Whisper on the Wind (24 page)

‘No he isn’t. He’s only looking annoyed because Mum’s just said her piece. She never wanted a milking machine in the first place. New-fangled, she thinks they are and a waste of good money. Dad can’t stand it when she does her I-told-you-so bit. But he’ll get over it. Milking machines are here to stay and even Mum will have to admit it, sooner or later. Trouble is they sometimes break down and spare parts are hard to come by these days.’

‘So how long is it going to be out of action?’ Kath demanded anxiously, setting her stool beside the oldest cow in the herd.

‘As long as it takes, I suppose. It’s the pump this time, but I’ve been on to York and they’re seeing what they can do to help. Now get yourself settled. Open your knees and hold the bucket between them. If you don’t it’ll most likely get kicked over. Relax, now. Wrap your fingers round her udder like it’s a calf’s tongue, and squeeze. Gently.
Squeeeeze …
’

Kath wrapped and squeezed and an amazing squirt of milk hit her knee.

‘Good. Now just direct it into the bucket, and you’re away.’

She squeezed again, tilting the udder. From her right hand came a ping as the milk hit the bucket; from her left hand a similar sound.

‘Great. Gently does it, now. Relax, Kath. Rest your head on her side, find your rhythm …’

She glanced down at the froth of white in the bucket. The elderly beast munched contentedly on the cow-cake in front of her, lazily flicking her tail. The bucket began to fill; Kath’s hands relaxed. She was doing it. She was getting milk out and why oh
why
wasn’t Aunt Min here to witness this triumph?

‘All right?’ Roz called from two stalls down.

‘I think so.’ Her cheeks were burning and she was still shaking inside but she was milking a cow by hand, she really was. At last that fearful December morning when she had set out for faraway Peacock Hey could be forgotten for all time.

‘Great, Kath. You’ve got it. Milk those two quarters out, then do the other two. You’re doing fine,’ Jonty said approvingly, picking up his stool, walking away.

Great. Doing fine. Such heady words. The milk hissed frothing into the bucket. It was all right. She could do it; she could hand-milk. Softly, contentedly, she began to hum. What a wonderful day this was turning out to be.

This lovely day had come, Roz exulted. Even though they’d be making a late start on the milk-round, Mat had given her the afternoon off and he wouldn’t go back on his word – Mat was like that. Things were upside-down because of the milking, but she would still have time to bathe away the smell of cows and wash her hair before catching the three o’clock train from Helpsley Halt.

She kept one ear on the sounds around her, the other alerted for sounds of Lancasters taking-off. The constant noise of aircraft was a part of life now, and Alderby St Mary people became aware of Peddlesbury’s bombers only when they weren’t flying; it was the silence they noticed. If there was no activity at the aerodrome this morning, no aircraft taking off and circuiting the village on short test flights, it was almost certain that tonight the squadron would not be operational and that Paul would be waiting for her at York station, as they had planned.

Please, no circuits and bumps this morning. Let him be there when I get off the train.

And that was pretty silly, come to think of it; to ask such a thing of God when she knew she was about to break two of His commandments and feel nothing but happiness doing it.

Already she had pushed her nightdress into the bottom of her handbag and this afternoon she would leave the house with a nonchalant ‘Bye. See you!’ aware that her grandmother would expect her to catch the last bus or train back to Helpsley, knowing she would be on neither.

She wished she need not be wearing her blue cotton nightdress tonight; wished it could have been flimsy and clinging and that she had scent to dab at her wrists and ears. But there was a war on, and even brides must make do with ordinary nightgowns and very little else in the way of a trousseau.

But only Paul mattered; being with Paul, falling asleep in his arms, awakening to find him beside her, still. That would be worth all the lies and deceit. She would be grateful for tonight, remember it fifty years from now when her grandchildren demanded to know what her war was like –
really
like.

‘Pretty awful,’ she would tell them, ‘but we survived – and there were the good bits to help us bear it, of course.’

And she would glance across the room at a still-handsome Paul, and he would return her smile because he too remembered a long-ago April night.

This would be the first of their many lovely days. It would all come right for them. She knew it.

She lifted her head to hear Kath singing. Softly, she began to sing with her.

‘Time for drinkings, Marco.’

Cleaning out poultry arks and moving them to fresh ground was hard, thirsty work and Kath felt the need for a drink from the bottle of water that lay in the cool of the hedge.

She sat down on the grass, wriggling herself comfortable against one of the arks, tilting the bottle, swallowing in noisy gulps.

‘Want a cigarette?’ She handed over the bottle. ‘Go on! You can give me one of yours when your Red Cross parcel comes.’

‘You always give me yours.’ Marco frowned as she struck a match and cupped the flame with her hands. ‘Why are you so kind, Kat, when you should hate me?’

‘Hating is a waste of time.’ She shrugged, inhaling deeply.

‘Mrs Fairchild does not think like you.’

‘No, and that’s her business, I suppose. But Roz is all right – you know that, don’t you, Marco?’

‘
Si.
It is strange when Roz is not here. She goes to York?’

‘To buy shoes.’ Lie number one. ‘And maybe she’ll go to the flicks.’

‘What
is flicks
?’

‘The pictures. Films. Movies.’ Kath laughed. ‘And how about
my
Italian lesson today?’

‘Ah,
si. La lezione.
Today, the word is
grazie
– thank you. And for the cigarette I say
molto grazie
, which is much thanks.’

‘
Grazie. Molto grazie,
’ Kath repeated.

‘Good. And it is good also that you smile. You are happy today, Kat?’

‘Very happy.’

She closed her eyes and tilted her face to the spring sunshine. She felt almost at peace. It was good to be Kath;
our
Kath, who was needed here. This morning she had milked her first cow, filled buckets with warm, frothing milk. She was relieved that the new-fangled machine would be working again for afternoon milking, but glad that this morning it had broken down. Milk a cow – of course she could, and Aunt Min would be the first to hear of it!

She leaned a little to her right and her arm brushed Marco’s. It felt good to touch another human being, feel the warmth of his skin against her, the comfort of it. Her hand lay relaxed beside his. Gently he covered it with his own.

‘Why are you happy, Kat? You get a letter?’

‘No. No letters.’ Not for more than two weeks. ‘Don’t laugh at me, but this morning I learned to milk.’

‘And this is being happy?’

‘For me it is.’

‘Ah,’ he said softly, and she knew that if she opened her eyes she would see his forehead puckered into a frown of bewilderment.

But she did not open her eyes. She thought instead of Roz and Paul, that tonight they would be close, lips whispering against lips in the darkness whilst she, Kath, would be alone, a married woman who wasn’t married. The wedding ring she wore warned other men she was not for the taking, that she must live out this war unloved and unloving. That was why this brief nearness, this unexpected touching was special and innocent and why life owed it to her. Gently she removed her hand from where it lay, then entwining her fingers in his she murmured, ‘For me it is
very
happy.’

The engine pulled into York station, hissing steam, braking with a suddenness that sent bumper clanking against bumper the length of the train and caused passengers already standing to sit down again.

Roz let down the window, then pulling off her glove turned the soot-stained door handle and stepped on to the platform. Her heart thumped the way it always did when she and Paul were to meet; the will-he-be-there, won’t-he-be-there thumping.

‘At the barrier nearest the footbridge stairs’ were the last words he had spoken to her and she’d whispered that she would be there, then reached on tiptoe for one last kiss before she ran through the ruins and across the cobbled kitchen-yard to feel in the darkness for the back-door keyhole.

Now she slammed shut the compartment door and walked with eyes lowered because she didn’t want to know that no tall young airman waited beside the barrier nearest the footbridge stairs; didn’t want to know that he wouldn’t be coming because this morning
They
had told pilots and navigators to report at noon for first briefing which would mean that tonight S-Sugar would be operational again.

She heard a familiar cough and lifted her eyes. He had come! Paul was walking towards her, smiling the way he always smiled. He wasn’t flying tonight. Thank you, God, thank you!

‘Paul,’ she whispered, then ran into his arms; his dear, waiting arms.

For a while he held her tightly then she pushed him a little way from her and whispered, ‘I love you. Did you know?’ and lifted her face for his kiss.

Linking hands, he picked up the small suitcase he said he’d remember to bring. ‘You’re sure about tonight, Roz?’

‘Very sure. It was my idea, remember? And I just said I love you.’

‘I love you, too.’ His smile was indulgent. ‘Right, then. Where to?’

‘Let’s find somewhere to stay, shall we, then the worst bit will be over.’

‘I did hear –’ He stopped, frowning. ‘This chap told me about it – a little bed-and-breakfast place near Micklegate Bar. Small, but –’

‘Discreet? Somewhere we’ll not meet up with half of Alderby?’

‘Well – yes. I was thinking about you, that’s all – how it would be if someone from the village saw us.’

‘They won’t see us. York is a big place, and who knows about us but Kath? Don’t have doubts, Paul. Not now.’

‘I won’t. I haven’t.’ How could he, when this was a day-to-day life and all that mattered was here on this street, and now, with Roz beside him. For just one night there would be no war; no fear-filled yesterdays, no uncertain tomorrows. Sugar was a lucky old bitch; it had been all right since they’d got her. They’d finish their tour, do their thirtieth. They’d make it. ‘No doubts at all. And did I ever tell you I love you – at Micklegate Bar, I mean?’

He looked up at the great, towering gateway that stood guard over the city.

‘Not at Micklegate Bar, you didn’t,’ she told him gravely. ‘And never at four in the afternoon.’

‘Then will you remember this time and this place? And fifty years from now, Roz, will you remember that it was here I asked you to marry me?’

Five past four on St Mary’s church clock and all over for another year. Now the dentist would take away The Chair and The Drill and go to plague another school.

It hadn’t been all that bad, Arnie considered. The worst bit had been when the nurse stood smiling at the classroom door and said, ‘Arnold William Bagley, please.’

He had forced himself to smile back, just to show her he didn’t care and so she wouldn’t look down at his knees which were shaking something awful. He’d closed his eyes tightly so he couldn’t see what was going on and he hadn’t opened them until he heard the ping of the tooth dropping into the dish.

That beautiful sound caused his eyes to fly open, and the dentist was saying, ‘All over, sonny. Off you go with nurse.’

All over, and the best bit still to come. He’d sat on the stool and held out an eager hand for the white enamel mug of rosy-pink liquid.

The memory of it caused him to whistle cheerfully and he kicked out at a stone, even though Aunty Poll said he mustn’t kick stones because it did his boots no good at all and boots cost money and coupons.

He took a backward glance at the clock. It didn’t chime, now. They’d had to stop the chimes because they sounded too much like church bells and church bells ringing would mean that the Germans had invaded us though it was very doubtful now because Aunty Poll said they’d bitten off more than they could chew, in Russia.

It was a pity they hadn’t had a try. He’d always fancied fighting on the beaches and never surrendering; wanted desperately to throw Molotov cocktails or have a go with a machine gun in defence of the gate lodges. But his turn would come. The dratted war would never be over; Aunty Poll was always saying it, so with luck he’d be able to be aircrew, like Roz’s young man.

He was almost home now, and he slowed his pace to a sad, foot-dragging trudge. Remembering the handkerchief in his pocket he unfolded it and held it to his mouth. Eyelids drooping dramatically he pushed open the kitchen door.

‘Now then, lovey.’ Polly gathered him to her and hugged him tightly. ‘Didn’t hurt much, did it?’

‘It
did
!’ he choked. Then, nose twitching, he demanded to know what was for supper.

‘Supper? You won’t be wanting supper!’ Polly held back a smile.