Bluebirds (75 page)

‘Well, I guess you could call it a kind of bribe,' he said
slowly. ‘But then I reckon we'd all've got along just fine without that stuff – maybe even your pa, come harvest time. An' I can't see anybody bribin' your gran. She figures things out for herself. Ain't nobody goin' to make her do nothin' she don't want to. Or think any different. An' what's so wrong with us Yanks sharin' what we've got around a bit? Seems to me that's only fair. So quit fussin', Winnie, an' show me that old barn o' yours.'

There might be bigger barns in America, she thought, and maybe even better, but there wouldn't be one older. Virgil stood with his hands on his hips, looking admiringly about him at the ancient stones and up at the massive roof timbers.

‘Oh boy! Five hundred years old! That's a helluva long time . . . a whole lot've harvests. Gee, the folks back then – well, they must've been walkin' around wearin' those old costumes, like you see in the movies about the old days . . . only they was wearin' them for real. Know what I mean?'

She did know exactly what he meant because she often thought of that too – wondered if their ghosts watched her as she went about the place, and if their spirits lived on somehow in the old walls.

He went on staring about him. ‘An' they'd've been seein' just what I'm seein' now. Same stones, same timbers . . .'

Honesty prevailed this time. ‘Well, bits of it 've been mended. You can see new wood over there where the windbrace rotted, an' there's some of the roof timbers are different, if you look hard.'

‘Ain't nothin'. Reckon most've it's just like it was when some guy put it all together.' He craned his neck upwards. ‘There's birds nestin' high up there.'

‘Swallows. They come back here every summer. Don't know how they find it.' She tilted her head as well, noticing patches of daylight gleaming among the cobwebs. ‘There's a few tiles missin' too. Dad keeps meanin' to do somethin' 'bout them.'

‘Don't make no never mind,' he said. ‘Sure is the darnedest old barn I ever seen.' He took his gaze off the roof and looked instead at her. ‘An' you're the prettiest girl I ever seen. You were cute in that Air Force uniform, but that outfit sure beats everythin'.'

She went pink in the cheeks. The old blue bib-and-braces dungarees were what she always wore about the farm. So was the checked shirt. And both of them were darned and patched. There he was sweet-talking again, and she didn't want it.

‘An' don't say that's dumb,' he went on as she opened her mouth, “cos I'm tellin' you that's so. That husband o' yours . . . what was his name?'

‘Ken.'

‘He killed in the war?'

‘No, he was ill. He had asthma and a weak heart.'

‘You married long?'

‘Bit more than a year.'

‘Tough luck on the guy,' he said. ‘Sure feel sorry for him, losin' out like that. The other guy your grandma talked about . . . Welsh, she said. Where's he fit in?'

She took hold of a broom and swept some straw against the wall. ‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘Sure you do. He your boyfriend now?'

She found some more straw to sweep up. ‘It's nothin' to do with you.'

‘Yeah, but I'm real curious, see. Your grandma said he was pesky. Now that's a word we use just the same's you, I figure. Means a doggone nuisance, back where I come from. That what he is?'

‘He's just someone in the RAF I knew where I was stationed once, that's all.'

‘Still hangin' around, though?'

‘I told you – it's nothin' to do with you.' She propped the broom back against the wall. ‘The cows'll be comin' in soon. I ought to go an' help Jack with the milkin'.'

‘Give you a hand, if you like.'

She looked at him doubtfully, standing there in his smart, smooth, American uniform. ‘Do you know how?'

‘Sure I do.' He was laughing at her expression. ‘I'm just a country boy – remember?'

They passed the lean-to shed where the tractor was kept and he spotted it through the open doorway.

‘Gee, there's a Fordson . . . mind if I take a peek?'

Dad didn't treat her kindly, Winnie thought sadly. The orange paint was scraped and scratched all over and there were some bad dents.

‘We've got a John Deere,' Virgil said.

‘Bigger an' better, I suppose.'

‘Bigger, sure, but then we ain't got little fields like yours, so we have to use big ploughs – an' that means big tractors to pull 'em. Stands to reason.'

Dad had left the tap switched over to TVO again, she noticed, and he'd probably try to start it like that. She turned it to petrol. No sense saying anything to him; he'd only be grumpy about it, and it wouldn't make any difference.

Virgil watched her. ‘You're real handy with machines, ain't you, Winnie? It comes natural to you. Still seems funny to me, though, a pretty girl like you messin' about with engines.'

She straightened up. ‘I don't see why. What's funny about it?'

He shrugged. ‘Guess I'm just not used to it. Reckon there's no reason why not . . . Now, if you looked more like a man – same as some women I've seen in uniform – wouldn't seem so strange. But seein' you're pretty as you are makes it hard to figure out. I mean our ground crews 're tough as hell . . . out in all weathers, workin' all hours.'

‘It's not so hard as on an operational station,' she said. ‘They don't let us on those yet . . . at least I don't think so. I've never heard of a WAAF mechanic on one.'

He grinned. ‘Guess they don't trust you enough.'

She said hotly: ‘We're just as good as the men. Some
of the RAF say we're more reliable. More conscientious . . . that's what a lot of them say.'

He was still grinning. ‘I like it when you get cross, Winnie. Makes you go all pink and look prettier than ever. I won't tease you no more . . . ain't fair. I'm glad you're good with machines – comes in real handy. Me, I'm pretty good with 'em too. Cars, tractors, all kinds o' engines 'n things. Take real good care o' my gun . . . make sure there ain't nothin' goin' to go wrong with it on a mission.'

He raised both arms and swung an imaginary machine gun from side to side, traversing the top of the Fordson's engine cover. She stared.

‘Have you shot any Jerry fighters down yet?'

He dropped his arms. ‘Got one the other day. Boy, that was a great feelin'. Got some of our own back for what they'd been doin' to our guys . . . Jeez, those fighters come at us from all round the clock . . . they sure ain't beginners. Got lucky with this one an' blew his wing off an' down he went. Ain't easy, though. You're slippin' and slidin' around with all the empty shells droppin' on the floor, and you keep bumpin' the guy on the other side . . . tough to get a good aim 'n keep firin' real steady.'

‘How many crew do you have?'

‘Ten. Pilot, co-pilot, bombardier, navigator, flight engineer, radio operator, ball turret gunner, two waist gunners 'n a tail gunner.' He ticked them off on his fingers. ‘Some of those guys man guns too.'

‘There's only seven in a Lanc. What do you need all those for?'

‘We've got more guns, like I told you before. So we need more guys to fire 'em. Else there ain't no point havin' them.'

‘The Lanc carries more bombs than you.'

‘Sure. Goin' at night they don't need all the guns, so they can carry more weight. But we drop our bombs where they're s'posed to go.' He shook his head. ‘Aw,
shucks . . . come 'n, Winnie, it was meant to be quits, remember? Let's go find those cows.'

Tulip, Buttercup, Cherry and Daisy were already in their stalls in the milking parlour. They swung their heads round.

‘Hiya, girls!' Virgil said, chewing on a piece of gum. ‘Which one's gonna be first?'

Jack, grinning from ear to ear, went to fetch him some overalls and Winnie waited, not without hope, for Virgil to fall off the one-legged stool, or miss the bucket, or for Buttercup, who could be touchy, to kick him. But none of those things happened. He went on chewing gum, balanced easily on the stool, and Buttercup went on chomping cud placidly as though she'd been acquainted with him for years, and the milk went squirting straight into the bucket – ping, ping. As she watched, disconcerted, he gave her a big wink.

At tea-time there were sweetcakes and butter and a jar of jam that Mum had saved for a special occasion. And she'd put the cloth on the table as though it were a Sunday. They opened one of the tins of peaches and had them too. Virgil mixed up the peaches with everything else, all on one plate, which made them stare – except for Gran who was too busy guzzling to notice anything.

When it was time for him to go he lifted up Ruth and Laura once more and swung them round, and gave Dad that funny sort of casual American salute that was almost a wave. When it came to her turn he just grinned and said: ‘I'll be seein' you, Winnie.'

He'd come on a bike and freewheeled away down the lane, bearing the dozen fresh eggs that her mother had pressed on him in the canvas bag, propped across the handlebars.

Gran demanded to see the atlas again. She'd forgotten where America was. ‘Near Lunnon, is't?'

‘No, Gran, it's nowwhere near London. It's a long way away – across the sea, remember? Like I showed you before.'

Winnie fetched the atlas and opened it at the picture of the world and placed it on Gran's lap. ‘There it is, see. All that big yellow bit.'

‘Huh! Doan't look much tew me. Little doddy place.' Ash toppled off the end of the American cigarette and landed in the middle of its country of origin. Gran's jaw was going up and down and Winnie realized that she was chewing gum as well as smoking.

‘Well, the map's only on a small scale, Gran. Look, there's England. You could fit us into America hundreds of times over, I should think.'

‘Whass all them thare loines?'

‘They must be the states. America's divided up into them. Bit like our counties, only they're much bigger. Suffolk'd be a lot smaller than any of their states – you can tell that, see, if you look how little Britain is. They went and joined them all up to make one big country and called themselves the United States of America. I remember learnin' that at school. O' course they belonged to us once – before then. That's why they speak English . . . well, sort of.'

Gran was frowning and scattering more ash. Winnie could see that she was having a hard time grasping it all. But then Gran had never left Suffolk. She'd never been to London. And she'd only been to Ipswich once and that was thirty years ago. Come to that, it was a long time since she'd been down to the village. She didn't know how big any place was outside Elmbury. She couldn't compare anything with anything. Winnie stared at the map. Now that she looked closely, she could see how huge America was, and what a long, long way away from England. It must be thousands of miles across the Atlantic and then thousands more across all that land that stretched as far as the Pacific Ocean. Virgil had once said how many miles it was to Ohio but she had forgotten now. Scotland had seemed such a long way away to her, but compared with America it was no distance at all.

‘Thet Amurican o' yurs . . . where's he live?'

‘He's not mine, Gran. I didn't ask him here. He asked himself.'

‘Huh!'

Winnie turned the atlas pages. ‘Look, Gran. This shows you all the states close-up – see. He lives in one called Ohio. We'll find it.'

But she had to search all over before she could. In the mid-west, she thought he'd said, but it looked nearer the east to her and not really in the middle at all. She couldn't see Clyde marked anywhere. Gran made a stab at the state of Ohio with her finger.

‘Funny sort o' name. Sounds Oirish. Ain't as big as some, but looks like there's plenty o' room . . . plenty o' room.' She looked up at Winnie beadily, puffing away on her cigarette. ‘He askin' hisself here agin?'

‘Dad said he could come and help with the harvest, if he wanted. 'Course he might not be able to.'

‘Whoi not?'

‘He's a gunner in one of those big American 'planes you've seen flyin' over, Gran. They go an' drop bombs on the Germans an' some of them don't come back.'

‘What they want to stay thare fur?'

‘They get shot down by the Germans. They get taken prisoner . . . or killed.'

‘Huh!' Gran slammed the atlas shut and pushed it away. She picked up the empty teacup she had kept beside her and held it out to Winnie. ‘Think oi'll tek a drop o' thet thare whisky now. So's I c'n drink hiss health.'

THE HOSPITAL SMELLED
of ether and disinfectant, mingled with some other frightening odour. Burned flesh? Anne shuddered. She stopped a nurse near the entrance.

‘Could you tell me where I could find Flight Lieutenant Somerville, please?'

The nurse was plump and pretty, and in a hurry. She smiled.

‘It's
Squadron Leader
Somerville . . . go down that corridor and turn right. You'll find the ward straight ahead.'

‘Thanks.'

Anne walked on. Squadron Leader? That was news. She passed an open doorway and caught a quick and horrifying glimpse of two rows of beds containing mummy-like forms, of drips and sling pulleys and cages and, incongruously, many vases of bright flowers. A wireless was blaring out some dance music. One of the forms raised a white, bandaged arm and waved at her. She waved back. The hospital smell had intensified sickeningly. At the end of the corridor she turned right and saw another ward ahead. A sister, starched and brisk, stopped her.