The Lost Days of Summer (14 page)

Kath gave a choking cry, and woke. Her sensible nightgown was damp with sweat; her heart thumped out an uneven rhythm, and when she touched her face she found her cheeks were wet with tears. For a moment she lay very still, willing her heart to behave, her fear to recede, then she glanced at her small alarm clock and realised that she had barely been in bed twenty minutes. She half sat up; what on earth had her nightmare been about? Something pretty horrible, that was for sure. But she should go back to sleep, for morning was a long way off and tomorrow she would have a great deal to do, as indeed she had every day.

Outside her window an owl hooted; a comforting sound. Presently, she lay back down, her thoughts wandering to her preparations for the next day’s dinner. She had cut a couple of sticks of sprouts and there were enough onions – and milk in plenty of course – to make onion sauce . . .

Soon she grew cool and comfortable, the dream forgotten. She pulled the blankets up round her ears and began to count her blessings, even better for wooing sleep than counting sheep. She had a good worker in Eifion, and Nell was more of a help than she had believed possible. Thinking it over, Kath decided that her niece was not a bad girl, even if she had visited the attic on the sly; she certainly worked hard, so could be counted as a blessing, if not an unalloyed one. The fact that every time she opened her mouth Kath was reminded of the long-ago past was no fault of the girl’s. Her occasional lapses into a broad Scouse dialect were unintentional, and Kath did not like to correct her; it made her sound too much like the elderly, fault-finding relative she knew herself to be.

We’ve managed pretty well, despite the war, Kath thought drowsily, already more asleep than awake. I never thought to see a winter like this one, yet we’ve coped . . . we’ve coped . . .

And Kath plunged into slumber, dreamless slumber, and slept soundly until the alarm shrilled at six o’clock.

The weather continued so foul that it was a positively Herculean task just to get the full milk churns up on the sledge and thence to the main road, with Nell, her aunt and old Eifion all putting every ounce of strength they possessed into the task. Nell made it a rule, furthermore, to slog her way into the village at least once a week to collect the post. She blamed the weather for the fact that letters from her mother were the rarity rather than the rule and ignored the sceptical look in her aunt’s eyes. Once, she had actually managed to get into Holyhead to visit Bryn, who was much better but still not sufficiently fit to join his ship.

The first time she had seen him, Nell had been shocked by his appearance. He was lying on the sofa in the front room of the small house in Stryt Newry, looking white as a ghost and thin as a lath. When his mother had thrown open the door and ushered Nell inside, he had been reading and had glanced up incuriously. As soon as he saw who his visitor was, however, his eyes had lit up and he had beamed with pleasure.

‘Nell! Oh, grand to see you it is,’ he had said. ‘The perishin’ doctor thinks I’m made of sugar and will melt if I go out into the cold, and my mam’s just as bad, ain’t you, Mam?’

Mrs Hughes was a tall, buxom woman with dark hair cut in a bob and bright pink cheeks, and reminded Nell of a Dutch doll she had once possessed. She had smiled at Nell and gone over to the sofa to give her son’s shoulder an affectionate pat. ‘Just you get yourself well, boy, then you and your young lady can enjoy the summer, because it’s bound to be a hot one after such a dreadful winter,’ she had observed. ‘Bryn’s been drawing maps and writing plans for what he means to do when he’s better, but he’ll tell you all about it while I go and brew the tea and butter some scones.’

Nell had approached the sofa rather cautiously, but relaxed when Bryn had seized her hand and pulled her down to sit beside him. ‘I’ve got my berth aboard the HMT
Scotia
,’ he had told her proudly. ‘If it hadn’t been for the perishin’ measles, and then a thing called a quinsy, which grew in my throat and stopped me eating for the best part of a week, I’d have been aboard her now.’

‘You poor old thing; no wonder you’re so skinny,’ Nell had said, deciding, tactfully, to ignore his mother’s remark about ‘your young lady’, though she wondered what Bryn had said to give his mother such a wrong impression. Instead, she had murmured that it was a good job the measles had struck when it did, since he would not have been popular had he infected the whole crew.

‘Oh, I expect they’ve all had them,’ Bryn had said airily. He had reached out to a small table beside them and spread out a number of papers. ‘Mam told you I’ve been drawing maps and writing descriptions. Of course I hope I’ll be able to take you down to the shore myself when summer comes, but in case I can’t get leave, I’ve drawn the way on these sheets of paper.’ He had grinned at her, his eyes sparkling. ‘My writing’s not very good and my spelling’s appalling, or so you used to say, but I hope you can make it out. Here, take a look.’

Nell had examined the three sheets of paper he had handed her and had told him, in all honesty, that they were works of art. Every tiny track or lane, every gate or stile, every rock or patch of gorse was beautifully drawn, and she had been able to assure her friend that if the need arose she would be able to find her way to Church Bay without a second’s hesitation. ‘But I’d much rather go with you, honestly I would, Bryn,’ she had told him. ‘Everything’s more fun if there are two of you. Oh, you don’t know how I’ve missed you these past weeks. Auntie Kath is getting used to me – she doesn’t bite my head off every time I make a remark – but I’ve still not dared to let her know much Welsh I understand. You see, when she’s out of temper, she says some really horrid things, either to Eifion or under her breath to herself, and think how embarrassed she’d be if she realised I understand!’

The pair of them had laughed together and Bryn had just been beginning to say that he was glad his teaching had come in useful when the door opened and Mrs Hughes, with a heavily laden tray in her arms, came back into the room.

The trip to Holyhead had been a wonderful interlude and for some days after it Nell had plotted to go back and see how Bryn was getting on, but somehow there was always too much work and incredibly enough the weather actually worsened.

‘If this doesn’t let up soon, I’ll go mad with boredom,’ she told Eifion as they milked, fed and watered, mucked out and even watched one or two early lambs come into the world. ‘I’m sure the weather’s not nearly as bad as this in Liverpool!’

‘’Tis nationwide, so they say,’ Eifion assured her. ‘The Thames is fruz, I’ve heard tell. You’d be just as badly off in the city, and you wouldn’t eat so well neither.’

‘It wouldn’t be so bad if I could go into Llangefni; there are cinemas there,’ Nell said longingly as the pair of them moved from cow to cow in the warmth of the shippon. ‘I want to see someone who isn’t you or my aunt. I want to gossip with a girl of my own age, or read the hints in one of the women’s magazines, or listen to a comedy on the wireless . . .’

‘Your aunt’s ordered one of they from a feller in Llangefni,’ Eifion reminded her. ‘When the weather clears . . .’

‘I don’t want to wait all the time! I want things to happen
now
, not next week or next year! Oh, Eifion, I want to – oh, how I want to go home, if only for a little while,’ Nell said. She spoke passionately, not far from tears, yet even in her distress she continued with her job, stripping Dora’s udder and moving on to her last cow.

Eifion tutted sympathetically and stood up slowly and carefully, for his rheumatism was bad today. Auntie Kath had suggested that he might take a few days off and stay in his warm bed, but this Eifion refused to do, saying that if he once gave way he’d probably never move again. Now, having straightened painfully, he picked up the two full pails and headed for the dairy. Nell heard him emptying them into the cooler, then carrying the churn of now cold milk out into the yard. As the milk began to hiss into Nell’s pail, she heard him call: ‘Never you fear, maid; this weather won’t last for ever. I met old Waters in the village yesterday and he’s a good weather prophet so he is. He reckons the thaw will start in a couple of days and then it’s all downhill to summer.’

‘I’ll believe it when it happens,’ Nell said gloomily. She finished milking and carried her full pail into the yard, where Eifion took it from her. ‘If you ask me, it always snows and blows on Anglesey, like the Snow Queen’s realm in that story where it was always winter and never spring. And there was something about an icicle in the little boy’s heart . . .’ She reached up and snapped a long icicle off the gutter as she accompanied Eifion into the dairy. ‘I’ve got an icicle in my heart,’ she concluded crossly. ‘And it won’t melt until the snow and ice does, so there!’

Despite Nell’s fears, the thaw began as old Mr Waters had said it would, though because of the depth of the snow and the hold the ice had on the land it was a slow business. Nell had not once revisited the attic all through that long and dreadful winter and now, waking in the night to the slow drip, drip of melting snow, she found that her interest in the place had all but disappeared. This was fortunate since her hands and feet were covered with burning, itchy chilblains – although she piled on every warm garment she possessed, she was always cold – and with Auntie Kath never far from the house, it was too risky to climb the ladder-like stair.

To sneak up to the attic at midnight and look at the kaleidoscope again had been a daft idea, Nell concluded. It was asking for trouble, and she was getting on much better with the older woman, though her aunt had never produced the pack of cards she had promised. After her aunt’s discovery of the miniature card Nell, forewarned, had actually prised up a floorboard in her room and hidden the farming books and the miniature card pack in the space beneath, though to be fair she did not think her aunt was the snooping kind. Secretive, yes, a woman of few words, certainly; but not a snooper. She leaves that to me, Nell told herself with grim humour. And I seem to have gone off the idea of late. No doubt the attic is still fascinating, but for the time being at least I’m too busy – and too cold – to go ferreting about up there.

So now she waited with recently learned patience for the thaw and at the end of March, when all the snow had disappeared, she and her aunt decided to go for walks together, though they never strayed far from Auntie Kath’s property, which was considerable; thirty acres or more, Eifion had told her. On these walks the older woman pointed out and named the wonders which were appearing in every lane and coppice. Snowdrops came first, closely followed by the brilliant yellow gorse blossom smelling of roasted chestnuts, and then golden celandines. Later on, her aunt told her, the banks would be covered with sweetly scented violets and shy primroses, and when May arrived the woods would be carpeted with wild white anemones. Later still, bluebells would scent the air.

Nell’s obvious delight in such things made a bond with her older aunt and Nell realised, almost guiltily, that she no longer fretted for her old home in Liverpool. In fact, she would not have changed places with her older cousins, despite their well-paid jobs and fascinating social lives. Her mother’s letters were short and rare, but Marilyn and Milly took it in turns to write, keeping her up to date with life in Liverpool. To be sure, they were mostly concerned with the conquest of young men, but the shortage of food was mentioned occasionally, as were such things as the scarcity of makeup and the nastiness of shopkeepers who, according to Marilyn, seemed to positively enjoy disappointing would-be customers.

I were after some silk stockins, but Mr Timmins, what owns that cheap clothing store on Vauxy, looked me in the eye and said he’d not had so much as a glimpse of silk stockins since the war started. ‘What’s them?’ I screeched, pointing at the shelf behind him, where I could see two or three pairs, plain as the nose on his nasty old face. He gave a wicked grin and met me eyes, bold as brass. ‘Them?’ he says, ‘them ain’t silk; it’s the way the light’s falling on them
.’

I were that mad I would of jumped over the counter and grabbed a pair, only before I could so much as open me gob he’d turned, swept them into a drawer, locked it and put the key into his kecks pocket
.

I don’t know if things is different in the country, but if you could lay hands on some silk stockins I’d pay you back double, as well as postage. Me only pair is more ladder than stockin, and I’m a poor hand at darning
.

Nell had grinned to herself and handed the letter over to Auntie Kath; they were having breakfast at the time. ‘Some chance,’ her aunt had said briefly, having perused the badly written sheet. ‘But best not to blight her hopes; just tell her the next time you’re in town you’ll take a look around.’

Nell had not yet revisited Llangefni, though she had been into Holyhead a couple of times. The main road had had to be kept as clear as possible so that folk could reach the ferries and other shipping, and the town teemed with sailors, seamen from the merchant shipping, Wrens and the like. It was a busy shopping centre as well as a port, and Nell had been able to buy not only a writing pad but a couple of sturdy notebooks as well, and one of these she decided should be her countryside book. In it she faithfully put down the names of the flowers she had seen and when they had first appeared, and got real pleasure from the gradual acquisition of such knowledge.

Now, she realised, life on the farm fascinated her as much as the life burgeoning in the surrounding countryside. When her chores were finished for the day she searched for birds’ nests, never interfering with the tiny eggs or the gaping fledglings, but simply noting in her book every detail she had observed. At night, when she heard the vixen yell, she imagined the pretty little cubs curled up in their den and was no longer nervous when the dog fox barked, or the tawny owl shrieked. Now such things were a part of her life, understood and appreciated, never feared.

Yet despite her increasing knowledge and pleasure, Nell was lonely. Her aunt talked of other farmers helping with the barley harvest, everyone going from farm to farm at haymaking time. She had explained that farm machinery was too expensive for farmers to purchase their own, so they had formed a co-operative, each man – or woman – paying a percentage of the cost. Then, when harvest time came, the men as well as the machinery moved from farm to farm until, as Auntie Kath put it, ‘all be safely gathered in’.