Orphans of War (26 page)

Dieter was very quiet at first. She walked him up the Avenue of Fallen Soldiers, explaining about Uncle
Julian and her father and the men of the town lost in battle. They crossed the footpath across the field and took the track to the old beech tree. Dieter seemed lost in his own world.

‘Come and meet my tree…our Victory Tree, but not over you. Over Napoleon, I’m told. Look, the ladder’s still there. This is where I come to think, to chew the cud,’ she said, pointing to the platform on the branches of the tree.

Dieter turned round at this expression, puzzled, so she mooed and pretended to be a cow munching its grass. His eyebrow raised and he laughed.

‘Let’s climb up out of sight.’ She knew it would be dark and the lights of the hostel were off as everyone was at the hop.

Dieter sat with his knees bent. ‘I am so worried now. Tilde is my youngest sister, her chest is bad and now there are few hospitals and medicine. My uncle is not a wealthy man. They took us in after my father was taken. I should be looking after her but I am stuck here.’

‘When does college start?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say.

‘October…I must go home. I must do work for medicine. I should not have come but I was curious. It was selfish but I wanted to see real British people. We saw soldiers, of course–some good and bad, some angry and some merciful. War makes animals of us all, I am thinking. There are no real heroes but here I find only kindness and friendship.’

‘She’ll get better, you’ll see. In the next letter you
will have good news,’ Maddy offered, more in hope than certainty. Through the gap over the wall she saw the lights of town twinkling. ‘You know, it’s strange to see lights on. We got so used to pitch-darkness and just the stars. I used to sit here dangling my legs, waiting for Mummy and Daddy to return but it never happened. Tilde will get better. I just know it.’

‘I have met no girl like you, so kind and pretty. Why do you not have a boyfriend?’

‘I have lots of boyfriends. Gloria and me, we write to Greg, who’s in the army, and his friend Charlie sometimes.’

‘No special one, no sweetheart,’ he whispered.

Maddy laughed. ‘When you have a bad squint and stand six inches over a boy, no one wants you to be their sweetheart. Now my eye is straight I don’t care for any of them,’ she replied.

‘But you are beautiful and you are growing a kind heart,’ he replied. ‘My father used to say that a loving spirit is the greatest beauty of all.’

Maddy could hardly breathe. ‘He must have been a good man.’

‘Yes, he was. But now I must ask your permission to kiss you, but perhaps I go too far?’

‘I don’t mind,’ she whispered.

‘You don’t? I’ve never kissed a girl before.’

‘And I’ve never kissed a boy except when they were babies.’

They kissed with lips shut, chaste, firmly but dry. He tasted warm and salty, with a hint of tobacco and fresh soap. She sat in his arms, looking up at the stars.
My first kiss, she sighed, and from a German boy. Who’d’ve thowt it, as Beryl would say.

Then caution hit her, splashing over her like cold water. What would the Murrays think of her, taking advantage of him? Plum would be furious. No one would understand this magnetic pull towards him.

‘We have to keep this secret,’ she said, sitting up straight. ‘I don’t think anyone will understand how it is for us.’

‘Like Romeo and Juliet?’ he smiled.

‘Oh, don’t say that!’ She pulled away. ‘That’s a sad play. We’re not sworn enemies, are we? I shall tell no one yet. We can write to each other when you go home and perhaps I come and visit you one day.’ Her mind was racing ahead already. Her first proper boyfriend, her first kiss all in one evening. How wonderful to be loved and needed.

‘When can we walk again?’ Dieter grasped her hand tightly.

‘Tomorrow, down the bridle way. I’ll walk the dogs and I know a quiet path down to the foss, the waterfall. I’m free until I go to college. Tomorrow I’m going shopping with Aunt Plum. She’s promised to buy me something new with her own coupons.’

‘You are lucky. My sister wears only rags, I fear, but I must write to Tilde and go on a ride with Mr Murray. We are looking at places for students to visit when they come to Yorkshire. We have been to Bolton Abbey and tomorrow it is Ingleton Falls and some special caves, I think. But I think it will be a long time before they come. Not everyone likes us here.’

‘How can anyone not like you? I like you very much, and you can take some of my clothes to Tilde if you like.’ She couldn’t bear to think of anyone having so little when she had so much.

This time they kissed longer and deeper and stronger, until Maddy’s legs went weak and her tummy melted with a fluttery sensation. ‘We’d better get down before we fall out of the tree,’ she laughed, breaking the tension between them. Time to walk back to The Vicarage and for her to make the last few dances of the evening. Her feet were floating two feet off the air so that might be difficult.

‘Where on earth have you been? The dance is over,’ Gloria snapped, her lips pouting with disapproval. No one seemed impressed with her new dress and the local boys weren’t worth staring at.

‘It’s not my sort of dance,’ Maddy replied.

‘Too common for Lady Muck, are we?’ Gloria laughed.

‘No, of course not, silly. I just popped back to the Brooklyn. Uncle Gerry’s due back soon and I wondered if there was any news.’ Maddy’s cheeks were pink as if she’d been running and her grey eyes flashed like polished steel.

A likely story, thought Gloria. Something was different about Maddy. It was hard to detect if you didn’t know her but it was something to do with that German lad at The Vicarage. He’d put a smile on her face, for some unearthly reason. He was tall and OK-looking, not her type at all in those spooky specs and
funny clothes. She’d noticed the way he eyed up Maddy at the rounders match. She couldn’t possibly be falling for a Jerry, could she? How stupid was that? He’d be gone in a couple of weeks and he was too stiff even to come to a friendly hop.

He was one of those bookish parson types. She couldn’t imagine anyone marrying a vicar. A doctor or a farmer maybe, but a po-faced parson like old man Murray, never!

She must write to Greg and tell him all about it.

Why had Maddy found a fella so easily? She hardly wore any make-up, didn’t bother to keep her hair up to fashion. She never wore a bra and looked like a lad in shorts, but she had made an effort this evening. Maddy was such a beanpole–no high heels for her, only pumps if she wanted a partner.

The two girls were like peg and prop together, and it suited Gloria to be the glamour puss. Her new employer, Mrs Gunn, was pretty and lively, and if she played her cards right there’d be more cast-offs to make her own. She’d already been through her wardrobe while the couple were out one evening, playing dressing-up with six-year-old Sarah: fur coats, suits, a ball gown, they’d tried on everything and they fitted her perfectly as Denise was short like herself, and her dressmaker shortened all her clothes beautifully. It was an Aladdin’s cave of gorgeous clothes in Mrs Gunn’s dressing room.

She liked it at the Gunns’, minding Sarah and Jeremy, and there was a new one on the way. They lived in a fine old house just outside Sowerthwaite that she biked to each day.

The doctor owned a big car for emergencies and his wife had a roadster for her shopping. Sometimes they all squashed into it and took the high road to Harrogate when they had petrol coupons to spare, or outings into the Dales for picnics. How different from life with Mam and Mikey. Mam was furious when she upped and left without so much as a by-your-leave. It was tit for tat. Served her right for what she’d done to them all those years ago.

With not a word from Mike Delgado for years, Mam marched up to the depot in the camp and demanded support for her baby. They took photos of little Mikey and she filled in her complaint. They accepted her claim but closed ranks, making it impossible for her to get any information about the soldier. Trust Mam to find herself in Dickey’s meadow again. Sid was pining to come back to Sowerthwaite when he left school and Gloria was going to help him find a job on a farm.

Now she was back living in the hostel but it was dull after Leeds. There were no theatres, no big shops, but it was better than Peel Street and watching Mam back to her old tricks, entertaining strange men in the night. Some of them eyed her up with interest and it scared her, but she’d not told that to Maddy.

What Gloria wanted was never going to be found in this countryside back of beyond. She wanted what Denise Gunn had acquired: a husband who made money, enough to live in a big house, have a daily and a gardener and someone to mind her kids as and when they came along. Gloria had already planned to have just the two, a boy and a girl.

She wanted pretty dresses and shoes, time to have her nails painted and long visits to the hairdressers, to be taken to expensive restaurants in a fur coat, like film stars wore in
Picturegoer.

She could just see herself in a white fox fur wrap, fluffy, warm and soft to the touch, a long sable with matching hat or a short mink for visiting friends in town. Gloria laughed at herself; dream on, lady, but her heart was set on this goal. If you didn’t make big plans how could dreams ever come true?

She’d keep herself straight, pick up tips and good manners, and one day find a fella as would make it all come true. But until such times she’d have to up her game and learn to be a lady herself. After all, she was as good as Maddy any day.

They were still friends even though she thought Maddy daft to go mooning over a Jerry. Nothing would come of it. Old Mrs Belfield would make sure of that.

The few late summer days seemed to go on for ever, the green grass tinged with gold. The sky was bright and everything shimmered in the heat. Hay time had been poor and the lambs were still puny. It had been one of those dismal summers so the sunshine was welcome. They’d chosen a good day for the youth club charabanc outing to the Lakes and the seaside. They’d all strolled down the prom at Morecambe and sang on the coach back. Maddy had sat with Gloria, and Dieter with the vicar’s wife, both trying not to draw attention to themselves. It was as if the summer hovered to enjoy one last fling before the morning
dews drenched the grass and the long trek into winter began.

When the school bell rang out on the first day of term, Maddy was glad her own schooldays were over. How could she ever have continued her studies when she was in a torment of confusion over her stolen kisses with Dieter?

His sister had recovered but there were barely two weeks until he returned to Germany. They had walked the heels off her brogues, talking and reading poems together, sharing their beliefs. He gave her a list of the books that had convinced him that Christianity embraced the whole of life, not just Sunday worship; how it should be at the centre of daily life and work. Most of his philosophy just went over her head because she just wanted to be close to him.

They held hands and kissed, lying side by side, sharing thoughts. She’d never met anyone who thought so deeply about everything. He knew so much more than she did about real life.

Sometimes he told her a little of how they had survived the war, living on scraps and hiding from marauding soldiers, who wanted to grab young girls for their pleasure. His mother had died for want of medicine when her wounds became infected. They had sold everything just to live, and his faith had been tested to its limits, but just when things could get no worse, someone would help the family, take them in and shelter them. His father died in an internment camp but for months they’d hoped for good news. There were so many people to thank
for kitting him out to come to England and he was determined to go back East and thank them before he went to college.

‘You will write to me?’ Maddy pleaded one evening.

‘Of course, but our words are censored. It will not be easy to write. A thank you letter perhaps.’

‘Oh, don’t say that.’ She sat up, suddenly afraid. The thought of never seeing him again became real. ‘You are so wise. I wish I knew all you know.’

‘Liebchen,
I am full of envy. You have everything here for a happy life: food, beauty. No wonder your soldiers fight so hard to keep it safe.’

‘Stay then, don’t go back…you can do your studies here. We need ministers too.’

‘It is not possible. I must see my family, what is left of it. This is just a holiday for me. I owe many people for this wonderful time.’

‘Am I just a holiday romance?’ she snapped.

‘Of course not. We are alike, you and me, with serious loving hearts. I will write to you and we will find some way to be together.’

‘And I will come and see you all,’ she smiled.

‘It will not be possible…not yet. In a few years—’

‘A few years! We’ll be so old then,’ she cried, snuggling into his side.

‘You are a funny girl, so…what is the word?…never wanting to wait. All good things have to wait. It is God’s will.’

‘But there’s only two weeks left, Dieter!’

‘Then let us make the most of what we have been given.’ He rolled over to kiss her and they wrapped
each other in a parcel of arms and legs and hugs. How they got to undressing, she’d no idea but it was so natural to peel off the layers and lie on the prickly ground almost naked but for underwear. Dieter fingered her white skin, gazing down with a frown on his brow.