Whisper on the Wind (4 page)

‘Oh, aye? And where, suddenly, are you going, then?’

‘You know what I mean! I’m talking about the war; about nobody being certain of anything any more, and you know it. If suddenly I weren’t here, Poll, then it would be up to you. Because you’re the only one who knows, apart from me; the only one I’d trust to tell her. But only if she really needed to know, you understand?’

‘Aye, ma’am. Only if,’ she’d said, and the matter had been dropped for all time. Or so they had thought.

Oh, drat that lass and the colour of her hair! Why did she have to go on about it? Why on earth couldn’t she leave well alone?

‘
Marvellous
!’ Kathleen Allen heaved her suitcase from the bus stop opposite, glad to reach the shelter of the railway station again. ‘Flipping rotten marvellous!’

To think she might now be sitting beside the fire at home, her feet snug in Aunt Min’s hand-knitted slippers, a cup of tea at her side. But she stood instead in a blacked-out, unknown city and the next bus to Alderby St Mary not due for two more hours.

But it was her own fault. She should have heeded her husband’s warning and found war work in a factory or office; anywhere but in the Land Army. Dejectedly she sat down on her suitcase. The journey to York had been a nightmare. She had missed her connection at Crewe, though she strongly suspected there had been no connection to miss, then, after giving right of way to a goods train, a troop train and a train carrying ammunition, they at last pulled out of the station almost two hours late.

You were right, Barney. I should have listened to you. And do you know something else? I’m so cold and hungry that I’d sell my soul for a cup of tea
!

She wasn’t crying, she really wasn’t. It was just that it was so cold and draughty sitting here in a gloomy, grimy station that her eyes were watering, and –

‘Hi, mate! Anything the matter?’ A Waaf corporal in trousers and battle-dress top stood there, smiling. ‘Would one of these help?’ She reached into her pocket for cigarettes. ‘Go on, it’s all right.’

‘No! I shouldn’t.’ Cigarettes were hard to come by. It wasn’t fair to take other people’s, be what they called an OP smoker, ‘I’m all right, thanks. Just a smut in my eye …’

‘I know the feeling well, but it passes, it really does.’ The girl in airforce blue took two cigarettes from the packet, then struck a match. ‘You wouldn’t be looking for a lift?’

‘A lift? Oh, aren’t I just.’ Kath inhaled blissfully. ‘But I don’t suppose you’re going my way. Not to Alderby St Mary?’

‘I can do better than that.’ The corporal laughed, ‘I go right past Peacock Hey, and I’ll bet a week’s pay that’s where you’re going.’

‘But I am! I
am
!’

‘Then just wait till that lot have unloaded their kit.’ She jerked her head in the direction of the airmen who jumped down from the back of the truck. ‘They’re going on leave, the lucky dogs. Home for Christmas. Makes you sick, don’t it?’

‘Sick. Yes.’ Kath drew deeply on her cigarette, then held the lighted end in the cup of her hand, just as she had seen Barney do; just as the corporal did now. Come to think of it, it was the way cigarettes were always held after dark, for didn’t they say that even the minutest glow could be seen from an enemy plane, though she very much doubted it. The real reason for cupping a cigarette, she supposed, was to hide it, for smoking outdoors in uniform was forbidden. Wasn’t it wonderful that she, Kath Allen, was in uniform now and being called mate by an Air Force driver?
Mate.
It sent a great glow of belonging washing over her and Barney’s expected disapproval was suddenly forgotten. She was a landgirl, wasn’t she? Still cold and hungry of course, but she was going to live in the country and work on a farm. Before long she would be at Peacock Hey and with luck there’d be a sandwich and a cup of tea there, maybe even hot water for a bath.

‘Thanks.’ She smiled at the Waaf corporal. ‘Thanks a lot – mate.’

They drove carefully. The streets of York hadn’t been laid down with RAF trucks in mind, the corporal said, and there were blacked-out traffic lights which could hardly be seen.

‘Isn’t it amazing,’ Kath murmured when the city was behind them, ‘you knowing about Peacock Hey, I mean.’

‘Not really. The girls there go to the Friday-night dances at our place and sometimes, if I’m on late duty like now, I take the truck and collect them.’

‘Your place?’

‘RAF Peddlesbury. There’s a big old house on the very edge of the runway called Peddlesbury Manor; it’s the Ops Centre and the Mess, now, and some of the unmarried officers sleep there, too. I believe Peacock Hey was once owned by the manor; I think the bailiff lived there. The Peacock girls are a decent crowd. It’s your first billet, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ve never lived in the country, you see – come from Birmingham …’

‘Well, one thing’s certain. It’s a whole lot quieter round these parts than Birmingham – or London, where I come from. Not a lot of bombing here, but we get quite a few nuisance raids. On the whole, though, you can expect to get a good night’s sleep. Has anyone told you where you’ll be working?’

‘Haven’t a clue. Hope it isn’t a dairy farm. Couldn’t milk a cow to save my life.’

‘You’ll learn, mate.’ The girl at the wheel grinned. ‘When I joined this mob I’d never been in charge of anything more lethal than a push-bike and look at me now, driving this truck.’

Kath sat contented in the darkness of the cab, peering into the rolling blackness as if she were riding shotgun. She wished she didn’t feel so smug, so defiant almost, because at this moment she didn’t care what Barney’s next letter might bring. For just once she was doing what she wanted to do and it was heady stuff. When the war was over and Barney came home, she would be a devoted wife, keep his home clean and always have his meals ready on time. But for now, for the duration, she would enjoy every minute of being a landgirl and living in the country. If the corporal could learn to drive a truck, then Kathleen Allen could learn to milk a cow and maybe even drive a tractor. She let go a sigh of pure bliss.

‘Tired?’

‘No. Just glad I’m almost there.’ Kath smiled.

‘Not
almost.
This is it.’ Gently they came to a stop. ‘Careful how you get down.’

‘This is the hostel?’

‘Across the road, beside that clump of trees. Mind how you go. See you around.’ The engine started with a roar.

‘See you. And thanks a lot, mate!’

The front gate of Peacock Hey had been painted white and the stones, too, that lined the path to the front door. Kath walked carefully, feeling for the doorstep with the toe of her shoe. She couldn’t find a bellpush, so knocked loudly instead, waiting apprehensively.

From inside came the swish of a curtain being pulled, then the door opened wide.

‘Where on earth have you been, girl? We expected you before supper. It’s Kathleen Allen, isn’t it?’

‘That’s me. Sorry I’m late. The –’

‘Oh, away with your bother.’ The tall, slender woman drew the blackout curtain over the door again then switched on the light. ‘Trains bad, I suppose?’

‘Awful. I got a lift, though, from York.’ She looked around at the linoleum-covered floor and stairs, at the row of coat pegs and the letterboard beside the telephone. It reminded her of the orphanage, yet her welcome here had been warm, and there was a vase of yellow and bronze chrysanthemums in the stair alcove. The flowers comforted her, assured her it would be all right. She had a theory about houses – they liked you or they didn’t. Either way it showed, and Peacock Hey liked her.

‘I don’t suppose there’d be a cup of tea?’ she asked, nervously.

‘There would, lassie, but let’s get your case upstairs, then you can come down to the kitchen and have a bite. Cook lives locally and she’s away home, but she left you something and I’ve been keeping it hot in the bottom of the oven.

‘Afraid you’re in the attic – oh, I’m Flora Lyle by the way. I’m your Forewoman.’ She held out her hand and her grip was warm and firm. ‘I hope you don’t mind being shoved up here? It’s cold in winter and hot in summer, but it’ll only be until someone leaves and there’s bedspace for you in one of the rooms. We shouldn’t really use the attics – fire-bomb risk, you know, but I don’t suppose there’ll be any, and there’s sand and water up there, just in case. And you
will
have a room to yourself,’ she added, as if by way of compensation. ‘It’s just that we’re so crowded …’

‘It looks just fine to me.’ Kath set down her case and gazed around the small, low-ceilinged room, saw a black-painted iron bed, mattress rolled, blankets folded, a window hung with blackout curtains in the gable-end wall. Stark, it was, like the orphanage; bare like her room had been in service.

‘Your cupboard is outside on the landing, I’m afraid.’

‘It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t.’ A chest of drawers stood beneath the sloping ceiling, a chair beside the bed. ‘It’s fine, truly.’

Kath didn’t mind being in the attic. She had slept in an attic the whole of her years in domestic service and shared it, what was more, with a maid who snored. A room to herself was an unknown luxury, far removed from the long, green dormitory she once slept in with nineteen others. Even married to Barney she had shared, not only with him which was to be expected, but with his mother next door, for she’d been sure the old lady lay awake nights, ears strained for every whisper and every creak of their marital bedsprings. Yes, an attic – a
room
to herself would be bliss and she wouldn’t care if they left her there until it was all over, and Barney came home.

Barney? Oh, lordy! If only he could see her now.

‘I don’t suppose you know where I’ll be going to work?’ Kath hung her coat and gas mask on the door peg.

‘I do. You’re going to Ramsden’s farm, at the far end of Alderby village. You’re urgently needed, it seems. They want you there in the morning. Now, lassie, do you want to unpack first, or would you rather eat?’

‘Eat –
please
!’ Kath followed her amiable Forewoman to the warmth of the kitchen, sighing as the plate was set before her.

She would remember this day for ever, she really would. Thursday, 18th December 1941; the day on which her new life began. It had taken a long, long time, but now she was here in the country and it was near-unbelievable and undeniably wonderful.

‘Thanks,’ she whispered huskily. ‘Thanks a lot …’

There was no denying that bicycles figured importantly in Kathleen Allen’s life. They always had, as far back as she could remember, starting with the orphanage and the little tricycles that were the only memory worth keeping from those days of grudging charity. The bright red three-wheeler with the noisy bell was her favourite and she had pedalled around and around the asphalted yard on this gaudy friend who shared her secret dreams; dreams in which she was not an orphan but a real little girl whose mother dressed her in a buttercup-sprigged cotton dress with knickers to match and whose father gave her rides on the crossbar of his bicycle and boasted, ‘Our Kathleen’s doing well at school.’
Our.
That lovely, belonging little word.

When her in-service days began, there had been her first proud possession, something entirely her own, paid for at three shillings and sixpence a month, for a whole year. A second-hand bicycle, black-painted, with a bag on the back and a basket at the front.

‘Lizzie,’ she whispered, remembering. ‘Old Tin Lizzie.’

She had ridden Tin Lizzie on her afternoons off and on summer evenings when she finished work. She was cycling in the country the day she and Barney met. Had it not been for a flat tyre, the lorry driver would never have jumped from his cab and offered his help.

‘Oh dear, chucks. Know how to mend it?’

She shook her head, knowing only that the cost of repair would take a large bite from the one pound ten shillings she received on the last day of each month.

So the driver put the bicycle on the back of his lorry and drove to the Birmingham town house in which she worked, offering to remove the wheel and repair the puncture in his own backyard. To her shame she had refused, for where was the guarantee she would ever see her wheel again?

But she saw Barnaby Allen again that very next evening when he knocked loudly on the front door – the
front
door, mind you – saying he was the bicycle repair man. The parlourmaid pointed in the direction of the area steps, reminding him tartly that the kitchen door was the one upon which to knock when doing business with a housemaid.

Barney. His cheekiness had made her laugh and the dedication with which he courted her had been quite bewildering. And now, at six o’clock in the morning she was cycling into her new, exciting life, wishing she knew where Alderby St Mary was, let alone Matthew Ramsden’s farm.

She stopped, listening, eyes peering into a darkness that came back at her in dense, rolling waves. ‘Alderby’s about a mile down the lane,’ Flora had told her at the hostel. ‘Keep straight on and you can’t miss it. Watch out for the Air Force boys, though. Drive those trucks like fiends some of them do …’

She set off again cautiously; you had to take care in the blackout. Swollen noses, bruises and shattered spectacles had become a joke, almost. ‘Jumped out and hit you, did it?’ Unexpected obstacles had a lot to answer for, especially lamp-posts.