Muddy Boots and Silk Stockings (23 page)

The stew was waiting for him, gently heated by the low fire. He opened the iron doors and let the draught roar into it, feeling the temperature inside the cottage rise while he satisfied his appetite. That day and for the five that followed it, he worked every hour of daylight and with every ounce of his increasing strength.

On the morning of the sixth day, Roger Bayliss, using a bridleway that made a shorter journey from his farm to the woodsmen’s cottage than the track offered, heard the thwack of his son’s axe before catching sight of him through a stand of beech trees whose autumn colour had been finally stripped from them by the latest gale.

Christopher embedded his axehead in a log and stepped forward to greet his father. They shook hands. He took his father’s reins and tethered his horse.

‘Tea?’ the son offered. ‘Kettle’s on but I’ve only got tinned milk, I’m afraid.’

They had sat on either side of the wood burner sipping the hot tea and, in the sort of silence with which both were familiar, smoked their cigarettes. Christopher watched as his father looked slowly round at the primitive living arrangements, at the murky stone walls and the low boards that formed the ceiling.

‘Can’t persuade you to come home, then?’ he asked.

Christopher shook his head. ‘Thing is,’ he smiled amiably, ‘this feels like home, Pa. I like it here. It needs some attention admittedly but, when I’ve done what I have in mind, it’ll be fine. And out there,’ he waved an arm in the general direction of the encircling woodland, ‘there’s enough work to keep me out of trouble for years!’

Christopher missed his father’s reaction to the implication that his son’s commitment to this situation was long-term. But the possibility had occurred to Roger and he had already devised a series of conditions which would rationalise and to some extent normalise it.

‘This is true,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a while before the forest could become financially viable again but, if you want to have a go at it, you have my blessing.’

Unknown to Roger, the state of Christopher’s mind, which was still affected by his breakdown, had not led him to consider what his father’s reaction might be to his retreat to the woodland or how he himself would have responded
had his father opposed it. Because of this his father’s apparent approval had very little effect on him and he merely smiled and ashed his cigarette into the fireplace.

‘However,’ Roger continued, ‘you must allow me to put things on a proper footing.’ Christopher looked baffled. ‘Firstly,’ Roger went on, ‘you must be waged.’

‘Waged?’

‘Yes. Given a salary. Paid for your work. Secondly, you must allow me to make you more comfortable up here.’ Christopher opened his mouth to protest but Roger raised a hand to silence him. ‘There’s not a lot that can be done with this place but I insist that you don’t starve, that your bedding and your clothes are laundered, that you allow me to provide whatever supplies you need and that you keep the truck up here so that whenever, if ever, you have had enough of it up here, you can get home to the farm. I won’t have you living like a tramp, Christopher.’ Roger was prepared, if his son had refused his terms, to have him forcibly removed from the cottage and, if necessary, certified as insane. He was, therefore, relieved to see that Christopher seemed more than happy to comply.

‘Thanks, Pa.’ He smiled. ‘That sounds great – as long as you’re sure I’m worth it!’

Together they compiled two lists. The first consisted of the items which Fred would deliver by truck on a regular basis each week and the other of materials, tools and items of furniture with which Christopher would transform the
cottage – as much as it would be possible to transform it – into the place in which he wished to live and where, when she eventually arrived, as he was convinced she would, he would welcome Georgina.

Alice took some time over deciding what to wear to Roger Bayliss’s party, eventually settling on a well-cut black jersey dress, which she had worn once or twice when she had accompanied her husband to Ministry receptions where she had been expected to make polite conversation with the wives of senior civil servants and other government officials. She had regarded these evenings more as a duty, when she was required to be an asset to James, than a pleasure and she had always sighed with relief when James appeared at her side, a welcome indication that it was almost time for them to leave. She had lost weight since she had been working at Lower Post Stone and the dress, when she tried it on and turned this way and that in front of the long looking glass in the cross-passage, flattered her figure even more than she remembered. With her mother’s pearls, silk stockings and black court shoes she would, she considered modestly, do.

Being short of men for his party, and in view of Oliver Maynard’s hospitality to the Post Stone land girls on the occasion of the cricket match and since then to several ‘hops’ at the camp, Roger had reluctantly included him on his guest list. Oliver, insisting that he would be practically passing Alice’s door, talked Roger into letting him convey her to
and from the party. Arriving together, their fellow guests assumed them to be ‘a couple’. Oliver was, Alice felt, slightly overattentive to her, giving her little chance to talk to the other guests, most of whom were well acquainted with each other and included Margery Brewster and her rotund and florid husband. Eileen, aided by her niece Albertine, a robust schoolgirl whose capacious bosom resembled her aunt’s, refilled sherry glasses, ladled out mulled wine and offered a choice between Eileen’s cheese straws or, as the evening progressed, her mince pies and slices of the Christmas cake for which she had been accumulating ingredients throughout the year. At one point there was a slight disturbance when, flushed, overexcited and to the acute embarrassment of her husband, Margery Brewster fell off a chair and found it so amusing that it took both her husband and Oliver Maynard to get her back onto her feet.

Roger, who had been curious to know what Alice would look like dressed for an occasion such as this one, was enchanted with what he saw. He observed her as much and as closely as he could without his interest attracting the attention of his other guests. He saw her eyes explore his warm, well-furnished sitting room and when she moved closer to a large oil painting hanging above the fireplace, he joined her.

‘My grandfather,’ he said. ‘Painted by a man called Pickersgill in the 1890s. And that’s his wife – my grandfather’s wife, I mean of course. Elizabeth Anne
Clifton.’ They crossed the room and Alice stood gazing at the serene face framed against a dark background by a pale, ruched lace cap, its delicate ribbons tied under her chin. Oliver Maynard had joined them.

‘Fine-looking woman,’ he said but the woman he was looking at was Alice and Roger was aware of this.

‘She is beautiful!’ Alice said, turning to Roger. ‘And I think I see a trace of a family likeness. Something about the set of the eyes, perhaps.’

‘Interesting,’ Roger said. His expression had for once lost its familiar closed, defensive look. ‘That was exactly what my wife – what Frances – always said. If we’d had a daughter we would have called her Elizabeth Anne.’

Later, the interior of Oliver’s car was cold. Condensation ran down the windows and frost glittered in the headlights.

‘Nice party,’ Oliver said and suggested that Alice might feel like ‘going on’ somewhere. ‘Not that there’s anywhere to “go on” to in this God-forsaken neck of the woods.’ Alice said that anyway she needed to get back to the hostel. Oliver grunted, took a corner rather too fast, skidded on a patch of black ice and had to struggle to avoid slewing into the hedge. He was angry with himself and apologised profusely.

‘That was unforgivable. Unforgivable. Reprehensible behaviour. Reprehensible…’ For some reason, perhaps because it had been a pleasant evening, perhaps because of
the warmth of Roger’s smile and the attentive way in which he had helped her into her coat when it was over, she found Oliver’s abject apology amusing.

‘Don’t apologise,’ she laughed. ‘It was rather exciting!’ Oliver glanced at her. Reflected light from the dimmed headlights revealed just enough to confirm that she was smiling. The fact that she was pleased with him rounded off his evening. As they drew up outside the farmhouse he leant across and kissed her mouth. It was a light, unassuming kiss and, as such, Alice briefly returned it, getting quickly out of the car, closing its door behind her and calling out goodnight and thanking him for the lift as she picked her way along the icy path and into the porch.

On his homeward drive Oliver experimented with a few controlled slides which resulted in his arrival at the camp with a significant dent in his offside mudguard.

‘I ’ear from Eileen as Mrs Brewster enjoyed ’erself las’ night!’ Rose said next morning, with a suggestion of disapproval in her sharp Devonian voice. ‘Fallin’ about a bit, Eileen says!’

‘Mrs Brewster lost her balance, Rose.’ Alice made a point of discouraging gossip where those in authority were concerned.

‘Mrs Brewster should take a drop more water with it!’ Rose said virtuously.

This was the first intimation Alice had regarding Margery Brewster’s problem with alcohol. Rose’s comment had the
effect of reminding her that once or twice she had caught a whiff of spirits on Margery’s breath and once she had brought a bottle into the hostel and insisted that Alice joined her in a sip of gin-and-orange at the kitchen table.

‘Don’t fret, Alice!’ she had laughed, her face flushed slightly from the pleasure of the drink. ‘Your charges won’t be back for hours yet! Cheers, my dear! Down the hatch! Mud in your eye and all that!’

On the second of Fred’s trips up into the woodland with supplies for Christopher, Alice had ridden with him, wedged into the passenger seat as the truck lurched uncomfortably up the uneven track. There were places where recent heavy rain had scoured its surface, leaving deep potholes and forcing Fred to make detours round them, the truck, with two wheels halfway up the steep bank, tipping perilously and causing his cargo to slide from side to side. In addition to the regular supplies of food, drink and clean laundry, Fred was today delivering an old sofa which had, years previously, been replaced in the Bayliss sitting room and had lain since in the attic, gathering dust and being nibbled at by mice. This, Christopher had decided, when spread with the half-dozen sheepskins which had accumulated in the tackle room, would provide a warm and practical place for him to relax and probably sleep, in front of his fire on cold nights in January and February.

Christopher’s pulse had quickened when he saw that there
was someone sitting beside Fred in the cab of the truck. Almost at once he had realised it was Alice Todd who was Fred’s passenger and not Georgina as he had at first hoped. He recovered quickly and approached Alice with the
well-mannered
charm she remembered from before he was ill.

‘Mrs Todd!’ He shook her hand. ‘How very nice to see you!’

Alice confessed that everyone at Post Stone had heard so much about the woodsmen’s cottage that she had been unable to resist an opportunity to inspect it so that she could report back to the girls. She presented him with the treacle tart that Rose had made for his supper.

What Alice saw as she entered the cottage was very different from the scene that had greeted Roger Bayliss two weeks previously. The walls and ceiling had been whitewashed. Cooking pots hung beside the wood burner. The camp bed was made up. There were books on the shelves and Christopher’s old spaniel, sprawling across a worn rug in front of the fire, thumped her tail as Alice watched her master light the oil lamps.

‘We’ll bring in the furniture,’ Christopher said. ‘Then you’ll have somewhere comfortable to sit while you drink your tea!’

The sofa, its broken springs barely audible under the skeepskins, was so comfortable and the warmth of the cottage so soothing that Alice, whose previous night’s sleep had been disturbed by Gwennan, first asking for an aspirin
and then for some warm oil to soothe an aching ear, almost fell asleep over her cup of tea while Fred unloaded the rest of Christopher’s supplies.

‘Youse’ll be comin’ ’ome for Christmas, I s’pose?’ Fred enquired on Eileen’s instructions. Christopher answered evasively and deliberately inaudibly. ‘Eh?’ Fred insisted and Christopher raised his voice slightly and said he thought probably not, in the circumstances. ‘An’ what circumstances be they?’ Fred persisted. But he was retreating, lowering his head under the lintel of the door and muttering darkly to himself. ‘A son oughta spend Christmas with his pa, I reckon…’ Then he raised his voice. ‘Reckon we should be on our way, Mrs Todd, if it’s all the same to you.’ He was in the cab with the engine running as Alice said her farewells.

‘And the girls?’ Christopher enquired, handing her into the truck. ‘Everyone well?’

Alice assured him that everyone was very well indeed. She knew that what he wanted was news of Georgina and drew a deep breath.

‘Georgina is leaving us,’ she said, as lightly as she could.

‘Leaving?’ He was standing absolutely still, his face level with hers.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘She’s joined some flying organisation – one that moves RAF planes from one airfield to another. They’re called—’

‘Ferry pilots… Yes, I know what they’re called, Mrs Todd.’ His interruption had been curt. Almost rude. ‘I
should have guessed,’ he said flatly. ‘Her flying experience. The de Havilland godfather, and so on.’ He had a hazel switch in his hand and began striking the side of his wellington boot with it, thwack, thwack, thwack, just as his father did with his crop against the leather of his riding boots when he was irritated. There was a small, tense silence while Fred revved the engine of the truck.

‘Shouldn’t you talk, the pair of you?’ Alice asked. ‘Come and see her before she goes!’ She was uncertain that he had heard her. He seemed lost in his thoughts.

‘We did talk, Mrs Todd,’ he said at last. ‘And she knows where I am if she wants me.’

The Christmas break was looming. The girls bought presents to take home to their mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters and grandparents, they ironed their best frocks and washed their hair. As the preparations continued the weather became cold, then colder still until the frost lay thick and crackling all through the days, the ice in the drinking troughs was six inches thick and the yard pump froze solid.