The Swallow and the Hummingbird (8 page)

‘Don’t witches wear black?’ he asked. Rita put her hand to her lips to suppress nervous laughter. Her grandmother was notorious for her unpredictable nature. Only Max could get away with teasing her about being a witch. To Rita’s surprise Mrs Megalith narrowed her eyes.

‘Not this one,’ she replied with a grin and George raised his eyebrows. Was it possible that she was being flirtatious?

‘You’re a bright star shining through war-torn Britain, Mrs Megalith.’

‘Thank you, George. You certainly know how to flatter an old girl. Now where’s your father? I hear he’s had some more information on that rare variety of French walnut.’

‘What is so special about walnut trees?’ Rita asked. Then when Megagran launched into a lengthy explanation she wished she hadn’t asked.

‘Dear girl, how much time have you got? They are very special trees with a fascinating history. Really, I’m surprised George hasn’t already told you. Walnut is so precious it was believed to belong to the Gods, that they ate it! The Persians referred to the nuts as “Royal Nuts” and it was a crime to touch them. The Greeks brought the tree to Rome in about one hundred BC where they grew at the time of Christ and the Romans brought them to England. It’s the most beautiful timber, deliciously rare and expensive. You have to guard your mature walnuts with your life, like Trees does, bless him. The one that overlooks your house, George, is a real corker! There’s nothing batty about your father, he’s a genius, a wonderful, much misunderstood genius. I bet he has one of the largest collections of walnuts in the country. Oh, and squirrels love them and we love squirrels, don’t we?’ Rita nodded, remembering how she used to feed them as a child in Megagran’s garden. ‘Especially barbecued with a little bacon,’ she added, smacking her lips.

‘Pa’s over there,’ said George, pointing to his father, towering at least a head above everyone else. When she moved regally on, Rita rolled her eyes.

‘Why did I get her going? I was simply humouring her.’

‘You need never humour a witch. They humour themselves. It must be a hoot to live like she does, with cats and cards and crystal balls.’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps she gets lonely,’ Rita said. ‘Even with all those cats.’

‘Not with Max and Ruth. They must be saints to live with her.’

‘They have no choice, poor lambs,’ said Rita with a smile.

‘But she’s never dull. The world has enough dull people in it. She’s a spark of colour in a grey world.’ For a moment his face clouded and he looked sad. She touched his arm and remembered her grandmother’s advice.

‘I’d like a glass of cider,’ she said. ‘I want to toast your homecoming more than anyone.’

‘Right, follow me,’ he said, smiling once again, and they weaved their way to where the drinks were set out at the far end of the barn.

Max and Ruth had arrived with Mrs Megalith but had got left behind in her wake and swept to one end of the barn where the barbecue was cooking. After a moment of hesitation, Ruth was dragged off by Eddie and her friends, leaving Max alone with a glass of cider. He watched his sister and felt heartened by her happy face. He was aware that, although Mrs Megalith was like a mother to them, they were very much alone in the world and he felt desperately protective of her. She was still a child and he was now seventeen. He ran a hand through his hair and surveyed the room. His eyes settled on Rita who was nuzzled up against George, and he suffered a pang of jealousy. He was ashamed that he had hoped George might not come back from the war. Shocked that he was capable of such a thought. He took in her long wild hair and pale face scattered with freckles like a thrush’s egg and wished that she would look at him with the same devotion she reserved for George. He wrenched his eyes away for the sight only caused him pain and observed with amusement the rapacious eyes of the Elvestree witch.

Mrs Megalith had the rare ability of being able to concentrate on many things at the same time. While she listened to Trees telling her about the French walnut trees he hoped to import to Devon, she noticed Maddie in the midst of a group of young men at the other end of the barn. She was sitting in a very unladylike fashion on the knee of one of George’s friends. She had her arms around his neck and her legs slightly apart, roaring with laughter with her mouth wide open. Hannah was too busy talking to Reverend Hammond’s wife, Vera, to notice, and Humphrey was discussing the continuing war in Japan with Mike Purdie, his neighbour. Eddie had found Ruth and a few other young people to entertain and was running through the barn like the pied piper of Hamelin, making a frightful din. She looked back at Maddie. Suddenly in her mind’s eye she had the vision of her granddaughter in the arms of a GI in the back of a jeep. She blinked the image away; it was most distasteful, not to mention intrusive, but it certainly made sense of Maddie’s lack of motivation. ‘She has discovered the forbidden pleasures of the flesh, God bless her,’ thought Mrs Megalith to herself, remembering her own first taste of it many moons ago. She hoped the girl’s desire wouldn’t get the better of her.

The party was jolly, a veritable celebration of George’s homecoming and victory. The atmosphere was carefree and vibrating with excitement. Years of conflict had united everyone in fear and purpose and now liberation united them again in festivity. Yet they didn’t forget those who had given their lives in service and held a moment of silence to honour them. During that moment Max thought of his parents and suppressed the dull ache that came on the occasions that he allowed himself to remember them. Reverend Hammond took his wife’s hand and silently prayed for the soul of their son Rupert, killed at Dunkirk. Then Trees toasted George, too overcome to say more. Rita looked up and noticed that Max was staring at her, his eyes glazed and sad. She smiled at him but he seemed not to see her. Then the dancing began and the sound of feet tapping caused the whole barn to shudder and the record on Faye’s gramophone to skip.

Faye watched her son as he swung Rita off the dance floor and out into the night.

It was raining now, a light drizzle on a strong wind. The air was fresh and smelt heavily of damp earth and foliage. George took her by the hand and they ran through the farm to an old shed that stood low and squat beside a large chestnut tree. He pulled the bolt and opened the door. They crept inside to where it was pleasantly warm and dry and full of newborn calves. When George closed the door behind him, the soft shuffling of hooves on straw and low mooing rose out of the silence as the animals strained their senses to observe them. The place was illuminated by a dim light and Rita was enchanted by the shiny-eyed calves who pushed their faces through the bars of their pens to look at her. Without saying a word she crouched down and stroked their silky faces and wet noses. The mooing grew louder as they all demanded to be petted. George took her hand and raised her to her feet. She followed him up a ladder to the hayloft, where it was cosy and sweet smelling.

They could hear the wind whistling over the roof of the shed but the hay was soft and warm to lie on. The rustling from the pens diminished as the calves settled down again and only the odd moo disrupted their peaceful breathing.

George kissed her. It wasn’t the fevered kissing of their cave but slow and tender and full of significance. ‘I can’t cope with the crowd. I just want to be alone with you,’ he said, burying his face in her neck and running his lips over her damp skin.

Her dress was wet from the rain and clinging to her body like seaweed. She smelt of violets and her own brand of innocence and George was reminded, by the contrast, of the loose women he had bedded during the war in order to feel human again and to forget the carnage of combat. But it felt strange. Familiar, comforting, but strange, as if he had come home expecting to fit into his old mould, surprised that he had grown out of it. Rita seemed unaware of the difference, which made it somehow harder to make sense of and certainly impossible to communicate. He looked down at her flushed, still childish face and realized that, as much as he enjoyed her, he didn’t want to mar her purity by making love to her. Everything about the war had been sordid. Rita remained untarnished. He wanted to preserve it for as long as he could.

She looked at him quizzically as if aware of the turmoil of his thoughts. ‘Forget the war, my love,’ she whispered, smiling up at him timidly. ‘It’s over. You’re home and I’m here to comfort you.’

‘Thank God for you, Rita,’ he mumbled, burying his face in her neck again. ‘Thank God for you.’

Chapter 5

The following day Rita sat in church next to her mother and Maddie. Hannah wore a simple beige hat beneath which her face assumed an expression of intense piety as she stared solemnly into her prayer book, unable to read a word because of her poor eyesight. If she had known that one of her daughters sat before God tainted and unashamed and the other entertained thoughts of a sexual nature, she would have sunk to her knees in horror.

But Maddie was careful to keep her voice low. ‘So, what was it like?’ she hissed into her sister’s ear.

Rita blushed and lowered her hat to hide from her mother. ‘Lovely,’ she replied with a contented sigh.

‘Where did you go? You didn’t get back until dawn.’

‘I know!’ Rita stifled a yawn. ‘We went to the shed full of newborn calves. They were adorable.’

‘You made love in a cowshed?’ Maddie gasped in horror.

‘No, we were in the hayloft, not the cowshed. And we didn’t make love.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘No.’

‘Why on earth not?’

‘Because we’re not married.’

Maddie shook her head. ‘You foolish girl!’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Shhh,’ silenced their mother. ‘Don’t forget that this is God’s house and you, Rita, have much to thank Him for.’ Rita nodded and glanced across the aisle to where Faye and Trees sat with Alice, the children and George. They, too, had much to be thankful for. She caught George’s eye and he grinned back at her discreetly, the intimacy of the night before still shining in his speckled grey eyes.

As Reverend Hammond strode into the centre of the nave, dignified in his long black robe and white dog collar, only his long grey curls rebelled against the studied perfection of his demeanour. Like Hannah, he assumed a different guise in church. He seemed taller, broader, more imposing in his role as vicar than when he was Elwyn Hammond, the husband and grandfather buying vegetables from Miss Hogmier’s village shop. In God’s house he was God’s spokesman. A man of vocation whose duty it was to be God’s shepherd, to lead His sheep home, to show that the way to heaven was through suffering and repentance. Reverend Hammond knew suffering better than most, having lost his only son, and he knew love and compassion too, for his daughter-in-law had brought his grandchildren to live with them in Frognal Point. Every day he saw his son in the faces of those two children and every day he mourned him, but he took comfort that Rupert was with God now. He had found his way home and was at peace.

The congregation fell silent as Reverend Hammond’s deep voice resonated through the church like the low moan of a double bass. He spoke slowly, articulating his words with care so that even the old and partially deaf could hear him at the back. Rita looked past her mother to Eddie, who sat doodling on a small notepad. She was careful to draw patterns of crucifixes in case her mother took her eyes off Reverend Hammond to see what she was doing. Humphrey sat beside her, his small round glasses perched on the end of his nose, flicking through the hymn book. He wasn’t a religious man and found Reverend Hammond extremely tedious and self-satisfied. But he liked to come to support Hannah, who never missed church, even when she was sick.

Suddenly the door burst open and Reverend Hammond’s voice trailed off in surprise. There was little that could silence the good Reverend so every head in the congregation turned to the door to see what kind of demon stood there. Rita craned her neck, then nudged Maddie urgently. Mrs Megalith paused a moment at the entrance while the fresh coastal wind blew in and caused her long blue dress to billow about her ankles. She sniffed as her moonstone eyes surveyed the scene before her. It had been years, literally, since she had last been to church, but only a matter of weeks since she had last clashed with Reverend Hammond over the corruption of the word of God by organized religion. Reverend Hammond found he could not continue. Mrs Megalith had reduced him to a gasping fish floundering on a riverbank.

She proceeded to walk up the aisle, slow and stately, the tapping of her stick echoing ominously off the walls. No one spoke. Only Eddie giggled mischievously into her hand to be silenced by a sharp nudge from her mother. Hannah was aghast. Megagran was famous for hating church, the vicar and for finding the very institution of religion dogmatic, not to say mercenary. She claimed she felt the presence of God in her garden and didn’t need to pay good money for the privilege of sitting in His house and hearing the vicar speak of Him as if he knew Him more intimately than anyone else. ‘It’s a bloody con,’ she would say. ‘If people knew they could talk to Him in the comfort of their own kitchens they wouldn’t bother going to church and listening to that old bore lecture them about suffering.’ Now Hannah cringed as her mother forced them all to squeeze together so that she could sit at the end of the pew. Reverend Hammond watched the large crystals around her neck glitter as they caught the light and nervously fingered the simple cross that hung about his own. He seemed to have shrunk and, when he finally managed to speak, his voice was little more than a croak.

‘We are
all
welcome here in God’s house,’ he began and tried to ignore the loud ‘tut’ from Mrs Megalith and the challenging expression in her eyes. Hannah wondered what on earth had possessed her mother to come. What’s more, thanks to her, they were all exceedingly uncomfortable squashed together like cans on the kitchen shelf. ‘Let us sing hymn number three hundred and twenty-five,
I Vow To Thee My Country
.’ The congregation rose to its feet and sang in hearty voices the hymn they all knew and loved so well. Reverend Hammond was only too happy to hand the service over to Miss Hogmier and her uncertain organ playing.