Someone Special (45 page)

‘A driver who knows how to navigate around the country might be very useful,’ the clerk behind the counter said. ‘Especially now.’

He had explained no further, but a week later her papers had come, and a month later she was on her way to Harrogate for initial training. Which brought her here, to the dark countryside, the pretty girl at her side, grumbling as they got mired down in a gateway.

‘I bet that was cow-muck,’ Rita said as Anna closed the gate behind them. ‘So what made you join up? I’m an only child, see? My Mum’s great on housework and worrying and now my Dad’s not at home – he’s in India with the Army – she was driving me round the bend. But from the sound of it things weren’t so desperate for you that you had to do something this rash.’

They were crossing a lush meadow, the long, wet grass brushing the hems of their skirts. Anna laughed.

‘This isn’t rash, but I know what you mean. I joined the WAAF because … oh, hell, I found my mother in bed with someone who wasn’t my father. I can’t condemn her, I do understand in lots of ways, but it’s hard for us to act naturally now. As you can probably imagine.’

‘Cripes,’ Rita said. ‘It wasn’t your boyfriend, was it?’

Anna laughed. ‘Don’t make it any worse than it is – no, it was
not
my boyfriend. The chap was a GI, or
whatever they call themselves. And it wasn’t her fault, not really. She was provoked.’

‘Oh,’ Rita said uncertainly. ‘How d’you provoke someone to get into bed with someone else?’

‘I see what you mean; wrong word. Not provoked, but sort of pushed into it. By my father, who spent his last leave making love to a stupid girl two years younger than me and ignoring my mother.’

‘Cripes,’ Rita said again. ‘Happy families, eh?’

The two of them stopped walking and laughed and laughed, until they were hanging on to each other and tears were running down Anna’s face. They were the first tears she had shed since she had discovered Constance in bed with Chaz and she didn’t really know whether they were tears of laughter or of sadness for lost innocence. Her own innocence.

The alarm clock, shrilling in her ear, had Nell sitting up in bed and fumbling for her clothes before she remembered that it was Dot’s turn to milk and not hers. She lay down again, but there wasn’t much point in it, not once she’d woken up. The small attic room the two girls shared was bathed in bright light and Dot’s bed, now that she looked at it, was empty.

Not for the first time since Paul had come to the American Air Force base not a mile from Withies Farm. Dot had been dreamy, a bit half-soaked, but a reasonable work-mate. Now she was just in love and thought, talked and dreamed Paul. On the wall above her bed there was a huge poster which she and Paul had stolen from a hoarding in Norwich:
DANGEROUS TALK COSTS LIVES
. Beneath it Dot had pinned all the photographs of Paul she could get hold of. Film was in short supply of course – what was not? – so Dot had got him to send to his mother for photographs and there he was, from the age of five until now, twenty-five, in every possible pose, with a baseball
bat, with a pair of motorcycle goggles, holding a kitten, pulling a face … The annoying thing was that Dot could only see the pictures properly by sitting on Nell’s bed, but Nell could see almost nothing else; Paul’s entire history danced before her eyes. He was a nice enough fellow, but she did wish Dot would keep her obsession somewhere more private.

Nell had joined the Land Army as soon as she was allowed, and she knew it had been a great relief to Hester. The fair folk did their best but what with the blackout and fuel rationing life was not simple and the various ways they had kept body and soul together during the dead winter months were, by and large, no longer available to them. Before, they had used the winter months to repaint, repair, and generally to tidy up their shows for the new season. If money ran low, the men had earned more by chopping firewood and carting goods in their lorries while the women sold their lace tablecloths, homemade toys and wooden clothes pegs door to door. Now, even if they had been able to obtain the raw materials, make do and mend would have beaten them. Every housewife in the country was painfully learning to do for herself all those things the fairground folk had done for them. About the only thing they didn’t do was to whittle pegs, and there is a limit to the number of pegs a housewife will buy.

So times were really hard, especially as women who would have gone into factories or shops in the winter and moved on as soon as the fair season started again, found themselves supplanted by others who would remain in employment for the duration of the war, however long that was. In extremis, the women could sell their clothing coupons, but that was about the extent of their winter income.

When the weather and petrol rationing allowed, the Gullivers took their fair up and down the country, to any gaff they could reach, because chartered fairs could
only continue provided a showman or two erected his stuff on the gaff when the charter allowed, and plied for trade among the townspeople. But it did not always mean money in their pockets, not with so few attractions. Sometimes Hester oversaw the galloper when she wasn’t showing Phillips; Nell stood in the wooden O of the hoopla stall or shouted the shooting gallery – more popular than ever with caricatures of Hitler, Goering and Ribbentrop to fire at – and Ugly Jack and a casual chap or two manned the dodgems. They had customers all right and did earn some money, but when their charter period was up they had to move on to any gaff they could find, and do any business they could. So between shows and in the depths of winter, Ugly Jack worked like a navvy at any task which needed strength, Hester sewed, worked in the fields and did the rough work at the big houses. They managed to keep Phillips fed and warm enough, but it was easier to feed three than four and when Nell had announced that she was going to be a ‘girl in green’, Hester and Jack had looked as relieved as they undoubtedly felt.

‘At least you’ll be fed, darling,’ Hester had said. ‘And safer than we are, when we take the stuff to a town gaff.’

Nell had agreed, promised to write weekly and to return whenever she got leave, but she could not help wondering how much of Hester’s pride in her daughter’s smart uniform and increasingly knowledgeable conversation on matters agricultural was laced with the feeling that Nell’s job meant Hester and Ugly Jack might have their living wagon to themselves.

Still … lying in her bed, Nell made a long arm and opened the lid of the little box which held all her secret possessions. She felt around, and drew out her special photograph. Dan looked back at her; incredibly handsome, smiling, her Dan, the man she was fighting this war for. Well, perhaps that was a slight exaggeration,
but she would never have joined the Land Army had it not been for Dan. Once she was settled at the farm she had sent Dan her proper address and now they could exchange letters, visits even. He was in the Air Force, stationed in Lincoln, not a million miles away. Furthermore, his home was in Norfolk now – in the small village of Blofield – so he would be coming back in this direction at any time. It didn’t do any harm giving him this address because when the war ended she would leave and Matthew Coburn would not be able to find them, even if he found out from Dan where they were and came hunting for them.

That was the main reason she had become a landgirl: an address of her own, a place where Dan could visit her without upsetting Hester.

When Snip came back on leave though, he had not approved of her chosen career; he thought she was being very silly. ‘You can earn a deal o’ chink makin’ munitions, or aeroplane parts, or bits for wireless sets,’ he had urged. ‘Why be a bloody landgirl and work your fingers to the bone jest so’s you can feed people? It’s plain daft!’

Snip had been as good as his word and was now in submarines. He didn’t like it, Nell knew, but he stuck it because of some crazy idea he had. He had told her on his last leave that the bloody U-boats had sunk his pal Griff, so he, Snip, would not rest until he had sunk every U-boat in the seven seas. Which wasn’t much of a reason for risking your life in the worst conditions, but that was Snip for you.

Nell wrote to Snip too, of course; he was still her best friend and she was fond of him. At twenty-two, he was taller and broader, but no more beautiful. He had a broken nose which had healed crooked – Abel Morris had been responsible for that – a face which was square and pugnacious and small, rather heavy lidded eyes. He had a twisted knee – how he had ever got into the forces, let alone into submarines, was anyone’s guess – and being a
submariner had affected his breathing so that he wheezed when he ran or exerted himself. Despite all these things, he was doing rather well; he had risen to the rank of artificer, whatever that might mean, and although he had mentioned idly to Nell that submariners did not, as a rule, live long, he seemed not to worry overmuch.

He was very fond of Nell, called her his girl, and teased her that she must wait for him. Snip wasn’t serious of course; Nell knew he wasn’t because she had told him it was Dan who mattered, Dan was her serious boyfriend. Dan had rescued her from that awful man, he was a hero, someone who would be special to her for the rest of her life. Snip was someone with whom she’d shared many laughs. You didn’t marry those men, you married the ones whose presence made you breathe short and fast, whose kisses melted your bones, whose slightest whim must be satisfied.

The door opening cut Nell’s thoughts short and at the sight of Dot’s pale, weary face and dark eyes she remembered that the alarm had gone off and someone – Dot for choice – ought to be down in the kitchen putting the kettle on and hurrying out to get the cows in for milking.

‘Nell, I suppose you couldn’t possibly do my stint this morning? Only I’ve been with Paul and I’m dog-tired and I’ll only fall asleep on Cowslip’s flank and get wrong with Earny. He can be very unkind, considering we’re related,’ Dot said with some bitterness. Mrs Earnshaw was Dot’s mother’s sister, but Mr Earnshaw did not think this a good reason for allowing Dot to get away with murder and treated her as he did the other landgirls – kindly but firmly, he would have said.

‘Oh all right, but you’ll have to make your own excuses if Earny says anything, because I’m not telling lies for you or anyone,’ Nell said, getting out of bed and slipping Dan’s photograph back into the tin box. She had
a picture of Snip, too, in his naval uniform, but she didn’t bother to look at that, she knew every detail of it by heart; it was only Dan’s picture she felt she had to examine at regular intervals. ‘Go on then, get into bed. I’ll tell Mrs Earny you’re still up here and she’ll probably pop her head round the door later.’

‘You wouldn’t like to tell Earny it’s one of my poorly days, would you? He’s so embarrassed by women’s complaints that it would shut him up for good and all,’ Dot said hopefully, flinging off her jersey and overalls and climbing into bed in her underwear. ‘He’s not a bad bloke, really.’

Nell, chucking her clothes on, shook her head. ‘No. I told you, I won’t lie for you. What you tell your aunt, of course, is up to you. When’s Paul flying again?’

‘Not for two more days. Thanks, Nell, I’m asleep already.’

Dot disappeared under the covers and Nell sped down the stairs in her stockinged feet. Their boots were shed each night outside the back door and donned each morning, which was a help to Mrs Earnshaw’s floors, though hard on their long green stockings. She burst into the kitchen, panting, to find Mrs Earnshaw down before her, making cups of tea.

Mrs Earnshaw looked nothing like a farmer’s wife. She was a thin, active woman in her late forties with a thin, handsome face. Her dark hair was bobbed, ‘for ease’, she said, and she was somewhere near the top of the WVS hierarchy, which was probably why she never seemed to stay still for more than a few moments.

‘Mornin’, Nell,’ Mrs Earnshaw said now, pouring boiling water from the kettle into the teapot. ‘What’s your ’urry? You in’t on today, that I do know; today that’s the gal Dot.’

‘She’s still in bed; I said I’d do her stint this morning,’ Nell said, reaching for a cup of tea. ‘Where’s Joyce?’

Joyce lived out but came in early in the mornings and did yeoman service with everything. A farmer’s daughter, she found herself at a loose end when her elder brother married and brought a wife back to deal with the farm chores, so she had come to work for the Earnshaws and mucked in with most of the landgirls’ tasks.

‘Taken a cup out to the old feller,’ Mrs Earnshaw said placidly. ‘I’ll tek a cup up to Dot; that’ll ease her if she’s got her monthlies.’

‘She’s very tired, she might be better left for now,’ Nell said tactfully. ‘She’ll probably be glad of a cup when we have our elevenses.’

‘Hmm.’ Mrs Earnshaw shot Nell a shrewd glance. ‘That Paul with her last night?’

‘Umm …’

‘No names, no pack-drill,’ Mrs Earnshaw said rather obscurely. ‘Well, two more days, luv, and you’re off ’ome for the week. Where’s they got to now, eh?’

Nell’s background fascinated everyone and Mrs Earnshaw, in particular, took a keen interest in the whereabouts of the fair and how they were managing. She was particularly interested in Phillips, getting her husband to shoot a rabbit for him whenever Nell went home for a few days and sending in addition a clean meal sack bulging with food for Hester and Ugly Jack, who were extremely grateful. If the fair was in the country it wasn’t too bad, they could find something to supplement their supplies, but city tobers meant nothing over and above the meagre rations. Hester found it difficult to fill Ugly Jack with his pathetically small allowance of meat, and he scarcely tasted his butter ration even when she added her own to it. So Mrs Earnshaw’s homemade cheeses, pots of honey and joints of pork were welcomed with open arms.

‘They’re down on the coast for a week or two,’ Nell said. ‘They’re on the village green in a small
village, but it’s an enormous green which means plenty of room for the stuff on the gaff. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone, and I did think, since I’m off all week, that I might meet up with Dan as well.’