Once a Land Girl (10 page)

Prue sighed. She wondered where this story was leading. Half her mind was on one of the chickens, which was limping badly. She’d have to ask Johnny . . .

‘When I got down to the kitchen in the morning,’ Barry went on, after one of his longer pauses, ‘my usual time, she was there. Table laid, toast in the rack. She’d tidied
herself up a bit, smiled. I could see that once – no, believe me – she could have been . . . not pretty, heavens, no, but not too bad. She was plumper, then. Bosom, hips, all that. She
came right out with it, bold as you please, not at all like the woman of the night before. Could she stay and cook for me? She’d worked in the kitchen in some big house before the war, learnt
a lot from the cook there. Well, you know me, soft-hearted to a fault. I said I’d give her a month’s trial – I needed someone. She’s been here ever since. Keeps the place
clean and tidy, as you may have noticed. Does the ironing, whatever’s necessary.’

‘And?’

Barry tapped his cigar into an ashtray, pushing the stump of ash around as if prodding out some delicate specimen. ‘And? Well, it’s here we come to the twist in the story.
Inevitable, I suppose. You know yourself, sweetheart – desperate people become obsessed with completely unsuitable others—’

‘What do you mean, I know myself?’ Prue was alert now.

‘All those men you serviced in the war. The ones you told me about. The whole lot of others I don’t know about.’

He was smiling a little, clocking up points against her should they be needed, Prue reckoned. ‘It wasn’t like that! I wasn’t servicing them, as you so crudely call it. I was
having a good time here and there. One or two were more than sex. One, I loved.’ She kneaded her fingers, suddenly tense, affronted.

Barry was unmoved by her offence. He waved his cigar in the air, increasing the smoke left from the last wave. ‘Well, whatever you say, sweetheart. Anyway, Bertha declared herself. Said
she loved me, all that. She was pathetic, irritating in her efforts to make me feel the same. I avoided her as much as I could, tried to laugh her out of it. Then one evening I came home to find
her gone – well, gone from the house. Nothing cooking in the kitchen. I went up to her room, found her sobbing on the bed. When I came in she just stood up, opened her dressing-gown, let it
drop to the ground. What could I do? What would any man have done?’ He paused. ‘She’s no Rita Hayworth, never has been, but there was something nice about her—’

‘You can spare me the details,’ said Prue, lightly. Fascinated, she was trying to picture the unlikely scene.

‘All that was a mistake, of course. Next day I said she had a choice. She could either stop pestering me for love, which I was never going to give her, or go. Naturally she stayed. And I
have to admit, sweetheart, occasionally I was obliged to give her what she wanted. About once every three months seemed to be all she asked.’

‘Really? And does that arrangement still continue? Has it carried on since we were married?’ Prue was intrigued by the unwavering formality of her own voice.

‘Well, here we go.’ Barry shifted his thighs, crossed one over the other. ‘I always thought it would never come to this . . . There was big trouble, of course, when I told her
I’d found a wife. She went haggard overnight. Face completely dropped, changed, hair suddenly screwed up. I told her, “never again” . . . But you know how it is. A man feels sorry
for a sad woman, likes to cheer her up. And it has to be said, it’s the plain ones who’re often the most grateful. Don’t get so many chances, do they? Know what I mean?’ He
paused, then went on quietly. ‘So, yes, I have to admit, from time to time, there’s been a lapse. Don’t think it meant anything, sweetheart. It was only ever a quick roger to keep
her happy.’

‘I see,’ said Prue. She sighed, as a child does at the end of a story. ‘And what’s the plan now?’

‘Well, obviously it’s finished for good. Over. I’ll give her notice tomorrow morning. We can get someone younger, nearer your age, company for you . . .’

‘I don’t think you should sack her,’ Prue heard herself saying. ‘Poor old thing. Nowhere to go. She does all right for us. Spares me all the boring bits. No, don’t
sack her.’

Barry was shaking his head. ‘What can that mean?’ he asked. ‘Wife suggests husband keeps his bit on the side. Does that mean you don’t care?’

‘Don’t care? What do you mean?’

‘Does it mean you care for me so little, sweetheart, that my small infidelities mean nothing to you?’

Prue tipped up her chin, working out an answer. ‘Of course I care. I just don’t think the whole Bertha thing is terribly important. You’re like all men. Plenty of qualities,
plenty of weaknesses. Women know they’ve got to put up with all that. Thing is, to weigh up whether it’s worth sacking a pathetic woman just because she’s screwed the boss. I
don’t think so. Please, Barry, let her stay.’

Barry swerved his damp lips from side to side as he tapped off more ash. ‘Very well,’ he said, after only a second’s hesitation, ‘if it’s all the same to you. Save
all the bother of finding someone new. But I promise you—’

‘Fine. I believe you till the next time. And please tell her it meant nothing to me. I wouldn’t want her to think I was put out by the whole business.’

Again, amazement clouded Barry’s half-shut eyes. ‘You’ve taken this very well, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘You’re more grown-up than I thought. You’re quite
a mature woman. Here.’ He put out a hand. Prue got up, went to him, gave him her wrist. She wondered if he could hear the battering of her heart. ‘Am I forgiven?’

‘Of course.’ She bent down and kissed his temple. It tasted of cigar.

‘What we need, to put the seal on things, is a child.’ He pulled her further down, quite roughly. ‘Perhaps we should go at it a bit harder.’

‘Perhaps.’ Prue pulled herself away from him, moved to the door. ‘I’m going up for a bath,’ she said.

‘I’ll follow you soon.’ His chuckle froze Prue’s innards. ‘We’ll lie down, rest a while, then I’ll take you out to dinner. Don’t suppose
Bertha’ll be up to much
haute cuisine
tonight.’

Prue climbed the stairs two at a time, heaving herself up with the kind of spring she used to employ to jump on to the back of Noble, the great shire horse at Hallows Farm. Only two thoughts
pushed for space in her mind: she must see Stella or Ag as soon as possible, find out what she should do. Meantime a sense of freedom flared through her, so powerful she could have jumped high
enough to reach the ceiling. Whatever happens, she thought, I’m free now. Lummy, I’m absolutely free.

A
s Prue made her way to bed late, buoyed by her new sense of freedom, she was puzzled that she felt nothing else: no outrage or sense of betrayal,
no despising Barry for his treachery, no fury against the pathetic Bertha. Instead, a curious, benign understanding lapped within her. Of course she could see why things had come about between
Barry and his housekeeper. And she didn’t care. Married life could carry on, materially provided for. She and Bertha could continue in their mutual ignoring. It was up to Barry whether he
continued to pleasure the housekeeper from time old time, ugly old cow, and once she, Prue, was pregnant, sex could be whittled down till it was almost non-existent.

Loveless marriage, with extravagant compensations, was not so bad. Prue had never supposed she would be blessed with the kind of loving union had by Mr and Mrs Lawrence. She had done nothing to
deserve that. But she was lucky to be married at all, she thought. There were thousands of young women whose boyfriends had been killed, thousands of young widows. So given that she was married
and, now, free, she would avail herself of everything she could get: the security of Barry, the freedom to look around. Somewhere behind these nebulous thoughts lurked a faint melancholy, though
she guessed it was nothing to do with tonight’s revelations. It was more a kind of disappointment: she was disappointed in herself. When she was a working land girl, she remembered, when a
field of straight furrows was finished or the whole herd of Friesians milked single-handed, she had sometimes experienced a sense of satisfaction that never came to her now. Stella and Ag, she was
sure, would have good advice, but it was still some months till their next London reunion, and both lived too far away for a spontaneous visit. Petrol coupons would have to be saved.

Her longing for a reunion with the others was fulfilled surprisingly quickly, well before the annual meeting. Ag sent a telegram to say Mrs Lawrence had died of a sudden heart-attack, and Mr
Lawrence very much hoped the girls would be able to get to Yorkshire for the funeral in three days’ time. They could stay in the farmhouse. Prue looked up cross-country trains, and asked
Barry’s permission to leave for a few days. He seemed relieved to give it to her. It occurred to Prue that in his fleeting visits to the kitchen he was being berated by the livid Bertha, who
now managed to avoid addressing any word at all to her. Since Confession Day, as Prue called it, Barry had had the air of a man deflated: relieved to have confessed his guilt, but caught up in the
aspic of confusion as to how, now, he should play his part. Up to him, thought Prue. She didn’t really care.

Barry drove her to the station, gave her money for a first-class ticket. A porter carried her Louis Vuitton case – a birthday present – to an empty carriage and touched his cap when
she gave him a shilling. Despite the sad reason for this journey, there was something exciting about setting off on her own, leaving the stifling house. She sat by the window, head against the
spotless antimacassar, the back of her knees brushed gently by the fuzzy stuff of the seat. A sepia photograph of a Dorset village not far from Hinton Half Moon hung opposite.

By the time the train had left the station tears ran jerkily from her eyes. She sniffed, imagining the mess scrawled across her cheeks. But she couldn’t help it. The evocative photograph
had brought it all back: most of all Mrs Lawrence, who had become a kind of surrogate mother, with all the strength and wisdom and dignity that her own mother lacked. Prue shut her eyes,
remembered. Mrs Lawrence . . . her kindly face, hard of bone but soft round the edges when she smiled: voice either hard and cracked with fatigue or disapproval, or gentle as a mourning dove when
she had time to feel her happiness. Mrs Lawrence: her stringy arms, honed from a lifetime of kneading bread, rolling pastry, milking cows, smoothing her men’s shirts with an iron that weighed
a ton. Her food, so good it was hard ever to imagine there was a war. Her generosity, her concern always for others, her sudden flare of incomprehensible temper when she came across something that,
innocent to others, displeased her. What on earth would Mr Lawrence do without his wife? Much of his huge strength came from her. They communicated more in being than in words, and it had worked so
well. They understood each other without ever having to spell things out. Oh, to find such understanding. Once, the night they had gone to some dance, Mrs Lawrence had come up to the attic to help
the girls dress. The place was a warm litter of slung-down clothes and scattered makeup, the air thick with the scent of Prue’s Nuits de Paris. Mrs Lawrence’s cheeks had turned pink
with vicarious excitement, yet Prue had seen a wistful shadow in her eyes – thinking back to her own youth, perhaps, when she had prepared for just such an evening out. And when the girls
rollicked down the stairs, Mrs Lawrence behind them, Prue had seen Mr Lawrence, waiting below to chauffeur them, give his wife an almost invisible nod and smile, acknowledging her feelings.

Mr Lawrence came so sharply to her mind, too: tall and lean and gruff, wise and silent – he’d do anything for anyone, would Mr Lawrence. Only incompetence or laziness made him angry.
There was some sadness, obviously, that his son Joe was not fit to fight. But he was proud of him, you could see that. He was proud of the way Joe rose above his own disappointment, put everything
into the farm. Joe, Joe . . . Such a good way, he had been, to start life as a land girl. And once their flaming had died down he had remained a good friend, their friendship burnished by the
knowledge of lovers. No wonder poor Stella had loved him so much . . .

Prue put up a hand to stop fresh tears. Her cheeks were cold. Her fingers came away smeared with black. Better clean myself up before the station, she thought, and held up a small mirror to
assess the damage. She saw that she was wearing the old red spotted bow in her hair, the one that had always brought her good luck with ploughing. Ashamed that she could have been so thoughtless as
to wear it on arrival, she pulled it off and stuffed it into her bag. From her coat pocket she drew out a black one and fixed it into her curls. She could, she thought, go without a bow altogether,
but that would be out of character. The others would be surprised. A black bow, she reckoned, they would judge as custom rather than frivolity. But why, at this time, was she thinking about
bows?

Looking out of the window, Prue saw nothing to cheer her spirits. They passed outskirts of industrial towns where bomb damage had still not been cleared, and weeds tall as ripe wheat sprouted
through rubble and broken stone. There were houses that had been cut in half, leaving parts of rooms where paper curled away from cracked walls, and a few pieces of smashed furniture still
stubbornly kept their place on the remaining planks of floor. These ruined houses, their private tastes still exposed to all who passed, perhaps never to be rebuilt, filled Prue with renewed
gratitude for having spent the war in deep country away from most of the bombing. How lucky they had all been: only one bomb and no one killed but poor old Nancy, the cow.

Once the desolate townscapes gave way to the swoops of Yorkshire hills and dales Prue looked out with a farmer’s interest. But still there was little to cheer her in the landscape. While
the fields themselves were in good order – mostly due to her fellow land girls, Prue thought, with a sudden smile – the farmhouses and villages were much in need of repair. A whole row
of cottages was deserted, the roofs caved in, slates still scattered over the weeds of front gardens. Plainly, random parts of the country had not escaped attack. Here, as in Dorset, a German on
his way home must have chosen to drop his excess bombs.