Land Girls (8 page)

‘And what did they make of you?’

Ratty sucked on his empty pipe. Although he had anticipated this one, no firm answer had come to mind.

‘We chattered nineteen to the dozen, all very friendly,’ he heard himself say. Reflecting on this lie, he considered it permissible, after so much partial truth.

Edith sniffed. ‘You be careful what you say.’

‘You can trust me.’

‘You were all sweet words when you were young.’

Ratty shifted. This was the nearest to a compliment Edith had paid him in three decades. It made him uneasy. He could never confront her with the truth: how she had killed the sweet words very early in their marriage by her laughter, her scoffing. It was she who caused his prison of silence when it came to women. The banners, with all the things he wanted to say written on them, still danced in his mind, sometimes, but their benefits went unknown, locked into wordless silence. No problems with Mr Lawrence, with Joe. On occasions he could even mutter a word or two to Mrs L. But three strange new girls all up at the farm in one day … to have spoken was quite beyond him.

‘Time to turn on the news,’ said Edith, picking another sock from the basket with the curious gentleness that she employed for inanimate things.

‘So it is. I’ll do it.’

Ratty felt his bones soften with relief as he got up – land girl conversation over for tonight. He hoped it wouldn’t come up again for a while: give him time to gather his thoughts. Edith gave a small nod of her head, which was the nearest, these days, she ever got to a smile. She could never get the hang of the wireless, understand the tuning. Ratty twiddled the knob. His skill in finding the Home Service was one of the small ways in which he could oblige his wife with very little effort. Had she known the paucity of this effort, her appreciation might have been less keen. As it was, admiration for her husband’s technical ability was conveyed in a small but regular sigh that Ratty had learned to recognize. The fierceness went out of her needle.

L
and girls were entitled to one and a half free days a week. Mrs Lawrence suggested that this first week they took Sunday off, even though they had only been working for two days. Unused to the physical activity, they would be needing the rest, she said. The girls conceded gratefully. They offered to make sandwiches and go off somewhere for a picnic lunch, keep out of the way. But Mrs Lawrence responded by asking them to stay to lunch with the family: Janet would be coming. She’d like them to meet Janet.

At five a.m. Prue, waking suddenly, remembered she had no need to get up. About to return luxuriously to sleep, a picture came to her mind of Joe alone in the cowshed. He would have to do all the milking himself today. When did
he
have any time off?

In a moment, Prue was out of bed, all sleepiness gone. She dressed quickly and quietly so as not to disturb the others, and chose a yellow satin bow for her hair. What a surprise she would give him. How pleased he would be – someone to share the work on a Sunday.

Creeping downstairs, Prue heard voices in the kitchen: Joe and his mother talking. She had no wish to dull the impact of her good deed by joining them for a mug of tea, so she crept towards the front door.

As she put out her hand to turn the key, she heard a sound like the slap of a hand on the kitchen table. And, distinctly, the shouting of angry words.

‘You just take care, Joe!’

‘Mind your own business, Ma.’

Prue’s heartbeat quickened. Silly old interfering thing, Mrs Lawrence. His age, Joe could do what he bloody well liked. Quickly she opened the door.

In the cowshed the animals were chained in their stalls, restless as always before milking (how quickly she had come to learn their ways!), heads tossing, tails lashing, muted stamps of impatience. Prue fetched bucket and pail, began work on the first cow.

Joe arrived by the time the bucket was half full – she was an even faster milker by now. He must surely be aware of how quickly she’d learned. Prue felt his gaze upon her, from the doorway, but did not look up. She heard the slish and thud of his footsteps as he strode towards her. Still she made no
acknowledgement
of his presence, kept her head dug into Pauline’s bony side. She knew her yellow bow was badly flattened, but resisted releasing one hand to puff it into life.

‘What’re you doing here? It’s Sunday. It’s meant to be your day off.’

Joe’s voice was far from grateful. For a full minute Prue listened to the rhythmic hiss of the milk she was drawing from the cow’s abundant udder, calculating her answer.

‘I woke as usual. Thought you’d be glad of the help.’

‘You did, did you?’

She could hear Joe moving away with surly tread. Why had her kind act so annoyed him? She felt the sickness of having made a bad decision. There was nothing she could do but carry on: she managed to avoid him each time she finished a cow and had to collect an empty bucket. The two hours went by in a frenzy of speculation. What had she done wrong? How could she put matters right? Usually, she could rely on the soundness of her instincts. This morning no answer came.

When Prue finished milking the last cow she stood up and saw that Joe was no longer in the shed. Well, bugger him, she thought: he hasn’t half taken advantage of my kind offer. Leaves me most of the work, then buggers off early to breakfast.

She stomped crossly up the aisle, swinging her last full bucket. Milk splashed on to the floor, mixing with streaks of
chocolate-coloured
water, paling it to a horrible khaki, that warlike colour Prue so hated. Bugger everything, she thought. I’m off back to bed.

Joe was standing by the cooling machine, arms folded, blank-faced, impervious to its insinuating whine. Steam, escaping from the sterilizing machine, blurred the handsome vision. Prue, nose furiously in the air, inwardly quaked. She sensed there was to be some kind of showdown, and dreaded it.

Then through the steam she saw – she was almost positive she saw – a tremor of a smile break his lips, though his eyes were hard upon her.

‘Little minx,’ he said.

In her surprise, Prue lowered her bucket to the ground too hard. Wings of milk flew over its edges, curdling on the concrete: she didn’t care. Nothing mattered now except that she should conceal her sense of triumph.

‘And
careful
, for Pete’s sake,’ she heard him say.

He bent and picked up the bucket, threw the milk into the cooling machine with something of her own carelessness. He could blooming well deal with the sterilizing, Prue thought, heart a mad scattering of beats as she hurried out without speaking, pretending to ignore all messages.

In the short march from the cowshed to the kitchen – smell of frying bacon quickening the early air of the yard – Prue reflected on her good fortune. She thanked her lucky stars she had made the right decision. Joe’s earlier behaviour, she had somehow failed to understand, was merely a form of teasing. He was no longer a problem. Her path was clear, Janet or no Janet. It was now just a matter of
when
and
how
, and at what point she should tell the others how right she had been.

While Stella and Ag helped Mrs Lawrence in the kitchen, Prue spent an hour of luxurious contemplation in the empty attic room as she re-did her nails, chose combs for her hair instead of a ribbon, and finally decided to wear her red crepe dress with its saucy sweetheart neckline.

Coming downstairs – heavy skirt of the dress flicking from side to side, not without impact – she found Joe and his father in the hall, both dressed in tweed suits. Mr Lawrence carried a prayer book. Christ, one Sunday it would probably be to her advantage to go to
church
with them, she thought – though she hoped it would not have to come to that. She’d never exactly seen eye to eye with the church, all those boring hymns. But she didn’t half fancy Joe in his posh suit, despite the egg on his tie. She smiled. Mr Lawrence, with a look of faint distaste, hurried towards the kitchen. That left her and Joe alone in the hall. She carried on smiling.

‘Been
praying
?’ she asked eventually.

‘None of your sauce,’ said Joe. He swung past her up the stairs, banged the door of his room.

None of your sauce
… Prue went over the words carefully. He’d said them with such lightness of tone, in a voice so mock serious as to be transparent in its meaning, that for the second time that morning Prue found herself triumphant. How she enjoyed the careful analysis of that short remark! What he meant was, he wouldn’t mind a
lot
of sauce, but he would be grateful if she was careful. Well, she’d never been one to enjoy upsetting any apple carts. She’d play the game by his rules, if that’s what he wanted. But there was no reason not to enjoy herself until the time came.

Prue slipped into the kitchen where Mr Lawrence was polishing his shoes. The three women were all hard at work, stirring, tasting, moving in and out of clouds of steam that billowed over the stove.

‘Can I do the gravy or anything?’ Prue asked.

‘It’s all done.’ Mrs Lawrence sniffed, distaste less well disguised than her husband’s. She seemed to have some sixth sense, aware no doubt of everything that went on under her roof. Her disapproval would be terrifying to behold.

Prue left the room.

She found herself in the yard, leaping over patches of mud on to small islands of dry ground, trying not to ruin her scarlet Sunday shoes. On reaching the barn – she had grown to like the barn – she crossed her arms under her breasts, shivering. It was a cold, sunless morning. She leaned against the icy metal mudguard of the tractor, making sure she was hidden from the house. There was no time to ask herself why she was there, the tractor her only companion, because almost at once a small navy Austin Seven, beautifully polished, drew up to the front door. Rigid with curiosity, Prue watched a girl – probably about her own age – get out of the car, lock the door with a fussy gloved hand. She wore a grey coat. Her hair was rolled into a bun. She stood looking about, as if disappointed there was no sign of Joe to greet her. Then she moved to the door and rang the bell. Prue decided the girl’s prim little step, in highly polished lace-up shoes, was proprietorial.

Joe opened the door. They exchanged a few words, moved back to stand by the car. Joe seemed to be admiring it. He put a hand on the gleaming bonnet. Janet patted his arm, tipped back her head. She seemed to be asking for a share of his admiration. Joe bent down and gave her forehead the merest brush of his lips. Janet took his arm. Together, they went into the house.

That’s all I need to know,
Prue said to herself. She skipped back across the yard so fast she splashed both the red shoes and her thinnest pair of silk stockings, but she didn’t care.

Janet sat on the edge of an armchair at one side of the fireplace in the sitting-room. Joe sat in the chair opposite, while the hard little sofa was occupied by Stella and Ag. Ag looked about the olive and green furnishings, the cracked parchment of the standard lamp, the faded prints of York Minster. Joe fiddled with a minute glass of sherry, cast in silence. Janet, who had refused a drink of any kind, feet crossed on the floor, hands asleep on her lap, registered in her pose something between demure good manners and disapproval. She had a long face and a down-turned mouth set awkwardly in a protruding chin, giving her a look of stubborn melancholy. The surprising thing was that, when she ventured a smile, her down-turned eyes turned up, and the plainness of her face became almost appealing.

Stella, sensing the awkwardness, felt she should make some effort at conversation.

‘What is your actual job in the WRAF?’ she asked.

‘Sparking plug tester.’ Janet thought for a while, decided to go on, seeing the genuine interest in Stella’s face. ‘What I want to be, eventually, is a radiographer. But I don’t suppose I’ll ever make it.’ She shrugged, looked at Joe. The thought of disputing this did not seem to occur to him.

‘I’m sure you will,’ said Stella, surprised by Joe’s meanness. ‘I can’t imagine what it must be like, the job of testing sparking plugs.’

‘No, well, it’s not that interesting. And the working conditions aren’t very nice. All day in a cold and draughty warehouse, oil everywhere …’ She trailed off, eyes on the door.

Prue flounced in, a dishcloth tied over her skirt.

‘You must be Janet,’ she said. ‘I’m Prue. ’Scuse my apron.’

She smiled wickedly, shook hands with Janet whose
incredulous
pale face bleached further. Prue unknotted the dishcloth and shook herself free as seductively as a striptease artist. Joe drank his few drops of sherry in one gulp, not looking at her.

‘I’ve come to tell you dinner’s ready.’

Janet stood up, straightened her grey flannel skirt.

‘Where’ve you come from?’ asked Prue. ‘In that wonderful car!’

‘It belongs to my parents. From Surrey, near Guildford.’

The sharpness of her reply brought Prue’s bobbing about to a stop. She looked at Janet with a new curiosity.

‘Never been to Surrey, myself,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that rather a long way to come for Sunday dinner?’

‘It is, but if it’s my only chance to see Joe, then I don’t mind the miles.’

Janet tipped her head back again, giving Prue a defiant little smile which she then dragged round to reach Joe. Ag, from her corner of the room, admired the girl’s show of spirit. Janet took Joe’s arm, indicated they should be the first to leave the room.

Possessive little Surrey madam we have here, thought Prue, and winked at Stella and Ag.

‘Have you ever been to
Surrey
?’ she asked them.

‘Shut up, Prue,’ said Ag.

Janet sat between Joe and Mr Lawrence. Prue, taking Ag’s advice, resisted sitting on Joe’s other side and chose a place opposite him. Mrs Lawrence helped everyone to large plates of roast pork and vegetables.