The Lost Days of Summer (27 page)

‘Yes, I’ve heard my taid on the subject,’ Hywel admitted. He put Nell’s shopping carefully on the ground and remounted his bicycle. ‘Nice to have met you, young Nell. See you again sometime.’

‘TTFN,’ Nell said. ‘And thanks for your help, Hywel.’

Hywel cycled slowly along the winding lane which would take him, eventually, back to his village above Church Bay. Once there, he would share his grandmother’s midday meal and then catch the local bus back to his airfield.

Right now, however, he had other things on his mind. That girl! Isn’t it just my luck, he thought morosely, that the only lass I’ve ever taken a real shine to happens to be my old pal’s girl. And I can’t take advantage of the fact that he’s still at that convalescent home in Blackpool, because that would be a dirty trick. So all I can do is wait for Bryn to return and then see how things go.

He had seen Nell first at the Christmas market, and had been intrigued by her elfin features and the mass of curling, chestnut-brown hair which she kept pushing impatiently back from her face. Also, of course, he had been struck by the fact that Bryn, who had never taken any interest in girls, seemed interested in this one. But when he mentioned her to Bryn – who was she, where did she come from, any chance of an introduction – he had been left in no doubt that Bryn considered Nell his property. Naturally he had backed off, but once Bryn was home and back on board a ship wouldn’t it be fair enough to offer to take the girl about when his pal was not in port, and thus get to know her better?

Cycling slowly along the summer lane, he thought how odd it was that out of all the many girls he knew this particular one had appealed so strongly to him. He had heard of love at first sight and never believed in it, did not believe in it still, but nevertheless even the thought of her sent a tingle along his spine. He visualised her small, elfin face, the way she compressed her lips when she was thinking, even the wrinkling of her straight little nose with its band of golden freckles when she disapproved of something he had said, and knew he would contrive to see her again as soon as he possibly could, Bryn or no Bryn.

The thought brought him up short as he realised that Bryn had one big advantage over himself. He had been at Dunkirk, was actually aboard the
Scotia
when she went down and had been romantically rescued, whereas Hywel, an aero engine mechanic, had had a far less dramatic and exciting war. On the other hand, he had what he considered a glamorous uniform, and was a good two years older than Bryn. He believed girls liked an experienced feller . . . he hoped they did, at any rate.

But it’s early days yet, Hywel told himself. He might meet another girl tomorrow, a prettier girl . . . only it wasn’t only her looks which had appealed to him, he was sure. She was . . . oh, she was a darling! He had not asked her age but guessed she was no more than fifteen or sixteen, and he was nearly twenty . . . not that age mattered, or not to him, at any rate.

Hywel bent to his pedals again and had slowed to round a sharp bend when he saw Muffy Evans and Rhodri Jones ahead of him. Hywel speeded up. Might as well have some company on the rest of the way to the village. ‘Where have you two been?’ he shouted. ‘Nain sent me into Llanfwrog to get her rations . . . she’s registered with Olly Jones and unless she can catch the bus it’s a hell of a walk.’

‘We’ve been to visit Muffy’s nain and taid,’ Rhodri said. ‘Are you going to the dance, come Saturday?’

‘Dunno; depends on whether I’m free,’ Hywel said. ‘I’ve got to be back on the airfield by six, though, so it’s unlikely.’ He bent to his pedals once more, easily overtaking the other two. ‘Race you to the Cross Foxes,’ he shouted.

Despite Nell’s hopes that the land girl would arrive within a couple of days, it was a further week before they got a telegram saying that Miss Margaret Smith would be arriving at Valley station at around 1200 hours the next day and would be grateful if she could be met.

Remembering her own arrival at Ty Hen, Nell was determined to be especially friendly towards the land girl and had offered to accompany her aunt to the station, though she took it philosophically when her offer was refused. ‘With me off half the day, because heaven alone knows what time her train will actually arrive, it ’ud be best if you and Eifion simply got on with the work,’ she had said, and though her words might have seemed harsh her tone was quite kindly. ‘You’ll have plenty of time to get to know the girl over the next few weeks.’

So when her alarm clock rang that Friday morning, Nell bounced out of bed and rushed through her morning ritual of washing and dressing feeling a warm glow of excitement and elation. Bryn would be returning to the island any day now and Nell was looking forward to telling Hywel that his best friend would soon be home once more. Of course she would not see much of Bryn, because the RNVR intended to take him back as soon as he was fit again. No one knew yet whether he would be offered a shore job or would go to sea again, but Nell thought it would be grand to have Margaret Smith’s company in her leisure activities as well as sharing the farm work. After all, the girl would have little choice but to go about with Nell, since she was unlikely to strike up a friendship with old Eifion.

Nell smiled to herself at the thought, for only the previous day Eifion had told her that he had never yet seen a ‘talkie’ at any of the cinemas in Llangefni or Holyhead, and did not intend to do so now. ‘I don’t see as how Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton can be any funnier talkin’ than they are silent,’ he had told her. ‘Anyhow, them talkies won’t last.’ He had sniffed disparagingly. ‘Why, they’ll be talkin’ about fillums in colour next!’

So now Nell hurried down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. The earliest Margaret Smith’s train could arrive at Valley was around lunchtime, so Auntie Kath was placidly getting breakfast and Nell, sighing impatiently, flew across the room to collect the loaf, thinking how nice it would be to have four of them round the table once again. Discussing farming matters was all very well, but when Bryn had been with them the talk had ranged over a great many subjects: the news of the day, the doings of local people, the comings and goings in the port of Holyhead. Now they discussed sheep shearing, the dairy herd and even the newfangled milking machines which were used in large farms on the mainland, but they did not often discuss current events because Eifion had young relatives in all the services and, though he would have denied it emphatically, both Kath and Nell were aware that he worried about them constantly. One of them, Gareth, was in the air force and stationed in North Africa, whilst another was a corporal with the British army in India, and several of his lads, as Eifion called them, were in either the Royal or the Wavy Navy. Eifion was proud of them all, but Nell knew he appreciated her aunt’s efforts to cause him as little anxiety as possible; accordingly, the two women only discussed the war when Eifion was not around.

Nell began her daily task of slicing the loaf and making toast, and as she did so she glanced out of the window and saw that the fine day was changing; clouds were racing across the blue sky and her aunt, following her niece’s gaze, gave a grunt of satisfaction. ‘It looks like rain, which we could really do with,’ she said. ‘Of course we’ve needed the sun to ripen the grain, but we need the rain too. I was just telling myself we’d soon have to start feeding hay to the cattle and horses, but if we have a good soak it may not be necessary for several weeks yet.’

Nell was about to remind her aunt that in the next week or so they would be cutting their own corn and helping others with their crops, so rain would not be welcome, when the back door opened and Eifion came in, a sack draped over his head and shoulders. He hung the sack on the back of the door and approached the table, rubbing his hands. ‘Nice spot of rain,’ he said. ‘My garden could do with it. The winter cabbage don’t seem bothered by the drought, but the runners is lookin’ droopy.’ He sat himself down in his usual place as he spoke, and grinned at Nell as she piled the toast up beside the marmalade pot. ‘What we want now is two full days and nights of steady rain, not hard enough to knock down the corn, but wet enough to nourish the root crops,’ he remarked as Kath put a filled bowl of porridge before him. ‘Thanks, missus. You’ll be off soon, I dare say, seeing as you’ll be picking up our new worker.’ He tutted and smiled slyly at Nell. ‘First you goes off, then the missus disappears for half the mornin’ . . .’

Nell finished the last slice of toast, sat down in her chair and pulled the bowl of porridge towards her. ‘Shove the honey this way, please, Eifion.’

Eifion did so and the three of them ate their breakfast and drank their tea almost in silence, though Nell noticed that they were all keeping an eye on the weather. As soon as the last piece of toast and marmalade had disappeared, she jumped to her feet and began to clear the table, causing her aunt’s eyebrows to shoot up and Eifion to give a throaty chuckle. ‘What’s your hurry, cariad?’ the old man asked. ‘Goin’ off somewhere when the milkin’s done, are you?’ He got to his feet and shuffled to the back door. ‘I guessed as much.’

Nell felt the colour steal into her cheeks and reflected that Eifion was no fool, though on this occasion he had not precisely hit the nail on the head. She grinned at him sheepishly. ‘Well I did think, if we finished the yard work early, I might be able to go to the station with Auntie. I could do the rest of my chores when we came back – feeding the pigs and poultry and so on.’

Eifion laughed and closed the back door behind him and Auntie Kath laughed too, but shook her head. ‘Good try, Nell; but I’m afraid it really won’t do,’ she said. ‘Once Eifion goes home, which he’ll likely want to do early if the rain persists, then the farmhouse will be empty. That wouldn’t matter in the usual way – you and I have both gone off to Llangefni or Holyhead occasionally, and left the house unoccupied – but today I want you to get a meal ready. The girl will want something to eat and drink when she arrives after a long, hot train journey.’

Nell pulled a face. Going over to the sink, she began to wash up. ‘You didn’t do that for me. I arrived after a long train journey, freezing cold and starving, and did you offer me a delicious hot meal? So far as I recall all I got was a cup of tea, and I had to make that myself!’

Auntie Kath laughed. ‘Oh well, you’re a relative; this girl’s a stranger. But I suppose, if you’re set on it, I could prepare something cold and leave it on the table, so we could eat as soon as we got back.’

Nell laughed too, but shook her head. ‘All right, all right, I know my duties as a relative, and that includes making supper, or lunch, or whatever. What’ll it be? I can scrub potatoes, pod peas, peel apples . . .’

‘All right, you don’t have to labour the point,’ Auntie Kath said, grinning, and Nell reflected how delightful the older woman could be when she was in the right mood. It was a pity this happened so seldom, but now she came to think of it, Auntie Kath was a good deal happier these days than she had been when Nell had first moved in. Lucky Margaret Smith! Perhaps her aunt was just putting on an act for a new employee, but if so it wasn’t like her. No, Auntie Kath was nothing if not straightforward. Perhaps in future life would be easier for everyone at Ty Hen.

But her aunt was looking at her enquiringly and Nell spoke hastily. ‘Sorry, Auntie; I’ll make the meal so long as you don’t expect any fancy stuff. What do you suggest?’

Auntie Kath picked up a teacloth and began to dry the crocks her niece had just washed. ‘I made a hunter’s pie last night. It’s in the meat safe in the pantry, so if you dig up a root of potatoes and pull a lettuce and some radishes – oh, and there are some tomatoes in the cold frame – that’ll do nicely. Then you can employ your cooking genius by stewing some plums and making custard.’

‘Ooh, I could make a plum cobbler; I’m good at them,’ Nell said confidently. ‘They’re only scone mix made a bit thicker and balanced on top of the fruit.’ She fished the cutlery out of the hot water, plonked it on the drainer, dried her water-wrinkled hands and headed for the back door. ‘Milking now!’ she shouted over her shoulder. ‘See you for elevenses, Auntie!’

Out in the shippon, Eifion already had his head buried in the warm, fudge-coloured flank of Nell’s favourite cow, but she picked up her milking stool and galvanised pail and moved along to the next stall. Pansy greeted her with a soft moo and Nell petted her before beginning to milk. She liked the fact that all her aunt’s cows were well treated, for both Aunt Kath and Eifion talked to the animals as they were moved from one pasture to the next, praising them fervently when the milk yield was only average and even more extra vagantly when it was good.

‘Which it almost always is, if you gain the cow’s trust,’ her aunt had impressed upon Nell in the early days. ‘A cow which is afraid of its milker tightens its bag and never really gives of its best. Remember that when you’re dealing with my small dairy herd, if you please.’

Nell had remembered, and was glad when her aunt had said firmly that she would never bring a milking machine on to her property, far less allow any of her workers to use one on her animals. When they had been discussing modern farming methods Bryn had said that it was all very well, but progress was progress and though each cow’s individual yield might be smaller if she were milked mechanically it would also be done in half the time. But he had not said this in her aunt’s presence, only privately, to Nell, when they were mucking out. ‘And anyway, it wouldn’t be worth the cost of the machines for a small herd,’ he had said. ‘Mrs J keeps eight cows, four in calf and four in milk, and she only needs the produce from one or two of ’em for her own butter and milk, the rest she can sell.’ He had grinned conspiratorially at Nell. ‘I was just a kid when I first heard folk talking about your aunt and saying she’d never make a success of Ty Hen. She was English, and though she spoke Welsh pretty good by the time Owain cocked up his heels, everyone knew she was a city girl and green as grass; it was plain as the nose on your face, they said confidently, that she’d be cheated right, left and centre. But was she?’ He had chuckled, his eyes sparkling. ‘No she was not – quite the opposite. It was soon pretty plain that Owain had taught her well and in fact she drove an even harder bargain than he had done when it was necessary. Within two years she had the farmhands firmly on her side; she raised their wages and kept their cottages in good repair, but that wasn’t the only reason. They respected her, and if she needed extra help at haymaking or harvest she either joined with other farmers or employed relatives of her own workers – kids, cousins, aunts and uncles – and of course that meant money in their pockets. Oh aye, she knew what she was doing, Mrs J.’