Red Sky in the Morning (38 page)

‘What you ought to do is to put a manager in here until such time as she can sell the blasted place.’

May gasped. ‘Douglas!’

‘Well, you said yourself that you don’t want to stay here.’

‘I know, but Anna does.’

‘She’s said so?’

‘Yes.’

Douglas’s mouth was suddenly a thin, hard line. ‘Then your daughter will have to do as she’s told. As you have said, darling, she’s only fifteen and you, May, are her
mother.’

‘I’m not going back to the city. I love it here. It belongs to me. Grandfather wanted me to have the farm and I want to live here.’

‘And you think you know all about farming do you? You think you’ll be able to run this place single-handed?’ Douglas sneered.

Anna faced him. ‘No, of course I don’t. But Betty and Rita are here for a while and—’

‘A couple of Land Army girls?’

‘And,’ Anna continued, ‘there’s Mr Tomalin – Jed’s uncle – at the next farm. He’ll help me. He’s said so. And, and—’ she added
in a low tone, ‘there’s Jed.’ She wasn’t so sure that she could rely on Jed’s help any more. His attitude had been decidedly frosty towards her ever since Bruce and
she had become close.

‘But you’re only fifteen, Anna,’ May said. ‘I can’t go and live in Lincoln and leave you here.’ She glanced helplessly towards Douglas. ‘I
can’t.’

‘What’s wrong with you and Douglas living here?’ Betty asked. ‘Seems to me that’s the simple answer.’

Douglas shot her a vitriolic glance. ‘I’m a city dweller. My work’s in the city. I couldn’t drive back and forth every day. It’s difficult enough getting hold of
the petrol to get here at weekends as it is. Tell you what, though.’ His face suddenly brightened. ‘Why don’t we buy a place in the city? It’s quite a good time to be
buying. There’s your two thousand pounds, May.’ He took her hand and kissed it, smiling into her face. ‘We could get a very nice house in Lincoln for that.’

Before May could answer, Betty put in, ‘And you’d be selling your place, too, would you?’ Her stare was fixed on Douglas’s face. He laughed with feigned embarrassment.
‘I’m afraid I’ve nothing to sell. Bruce and I live in rented accommodation.’ He pulled an apologetic expression.

May smiled and patted his hand. ‘Don’t worry. At least my father didn’t leave me penniless. Or homeless. We’ve always a home here, haven’t we?’

Above her head, Douglas looked up to meet Anna’s troubled gaze. ‘Of course we have.’ He smiled.

But the smile did not reach his eyes.

Without her grandfather, the farm was not the same place to Anna. Even though the work continued as before with the guidance of Luke’s friend and neighbour, Bill Tomalin,
she missed the old man dreadfully. Her mother, too, was unhappy. Douglas’s visits were fewer. Some weekends, as he was leaving, he would say, ‘May, I’m sorry, darling, but I just
can’t get the petrol to come all the way out here next weekend.’

When he did not come, May moped and cast resentful eyes at Anna, as if it were all her fault.

Only Betty and Rita carried on much as before, though even they missed ‘Pops’.

Anna left school and began to work full-time on the farm.

‘Ya’ll wear a path between your farm and mine, lass,’ Bill Tomalin remarked.

Anna smiled. ‘I’m sorry to keep bothering you—’

‘No bother, lass. Luke’d be proud of the way you’re handling things. A slip of a lass like you and you’re more or less running that place, aren’t ya?’

Though he didn’t say so outright, Anna knew he was hinting that he understood May had no interest in the farm. It had been the talk of the district since Luke’s death.

Loyally not mentioning her mother, Anna said, ‘I couldn’t do it without Betty and Rita.’

Bill eyed her soberly. ‘Aye, but they’ll soon be gone, lass, won’t they, when the war’s over. Still,’ he brightened, ‘When the fellers get demobbed,
there’ll be plenty looking for work.’

Anna nodded. ‘But how much longer is the war going on?’

Bill sighed. ‘I can’t tell you that, lass. I only wish I could. But I’ll let you have Jed whenever I can spare him.’

If he’ll come
, Anna thought, but she smiled and thanked him.

‘I’ve got what they call embarkation leave. When I get back, I’ll be going overseas.’

Bruce had arrived that Friday evening with his father. When he told her the news, Anna’s eyes were wide with fear. ‘Where are you going?’

Bruce shrugged. ‘Dunno.’ Then he grinned, ‘And if I did, I couldn’t tell you.’

‘But I’ll be able to write to you?’

‘Yeah, course you will. I’ve got the address written on a bit of paper somewhere. You write to BFPO, I think it is.’

‘Whatever’s that?’

‘British Forces Post Office. And then it gets sent to wherever we are.’

‘Oh.’ Anna was silent and then asked in a small, doubtful voice. ‘Do you think you’ll ever get it?’

‘Course I will.’ He put his arm around her shoulders. ‘You write every week and I’ll do the same. If I can, that is.’ He grinned. ‘But I’ll be so busy
sticking it to Jerry’ – he made a stabbing movement as if thrusting his bayonet into the enemy – ‘that I might not get much time. Anyway, let’s not think about that.
Let’s go for a walk around
your
farm.’

He laughed and, for a brief moment, Anna felt a twinge of uneasiness at his attitude, but she brushed it aside when he added, ‘Come on, let’s make the most of my last day.’

Despite her inner sadness, Anna was to look back on that day as one of the happiest she had spent with Bruce. He was kind and attentive, kissing her gently and holding her hand. They talked and
laughed and when she shed a few tears over her grandfather, he held her close, stroked her hair and murmured words of comfort.

When Douglas and his son left late on the Sunday night, Anna clung to Bruce. ‘You will take care?’

He laughed. ‘Don’t worry about me. Them Jerries won’t get me. It’s them that’ll have to watch out when I get over there.’ He tapped her chin gently.
‘Just you remember that you’re my girl. I want to know that you’re here waiting for me to come home to.’

‘Of course I am,’ she breathed, feeling a thrill of pleasure run through her.

Douglas revved the car engine and Bruce hopped into the passenger seat. The car roared out of the gate as May and Anna stood waving goodbye. They stood there in the empty yard, listening to the
sound grow fainter and fainter.

May put her arm around Anna’s shoulder and drew her back into the farmhouse. ‘Anna,’ she began, biting her lip, ‘there’s something I have to tell you. Douglas wants
me to go back into town with him sometimes. Not every week,’ she added hastily, ‘but just now and again. You don’t mind, do you? Betty and Rita will be here to look after
you.’

‘That’s fine, Mam,’ Anna said brightly. But she guessed that May’s visits would get longer and longer until she was hardly at the farm at all.

The tide of the war seemed to be turning in favour of the Allies. At the beginning of June they had entered Rome and only days later the newsreels of the D-Day landing had
given everyone new hope. The pictures of the troops landing on the beaches were cheered loudly in every cinema. And as the soldiers pressed inland, Anna wondered if Bruce was there with them.
Desperately she scanned the screen for a glimpse of him, but amongst the thousands of servicemen she could not really hope to see him.

But then Hitler launched a new and terrible weapon upon the south of England, the V-1 flying bomb, and a mass evacuation of children from the target area of the pilotless weapons began
again.

‘Will they get here, do you think?’ Anna asked fearfully.

‘Don’t think so,’ Betty said practically. ‘They haven’t got the range. It’s just the south that’ll get it. Them poor devils in London have had more than
their fair share, I reckon. Fancy having to cope with doodlebugs after all they went through in the Blitz.’ She cast a wry glance at Douglas. ‘Bet you’re glad you moved up here,
aren’t you?’

Douglas put his arm around May and smiled down at her. ‘It was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.’

Watching them together, Anna thought:
He really does love Mam, I’m sure he does. He’s so generous. Maybe Grandpa was wrong about him after all. He never stops buying things for
Mam and spoiling her.

May was always dressed in the latest fashion – thanks to Douglas. He bought material and employed a dressmaker to make dresses and costumes for her.

‘My future wife’s not going to be dressed in utility clothes. Mind you,’ he added, winking saucily, ‘I must say I like the idea of the shorter skirt to save on
material.’

And he brought gifts to the farm too. The day he came with a box of oranges, the Land Army girls and Anna fell on them with squeals of glee. ‘I’m not going to ask how you got
’em,’ Betty declared, peeling one and biting into the segments. She closed her eyes in ecstasy. ‘I’m just glad you did.’

In August Paris was liberated and everyone began to hope that soon the war would be over. Plans for a better Britain were already being talked about. New homes were to be built and a National
Health Service that would bring equal health care for all was promised.

And soon, Anna prayed, Bruce would be home. She longed to see him again. She wrote to him every week, just as she had said she would. His letters were not so frequent, but she understood why and
forgave him.

I reckon I’ll sign on as a regular after the war
, he wrote.
I love the army life.

Anna wrote back to him in a panic.
But what about us?

His reply was a long time coming and Anna was in a torment of uncertainty. He didn’t love her any more. He’d found someone else. A sophisticated, chic French girl perhaps, like the
pictures she’d seen in the magazines Betty and Rita brought home.

What do you mean ‘What about us?’
he wrote at last.
You’re my girl, aren’t you? We’ll get married and you can come with me. It’d be a great life,
travelling all over the world. You’d love it. You don’t want to live on the farm for ever. And even if you did – which I hope you won’t – you won’t need me
around. You’ll always have the faithful Jed.

Jed had been classed as being in a reserved occupation, much to Bruce’s scathing disgust.

He’s yeller
, he had scoffed in a letter home to Anna.
He ought to be out here getting a taste of what being a real man is like.

As Anna had expected, May spent more and more time in Lincoln with Douglas, but they still came at the weekend sometimes and then May would stay the rest of the week with Anna, whilst Douglas
went back to the city alone.

‘We’ll have a lovely Christmas this year,’ May promised. ‘The war might be over by then and Bruce could be home. We’ll make it really special.’

But the war was not over by Christmas, though towards the end of November Bruce did get leave and came home for a blissful weekend with Anna.

As they said their goodbyes on the Sunday evening, Anna clung to him. ‘Do take care.’

‘Course I will. It’ll soon be over.’

‘But – but you said you might stay in the army. Did you really mean it?’

Bruce shrugged. ‘Dunno yet. I might. Look, sorry, I’ve got to go. Dad’s waiting in the car.’

He kissed her hard on the mouth and then he was gone.

The following morning Betty came bursting into the kitchen.

‘There’s three hens gone missing. That beggar – whoever he is – must be back again,’ Betty said angrily. ‘I thought we’d got rid of him. Nothing much
has happened lately.’

‘How do you know? Have you counted them?’ Rita asked.

‘I have now,’ Betty said. ‘I got suspicious when I couldn’t find Speckly.’ Betty’s favourite was a black and white speckled hen.

‘They could have wandered off somewhere,’ May suggested. ‘Laying their eggs under a hedge, I shouldn’t wonder.’

Betty pressed her lips together as she shook her head. ‘No. Speckly comes to me to be fed every morning.’ The girl was adamant. ‘She’s gone, I tell you.’ And she
glared belligerently at May as if it were her fault. ‘She’ll be plucked and roasted and lying on somebody’s plate now.’ She glowered as she muttered, ‘Somewhere in the
city, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘What? What do you mean by that, Betty?’ May asked sharply, but the girl turned away and left the house, slamming the back door behind her.

‘What did she mean?’ May asked, glancing between Rita and Anna.

Rita got up. ‘I’d best get on.’ As she too left the house, May stared after her.

‘What did Betty mean? Do you know, Anna?’

Slowly Anna said, ‘I think she’s hinting that poor Speckly – and probably everything else that’s gone missing over the months from the farms around here – has ended
up on the black market in the city.’

‘Well, yes, I expect it has. We all know that, but – but she seemed to be hinting at something else. Something more—’

Mother and daughter stared at each other.

‘Douglas! She thinks it’s Douglas, doesn’t she?’ May’s fingers fluttered to cover her mouth. ‘Oh, how could she?’ Then suddenly May’s eyes
sparkled with anger. ‘It’s more likely she’s got some feller in tow who’s wheeling and dealing and she’s supplying him with our stock. Huh! The cheek. Accusing my
Douglas. She’s still jealous, that’s what. Just because it’s me he comes to see now and not her.’

Now it was Anna who did not know how to answer.

May refused to speak to either Betty or Rita for the rest of the week, and by the time Douglas arrived again on the Saturday afternoon she had packed her suitcase and was
waiting for him, wearing her hat and coat in readiness.

‘We’re going straight back to town,’ she informed him before he had scarcely got out of the car.

‘Why? What’s the matter? Trouble?’

‘I’ll tell you later. Come on, we’re going.’

Anna had never seen her mother so forceful. May turned briefly towards her daughter. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back. You’ll – you’ll be all right?’
There was a moment’s brief hesitation in her resolve.

Anna nodded as Douglas lifted his shoulders and spread his arms in a helpless gesture. But he was laughing again as he climbed back into the car. ‘Your wish is my command,
ma’am.’