Whisper on the Wind (30 page)

‘I will. And don’t worry too much about Arnie’s mother – not until it happens. When I get myself into a state I think about something Martin used to say. “Hester, my love,” he’d tell me, “when will you get it into your head that nothing ever matters half so much as we think it does –
nothing
.” And you know, Polly, he was right – well, almost always.’

‘Aye.’ Polly smiled, remembering him handsome in his uniform as if it were only yesterday; remembering her own young man, too. ‘And come to think of it, there’s some lying in foreign fields as would like nothing more than to have our problems to worry them. We should think on about that, when we imagine we’re being badly done to.’ She pushed back her chair and unfastened her pinafore. ‘And happen the Master was right. When you look back, most of what we worried about didn’t happen, only we never seem to realize it at the time.’

‘I think you may be right. See you in the morning, Polly. Take care.’

‘I will. And when you’re getting yourself all worried, remember that nothing is half as bad as we think it’s going to be.’

Nothing
, Polly? Hester demanded silently. Not having your husband killed, nor your home burned down, nor losing your daughter and your unborn son; the boy Martin so longed for? And most cruel of all, knowing you should never have –

But she wouldn’t think about that. Not once had Martin blamed or reproached her for it, nor Toby either, come to that. And she still had Roz, even though they seemed to be growing apart when they ought to be closer than ever now that Roz was a woman, and in love.

Martin, I miss you so
, she yearned inside her.
Why did they take you from me
?

Arnie reached the gate lodge as Polly turned into the drive and he stood, shoulders heaving, taking deep gulps of air so she wouldn’t know he’d been running; running like the wind to get home before she did so she wouldn’t know he’d heard.

They hadn’t known he’d been there outside the door, listening to what they were saying about him and Mam. He’d thought to go home by way of Ridings and call for Aunty Poll who’d gone there to oblige with the blanket wash; thought it would be nice to have a chat with Mrs Fairchild and tell her about the swans that were nesting on the riverbank. Then, just as he’d been going to push open the door he’d heard them talking about him and he’d stood there, listening like Aunty Poll said he never should and oh, how he wished now that he hadn’t.

But he wasn’t going back to Hull. Not ever. Mam could take him if she wanted, but he’d run away. And he’d keep running away till she got sick of it. It wasn’t as if he could remember what Mam looked like. He’d tried to, a lot of times, but it hadn’t been any use. All he could remember was being alone and afraid sometimes, and the good hidings. There’d been plenty of those hidings and him being told he was a nuisance and a naughty boy and that if he didn’t behave himself they’d come from the Workhouse to take him away. He could remember that, too.

But just let her try to get him back. It wouldn’t be as easy as she thought because she didn’t know about the secret place; didn’t know about the big oak tree at the end of Beck Lane. He hadn’t told anybody about it, not even Aunty Poll, and none of them knew what a good climber he was or how he often sat there, high up at the forking of the branch. Safe as houses it was and he could see for miles and miles; see everyone who got off the bus, everyone who came anywhere near. They’d never find him up there, not if they looked all day. Mam would have to give up and go back to Hull without him, because he wasn’t going. He wasn’t!

Kath took a deep, sighing breath and straightened her shoulders. She was back; back in Birmingham almost glad that it was raining and if – just
if
– she’d forgotten the number of the house after so long away, then surely she must know that the one outside which she stood was the one she had left almost five months ago. There could be no mistaking it. This was the house with the whitest lace curtains in the street, the most brilliantly polished door knocker, the shiniest of windows. Barney’s aunt had claimed this house for her own and loved it now, Kath frowned, almost as much as the London house the Luftwaffe had left in a pile of rubble. Housework was her religion; her home was her joy and wherever Min Jepson lived was home.

Kath stood outside the house she had come to as a bride, feeling like a stranger, an intruder. It seemed smaller than she remembered after the spaciousness of Ridings and Peacock Hey and you could, she supposed, fit the whole of its downstairs area into Home Farm kitchen.

Turning her key in the lock she pushed open the door, setting down her case, calling ‘Hullo, there? It’s Kath.’

The room had not changed. Barney’s photographs still stood on the piano top and she turned her head from the smile of Barney in uniform and eyes she would rather not meet.

‘Kath, for Gawd’s sake!’ The kitchen door opened. ‘Why on earth didn’t you knock, girl?’

‘Sorry, Aunt Min.’ Knock? On her own front door? ‘Having a little nap? Did I wake you?’ She bent to brush the lined cheek with her lips.

‘No, I wasn’t,’ came the sharp reply. ‘But why didn’t you think to write and tell me you was coming?’

‘I didn’t know for certain till a couple of days ago.’ And had she known she’d be so unwelcome she wouldn’t have come, because she hadn’t wanted to; she really hadn’t.

‘Not at all sure the spare bed’s aired …’

‘Not to worry. A hot-water bottle, perhaps?’

‘Ar,’ the older woman grudgingly conceded. ‘I suppose so, though you should have asked, Kath. It might not have been convenient to have you. I might’ve been spring-cleaning and where would we have been, then? But you’d better take your coat off, now that you’re here. Have you got your rations with you?’

‘No, but they gave me a ration card at the hostel. And I’ve brought you a soap coupon, too.’

Soap. That would please her. If there was anything Aunt Min liked more than washing and scrubbing her home it was washing and scrubbing herself.

‘I suppose you’ll be wanting a cup of tea?’

‘I’d love one – if you’re putting the kettle on.’

‘Always do, round about this time. You’re losing weight, Kath Allen. Not feeding you at that hostel?’

‘I’m eating well. The food is good and we don’t go hungry. But I do a man’s work now. You don’t get fat, labouring on a farm. I feel very fit, though. I’m really enjoying it.’

‘Must admit you’ve got a bit more colour in your face, girl. Too pale you was. Barney won’t know his own wife when he comes home. Must be terrible for him out there. All that sand and heat and you enjoying yourself, living off the fat of the land. You shouldn’t have gone, Kath. Barney’s still upset at what you did.’

‘Upset? Why d’you say that?’

‘’Cause he told me. In his letters. Says it all the time.’

Kath met the blank gaze, wishing that sometimes Aunt Min would smile. But her face always wore the same pained expression, as if she’d just sucked on a lemon.

‘So you hear from Barney?’ she murmured, keeping her voice even.

‘Lor’ bless you, yes.’ Minnie Jepson stirred the contents of the teapot with relish. ‘Writes regular. Every week there’s a letter. Last time I heard he’d just been on convoy duty.’

‘Yes. A long convoy, he said. What does he mean,’ Kath frowned, ‘a
long
convoy?’

‘Don’t rightly know, girl. Maybe he meant he was away from base a long time or maybe he meant there was a lot of ambulances – you know – stretching a long way back. Make a nice change from the desert, though, those few nights in Alexandria – or was it Cairo?’

‘Cairo? But how can you know that?’ Kath felt uneasy. Or was it angry? Nowhere in his letters to her had Barney mentioned driving ambulances. ‘Telling you where he’d been just wouldn’t get past the Censor. Place-names are always blue-pencilled.’

‘No, and he didn’t tell me – not exactly.’ Taking a clean tea-towel, Minnie Jepson polished two already-clean cups and saucers. ‘But where else would he find a good billet for a few nights and have a night out with the lads except in one of them two places? Where else would he be able to get a few pints of decent beer, will you tell me?’

Kath could not tell her. Barney hadn’t mentioned staying anywhere in the letter he’d sent to her nor of getting a pint of the beer he so missed. But Barney, it seemed, told his aunt much more than he told his wife.

‘And there’s something else.’ The dull, gruff voice broke in on Kath’s thoughts. ‘Ain’t got a thing for us to eat tonight.’

‘Fish and chips?’ Kath ventured, hopefully.

‘Nah. They aren’t frying tonight. Be open tomorrow night, the notice said, but where’s the use in that?’

‘I suppose the food queues are over for today?’

‘Over and done with long ago. Didn’t get so much as a couple of sausages,’ Min sniffed gloomily.

‘Then we’ll get out early tomorrow,’ Kath smiled, acknowledging how difficult it must be for a woman alone to live on such tight rations, ‘and I’ll stand behind you so I get some as well. There’ll be enough meat on my ration card to make a dinner for the two of us. We’ll manage. Tonight I’ll treat you to a meal at the British Restaurant.’

Good old British Restaurants. Government sponsored and subsidized. Clean, bare, unfussy little cafés where the cook worked miracles with her meagre food allocation and could offer a meal for an unbelievable shilling. Soup, meatless pie made palatable with Oxo gravy, and saccharin-sweet stewed fruit and custard, too, if the milk ration held up.

‘It’ll set you back a couple of bob, girl; maybe half a crown,’ the elder woman prevaricated. ‘You got money, then?’

‘Think I can manage two-and-six, Aunt Min. Tomorrow night I’ll queue at the chip shop and that’ll be another meal for us.’ It was a long time since she’d eaten fish and chips and already the thought cheered her, even though the queue would be a long one. ‘Don’t worry. We’ll manage all right between us. Wait till you see what I’ve brought you – a present, from Mrs Ramsden.’

She reached for her case, telling herself she must remember at all times never to mention Jonty, or Marco, or news of the civilian who hadn’t joined up and an Italian prisoner of war would be winging by airmail to North Africa before there was time to blink.

She mustn’t, Kath stressed, even
think
of Jonty or Marco – especially of Marco – because Aunt Min’s pale blue eyes could look into your soul. There was something distinctly peculiar about her, of that Kath was sure. Min Jepson was the kind of woman who’d feel at home in the graveyard at Alderby St Mary, on St Mark’s Eve.

‘That’s a posh case, Kath Allen. All covered with foreign labels, an’ all. Where did you light on that, then?’

‘It isn’t mine. I wanted something smaller so Roz lent it to me. I’ve told you about Roz, Aunt Min – the girl I work with? I’ve brought both pairs of dungarees and my working shirts with me. Thought I’d wash them while I’m here.’

‘That case is real leather. Rich, is she?’

‘I don’t think so. Maybe they once were, but not now.’

‘Aah.’ The pleasure in her face was unmistakable. She liked to hear of the gentry getting their comeuppance. Minnie Jepson didn’t like toffs. Never had.

‘Here you are.’ Deftly Kath withdrew a package wrapped round with a towel. ‘From Home Farm, for you.’ She smiled. ‘Careful how you open it.’

Inside the towel were six small, newspaper-wrapped parcels; inside each parcel lay a brown egg.

‘For me, Kath? All of them?’ Then quickly she recovered her composure. ‘Told you they lived like lords, them farmers.’

‘Aunt Min, that just isn’t true. As a matter of fact, hens go into a moult in the autumn and winter. They lose their feathers and stop laying; they’re a dead loss, really. But by spring they’ve feathered-up again and they lay like mad. In April and May even old hens lay well. So Mrs Ramsden – Grace – said you were to have a nice boiled egg for your breakfast every morning that I’m here. I had strict instructions to make sure you did. No trying to hoard them. And be sure you don’t tell anyone. Those eggs, Aunt Min, are strictly under the counter.’

‘Black market, more like. End up in prison, we will.’ Grumbling she placed them tenderly in a dish, whisking them away to the pantry. Six eggs, and all of them hers, was something she had not expected to see again until the war was well over; six large, country-fresh eggs could give a woman of her age a nasty hot flush, just to think of it. ‘But don’t worry. Nobody’ll hear of it from me.’

She did not voice her thanks, but thanks had not been expected. The sudden pinking of her cheeks was as near as Aunt Min would ever come to a thank you.

‘I collected them myself yesterday.’

Yesterday afternoon. She and Marco had stood at the foldyard gate and he’d kissed her goodbye. A goodbye kiss between friends, that was all. It wouldn’t happen again. It must not. Another time they might not be so lucky. Next time, someone might see them and then what would happen?

‘Well now; since there’s no cooking to be done we can have a nice sit and listen to Music While You Work.’ Aunt Min took up her knitting. ‘So what does it feel like to be back? Do you
really
like bein’ on a farm with all that cow muck and flies and nasty smells? Come on, girl, tell the truth. Deep down there must be times you wish you hadn’t joined …’

‘Oh,
no
, Aunt Min! It’s fine, it really is. There are even times it’s just – well,
marvellous.
’