Jubilee (5 page)

I also wanted the picture of Uncle Matthew aged, I estimated, in his fifties. The colour in the old photo had faded but I could make out the smile on his face. He was kneeling in front of a
tractor in the farmyard, his hands in front of him, back straight and parallel to the ground like a cat’s. His eyes were sharp and he was observing the tractor as though it was another cat.
Probably checking a repair had been carried out correctly. I imagined my aunt spotting her husband at work and running inside to grab a camera, unable to resist the shot of a man in love with his
work. Evie and Matthew had had a happy marriage. ‘It shook me terribly when he became sick,’ she’d told me once. ‘He always seemed so strong. It was lung cancer, nothing to
do with the diseases he caught in that camp, but I always wondered whether it weakened him in some way, like his . . .’ And she’d broken off, shaking her head.

I smiled at Matthew’s picture and put it aside, turning to a black and white photograph of Evie and my father Charlie, at roughly the age Jessamy had been when she vanished. It had
probably been taken by their mother, my grandmother, because they were standing in the doorway of a mock-Tudor semi. If I hadn’t known of Evie’s origins, I’d have imagined my aunt
to have been born in some neo-classical pile in the shire counties, but she’d been a south London girl and proud of it. She and my father looked bright, expectant, in Fair Isle cardigans, gas
masks slung over their shoulders, with no idea that they would never return to that house. There was something of Jessamy in Evie’s features: they might have been sisters at that age.

The fourth photograph, a black and white print, was of two young men with bare chests and stick-thin legs, behind them palm trees and a barbed wire fence. Matthew, with his brother, Robert.
I’d never met Robert, who’d died in a fire on the farm just after the war.

The men were smiling but the smiles were almost like grimaces. They were standing in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp somewhere in the Thai jungle and someone (fellow prisoner? guard?) had taken
this photograph of them because today was Christmas Day 1942, as evidenced by the small branch they’d decorated with paper chains and stuck in a tin pot in front of them.

They didn’t look like survivors. It was beyond me why my aunt had kept this photograph in the frame. Matthew certainly didn’t look his best after months of privation, not at all like
the smiling man in the tractor picture. If I’d been given this photograph to use in my work I’d definitely have needed my software to smooth out the lines in his face. The silver frame
was attractive, though. Perhaps I’d take out the picture and replace it with a photograph of Evie herself. There’d be plenty to choose from: Evie had the kind of face that the camera
loves; it was – had been – almost impossible to take a bad photograph of her. I undid the clasps at the back and removed the velvet-covered board, giving it a gentle shake to dislodge
the photograph onto the desk.

As it came out I saw that there was another picture there, hidden behind the group shot. I turned it round so it was the right way up and found myself looking at a photograph of a young man of
about eighteen in uniform, with roses behind him. ‘Matinee idol,’ I muttered to myself. Examining his features I felt a glow of admiration. This man was beautiful, in a completely
masculine, nineteen-forties style. He also looked familiar and the roses were obviously those still growing round the front door. I glanced again at the picture of the two men in the camp and
recognized him, or his ghost, in the figure standing next to Matthew.

‘You’re Robert,’ I said. God, I was going mad, talking to myself like some old biddy. ‘Jessamy’s Uncle Robert.’ I glanced back at the portrait photo.
‘What on earth did they do to you out there to make you lose your looks like that?’

The young and handsome Robert Winter smiled back at me. I noticed that the smile reached his dark eyes, slightly wrinkling the skin around them. But their expression remained melancholic.
‘Did you know what you were getting into when you signed up?’ I asked him. ‘Was there any warning—’ I stopped, thinking now of my cousin, of how her disappearance had
come as a sudden hammer blow.

The clock on the fireplace struck eleven. I coughed, trying to dislodge the stone that had suddenly threatened to choke me. I was supposed to be going into town to talk to the mason about
headstones. No time to search for a photograph of Evie to place in the silver frame. I replaced Robert’s photograph under the glass and fastened the clasps behind the backing. ‘You can
stay there for now,’ I told him.

As I left the room I glanced back to make sure I’d turned off the electric heater. I caught sight of Robert Winter’s dark eyes. They looked different again from this angle, seeming
warning or reproachful. Perhaps that was why Evie had swapped his photo for the group picture.

I should probably stick every one of those photographs in the cardboard box so that I didn’t have to look at them again.

Pilot, Evie’s black Labrador, stood as I entered the hall, anticipating his walk by furiously wagging his tail. Evie had given him at least one long outing a day. ‘Later,’ I
told him.

He gave me what sounded like a sign and flopped down again. ‘Sorry,’ I added. ‘I promise I’ll take you out soon.’ In London my day had been organized round the
demands of my clients. Down here it had always been the animals who dictated the timetable: cows to be milked twice a day, chickens to be fed, horses to bring in and out of the field. Even as small
children Jessamy and I had been bound to certain tasks such as collecting eggs or feeding calves. I hadn’t minded. It had been magic.

‘You could be a country girl, young Rachel,’ Martha had told me, nodding approval as she came upon me collecting eggs. ‘You’re making a better fist of it than your dad
ever did. Charlie could never find all the eggs. But he and Evie came here too late in life.’

‘They were only ten,’ I had protested. ‘That’s not much older than I am now.’

‘They were incomers. Them and that Eyetie.’

‘Eyetie?’

‘Italian. Carlo, his name was. A POW. He helped on the farm. Spent most of his time taking naps if he thought he could get away with it. Luckily Mr Edwards, he was the manager while the
Winter lads were away, and I were here to keep things going round the place.’

And she nodded her head in apparent satisfaction and shuffled off. Martha never stayed long in the farmyard, preferring the open fields above the farm, where we’d see her striding around,
her silhouette on the ridge like an exclamation mark against the pale sky. I hadn’t seen Martha yet, probably been putting it off because they said she was now so eccentric and I didn’t
feel strong enough for eccentrics. She’d been kind to me, as a child, though, and I’d have to pay her a visit.

I’d related Martha’s comments to Jessamy as we’d curled up together in her bed that night. She scowled. ‘Martha’s got this thing about Mum being an incomer.
Don’t tell her what Martha said, it’ll make her cross.’ She wriggled closer to me. ‘Martha’s right about you, though, you belong here. When we’re grown up you
and I’ll live here together all the time,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll share the work between us. You can have your own cows and horses. And sheep. Do you promise,
Rache?’

‘Yes,’ I whispered back.

‘It’s a solemn oath.’ She sounded as though we were in church and lightning would strike me if I broke my word. ‘Like they used to make in olden times.’

But she’d been the one to break the oath, involuntarily.

Robert

Camp at Nong Pladuk, Thailand, January 1943

Dear Evie,

We managed some kind of celebration for Christmas, with a pretend pudding made of rice and a few currants someone had bartered for. We even had alcohol, brewed from vegetables or rice. It
would make good rust-remover. So you see, we do keep our spirits up, Evie. Note the pun! I try to look at the animals, to admire the hornbills with their strange casques on their beaks, and the
macaques. You’d smile to see how they carry their babies on their backs. Not so sure you’d smile at the scorpions and snakes, though.

These letters are becoming more like diary entries but they serve a purpose. There are rumours they’re going to move us on again. I’ll write again soon, Evie. And I pray
I’ll come home soon, too.

Rachel

A few days before the Silver Jubilee, 1977

‘Just one more go,’ Jessamy begged.

We were in the farmyard, admiring our latest game: an obstacle course constructed from milk churns, hay bales, a rusting Ferguson tractor and whatever else we could find. We’d been up
since six because the early morning light had flooded the bedroom and woken Jess and then she’d shaken me out of my sleep. Any time spent awake in bed was time wasted, she said. As soon as
we’d heard Evie pull the bolts of the back door open to let out the dog we dressed and came down to play before breakfast.

‘It’s too easy for you.’ The low beams of sun shone on the fragments of old man’s beard floating round the farmyard so they looked like fairies.

‘You nearly managed it, too, Rache. You’d have done it if you hadn’t fallen off the bale.’

I nursed my sore wrist. ‘You’ll just win again anyway.’

‘Make it harder for me.’

‘How?’ I considered increasing the drop from the bales. If I put one on top of the other Jess wouldn’t be able to spring down as neatly onto the upturned oil drum. But
I’d never be able to hoist another one up on top.

‘I know.’ From her pocket she extracted a handkerchief. It was large so it must have been one of her father’s. ‘Tie this round my eyes. Then I can’t see.’

‘You want to do it blind?’

‘Why not?’

‘You’ll fall off the bales. It’s too risky.’

‘No I won’t.’ She was already tying it round her eyes. ‘Can’t see a thing. C’mon, Rache. Take me to the starting line.’

I moved her by the shoulders to the broom we’d laid on the ground. She set off, hand in front of her, finding her way to the row of bricks and walking across them sideways with easy, neat
movements. ‘This is peasy,’ she called. Then she found the bales and climbed up, crawling over them like a monkey on all fours. I thought she’d climb down the other side but she
sprang down in a neat gymnast’s jump.

‘Come on, girls!’ Evie called from the kitchen. ‘Breakfast is ready.’ I smelled the bacon.

‘Let’s finish it off later,’ I said.

‘I’m nearly there.’ She was running towards the wall now. Once she’d scaled and jumped down the other side and crossed the water trough, she’d have finished the
course.

She’d almost finished when Evie’s black Labrador jumped up from his vantage point by the milk churns and ran towards the kitchen door. He always was a greedy dog and he must have
smelled the bacon frying. He didn’t knock into Jessamy but his shadow must have passed over her face, disorientating her so that she changed direction by a couple of inches. Now she was
running towards the steel tow bar of the trailer. ‘Stop!’ I screamed. ‘Wrong way.’

Too late.

The tow bar caught her on the shins. She let out a cry, arms flaying as she struggled to stay upright. My held breath seemed to choke me. She fell very slowly onto a wooden crate. I ran to her.
‘Jess!’ Her fingers pulled at the handkerchief’s knot. Her shocked scream had brought Evie tearing out of the kitchen. ‘What have you done?’ She ran across the
farmyard and pulled the blindfold off Jessamy’s face. ‘Oh sweetheart.’ Her eye was already swelling up. ‘You must just have caught it on the corner of that crate. And look
at your legs. I’ll wrap some ice cubes in a cloth and put it on your eye. You’ll have some more pretty bruises to show everyone.’ She put an arm round Jess’s shoulders.
‘Why do you have to take these risks? That’s the second bad bang to your head in a fortnight. One of these days you’re really going to hurt yourself.’

‘I just can’t stop myself.’ Jessamy spoke through sniffs. ‘If I see something I have to try it. I can’t let myself be a coward.’

‘Stay there,’ Evie ordered. ‘I’ll bring the compresses out.’

Jess sat on one of the bales. Already I could see the shock passing from her face.

‘What’s going on?’ Martha stood in the yard, a jar in her hands. ‘Brought honey down for the girls.’ She handed the jar to me and scowled at Jess’s eye.
‘What’s happened to you, missy?’

I saw the mischief flicker over my cousin’s bruised face.

‘Mum hit me again.’ Jessamy said, giving me a wink. ‘She’s so strict.’

As I caught sight of Martha’s face I saw horror mix with contempt. ‘Jess was just—’ I started to tell her.

But Martha’s lips were already set tight.

Evie came out with the compress: a drying-up cloth she’d soaked in cold water.

‘Vet’s coming at ten, isn’t he?’ Martha said.

Evie let out a sigh. ‘Yes.’ I saw Jessamy glance towards the cowshed.

‘Don’t mention the cows,’ she’d whispered to me when I’d first arrived. ‘Mum’s worried about them.’

‘Why?’

‘TB. Perhaps.’

I didn’t know what those letters meant but I knew that they struck fear into farmers. ‘What will happen?’

‘They prick the cows’ skins and if the cows react to the pricks it means they could have TB.’ Jessamy swallowed and looked away.

‘And then?’

A shrug. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

When I woke a few days later on the morning of the Jubilee Jessamy’s bed was empty. I went to the window and peered out but there was no sign of her in the yard. I put on
my dressing gown and went downstairs. The dog wagged his tail in his basket by the door. Jessamy was walking towards the house, very slowly, her hands in her jeans pockets, her head bowed. Perhaps
she was still mourning the death of the three cows the vet had put down. When she saw me she gave a start.

‘Where’ve you been?’ I asked.

‘Wanted to check Starlight’s water.’ I knew it was a lie; we’d gone to the field last night and topped up the pony’s trough with the hose. I stared at my cousin.
Her eye was healing well; the black bruise turning to yellow. Jess’s bruises always went down quickly. She gave a shrug and walked past me. Perhaps she’d been checking on the remaining
cows. Didn’t want me to see she was worried about them. Jessamy’d been quiet since the three had been slaughtered.