Whisper on the Wind (28 page)

That cuckoo had gone on calling till she thought she must surely live for ever. But it was only superstition. She was getting as bad as Roz and Polly. Even if she had made that wish, nothing could have come of it.

‘I was talking to Arnie the other day. He said he’s seen fox cubs playing on the outcrop on Tuckets Hill. Come on, you stupid creature!’ Roz slapped the rump of the old lead-cow. ‘I thought I might take Paul up there to see them tonight. Why didn’t you make a wish?’

‘I thought we were talking about fox cubs.’ Butterfly-minded; that’s what Roz was. Flitted from one thing to the next like the pretty, fey creature she was. ‘And I don’t know why I didn’t wish.’

‘Well, you should have. And where’s Marco this afternoon?’

‘Haven’t a clue.’ Not all that long ago she’d wondered exactly the same thing. ‘Last time I saw him he was talking to Mat. Why do you ask?’

‘No reason. Just that he ought to be giving a hand with the milking, that’s all.’

‘My, but you
are
in a hurry to be off home.’

‘Yes, I am. I could do with a bath and, as I said, I need to see Paul.’ Get as far from Home Farm as she could; away from Jonty so that she need neither speak to him nor look at him. Not after what he’d said this morning. ‘So tell me why you wasted such a lucky wish, though I bet you had a sly one and you’re not letting on. You went as red as a beetroot when I mentioned it. Tell me. Your secrets are safe with me.’

‘Secrets? What on earth do you mean?’ The reply came too quickly.

‘There you are! You’re doing it again. You’re blushing!’

‘All right – so I’m blushing. And it isn’t funny, Roz, so you can wipe that silly smirk off your face right now!’

‘Sorry, love. Just teasing. Forget it.’

‘All right. And you forget it, too – okay?’

Just teasing, Kath brooded, tight-lipped. She hadn’t been blushing though she should have been, just to think of the things that kept coming into her head lately. And it was as well she hadn’t made that cuckoo-wish, because if she had and if it had come true, she’d surely have regretted it.

It was just that all at once she felt lonely and alone. Lately there’d been this awful thing that wouldn’t go away; a longing, almost, to be near to someone. Not to have an affair, but just sometimes to have someone to care for her. Not to be in love like Roz; not wildly and dangerously, without thought for tomorrow, but to have a gentle loving – a cherishing, maybe, to help take the edge off her aloneness.

All right – so there was Barney. But Barney was miles away and his letters – when they came – gave her no comfort at all. They made her feel worse, in fact – rebellious, almost, and she had longed to wish for someone to share things with. Even though she had Barney, she was still alone, had been all her life, come to think of it. Marrying Barney hadn’t changed a thing.

They walked in silence, back to the milking parlour, neither speaking until they drew near to the farmhouse. Then Roz pointed to Marco, busy outside the kitchen door.

‘Look! That’s where he is. He’s mending your puncture.’

‘It – it’s good of him.’ Marco mending her puncture? She dropped her eyes as he looked up and waved, forcing her thoughts to the bicycle she had left behind in Birmingham. Tin Lizzie. Old and black-painted, the first thing she had ever owned. And she remembered the cheeky young lorry driver who had mended another puncture in another life; another faraway life she seemed not to want to remember. ‘By the way – I forgot to tell you, Roz. There was a letter for me when I got back to the hostel last night.’

‘Good. Been a long time since you heard, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes. More than three weeks. Said he’d been away on a long convoy, whatever that is, but he didn’t say where. But I suppose he couldn’t, though, because of the Censor.’

‘Suppose not,’ Roz offered uneasily, wondering why, suddenly, Kath looked as if she were about to burst into tears. But it was turning out to be that kind of day, wasn’t it, with everyone snappy and tired because of last night.

Paul, I miss you. And I want you so much. Be there, tonight; please be there.

Polly walked purposefully to Alderby and the bay-windowed house set back off the Green, six newly-laundered shirts in her basket. This was Wednesday and not even last night could be allowed to interfere with delivery day.

My, but they’d sounded near, those bombs. It was as the Manchester lady had remarked in one of her rare moments of communication: one small error from the one who let the bombs go: one second earlier or later and they could have landed slap bang on Alderby.

The postman had been late this morning, partly because of York sorting office being inconvenienced by it all and partly because every isolated farmhouse and cottage had expected him to tell them all about it. But he’d brought no pink-enveloped letters, and for that she was grateful.

It had been terrible, though, to hear about the railway station and the carriage works – and as for those poor nuns! But the bombs had missed the Minster, thanks be, though that must surely be what the Luftwaffe had come for. Doing no harm to a soul that old place wasn’t; stood there for hundreds of years and the pride of the three Ridings. But those Nazis had no respect for history and tradition. Be just like them to come back tonight, Polly brooded, and have another try at getting it.

Indignantly she opened the gate and took the path to the back door. Then straightening her shoulders, she lifted the knocker.

‘Ah, Miss Appleby. Terrible last night, wasn’t it just?’ Mrs Murgatroyd handed over two half-crowns. ‘Would you have a moment to step inside? The kettle’s just on the boil – thought you’d be here before very much longer. Sit down, my dear, do.’ She laid the shirts on the dresser with care, indicating a chair with a nod of her head. Having already exhausted the subject of the air-raid, she was eager to talk of other things. Clearing her throat delicately, she murmured, ‘The business about which we spoke, Miss Appleby …’

‘Ah, yes.’ The legal advice. Mr Murgatroyd’s considered opinion on Arnie’s mother and her goings on.

‘My husband has come to the conclusion that most things considered, you have a good case for keeping the lad. There’s a but, though, and a big one. Proof, Mr Murgatroyd says.

‘Now the good God gave us ladies one thing he chose not to give to men. He gave us instinct and
we
know, don’t we, what Arnold’s mother is up to. But the law demands proof and that, sadly, we do not have.’

‘We do not,’ Polly echoed mournfully.

‘But the welfare of a young boy is most important and there is one way left open to us. Bluff, Miss Appleby, a little bluff and deception. It just might work, though you’ll have to be mightily careful how you go about it.’

She paused for the effect of her words to be fully considered, pouring the tea carefully into her second-best china cups. Then, pushing the sugar bowl across the table as if rationing had ceased to exist, she looked to left and right and murmured, ‘Mr Murgatroyd is of the opinion that you should write to Hull without delay. Make it a brief but friendly letter telling Arnold’s mother that he is well and that she’ll be welcome to visit him whenever she has the mind to – though a postcard first would be appreciated.

‘Then if your suspicions are correct – that for some reason she wants the boy back – you can be sure that before many weeks have passed she’ll be paying you a call. That will be the time when bluff and deception might prove to be the saving of young Arnold. Not that Mr Murgatroyd agrees with deceit and deception – in his position he can’t, you know. Ah, no. This is something I have worked out for myself. When you have heard what I have to say, then I’m sure – given luck – that you’ll have nothing more to fear in
that
direction. Tea all right for you, my dear? Well then.’ She looked round again, then, leaning across the table, lowering her voice and raising her eyebrows, she whispered, And this is what I think you must do …’

Arnie was waiting at the back gate when Polly puffed up Ridings’ carriage drive. Rarely was she out when school was over, but today she had stayed overlong at the bay-windowed house though, goodness, it had been worth it. It only went to show that it wasn’t what a body knew, but who. Now her eyes gleamed with the spirit of conflict, and if that one from Hull tried any of her tricks, Polly Appleby would be ready and waiting for her.

‘Now then, lovey. Been waiting long, have you? Got kept at Mrs Murgatroyd’s, see. You should have got the key from the shed.’

‘Didn’t want to. I’ve been watching things.’

‘Oh?’

‘When will it be summer, Aunty Poll?’

‘Not till the swallows come, and the old cuckoo gets here.’

‘Then it
is
summer. I’ve heard a cuckoo and I’ve seen a swallow, so can I go into my short socks now?’

‘
One
swallow, was it?’

‘Yes, but it
was
a swallow.’

‘Ah, then maybe you’ll have to wait a while yet,’ cause it’s a well-known saying around these parts that one swallow don’t make a summer, Arnie. You’ll have to wait till you’ve seen one or two more. That one little bird on his own might have been sent on ahead to see how the land lies. Can’t rely on
one.
One doesn’t count. Now out you go for five minutes while I make us a pot of tea.’ She deserved a sup of tea after all the conspiring and plotting that had gone on. ‘Supper won’t be long.’

‘I’m starving. What are we having?’

‘Egg salad and baked apples. Now shift yourself out of my way while I get the kettle on. And while you’re about it, fetch a few logs from the back, there’s a good lad.’ The day had been warm. Arnie might be forgiven for thinking that summer had come, but tonight could be sharp with cold as could all April evenings and a nice wood fire would be pleasant to sit over; to sit over, and think.

Arnie filled the log basket and set it at the back door, then leaning chin on hand at the gate he gazed into the sky. One or two more swallows, that’s all it needed, and summer would really be here. Then he could do without his long, scratchy stockings, take off his pullover and paddle in the beck, go bird-nesting and look for tadpoles; all the lovely summer things that made being at Aunty Poll’s so smashing.

Anxiously, he scanned the sky.

‘I think,’ Roz murmured, sitting hands round knees, ‘that we aren’t going to see the cubs tonight. The vixen must’ve got scent of us and holed them up somewhere.’

‘There’ll be other nights. Want one?’ He offered his cigarette packet.

‘Please, love. Light it for me?’

It was quiet and deserted on Tuckets Hill and from here they could see over to Peddlesbury and Alderby and, to the left, chimneys showing over the treetops, the house she lived in.

‘Foxes are vermin, aren’t they?’ He placed the cigarette between her lips.

‘Most farmers think so, but fox cubs are pretty little creatures even baby pigs are nice – all pink and squeaky. Isn’t it peaceful here? Can you believe that last night happened when there’s all this?’ She waved an expansive arm. ‘Can you?’

This beauty that was April. The freshness, the newness of everything. April was winter gone, green things growing and the promise of warm, sunny days. April was drifts of blossom, pale, delicate leaves, cuckoos and butterflies. It was young, as she and Paul were young. These were their green years and their love was April love.

‘I’d like to make a picture of all this,’ she said softly, ‘to store inside me so I’d have it always.’

‘And last night, too? The raid?’

‘That as well, I suppose, because of us being together, though it’s this time and this place I’d want most to remember fifty years from now, and you and me being young. When I’m old and wise, darling, I shall wonder why I ever worried about now.’

‘You’re so sure, aren’t you, Roz?’ He laid his cheek on her head, loving the softness of her hair, its newly-washed scent.

‘Very sure. It’s going to come right for us. You’ll finish your tour and Gran will let us get married – well, engaged at least – and I’ll meet your parents, and Pippa. And that’ll only be the start of it. But I
am
sure.’

‘Always love me? Always be my luck, Roz?’

‘I will, my darling.’

They sat, hands clasped, lapsing into silence, wondering if the terror of last night had happened and grateful that they were here together.

‘I don’t think we’re going to see the cubs,’ he said, sending his cigarette end spinning.

‘Not tonight.’

‘It’s so tranquil up here – so apart, isn’t it?’

‘Just you and me, Paul.’

‘Want to go?’

‘No, darling. Let’s stay.’ She searched with her lips for his own. ‘Love me?’

‘Hullo, lass. Still parky outside, is it?’

‘Just a bit, but it’s going to be another warm day.’ Kath had poked her head round the kitchen door to say good morning and let Grace know she was here. ‘Want anything doing before I start on the milk?’

‘No, but spare me a minute, will you? Tell me what’s going on between Roz and our Jonty.’

‘Sorry?’ Kath hoped her frown was convincing because not for anything would she admit to knowing of the harsh words there’d been about York. ‘Hadn’t noticed anything.’

‘Oh, happen it’s only me poking my nose into what doesn’t concern me, and it isn’t anything I can put a finger on, but –’