25

The rain the swallows foretold began to fall from low, grey clouds.

‘Looks as if it’s set for the day,’ Grace remarked, filling Kath’s mug with tea. ‘Can’t say we don’t need it, though, for the potatoes and sugar-beet. Why don’t you bring Roz in of a morning, now? That lass is as thin as a rake. What she needs is some toast and dripping inside her. You should bring her with you mornings, before you start the milk-round.’

‘I’ll tell her, though she isn’t one for breakfast.’ And tea and toast thick with beef dripping were the last things Roz would want, though if the baby-book was to be believed her sickness should soon be at an end.

‘Tell me about your Barney? Such a terrible thing to have happened.’

‘Yes. I worried about it all night. He’s leaving early this morning for Edinburgh. It all depends on the operation, Grace. I can’t – I won’t – think beyond that.’ Not about Barney, raging against his blindness; not anything. ‘I rang Shilton as soon as I got up. The night-sister said he was still sleeping and that he was fine. She promised to tell him I’d phoned, to wish him luck.’

‘And to give him your love, Kath?’ They’d be all right, now, Grace was sure of it. They’d be drawn together again. Maybe closer than ever.

‘Love. Yes.’ Pity, more like. Because that was what she felt. Deep, deep pity and anger that it should have happened to him. ‘But I’ll have to go and give Roz a hand.’

From across the yard came the sounds of the pony being harnessed. If someone wasn’t there to watch her, Roz could forget, and start loading milk crates on to the cart.

‘Mind you put your gum-boots on,’ Grace called, ‘and your raincoats or you’ll catch your deaths, the pair of you. Don’t forget, now.’

‘We won’t.’ Oh, Grace – if only a soaking was all we had to worry about …

‘I do not,’ said Marco as he helped Kath unload the milk-cart, ‘like your English rain. It is very cold.’

‘And wet,’ Roz offered. ‘In winter it freezes, if you remember, and turns into snow. I’ll see to Daisy if you like, Kath – dry her down.’

‘Thanks.’ She needed to talk to Marco; needed his nearness, his understanding. ‘You know about Barney?’ she asked when they were alone.

‘I know. It is bad. It is the worst thing that could happen to any man. And I know how things will be. Since I heard, I think about it a lot, Kat, and I don’t like what I think.’

‘That I might have to leave the Land Army – leave Home Farm; go back to Birmingham? I’ve thought about it too, Marco, and I won’t have any choice. I couldn’t turn my back on a blind man.’

‘You could, but you won’t. Not you, Kat. I think I am going to lose you because you won’t leave him; won’t ask him to let you go free – not now.’

‘No.’ She looked down at her boots, her voice a whisper. ‘No one could do a thing like that, no matter what.’

‘Jonty said he’s to have an operation.’

‘Yes. That’s all I’m thinking about. In a couple of days, perhaps, he’ll have had it and that soon he’ll be able to see again. I want it for Barney – not just for me.’

‘And is there a chance for him, Kat?’

‘I don’t know. The nurses didn’t tell me anything. They can’t, I suppose. But by now he’ll be on his way to Edinburgh with two other soldiers and I hope it’ll go well for them all.’

‘Si. Sometimes hope is all we have left. My mamma say that hope can be stronger than prayer. And oh, Kat, I want so much to hold you and comfort you …’

‘Like on threshing day?’ Such a fuss, over one frightened rat; a fuss over next to nothing, had she but known it, then.

‘Like that day, Kat. Did you know then that I loved you?’

‘No. But I was angry with myself that I’d liked it when you held me. Things are in a mess, aren’t they? What’s going to happen to us?’

‘I don’t know.’ He touched her cheek with his fingertips. ‘I think we must – how you say it – bear it and grin?’

‘Something like that.’ And take what life hurled at them, because the Fates got jealous. It didn’t do to love too well – already Roz knew it. ‘You’ll have to go, or someone’s going to catch us here together.’

‘Would you care, Katarina-mia, if they did?’

‘No.’ Not now when all she wanted – needed – was to feel his arms around her. But later she would care, because she was married to Barney and Barney needed her. In sickness and in health, she had promised. ‘Right now I need you so much, but it isn’t what I need, any longer. There’s Barney to think of, now.’ Barney, who would never see again.

‘I am sick of this rain,’ Roz grumbled. ‘It’s gone on all day and the sky is still full of it. And this kitchen smells awful.’

Of wet raincoats on the rack above the fireplace, dungarees and socks draped along the fireguard to dry, shoes stuffed with newspaper in the hearth.

‘Does it bother you, Roz?’

‘Not really.’ Some smells had made her want to retch, but not so much, now. And this last week she hadn’t felt quite so sick, either. In a couple of weeks, when she was three months gone, the doctor had said, it should be almost over.

Three months pregnant and a tiny, almost perfect child inside her. Hers, and Paul’s. By the time harvest was over, she would be half-way there and she would feel the baby moving. Just gentle little stirrings, at first; but when it happened, her baby would be really alive.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘The baby. And about lighting a fire in the little sitting-room.’

‘Another fire? In July? We’re supposed to save fuel.’

‘But why not? It’s been really cold today, and we’ve got any amount of logs. Why don’t we sit in there, for a change? I could make a start on Gran’s desk, then. I shall have to go through it some time. Why don’t I bring some logs in?’

‘I’ll get the logs. You find paper and kindling. And what do you think has happened to that call? I booked it ages ago.’ Kath frowned. ‘Why should there be these delays over trunk calls? It never used to be like that.’

‘No, but the armed forces are ringing up all the time. It’s they who have put the phone lines on war work, and civilians have to wait their turn. There is a war on.’

‘I know, but I’m going to ring the girl on the exchange again. She might have forgotten.’

‘And you might have given her the wrong number.’

‘I didn’t. All I want to know is that Barney has got there and for them to tell him I phoned.’

‘But of course he’ll get there all right. They all will. There’ll be an army nurse with them, didn’t you say? But let’s get that fire lit. I’m cold.’

‘That’s because you’re not eating. There’s nothing inside you to burn up into heat. All you want is drinks of water, and things to crunch. A baby can’t exist on crunch, Roz.’

‘It can, you know. I asked Doctor Stewart about it. I was worried, you see, about two terrible shocks, coming one on top of the other, and about my not wanting to eat. But he said that embryo babies are tougher than we think and I wasn’t to worry, too much. He said that once I stopped being sick and began eating again, I’d probably feel really well.

‘And he said that pregnant women often want to eat peculiar things in the first few weeks, and provided they aren’t too peculiar, it’s all right. I’d told him, you see, that I was desperate to crunch on a big, juicy apple. But there aren’t any apples in the shops, now. There won’t be any until the English apples are ripe, in the autumn. So then I hit on something else. Carrots. Well, at least they aren’t in short supply and just now they’re small and sweet and –’

‘And crunchy?’

‘Mm. Sprog is going to have a marvellous complexion.’

‘And he’ll be able to see in the dark, too.’ Weren’t carrots supposed to help people see in the blackout and fighter pilots to see at night?

They began to laugh, and it was the strangest sound. Roz, laughing. Only briefly, because laughter, now, wasn’t on. But she had laughed.

‘You want this baby, don’t you, Roz?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said softly, gently. ‘More than you know …’

Later, Kath sat on the floor, in the fireglow. Outside, all was grey and rain-soaked, but in this little room the weather and the war, too, seemed to be happening in some other place. She recalled the first time she had sat here; that Sunday afternoon visit when Roz had shown her Ridings and the ruins, and Mrs Fairchild had said, ‘Come and see us again – soon.’ And had meant it.

Was it only half a year ago that Roz had reminded her not to speak of Paul. And shown her the portraits – her peculiar forebears, she’d called them.

‘Remember when –’ Kath sighed, then stopped abruptly, said instead, ‘Remember when we could have bought seven pounds of apples, if we’d wanted them? And oranges, all the year round – not just one, at the end of a half-hour queue?’

‘Yes, and cream cakes for Sunday tea.’

‘And now it’s illegal to make cream, let alone sell it.’

‘Everything nice is illegal or rationed or under the counter these days. Here – want to see one of me, when I was two-and-a-half?’

She handed over a snapshot of a small girl, unmistakably Roz, standing with toes turned inward and mischief in her eyes.

‘Rosalind Fairchild-Jarvis. Age 2yrs. 6mths. My mother must have written that – or my father. They always called me Rosalind, I believe. It was Jonty who first called me Roz, and it stuck. Even Gran only called me Rosalind when she was cross with me.’

‘Where was this taken? London?’

‘I should think so. That was where we lived. That snap must have been taken only a few weeks before they died.’

It was strange, Kath thought, that Roz could speak of her parents without pain – probably because she had never really known them.

‘Do you remember anything about living in London?’

‘Not a thing. My life began here, seventeen years ago in December, it’ll be. And Gran never spoke about the way things were – only if I asked, and then not much. Here’s one of me and Jonty! Just look at those awful round glasses.’ A snapshot of Jonty, holding Roz’s hand tightly – loving her, even then.

‘Glasses suit Jonty, now,’ Kath defended. ‘They make him look intellectual – donnish, sort of.’

‘Well, they didn’t when he was eight. They made him look like a surprised little owl. And I’m not being catty. I’m allowed to say things like that.’

‘Because he’s your brother?’

‘Yes. It’s nice in this little room, isn’t it, Kath?’

‘Yes. And cosy.’ No bad memories in here.

‘When winter comes, we’ll sit here more often, won’t we – now that we’ve got logs to burn?’

‘Good idea.’ They would use it all the time, if it meant that sometimes Roz would laugh. ‘Ssh! The phone!’ She was quickly on her feet to answer it; to break the spell and let in the outside world again. ‘That’s my call to Edinburgh …’

Kath placed a cup of hot cocoa on a tray, and a glass of milk for Roz. Boiling the kettle and setting the tray gave her time alone to think, to compose herself.

A nurse with a soft Welsh accent had answered her call and told her that yes, Driver Allen’s party had arrived and all three were safely installed in the surgical ward.

‘Your husband is second on the list tomorrow – can you try to get through in the evening? He should be over it by then and a message from you will cheer him up.’

‘I won’t be able to speak to him – later?’

‘I’m afraid we can’t allow that. But try not to worry, my dear. We’ll take good care of them all.’

And that, Kath shrugged, had been that. They had told her nothing, really, except the number of his ward.

She was glad Barney was still with his friends; glad the army nurse who had looked after him on the flight home was with them. Before she went to sleep she would write to him and post it in the morning when they did the milk-round. Letters were important to a soldier – even if he had to ask someone else to read them to him.

‘Sorry there’s nothing crunchy.’ Kath set down the tray. ‘Barney’s fine – settled in his ward and his operation is tomorrow. The nurse said I wasn’t to ring before evening – even supposing I’ll be able to get through.’

‘Good.’ Roz took the milk and drank it without thinking. ‘And I’ve got everything sorted – letters and photographs and Gran’s diaries. Y’know, Kath, I’d never opened Gran’s desk; it was a sort of understanding between us that I didn’t – just as she’d never have dreamed of opening any of my letters. The first time I did it was when I gave everything that was in the bottom drawer to Mr Dunston, as she’d said I should if – if anything ever happened to her. It felt strange, at first, but I think I’ve got it organized, now. It was very tidy – but Gran was like that. I think she could have opened this desk in the dark and put her hands on anything she wanted. The photographs and letters are in the bottom drawer, now, and I’ll go through them all, bit by bit, when I’m in the mood for it; her diaries are all in proper order, too. I shall like reading them. Well – now that she’s not here I suppose it’s all right?’

‘I suppose so, Roz. But I’ve always thought that diaries are very private. Maybe, if we knew exactly which day is to be our last one, we’d destroy things like that. I know I would.’

‘You mean I shouldn’t read them? That Gran might not have wanted me to know what she’d written?’

‘I don’t honestly know. Really, it’s up to you, Roz. The only thing we can be sure about is that she didn’t know the day she would die –’

‘So I’d better take it that she might not have wanted me to open them?’

‘No! I don’t mean that at all. They might give you an insight into a lot of things, in fact. Are your grandfather’s letters there?’

‘Yes. Bundles of them – written from the trenches. And letters from other people, too; some with Victorian and Edwardian stamps on them. Those letters and diaries are Fairchild history, Kath. I’d like to read them through one day. With respect, I mean, and love. I’d really like to have known how Gran felt about Grandpa’s death. I did look at the last of the diaries – she didn’t keep one, it seems, after Grandpa was killed, so I’m a bit disappointed about that, and that there isn’t anything there about my mother and father – and me, being born. But the last one was dated 1916 and on the very last page she’d written, Today, they killed my darling Martin. That’s all, Kath. Sort of final. Then no more entries; no more diaries. Just as if her life had ended. Just the way I felt when –’ She stopped, eyes closed, face twisted with pain.

‘Sssh, now,’ Kath whispered. ‘Lock it up, Roz? No more for tonight?’

‘Okay. But I shall read them – even if only because I’m certain she knew exactly how I’m feeling, now. It might even help.’

‘Yes. But another night?’

Carefully Roz locked each drawer, then closed the desk-top flap, and locked that, too. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, Kath, but you know when Jonty found out about the baby and we had that terrible row? Well, he asked me to marry him – for the baby’s sake, he said; so it needn’t be illegitimate. He didn’t expect – well – anything else, he said …’

‘But you said no?’ Kath demanded, startled.

‘I told him no. It wouldn’t have been right.’

‘No. It wouldn’t have. For one thing, you couldn’t love him, Roz; not the way you’re feeling now, anyway. And Jonty’s too good to be used. He deserves to be properly loved.’

‘I know – but I do care for him, Kath. I care enough not to marry him.’

‘Then there’s hope for you yet.’ She was growing up. In so short a space of time, Roz had left her youth behind her; had accepted the responsibility for another life.

‘Hope. Yes.’ She placed the key in the little china dish on the desk top. ‘I think I’ll go to bed, now. What about you, Kath?’

‘Me too. I’ll just lock the doors and check that the clothes are all right round the fire, then I’ll follow you up. Off you go. Goodnight, love, and try not to worry too much. From now, things can only get better. Upwards, remember?’

She had been wrong; so very wrong, though it was to take a little time to register in her numbed brain. But she should have known, she told herself afterwards, when the warrant-officer had come to the farm that next morning. He’d walked carefully across the yard, picking his way between the pools and puddles – well he would, she considered, watching him – wearing such brilliantly polished boots.

‘Will you take the milk over, or shall I?’ Roz had asked.

‘Best leave it. The sergeant-major from the camp has just gone into the kitchen.’

‘Oh? And what does he want?’

‘Dunno – you’d better ask Mat.’

‘I will.’ She had a right to know. It was obviously about Marco and Marco worked for Ridings, too. ‘Do you suppose Mat has asked the War Ag. for another prisoner?’

‘Haven’t a clue, though sometimes we could do with one. But when he leaves you can nip over with the milk and ask what it’s all about.’

They had left it at that, because it hadn’t seemed all that important. Not then.

‘It’s a bit of a licker, having it hurled at you out of the blue, like that,’ Mat brooded. ‘And with the harvest on top of us, too. What do they want to do a damn-fool thing like that for? I said as much to the sergeant-major and he said that the camp at Helpsley was the most secure there was around these parts, and that’s why they were moving the Italians out and moving Germans in. The Germans take a lot of looking after; not like the Italians, he said. Seems that a lot of Italian people don’t like Mussolini overmuch and didn’t want to come into the war on Hitler’s side. Those prisoners are easy-going; glad to be out of it, he said, but the Germans are another thing altogether.’

‘So where will Marco be going?’ Roz asked. ‘Did you find out?’

‘Not in so many words – well, he couldn’t tell me, could he? But it’s too far away for us to keep Marco; that he did say.’

‘So will they give us a German prisoner if we ask for one, Mat?’ And thank God Gran wasn’t here to hear her say that – nor Kath, either.

‘Lord bless you, no. Far too sure of themselves those Nazis are. They aren’t going to be allowed to work out, like the Italians – left me in no doubt on that score. Couldn’t trust them not to try to escape.’

‘I’ll be sad to see him go,’ Grace said softly. ‘Marco’s a grand lad – always cheerful, and a good worker.’

‘Aye. He’ll be missed – that he will.’

Missed, Roz thought, splashing through the puddles to the dairy. And by Kath most of all. But nothing went right around Ridings and Home Farm – Ridings, especially. Ever since Gran had miscarried her son all those years ago, worse luck had followed bad. The ill-luck of the Fairchilds people called it; one generation after another, and anyone close to them, too.

She stood in the doorway of the dairy, hands spread on her abdomen as if to protect her child from it.

‘There’s a curse on this place, Kath. A curse.’

‘Tell me,’ Kath whispered. ‘It’s to do with Marco, isn’t it?’

‘They’re moving the Italian prisoners out – moving Germans in. They don’t know when, but it could be as – as soon as the end of the week. That was what he came to tell Mat.’

‘End of the week?’ Two, maybe three more days. ‘I don’t know about a curse, Roz, but Somebody up there doesn’t think very highly of us.’ All at once she felt very afraid. ‘There’s no hope, I suppose, that –’

‘That they’ve made a mistake? No. And Mat couldn’t find where they’ll be going – only that it’s too far away for us to keep Marco. I’m so sorry, Kath. I know how you care for him.’

‘I care too much. But maybe it’s as well he’s going – and maybe I’ll be the next to go. If Barney isn’t lucky, I’ll have to get my release to look after him.’

Once she had been so happy that it had been a joy to get up each morning. She should have known it couldn’t last.

‘Don’t say that, Kath? If you were to go I don’t know what I’d do. Sprog and I need you. And Barney might get well …’

‘Yes, but he mightn’t … Oh, Roz – I know this sounds mad, but isn’t there somewhere – anywhere – we could live around here? Being in the country would be far better for Barney than streets and streets of houses. There’d be birdsong for him to listen to, and all sorts of sounds and smells. I could plant a scented garden for him – honeysuckle and roses and pinks. And even if I did have to leave the Land Army, I’d still be near to you all. Isn’t there anywhere?’

‘No. Not just now, though I know the Manchester lady won’t want to stay here once the war is over. But it’s now we want somewhere, not two or three years on. I’ll try to think of something Kath – I will.’

‘I know you will.’ Her face was racked with pain and she closed her eyes tightly against the tears. ‘And oh, Roz, I don’t want to leave you nor Home Farm and I don’t want Marco to go.’ Never to see him again nor talk to him; not even to be allowed to write to him. And so little time left. ‘Where is he working this morning?’

‘On Ridings’ land – up near Polly’s. Are you going to him?’

‘No. Later, I’ll see him.’ When she’d had time to pull herself together, to think it all out in her mind; convince herself that what they had had, little though it was, was no more than a bonus – something to think back on, to recall on the sad days; on days when the unfriendly streets she would be going back to were grey and cold. ‘I’ll see him at dinner-break, in the barn …’

He was sitting there when she went to the barn at noon; sitting on the floor, his hands relaxed on his knees.

‘You know, Kat?’

‘I know. Roz told me.’ She sat down beside him.

‘And what are we to do, you and I?’

‘What can we do, but – well – bear it and grin? But you knew, Marco, didn’t you?’

‘Not for certain. But I heard things. The guards talk and they forget, sometimes, that some of us speak English good.’

‘Just a few more days, that’s all.’ The panic that had slashed through her when first she heard was gone, now, and in its place was despair and acceptance.

‘Perhaps not a few days, Kat. Some, I think, will go tomorrow.’

And you’ll be with them.’ The tears were back in her throat, hurting her, but tears she would not cry, because she was married to Barney; to a soldier who was waiting to be taken to an operating theatre and praying as he’d never prayed before that when it was all over there’d be hope.

‘I might be – or I might be lucky.’ He reached for her hand and held it tightly.

‘And after today – or tomorrow –’ she whispered, ‘it’ll be the end, won’t it? I won’t see you again or speak to you. They won’t let me write to you – it would be no use trying. And you can’t write to me.’

‘No. But there might be a way. If I could post a letter – one the Censor hadn’t seen.’

‘But how? How could you buy stamps? Just walk into a post office, would you – or even into a phone-box, to ring me?’

‘No. I don’t have any of your money. But you could give me envelopes, Kat, with stamps on them.’

‘Yes, but how –’

‘How do I post them? If they let me go out to work again, there might be a letterbox, nearby – though to telephone would not be easy. But I shall find a way to write to you – just as I found a way to get out of the camp. You’ll give me envelopes and stamps? Today, Kat, before I leave?’

Today. Now. So he was going tomorrow? Once, she had brought soup here. This barn was where they had met and where, perhaps tonight, they would part.

‘Tonight – before the truck comes for you – meet me here and I’ll give them to you. But don’t get into trouble, just to post a letter? I won’t forget you, Marco; not ever.’

No one could stop her remembering; not Barney nor Aunt Min nor anyone.

‘And I shall remember my Kat. Always. And be glad that a war gave you to me and sad that it took you away.’

‘Yes.’ She knew, now, how Roz felt, only for Roz there was no hope. She, at least, could think of Marco and know that somewhere he was alive. She could still hope in her wildest, craziest moments that one day they would meet again; meet, and say Ciao! and smile. That would be all, but she’d be grateful, even for that.

And yes, she would take care of Barney; she would even go back to the little house in the Birmingham street, but nothing would ever stop her wishing that she and Marco could have once – just once – been lovers.

‘Have you booked the call?’ Roz asked later that evening. ‘To Edinburgh?’

‘I did. And you’re going to have to let me pay for them. Your phone bill will be awful.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake – phone bills are the least of my worries. And did you –’ She stopped, letting her eyes finish the asking.

‘Did I say goodbye to Marco? Yes. He said that some of them will be moving out tomorrow and I know he’ll be amongst them.’

‘I’m sorry, Kath. This is a bloody awful war, isn’t it? Did he give you any hope – about your meeting again, I mean?’

‘No. I gave him envelopes; he just might be able to get to a letterbox. I hope he doesn’t get searched – that they won’t find them on him. But I’m not fooling myself. We said goodbye, though we didn’t have a lot of time.’

He had been there, waiting, when she got to the barn a little before six. She had gone straight into his arms, saying nothing for a little while; just grateful to be near him.

‘Kat. There is something –’ He’d dipped into his pocket, then, giving her a piece of paper. ‘I want you to have this; it is where I live – my address, in Italy. Perhaps, one day when the war is over – well, that’s where I’ll be.’

‘And Ridings’ telephone – you know the number?’

‘181. It’s easy. And Mrs Ramsden and Roz – they’ll always know where you are?’

‘They’ll know.’ She closed her eyes, searching with her mouth for his. Their kiss was long and tender, touched with sadness. A kiss of goodbye. ‘Don’t forget me, Marco?’

They heard the truck, then, and the driver sounding the horn impatiently. He had kissed her again then pushed her a little way from him, looking into her eyes.

‘Arrivederci, Katarina. Ti amo …’

‘And I love you, my darling,’ she had whispered. ‘I always will. Take care of yourself.’

‘I won’t see him again. I know I won’t, but I’ll never be sorry I met him. And loved him. When the going gets rough, I shall remember that there’s a little place called Alderby St Mary and once, a long time ago, I had a very sweet love. And that I was happy there.’

‘You’re determined, aren’t you,’ Roz demanded softly, ‘that you’re going back to Aunt Min and that Barney’s operation wasn’t a success? But what if it has been? What if – even at this very minute – that surgeon in Edinburgh knows it’s all right?’

‘But he can’t know. They won’t be able to hope, even, till the dressings come off.’

‘And when will that be?’

‘Lord – how do I know? The only thing I’m fairly certain about is that he’ll be coming back to the hospital at Shilton. I tell you, Roz, I don’t know why I’m bothering to ring them. All they’ll say is that he’s comfortable and as well as can be expected.’

‘But you will ring, Kath, and you’ll keep hoping.’

‘Yes. Hope can be as strong as prayer – at least that’s what Marco said.’

Marco. Whom she must forget, because it was Barney who needed her prayers, now.

Please God – please – let it come all right, for Barney.