag listened to the sharp clash of farmyard noises. She dreaded Mr Lawrence returning from the shed, to which he had gone with Stella, and finding her not at work.
A tall, large-boned man, hooded lids over very dark eyes, appeared from behind the barn. He carried a heavy spade, a pitchfork and a broom. Unsmiling, he approached Ag.
‘Thought you might be wanting these,’ he said.
‘Thanks. I was looking for Mr Tyler.’
‘Ratty appears when he appears. I’m Joe.’
‘I’m Ag.’
Joe handed her the broom. He had had a hard five minutes in the barn trying to persuade Ratty to come out and show the girl what to do. But Ratty, in one of his most stubborn moods, insisted on staying hidden. He wanted to sum up the strangers unseen, he said. Take his time to get used to them. Joe was sympathetic. But in the end he took pity on the tall girl in the yard and agreed with Ratty to set her on her way.
‘You want to sweep the yard absolutely clean, sluice down the drains with Dettol – buckets and water over there. Dung heap’s round the corner. Pigsty’s past the cowshed: only the one sow. Not good-tempered. Shouldn’t get in her way. Plenty of clean straw in the barn. I’ll be milking if you want anything.’
He strode away. Their eyes had never met.
Ag tested the weight of the broom, surprised at its heaviness. She must devise her own method, she thought, and began sweeping the corner farthest from the barn.
As there was no sign of Joe Lawrence in the milking shed, Prue took her chance to become acquainted with the cows. They were a herd of twenty Friesians. Each one, chained to her manger, had a name over the stall: Betty, Emma, Daisy, Floss, Rosie, Nancy – Prue wondered if she would ever be able to distinguish between them. She observed their muddy legs, but clean flanks and spotless udders. Looked as if someone else had done the washing down, thank goodness. That was the part of this job she could never fancy.
Prue came to an almost entirely black cow, Felicity. She had particularly intelligent and gentle eyes, surrounded by long blueish eyelashes. Prue wondered what they would look like with mascara, and smiled to herself. She glanced down at the swollen pink udder, with its obscene marbling of raised veins. She ran a finger the whole length of Felicity’s spine, the wrong way, so that the cow’s black hair was forced up over the bone.
‘I like you,’ she said aloud.
She raised her eyes above the animal’s spine and found herself looking into the hooded eyes of the man she assumed was Joe. Cor! He was quite something … Her mind flicked through the handsome film stars she had dreamed of, but could come up with no one comparable. Anyway, she quickly decided, she’d be happy to sacrifice ploughing, and milk the whole herd morning and night if this Joe was to be her supervisor. His eyes shifted, expressionless, a bit spooky, to her hair, the bow. Funny how she’d been impervious to everybody else’s opinion, but there was something about Joe’s look that made her feel a bit foolish. The one thing she did not want was instant disapproval. That would start them off on the wrong foot.
‘Why’s she called Felicity, this one?’ she asked at last, head on one side, coquettish – a gesture she had learned from Veronica Lake.
‘She was a happy calf. She’s a happy cow.’ Joe slapped Felicity on the rump. He seemed to have forgotten about the bow.
‘Can I start on her?’
‘No. We start at the other end with Jemima.’
Prue pouted. ‘I’m Prue, by the way. Your father calls me Prudence.’
‘I know. How’s your milking?’
‘Just the few weeks on the training course. I’m not bad.’
‘Gather you’re keen to get on the tractor.’
‘I said that, just in case Mr Lawrence had any ideas about women not liking ploughing. I’m quite happy to milk.’
‘Rather enjoy it myself. A lot of farms have gone over to machines. Isn’t really worth it for a herd of our size, though Dad was talking about it before this bloody interruption.’ They both listened to the noise of a small aircraft squealing overhead. Joe pointed to the far end of the shed. ‘There are a couple I haven’t washed down – Sylvia and Rose. Mop, bucket and towels through there. Rule here is that we change the water every two cows. Stool and milking bucket in the dairy. I’ll show you how to put on the cooling machine when we’ve finished.’
‘Don’t worry. I understand about cooling machines,’ said Prue. She managed to sound as if her understanding went far beyond mere technicalities.
‘We should get going. I’m running late this morning, seeing to your friend.’
Prue blushed with annoyance: to think that Ag, asked merely to sweep the yard, had been the first to engage Joe’s attention. She moved slowly down the concrete avenue that divided the two rows of cows’ backsides, swinging her hips. Joe’s eyes, she knew, were still on her. She picked up the mop and bucket with the calculated flourish of a star performer, and began to swab Sylvia’s bulging udder as if the job was a movement in a dance. When she had finished washing both cows, she sauntered back to where Joe was milking a restless creature called Mary.
‘And where,’ she asked, hand on one hip, provocative as she could manage in her given surroundings, ‘might I find a cup for the fore milk?’
Joe released Mary’s teats. He looked up at Prue, impassive. ‘I don’t believe we have one,’ he said.
‘Don’t have one?’ Prue’s voice was mock amazed. ‘We were taught it was essential—’
‘Dare say you were. We don’t do everything by the book, here. We just draw off the first few threads before starting with the bucket.’ He turned back to his milking.
‘On to the floor? Do you suppose,’ said Prue, after a few moments of listening to the rhythmic swish of Mary’s milk hitting the bucket, ‘this is a matter I should bring up with your father? Or the district commissioner? Or—?’
‘Bring it up with who you bloody like,’ said Joe. Although his face was half-obscured by Mary’s flank, Prue could see he was smiling.
In the dairy, she washed her hands with carbolic soap in the basin. She was aware of a small triumph, a feeling that some mutual challenge had been recognized. If nothing else, a teasing game could be played with Joe. That would give an edge to the boring old farm jobs – and who knows? One game leads to another …
Astride the small milking stool, head buried in Jemima’s side, hands working expertly on the hard cold teats, Prue allowed herself the thrill of daydreams. Surprisingly, she was enjoying herself. She liked the peaceful noises – muted stamp of hooves, and chink of neck chains – that accompanied the treble notes as jets of milk sizzled against metal bucket. She was aware that the sweet, hay smell of cow breath obliterated her own Nuits de Paris – she would tell Mr Lawrence, at the right moment, he need have no fears. The thought of the hugeness of Joe’s boots made her feel at home, somehow – which was an odd thought considering this chilly milking parlour was as far away from her mother’s front parlour as you could get. She found herself praying that milking would be her regular job, if Joe was to be her milking partner. But her mind was diverted from imagining the many possibilities of this partnership by the distant sound of rattling marbles. She stiffened.
‘Miles away,’ shouted Joe. Just practice, by the sound of it.’
Prue waited tensely for a few moments, fingers slack on the teats. She had forgotten the war. She stood up, easily lifted the bucket of foamy milk. It smelt faintly of cowslips. Beaten Joe to it, she saw with pleasure. It was tempting to point out to him what a quick milker she was. But Prue decided against this. She went to the dairy, sloshed the milk into the cooling machine and chose a bucket from the sterilizing tank for the next cow. She had had her one small victory this morning. That was enough to begin with.
Stella, when she saw her ‘cow’, laughed out loud. It was a crude, ingenious device: a frame made of four legs, inward sloping, like the legs of a trestle table. From its top was slung a canvas bag roughly shaped like an udder and from which dangled four rubber teats the pink of gladioli. It reminded Stella of a pantomime cow.
‘Oh Mr Lawrence,’ she said, ‘is this to be my apprenticeship?’
‘Won’t take long. You’ll soon get used to it.’
Mr Lawrence gave her one of his curt smiles. He picked up a bucket of yesterday’s milk and poured it into the bag. Then he squatted down on the stool drawn up to the ersatz udder, placed the bucket beneath the empty bag, and took a teat in the fingers of both hands.
He was no expert, and was aware of the ridiculous picture he made. His fingers were curiously shaky. A feeble string of milk trickled from the teat.
‘Easier on a real cow,’ he said. ‘Here, you have a go.’
Stella took his place, held the smooth pink teat.
‘It’s a rhythm you want to aim for,’ he explained, when he had watched her for a while. ‘Once you’ve got the rhythm, you’re there, and the cow’s happy. That’s it, that’s a girl.’ The farmer moved proudly back from his pupil. She was bright, this one, as well as attractive. ‘Fill the bucket a couple of times, and you can be on to the real thing tomorrow. All right?’
‘Fine.’
Mr Lawrence allowed himself a few moments in silent appraisal. Funny girl. So formal in her speech, and yet so quick. He let his eyes rest on her back, the pretty hair tumbling forwards. Where it parted he could see a small patch of her neck, no bigger than a man’s thumbprint. With all his being he wanted to touch it, just touch it for an infinitesimal moment, feel its warmth. As he stood there, fighting his appalling desire, his hands and knees began to shake. Dizziness confused his head. Stella’s voice came from a long way off.
‘Am I doing all right, d’you think?’
It was several moments – silence rasped by the silly sound of the squirting milk – before he dared answer. ‘You’re doing fine.’
He took a step towards her, watched his hand leave his side, stretch out to her innocent back: hover, quiver, withdraw.
Stella turned, smiling. She saw what she thought was a look of deep misgiving in Mr Lawrence’s eyes. The shyness of the man! It must be dreadful, she thought, to find the peace of Hallows Farm suddenly disrupted by unskilled girls from other worlds. Sympathy engulfed her, but she could think of no appropriate words with which to convey her feelings.
‘I’ll be back in a while,’ Mr Lawrence said. He waited till Stella returned to concentrate on the rubber teats, and quickly left the shed.
Alone, Stella sniffed the sour milk and manure smell of the shed. It was cold, damp. Her fingers on the teats were turning mauve. She determined to get her peculiar training over as fast as possible, and concentrated on the rhythmic massage of the ludicrous teats. At the same time she began to compose the funny letter she would write to Philip tonight: my first day a land girl – with a rubber cow. This prompted the thought of the post. Philip had promised to write immediately. She ached to hear from him. The two hours till breakfast, when she could ask about the delivery of letters, seemed an eternity. In some desolation, Stella looked down at the thin covering of milk on the bottom of the bucket.
Two hours later, shoulders and legs stiff from the awkward position (it would be much more comfortable with a real cow to lean against), Stella rose and stretched, her apprenticeship, she hoped, over. She had filled the bucket twice and felt like a qualified milker. Once she had got the hang of it – the rhythm, as Mr Lawrence had said – it had been quite easy. Behind the gentle splish-splash of the milk she had dreamed of Philip, going over in her mind every detail of the few occasions on which they had met. And when she swooped back to the present, she saw the humour of her situation – the adrenalin of being in love making bearable the milking of an imitation cow.
Now, she leaned over the bottom half of the shed door, looked out on to the yard. The Friesians were ambling towards the gate. They took turns to enjoy the distractions of familiar sights. Sometimes one would pause to give a bellow, puffing silver bells of breath into the sharp sunny air. Stella understood their lack of concentration, and smiled at the sight of Prue and Ag urging them on, with the occasional tentative whack of a stick. Prue’s pink bow had lost some of its former buoyancy but still fluttered among her blonde curls like a small demented bird. She bounced and jiggled and enjoyed shouting bossily to the cows. In contrast, Ag walked with large dignified strides, never raising her voice. There was something both peaceful and wistful in her face. Stella felt drawn to this girl, wondered about her.
The last cow left the yard. At that moment two men came out of the barn. Stella assumed the tall one to be Joe, and recognized at once the shape of the man she had seen last night. His hand was on the shoulder of the much older man who wore thickly corrugated breeches and highly polished lace-up boots, the uniform of grooms before the last war. Joe seemed to be trying to persuade the old man of something, and was meeting resistance. On their way across the yard, Joe looked up and spotted Stella.
‘Breakfast,’ he shouted, but did not wait for her.
The idea of breakfast reminded Stella of her hunger. But reluctant to go into the kitchen alone, she made her way down the lane to meet the others returning from the meadow. They, too, declared their hunger. All three compared stiff joints and cold fingers, and hurried back to the farmhouse.
By the time they reached the kitchen the three men were already half-way through huge plates of bread, bacon, eggs, tomatoes and black pudding. Mrs Lawrence was shifting half a dozen more eggs in a pan at the stove. She wore the same faded cross-over pinafore as yesterday, which hid all but the matted brown wool of the sleeves of her jersey. There was something extraordinarily detached, but reassuring, in her back view, thought Ag. It was as if the outer woman was performing her chores, while an independent imagination also existed to power her through the mundane matters of daily life.
Mr Lawrence introduced Ratty to the girls, remembering all their names, having checked with his wife. Ratty, a man of economy in his acknowledgements, made his single nod in their direction extend to all three of them. In that brief moment of looking up, Ag observed his extraordinary eyes, grained with all the colours of a guinea fowl’s breast. Here was a man who would provide much material for her diary, she felt, as she sat beside him, unafraid of his distinctive silence. Prue took her chance to sit next to Joe. Mr Lawrence observed her choice with a hard, flat look.
‘Well, we got through that all right, I’d say, didn’t we, Joe?’ Prue turned to the others. ‘I did twelve cows, Joe did the other eight. Just think, only a few more hours to go and we start all over again, don’t we, Joe?’
Joe shook his head. ‘Not me. Dad’s on the afternoon milk.’
Prue’s face fell. She accepted the plate of fried things from Mrs Lawrence and concentrated on eating.
Mr Lawrence, finishing first, seemed eager to be away. He outlined the chores for the rest of the morning. Ag was to help Mrs Lawrence with the henhouse, and try to patch up the tarpaulin roof. Prue was to sluice down the cowshed, sterilize the buckets, scour the dairy, and put the milk churns into the yard. ‘Ready,’ he added, ‘for the cart. Think you’ll manage to get them on to the cart, Prudence?’
Prue looked up from her eggs, alarmed, knowing what a churn full of milk must weigh. But she had no intention of looking feeble in Joe’s eyes. ‘Of course,’ she said.
‘I mean, you’re at least a foot taller than a churn, aren’t you?’ Mr Lawrence’s fragment of a smile indicated he was enjoying his joke.
Now he turned to his left, where Stella swabbed up egg yolk with a fat slice of bread. ‘Know anything about horses?’
‘A little.’
‘Then you can come with me. We’ll walk down to Long Meadow, give you an idea of the lie of the land.’
The three men rose, leaving their empty plates and mugs on the table. Mrs Lawrence sat down at last, with a boiled egg. Her cheeks were threadbare in the brightness, caverns of brown fatigue under both eyes. She cracked the egg briskly, looked round at the girls.
‘You’ll get used to it,’ was all she said.
By the end of their first day, the land girls were exhausted. After four o’clock mugs of tea, they lay on their beds, trying to recover their energy for supper.
If we’re this fagged, what must poor Mrs Lawrence be?’ asked Ag. ‘Up before us, never a moment off her feet. And now cooking. Perhaps we should go down and help.’
‘Couldn’t,’ sighed Prue. ‘Twenty-four cows milked dry first day – ninety-six teats non-stop, you realize? That’s me for day one. Finished.’
None of them moved, despite the guilty thought.
‘We should be less stiff in a week or so,’ said Ag, rubbing a painful shoulder, ‘able to do more.’
‘More?’ giggled Prue. ‘We’re land girls, not slaves, I’ll have you know.’
‘I liked the day,’ said Stella, sleepy. ‘I liked the walk to get Noble, and then getting into a terrible muddle with the harness.’
‘Mr Lawrence can’t keep his eyes off you,’ said Prue, after a while.
‘What?’
‘Haven’t you noticed?’
Ag laughed. ‘Your imagination, Prue,’ she said, from her end of the room. ‘I think Mr Lawrence is so giddied by our presence he doesn’t know where to look. He’s not used to women on the farm, or anywhere. But you can tell about him and Mrs Lawrence: soldered for life, I’d say. They don’t have to speak, or even look. They’re bound by the kind of wordless understanding that comes from years of happy marriage. My parents were like that, apparently.’
Prue sat up. She pulled the pink bow from her hair. ‘Don’t know about all that,’ she said. ‘My mum and dad love each other no end, but they don’t half scream at each other night and day. Do you think we stay in these things for supper? I bloody stink. Cow, manure, Dettol – you name it, I reek of it. As for my nails …’ She looked down at her hands. ‘What are we going to do about our nails?’
‘Give up,’ said Stella, smiling.
‘Not bloody likely. Land girl or not, I’m going to keep my nails, any road. Anyhow, what did you two think of him?’
‘Who?’ asked Ag.
‘Joe, of course.’
‘Seems nice enough. Shy.’
‘Nice enough? Are you blind? Don’t you recognize a real smasher when you see one? He’s something, Joe, don’t you realize, quite out of the ordinary? No easy fish, I reckon, but I’ll take a bet. Joe Lawrence and I won’t be too long before we make it.’
She looked from Stella to Ag, trying to read their reactions.
‘There’s Janet,’ Ag said at last, ‘isn’t there?’
Prue giggled. ‘Janet? Did you take a look at her photo? She’s not what I’d call opposition.’
‘But they’re engaged,’ said Stella.
‘Long time till the spring.’ Prue continued to study her nails. ‘Anyhow, I’ll keep you in touch with progress, if you’re interested.’
‘Immoral,’ said Ag, half-smiling.
‘Rather.’
‘All’s fair in love and war’s my motto. And this is a war, remember? Don’t know about you two, but I’m getting out of these stinking breeches. Green skirt, pink jersey, lashings of Nuits de Paris, whatever Mr Lawrence says, and Joe’ll be beside himself, you’ll see.’
While the other two laughed, Prue took a shocking-pink lipstick from a drawstring bag and concentrated on a seductive outline of her mouth. ‘I’ve never gone for anyone so huge. What do you bet me?’ She challenged Stella, the most likely to take on the bet. But Stella’s mind had wandered far from Joe.
‘The only bet I’m interested in,’ she said, ‘is whether or not I get a letter from Philip tomorrow. But probably he won’t have time to write for ages.’
She wanted to begin the letter she had composed that morning. But tiredness overcame her good intentions.
By the time Prue had chosen the right pink from a row of nail polishes, and delivered her opinion about the hopelessness of men when it came to letter-writing, Stella was asleep. Ag, too, lay with her eyes shut and made no response. Pretty queer bunch, the three of them made, Prue couldn’t help thinking, as she dabbed each nail with the brush of flamingo polish and wondered if her shell earrings, for supper, would be going too far.
Contrary to her predictions, the object of Prue’s desire was far from beside himself at supper. He sat between his mother and Ag, silently eating chicken stew and mashed potatoes. He seemed not to notice the trouble Prue had taken with her appearance: spotted green bow in her hair, dazzling lipstick to match a crochet jersey, and smelling extravagantly of her Parisian scent. Mrs Lawrence, who as usual sat down at the table last, was the only one to react to all Prue’s efforts. She sniffed, grimacing.
‘Janet’s coming, Sunday lunch, Joe,’ she said. ‘She rang while you were out.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘Janet,’ Mrs Lawrence explained to the girls in general, ‘manages to get here about once a month. It’s a long journey. She’s stationed in Surrey.’
‘That’s nice, her being able to get over at all,’ said Prue. ‘Nice for you, Joe.’ A thousand calculations buzzed in her head. She gave Joe a smile he arranged not to see.
Mrs Lawrence’s news failed to open a lively conversation. The aching girls became sleepier as they ate, only half listened to talk between Joe and Mr Lawrence about problems with the tractor. Supper over, they were invited into the sitting-room to listen to the news, but all volunteered to go to bed.
As the girls went upstairs – Mrs Lawrence insisted she needed no help with the washing-up – Prue observed Joe slip out of the front door. Where was he going? If her plan was to work, she must find out about his movements. The idea excited her enough to dispel her sleepiness. When the other two were in bed, their lights quickly out, she went to the window, stared moodily down at the farmyard. She saw Joe mount his bicycle by the barn and ride out through the gate. If his beloved Janet was three counties away, who was it he was going to see? Prue remained at the window, intrigued, until eventually she heard a distant church clock strike nine. Cold by now, she went to her bed, but could not sleep for the dancing of her plans.
On the stroke of nine from the same church clock, Ratty Tyler, sitting by the range in his small kitchen, knocked out his pipe and rose to make his wife a cup of tea. Edith was ensconced at the kitchen table, a dish of newly iced buns beside her, all ready to cause distress among early customers next morning. The dim light, over-protected by a dark tin shade, was pulled down as far as its iron pulley would go. Edith’s hands, parsnip coloured in its murky beam, concentrated on the darning of a sock.
‘So?’ she said.
‘So what?’
Ratty had been waiting for this all evening. He had observed the difficulty Edith had had, holding herself in, all through their soup and bread and cheese.
‘What’re they like?’
‘What’re who like?’
‘You know what I’m saying, Ratty Tyler.’
‘That I don’t.’
Edith sighed, bit off a new length of grey wool with her dun teeth.
‘The girls.’
‘The land girls?’
‘Of course the land girls. What other girls would I be asking about?’
Ratty gave her question some thought. ‘Just girls, far as I could see,’ he offered eventually. He put a cup of tea on the table. There were more questions to come, he could see that. He must play for time. Anything for time.
‘Where’s the sugar?’
‘Same place it’s always been for the last thirty years. Your mind must be elsewhere.’
It was elsewhere, all right. It was always elsewhere when he came home.
‘I was thinking about Mrs L., so happens,’ he said. ‘Taking on the girls eases some problems, but makes a lot more work for her.’
‘Pah!’ spat Edith, disbelieving. ‘Never known you trouble yourself about Mrs L. before. It’s the girls you were thinking of, I’ve no doubt.’ Her needle, newly charged with wool, dived swift as a kingfisher towards its prey of a hole in a brownish heel. ‘You may as well tell me.’
Ratty placed the sugar bowl by the cup, returned to his chair. For peace, he thought, he may as well.
‘There’s the small one,’ he said.
‘Name?’
‘Prudence, they call her.’ He judged it not worth referring to her as Prue, as the others did. The implications of a nickname would be bound to set Edith’s fears alight.
‘Huh!’ She was easily offended by mere names. Her indignation came as no surprise. ‘What’s she like?’
What was she like? Ratty asked himself. Prudence was the one with a face like the girls photographed in newspapers on the first day of spring. Small, but frightening. He wouldn’t fancy time alone with her.
‘As I said, not large. Nothing to write home about.’
Ratty had intended to say something more definite about her, to assure his wife that the girl, young enough to be their granddaughter, was no threat of any kind. But he feared that silent cogitation, striving for the right description, might itself inspire further suspicion. He need not have worried. For some reason Edith was not interested in the idea of Prue.
‘And the others?’
‘There’s the medium one, the one I took to Hinton in the cart with the milk. Not much experience in harnessing up.’
No point in saying she’d been mighty quick to learn, that one. He’d shown her what to do his side of Noble: she copied quick as a flash on her side. And lovely manners. All polite remarks about the countryside, on their way to the village, and doing more than her fair share of unloading the churns. Nice face, too. He liked her.
‘Name?’
‘Stella.’
‘Nothing like Cousin Stella?’
Ratty shook his head. Edith’s Cousin Stella was the nearest to a witch he knew. No comparison with this girl. He smiled at the thought, knowing his wife, in her quick glance, would misunderstand his expression.
‘You lay your hands on a Stella and it would be incest,’ snapped Edith in the furious voice she used for her most illogical remarks.
‘No fear of that.’
‘And the last one?’
She was suspicious, here, Ratty could tell. How could she be suspicious? He cursed her instincts.
‘The tall one. Agatha. Ag, they call her.’
‘Much taller than you?’
‘Good foot,’ he said, permitting himself the exaggeration of an inch or so.
Edith contained a sigh of relief. ‘You’ve never liked a tall girl.’
‘No.’
Foxed her! Ag was the one he liked even more than Stella. He’d studied her for a long time from his unseen position in the barn. There was something about her kind, private face that had struck him. He had been intrigued by the way her short hair had blown apart while she was sweeping, so he had had glimpses of white scalp. Reminded him of watching a blackbird in a wind, feathers parting to show white skin of breast. If he’d met someone like Ag when he was a lad, Lord knows, he’d have done something about it.
‘Blonde?’
‘Dark.’
‘You’ve never liked dark hair, neither.’ Edith briefly touched her own white fuzz of thinning curls.
‘I haven’t, neither.’
He saw the tension in Edith’s body slacken. She held the darned sock away from her, admiring the woven patch she had accomplished with such speed and skill. It would go unacknowledged by Ratty, like all the darns she had held up over the years. It wasn’t that he lacked appreciation, but words to express it froze before he could utter them. Hence the constant disappointment he caused her.
‘And what did they make of you?’
Ratty sucked on his empty pipe. Although he had anticipated this one, no firm answer had come to mind.
‘We chattered nineteen to the dozen, all very friendly,’ he heard himself say. Reflecting on this lie, he considered it permissible, after so much partial truth.
Edith sniffed. ‘You be careful what you say.’
‘You can trust me.’
‘You were all sweet words when you were young.’
Ratty shifted. This was the nearest to a compliment Edith had paid him in three decades. It made him uneasy. He could never confront her with the truth: how she had killed the sweet words very early in their marriage by her laughter, her scoffing. It was she who caused his prison of silence when it came to women. The banners, with all the things he wanted to say written on them, still danced in his mind, sometimes, but their benefits went unknown, locked into wordless silence. No problems with Mr Lawrence, with Joe. On occasions he could even mutter a word or two to Mrs L. But three strange new girls all up at the farm in one day … to have spoken was quite beyond him.
‘Time to turn on the news,’ said Edith, picking another sock from the basket with the curious gentleness that she employed for inanimate things.
‘So it is. I’ll do it.’
Ratty felt his bones soften with relief as he got up – land girl conversation over for tonight. He hoped it wouldn’t come up again for a while: give him time to gather his thoughts. Edith gave a small nod of her head, which was the nearest, these days, she ever got to a smile. She could never get the hang of the wireless, understand the tuning. Ratty twiddled the knob. His skill in finding the Home Service was one of the small ways in which he could oblige his wife with very little effort. Had she known the paucity of this effort, her appreciation might have been less keen. As it was, admiration for her husband’s technical ability was conveyed in a small but regular sigh that Ratty had learned to recognize. The fierceness went out of her needle.