Orphans of War (35 page)

The cherry blossom was frothing in the avenues in West Park, pink and vibrant. The fresh spring green of the grass and the new leaves brightened the streets. Lambs were dotted around the fields, new life burgeoning, but it was still winter in her heart, grey, murky and oh so cold.

How glad she was of the silence of her attic room, the routine of college classes, the bustle of the busy city centre distracting her, pushing the terrible events of the past few weeks to the back of her mind.

How easy it was to shut this pain into a secret place, lock it away with a padlock, out of sight. Every time she passed that door in her mind she scuttled past and thought of something else. Only in dreams did her heart betray her. She found herself running down the hallway, listening to the cry of a baby, opening every shut door, searching for the source that never appeared. The pram was always empty and the crying continued until she woke up with tears streaming down her face and the shame began all over again.

From the safety of her billet she wrote a polite letter to Gloria, thanking her for all her kindness and concern, promising to meet her sometime in Leeds for lunch but giving no specific date. It was better that they kept apart for a while and got on with their own lives.

She could never forget what her friend had done, and she didn’t ask for the specific details of the burial, but suggested they never mention the birth again. What was done was done. That was the condition of their continuing friendship, in her own mind: no harking back to what they couldn’t undo.

Dismissing her old friend was cruel and it didn’t sit easy within her. The new friends around her now knew nothing of her shameful past. They would fill the gap that Gloria had left. They weren’t kids any more but girls about town. It was time to have some fun, forget all that April grief.

There was money coming from Grandma’s estate, money enough to have brought up a baby alone had it lived. She brushed aside this thought. No going there, she sighed, the what-might-have-beens were pointless. All that was over.

Sometime later, when her monthlies returned, she wondered why her baby had been so early. Was there something wrong with her insides? Another fear she must shove in the cupboard, out of mind.

Yet healing was quick and her weight dropped off as her appetite was poor. No more vanilla slices or sweet stuff. Straight up and down she was now, back to that boyish figure without any effort. She wanted no reminders of that terrible winter.

The turquoise cocktail dress hung on her and needed taking in. She might even take it back to Marshfields for alterations if she needed it for one of Bella’s smart parties or she might not.

Nothing really mattered but work, concerts, flitting round the shops like any other young Yorkshire woman. All her worst nightmares were over–so why did she feel so sad inside so that nothing gave her much pleasure at all?

Gloria cried when she read Maddy’s letter. She didn’t understand what she was getting at. How could a mother not want to know what she’d done with the baby? Why were her words so cold, as if she was writing a polite note to a stranger, not her best friend? Where had she gone wrong? In staying away, or speaking out of turn at the funeral?

She’d wanted to leave Sowerthwaite to see more of Maddy in Leeds, go dancing, go to the pictures and join her new friends. It was pretty obvious now she wasn’t welcome, she wasn’t part of that world, she wouldn’t fit in. No point in going where she wasn’t wanted so she might as well stay put, but not at the Gunns’. No more nappies for her to wash. Oh, no, she’d find something more to her liking, but where?

For Plum, the months after Pleasance’s death were fraught with anxiety. What to do: go or stay? Part of her wanted just to sit it out in the Brooklyn; the other wanted to pack her bags. She wasn’t old and there was still time to find another life, but here were her beloved
dogs, the horses, the estate cottages, so many silken threads that bound her to this place.

She wore a path around the neglected gardens, trying to think out her future. There were no staff left now to keep things trim, except the Battys at Huntsman’s Cottage, who were getting on in years.

She stared up at the house that had once been such a refuge. It looked so shabby and neglected–unloved and tired. Why should she stay where she wasn’t wanted?

Maddy had raced back to Leeds like the ungrateful child she still was in not staying to help her with clearing away Pleasance’s room. They’d spoiled her, and yet it was all her own fault. She was the one who’d encouraged the girl to reach out for something other than this small town and domesticity. As Plum paced over the old path to the hostel she smiled, thinking of the times when she’d been so happy here to rush across and lend a hand.

The beech tree was full out, resplendent in its fresh green coverlet. It was still a magnificent specimen and when she shut her eyes, she could still recall a line of dangling children’s legs of those hiding in the tree house from Miss Blunt. The ladder was there, the rope knots still firm.

Oh, what fun they’d had, as well as tears and tantrums: Maddy climbing up and refusing to come down, Greg marching his troops, the raising of Miss Blunt’s awful wig–such good times as well as sad.

Plum sat under the Victory Tree, hugging her knees. Those were her glory days of being in charge,
housekeeping, catering, managing staff. Never had she been so busy or so fulfilled. Now the birds had all flown the nest–husband, niece, evacuees. How quickly memories fade, but not these.

Then there were all the oldies in the Brooklyn. She’d kept them in order, pandered to their diets and foibles, fed and watered them through the war, and put up with her mother-in-law’s demands. Now they too were gone but the house remained. Was it possible to fill it again?

A germ of an idea like a seed was sprouting in her mind. What if she…? What if it was opened as a holiday guesthouse or a hotel even? No, perhaps not a hotel–too many staff would be needed–but she could run a guesthouse herself.

The house would have to be distempered right through, smartened up. She’d need help with guests. Perhaps Maddy might take over one day…

Plum sniffed the new spring undergrowth and smiled for the first time in months. If she budgeted carefully and followed ration requirements, it might just work. Gerald would have to know but he didn’t care as long as the rents came in and he didn’t have to do anything.

She shot up from the damp grass, brushed down her corduroys from loose soil and dried beech mast. This was more like it, she thought, striding back at a pace, taking in the surroundings as if for the first time; the swelling ridge of hills, the beck running down to the foss. It was an idyllic place for a rest from city life: silence, scenery and good plain Yorkshire baking. That
was not beyond Grace Battersby, and they grew so much stuff themselves.

She’d train up someone to keep the guest rooms changed and fresh, a girl from the village with a bit of nous about her. There must be a way forward to bring the Brooklyn back to life and give both the house and herself some purpose once more.

Greg was sweating as he hagged the ends off the old oak beams, hacking off the burned timber to a smooth finish, his shoulders aching, his palms blistered. He thought he was fit in the army but now that he was working as a navvy on a bomb site, salvaging what was left of this burned-out mill, he’d found muscles he never knew he had. They were stripping down everything: stone flags, beams, metal–anything that could be sold or reused again.

Sometimes he cursed that he hadn’t taken up Charlie Afton’s offer to work in their garages but it wreaked too much of old-man Brigg’s set-up. Whatever he did from now on, he wanted to do for himself and strike out solo, but he needed cash and this job was as good a way as any to start.

All day he was up and down planks, lifting timbers and stone setts onto lorries and away. Their boss was an Irishman who took no prisoners, and tolerated no shirkers. When he took his shirt off he looked as if he could kill a man with his shoulders alone. You didn’t argue with Mr Malone.

Greg soon learned to keep his head down and his mouth shut. Reclamation was a dodgy business at times. Things disappeared overnight, and nothing was said. It was cash in hand and piecework, and left him time to do a bit of moonlighting on the side, fixing up cars and getting them back on the road after the war years; all those bricked-up chassis in garages needed fettling up now that petrol rationing was not so bad.

Greg lived life like a clenched fist. It was bad enough wasting his best years fighting battles, but now it was time to make something of himself. He couldn’t wait to start something up. Perhaps doing up bombed houses, and selling them on was a sure start on the property ladder. There was a shortage of houses, and thousands of soldiers with new wives and babies who wanted a roof over their heads. Money was to be made in property and Greg wanted to be at the head of the queue. No time for billiard halls and pubs, night school classes and the like. He was lodging in a back-to-back terrace near Kirkstall Abbey. It was rough, but clean and cheap. Greg was on a mission and deep in his heart he knew he’d make it one day. There was still that vision of his own place in the Dales and that ambition had grown from a neat villa to a mansion with a paddock and a fleet of cars. He’d be a muck-and-shovel boy until he got enough cash to get a foothold on the first rung of that rickety ladder of success. Growing hard muscle, a thick skin and tunnel vision was the only way, and nothing was going to stop his progress.

He found his billycan and sat down for a smoke
and a mash of tea, bringing out Plum’s letter. She’d kept her tabs on him even though he’d not written for ages. She’d sent a letter to Afton’s Garage near Harrogate, hoping to find him there, and Charlie had passed it on. She didn’t miss a trick, that one.

The old Brooklyn biddy had passed over and he’d dropped a line for old-times’ sake, just a polite letter of condolence. But here Plum was writing to him again. Secretly Greg was pleased to know they still remembered and cared what he was up to now.

If only she could see him now, with string tied round his knees, in hob-nailed boots and a collarless shirt,
covered in muck and sweat; not a pretty sight, but he didn’t care.

He smiled, thinking about the antics at Victory Tree HQ with snotty little Gloria and pony-mad Maddy–not his sort at all but when he’d made his packet he’d find his own classy bird.

Women were the last thing on his mind. He could take his pick but he’d always been choosy. Girls cost money and there was nothing to spare. His cash was going into his property fund. He’d find an old house to do up, and a decent car.

Charlie would be as good as his word in finding him a decent saloon to do up, something that made him look prosperous when the time came. Charlie was into racing, time trial rallying, and needed a good navigator and mechanic.

Greg had no time for such fun, not yet, not when there was a fortune to be made in fixing up old buildings. That was where the future lay for him. The rest could wait.

One day he’d return to Sowerthwaite, but with his tail up, and show them all this vaccy was a man of substance, a man as good as any of them. He’d not be calling until then.

He stood up, folded the letter in his pocket; time to ‘tote that load and shift that bale’, as the song went…

What am I doing here? thought Maddy. She was sitting in a disused drill hall, singing choruses to a harmonium and trying to look as if she was enjoying herself. They sat on hard benches listening to Mr Sandy
Blister, who stood, Bible in hand, thumping on the pulpit that she must be born again, must rise from her seat and commit herself to Jesus or be damned to hellfire.

Maddy looked around at the gleaming earnest faces singing and swaying with ecstasy. What a strange way to be spending a Saturday night.

It was summer now. There was Roundhay Park, Temple Newsam to visit, concerts to hear. She could walk to college, to Adel and Eccup, through Lawns-wood and out into the country for miles. She’d borrowed a bike from one of the medical students in her digs and cycled around Cookridge and as far as The Chevin ridge near Otley. Although it wasn’t the Dales it would do.

But weekends were the worst, when her college friends, Pinky and Caro, went home, and Bella disappeared to her cronies near York to prepare for her wedding. That was when loneliness hit her, the hours stretched out and the cupboard door strained to spill out all her secrets. Ruth and Thelma, those would-be missionaries, sensed her weakness and filled that gap, inviting into her circle. She was too grateful to resist at first.

There were tea and sandwiches, lots of young student types from the university in tweed jackets and grey flannels, who carried Bibles and belonged to the Scripture Union.