Whisper on the Wind (51 page)

Then what would she do? How was she to tell a wounded soldier she was leaving him? How could she? She had intended to tell him when the war was over, when he came home. Squarely and honestly she would have asked him for her freedom, but things had changed, now. The distant day she had so dreaded was all at once very much nearer.

And what will you say to him
? demanded her conscience.

Say? What was there to say? That she was desperately sorry, but –

‘
But I’ve fallen in love with another man.
’

No! Yes! She
was
in love with Marco Roselli if wanting to be near him always, needing him to touch her, kiss her, make love to her, was falling in love – all right, that’s the way it was. She was guilty.

Then what about your promises, Kath Allen? For better, for worse; in sickness and in health
…

All right! So people made mistakes. She had made one and Barney, too, if he were honest – else why the long silences, the refusal to meet her half way, to even try to understand?

But it was all right until you met Marco Roselli. It was bearable.

It was
not
all right. It never really was. She had been so very tired of being a nobody, a foundling, a charity child that she had married the first man who asked her.

He gave you his name.

Yes, then mocked my dreams.

He gave you a home.

He took me to his mother’s house. It was never mine; never a home.

They had bought a big, double bed and he claimed his rights in that bed. Every night. Clumsily and selfishly, until he tired of it. He had never made love to her; he
took
her – with his mother listening on the other side of the wall, hating her.

What did you expect – you, Kath Sykes, a nobody
?

I expected kindness and tenderness and understanding. Even a nobody has feelings. And here at Home Farm I’m
our
Kath, and Marco loves me …

Marco Roselli is your husband’s enemy; your country’s enemy.

All right! But I’m a woman and I want him. I’m sorry with all my heart that Barney has been wounded and I’d give anything for it not to have happened. But Barney will fall on his feet. He always has; he always will. And when the time is right, I’ll tell him. I
will
…

The moon was half-grown and rising pale; hardly to be noticed against a sky still vaguely light. Now, as the longest day approached, there seemed hardly any night; the sky was not fully dark until midnight and long before five in the morning birds sang a welcome to a new day. It was somehow unnatural, Roz thought as she thumped and turned her pillow yet again.

She wouldn’t sleep; nothing was so certain. Her mind was a seethe of thoughts and doubts, regrets and sorrow. It would help if she could weep again; if the knot of pain in her throat could dissolve into blessed tears. But her tears were spent and the pain must remain, a small part of her penance.

I love you, Gran. Are you here, still, or are you already with him, with the love you lost all those years ago? And did you know about this afternoon? Was a part of you there in April, on Mark’s Eve – you and Peg together
?

You wanted to go; I know it. Lately he’s been beckoning, calling. You felt his nearness, didn’t you, Gran? You did know. And who that we don’t know about was there with you on Mark’s Eve? Who else in this parish will die before the year has run
?

Paul, take care of your dear self. I want you and need you. Fifty years from now I shall still want and need you. I couldn’t live if you left me. Don’t let them part us, Paul
…

The milk delivery took longer than Kath had thought. Not only was she alone, but at every house doors opened immediately and she was asked for news; news of Mrs Fairchild’s death, of the time of the funeral on Thursday and of how Roz, poor lass, was taking it. And wasn’t it shameful? Her who’d never harmed a soul, killed by
them
, just as surely as they’d killed her husband.

Kath carried back many messages of sympathy and love, but then Roz
was
loved. She was one of their own; a Fairchild. Ridings was hers, now, and she would go on belonging like the beeches and oaks on either side of the carriage drive, deep-rooted and immovable.

She backed the milk-cart into the shed then loosed Daisy from the shafts, leading her to the drinking trough. She really must hurry back to Roz.

‘Kath!’ Flora was calling her, grave-faced. ‘It came, hen; first post. Bad news travels fastest, doesn’t it? Want me to stay around, till you’ve read it?’

‘No, Flora, but thanks for bringing it.’ She pushed the letter into the deep pocket of her dungarees. ‘Later. I’ll read it later. And is it all right for me to sleep out – did you ask the Warden?’

‘I asked her. Can you call in, later on, and she’ll give you some rations, she said; save messing about with a temporary card. How’s Roz?’

‘Bearing up. Her gran’s solicitor is coming this morning. There’ll be things to talk about, to arrange. I haven’t seen her since last night, but I heard her go downstairs in the early hours. I don’t think she slept, either.’

‘Aye. It’s a terrible war, so it is. Ah, well, I’ll be away and have words with Mr Ramsden. I’ve a girl can be spared, if he’s short-handed. My, but it couldn’t have happened at a busier time …’

‘Mat’s in Ten-acre field, Flora. They’re turning the hay this morning – the top end of Beck Lane.’

‘Right, then. See you, Kath. And I hope things won’t seem so bad once you’ve read the letter. Try not to worry too much?’

‘That was Flora from the hostel,’ Kath announced, sitting down at the kitchen table. ‘She brought me a letter.’

She looked around the familiar kitchen, safe and unchanging, and let it wrap its comfort around her.

‘Flora has a girl Mat can have, if he’s pushed. She’s gone to Ten-acre, to see him.’

‘Aye. Everyone is good. Mat’ll be grateful. Normally we’d have managed.’ But yesterday and today and for the remainder of the week, things would not be normal. Come to think of it, things would never be normal again. ‘From home, was it – the letter, I mean.’

‘From Aunt Min.’ Home? Where was home? ‘Is there anything else you want me to do, Grace?’

‘No. It was good of you to do the round. Get back to Roz. I’ll do the dairy work, this morning. We’ll all have to rally round till after the – the –’

Funeral. The word no one wanted to say. On Thursday, at two. By Thursday tea-time Mrs Fairchild would be gone and it would never be the same without her. But the world had gone mad and the madness had reached out even to little hidden-away Alderby. Nowhere was safe, now; nowhere at all.

Kath opened the letter the moment she was out of sight of Home Farm and removed the long, buff envelope Aunt Min had folded into three. It bore no stamp; only the words
On His Majesty’s Service
, the red mark of the Censor and the date.

Inside was a single sheet of buff-coloured notepaper. It bore an address similar to the one Barney wrote at the top of his letters, and two sets of initials. Those of the officer who had dictated and signed the letter, perhaps, and the soldier who had typed it.

Allen B. T/157663. Royal Army Service Corps
, the letter was headed, and it went on to tell her that Barney had been wounded in action and was now in hospital at Hafiif; that his condition was satisfactory and that she could continue to send letters to his battalion address.

Hafiif. Near Cairo, was it? Had Barney already driven an ambulance to that hospital on one of his long convoys? Why couldn’t she write directly to the hospital and when would she be told officially by the War Office?

T/157663. Barney was a number, a statistic, now. How badly had he been wounded? Had there been so many casualties that his Commanding Officer had had neither the time nor the inclination to tell her more?
Allen B.
Why couldn’t they call him Barney Allen? Why did the war take satisfaction from stripping men and women of their identities, making nameless numbers of them?

She thrust the letter back into her pocket. She wished Aunt Min had enclosed a note; a few lines, perhaps, to wish her well. But she’d probably been so agitated that the thought had never entered her head.

Barney wounded, and in hospital. She didn’t love him but not in her bleakest moments would she have wished him ill.

Tears filled her eyes and she brushed them away with the back of her hand. Her life was in turmoil; the whole world was in turmoil, and there was nothing she could do about it.

From the small sitting-room came the murmur of voices. Mr Dunston was here already. He and Roz would be talking about what was going to happen on Thursday and what would happen after that; things which after a death must be discussed, however distressing.

Kath walked quietly across the kitchen and closed the door that led to the passage outside. What was being said in there was no business of hers; what Roz wanted her to know she could tell her in her own good time.

She lifted the kettle. It was cold, which meant that Roz hadn’t made tea. Perhaps she should set it to boil anyway, Kath thought; she needed a cup herself. She’d had no breakfast, come to think of it. A slice of toast might take care of the muzzy feeling in her head and the strange ache in her stomach.

She sighed deeply. She didn’t understand any of this. Two days ago she and Roz had been so happy; mixed up, perhaps, but happy. Then the fighters came, and Flora had told her that Barney was wounded and in hospital. Was it like that, then, if you dared to be happy? Did happiness make the Fates jealous? Did it have its price and were she and Roz being asked to pay?

Thursday, at two. On Thursday they would have to accept that they would never see Hester Fairchild again. And when it was all over she would tell Roz about Barney; pour out her bewilderment and guilt and hope that the telling would help to ease it. Would things be back to normal again, after Thursday? Would they pick up the threads and try to carry on as if none of it had happened? Could they?

‘Now then, our Kath. Got the kettle on, I see.’

Polly had come; Polly, level-headed and unchanging. Kath had forgotten that ten o’clock was Polly’s time, always would be, no matter what.

‘I’m hungry, Polly. I don’t seem to have eaten since – since it happened. And Mr Dunston’s here, I think, in the little sitting-room.’

‘Aye.’ Polly nodded her approval. ‘Best get it over with then the lass’ll know where she stands. These things can’t be put off. Got to be done and the sooner the better.’

She put on her pinafore, and tied the strings. Then she changed her shoes as she always did and hung up her brown paper carrier-bag on the peg behind the door as she had been doing for longer than she wanted to remember. Life must go on. No one had known that better than the Mistress and on life would go, Polly vowed. ‘And if you’re making a pot, I’ll take a cup with you, a piece of toast, an’ all. Set a tray, will you – the white china cups with the blue rim and a clean traycloth, from the top drawer. And what about this fire?’ She wielded the poker vigorously. ‘Almost out, it is. Turn your back for five minutes and the place goes to pieces. Well, what are you waiting for?’ She turned abruptly away. She hadn’t meant to be sharp with Kath, but coming here and her not being there – well, it was something she would have to face for the rest of her days, for nothing would bring her back. Not if Poll Appleby wept until the crack of doom would it. And why couldn’t she weep? When would she be rid of the pain that raged something terrible inside her? Dry-eyed she turned round. ‘Sorry, Kath. But you know I don’t mean to snap. It’s just that – that –’

‘I know, Polly. Just that she isn’t here any more. It’s going to take a bit of getting used to.’

‘A
lot
of getting used to.’ She would never get used to it; not if she lived to be a hundred. ‘We’ll never see her like again, you know.’ Her lips moved into a small, sad smile. ‘She was a lady, you see. Ah, well …’ She threw kindling on the dying fire then carefully placed coal on it. ‘There, now. Another minute and it’d have been out. Not much milk in mine, lass, if you’re pouring.’

Why did the hours drag so? Why did Thursday at two hang over them all like a great dark cloud full of tears? And would this dratted pain never go?

‘Tea, is it? Mr Dunston wants a cup?’ she demanded sharply as Roz came in through the passage doorway.

‘No thanks, Polly. He’s just gone – left by the front.’ She pulled out a chair then sat down, chin on hands, at the table. ‘Paul rang. He won’t be coming. They’re on standby.’

‘Flying, do you suppose?’

‘Just standby, which means they might go or they mightn’t. And no tea for me, thanks. Just a glass of water.’

‘You’ll not get fat on water. A glass of milk, why don’t you?’ Polly was worried. The lass looked dreadful; pale and pinched, her eyes dark-smudged with not sleeping. ‘And what did he have to say, then,’ she demanded. ‘Everything’s all right – moneywise, I mean?’

‘I think so, Polly. Seems there’s still some of the ploughing subsidy left and I can draw on that, the bank told Mr Dunston, until everything is settled. Gran made a will, so it should be fairly straightforward. I’ll be able to keep Ridings, if I want to, but only if it goes on being a farm and earning its keep.’