Land Girls (46 page)

Tears further confused her vision behind the goggles. But she smiled encouragement at Stella, who was clutching her ribs. She remembered allowing herself the sentimental thought that all hopes of Desmond were being shoved into the thresher, along with the sheaves, and, if she looked down the side of the machine, she would see them pouring out of the hole with the chaff: ground to dust, useless, gone.

By harvest-time, the customary peace at Hallows Farm was disturbed more frequently by passing planes: sometimes a Spitfire, sometimes the dreaded shape of the Luftwaffe monsters. Since the occasion of the incendiary bombs, the old, foolish sense of security in remote country was never quite recaptured. Living in anticipation of the next disaster became part of daily life.

But nothing stopped work on the harvest. It was safely gathered in, for the last time, by the Lawrences.

‘There’s something very satisfactory,’ Ag observed to Prue, ‘about seeing the barn filled again. Something very comforting, the annual storing of stocks for the winter.’

Prue giggled at Ag’s solemnity. ‘What I like the thought of,’ she said, ‘is all these new beds in here.’ She looked round the stacks. ‘Hope the new farmer’s son and his girlfriend will have a good time.’

The harvest supper took place one warm evening, in the corner of the field where they had lit the bonfire last autumn. Rugs and tablecloths were spread over the stubble. A few sheaves of corn were left standing, leaning against each other in wigwam shapes – they were to be taken to church for the Harvest Festival service next day. Noble was employed to pull the cart that once was used to deliver the churns. It was filled with bowls of food, bottles of cider and beer, hunks of cheese and baskets of plums. Mrs Lawrence had been preparing the feast all day: the harvest supper was the occasion she most enjoyed during the year.

The harvesters gathered at seven – three Lawrences, the two helpers from the village, Robert, Ratty and the girls. It was a warm evening of long shadows. There had been no planes to disturb the peace that day: the quietness felt settled. There were smells of warm earth, and Mrs Lawrence’s newly baked bread, unwrapped from its cloth. Poppies wavered in the hedgerow. A few survived in the stubble. The ravenous girls, chewing legs of cold roast chicken in their fingers, could not remember a happier occasion.

Each one had her particular reason. Ag had adapted to her new life of no hope in Desmond. She had filled her mind with other concerns, made plans for the future, read herself to sleep each night, managing almost completely to obliterate the old
yearnings
. She had returned to enjoying the present – occasions like this supper – rather than leading a double life with an imaginary future forever there shadowing the actual moment. Her efforts had brought their rewards.

Stella, sitting as far as possible from Joe, cocooned in her ever-increasing certainty of their mutual love, wondered if the others could see the indivisible bond between them. Avoiding his eyes, she drank a whole beaker of cold cider, felt a gold rush through her limbs, and doubted if any girl on earth could be so fortunate.

Prue, corn dolly in her hair in honour of the harvest celebrations, took the opportunity to furnish the assembled audience with more details of her afternoon at the Palace, until they laughingly shouted her down. She didn’t care: she didn’t mind being teased. She felt lithe, fit, strong, and ravenous. Cutting herself a huge wedge of home-made pie, she longed to shock them all with the secret that made the adrenalin charge through her blood. What would they say if they knew she was servicing two men, concurrently? Robert two nights a week, Jamie Morton two afternoons? And there was no let-up in her work and energy, either. If anything, they seemed to have increased. With secret pride she stroked her bare brown legs – since the ‘bare legs for patriotism’ campaign in May, Prue had refused to wear stockings. She saw Ratty’s eyes on her, and laughed.

‘So where’s Edith?’ she asked him.

Ratty took a long time to finish a mouthful of bread and cheese. ‘Coming later,’ he said. ‘With the tea. Usual custom.’

They sat eating, drinking, laughing for a couple of hours, watching the blue of the sky turn to the indigo of the shadows covering the stubble. Stella began to sing. Her Vera Lynn repertoire, songs that were on the wireless most nights.

Ratty thought he had never heard so sweet a voice. Spurred by a mixture of beer and cider, he ventured to join in. The others did likewise. The chorus roamed from war song to war song, the pure voice leading them, till it was almost dark.

It was Stella – by chance she stood up to relieve a stiff leg – who first saw a figure standing dimly by the cart.

Ratty, facing Stella, stood up too, back to the figure. It was his turn, he reckoned.

‘Let’s have a hymn now, everyone. What d’you say to “Abide with me” to close the proceedings?’ He spoke in his church voice, the one he used to guide rare visiting worshippers to their seats.

Ratty began to conduct with his hands, croaking voice leading them in the familiar words. Stella, watching the figure coming up behind him, saw that it was Edith. She wore a headscarf and a long skirt, an old woman from another age carrying a tin churn by its handle. Ah, thought Stella, she’s bringing the tea.

In the speckled darkness, she saw a trembling hand unscrew the lid of the churn, let the lid fall to the ground.

As the chorus gathered strength, Stella knew in an instinctive flash what was going to happen. In the second that Edith swung back the churn to gain the greatest possible thrust, Stella took a leap towards Ratty. She flung her arms round his knees so that his body was forced to flop over her shoulder. Carrying him in this fireman’s hold, she jumped through picnic things and stretched legs, and ran as fast as she could. The confused Ratty’s plea to his Lord to abide with him rose in throttled voice from somewhere near Stella’s waist.

Thus Ratty was just saved from the gush of scalding tea that Edith flung at her husband. Thrown by the sudden departure of her target, Edith’s aim went mercifully awry. The full blast of the liquid fell on to what remained of the food. Prue’s bare legs were splashed. She gave a quick squeal of protest, then leapt up to join the general chaos.

In the muddle of semi-darkness, Ag, Mrs Lawrence and Joe found themselves trying to calm an hysterical Edith, who kicked and screamed on the ground. Her feet clanked against the empty churn as she arched her back, pushing off hands. A cluster of cuckoo spit whitened the corners of her mouth. Mr Lawrence shouted that he would telephone for the doctor, and ran off. The others, between them, managed finally to get Edith to her feet, and dragged her to the back of the cart. She sat writhing on the tailboard, a pathetic old figure, legs swinging loosely, stockings wrinkled round the ankles. Between her screams she muttered incoherently: some daft notion about Ratty and the land girls, Prue thought it was. But Edith’s accusations were too confused to make sense of her trouble. Prue and Mrs Lawrence climbed into the cart beside her, clinging to her eel body. Ag walked, trying to make sure the old woman would not slip to the ground. Robert led Noble towards the farmhouse. The two men from the village followed, arms full of the picnic stuff. The procession made its way across the stubble lit by a white harvest moon. Edith never stopped screaming, attempting to escape. She was answered by the screech of a passing owl.

A harvest she’d never forget, thought Prue. She wondered if the story would make Jamie pause in his smoking.

Stella had landed Ratty back on his feet some fifty yards from the scene of chaos.

‘What was all that about, then?’ he asked, beer and cider still making merry in his brain. It was the first time he’d been alone with one of the land girls – with a moon and all, too. Not the sort of thing that happened every harvest.

‘Edith’s been taken ill. Don’t worry. The others are looking after her.’

‘Is that right?’ Ratty sounded unconcerned. He looked up as Joe appeared out of the darkness. ‘The wife?’ he asked.

‘Doctor’s coming. Bit over-excited, she is, that’s all. She’s riding back to the house in the cart.’

‘Is that so?’ Ratty shook his head, gave a deep sigh. ‘’Course, there’ve been signs, haven’t there? You could tell she was boiling up for something. These past months. Matter of waiting.’

‘Stella and I will walk you home,’ said Joe, taking the old man’s arm.

‘Very well.’

Ratty allowed himself to lean on the two of them just hard enough to be polite. But, considering the drama, he moved with sprightly step and head held high.

Much later that night, a heavily sedated Edith was driven away by the doctor and the district nurse. Ratty, asked if he would like to accompany them, said no he bloody wouldn’t.

On the October day that the Eighth Army under Montgomery began a big offensive along the coast of El Alamein, at Hallows Farm there was a small celebration to mark the first anniversary of the girls’ arrival. Mr Lawrence brought out the ginger wine, and said a few words of appreciation before proposing a toast. He wished them well, however their time might be spent when they left the farm. In particular, he said, he knew the others would want to join him in wishing Stella all the best in her marriage to Philip. In the general flurry of raised glasses and echoed hopes, he saw a look pass between his son and the blushing girl who had caused him some unnerving moments, in the past year, in his own heart. Not allowing himself time to reflect on what he had seen, he knew that, for Joe’s sake, it was perhaps a good thing the girls’ days were numbered. As for his own feelings: well, the internal unease had run its course, a shameful secret that would go with him to the grave. He could look easily on Stella now, knowing she was firmly committed to another. She had acted as a warning to him – a warning that the most stable of middle-aged men could be taunted by lascivious desire – and he had taken heed. Now, his energies must be concentrated on his wife, so courageous about the move she dreaded. He would support her to the best of his abilities, show his love and gratitude. He raised his glass, last of all, to her.

‘And can we drink to Faith, my wife?’ he said. ‘Because had it not been for her, for her extraordinary insistence, no land girls would have come to Hallows Farm. We would not all be here today.’

It was Faith’s turn to blush: a deep, muddy colour suffused her skin. She held up her pink glass, which flashed at her husband’s dear face.

Prue, sensing but not understanding the public reaffirmation, was the first to break the tension of the moment. She stood up, jabbing as usual at her bow.

‘Well, I’m going to take this opportunity to kiss
everyone
,’ she said, ‘before I cry. I trust you’ll all do the same.’

Thus Prue, in her innocence, afforded Joe and Stella a bonus chance, in public, to kiss each other quickly on the cheek.

Edith did not return, and Ratty could never remember so enjoyable an autumn. Within days of her departure he had restocked the kitchen with saucepans, and burned a dozen boxes of cut-up paper. For so many years he had longed to live alone. His solitude, won so late, he was now determined to relish to the full. For some weeks, padding about the house, he found it hard to believe Edith was not going to jump out at him in her gas mask or torture him in one of her sadistic, cunning ways. Not till the official letter arrived, confirming her insanity, did he finally realize that the new peace would be permanent. He could listen to Mr Churchill and
ITMA
, undisturbed: take his tea in by the wireless, spill crumbs on the floor, do as he wished in all respects – even smoke his pipe in bed – and never again be chided. As he said to the holy one in the orchard one afternoon – surrounded by baskets of plums, she was, all smiles – never had the autumn days gone by so fast.

It was a feeling shared by all three girls. Their time seemed to be running out with uncanny speed. It was now, more than in the summer when they were so busy in the fields, that they missed the cows, the sheep, Sly. They looked back with nostalgia to their bewildering start as land girls, just over a year ago. They remembered the mysteries of their early days, and laughed, thinking of the mistakes they made: how strange they had found the life which by now was so familiar. The weather they remembered on their arrival returned. The second time round of experiencing farmhouse and land in misted mornings, yellowing afternoons, frosted nights, was no less beguiling than it had been at first.

Once again, with the change of seasons, the pattern of life shifted in the house in the evenings. Instead of going their own ways, everyone gathered by the fire for an hour or so before going to bed. Mr Lawrence forced himself to make lists of farm implements that might be sold in the auction – the farm was to be put up for sale early in the New Year – while he listened to the wireless. Mrs Lawrence continued with her perennial darning, her needle only pausing at news of Montgomery breaking through Rommel’s front, or the hideous rumours that the Nazis had been systematically rounding up Jews throughout Europe.

She was never able to quell her anxiety when the telephone rang, particularly after dark. When she heard it ringing in the hall, late one evening in early December, she put down her work with a beating heart and ran into the darkness. A minute later she reappeared.

‘It’s for you, Stella.’

Stella left the room. Philip, she knew, was in London for two nights – the much postponed trip with his friend. It was his intention to buy the ring. He had rung only a week ago, insistent that he was off to Bond Street in search of an aquamarine. Stella, who thought a Dear John letter was the coward’s way out, had decided to stick to her intention of breaking off her engagement face to face. But there had been no opportunity. Guiltily, she hoped he was not telephoning with news of his find.