Whisper on the Wind (7 page)

When she was very small and her prayers had been said, she would whisper, ‘And please let me marry a prince, God, so Granny and me can live at Ridings for ever.’ And later, when she understood how large bills could be and how very little money they had she would yearn,
Wouldn’t it be lovely to fall in love with someone rich; someone who would care for Ridings as we do
…

But all that changed the night she and Paul met. Even the old house and the need to hold on to it would come a poor second, had she been asked to choose between it and Paul.

Now she was in love; deeply and for ever in love as Gran had been and most times her happiness was shining and golden. There were the bad bits, she admitted, when the squadron took to the air over Peddlesbury and she was sick with anxiety until they were back and the phone rang and a voice whispered, ‘Hi! I love you.’ She never minded so brief a message; not when it really meant he was safely home, and that soon they would meet.

But what would happen now with the morning milk-round to be done and she no longer able to wait beside the phone to snatch it up immediately it began to ring, Roz worried. She couldn’t ask Gran to take a message because Gran didn’t know about Paul, and to wait for a call at the phone box in the village during the milk-round wouldn’t work, even with Kath to help, because she never knew when he would be back. She determined to talk to Paul about it. There had to be some other way he could let her know he was all right.

She heard his footfall on the gravel – that was something else about being in love, knowing the way your man walked, even in the blackout. She coughed and he called, ‘Roz? Sweetheart?’ All at once everything was all right again and they were touching and kissing and oh, dear, sweet Heaven, how she loved him.

‘I missed you,’ she whispered.

‘Two days?’ His laugh was indulgent.

‘Two
hours,
’ she murmured, ‘is too long. They’re getting worse, Paul, the bits between.’

Practically all she did between their meetings was fervently wish away the hours and days until they were together again.

‘Why can’t we be married, Paul?’

‘Because I’m flying and you aren’t twenty-one.’

‘That’s no excuse, and you know it. And it isn’t what I meant. You know what I’m trying to say.’

‘Sssssh.’ He tilted her chin, searching with his mouth for hers, but she jerked her head aside.

‘No, darling! I won’t be shushed! It’s getting unbearable, the way I want you!’

‘And you think I don’t want you? Haven’t you thought it might be every bit as bad for me? When I’m flying I’m thinking, “Christ, I was mad to get into this mob. Suppose we don’t make it back? Suppose I never see her again …”’

‘Then
why
, darling, when we love each other so much?’

‘Because it wouldn’t be fair to you. What kind of a mess would you be in if something went wrong, then I didn’t get back?’

‘
If
you didn’t come back, don’t you think it’s all the more reason for us to have loved –
really
loved?’

‘Roz, sweetheart. You might get pregnant and I might be killed.’

‘
Don’t
!’ She stiffened in his arms, sudden fear taking her. ‘Don’t ever say that word again – not ever! I love you, Paul Rennie. I want to be with you always. Fifty years from now, I want to be with you!’

‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was low with regret.

‘And I’m sorry, too, so let’s not talk about it any more – well, not tonight.’ She pressed close again, touching his chin, his cheek, the tip of his nose with little teasing kisses. ‘Only I do love you so. And I want you. Nothing will change that.’

‘And I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I want you, too.’

He unbuttoned his greatcoat then wrapped her into it, pulling her even closer. Their lips met and both knew the need to belong and both silently accepted its inevitability.

Roz stood contented against him. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. They would be lovers. The time would come and they would each recognize the moment. If she got pregnant and if she were left alone, then she would manage somehow. Women usually did. Only never to have belonged, even briefly, would be unbearable.

Presently she stirred in his arms. ‘Let’s go into the dance,’ she whispered.

A crescent moon lay pale in the sky; the early morning air was sharp. Another year, a new, exciting beginning. Kath pedalled briskly, more sure of the road now, thinking back to the happiest Christmas she had ever known.

It had started with the same too-early call, for even on Christmas Day farm animals must be fed and watered, the cows milked, and she had done the morning round with Roz, touched to find greetings cards and small gifts left beside empty bottles.

When they had finished the dairy work and put out dishes of milk for the seven farm cats, they gathered in Grace’s kitchen to drink a toast to victory in carefully-hoarded dandelion wine and wished each other a happy Christmas.

‘No more work today,’ Mat had smiled, over his glass. ‘Off home, the pair of you.’

It was sad, Kath thought, that Barney’s letter should be there when she got back to Peacock Hey a little before noon, and even though she had been expecting it for days, she wished it could have waited until tomorrow or have arrived a day earlier, for nothing at all should be allowed to spoil the joy of this special Christmas. This day above all others she wanted to think kindly of her husband, not shrink from his disapproval; wanted to laugh a lot and eat Christmas dinner with the landgirls who were drifting back to the hostel in ones and twos, the remainder of the day their own. Carefully she slit open the envelope, steeling herself against her husband’s anger.

The letter from North Africa confirmed her worst fears. Barney’s reply was crisp with dissent, accusing her of deceit when she must have known all along that no married woman could be made to do war work away from her home. It was open condemnation; it hurt her deeply.

Selfish, that’s what you are, Kath. The minute I’m gone you’re parading around in uniform making an exhibition of yourself and against my wishes, too
…

She swallowed hard, anger rising briefly inside her. She was not parading anywhere and if getting up at half-past five to deliver milk on a pitch-black winter morning was making an exhibition of herself then yes, she supposed she was.

Well, Kath, you’ve made your bed so you’ll have to lie on it. It’s too late now for regrets. You’re stuck with it for the duration, so don’t come crying to me
, Barney warned,
when you realize you’d best have stayed at home.

She took a deep, calming breath then pushed the letter into the pocket of her jacket, acknowledging that perhaps Barney could be right, that maybe she had been just a little deceitful. When dinner was over, she would sit down at once and tell him how sorry she was; not sorry for joining, she could never be that, but for not asking him first. Then she would tell him about Alderby and Roz and little Daisy; about Mat and Grace and the tractor she was learning to drive. He’d be pleased to hear about the Post Office bank account she had opened and into which every penny of her Army allowance was being paid.

She would not, she determined, tell him about Jonty yet awhile, for young men who did not answer their country’s call made Barnaby Allen’s hackles rise. Nor would she tell him, ever, about the prisoner of war soon to arrive at Home Farm. Barney held all things Teutonic in contempt and it would do nothing for his peace of mind to learn that his wife might soon be working alongside the Germans’ closest ally.

Lastly, she would tell him that she loved him and missed him and thought about him a lot, for no matter what a letter contained or what it omitted to mention, the loving and the missing was an essential part of every letter to every serviceman overseas.

Now that letter was on its way and the new year nearly six hours old. Surely Barney would come to understand that this was the first real freedom she had ever known – might ever know – and that she must be allowed to make the most of every single day. Soon, her loving letters would reassure him, let him know how deeply she cared.

‘A happy new year, Barney,’ she whispered. ‘Take care.’

‘Happy new year!’ Roz was loading milk-crates on to the trap when Kath arrived at Home Farm. ‘Up early, aren’t you? Don’t tell me you haven’t been to bed.’

‘No such luck. No parties for me last night; Paul was flying. Make you sick, wouldn’t it, flying ops on New Year’s Eve and not one of them back yet. Lord knows where they’ve been all this time. Even if it was Berlin, they should have been back before now.’

‘They will be,’ Kath consoled. ‘It’s early, yet.’ And dark, and almost two hours still to go before the blackout could be lifted. ‘He’ll be all right, I know it. You’ll see him tonight.’

‘Yes I will. I
know
I will. Look, Kath – can I ask you something a bit personal?’

‘Try me.’

‘Well, were you a – a virgin when you married Barney?’ The words came in a tumble of embarrassment. ‘What I’m trying to say is –’

‘Was I a virgin when we married or had we been lovers?’ Kath looked at the downcast eyes, the pink spots on the young girl’s cheeks. How naïve she was, how painfully unworldly. ‘Well, since you ask, no, we didn’t make love. Mind, we got into a few heavy clinches from time to time, but one of us managed to count up to ten in time.’ One of us. Always me. ‘But it was very different, you see, when we were courting.’ They could talk about tomorrow because then there had been a tomorrow; lovers weren’t snatched apart and homes broken up, children left fatherless. Once, there had been all the time in the world. ‘But what brought all this on?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. There isn’t an awful lot going for it these days, is there – being a virgin, I mean. I wish I weren’t. Does that make me sound like a tart, Kath?’

‘No. In fact I think it must be awful for you, loving Paul so much. Why is it,’ she demanded, ‘that we’re old enough to go to war but not old enough to get married till we’re twenty-one? Crazy, isn’t it? You’re worrying about Paul, aren’t you?’

‘Yes. I always do. I’d have thought they’d have started getting back long before this.’

‘They’re a bit late, that’s all – a headwind, maybe. Well, they can’t all be –’ She stopped, biting back the word
missing.
‘What I’m trying to say is –’

‘Ssssh. Quiet!’ Ears straining, Roz gazed into a sky still inky dark. ‘There’s one of them now, I’m sure it is!’

It was several seconds before Kath could hear the faint tired drone of aircraft engines but then, she considered, she wasn’t waiting for the man she loved to come back from a raid over Germany; wouldn’t keep tally as each one thrashed overhead and circled the aerodrome, asking for permission to land, waiting for the runway lights to be turned on.

‘How many went? Did you count them?’

‘Yes.’ Roz always counted. ‘Eleven last night.’

‘Fine. Then we’ll count them in, shall we?’ Kath opened the delivery book. ‘Any cancellations?’

‘None. Ivy Cottage would like an extra pint, if we’ve got one to spare, that’s all.’ She glanced up again, relief in her voice. ‘It’s them, all right, and that’s the first. I wonder where they’ve been till now?’

‘He’ll tell you tonight.’ Kath smiled. ‘By the way, I don’t suppose you’d remembered that it’s today the Italian is coming?’

‘Could I forget? Gran’s still going on about it.’

‘I wonder what he’ll be like.’

‘Oh, short, fat and greasy, according to Gran, and every bit as bad as a German.’ Roz shrugged, only half listening.

‘I always thought Italians were tall, dark and romantic.’

‘I couldn’t care less what he’s like. All I want is for him to keep out of Gran’s way and help out with the ploughing. Oh, come on. Let’s make a start.’

She glanced up sharply as the first of the homecoming Lancasters roared in low over Alderby. She didn’t speak, but already the words ‘Ten to go’, had formed in her mind and ‘Please God, ten more.
Please.
’

Kath was leading Daisy into her loose box when the truck stopped at the farm gate. Arms folded, she stood to watch.

The man who jumped out at a sharp command from the guard was tall and young and fairer than she would have thought.

‘Come on, you! Chop chop, there! We haven’t got all day!’

The guard was the smaller of the two and a great deal older but he carried a rifle on his shoulder, so size and age didn’t count for a lot, Kath reasoned. Perhaps his animosity sprang from a still-remembered Dunkirk or a bomb-shattered home. You couldn’t blame him, she supposed, for throwing his weight about a bit.

‘The prisoner’s here.’ She closed the dairy door against the cold. ‘A guard has just taken him inside.’

‘Damn!’ Roz set down a crate of bottles with a rattle. ‘I was hoping he wouldn’t arrive. Gran swears she’ll have rid of him just as soon as Mat can find someone else and she will, nothing’s more certain, once the ploughing is done.’

‘Is it possible to hate someone so much?’

‘Gran can.’ Roz ran to the door, wrenching it open, her eyes sliding left and right. ‘Listen! There it is. That’s eleven back! Now what do you suppose kept them?’

‘Does it matter?’ Kath flinched as the massive black shape thundered low over the farm. ‘They’re all home.’