When the Bough Breaks (8 page)

How easy it had become to slip back into that easy companionship that had temporarily been lost when he'd come so close to losing her. He looked at her, remembering the nightmare of those days. There was nothing grey and drawn about her face now. She looked a picture of health, her hair glinting chestnut in the sunshine, her figure as slim as a girl's. He consciously forced himself to think that way and not face the truth that whereas when he'd first known her she had been attractively slim, now she was painfully thin. He remembered how when she had been nursing Jess she had been so proud of her shapely bosom. All that was changed; now her breasts were shrunk and shapeless beyond recognition. But she was just as full of energy as when he'd married her and, if her complexion had lost the bloom of youth, nothing altered her ready smile or the way her brown eyes looked at him carrying their own message of affection. Perhaps to the outside world Kathie wasn't seen as a beauty, but to Dennis those wide dark eyes, her short, snub nose and overlarge mouth, fitted perfectly into the woman she was.

Putting down her loaded basket she came along between the rows of broad beans.

‘Yes? Do you want to show me something?'

‘I was thinking – about us, Kathie. We're so damned lucky. Can it last? Not just for us, for everyone? When storm clouds build they don't just go away.'

‘Hitler and all his nonsense, you mean? We must hang on to what Mr Chamberlain told us last year. Hitler has spread his wings as far as he intends.' Then with a laugh, a laugh that in truth was more bravado than mirth, ‘Your trouble is that you and those chaps you march around with want to flex your muscles and frighten him. But surely everyone has too much sense to let that happen – us and the German people too.'

‘Please God you're right. You know something Kathie Hawthorne? If everyone had your trust and wisdom the world would be a better place.'

‘Chump.' And this time there was nothing forced in her laugh. ‘Like you say, Den, we are lucky, so let's just appreciate what we have. Hark, I hear footsteps, Jess is running along the lane and here am I, still garden grimy.'

‘Send her out to give me a hand. She likes picking.'

‘She prefers peas; she can eat those as she goes. I'll go and say hello to her and tell her you want some help with the beans.'

‘Leave your basket, I'll take it to the shed. Then when I've weighed it all up I'll run the stuff along to the shop. Jess can ride with me.'

So she left him and went towards the house where Jess was going from room to room looking for her.

‘Hello love, I heard you running up the lane. I've been helping your dad with the picking. He said to tell you he could do with an extra pair of hands now that I have to start getting some food ready. Better take off your school dress first. Just your knicks will do out there; the sun is lovely.'

‘I came home with Ben Williams, Mum – well, till I got to our lane I did. You know what, Mum? He skips better than I do. Isn't that funny –
better than I do –
cross hands, bumps, all of it he can do and he hasn't even got a rope of his own. I let him take mine if he promised to bring it to school in the morning.'

‘That was a good idea, Jess. Arms up, while I pull off your dress and vest. There you are. Off you run.'

Yes, she thought, watching Jess dart across the small patch of lawn to the field beyond, Den's right, it's almost frightening how lucky we are. Further than that she wouldn't let her thoughts go, for surely it was nonsense to think Hitler's screaming speeches and the wonderful displays of marching youths whose pictures were so often in the newspaper would lead to war. How could they, after all the trouble Mr Chamberlain had gone to less than a year ago? If we could understand what he is shouting about it might not be so scary.

There were plenty of better off people in Sedgewood village, but it wouldn't have been surprising if some of them envied the Hawthornes' independent way of living. But of course that would have been seeing the picture through rose-tinted spectacles, for many a night when Dennis and Kathie went to bed they knew the sort of tiredness never experienced by those who worked regular hours.

The last of the asparagus was no more than a memory, green peas and broad beans came to an end, the crop of marrows swelled with the promise of a bumper year, the runner beans grew long and succulent. This year was no different from any other as the land brought forth its bounty. Kathie suspected there was defiance in the cheerfulness of people she met when she went shopping in the village; or did she imagine it, simply because she knew it to be the truth for herself? There were evenings when she twiddled with the tuning knob on the wireless and the screaming voice of Adolf Hitler filled the sitting room making her blood run cold. If Den had been there with her, her imagination might not have carried her into such unknown regions of horror, but by August most of his evenings were spent with the Terriers.

There was the day when Kathie and Jess went to the Old National School in the village and queued to collect their gas masks. With each breath they made a noise like a pig grunting. One little boy was crying and didn't want to put his on, but Jessie was determined to look grown up, even though hers was made to look like Mickey Mouse. She wasn't going to let anyone guess that she had a horrid pinching sort of feeling in her tummy and wished they were at home and none of this was happening.

‘Remember Fred Dawkins?' Dennis greeted Kathie when, on their return, she found him picking runner beans. ‘Calls himself the billeting officer apparently. He came to see what space we have. It seems they're expecting a load of London kids and are fixing up where they can be housed. Not here, I told him. Having only two bedrooms lets us off the hook.'

‘Poor little souls! Imagine if it were the other way round and children from here were being sent to strangers. They've got to make plans – the same as with those horrid gas masks. But it won't happen. It won't, will it, Den?' In her heart she knew the answer as well as he did. If it didn't happen this autumn it would be next spring, next autumn, sometime. The situation was like a festering wound; it would throb and throb with no chance of healing until it was lanced. He knew she wasn't expecting an answer. ‘But, if it does –' just to say it seemed like tempting fate – ‘it
mustn't
, but Den, if it did and you had to go off with the Terriers, Jess and I wouldn't need a dining room. We'd eat on the little table in the “warm room”. So we could always put a camp bed in there – and try and make it pretty – then we'd have room.'

‘What rubbish the woman talks! If the chaps and I go marching off for King and Country, then you'll have more than enough to do here without taking other people's kids to look after. Anyway, if I have to go, I want to know that nothing is changed back here at home.'

A cold hand of fear seemed to grip her. All thought of the evacuees was forgotten.

By the first Sunday in September there was no way of hiding from the truth. England was at war. Jessie came indoors from playing with her ball against the side of the house to find her parents standing with their arms around each other, something so unusual that for a second or two she hesitated before she rushed at them and clasped them both around the legs.

‘How long will you have?' Kathie asked as Den stooped to pick up the little girl. That was something else that set the moment apart, for Jessie's independent spirit usually kept her firmly on her own two feet. She snuggled her face against his neck instinctively knowing these seconds were special.

‘No time at all, I imagine. Chaps with as much training as we have had will be wanted. Oh Christ, Kathie, that's me and the boys too. What the hell will happen to the place?'

‘If you think Mr Hitler's going to get the better of this gal you can think again. If Daddy and the boys have to go away for a little while, you and I will do the work here won't we Jess?'

It had been arranged that, Sunday or no, the Terriers would meet that same evening. When they arrived at the hall they were all given their joining instructions which the captain in charge had had locked in the draw in readiness. The following afternoon they were unceremoniously conveyed in an army lorry to a base in Wiltshire to be turned into bona fide soldiers.

With Jessie sitting at her side, Kathie took the vegetables to the village, thankful that she had a full tank of petrol. For days there had been talk of rationing, rationing of petrol and of food too. There would be no allocation of fuel for pleasure, so plenty of people would have to lay up their cars and take to their bicycles. She hoped her work would be looked on as essential and she would at least be able to make the daily delivery to Jack Hopkins, the greengrocer. How strange that with Den being taken further away from them with every minute she should be planning running the market garden. When war had been no more than a fear at the back of her mind, she had imagined Den going and she left alone, broken and weeping; yet now that it was actually happening none of it seemed real, it was like sleepwalking through the hours; she felt removed from everything that was normal and familiar, even the unchanging village street became remote. This time last week, even though they had known trouble was building and couldn't be held off for long, she hadn't let herself imagine a future when Den wouldn't be with them.

Back from delivering the vegetables, that feeling of unreality lingered. The sound of the water filling the kettle, the sight of her neat rows of preserves on the shelf, all these things were so much part of her everyday life that as a rule she wasn't consciously aware of them, yet on that Monday afternoon, the 4th of September, she seemed to see it all anew.

‘You know what Dad said to me?' Jessie's voice cut through Kathie's thoughts as she put the filled kettle onto the range.

She suspected Jessie was feeling as strange as she was herself – although at not yet six years old she would have no appreciation of the emptiness of the time ahead.

‘What was that then, Jess?'

‘When he gave me that huge hug he whispered that you and me would be fine, cos we would look after each other till he came back.'

‘He said something like that to me too. And so we will.' There was no hint of the effort her bright and reassuring smile cost her.

‘Course we will,' Jess agreed, clearly giving their responsibilities all her thought. ‘Golly! Fancy just us having to look after all the veg and stuff. Then there's Heston,' (the latest resident pig) ‘and the chickens. I'd better go and get the eggs. OK?'

‘Yes, I've put the bowl ready. Make sure you latch the gate of the run carefully.'

‘Course I will. And what about Heston?'

‘I've done Heston. He's used to me. Even your dad never goes into the sty.' Goes? Should it have been ‘went'? The question came uninvited and was immediately rejected. How strange it was that Jess appeared to find nothing different about her, while
she
felt she was only half alive. Where was he now? Where were they taking him. War – her memories of the last one were vague, one or two of her school friends had had brothers in the army, but it had been a war for men in the services; people with no one caught up in it hadn't been affected as they would be this time. Children sent away from London and from coastal ports and industrial cities to be kept safe in the country; boys – and men like Den – who had joined the Terriers already taken into the army; heavy dark curtains closed before dark so that not a chink of light showed in case Hitler sent aeroplanes to drop bombs. Ordinary people like Den and her, their lives pulled up by the roots. What had any of them done to deserve it?

‘Got five eggs, Mum. While Dad's away we'll have to eat lots of eggs. Still, I don't mind, I like them.'

‘Good. It'll be eggs for tea.'

‘Tell you what! Laying the table can be
my
job, my 'sponsibility.'

‘That's a good idea, Jess. Much better if we do regular jobs.' At her mother's words, Jess seemed visibly to puff out her chest. ‘We'll manage so well your dad will be proud of us. Tomorrow I must put a notice in the paper shop asking for help to replace Stan and Bert. By Wednesday you will be back at school.'

Kathie didn't attempt to help as Jess dragged a chair to the dresser then climbed on it to unhook two cups before carefully taking down two plates and two saucers.

Change was everywhere. The normal sleepy atmosphere of Sedgewood was strangely altered; everywhere there was talk of rationing, of sons and husbands waiting for call-up papers, of children whose lives had been torn up at the roots and were frightened and unsettled.

Mr Etherington, the newsagent, pinned Kathie's card in a prominent position on the board. ‘Hope there's someone here in the village to fit the bill for you,' he said as he took the two pence he charged to display notices for a week. ‘Let me know if someone comes along you think might be suitable, then I'll take the card down. Otherwise I'll leave it up and add the charge to your weekly paper bill.'

Neither of them expected that even in its eye-catching position it might be spotted within the first hour. It was pinned onto the board at about ten o'clock on the Tuesday morning:
Help wanted at Westways Market Garden. Experience less important than willingness to learn and enthusiasm for gardening.

‘Mum, there's some people coming in the gate,' Jess called as she came running towards where Kathie was busy cutting spinach and filling a two-handled wickerwork container. ‘Shall I tell them to come and see you here? Do you think they are going to be the ones to help?'

‘Men or women?' It was silly to hope there might be able-bodied men wanting to spend their days working at Westways when, according to all the rumours she heard, there were plenty of places where they'd feel involved with the war effort and earn more than she could afford to pay.