When Prue returned from her second visit to the barn, at three in the morning, she bumped into a piece of furniture while stumbling to find her bed.
Her yelp of pain woke Ag, who said nothing. The next sound to be heard was the unscrewing of a jar. Even in complete darkness, it seemed, Prue was determined to take off her mascara.
Rigid in her bed, Ag lay fighting against pictures of Prue’s night. Details were blurred in her mind. She was too shy – too prissy, she thought with scorn – to ask even herself how they did it in the hay. But the general imagining of their flailing joy, combined with feelings of shameful envy, sickened. She hated Prue for so easily achieving what she herself might never have with Desmond. She despised Prue’s silliness, her vanity, her preoccupation with material things. More confusingly, she admired her, too: the rough wit, outspokenness, warmth, energy, sense of fun. Ag would willingly sacrifice all her literary knowledge for an ounce or two of Prue’s sex appeal, she thought. Silent tears, for her own inadequacy, dampened the pillow.
Unable to go back to sleep, she got up at four and dressed in the dark. There were lights on downstairs. Ag was surprised. She crept along the passage to the kitchen door. It was slightly ajar. Peering through, she saw Mrs Lawrence at the stove pouring boiling water into a teapot.
Ag went in. Then she saw Joe sitting at the table, which was bare of everything but the jug of flowers. There was a muddied silence – the kind of silence in which angry words had been spoken and had run out, or remained unspoken between them. Joe was pale, unshaven. He wheezed slightly with every breath.
‘You’re early,’ said Mrs Lawrence.
‘I’m sorry. Shall I—?’
‘Get yourself a mug.’
Ag put three mugs, milk, sugar and spoons on the checked oilcloth. Thus furnished, it seemed more familiar. But the customary warm ease of the kitchen was missing. With the blackout still in place, there was a night-time feel to the room. Ag had no idea whether her presence was a relief, or made matters between Joe and his mother more difficult.
The three of them sat at one end of the table. They listened to the rhythmic hiss of Joe’s breath. They stirred their tea quietly.
‘Are you better today?’ Ag turned, after a while, to Joe.
‘Thanks.’ Joe nodded. ‘Dagging this morning,’ he added.
It was no time to smile. Ag concentrated on her tea. She saw that Mrs Lawrence stirred hers with a hand that slightly trembled – round and round, far longer than was necessary, eyes cast down at the small milky whirlpool she made with her spoon.
‘I doubt Prudence will be up to dagging,’ she said. There was more silence. Joe did not respond to the challenge of her look.
‘I’ll take down the blackout, Ma,’ Joe said then.
‘You do that, son.’
Joe got up from the table and pulled the stuff down from the window. There was a flat grey sky outside, and a transparent sliver of moon. The two collies, half alert on the rag rug, tapped their tails as Joe passed. He left the room.
‘It’s his asthma,’ said Mrs Lawrence, when he had gone. She looked hard at Ag with her tired eyes. ‘Sometimes he goes for weeks on end all right, then he has two bad nights.’ Her voice defied Ag not to believe this.
There is justification in lying if it’s to protect those you love, thought Ag. She was moved by Mrs Lawrence’s fierce dignity, what sounded like the truth of her conviction. Conviction? Perhaps she really did think Joe’s two sleepless nights had been caused by asthma. Was it maligning Mrs Lawrence to suppose that she knew what Joe had been up to? Or was it granting the strength of her instinct?
‘Rotten for him,’ said Ag, quietly.
‘Still, he’s better today than yesterday.’
Mr Lawrence, Stella and Prue arrived. There were black smudges under Prue’s eyes. Despite her rouge, she looked pale. It was the first morning she had not bothered with her make-up though perhaps, thought Ag, this was from carelessness rather than lack of spirit.
‘So it’s dagging, this morning, is it?’ Prue asked Mr Lawrence, helping herself to a thick slice of home-made bread.
‘That’s it.’ Mr Lawrence gave a small smile. ‘Your time’s come.’
Mrs Lawrence brought a new pot of tea to the table. The sky was paling beyond the barn. A few yellow leaves blew across the window.
‘You’re going to be as surprised by my dagging as you were by my ploughing,’ grinned Prue.
‘We’re not, actually,’ said Mrs Lawrence. She stood at the end of the table, fingers of both hands stiffly digging into the oilcloth, denting its surface. ‘Because you, Prue, are going to do the pig this morning.’
The grin left Prue’s face. A whiplash glance was exchanged between the Lawrences. It was evident Mrs Lawrence’s decision had been made on the spur of the moment, and her husband knew better than to query it. In the long silence, Prue decided to conceal her disappointment.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘And then you can do some muck-spreading,’ Mrs Lawrence added, ‘and this afternoon, the cowsheds need a good scrub down and a limewash.’
Prue looked at Mr Lawrence: his nod meant he concurred with his wife’s plan.
‘Anything you say.’ She gave a small shrug. Her back and legs were aching. The inside of her lips were swollen. She could taste tiny specks of salt blood.
‘Ag and Stella will do the morning milk, then Joe’ll supervise the dagging,’ Mrs Lawrence went on. ‘John will show you what to do with the pig, Prue: I’ll be busy all morning with the laundry.’
This was the first morning Mrs Lawrence had been the one to initiate plans and she listed them with unusual ferocity.
Prue pushed away an unfinished slice of bread on her plate.
‘I’m sure the pig and I will get on very well, any road,’ she said, plumping up the yellow bow in her hair.
No one responded.
When the three girls and two men had hurried away from the uneasy gathering, Mrs Lawrence remained at the table, still stirring her tea, jaw muscles working. She watched the gathering light seep across the oilcloth, ignite the sides of the old mugs and teapot with small pale flames. After the last door had banged, and there was complete silence except for the dogs’ faint snoring, she pressed her head into the darkness of her hands and said a quick prayer. Then she rose to begin her morning’s work.
‘Hello, Pig,’ said Prue. ‘Hello, Sly.’
She leaned against the wall of the sty, wondering what first move she should make. Mr Lawrence had left her with a pitchfork and yard broom, and instructions which, the moment he left, ran amok in her mind. The pig lay in its sleeping quarters under a corrugated iron roof, on a bed of straw that gleamed a sodden gold. It appeared to be dozing. Eyes shut. The occasional soft grunt made the whole jelly-bristle fabric of its body quiver.
Apart from disliking roast pork, Prue had never before given any thought to pigs. She had scarcely seen one alive. Now, postponing the dreadful moment when she had to try to move the animal, she fell to wondering about its life.
In her tired state, small blisters and pricks of blood still troubling the inside of her mouth, she found herself full of pity for its boring captivity, and less repelled than she had expected by its ugliness. There was something rather dignified, she thought, about Sly’s swollen pregnant belly of mauve-pink skin, the stubby sprawling legs, the ridiculous tail and huge alert ears. Animals, she was learning from her week of closeness to the cows, are without vanity, and she admired that. Although – she smiled to herself – Sly’s appearance would be much improved with a touch of mascara. The white lashes stubbing round the tiny eyes gave the sow a pathetic, spinsterish look. In fact, Sly was far from a spinster. She’d been mother to dozens of piglets in her time, Mr Lawrence said. Did she enjoy being pregnant again? Prue wondered. Was she lying down out of boredom, fatigue, happiness or misery? Men would do well to concentrate harder on the subject of whether animals had thoughts, rather than how to make bombs and endanger the whole world, reflected Prue, to whom procrastination brought multitudes of thoughts.
She opened the gate and squelched along the muddy floor of the concrete run. A powerful smell came from the straw. The lattice of mud that spurted over her boots was slimy, disagreeable, unlike the dark fresh earth of the fields. The pig opened her eyes, looked without interest at Prue, shut them.
‘Hello,’ she said again. ‘Sorry, but you’ve got to move.’
To give herself further time, Prue thought about what Mr Lawrence had told her concerning the severe shortage of pig food. Many pigs were being slaughtered, he said. For the time being, Sly was in no danger: the Lawrences had a good supply of Silcock’s Pig Feed No. 1, which was supplemented with leftovers from the house and semi-rotted fruit. But what of the future of the unborn litter? Tears came briefly to Prue’s eyes at the thought of killing innocent piglets. She moved nearer to the sow, tapped her with the broom.
The pig heaved herself up so fast, with such a loud and hideous squeal, that Prue leapt back in surprised fright.
Sly gave an ungainly jump off the dented bed of steaming ammonia straw. She skidded towards Prue, who cowered in the corner of the run, planting broom and pitchfork in front of her in pathetic defence. The sow was grunting loudly, intent on something terrible, Prue could see. More than anything in the whole world, Prue wanted to be in the salon at this moment, warm and steamy, cosily surrounded with all the ingredients of a permanent wave.
Don’t annoy her, whatever you do, Mr Lawrence had said. But he hadn’t told her how to avoid this. Plainly, she’d done something wrong. Sly was definitely annoyed. She stuck her great head between the two handles, looked up at Prue, and furiously wiggled her obscene great snout.
‘Go away!’ screamed Prue, jabbing Sly’s head with the handle of the broom. Then, more quietly, ‘Just let me by, please …’
The pig’s scrubby ears flapped back and forth. One of them brushed Prue’s bare hand. The skin was pumice-hard, cloudily transparent, matted with purple veins.
‘Bugger off!’ Prue shouted again, as the snout now jutted into Prue’s thigh. ‘I’m not a bloody truffle.’
Suddenly bored, the pig turned away. Prue stayed where she was for a moment, contemplating the purple backside, the indecent meeting of bulbous thighs, the swing of dugs already swelling in anticipation of the forthcoming litter.
With extraordinary speed, adrenalin racing, Prue tossed the old bedding over the wall of the sty. Later, should God grant her the strength, she would have to load it into the barrow and put it on the dung heap. Later still – today, of all days – she would then have to spread it in some field, Mrs Lawrence had said. Now the danger was over, her thoughts no longer fled for comfort to the salon, but to the plough. She would like, this afternoon, to go back to ploughing. But no chance of that. What she would like best of all, of course, was the entire afternoon on one of the highest stacks in the barn with Joe.
The sty cleared and swept, Prue spread a pile of sweet-smelling wheat straw. Sly immediately returned to her newly made bed and slumped down on her side, ungrateful as a cantankerous patient. At least the way was clear for Prue to tackle the mud in the outside pen, and sluice down the drain with a bucket of Jeyes Fluid.
‘Doing all right?’
Prue looked up to see Joe.
‘You know she bites if she’s annoyed.’
Prue shrugged. Her shoulders, arms and back were aching. The thought of transferring the muck from where she had thrown it to the dung heap depressed her so much she was unable to answer. She wanted Joe to lift her over the wall, carry her off somewhere – anywhere – and soothe her aches, kiss her, crush her, blast her with his extraordinary explosive force from the reality of pigs and dung and farm life.
‘You look a bit weary,’ he said. ‘I think we should give tonight a miss. Get some sleep. The hay doesn’t do my asthma any good. We’re going to have to change locations.’
‘All right.’
Prue gave a weak smile. She was aware of smelling as pungently as the pigsty. Nuits de Paris stood no chance in such circumstances.
* * *
An hour later, Prue realized to her relief and astonishment, the first part of her job was finished. Sly’s dirty straw was piled high on the dung heap. There wasn’t a stray straw in the entire yard: Prue had taken the precaution of sweeping it – Mr Lawrence was obsessive about the neatness of his yard. Now, with squelching triumph, she climbed to the top of the dung heap, leaned on the pitchfork for support. There was no one about, no one to condemn her for a few moments’ rest. The words of a song she’d learned on the training course came back to her. She began to sing.
She volunteered,
She volunteered to be a land girl
Ten bob a week – ‘not true’
Nothing much to eat – ‘not true’
Great big boots
And blisters on her feet,
If it wasn’t for the war
She’d be where she was before –
Land girl, you’re barmy.
‘Too bloody true, that bit,’ she added, as she began to sink into the dung. She could feel its heat coming through her boots, and the ammonia smell rose powerful as incense. Prue leaned more heavily on the pitchfork. She felt quite faint.
After the milking was finished, Stella took the cows back to the pasture by herself. Ag went to let out the hens. On her way back to the house she passed the laundry room – a minimally converted old cowshed close to the kitchen – and happened to glance through the open window. There, clouded in steam, she saw Mrs Lawrence at work. The place was littered with sheets and shirts, some soaking, some hanging. There were pools of water on the stone floor. On a slate shelf, two old-fashioned irons were reared up on their backs, their steel underbellies a pinkish bronze in the smeary light. Mrs Lawrence stooped to pick a sheet from an enamel bowl of water. She wrung it out fiercely, the sinews in her thin strong arms pulled taut as cords. Then she manoeuvred the sheet into position in the mangle, and began to turn the handle furiously. Water poured into a bucket below. When there were no more than a few drips left, Mrs Lawrence slung the sheet on to a pile of others. She paused to wipe sweat from her forehead, push back a wisp of grey hair from her eyes. Her apron, faded to a pot-pourri of indeterminate flowers, was damp. She contemplated another bowl containing another coil of cotton to be wrung, but seemed to decide against it. Perhaps her hands needed a rest from the cold water. Instead, she pulled a huge, rough man’s shirt from the pile and threw it over the ironing board. She picked up one of the irons – its custard-coloured back, Ag could see, was so chipped it reminded her of a monster ladybird – and thundered it down the length of the sleeve. Her mouth was a single hard line.
Ag took a step back. She had wondered whether she should offer to help, but decided Mrs Lawrence would not have wished anyone to see her working out her private rage. It was then Ag felt sure that there had been no words concerning Prue between Mrs Lawrence and Joe at dawn. Mrs Lawrence was in lone battle with her instincts, her suspicions. She was in a turmoil, no doubt, about what, if anything, she should do. Ag longed to help. But she knew all she could do was to remain alert to any indication that Mrs Lawrence might want to discuss the troubles on her mind, which was unlikely. She was a strong, proud woman who would judge the sharing of private matters a deplorable weakness. Without a sound, Ag went on her way. She had to find Mr Lawrence, put from her mind the pictures of his wife’s battle in the laundry, and concentrate on rounding up the sheep.
* * *
Stella, returning from the field in which she had put the cows, heard singing. She paused, listened. Prue? A harsh, tuneless voice, but some passion behind the words. Stella walked round the side of the barn into the beautifully swept yard. By now the singing had stopped. Prue, on top of the dung heap, rested hands and chin on the handle of the pitchfork.
‘Prue!’
‘I’m resting between jobs. Pausing between mucking out—’ she gave a chorus-line twist of her hips – ‘and muck-spreading.’ The blobs of rouge, bright as sealing wax, emphasized the whey colour of her cheeks.
‘You all right?’
‘Fine, all the muck-raking considered. I came over a bit dizzy a moment ago. Must be the bending.’
‘You’re not going to join us with the sheep?’
‘Seems not. Instructions to spread this stuff over about a hundred acres.’ She gave a grim smile, digging her pitchfork into the wet straw. ‘To think that once I thought two perms and a colour rinse was a hard day’s work. Well, in a war you learn, I suppose.’ She sighed. Stella, looking up at her, smiled too. ‘You know what I dream of, Stella? Up here – everywhere? I dream that when it’s over I finish my apprenticeship and this man comes along. This final man. I tell you: I’ll recognize him soon as he puts his head round the door. He’ll be a great big hulk, something like Joe, except he’ll have pots and pots of money. We’ll get married and live in a huge big house on the outskirts of somewhere posh like York – no more Manchester, thanks very much. We’ll have a marble bath with gold taps and lots of marble shelves where I can line up all my powders and lotions – many as I like. We’ll have wall-to-wall carpeting all through, a wireless in every room and one of those big new radiogram things in maple wood that looks like a cupboard, and the maid will bring us cocktails, Stella, I’m telling you, on a silver tray every evening, and we’ll be happy. In the day’ – she prodded the dung again – ‘I’ll lie on a sofa like a film star, reading romances and eating chocolates, and all this muck will be a far distant thing, almost forgotten, and every night my husband will come back from his factory – or wherever it is he’s made his money – in a Rolls-Royce. That’s my dream.’
Stella laughed quietly. ‘Children?’ she asked.
‘Kids? Three or four. That’d be nice. But only with a nanny.’
‘What a dream. You’d be bored out of your mind.’
‘No, I wouldn’t. Not for a while, any road. Do you imagine anything like that for yourself?’
‘No, my dream is more modest,’ said Stella.
‘Might as well aim for the big time.’
‘What’s going on?’ Mr Lawrence strode into the yard just then, surprised to see a figure more like a cabaret singer than a land girl on top of his dung heap. ‘Pig done?’
‘Pig done, Mr Lawrence. And yard swept, Mr Lawrence, as you can see.’
‘I don’t want any of your cheek this morning. You’d better get this dung on the trailer and take it down to High Field. Sharp.’ His look swerved to Stella, softening. ‘Come and help me get the stuff, Stella, then we’ll give Ag a hand with bringing in the sheep.’
Prue ostentatiously loaded a heavy lump of dung on to her pitchfork. ‘Do you ever have time to dream, Mr Lawrence?’ she asked.
‘I’m warning you, young lady …’
Stella, following him to the shed to collect shears, knives and clippers, saw a dark flush spread up through his neck and wash over his weathered cheeks.
‘Cocky little film star’ll get her come-uppance one day,’ he said. ‘Though it’s not her work I’m complaining about.’
An hour later Stella and Ag were grappling with their first sheep. The ewe lay on her back on a bench designed to make control of the animal easy. When Mr Lawrence had been there to demonstrate, it had looked simple enough. Left to themselves, the girls were struggling.
Ag had volunteered to hold the animal still while Stella, armed with her paring knife, examined its feet. Hands plunged deep into its greasy wool, Ag sympathetically contemplated the ewe’s unease. The delicate black neck, jutting out of the great rug of its body, spun about, twisting the bony head with its roman nose and indignant yellow eyes. It cried out pitifully, lips drawn back to show long dun teeth scored with green, spittle thick as marshmallow spurted from its gums, flecking Ag’s overall.
‘Steady, old girl,’ she soothed, feeling the frantic shoulder muscles writhe queasily in her hands. ‘It’s all for your own good …’
She remembered drawings of a sheep in a childhood book: anthropomorphized into a stern teacher, it was, with glasses on the end of its nose and a cane in its hoof. She thought of her father’s love of boiled mutton and caper sauce, rainbow bubbles of fat in the gravy. Sunday after Sunday they would lunch alone together, the bowl of wax fruit between them, using their spoons to gather up the last grains of pearl barley swollen with the mutton juices.
‘I think this one’s okay,’ said Stella. ‘No rot, far as I can see. Just needs a trim.’
She clutched a waving leg, flushed with the effort. The horn of the hoof was splayed at the edges. There were two small splits. Biting her lip, Stella dug in the sharp knife and started to peel off a strip of hoof just as she would peel a potato. The ewe struggled harder, but in a moment a black half-circle of stuff like hard Plasticine fell to the ground.
‘There – triumph!’
Stella let go of the frantic leg and was promptly kicked in the stomach. Ag laughed so hard she released her hold on the ewe’s shoulders. If Stella had not then thrown herself, sack-like, over its belly, the animal would have escaped.
‘You’re a natural hoof trimmer,’ was Ag’s praise to Stella when the long job of manicuring all four hooves was completed. It was time for the dreaded dagging.
By now the sheep was weary, easier to handle. Stella bent over its head, hands plunged into the sticky matted chunks of its wool. She watched with some amusement as Ag picked up the clippers and assessed, with a look of mock wisdom, the dung-knotted expanse of the animal’s hindquarters.
‘Here goes.’
She took up a length of wool, rigid with dried mud and dung. Carefully, she snipped. It hit the ground with a small thud, like the shell of an empty nut. She chose another lump, snipped with more confidence. It was like cutting through pebbles, she thought, not half as revolting as she had expected. She worked faster. The animal scarcely twitched by now. Soon its hindquarters were shorn and clean. Ag felt pleased with herself. She and Stella gently helped it back to the ground. It went bleating away to join its companions in the pen Mr Lawrence had rigged up in the yard. Its head pecked the air like a great black beak, the spittled lips flung into a grimace of relief.
‘Philip wouldn’t believe it,’ sighed Stella, rubbing her back. ‘Only fourteen more to go.’
‘We must try to get them finished by dark.’
‘Easy,’ said Stella. ‘We’re experts, now.’
At the end of the afternoon Joe drove the tractor to the field where Prue was muck-spreading. He had to pick up the empty trailer and tow it back to the yard.
He found Prue standing in a sea of tawny dung, the limp straw just lighted by dwindling sky. Her pitchfork moved feebly, twitching at the stuff she had already scattered. She heaved a clump from the small pile that was left, and threw it carelessly. When she saw Joe she stopped and gave up all pretence of effort.
He jumped down from the tractor, climbed the gate and strode towards her. She put out her arms. He held her, lightly kissed her hair. The satin bow had slumped over sideways, lying among the curls like a dead canary.
‘You’ve done well,’ he said.
‘But Joe,’ she said, ‘I’m all in. Never, ever been so exhausted.’
His chest, where she lay her head, was saturated with sour farmyard smells. She found them more comforting than any bottled scent. The stuff of his waterproof crackled beneath her cheeks when she stirred.
‘You go to bed very early tonight,’ Joe said, ‘and you’ll be fine in the morning. Tomorrow, when the others are asleep, come down to my room.’
‘But surely that’s mad? I don’t want to be sent away.’
‘We’ll take care.’
‘There was something up, today – your mum and dad. All the rotten jobs they gave me. They were being tough: sort of testing me.’
‘They have their ways. Best not to question them. Shall I run you back in the trailer?’
‘I haven’t quite finished – that small pile.’
‘Leave it till tomorrow.’
‘I’d like to get it finished.’
‘I’ll do it for you.’
‘No.’
Joe lifted Prue’s face, gave a wry smile. ‘You’re a determined one, I’ll say that for you.’
‘Might as well do my bit for my country well as I can.’ She giggled, energy returning. ‘God, I smell awful. I stink.’
‘Not so awful that I couldn’t take you right here on this sodding bed of straw, if we had the time,’ said Joe. ‘Kiss me.’
Their mouths clashed. Behind Prue’s closed eyes she saw that their heads had merged into one huge flower of interlocking petals that spurted with light, like sparklers. She felt herself sway. She felt Joe hold her more tightly, to stop her falling. She dropped her pitchfork. It fell to the ground.
Mr Lawrence saw them as he passed the field on his way back from looking at a sickly cow. A mist had begun to rise, making them legless. They looked like the top half of a statue on a fragile plinth, swaying slightly, loosely soldered.
Mr Lawrence felt the burning of his face. He walked on, quickening his stride.
Ag and Stella failed. It was too dark to see clearly, and there were still five sheep left.
‘We can’t go on, we could hurt one of them,’ said Ag. Both girls’ backs ached badly. It was chilly, dank. Their last sheep skittered away to join the small flock. ‘Still, we haven’t done badly.’
They gathered up the tools, then each took an end of the heavy bench and moved it back to its place in the shed.
‘What I’d love more than anything in the world is a long, hot bath,’ said Stella.
‘Me, too. Followed by some sort of silly cocktail in front of an open fire.’
When they returned to the yard, they found Mr Lawrence, flanked by the two collies, had already let the sheep out of the pen. The creatures pivoted about in the dusk, followed first one of their number then another, bleating with articulate monotony.
‘Silly animals, really,’ said Stella.
‘Best as part of a landscape,’ said Ag.
Mr Lawrence whistled to the dogs. In a trice they lowered their backs, nosed swiftly off towards the scattered flock, and formed it into an orderly bunch.
‘We didn’t quite finish, I’m afraid,’ said Stella. ‘Five to go.’
‘Never mind. Tomorrow. We’ll leave the pen up overnight.’ Mr Lawrence seemed unconcerned, moved off to the gate.
‘I can manage.’
A few yards down the lane Joe, on the tractor, met the flock. He switched off the engine, watched them divide in confusion each side of the machine. The dogs skilfully kept them from running into the ditches – barking, pausing and sprinting with a subtle bossiness. Mr Lawrence, crook in hand, followed a little behind them. When he drew level with the tractor, Joe called to him.
‘How did it go, the dagging?’
‘Fine.’
Mr Lawrence strode past, not able to look at his son. Joe started the engine, drove into the yard. Ag and Stella were still there, leaning against the sheep pen – laughing, he thought. One of them waved: hard to tell which one. He drove into the barn, jumped down. The thump of gumboots warned him the girls had come to join him.
‘It wasn’t at all bad,’ said one, with a happy voice.
‘We became quite expert,’ said the other. ‘We managed almost all of them.’
‘Good.’
One of them helped him unlock the trailer. The other threw a piece of sacking over the Fordson’s engine. Then they found themselves looking towards the black hump of the house.
‘One of the things I most miss in this war,’ said Joe, ‘is lighted windows. Imagine how it would be if we could walk towards a lighted kitchen window.’
‘Never mind,’ said Stella – he thought it was Stella. ‘We’re getting pretty good at finding our way in the dark.’
Joe put a heavy arm across each of their shoulders. ‘I’ll guide you all the same,’ he said.
Prue, her muck-raking finally finished, tottered towards the gate. She decided to sit on it for a while, summon the energy to walk back up the lane. She would have done anything to accept Joe’s invitation of a lift in the trailer, but some sense of pride insisted she finish the job completely before leaving the field.
She sat on the top bar of the gate watching the last light fade from the sky, trees change into black hoods, the ground mist stretch higher. She put out a foot, dipped it into the silvery skeins as if trying the water of a ghostly sea.
Prue didn’t much like the dark. A shiver went down her spine. She feared an owl might hoot (something she had never heard, always wanted to hear, but not now). If a bat brushed past her, she’d scream bloody murder.
There was silence. Then, the distant shuffle and thud of sheep, anxious bleats, dogs barking. Prue swivelled herself precariously round, using the pitchfork for support, to face the lane. She could just make out a rumbling wave of fat woollen bodies, spectral cushions lumbering past, the occasional glint of an eye. Bloody hell, she said to herself, this is what I’d call spooky. What’s more, they came with a phantom shepherd and his crook. Not till the shepherd reached the gate could Prue see it was Mr Lawrence.
‘Finished,’ she called. ‘I done the lot, Mr Lawrence.’
Perhaps he did not hear, for he gave no answer. He strode past her, legs lost in the mist, whistling to the dogs.
‘Old mean face,’ she said out loud, jumping down.
With the last of her energy she hurried up the lane. She was very cold by now. She craved a hot bath in a bathroom like the one in shampoo advertisements – soaking in asses’ milk or pine essence, gin and lime to hand. And what would she get? Three inches of tepid water, if she was lucky, in the Lawrences’ mean and icy bathroom, followed by a glass of water and rabbit pie.
‘Land girl, you’re barmy,’ she sang.
Her eyes had grown accustomed to the dark. When she reached the yard she could make out, quite easily, three figures walking towards the house. Joe seemed to be in the middle, arms slung across Ag’s and Stella’s shoulders. Prue stopped for a moment, to make sure.
Blimey, she thought, a week ago he was hardly speaking to any of us, and now he seems to like land girls. Very peculiar, men, as her mum always said.
Mr Lawrence strode into the kitchen without stopping to wipe his boots.
His wife, heeding the warning, glanced up from the pudding she was making at the table.
‘Little hussy,’ he said.
‘What’s she done now?’
Mr Lawrence frowned. He had meant to keep his silence. Calculations circled swiftly in his mind.
‘Nothing you could put your finger on,’ he said eventually. ‘I told you. I always said land girls wouldn’t work.’
‘I don’t know what we’d do without them,’ she said. ‘I’d begun to think you were getting used to them.’
‘That Prudence girl. She’s a menace.’
Mrs Lawrence put the dish in the oven, took her time to answer.
‘I thought she might have been a threat – Joe. But I’ve come to the conclusion she’s harmless. And she’s a worker. It’s Stella I worry about.’
‘Stella?’
Mr Lawrence, on his way to the doormat, looked back so sharply the movement could have been taken for guilt. ‘What’s the matter with Stella?’
His wife coolly met his eye. ‘Pining for the lover at sea. She seems so troubled by his lack of letters.’
‘Is that all?’ Mr Lawrence kicked off his boots with some relief. ‘She’ll get used to it. Pining’ll get her nowhere. Hankering for what is not – stupid waste of time.’
‘Quite,’ said Mrs Lawrence.
Was it a smirched conscience, the farmer wondered, that caused him to think Faith knew he was addressing himself? He felt a sudden desire to be far from the house – a house so full and changed by its new occupants. He wanted no part of the bustle, the chatter, the evening ahead. He wanted to get away, collect his thoughts in peace.
‘I’ll be out tonight,’ he said. ‘There’s something on Ratty’s mind and I’ve had no time to listen to him this past week. He needs an hour or two to unwind. Said I’d meet him for a pint in The Bells.’
‘You’ll need a shave, then. There’s a clean shirt in the drawer.’
‘Thanks.’
Mr Lawrence was convinced he saw a shadow of incredulity in his wife’s tired eyes as she looked up at him. He left the kitchen too perturbed to drink the mug of tea waiting on the stove. It was the first time in their married life he had ever lied to her.
The others, at supper, were subdued by fatigue, but not uneasy. Joe got up after the cottage pie, saying he was going to his room to read. Before leaving he kissed his mother lightly on the top of her head – something none of them had ever seen him do before, and patted her shoulder. She did not respond.
Some moments later, Prue, with schoolgirl politeness, asked to leave the table: she didn’t fancy any pudding and feared she would fall asleep in her chair. Mrs Lawrence nodded her assent, mouth reduced again to a thin line of disapproval.
Stella and Ag, on their way upstairs when the washing-up was finished, heard the thin sad sound of the Brahms cello concerto coming from Joe’s room.
‘Good heavens,’ said Stella, pausing on the stairs. ‘That. I didn’t know Joe liked music.’
‘Do you? Do you play?’
‘I play a little. I sing a bit, dance a bit. I’d like to teach one day, but at this rate I’ll be far too rusty.’
They found Prue on her bed, the cover crumpled beneath her, fully dressed. She had fallen asleep even before taking off her shoes. She wore the crochet jersey again: the crystal beads on the collar sparkled like two inanimate smiles round her neck. Her bow-mouth was slightly open, two child-like front teeth resting on the bottom lip. Even in sleep she looked tired.
Ag struggled to pull off the regulation shoes. Lumps of dried mud fell to the floor. Stella began to tug at the breeches.
‘What about the bow? The make-up?’
‘Nothing we can do.’
‘She’ll be horrified in the morning. Panda eyes for milking.’
‘She’ll cope.’
When they had relieved Prue of her breeches, shoes and socks, they managed to bundle her under the bedclothes.
‘More important, I hope she’ll cope with Joe,’ said Ag. ‘The whole thing seems to be fraught with danger.’
‘With any luck it’ll burn itself out very quickly. No one will come to any harm.’
‘Hope you’re right. Apart from anything else, what land girl could find the time and energy for sex and farm work? They’re not physically compatible, I’d say. Though maybe Prue will prove us wrong.’
‘She’s so pretty.’ Stella studied the blonde head nestled in the pillows. ‘You can see why Joe, alone here for so long, finds her irresistible.’
‘He’s an odd one, Joe.’ Ag went to her own end of the room, turned down the bed. ‘I didn’t take to him at first. Now, I rather like him.’
Stella, as she did every night, picked up her framed photograph of Philip. ‘As long as we all keep on liking him,’ she said, ‘we’ll be all right. We’ll be fine. We’ll have a good friend.’
In The Bells Mr Lawrence found Ratty, as he guessed he would. The sight of the old man by the fire, tankard in hand, released some of his guilt. He had lied about a planned meeting, but at least Ratty’s presence meant there was a meeting. The full weight of the lie was thus eased.
Mr Lawrence ordered himself a pint of bitter and joined Ratty by the fire. They nodded at each other, felt the warmth of the flames on their hands and shins.
‘Poison day coming up soon,’ said Mr Lawrence at last.
‘This ruddy war.’ Ratty shook his head. His eyes, the colour of tea, rolled about. ‘Messes up everything. Girls ratting! Changes the nature of things.’
‘Girls dagging, hedging, ploughing … odd, I agree. But something we’ll have to come to think of as normal.’
Ratty’s thin brown mouth stretched into an approximate smile. ‘You’ve come round pretty quickly, then? Not two weeks back you were full of doubts, you said.’
‘There’s only one causes a bit of trouble.’
A growl of a laugh came from Ratty’s throat. ‘They’re nice enough girls. The tall one puts me in mind of my mother.’ Brightening, Ratty finished his drink. ‘Then there’s the floozie – you want to mind her. Then there’s the – other one.’
‘Stella.’ The pleasure of saying her name, Mr Lawrence noticed, registered like a tiny graph moving upwards in his heart.
‘That’s right.’
‘Another drink?’
‘Thanks, no. Must be going.’ Back to the furious darning Edith, thought Ratty. She’d managed to burn the single saucepan this evening. Potatoes abandoned, he had had to quell his hunger with drink.
‘Couple of weeks, then, the ratting. I’ll leave you in charge. You can explain to them, can’t you?’
‘Dare say I could if I put my mind that way.’
Ratty stood up, reluctant to think about it. He arched his back, stiff. He didn’t fancy the idea at all. Women screamed when they saw a mouse, in his experience. Lord knows what they’d do at the sight of a rat. As for explaining: words weren’t easy on that sort of occasion. Still, he could show – like the day he’d shown the Stella girl to harness Noble. She’d learned surprisingly quickly.
‘Night, Ratty,’ said Mr Lawrence.
‘Night, guv.’
Ratty touched his head with a kind of smudged salute. However close they had grown over the years, Ratty would not consider abandoning this deferential gesture. They were boss and hired hand, and nothing would persuade Ratty to alter his ways: he knew his place, and had no intention of changing the behaviour that was customary in his job.
‘There’s two things we must talk about, Joe, you and me,’ said Prue. ‘Two things we must talk about first.’
She stood just inside the door, dressing-gown clutched about her. It was the following night. After a long day lime-washing the cowsheds, she had had some difficulty waiting for the others to fall asleep before she crept downstairs to Joe’s room. But she had promised to keep this date. He had reminded her several times during the day, assured her there was no danger providing she did not put on her torch. His room, luckily, was at the bottom of the attic stairs, the far side of the house from his parents.
It was lit by a dim lamp on the bedside table, knights in armour cut out from a scrapbook stuck on its shade. Even in the poor light, Prue could see it was still a schoolboy’s room: pictures of trains and aeroplanes on the wall, a stack of board games in old boxes under a table. The bed was narrow, covered with threadbare candlewick. Pallid wool slippers stood neatly on the mat, a wooden chair was heaped with untidy clothes. Records in paper sleeves were stacked everywhere on the floor. Wedged in among them were piles of books that overflowed from the many shelves. There was a smell of toothpaste and dung, and it was cold.
Joe sat in the only comfortable chair, in an open-necked shirt and no shoes. ‘Have this chair,’ he said, rising after a long silence.
‘I’d rather sit on the bed.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure.’
Prue climbed on to the bruise-coloured cover. The springs whined. She curled her legs beneath her, hoping to warm her feet. She would have given anything for a Woodbine, but knew that was not possible – smoke brought on Joe’s asthma.
‘So what is it you have to say – first?’ Joe gave a small smile.
Prue shivered: combination of cold and constraint.
‘First: there’s a party at the RAF camp in a couple of weeks’ time. We all want to go. I mean, we must have a bit of fun.’
‘So?’
‘How do we get there?’
Joe rubbed his jaw, mock-serious. ‘There’s the Wolseley, I suppose.’
‘Exactly. But it needs a driver. Would you – might you … be able?’
‘I could see what I can do. There’s a pretty tight rein on petrol, but we haven’t used much lately. Dare say I could swing it.’
‘Joe! You’re a bloody angel!’ Prue hugged herself.
‘Of course, it would mean my having to stay at the party to bring you back. Dad would never agree to a lot of to-ing and fro-ing.’
‘You wouldn’t mind that, would you?’
‘I’m not much of a party man. But no, I wouldn’t mind for once.’
‘We could dance.’
‘It would take a lot to get me on a dance floor. A very large reward.’
‘Promise you that!’ Prue fluttered her eyelashes.
‘And what was the other thing?’ Joe began to take off his socks.
‘The other thing was Janet. I think we should talk about her.’
‘No need for that, is there?’
Joe undid the two top buttons of his shirt. ‘You’re at liberty to go back upstairs. I won’t lay a finger on you again if it troubles your conscience.’
‘It’s your conscience I’m thinking of.’
‘For various reasons that I won’t bother you with, my conscience is having no troubles at all. But thanks for thinking about it. And come here.’
He put out a hand. Prue took it and slid herself off the bed. Joe guided her on to the floor between his legs. She put a hand on each corduroy knee. Her cheeks were scarlet. She wanted to laugh, but knew she must contain herself.
‘Would you be terribly cold if you took off your dressing-gown?’
‘Probably.’ Prue giggled. She untied the cord, slipped it from her shoulders. Joe shifted forward in his chair.
‘You realize,’ he said, ‘I could never see you properly in the barn. I could only imagine.’
‘Well, here you are,’ said Prue, giving a small wiggle so that her breasts shimmered. ‘All right, are they?’
‘All right? My God, come here.’
Joe took Prue’s head in his enormous hands. She opened her shining pink mouth in readiness, the fluttering eyes not quite innocent. Suddenly fierce, he pulled her down.
Some time later Prue slipped out of the small, awkward bed. She felt exhausted by constraint. They had had to stop themselves from shouting. They had had to curb the instinctive wildness of their movements because of the singing bed springs. Prue longed to be back in the barn. Now, Joe put a warning hand on her arm.
‘Listen,’ he whispered.
Prue could hear footsteps in the passage. They hesitated. She quickly slipped into the small space between the wardrobe and the window, dressing-gown slung over her shoulders, heart battering. Joe struggled into his pyjamas. There was a small tap on the door.
‘Joe?’
‘Yes?’
‘I thought I heard you coughing.’
Joe went to the door, opened it a few inches. His mother stood in the passage clasping a candle in a tin holder of cobalt blue. She wore a long cream nightdress of frayed wool: she had worn such nightdresses for as long as Joe could remember.
‘Would you like me to put on the kettle? Do you a bowl of Friar’s Balsam?’
Her sad beige mouth was drawn down, a tail of long dark hair hung over one shoulder. The slight trembling of her hand made the candle’s flame to sway, and shadows to tremble on the walls.
‘No thanks, I’m all right.’
‘Very well, then.’
‘Night, Ma.’
‘Good night, Joe.’
Joe shut the door. Prue came out of her hiding place.
‘Cor blimey,’ she said. ‘That was a near one.’
‘Ma’s always on the alert,’ said Joe. ‘Always worrying about my health. But she didn’t have a clue – honestly.’
‘I’ll be going,’ said Prue. She put up her cheek to be kissed, then on tense bare feet felt her silent way up the stairs. Night three: and complications, she thought. Trouble with Mrs Lawrence was the last thing she wanted.
Perhaps Joe wasn’t such a good idea after all. Perhaps things would be easier all round with the RAF man in the teashop. At the thought of his severe blue cap tipped so neatly over his shaven head, Prue gave a small shiver as she climbed into her cold, dark bed.