He followed her into what had been their bedroom without saying a word. She faced him and said without any preamble, ‘I nearly went with another man tonight.’
He reached out and grasped the door frame. ‘Nearly?’
‘I couldn’t do it. I wanted to but for all the wrong reasons, the main one being a desire to get back at you. Can you understand that?’
He nodded.
She stared at him sadly for a moment. ‘I hate you, Ivor. I hate you and I love you.’ Her voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. ‘What are we going to do?’
His shoulders were hunched and her name was wrenched up from the depths of him as he said, ‘Audrey, Audrey lass, I’ll spend the rest of me life begging your forgiveness if that’s what you want. I love you. Believe me, I do. I can’t go on without you.’
‘Nor me without you.’
He became very still, staring at her in a silence which stretched. When she said, ‘I think it’s high time you moved back in here, don’t you?’ he didn’t stir for a full ten seconds.
Chapter Fifteen
M
ussolini had been deposed, the Germans routed south of Moscow in the greatest tank battle in history, and Hamburg virtually wiped off the map by RAF night bombers and the US Air Force, but none of these momentous events really touched the lives of the folk at Bleak Farm. The outside world with all its horrors seemed a million miles away as each member of the farm worked from dawn to dusk to meet the government’s quotas.
When Farmer Tollett had requested another couple of land girls to replace Vincent, he’d been told he had to take Italian prisoners of war. This had sent his wife into such a spin he had refused, saying they would manage as they were. Even Clara had been rising at five o’clock in the morning and working before she left for school, and when she was home again in the evening the child pitched in until bedtime.
Winnie was still working hard, in spite of looking like a balloon ready to pop, but inevitably she had slowed down as she’d grown more ponderous. The farmer and his wife were kindness itself to her, and it was clear they thought of her as part of the family and her child as their grandchild, the more so since they’d received a telegram in May with the news that their eldest son had been killed in action. Their acceptance of Winnie and her unborn child was in stark contrast to her father’s reaction. She’d written to him about her situation and his reply had been to the effect that the family would be informing neighbours and friends that she had married whilst in Yorkshire, and until this was indeed the case he didn’t expect her to show her face at home again. Winnie had cried for days.
But now it was the middle of what was turning out to be a very wet August; Clara was home all day for the long summer holiday and for once there was sunshine instead of pouring rain. In fact the sun was hot and the sky as blue as cornflowers.
Since Winnie had become too big to work outside, she had taken over Mrs Tollett’s duties in the house and dairy, leaving the farmer’s wife free to work alongside her husband and Abby and Rowena. They’d just begun gathering in the harvest and the three women were working at the bottom of one of the cornfields when they heard the drone of planes high overhead. This was not unusual with the RAF base at Scarborough, but there had been the occasional dogfight between Spitfires and the Luftwaffe throughout the war in the skies above Yorkshire, and the sound always made Abby feel slightly uneasy. Lately the enemy had begun to use pilotless flying bombs, the V-I. If one of these escaped a direct hit from anti-aircraft fire or fighter planes and was only deflected from its intended target, it could swoop to earth anywhere.
Shading her eyes, Abby looked upwards, and she could just see the shape of a Spitfire high in the sky before the sound of guns rattling and a subsequent explosion rent the still air. ‘That’s one of Jerry’s doodlebugs which won’t get to Scarborough,’ Gladys said complacently to the others. Abby returned her smile out of politeness. In truth the nature of such indiscriminate bombing made her feel sick. She glanced back at the farmhouse in the distance where Clara was busy helping Winnie, and for a moment had a strong urge to turn and run back there and bring Clara into the fields at her side.
It was only seconds later when more explosions were heard, and then, coming straight towards them in the distance, all three distinctly saw a V-1 rocket. They didn’t have time to speak or react before it seemed to stop and dive into a barn in a field of cattle next to where Farmer Tollett was working. The explosion made Gladys scream shrilly while Abby and Rowena clapped their hands over their mouths in horror.
‘
Josiah!
’ Mrs Tollett took off at a run, fairly flying over the ground which separated her from her husband, with Abby and Rowena close on her heels. The farmer had been close to the dividing wall and the carnage which greeted them was beyond belief. The bomb had flattened the barn and surrounding area, leaving a mountain of chopped-up cattle and debris. It had also brought down a huge oak tree some yards from the barn under whose shade a number of cows had been standing. The topmost branches of the tree had landed on what was left of the farmer and the tractor. The smell, mangled metal, bits of cattle and human flesh was a sight from hell itself.
By the time Abby and Rowena managed to get Gladys back to the farm, all three women had been sick a number of times and Gladys was incoherent. Winnie and Clara joined them at the top of the fields and they had just got Gladys into the kitchen when Winnie gave a groan and clutched the edge of the table.
Oh no, not now. Please, not now. Abby pushed Gladys into a chair and said to Rowena, ‘Make some tea, strong and sweet. Use all the sugar ration if you have to. Clara,’ she turned to her sister who was wide-eyed and white-faced, ‘go into Mr Tollett’s study and fetch the bottle of brandy he keeps in the sideboard.’
‘No one’s allowed to touch that but him,’ her sister said. ‘We’ll get wrong.’
‘Don’t worry about that.’ When Clara still didn’t move and Winnie began to gasp, Abby gripped the child by her shoulders, her voice uncharacteristically harsh as she said, ‘Go and do what you’re told and quick. Do you hear me?’
Clara disappeared, and Abby turned to Winnie. She slid a chair under her and took hold of her hands. ‘Is this the first contraction?’
Winnie shook her head. ‘No, they started first thing but only mild, like the belly ache we all had after those plums. I was going to say something later or send Clara to get Gladys if they got too bad.’
Oh Winnie. Abby could have shaken her. She had promised she’d say as soon as she had the first pains so someone could go to the village and fetch Mrs Potts, the midwife.
Winnie, sensing what she was thinking, said, ‘You’re all needed in the fields, that’s the thing, with the harvest and all, so I thought if I could manage until it was dark—’ She stopped as another pain hit.
Abby glanced at Rowena who had just mashed the tea and was spooning liberal amounts of sugar into mugs, and then at Gladys who was sitting back in her chair with her eyes shut and looking like death. What was she going to do? They had to get the midwife for Winnie and someone had to tell the authorities about Farmer Tollett so they could get help with everything down in the bottom field, but she couldn’t leave Winnie. Rowena could go but then who would see to Gladys? She couldn’t look after the pair of them, not if the baby decided to put in an appearance.
Clara’s arrival with the brandy helped. After telling Rowena to half fill the mugs with tea, Abby poured a generous amount of the spirit into three of them, handing one to Gladys, one to Rowena and drinking one herself. The strong liquor burned its way down her throat and into her stomach, where it created a fireball which ate up the nausea and shakiness and cleared her head. It had a similar effect on Gladys. When she had finished her tea, the farmer’s wife raised her head and said to Winnie, ‘How far apart are the pains, lass?’
It was a moment or two before Winnie could answer, and then she said, ‘Every . . . every couple of minutes now, I think.’
Abby took Gladys’s lucidity as a good sign. Her voice brisk, she said, ‘Right, Rowena, you take the lorry and go and fetch the midwife, and tell someone what’s happened with the bomb. We need help, all right?’
‘The lorry’s got a flat battery. Don’t you remember someone was coming to fix it tomorrow?’
‘Then go on Vincent’s old bicycle.’
‘All right.’ Rowena stopped her scramble for the door to say, ‘Are you sure you can cope here?’
‘I’ve got Clara.’ Abby smiled encouragingly at her sister who had just finished her own milky tea and had tears running down her face. ‘We’ll be fine.’
Once Rowena had left, Abby called Clara over to her. ‘I’m sorry I shouted,’ she said softly, ‘but I’m upset. It’s not you, hinny. Now I want you to be a good girl and do everything I tell you. First, fill the kettle and a couple of pans and put them on to boil. We need hot water, lots of it. And then I want you to find all the towels you can and bring them here.’ It was clear they were never going to get Winnie up the narrow staircase and onto her bed.
‘There’s some clean sacks in a pile in the scullery too.’ Gladys entered the conversation; her voice was stronger and some colour had returned to her cheeks. ‘I washed them the other day ready for the baby. Bring them an’ all, Clara.’
‘Abby?’ Clara’s voice was small and she hadn’t moved. ‘Where’s Farmer Tollett?’
How did she tell her sister the truth? The farmer had made something of a pet of Clara since the child had joined them, and Abby knew his kindness had gone some way to help Clara over the loss of their father. Abby took a deep breath. ‘You know the big bang you heard earlier? It was a bomb down in the fields and I’m afraid Farmer Tollett was hurt.’
Big eyes stared directly into Abby’s. ‘Is he dead?’
Oh, the bluntness of children. Gladys gave a small sound, between a sigh and a moan.
Abby said gently, ‘Aye, he is, hinny, but it would have been over in a moment and he wouldn’t have felt a thing.’ This was more for Gladys than her sister. ‘Now Winnie’s baby is coming and we’ve got to think about that. I want you to be very brave and help me. Farmer Tollett would have wanted that.’
Clara stared at her sister. Farmer Tollett was dead, like her da, but it had been a German bomb that had killed him. Mrs Gladys loved Farmer Tollett, she wasn’t like their mam. She pushed her fist into her mouth and bit down on her knuckles as tears ran from her eyes. Abby went to take her sister in her arms but Winnie gave another groan and it was Gladys who picked Clara up and sat her on her lap, the two of them crying together.
Perhaps it was the best thing to let it all come out now, Abby thought, as she helped Winnie across to the big cushioned settle on the far side of the kitchen. After propping two cushions behind Winnie’s back, Abby saw to the kettle and pans herself, but at this point Gladys wiped her own eyes and those of Clara’s, saying, ‘Come on, child, we’ve got to help your sister. She can’t do this by herself.’ From that point all three of them worked together.
Winnie’s baby was born just an hour later at half past one in the afternoon. It was a girl, with a mass of black hair, button eyes and a sweet little nose. The cord still attached, Abby, who had delivered the infant, wrapped the tiny morsel in a towel as best she could, laying her across Winnie’s stomach. ‘She’s a beauty, lass, a real beauty,’ Abby said softly, and she was.
‘She’s mine, Abby, my own little person.’ Winnie’s tone was such that it brought a lump to everyone’s throats. She touched the baby’s head wonderingly. ‘I’m her mother.’
Abby hugged her friend, but she knew they weren’t out of the woods yet. Thankfully the birth had gone well with no complications but neither she nor Gladys felt confident to cut the umbilical cord, and Gladys had murmured something about the placenta needing to come away. They couldn’t expect Rowena back with the midwife for at least another hour or so, and that was if Mrs Potts was able to come straightaway.
Abby was just deciding she had to take the bull by the horns and do the necessary when the door burst open and Rowena flew into the room. Her eyes widened. ‘You’ve had it?’ she said. ‘Oh, Winnie.’ And then she added, looking at Abby, ‘I’ve had some wonderful luck. I met some GIs on the way and I flagged them down. I was going to ask them to run me into the village but it turns out one of them is a doctor and he’s offered to come and help.’ She turned her head to the door, saying, ‘Yes, come in, come in. She’s had the baby.’
Rowena was inviting an
American
into the farmhouse? For a second Abby reacted as though Farmer Tollett was still alive. Next to the Germans and the Italians Gladys’s husband had hated the Americans, declaring no English woman was safe within ten miles of a GI, and nothing his long-suffering wife or any of them could say would convince the farmer otherwise. The American base some miles away was never mentioned, neither were the parties the friendly GIs threw for all the local children, where ice cream, chocolate, bananas, oranges and other wartime rarities were apparently freely available. Farmer Tollett had demanded that the three girls give their word that they wouldn’t fraternise with the GIs in any way, and because they liked as well as respected the man, and knew that in his misguided way he had their best interests at heart, they had agreed. But all that was null and void now.