The Hills and the Valley (24 page)

He stopped mowing, pulling out a handkerchief to mop his forehead.

‘Penny for'em.'

‘What?' She looked up, startled.

‘Your thoughts. From the look on your face they're worth a good deal more than that, though.'

Margaret straightened her back. Her expression was indeed serious.

‘I'm not sure I'm going to tell you. I haven't really thought it through yet.'

‘Thought what through?'

She rolled over into a sitting position, looping the skirt of her cotton dress over her knees.

‘All right, I will tell you. It's nice to be able to talk without Elaine and Marie listening to every word. I've been offered a job.'

‘Oh, have you!' He abandoned the lawn mower and dropped down onto the grass beside her. ‘What sort of job?'

‘Teaching, of course. They're going to need someone at the Church School from September on. It sounds like the job is mine if I want it.'

‘Do you?'

‘Well yes, I do. I miss the classroom and the Church School would be so convenient – just down the hill.'

‘So what's the problem?'

She smiled. ‘I knew you'd say that. You are, for one thing. You're so busy you're never here. And now that you're prospective Labour candidate – well, if a campaign got under way you'd need a full-time wife to support you, not a harrassed working woman.'

‘I think it's highly unlikely there will be a campaign just yet,' Harry said. ‘Mrs Lincoln is not going to resign until there's a General Election.'

‘But her health is a bit suspect isn't it?' Margaret said. ‘Maybe she will have to go before then.'

Harry stretched his legs.

‘Even if she did it's doubtful there would be a contest. There's a party truce on, remember. In the event of a vacancy the nominee of the sitting party would be returned unopposed. Unless the local committee decided to go against the Party Executive and contest anway, as they did in Kettering. I wouldn't like that. “Unofficial Labour” doesn't have quite the same ring to it. Though I can imagine Eddie Roberts pressing for it for just that reason,' he added thoughtfully.

‘So you wouldn't mind if I went for the job,' Margaret asked.

‘Not if you think you can cope with it. Not a bit. Though I can think of a job or two I'd rather you were doing. Like being the mother of our child, for instance.'

He saw her face cloud slightly. It still hurt, remembering the baby she had lost, and as yet there was no sign of another on the way. Margaret had tried resolutely to put it from her mind – the more she wanted it the less likely it was to happen, she thought. Perhaps even considering this job was an effort to tempt fate.

The sadness in her eyes and the sweetness of her sunwarmed face stirred him and he reached for her, pushing her back on the newly mown grass.

‘Let's start again – like now.'

‘Harry!' She rolled away. ‘The neighbours could see!'

‘Only if they were watching out of their bedroom windows.'

‘Well they might be for all you know! Stop it this minute! Just imagine the newspaper headlines if anyone saw you! “Prospective Labour MP behaves indecently.” I'd die of shame!'

‘How can a man making love to his wife be behaving indecently?' he teased.

‘It's where you do it that counts,' she said severely. ‘In any case we have a great deal more gardening to do. This lawn is a disgrace!'

‘All right, I give in,' he laughed. ‘You're a hard woman, Margaret.'

She laughed, then cocked her head to one side, looking up at the sky. ‘What's that?'

Harry followed her gaze. The sky which a few minutes ago had been clear blue and empty was suddenly full of planes. German fighters zooming in like angry gnats, Spitfires closing in from the opposite direction to head them off, the rays of the sun catching their fuselages and wings and sending off sparkling shards.

‘Oh my God!' Margaret gasped.

Harry grabbed Margaret's wrist, dragging her towards the cover of the hedge. If the fighters were coming, the bombers would not be far behind. As they rolled beneath the leafy laurel he heard them – the drone of their engines making the earth and the air tremble.

‘What are they doing
here
?' Margaret squealed. It was the first time that a raid had penetrated this far – they had mostly been confined to the south-east and many of the battles had been fought over the sea.

The guns were firing now; with hands pressed over her ears to shut out the noise she bobbed her head out to see what was happening, then bobbed quickly in again as the spurts of red and orange flashed across the sky like some erratic blow-torch.

Harry was watching over her shoulder.

‘The bombers are turning round. They know they won't get past those Spits. Pray they don't start dumping their bombs for a quick getaway. Christ! – that one's hit!'

Margaret risked another peep and saw the plane angling down with black smoke pouring from it. There was a muffled explosion as it hit the ground somewhere over the crest of the hill and out of sight. Against the blue she saw the billowing white of a parachute. And still the fighters darted and climbed, still the gunfire raked the sky.

‘The children!' In the midst of the dogfight she remembered Elaine and Marie, somewhere out in the countryside collecting their nature study specimens, and began scrambling to her feet. ‘What about the children?'

Harry grabbed her arm pulling her down again.

‘They'll be all right. They'll take cover.'

‘But they'll be so frightened!'

‘There's nothing you can do, Marg. You don't know where they've gone. They'll be all right.'

For seemingly endless minutes the skirmish continued but the Germans were in retreat now and the battle was moving further away. She saw another plane on fire, losing height with smoke streaming from its wing in a black ribbon, but it was too distant to be sure what it was.

‘Is that one of ours or one of theirs?' she asked. Her voice like the rest of her was trembling.

‘One of ours, I think,' Harry said. He too sounded shaken. It was the suddenness of the incident which had been so unnerving. One minute a peaceful summer afternoon, the next … ‘It's all right, they're beating them back. It's over now.'

‘But where were they going?' she asked. ‘What were they after?'

Harry brushed bits of twig from his shirt. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. One of the Wiltshire aerodromes, perhaps. Or the army training camps on Salisbury plain. I don't know. Whichever it was, they won't get them – this time.'

‘No,' Margaret agreed. Then the full force of his words hit her. ‘This time'he had said, but there would be other times. The war had taken hold in earnest and this was just the beginning. Before it was over there would be many more dogfights in the sky, many bombers seeking to drop their loads of death, many men dying.

‘Let's pray we can finish it quickly!' she said.

Margaret and Harry were not the only members of the family to witness the dogfight. Amy, Barbara and Maureen watched it from a bedroom window at Valley View and their faces, white with tension, reflected their thoughts.

It could be Huw up there in one of those Spitfires. It could be Huw, blazing fire and receiving it, bobbing, weaving, ducking. When they saw the plane spiralling down Amy stretched out her hands and the girls took them so that they stood close together in a chain, straining their eyes at the distant darting specks.

Please God, not Huw! Amy prayed silently.

Oh, those poor men! thought Maureen.

And Barbara, holding on to the panic inside her with a supreme effort felt as if all her worst nightmares were taking shape in the daylight. She had known what was going on, of course, but until now had only been able to guess at what it was really like. Now there was no more uncertainty. She was seeing it with her own eyes.

Even when it was over she seemed to see it still and knew it would haunt her dreams throughout the weeks and months to come.

Elaine and Marie were down by the river when the planes came. It was a pleasant spot. On both sides the meadows sloped bumpily down, scarred only by cow pats left by the herd of heifers that inhabited the valley and the river meandered cool and clear beneath the overhanging trees. At one point it broadened into a natural pool which Sir Richard Spindler, who owned the land, had leased to the council for a swimming bath and the girls had lingered there for a while, dangling their feet in the water before pressing on upstream, picking their way between the bushes and keeping a sharp eye out for the cows who sometimes lumbered down to the river to drink or take advantage of the shade.

Elaine and Marie did not like cows. Until they had come to Hillsbridge they had never seen one in their lives and although Margaret had told them they were quite harmless they treated the cows with suspicion bordering on terror. They were so
big
and Elaine and Marie disliked their baleful expressions and the way they had of suddenly charging across a field like a herd of wild buffalo.

Today there had been no cows to be seen, however, and the girls had been able to wander about in peace. Marie had picked a few celandines and some wild garlic to go into the basket Margaret had given her; she sniffed her fingers and wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of onions which clung to her skin. But Elaine had not bothered to collect any specimens. She had no intention of bothering to write an essay about birds and flowers or anything else – essays or ‘composition' as she called it were strictly for school, not something with which to pass the holidays.

At first, when the planes came the two girls could not understand what was going on. They grabbed hold of one another, dropped their specimen baskets in the thick marshy undergrowth and turned frightened eyes to the sky. They could see nothing; the heavy trees in full leaf hid all but the smallest trace of blue. But when they inched nervously out into the field they were able to see at least some of what was going on and they watched round-eyed with terror.

When it was over Marie began to cry very softly, little mewing sobs.

‘I don't like it, Lainey! I want to go home!'

‘Don't be soft,' Elaine admonished.

‘I do. I want to go home. I want our Mam!' She rubbed at her cheeks with her onion-smelling hands.

‘You'd get worse than that in London,' Elaine said. ‘Every day, I'spect. That's why they sent us here.' Her eyes were shining with a peculiar light. She had been a little frightened by the dogfight, though she would never admit it, but now she was excited. The adrenalin, pumping through her veins, was a new experience. ‘I'd like it,' she said boldly. ‘I'd like to be back in London. But you wouldn't. You're just a baby.'

‘I'm not!' Marie protested, wriggling uncomfortably. When the gunfire had started she had wet her knickers; now they felt cold and clammy.

Elaine noticed her gyrations. ‘What's the matter wiv you?'

Marie told her, still sniffling.

‘There you are! You are a baby! Take them off. We'll hang them out to dry.'

Marie did as she was told and Elaine hung the offending knickers over a branch.

‘Yer,' she said, suddenly making up her mind. ‘I'm going back to London. I've had enough of this place.'

‘You can't. They won't let you,' Marie gulped.

‘Just let them try to stop me! I'll find a way!' The adrenalin was making Elaine believe anything was possible.

Suddenly Marie's expression became one of horror. She stood transfixed, her eyes huge, her mouth fallen open.

‘Lainey – look!'

‘What now?' Elaine began, then as she turned her own voice became a scream.

Just a few inches from her a cow's head was poking through the branches. All bravado forgotten she turned and ran, Marie following her, out into the alien green field where monsters lurked, leaving their specimen baskets and Marie's knickers still dangling from the branch. They went on running and they did not stop until they reached the road.

‘I want to go home!' Marie wailed again and this time she did not mean London, but the safety of the house in Tower View.

For once Elaine did not argue with her.

‘Do you want to go and see the German plane?' Ralph asked.

He had come home late in the afternoon and brought with him the news that one of the planes that had been hit in the skirmish had come down in a field just over the hill.

‘A bit ghoulish, isn't it? Amy said.

‘I thought the girls might be interested. It's probably the best chance they'll get of seeing a Jerry aircraft at close quarters.'

‘Oh yes, please! Please take us Ralph!' Maureen begged eagerly.

‘Barbara?'

Barbara nodded. She was still a little shaken by the afternoon's events but there was a creeping fascination all the same about the German plane.

‘Are you coming, Mum?' she asked.

‘I suppose so,' said Amy.

They all piled into the family car and Ralph drove up the hill and along the lanes. It was a perfect August evening. In the hedgerows the cow parsley grew taller than a man; out across the fields, thick and green, a hawk hovered in the still blue air. Once again it was hard to realise that this was a world at war and the glimpse of harsh reality which had been revealed to them that afternoon now seemed more like a dream.

Until they saw the plane.

Ralph parked at the field gate and they climbed over and walked along beneath the hedge until it came into view, lying there in the open like a great wounded bird. Surprisingly, it was still almost intact, the black cross on the fuselage clearly visible though a piece of the tail, marked with its swastika, lay some distance away at the edge of the field. Nearby the aircraft lay the unexploded bombs, guarded, as was the wreckage, by stern-faced uniformed men.

‘There it is,' Ralph said. ‘An ME110.'