Kitabı oku: «Land Girls: The Promise: A moving and heartwarming wartime saga»

Prologue

A s the young girl with red hair reached the street, she was surprised to see her mother, Margot Dawson, standing outside their house. Of course, she had seen her there hundreds of times before, cleaning the step, chatting to neighbours, but there was something odd about her being there now. Something was wrong. Her mother looked bewildered, in shock, her eyes large and fearful. And when she glanced at the girl, it was almost as if she didn’t really recognise her at first. “Iris?” she said, snapping out of it. She grabbed hold of her daughter, seemingly as much for support as for the need to talk to her. She pulled her towards her. Margot knelt down, her voice deliberate, but brittle.

“I need you to do something. Can you do it for me, darling?” The words were tinged with desperation, making Iris realise that the only answer her mother wanted to hear was yes.

The girl nodded. But her mother still looked troubled, perhaps unconvinced. So she touched her mother lightly on the shoulder to reassure her. She had seen adults do that and it seemed to work. But here it was a silent promise. A child’s promise.

And now, seven years later, 17-year-old Iris Dawson tried to put the memory to the back of her mind as she walked towards the church in the middle of Helmstead. She didn’t realise that sometimes you get a second chance in life. Sometimes you get a chance to put things right.

It was a bright, sunny day when they buried Walter Storey.

The good and the great of Helmstead put on their finest clothes and trudged dutifully to the church to pay their respects to the young man. A man who had been taken too soon. Talking in hushed tones, they moved slowly down the paved pathway, their faces dappled with sun from above the oak trees lining the graveyard. The Reverend Henry Jameson, dressed in full ministerial regalia, was there to greet them and offer them comforting words as they filed into the church.

Iris Dawson stopped by the church gate. She was an eager-to-please and enthusiastic young woman with pale, flawless skin, large blue eyes and a shock of curly red hair that fell in natural ringlets. Currently her face was etched with a deep sense of foreboding, a chill spreading up her spine, as if it was being caressed by icy fingers. After everything that had happened she would rather be anywhere else in the world right now. She certainly didn’t want to go inside. But she knew it would be frowned upon if she didn’t show her face. She opened her small handbag and, being careful so that no one would see, removed a tiny rag doll. It was no more than two inches high, adorned in a battered red-checked dress, one of its eyes missing. A threadbare totem from childhood that had been there through everything. Iris gripped it tightly in her hand, knowing it wouldn’t be visible. She took a deep breath and, without enthusiasm, walked slowly towards the church, offering a tight smile to the reverend as she passed. She hesitated on the threshold, took a deep breath, and stepped inside, her footsteps echoing on the stone floor. Beyond the rapidly filling pews, she could see the coffin, positioned in the central aisle. She edged away from it and found a seat, stoically looking at the stained- glass window ahead rather than the coffin. Thinking about the body would bring the traumatic events of the last few days flooding back into her mind, and she was struggling enough to hold things together without that. She had to focus on the window.

Walter had been Vernon Storey’s eldest son. Vernon was not a well-liked man in the village. His grasping and suspicious demeanour might have made him unpleasant company, but it was his streak of callousness that really made people uneasy. There was something, a strange and intangible something, that festered in him. A dark heart. But most people had liked Walter. Displaying different traits to his father, he was a strong, principled boy, who seemed ready to blossom. Desperate to fight in the war, Walter felt constrained by his reserved-occupation status, which meant he had to stay on the home front. He wanted to ‘do his bit’ for king and country, but had to resign himself to running Shallow Brook Farm with his father. The two of them, with their personalities often at odds, found living and working together a stressful, combative experience. And frankly, given his parental influence, it was a surprise that Walter had turned out as decently as he had. Iris remembered that Walter felt conflicted and uneasy about helping Vernon do certain things that were not morally right; the petty scams and fiddles that he wanted him to take part in. But feeling duty-bound and with his father’s taunts of ‘blood being thicker than water’ he would do them with gritted teeth. The ties of blood were important to Walter, innately enshrined in his conscience. Perhaps unable to see his father’s faults, he strove for validation and praise from the older man. For his part, Vernon recognised this need in his son. But to Vernon it was just another weapon to use to get Walter to do what he wanted.

The crowd settled into the pews, every seat taken, much to the reverend’s surprise. But then this wasn’t quite an ordinary funeral. There were mourners present who hadn’t just come to pay their respects. They knew that Walter had been murdered. They knew a man had been arrested for the crime and was locked up in the sole cell in the nearby police station. That added a frisson to the funeral service that that didn’t usually happen when someone just died of old age. Iris calculated that half of the mourners were present for genuine reasons of sharing a loss, and half were present for the potential spectacle. Murder was unusual in such a small, sleepy village.

Iris sat in the church and listened to Vernon’s tearful eulogy to his son. All the gathered people had their eyes opened to a level of paternal love that they had never suspected before. Apparently Walter had been the perfect son. A clever boy, who had worked hard to make Shallow Brook Farm a success. A friend who had kept Vernon company in the long days since his wife’s passing. Many in the church had to stifle their surprise at hearing such warm words. During Walter’s life, Vernon had rarely offered so much as the smallest compliment, preferring to default to criticism and ridicule to get what he wanted from the boy. But in death, the eulogy of previously unspoken and unguessed words was fulsome. Frederick Finch threw Iris a subtle look of surprise. Were they hearing this right? They both knew that Vernon was the sort of man who would clip his son around the ear rather than say something nice.

But, perhaps predictably, Vernon couldn’t maintain the kind words. The eulogy slowly turned from a glowing tribute to a desire for justice for the man who had killed his son. Iris shifted uneasily in her pew. For Iris, this was a great time of torment. Not because she was particularly close to Walter; in fact, if anything, she hadn’t liked him for the way he would continually needle her and her friend Frank Tucker, the good-natured and kind handyman at Pasture Farm. No, Iris’s torment stemmed from the fact that everyone thought Frank had been the man who’d killed him. It had been a war of words, and then fists, which had escalated between Tucker and the Storeys. Iris wondered if it stemmed from some historical rivalry between the two families, but the last few weeks had seen things get worse. Much worse. And Iris had been caught in the middle of things. She tried to talk reason into Walter. She tried to calm down Frank and stop him retaliating. But she hadn’t been able to stop them. Things had spiralled out of control. Typical men!

On the fateful day that Walter Storey died, Iris had been working on a tractor in a nearby field. She was alarmed to see Frank moving away from the barn, staggering, with cuts and bruises around his face. She could see the state of him. She’d called his name and he’d given her the smallest of glances before hurrying away. Iris couldn’t leave the tractor until she had finished operating the plough, but a few minutes later she’d noticed that Walter was staggering away from the barn. He’d looked battered and bloodied. There was no doubting that a vicious fight had taken place inside. Iris had known she had to check on Frank and see how he was.

Fearing the worst, Iris had finished her work and then ran to Frank’s shed. His sanctuary. She’d been relieved to find Frank sitting down. His brow had been beaded with sweat and there was bruising on one of his cheeks, but apart from that he hadn’t looked particularly injured. It had seemed that Walter had come out worse.

“Are you all right?” Iris had asked.

Frank nodded. “Hope that will be the end of it. That’ll teach him never to creep up on a poacher.” Whereas some men would be full of bravado at winning a fight, he looked ashamed that it had come to this. A quiet, kind man, Frank Tucker would only use violence as a final resort.

But Frank’s hope that the spiral of events might have ended was quashed later that day, when Walter’s body had been found in the barn. Vernon said that he had come searching for his son when he hadn’t returned home and he had made the horrific discovery. He raised the alarm and soon everyone from Pasture Farm was gathered around the barn, trying to console the distraught man. Iris had been there with the other Land Girls, numb and confused. But she couldn’t understand. Why was Walter here? Why was he dead? She’d seen him leave the barn. Maybe he had returned for a rematch and Frank had accidentally killed him. But that didn’t make sense to her. So while the accusations started to fly and people started to wonder where Frank was, Iris knew, with total certainty, that she had seen Walter walk away from the fight. She tried to calm things down and said she’d ask Frank why another fight had taken place. She felt disappointed that Frank would have stooped to physical violence again. It didn’t seem likely.

“Well, it looks as if he did,” Esther said, sadly.

“Looks as though he couldn’t stop himself this time,” Joyce added.

But Iris felt that they were all wrong. Frank wasn’t like that. But her protestations were ignored as rumblings of a mob mentality started to rise slowly within the large group. Finch thought they had to find Frank to get him to account for his actions. Esther thought they should call the police. Vernon urged them to do both things, a fury in his eyes. The man wanted justice for his son. When they finally found Frank Tucker, he seemed shocked by the news. Walter was dead? Frank seemed to crumple before their eyes, crushed by the intense regret that he felt. He must have hit the boy too hard. In the end, there was no need to call the police because Frank had turned himself in when Vernon had accused him of murdering Walter. If he was under suspicion, then he wasn’t a man who would run away. And Iris guessed that Frank probably believed he was responsible. After all, he had given Walter a savage beating. Perhaps one of those blows had later proved fatal.

And now, as Iris stood by the grave, her attention wandered as the Reverend Henry Jameson committed Walter’s body to the ground. With the words washing over her, she found herself glancing slyly at the mourners. Mrs Gladys Gulliver, the town’s busybody and self-appointed moral barometer, sniffing, in a mixture of indignation and judgement; Fred Finch, the ebullient farmer, nodding his head sagely at the words; Connie Carter, Iris’s glamorous friend, smiling encouragingly as her husband, the vicar, delivered the words. And then there had been Vernon Storey, dressed in his best suit and looking suitably stern-faced. Something troubled Iris about this man. Something was wrong. It wasn’t only the fact that when he had delivered an impassioned eulogy about how he had lost his boy, when the words seemed so out of kilter with their actual lives. Something also troubled Iris about when Vernon had scrunched his face up and cried; she’d noticed that no tears had come. She wondered if that was normal. Could you cry without tears?

Frank would know.

But unfortunately Frank had been arrested and was being kept in the village police station. Iris wanted to go to see him later, after the funeral. But first she needed to pay her respects to Vernon. That would be the decent thing to do. That’s what a lady would do. Her mum might be proud of her doing that. She clutched her handbag, as if it was a protective talisman, and edged nearer, listening as Henry’s words of comfort were carried by the gentle breeze.

When the service was over and the good and the great were dispersing, she approached a brooding Vernon. By this stage, her mind was so muddled. If Frank thought he’d done it and Vernon thought he’d done it, then surely that was the end of the matter. It might have been a tragic and regrettable accident, a fight gone too far, but Frank Tucker would hang for his crime. Iris felt bereft that her friend, Frank, had done this. Since she’d arrived at Pasture Farm, Frank had been like a surrogate father for her, guiding her and helping her as she navigated life as a Land Girl. He had been teaching her to read and write, painstakingly giving her lessons in the evenings. He was a good man. If he was guilty, then it was such a waste.

“Sorry about Walter,” Iris stammered.

“Not your fault.” Vernon scowled. “It was that flaming friend of yours. He battered my boy.”

Iris was taken aback by his ferocity and found herself involuntarily taking a step away. The Reverend Henry Jameson tried to console Vernon with a warm smile. It wasn’t the time or the place for such outbursts.

“Why did he have to go back to that barn?” Iris asked. It was a casual expression of regret that this was the one decision that had led to Walter’s demise, nothing more. She hadn’t intended it to be a searching question, but the answer surprised her.

“He didn’t,” Vernon said gruffly.

“Really?” Iris asked.

“He didn’t go back, you silly girl.”

“Are you sure?” Iris wanted to say she had definitely seen Walter walk away from the barn after the fight. He must have gone back. There must have been a rematch. But Vernon was obviously in no mood for splitting hairs. And the reverend was right; it wasn’t the time or place. Vernon left her in the graveyard, her head swimming with a nagging feeling that something wasn’t right.

As the last remaining mourners left, Iris kept her word to Frank Tucker and went to see him at the police station. The only policeman in the station was PC Thorne. On secondment from nearby Brinford, PC Thorne had found himself in the unenviable position of serving three villages and two towns as their sole source of law enforcement. All the other police officers had been conscripted into the armed forces. He didn’t really have the time or inclination to help Iris, but he knew he was duty-bound to do so.

Iris was allowed to see Frank for five minutes and she was led into a cold room with a table and two chairs, walls decorated with half-green and half-cream walls. Frank was brought in. He was pleased to see her and tried to be pleasant and humorous towards her; as if they were just talking in his shed after dinner. But Iris could see the fear in his eyes; his shoulders stooped with defeat, his hair lank and unwashed. Had he already given up? She knew that he would be put on trial for this and, if found guilty, he would be hanged by the neck.

“How are you?” Iris said, somewhat redundantly.

“The food isn’t as good as Esther’s, but at least there’s not so much yakking at meal times.” Frank shrugged.

“You’ve come here just to get away from all us Land Girls, haven’t you?” She smiled. Frank smiled too, warmth in his eyes. But the warmth bled away as an awkward silence filled the room. Then Frank sighed and told Iris what he wanted to happen. His words surprised her.

“I don’t want you coming again,” he said. “This isn’t how I want you to remember me.”

“Don’t talk daft. You’ll be back,” Iris said bravely. “You’ve got to help me finish writing a letter home, haven’t you?”

“Someone else will have to teach you.” He nodded, closing the matter in his mind. Iris felt a little foolish for trying to lighten the mood at the wrong moment.

“I mean it, Iris. You forget about all this. Remember those evenings when you’d be chewing your pencil and I’d be helping you trace the alphabet. You remember those times, eh? Not these ones.”

Iris knew better than to question such finality. His mind was made up and any entreaties she made would likely make his veneer of control snap. And she didn’t want to show that lack of respect to a man she admired. So she decided it would be best to come straight to the point and tell him what had troubled her at the graveyard.

“There’s just one thing I don’t understand. Why did Walter come back for a rematch?” she asked.

Frank looked puzzled. She guessed that it all seemed a bit irrelevant to him now. What did it matter? As far as he was concerned, he’d killed a man and that was that.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw Walter Storey walk away from that fight a few minutes after you left.”

“Yeah, but he died from what I did to him. The body is a strange old thing. Maybe it took time for the injury to kill him.”

“What was he like after the fight?” Iris persisted.

Frank rubbed the bridge of his nose and thought about what had happened. “We’d had the fight. I’d given Storey a beating and left him in the barn. The boy wasn’t unconscious or anything. There didn’t seem to be any cause for concern.”

“And what happened then?”

“What are you getting at?” But Iris’s insistent look made Frank realise that she needed an answer. “I walked to my shed and got on with mending a couple of rakes. That’s when you came to see me.”

“But I saw Walter leave the barn.”

“What are you saying?” Frank was clearly confused by what she was trying to tell him, so Iris decided she had to spell it out.

“You must have had another fight with him. A rematch?”

Frank shook his head. No, definitely not. “Maybe he came back to the barn looking for me and then collapsed?”

Now it was Iris’s turn to sigh. She hadn’t thought of that option. “Maybe,” she whispered, deflated. The discussion seemed to make Frank withdraw into himself and a brooding silence filled the small room. There seemed to be nothing else to say.

As she wished Frank well and left the police station, Iris struggled not to show Frank that she was upset. Stiff upper lip and all that. It seemed to be how he wanted to play it too. There would be no big, tearful goodbye, just a matter-of-fact parting of the ways. The last moments of a friendship. She walked with unsteady legs down the steps of Helmstead Police Station, her mind more confused than ever. She decided that she had to see Vernon again.

“‘Ere, I told you loads of times, I don’t like pickle!” Connie protested, as she unwrapped her sandwich and realised that Esther had given her just that on her cheese. Esther shook her head and apologised. She rooted in her wicker trug for another sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper. She found one with a ‘C’ written on the side.

“Here’s yours, Little Miss Fusspot,” Esther said.

“I can’t help it.” Connie handed back the offending sandwich in exchange. “Pickle’s unnatural, innit?”

“I like it,” Joyce commented.

“Well, you’re unnatural.” Connie smiled.

As the friends joked and started their lunches in the West Field, Iris took her greaseproof parcel with her and trotted across the yard. She could feel the other girls looking pityingly at her as she went.

“She’s lost without that Frank, isn’t she?” Connie said.

“Terrible business,” Joyce replied.

When Iris was out of sight, she increased her speed, running in a jog all the way out of the gates of Pasture Farm. She ran down the lane, avoiding the pot holes as if she was playing hopscotch, and soon came to the neighbouring farm. Shallow Brook Farm. The Storeys’ farm. Unlike Pasture Farm, this place looked deserted, a dark shell with decaying tractors and machines standing in a yard overgrown with weeds. Iris made her way towards the farmhouse. She rapped on the slatted wooden door, paint flakes peeling away on her knuckles. How many summers ago had this place been painted?

There was no answer. And yet, the door slowly creaked open. Vernon had left it unlocked.

Iris poked her head into the hallway, where a broken mahogany barometer pointed towards snow.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Iris shouted.

Nothing came back.

Iris’s heart was pounding. She had come to see Vernon, but perhaps it was a good thing that he wasn’t home. She could look inside and have a nose around. A regular Miss Marple. Should she do this? She didn’t even know what she was looking for. Perhaps some sign that Walter had returned home before going back to the barn? What would that prove? Iris wasn’t sure. All she knew was that a man’s life was at stake here and if something was niggling her about the order of events, then she had to put her mind at rest. Something wasn’t right. Iris wished for a moment that she had Miss Marple’s abilities.

She moved cautiously from the hallway into the dining room. The fireplace smouldered with yesterday’s fire. A garish red-patterned rug filled much of the floor space, held down by dark-wooden furniture dotted around the room. A bureau stacked with paperwork and bills. A telephone on a side table. An armchair with worn hand rests. She guessed this was Vernon’s chair as his glasses rested on the edge next to a rolled-up newspaper. Iris tentatively moved across the room.

“Hello?” she shouted, feeling perhaps that she was covering herself from accusations of breaking and entering.

Again there was no reply. It was likely that Vernon Storey was holding some kind of wake in the Bottle and Glass, regaling people with tales of his son.

Iris moved towards the bureau.

Crack!

It barely made a sound, but something crunched under her foot. She looked down and peeled the edge of the rug back. A long sliver of glass from a bottle had broken in two. But as Iris examined it, she could see something sticky along one edge. A dark liquid. In sudden horror she realised that it was blood. Could it be Walter’s blood? They said he had a wound on his head. Was this evidence? What would Miss Marple do? Her mind was racing. Thinking quickly, she plucked her handkerchief from her pocket and, as if it was a small, injured bird, carefully wrapped the glass up. Suddenly she knew she had to get out of there; show PC Thorne what she had found.

“Can I help you, Iris?” A soft voice, weary.

Iris span around to find Vernon in the doorway. He was blinking in the light, his face more crumpled than usual. Had he been drinking? Sleeping? It didn’t matter. He was here and that was a problem. Iris hid the handkerchief behind her back.

“I came to … pay my respects,” she stammered.

“Again?” A note of suspicion in his voice, his shrewish eyes suddenly alert and scanning her face.

“Yes.” Slowly, Iris slipped the handkerchief into her pocket.

“And that was all you came for?” Vernon took a step towards her. He was a short man, but his personality gave him a threatening demeanour. Iris struggled to stop herself taking a step backwards. She knew it wouldn’t play well if she showed fear. If she was paying her respects, then she shouldn’t show fear, should she?

“Anyway, I’d better get back. Esther will be wondering …” Iris smiled as winningly as she could manage. She took a step towards the door, aware that Vernon was still blocking any escape.

“Stay a little longer,” he rasped, his words somewhere in that uncertain area between a threat and a pleasant invitation. “Have a drink to my Walter, eh? If you’ve come to pay your respects …”

He crossed to the sideboard, where a motley and dusty collection of bottles formed a drinks ‘cabinet’. Now the door was unblocked. There was a gap and Iris could make a run for it. But she didn’t want Vernon to suspect that anything was wrong; she didn’t want to alert his suspicions. After all, even if she got past him, she’d have to outrun him all the way back to Pasture Farm.

“I’d better … you know.” Iris glanced towards the door. To her surprise and relief, he nodded his consent. And as he busied himself pouring a drink at the sideboard, Iris started to walk towards the door, as slowly and as normally as she could manage. She thought she had got away with it, when, without turning his back, Vernon asked a soft and unnerving question.

“What’s that in your pocket, Iris?”

She felt her mouth go instantly dry, her breathing becoming more rapid. She stopped in her tracks. He’d noticed what she was doing. How much had he seen?

“Nothing,” she stammered.

Now he turned to her. A dark smile on his lips as he looked into her scared eyes. There was no hiding what she felt now.

“You put something in your pocket.”

“No, I didn’t.”

Vernon put his drink down and edged towards her. “Have you been stealing from me, Iris?”

She shook her head. “No, Mr Storey. I wouldn’t do that.”

He glanced down towards her pocket, where the end of the handkerchief was poking out. “Show me, then.” Carefully, Iris cupped her fingers around her handkerchief, hoping she could bring the bundle out without its contents falling onto the floor.

“It’s just my handkerchief.” The wrapped fabric was clasped tightly in her hand.

To her surprise, Vernon snatched it from her, grasping her wrist tightly with his other hand. As he took it, the handkerchief opened and the fragment of glass fell onto the rug, glinting in the light as it tumbled. They both knew the truth now.

“No one likes a liar, Iris.”

“Let me go.” She knew that she had to escape now. There was no point in pretending that she could talk her way out of this one. But Vernon wasn’t about to let go of her wrist. She clawed at his fingers with her free hand, trying to release his grip. He kept a tight grip on her, staring impassively at her. They moved a few steps: a dark, silent dance as Iris tried to free herself, Vernon clasping tightly. Iris felt her head swimming. They were like a couple on the verge of a massive argument, trying to maintain some semblance of control and decency. But Iris realised she would have to do more to escape. She would have to make a scene. She was about to slap him, claw him, do something, when he moved with surprising speed and ferocity towards her.

Vernon grabbed Iris’s neck and pushed her backwards until she felt the bureau hit the small of her back. She tried to lash out, but he grabbed her clawed hand and pushed her over the desk. On her back, Iris flailed and kicked, desperate to escape. She couldn’t scream as Vernon had his fingers clasped around her throat. She tried to kick again, but only succeeded in upturning the nearby telephone table. The telephone clattered to the floor, the receiver coming away from its cradle.