Winter’s Children (23 page)

‘So we can refit the kitchen and bathrooms and everything?’ Perhaps it was not so bad after all, she thought. ‘Just when were you going to tell me all this … in the New Year?’

‘I’m afraid the kitchen and bathrooms are considered a fixture … so they come under the buildings policy,’ he mumbled into his tea.

I need a stiff whisky to take in this bad news, Nora thought, not a mug of weak dishwater.

‘Well, you’ve done it now, our Nikolas. That’s us in Dicky’s meadow and no mistake! We’re finished! How can we stay here with no stock, no income and a ruin on our doorstep? How could you?’ She was screaming for all to hear. All the pent-up frustrations of the last six months came bubbling out of her mouth.

‘I forgot … Anyone can forget, Mother,’ he answered, gazing down at the floor, utterly dejected like a five-year-old that had punctured his balloon.

‘You did not forget. You just did what you’ve been doing for months … putting off paying our bills when there’s no need. We had the brass for once. I should have done it myself. I trusted you and look what you’ve done by burying your head in the sand. We’re finished here … We have been for years but you’re too pig-headed to see it. Just like your father when he was thwarted, always wanting to go your own gait!’

‘But there’s the compensation …’ he offered.

She burst into a fit of coughing at this. ‘Comp, compo! I’m sick of hearing about compo! We’ll spend it ten times over, repaying overdrafts and barn conversions that never get let. You’re so mean keeping it in the bank, hoarding it when the whole place is falling over our heads. That family could have been killed and we weren’t even insured. I can’t believe I’ve got such a daft in t’ head son.’ She stood up, pacing around the table, hugging her chest with her arms.

‘I just want out of here … out of this mess. I want my own fireside, some peace and quiet and no more money worries. I want my share of the bloody compo while I’ve breath left to enjoy it. What’s so special about these bricks and mortar that we have to freeze to death living in this draughty old barn? We rattle around like two peas in a barrel. It’s ridiculous.’

‘Shut up, you’ve said enough,’ snapped Nik. ‘You don’t understand, you never did. This is my house. I was born here … all I’ve ever known. This is my life and I’ll decide whether I sell up or stay on. It’s my compo.’

‘Like hell it is!’ She was blazing now with indignation. ‘I were foddering the sheep years before you were born. I had to stomach this draughty house, nurse your dad in his last illness. I have a say in this place and its future, and I say call it a day, right now before it kills us both.’ She stood staring at his dejected face, her cheeks on fire. ‘Wake up, lad. You’re living in some dream world. It’s never-never land, you inhabit. Farming’s never going to be the same after this lot’s over, this government will see to that. They want the likes of us out and gone to our little bungalows in the town. That’ll suit me fine. I’m going to phone Bruce Stickley after Christmas. He can sort out this property and get it on the market. He’ll give us a good price. You’ve gone too far this time losing money we haven’t got. Grow up!’ She stabbed her finger at her son.

‘Don’t you point the finger at me! You’ve never understood how I felt. I’m not the only one who lives in the past, or hadn’t you noticed? When could I ever talk to you? You’ve never cared for me. Don’t you think I don’t know I’m a poor second after the blessed Shirley?’

She could see the pain in his eyes as she lifted her hands in protest, shaking her head up to the ceiling.

‘That’s right, look away,’ he continued. ‘I mention the sainted Shirley: the little angel who did no wrong. Father told me you never wanted to stay here after she died. Boy, have I had to live under her shadow all my life. You’ve never expected much of me so why are you disappointed now? I’m just a chip off the old block, and you never loved him.’

His blue eyes were blazing out at her and she felt herself flushing at his emotion.

‘That’s not true. How dare you say such things?’ she hissed back.

‘Oh, you did your duty by us, fed us and clothed us, but we weren’t Shirley, and as for Dad, poor sod, you never loved him or me for not being another little Shirley. There’s no use denying it. You should have left years ago and let us get on with it in our own way.’

She watched him slicing himself some more bread with a shaking hand, unwrapping some stinky cheese without looking at her. All these years she’d been living with such resentment. Suddenly her legs were trembling and she felt herself crumpling with exhaustion and the pain of uncovering such long concealed wounds.

‘It’s nearly Christmas, Nik. We’ve got guests, we’ve got to keep going.’ It was all she could offer him. ‘We can talk about this later without the whole world knowing our business.’

‘Oh, aye, put on a united front, is it, as we’ve always done? Hide the mess. Don’t expect me to be joining in any jollifications,’ he shouted.

‘When were you ever jolly, son?’ The gloves were off now but she was stung by his accusations and couldn’t leave it there. ‘No inheritance of Mr Jacob’s Christmas spirit in you – you’re more like his miserable wife …’

‘And whose fault is that? You were never sweetness and light around the turkey either, with a face like a wet weekend. You’ve spoiled every Christmas I’ve known.’

‘May you never see your child die before your eyes, son,’ she said.

‘I DIDN’T KILL HER!’ he shouted back. ‘It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even born!’

‘I know,’ was all she could reply.

They were retreating from the brink of a black cavernous pit.

‘No one can sue us for negligence. The fire wasn’t my fault. It was a brand-new conversion with state-of-the-art wiring. There was some strange surge of power, some freak winter lightning that caused a spark or something. I’m not to blame,’ he said, biting on his sandwich trying to act normal.

‘We can’t carry on now, this place is killing me,’ Nora sighed, snatching the conciliatory moment. ‘If you restock, I will go. I’m not fit for farm work. I’m getting too old. I want some time to enjoy my life before I peg out. You have to understand my point of view.’

‘I do. I know it looks impossible … Let’s just see the season through. I’m sorry,’ Nik said.

‘By heck, you know how to pack a punch, son, straight where it hurts. Children always do. I’m fair knocked back by your words,’ she stammered, standing in the doorway, breathless.

‘Then say no more. Happen we’ve both said enough. It alters nothing. One careless slip and we’re up shit creek without a paddle and it’s all my fault,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind, we’ll leave it there. I have to think it through.’

How did we come to this? she thought. Mother and son so distanced by grief and misunderstanding, so out of touch with each other. Nik’s outburst was like a knife piercing her heart, straight to the guilty target.

All his life had he grown up thinking he was second best to the sister he never knew; second best to a child snatched from life, leaving a gaping hole, a ravine across which no other sibling could ever leap? Her death blasted a quarry between husband and wife, between mother and child.

How it must have puzzled a little boy, sensing such a mighty barrier. How he must have ached when she turned from him, distanced herself from his needs.

She fled to the safety of her sofa, burying her head in the cushion, breathless, her heart throbbing. I ought to have rejoiced that he was a boy and made no comparison, she wept. Surely each new child was a unique gift, but poor Nik was cast adrift in turbulent waters. All these years, she thought sadly, we’ve been living side by side politely, never sharing what really matters deep in our hearts.

How quickly resentments bubbled to the surface just now, rising like bitter damson stones out of the jamming froth. Suddenly she felt utterly bowed down by her guilt and sadness, a great ache in her heart for this lonely son who had been so neglected by her grief. She was stabbed with shame. How can a mother get it so wrong?

If only it wasn’t Christmas, the saddest time of the year. If only there weren’t guests to entertain. If only she could swallow her pride and bake him a cake, show him she had heard his anger and hurt, but all she could do was flop down on her sofa and weep like a limp rag. If only she could turn back the clock and do things differently. Why does truth always hurt?

If only she’d had some psychology to help her in those terrible years after the war. It was in its own infancy when Nik was young. They didn’t have the words for how Shirley’s death would affect the whole family. If only someone had warned her what damage she was doing by bottling things up. Tom had made noises but she was deaf to his hints. It was easy to be wise after the event.

Nik cut another slice of bread and nearly the tip off his finger, cursing as he ran it under the cold tap and found a plaster. He wasn’t really hungry now. The crumbs were sticking in his throat. He had said his piece, told her the score but all that stuff about Shirley came out of nowhere. Why was he so angry after all these years? How could he be jealous of a little kid in a photograph, a Latin name on a tombstone, that shadowy presence around every Christmas? It went deep and it was a surprise just how much it hurt.

He felt sick that he had shouted down a sick old woman. What a bloody mess! She was right about him living in the past. That was what the bloke at the diversification lecture had said in his speech. There could be no more harking back to the glory days of hill farming, the post-war boom in agriculture.

Now was the time to go forward in faith, facing whatever the future held. It was time to think laterally, not on tramlines. It was time to try out new ways of using land and resources, less production, more marketing and service, giving the customer a specialised product – organically grown, quality lamb. This was a new age for farmers with time to think the unthinkable.

The implications of changing direction were legion and he could feel panic rising at the effort it would take to retrain. It did not alter what Nik felt about Wintergill. Oh, no. It was making him ever more determined to hang on and make his farm viable once more. He did not need his mother to tell him he was stubborn and pig-headed.

Was he not hefted to these hills as much as his dead stock? Someone had to continue the tradition of Dales life or it would be lost for ever. Cash was not the problem for once, but he had jeopardised some of his precious savings by this oversight.

Any road, he mused, stubbornness was not a bad quality to have if he was facing a battery of opposition. What bright spark said your problems were only opportunities in disguise? He could do with some enlightenment on that score. If only he could see into the future and not into the past.

He could still see that white ghost on the hill, her eyes staring at him in the headlights. Now there was the accident in the barn. That strange vision always brought bad news. Was there any connection? Perhaps he’d better pay closer attention to old Agnes’s herbal after all if he wanted that spectre off his back. Witchery or no, he was going to need a clear head to make the biggest decision of his life, and that was fact, but first there was a stone wall to mend and it wasn’t down the field but in the other room.

He stood in her doorway with a glass of brandy in his hand. Nora looked up, expecting another rant, but took the glass from him with a sigh. ‘I want to know what it’s all about, Mother … It’s about time I knew the score. What happened all those years ago to make you …’ he paused, ‘… to make us the way we are with each other? What did I do wrong?’

Nora flopped down, not looking at him but staring at the photo on the mantelpiece. ‘You did nothing, son. It was me … I did a terrible thing … After the war. It’s not a pretty story but I suppose I owe you an explanation. I don’t know where to start …’ she sighed.

He shut the door and sat down beside her. ‘From the beginning will do,’ he replied.

Shirley and the German Christmas, December 1946

 

Uses for goose grease

 

Beat with cream and vinegar, lemon juice, finely chopped onion and parsley for a sandwich filling.

A hot flannel poultice of grease to be rubbed on chest to relieve a troublesome chest.

An ointment for the dairy maid’s hands or on the udders of the cow or child’s lips to prevent chapping in cold weather.

Rub on leather, leave overnight to soften and preserve. Rub off with saddle soap or dubbin.

Warm the grease and smear the sheep dog’s ears and between his pads to ward off rawness in wet snow.

To buff up horns and hoofs, beaks of any animal going to a show and enhance the natural colour.

‘We’re not having any Germans in this house! It’s not right,’ Mum snapped. ‘That’s right, Shirley, you keep stirring the bowl with the wooden spoon.’

Shirley was nearly seven now and loved standing on a chair at the kitchen table, her fingers licking the mixture with relish. They were getting ready for Stir Up Sunday, when Miss Lane in Sunday school said ‘Stir up, O Lord, our hearts …’ telling them it was time to get the Christmas puddings on the boil. Mum had been hoarding dried fruit for months to be sure of a decent sprinkling of currants alongside the grated carrots, dried berries, nuts and treacle.

‘You can make a big wish. Then Santa will bring you something in his sack,’ she promised, smiling down.

Shirley couldn’t wait, scraping the bowl so her pigtails got a coating of goo. ‘I want a—’

‘Shush!’ Mum replied, putting her hand over her mouth. ‘Say it out loud and it won’t come true, love.’

Daddy was standing in the doorway smoking the last of his baccy ration. Just the person she wanted to see.

‘How could you put our name down without asking me?’ Mum whispered. ‘As if we’ve not enough to do without having to entertain strangers as well. Whatever put such a notion in your head?’ she argued. ‘I thought that we’re not supposed to fraternise with the enemy.’ Her accent always broadened when she was angry.

Daddy paused from his tea break. ‘Well, we can now, after the twelfth of this month. It’s about time we treat them German lads a bit fairer. They’ve worked hard round here mucking out, building walls, out in all weathers. If ever there was slave labour …’ he continued, seeing Mum shaking her head. ‘It’s only right and proper to show a little Christian charity to lonely men over Christmas. Come on, it’s only for a day. Where’s yer Christmas spirit, Lenora Snowden?’ He grinned a big smile and winked at Shirley, but Mum was not for giving in.

‘I don’t have any for Germans. Not after what Hitler did at Belsen and what happened to my cousin, Gilbert … They’ve taken enough from us. Gil got no Christmas presents when he crossed the Rhine, only a bullet in his head.’

Uncle Gilbert lived in the sitting room, smiling in his uniform from a black frame. Mum banged the pudding bowl down on the slab in the pantry. ‘There,’ she said. ‘It can stand for the night with a drop of brandy from the medicinal cupboard to perk it up. I think I’ll be needing some myself to swallow the pill you’ve just brought me! Come on, Shirley, perhaps a kind fairy will cough up some silver charms for our plum pudding.’

Dad didn’t budge but folded his arms just as he did when it was time for her to go to bed and she wanted to listen to the wireless.

‘Anyroad, how can we entertain prisoners of war? They won’t speak any English and my school German is long forgotten.’ Now she was banging down all the dirty pots in the stone sink. ‘We’ve heard enough of that language to last a lifetime. It’s not fair, springing this bombshell on me. Don’t I have a say?’

When Mum was angry she rattled everything in the kitchen, her blue eyes blazing.

‘You’ve grown hard these past few years …’ he began.

‘What do you expect? I know we won the war but it doesn’t feel like it to me every time I go into market with my basket. I keep getting less and less for my brass and keep giving up more coupons. You try finding something for Shirley’s birthday in the toyshops. The kiddies must have the treats, not grown men who pointed guns against us.’

Daddy put his hand on her lips. ‘That’s enough, lass. Walls have ears. Don’t spoil the little one’s surprises. Shirley won’t go without, she never has. Santa Claus won’t miss her on his rounds, now will he? I know it’s been a grim two Christmases but let’s give it some rip, kill a goose this time and let’s share it with others. Make some stranger’s Christmas one to remember. Yon camp on the moors is no hotel de luxe. They’re all caged in like animals in a pen. POWs have paid their dues, love. They ought to be sent home by now, not cooped up in this cold. Have a heart, our Nora!’

Shirley didn’t know what to think about all this argy-bargy. She didn’t want Mr Hitler coming through their door but everyone said he was dead and the war was over so it was time to make friends like she and Vera did when they fell out in the playground.

‘You’re too soft,’ Mum snapped. ‘If I had my way they’d be made to repair every bomb crater and kept here until every brick was back in its rightful place.’

They’d watched the newsreels on the Pathé News. Shirley didn’t know what war was like. The worst they’d known was a few stray bombs frightening the sheep and a busload of evacuees in school who didn’t stay long.

‘I never took you for a bigot, Nora,’ said Daddy, frowning.

Shirley didn’t like it when they quarrelled and said nasty things to each other. It frightened her.

‘Those lads here have been willing workhorses, polite and no trouble so far. Let’s be gracious in victory and make friends with our enemies. Think on, Nora, give them a chance. Come to church and see for yourself what type of men they are. You’ll be surprised.’

Mum shrugged, trying to ignore his arguments. She hardly went to church these days. ‘If you say so,’ she sniffed, and turned back to her chores. Shirley slipped out into the yard to play with the dog, glad to be away from them. This was the time she wished she had a brother or sister to play with, but she had some imaginary friends and sometimes when she was playing in the copse, she caught a glimpse of the white fairy who looked a bit like the good fairy Glinda in
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
They played games of hide-and-seek around the trees until Shirley grew bored and ran back to the yard.

The following Sunday they saw the prisoners processing down to the front pews of the Methodist Chapel in dark suits, carrying their overcoats on their arms, shuffling into the left side with caps tucked in their pockets. Shirley counted thirty of them, staring up at the oak pulpit and the pencil stems of the organ pipes. Mum had come out of curiosity just to see what the mighty vanquished looked like. They sat in silence, stony-faced, not sullen but slightly puzzled by the occasion, aware of fifty pairs of eyes boring holes in their backs.

Shirley had to admit they didn’t look like frightening bogeymen in their shabby uniforms but their voices cheered up the usual singing as they pored over service sheets typed in both English and German. They behaved politely and were ushered out before the end of the service, out into the morning chill to be marched back up the hill to their barrack huts. Shirley and the Sunday school gang came racing out of the schoolroom to watch them and some of the boys called out rude names. She felt a bit sad that she would be tucking into a roast with all the trimmings while they would be marching back to barracks in the sleet.

‘No one should be turned out of the House of God, should they, love?’ whispered Daddy to both of them. ‘Just look at them, they’re broken men now, their whole world’s collapsed. You have to feel sorry for them: young lads far from home who don’t know who they are any more. We have to show a bit of forgiveness.’ Trust Daddy to have a good word to say.

‘Are we having one? Sally’s having one … Can I have one?’ she shouted from the church porch.

‘Having what?’ Nora asked, straightening her daughter’s plait. ‘Where’s your ribbon … they don’t grow on trees!’

‘Can I have a Jerry for Christmas?’ Shirley knew about pestering and noticed Mum didn’t say no.

‘We’ll see,’ came the unexpected reply. That was as good as a yes …

Why on earth did I say that? Nora mused. Perhaps it was because it was such a December dog day, the rooks were cawing overhead and she looked up to see the column of drab men marching upwards round the steep bend in the road. It was a bleak prospect, a long march, and she ought to feel triumphant, but there was a strange sadness melting her icy resolve. Not much of a welcome on a bleak hillside, but whose fault was that? If they’d stayed in their own country none of this would be happening and Gilbert would still be alive.

Tom was right, she had grown hard, as if she were carrying herself rigid, tight-laced, corseted, unbending. It was her way of getting the work done when they were up against the enemy. Now the enemy was sitting in the next pew praying to the same God and it made no sense. What was all the sacrifice about then?

It was time to get a move on if they were to have any dinner. She fingered her gloves and went to look for the tartan ribbon. It wouldn’t find itself.

The strangers were to come on Christmas morning after Morning Service when a group of POWs sang ‘
Stille Nacht’
with such sincerity and sweetness there was hardly a dry eye in the congregation. Even Nora was resigning herself to their visitation, knowing they were thinking of home and family. You couldn’t begrudge them some proper Yorkshire hospitality.

After the service, when everyone in the congregation shook hands with the men and gathered the groups ready for their visit, she was introduced to Hans Braun and Klaus Krause but she did not look them in the eyes. It was awkward trying to fit Hans’s long legs into their saloon car. He sat in the front with Tom while she was squashed in the back with the other man and Shirley as a buffer.

The men stood outside the farmhouse front door stiffly. Hans had to stoop to avoid the lintel. The other prisoner stood clicking his heels with a parcel tucked under his arm. When she looked up at him she saw only a pair of sad eyes, the colour of dull slate, and felt a stab of recognition. She had to admit he was handsome in a Germanic sort of way. Those eyes were the fiercest she had ever seen on a man, and the impact of them was like a blade cutting steel. He did not look like the Hun as she imagined at all, but a world-weary soul lost in a world he did not understand.

‘Thank you for Christe … mass
Willkommen …
Klaus Krause spoke haltingly and Tom shook his hand warmly.

‘Come in! You are welcome. This is Lenora, my wife, and this is little Shirley,’ he added as his daughter hovered excitedly around the parcel under Klaus’s arm.

The minx, Nora thought. The parcel was wrapped in old brown paper, and she felt touched that they had bothered to bring anything. Klaus could see the other gifts set around the tree and quietly put their offering with them. Shirley was bursting to open the presents but she had had her stocking and her big present from Santa so she must wait. It didn’t do to spoil a child, even on Christmas Day.

The table was laid in the dining room, with the best damask cloth and home-made crackers and paper hats. If she was going to do the job then it would be done proper and no shirking just because these men were Jerries.

She could see the men looking round nervously and the silences were embarrassing. Give them a job and perhaps they would feel more at ease, she thought. Tom had other ideas and brought out a dusty bottle of parsnip wine saved for high days and holy days. It was a pre-war vintage. You could fuel a Spitfire off its fumes, packing a punch that would soon take the lid off everyone’s stiffness.

The cook was far too busy with her preparations to join in the fraternising. She left the men to their drinking and busied herself in the kitchen when Klaus came in offering to help; a man in the kitchen willing to lift a finger was unheard of in the Dales so Nora kept him busy ferrying cutlery and glasses to the dining room that had been cleared out especially for the occasion, festooned with faded paper chains and bells and a coal fire lit in the grate. She did not want any Germans thinking the English were uncivilised.

There was a bunch of Christmas roses in an egg cup, home-made crackers and paper streamers at each place setting, and Shirley was jumping up and down with excitement. The smell of the goose was tantalising. Her Yorkshire pudding batter was resting to be served as the starter, traditional fashion. She was hoping each portion would rise like boxing gloves.

‘Thank you … you give us
gut Willkommen.’
Klaus’s English was as stiff as her schoolgirl German but they made themselves understood. His anxiousness to please was unnerving, making her all the more nervous. This was her big moment to show these foreigners just what Yorkshire cooking was all about, and she wanted everything spick and span and no messing, but it was time to shoo him out and see to the meal without those fierce eyes staring at her.

‘Christmas is coming and the geese are getting fat …’ Shirley was dancing round the kitchen. The goose was rich and succulent and the men tucked in as if they were half starved. The Christmas pudding was up to scratch with brandy sauce and Shirley found the silver threepenny bits, and everyone laughed when Daddy did his usual gasp and produced a pound note from his mouth.

Over the last of the parsnip wine, the big one who had no English tried to explain what they ate in Germany on Christmas Eve and the other one translated carefully.

‘On Christmas Even, we light candle in window for Christkinder … the Christ child. How you say? We have big tree and many fruits and Stollen … Christmas breads.’

‘Can we do that?’ Shirley was very keen on baby Jesus in the manger.

Then the big one brought out well-worn snaps of his wife and girls, rubbed bare with fingering. They looked very pretty with hair in plaits coiled around their heads. The other one brought out a picture of his mother and father. Dad asked where they lived.

He shook his head. ‘In Dresden, but no more. I fear they are killed.’

‘You must want to go home,’ Daddy answered.