‘I don’t want to go back to live in Swansea and look after him.’ I knew I sounded like a sulky little girl then.
‘Don’t be silly, you won’t have to, you’re still at school. In any case Swansea’s still being heavily bombed, the dreaded “authorities” won’t want children going back to all that danger, where’s your common sense, Meryl?’
I was comforted, his words had the ring of truth. Of course I still had to go to school and I loved the little school outside the village; our history teacher was a grumpy old man but he knew how to inspire, how to make even dull history exciting.
Mr Funnel drew pictures on the board, showed us maps of where the Germans were. He had been in the other war, the big bad first World War against Germany and he hated the enemy savagely. I sometimes wished he could know Michael, who had a German father but who was good and kind and wouldn’t hurt any living creature, but that was a secret I would carry with me to the grave if I had to.
Michael was taking me for an evening walk just as the sun was dying over the fields of ripe corn. The cows, milked and content, stood patiently in the grass, bending now and then to graze, not hungry but wanting the cud in soft mouths to chew and ruminate and be at peace with themselves. The bovine life was all gentleness and if I was gifted with words I would have written poems to the animals, poems about stoicism and yielding sweet milk for the needs of others.
‘Come on, little monster, let’s head back.’ Michael spun me around and held me facing him. I leaned forward and planted a kiss on his mouth and lingered. And then he pushed me away and laughed.
‘Hey, miss! Don’t act like that in Swansea or you’re likely to be taken advantage of.’
If only he would take advantage of me, hug me close, kiss me deeply, caress my shoulders, touch my hair with loving hands, look at me with loving eyes. But Michael was striding away.
‘Come on, keep up, your legs are nearly as long as mine.’ So Michael had noticed my legs. All at once I was warm. There was hope for us yet.
Aunt Jessie looked us over carefully when we went into the kitchen. ‘You two are like hobos,’ she said, ‘go and get washed up the pair of you, you stink of animals and the fields.’
‘Come on, squirt.’ Michael caught me around the neck with his big hand. I’ll get the hot water for you.’
He prepared the big tin bath, laid towels out for me, presented me with a new bar of soap as if it was a wonderful gift. Of course, these days, it was. I could hear Aunt Jessie calling him.
‘Don’t stay in too long,’ was his parting shot, ‘I’ve got to get in there after you.’ Then with a mischievous look on his face, ‘And no doing, you know what, in the water.’
I blushed furiously. As if I would. I could hear the rumble of voices from the kitchen but couldn’t distinguish the words. But then Aunt Jessie raised her voice.
‘She’s not a child any more, open your eyes Michael, she’s a very beautiful young lady and I’ve seen that George Dixon hanging about, carrying her books, all that sort of thing.’
I stifled a laugh. Georgie Porgy had no chance of going out with me. I wanted to hear what Michael would reply but his voice was low.
Aunt Jessie again. ‘Sometimes you men won’t see what’s under your nose.’ I think she meant me. Did Michael want to find other girlfriends then? Did he already have someone in the village? He didn’t go out of an evening much it was true but then there were farmers’ markets, meetings to talk about boring things like cattle fodder and, even worse, manure for the land, or lime, or the latest milking machine. How did I really know what Michael’s life was all about? And then of course there was my sister Hari.
I felt uncertain and got up from the bath and stood there blindly thinking about Michael in another woman’s arms. It was awful. The door opened abruptly and Michael stared at me. I stood there naked, seeing a sudden light in his eyes and I felt nothing but joy that he was really seeing me for the first time in his life as the growing woman I was.
He shut the door as abruptly as he’d opened it but I smiled a womanly, somehow triumphant, smile before I reached for the towel and began to dry myself.
I would like to think that everything changed from that moment, but it didn’t. Michael was the same to me as he’d ever been, casually affectionate, and in my heart I knew he’d seen not me but an older woman, a real woman, not the child he’d rescued from the cold fields. He was seeing my sister Hari.
Twenty
Hari knew Kate was nervous. She clung to the door handle of the car, her knees were tense, and when the car swayed around a bend Kate winced as though something pained her.
‘All right, Kate, if you want to stop for a bit there’s a little cafe up ahead. Shall we have a cup of tea?’
‘Please, Hari,’ Kate said softly.
Hari was worried about Kate; it was as if all the life had gone out of her. She was cowed and frightened and the fun, the spirit, had left her. Kate was diminished, shrunk into a dark world of pain, changed forever by the tragic events of her life.
They drank their tea, which was stewed and the cafe was cold. Soon, Kate pushed back her chair. ‘Let’s get on,’ she said, ‘it’s freezin’ here so it is.’
The hospital smelled of disinfectant and the walls were a dowdy brown and cream; along the corridors the nurses bustled with wings of pristine hats flying.
‘Hari, my dear girl.’ Her father looked well, his cheeks a little flushed as it was warm in the hospital with the heating going full blast. He was sitting outside the bedclothes, his brightly coloured paisley dressing gown tied around his waist so that his thinness was betrayed by the drape of the cloth.
Hari kissed his cheek. ‘Father, here’s Kate who’s come with me to see you.’ She gestured to him that Kate couldn’t see him and he nodded and took Kate’s hand.
‘Hello, Kate, how are your folks keeping?’
‘All dead,’ she said flatly. Hari saw her father frown. ‘I’m sorry, Kate, really sorry.’
Hari shook her head. ‘Anyway, Father, tell us what happened to you?’
He was eager to talk. ‘Well, Hari, we were ordered to advance. There was a nest of Germans in a hut and, as the officer, I naturally had to go ahead and throw a grenade into the viper’s bed. I got shot.’ He looked sheepish and Hari suppressed a smile.
‘What injuries, Father?’
‘A leg wound, not bad really, but my foot got infected. In the end it had to be amputated, same as some of these other boys here.’ He gestured round at the young men in the beds near him.
One of the men looked up and Hari recognized him. She had met him once at a dance; he’d given Kate stockings and Kate, well, Kate had given him comfort. All his limbs seemed to be intact but his face was badly scarred.
‘Hari!’ Stephen had spotted her. ‘And Kate! It’s me, Stephen. Come and give me a little bit of your time, there’s a love. I haven’t had a visitor since I’ve been here.’
‘Who is it?’ Kate held out her hand and Hari, with an apologetic smile at her father, led Kate to the other bed.
Stephen took Kate’s hand. ‘It’s me, the brash airman who once was so young and arrogant. What’s happened to you then, Kate?’ He pulled her until she was sitting on the bed beside him.
‘The war happened, Stephen,’ she said, ‘I got blown up in the munitions factory, lucky to be alive, so they tell me. I can’t see any more, you’ll have to tell me what happened to you.’
‘Shot down, what else?’ he said. ‘I’m scarred, my face… Not too bad though compared to my friends who were burned to toast where they sat in the pilot seat. I still hear their screams. Sometimes I’m afraid to go to sleep.’
Kate touched his face with her fingertips. ‘As you say, not too bad, Stephen.’ She smiled for the first time that day, Hari noticed.
‘Anyway, weren’t you always too good-looking for your own good?’
‘Kate, I’m sorry—’ his voice was soft—‘not for loving you but for taking advantage. I did care about you, you know, and then I went away and when I came back I heard about the other pilots and I didn’t feel special any
