The Willow Pool

‘No, thanks be.’ She took Meg’s keys from the sideboard. ‘Now off you go and open the windows and get the house aired, and see that the parcel’s all right and that nothing’s leaked. And give Tommy a knock on your way out. Tell him there’s tea left in the pot.’

‘She looks well on it,’ Tommy said. ‘The fresh air suits the girl.’

‘Aye. And just like her mother, God rest her, used to be! Was always goin’ on about that place, yet we both know what happened to her in the end! Just let’s hope it doesn’t happen to her daughter! And Meg doesn’t know I’ve told you about – well – the way it was, and what was in Doll’s case. Keep it to yourself, don’t forget!’

‘I will. But why should it happen to Meg?’ Tommy frowned. ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, don’t they say?’

‘You’re thinking about lightning not striking twice in the same place, Tommy Todd! History does repeat itself, or why has bluddy Hitler started another war?’

‘Give the girl credit! She knows right from wrong!’

‘So did her mother, and much good it did her! And it isn’t Meg I don’t trust, it’s all them fellers, out for what they can get ’cause there’s a war on! But I suppose she’ll have to make her own mistakes. Only way she’ll learn, come to think of it!’

‘So who says Meg’s going to end up in trouble? A nasty tongue you’ve got at times, Nell Shaw!’

So Nell said if that was what he thought she wouldn’t say another word on the subject; said it indignantly, then closed her mouth into a tight round button and glared across the table, narrow-eyed.

‘Not one more word!’ she hissed.

Kip’s letter bore no address, so he was able to write, without risking the censor’s scissors, that by the time Meg got it he would have reached you-know-where and was looking forward to a few days ashore.… And by the way. I’ll be posting you a parcel. Fingers crossed that it won’t go to the bottom.

The carefully packed parcel had indeed arrived, Meg thought uneasily, and before she went back to Candlefold she must write him a long chatty letter, post it at once so there was a chance it would be waiting at Panama on the way home. But first she took the postcard, a pretty view of Nether Barton’s only street, showing the post office, the pub and the church next to it, and a row of cottages. On the back she wrote her new address, that all was well and that a letter followed. Then she took it at once to the post office, asking for an airmail sticker and a sixpenny stamp. ‘There now!’ Feeling a little less guilty, she slid it into the pillar box.

‘Just been to post one to Kip,’ she said to Nell on her return. ‘Thought you’d like to know. And I’ll send him another before I go back. There’s a tin of meat in the parcel; would you and Tommy like to come to supper tonight? And Kip sent these for you.’

As if it were a peace offering, she passed a packet of cigarettes to the older woman.

‘Ar. Tell him thanks a lot when you write back. He’s a good lad, Meg, and you’ll have to go a long way to find better. But it’s none of my business and you’re old enough to know your own mind. And yes, ta, I’ll come to supper.’

The smile was back on Nell’s face. All was well again in Tippet’s Yard.

The house swept and aired, Meg made for the Ministry of Food office in Scotland Road. Its windows were still boarded up, the inside gloomy.

‘Change of address, please.’ When her turn came, Meg offered her ration book and identity card. ‘And where do I go for my clothing coupons?’

‘Board of Trade office, four doors down.’ The overworked clerk had no time to chat.

‘Thanks.’ Meg felt relief that her Tippet’s Yard address was now secret beneath a white sticky label; that another part of her past had been officially hidden. Half an hour later her identity card had been changed and Clothing coupons issued written on the front cover of her ration book, together with a Board of Trade stamp and a scribbled initial.

By the time she had queued for potatoes and bought a cabbage Mr Potter would have been ashamed to offer, it was time to put the kettle on. Kip’s parcel had included a packet of tea, and tomorrow she really would write a letter, telling him about Polly and Mrs John, and how she was learning the names of flowers and to recognize a thrush and a blackbird, and that soon she would be helping with the fruit picking.

But first she would prepare supper; peel potatoes and do what she could with the sickly cabbage. And since Kip had sent biscuits – real, pre-war chocolate biscuits the likes of which were only a memory now – she would arrange them daintily on a plate instead of a pudding. Such a treat they would be, and she, Nell and Tommy would eat the lot and toast the sender’s health in a cup of strong Billy tea from Australia!

Meg wished she could be in love with Kip – really in love – but he wasn’t the one and she hoped he hadn’t wasted his money on a ring when he got to Sydney, because that was what it would be. A waste.

‘Sorry, Kip,’ she whispered, over the potatoes. ‘Take care of yourself, eh?’

As the train pulled shuddering and heaving out of the station, Meg could feel only relief at leaving Liverpool behind her. Yet she still felt guilty at being so lucky when most other Liverpool folk, many of whom still had family missing, even yet, had no choice but to remain amongst the devastation. And guilty about the killing and injuries, and about the baby covered with rubble dust. She would never forget the little one, nor forgive either. She felt guilty, too, about Kip, who sent her letters and food parcels, and who would hope for letters from her at ports of call.

Mind, she had written the letter, telling him about her new job and her bedroom window that looked out onto such a view that it brought tears to her eyes; told him about the hens and the Jersey cow, and that she thought about him often and remembered him every night in her prayers, both of which were downright lies.

Polly prayed every night for Davie and Mark and for all servicemen and women – ours, of course – and a speedy end to the war. Took a bit of understanding, come to think of it, since German women would be praying for much the same thing, so if there really was a God, how did He know which side to listen to? Us, or them? Tossed a penny, did He?

They were nearing the outskirts of Liverpool now, and Meg knew they were passing through Aintree, even though station names had been removed; part of a grand scheme to bewilder invading parachutists by not providing any clues as to where they had dropped!

Aintree, where the most famous horserace in the world was run, and rich men in top hats, with their wives dressed up to the nines, came from all over the world with their horses and jockeys and grooms, and had a real good time afterwards at the luxurious Adelphi Hotel.

She pulled her thoughts back to Kip, because he was the one she felt most guilty about. Mind, she hadn’t asked for the parcels he’d sent, though she had been glad enough to get them. Nor was it her fault that he liked her a lot whilst she could only feel sisterly affection. It made her think of Amy, Kip’s sister who lived in Lyra Street. Meg had had the good sense to visit her so she was able to tell Kip he must not worry about her and her children, and that there had been no more bombing.

Thank you for the parcel. Nell and Tommy came to supper to share my luck and have a real tuck in, she had written, and Nell says thanks a lot for the ciggies and sends her best regards, as does Tommy.

Take care of yourself. She had ended the letter tongue in cheek: I think about you every night before I go to sleep. With love and kisses …

She had placed a lipsticky kiss beside her name, thinking that love and kisses was the least she could do for a parcel not only containing food, but a tablet of soap, a jar of cold cream and a carefully wrapped bottle of shampoo, all of which were in very short supply and could only be got by being in the right place at the right time, then standing in a queue!

Conscience almost cleared, she had propped the airmail envelope beside the mantel clock, then set the kettle to boil for hot water in which to wash. She missed the bathroom at Candlefold, but would make up for the all-over wash by using the sweet-smelling soap. She had sniffed it greedily, for toilet soap – when you were lucky enough to get it – had long ago ceased to be scented. It made her think enviously of a country where the sun almost always shone, where there were warm beaches and scented soap in the shops and no blackout.

And oh, damn the war and the stupid men who had let it happen again! And damn Hitler, who was probably sniggering into his champagne, knowing the British still expected to be invaded, and only he knowing exactly when it would be! It didn’t bear thinking about, so she closed her eyes and pushed the war from her mind.

And thought about Candlefold instead, just two hours away.

Six

She was back, and never before had two days taken so long to run. Meg blinked up into the sky, breathing deeply, because even the air here was special; golden-coloured and scented with green things growing, and hay and honeysuckle.

She smiled at Mrs Potter, who always peeked through the post office window whenever a bus arrived, checking in those she knew, making a mental note of those she did not, and who, two weeks ago, had drawn the attention of a stranger to a printed postcard.

‘Candlefold,’ Meg whispered, lips hardly moving. ‘Where I live; where I was born; where I am meant to be.’ And where she would stay till Fate – or the Ministry of Labour and National Service – decided differently.

At the stile she stood quite still, listening to the safe stillness: a bird singing, leaves rustling green above her. Even the lambs were still, laying close to the ewes who stared steadily ahead, mouths rotating cud, like the blank-faced tarts who stood on every street corner the length of Lime Street, chewing gum.

But Lime Street was a long way away and in just a few more seconds she would see the old house, the worn stone steps, the thick, squat door and the pump trough. In just a few more seconds, she would be home.

‘You’re back!’ Mary Kenworthy smiled. ‘And just as I was thinking I’d have to go all the way to the garden to tell Polly that lunch is ready!’

‘What’s to do with that thing, then?’ Meg nodded in the direction of the bell that hung outside the door.

‘They’re both asleep, upstairs – thought we’d get our lunch before they’re awake.’ She broke two more eggs into the bowl. ‘Omelette and salad and stewed apples,’ she answered the question in Meg’s eyes. ‘Be a love, and tell Polly it’s on the table in three minutes, will you?’

The walk to the kitchen garden took Meg across the courtyard, beneath the far arch, past the henrun and across the drying green to the tall, narrow gate in the eight-feet-high wall. Mr Potter’s little kingdom where the war was shut out every morning at eight o’clock sharp and not confronted again until work was over for the day and the gate clanged shut behind him.

Meg saw Polly on her knees beside the strawberry bed and whistled through her fingers.

‘Hey! Ready in three minutes!’ she called, then ran down the path, delight at her heels. ‘What are you doing?’ Everything that happened at Candlefold delighted her.

‘Strawing up,’ Polly grinned, linking her arm in Meg’s. ‘The berries are starting to swell so we put straw beneath them to keep them clean and to keep the slugs away. Then when we’ve done that we’ll net them over, and that’ll take care of the thieving blackbirds too. But I’m so glad you are home. Yesterday there wasn’t a letter. I felt so miserable I got to wondering what else could go wrong, and you not coming back was high on the list. But this morning –’

‘This morning there were two letters and I am back. And if you thought I wouldn’t be, then you’re dafter than Nanny Boag – who is asleep, by the way!’

Home again, and omelettes for lunch, stewed apples for pudding, and the sky high and blue and bright. Life was all at once so good that it almost took her breath away.

‘Pull out any weeds, and tuck the straw around the roots,’ Polly instructed later that afternoon, initiating Meg into the mysteries of Mr Potter’s garden.

‘I don’t know which is weeds and which isn’t …’

‘Anything that isn’t a strawberry plant, just yank it out before you shove the straw in. We’ll be having strawberries and cream in two or three weeks.’

‘Creeeeeam!’ Wasn’t cream illegal, Meg demanded.

‘We-e-ll, yes, but once every Preston Guild, Mummy pours the morning milk into a large bowl and skims off the cream that rises to the top. It’s illegal to sell it in the shops, but nobody can stop you skimming your own milk. And, like I said, she doesn’t do it often. Davie and Mark are due leave at the end of June, so I hope there’ll be plenty of sun to ripen the berries. When that happens, we have to be up good and early to do the picking and have them ready for the van that calls. I often think how pleased some lady will be to get some – even though she probably won’t have sugar to spare to sprinkle on them.’

‘Nor cream,’ Meg grinned. ‘And I wonder how long she’ll have to queue for them, an’ all. That’s when your Davie will be on leave, then – three weeks from now?’

‘Twenty days. I’ve started crossing them off on my calendar. Mind, the bods in the armed forces are always told that leave is a privilege and not their due, but most times nothing happens to stop it.’ She crossed her fingers. ‘We’re having two days here, then spending the rest of his leave with his parents. They live a few miles from Oxford where Davie ought by rights to be, studying engineering. Oh, damn this war!’

‘What d’you mean! It was because of the war youse two met!’

‘Mm. That Davie met Mark and Mark brought him home for a weekend. Funny, isn’t it?’

‘Nah! Just meant to be.’ Meg removed a weed then manoeuvred straw beneath the berry plant. ‘Ma always said that what was to be would be; that the minute you are born there’s this feller who knows what’ll happen to you an’ he writes it all down. Your Book of Life, it’s called, and there’s no gettin’ away from it.’

‘And you believe that, Meg?’

‘Makes as much sense as anythink else.’

‘More sense than believing in God?’

‘’Fraid I’m not a God person. I mean – what about when Ma was bad and I’d believed, and prayed for her to live? Well, where would I be now, eh? He’d have let me down stinkin’, wouldn’t He?’

‘We don’t always get everything we want.’

‘Then why bother?’

‘Meg, you really don’t believe, do you?’

‘Reckon not. Ma didn’t either; only in the Book of Life thing.’

‘But what about Christmas and Easter?’

‘We never bothered. Christmas trees and Easter eggs cost money, she said, an’ it was all a big con by shopkeepers to get cash out of you, and by the Church, so you’d go and put money on the plate. All down to pounds, shillin’s and pence!’

‘So you don’t say your prayers or go to church?’ Polly whispered. ‘Nor ask God to take care of your young man?’

‘Told you, I haven’t got a young man. Kip’s only a friend.’

‘He sent you shampoo and scented soap you told us at lunchtime!’

‘A friend,’ Meg said firmly. ‘And we’d better stop nattering and get on with this strawing, or Mr Potter isn’t goin’ to let me work in the garden again!’ And she liked working in Mr Potter’s garden. It was better than running upstairs every time Nanny rang her bell. Anything was better than being near the old biddy, who’d been in a right mood, earlier on.

‘You’re back,’ she had grumbled. ‘I thought you’d gone, Meg Blundell!’

A fine way to greet someone you hadn’t seen for two days and who’d brought up your lunch, an’ all!

‘Bad penny, that’s me!’ she’d said saucily. ‘And if you aren’t hungry I’ll take this tray downstairs again!’ She was starting the way she meant to go on, turning away to show she meant what she said! And the old girl had jumped to her feet like a two-year-old and grabbed hold of her lunch with a look like thunder on her face.

‘Give it to me, girl, and get out! And never, ever, give me backchat again! Remember your place here and that a word from me will get you dismissed instantly, and without a reference too!’

So Meg had got out of the nursery and drew in her breath and held it all the way down two flights of stairs and into the courtyard.

‘Ten!’ she’d gasped, thankful she had kept a hold on her temper, rubbing her hands on the roughness of the pump trough, remembering Ma, who knew all about Nanny Boag too. But maybe when Mark had been little, Nanny had been a nicer person, or why did Mrs John put up with her?

And so, remembering how desperately she wanted to stay at Candlefold, she had determined never again to let the old woman upset her, and no matter how much she might long to give her a piece of her mind, she would do as Polly said she should: turn her back, and walk away!

She tugged fiercely on an offending weed and wished with all her heart it could have been Nanny Boag’s nose!

Days were ticked off on Polly’s calendar; the strawberries swelled and Mr Armitage had thrown caution out of the window and taken a scythe to the grass on the brick house lawns because it was eighteen inches high and as good a crop of hay as he had seen this year. And wasn’t every forkful of hay needed for the war effort? And whose hay was it, anyway?

‘Now you’re supposed to leave that grass three clear Sundays,’ he told Meg, who had watched the sweeping strokes of his arm with fascination. ‘And it’s got to be turned every day so it’ll dry. Any good with a hayfork, young Meg?’

She had been obliged to admit she was not, but was very willing to learn if he would show her how. And so haymaking became another delight, with she and Polly turning an acre of grass twice a day. At first, her arms ached with the effort, then she began to look forward to their stealthy visits to the brick house lawns, each time wondering if they would be caught by the faceless ones on one of their visits.

‘So if They catch us at it, what can They do?’ Meg reasoned. ‘I mean – They only requisitioned the house, now, didn’t they? Surely nobody’s goin’ to make a fuss over a bit of grass?’

‘An acre of hay, actually. And I think that requisition covered the whole shebang, with the exception of the kitchen garden, Meg. But it’s drying beautifully. I reckon we’ll get it cocked and carted away before anyone from London finds out. Armitage says it’s good hay, and nice and herby; says a bit of neglect has done it the power of good, but don’t repeat that to Mr Potter, will you?’

‘I won’t. And had you thought, Polly, that by the time the hay is ready, Davie will be here on leave?’

‘I’ve hardly thought about anything else! Ten more days to go. And we mustn’t forget, Meg, that when the hay is loaded and carted off to the farm, we must wish very seriously as it goes by.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘Because you always wish on the first load of hay you see every year. Hay wishes are good ones, like first-swallow wishes. Hay and swallows have never let me down, so keep an eye open for your first swallow. They’ll be arriving any day now!’

‘Wouldn’t know a swallow if I saw one, Polly. You’ll have to show me.’

Mind, she was getting good with robins and tits and thrushes and blackbirds; especially with blackbirds since now she knew the difference between cocks and hens! Only give her a little more time and she would know as much about the countryside as Polly!

‘Bet I know what you’ll be wishin’ for,’ she teased, so happy that all at once she felt peculiar – like someone had walked over her grave – if she’d been dead and buried, that was. ‘And it’s OK! I know you can’t tell me, and I won’t tell you what I wish either!’

But her wish was there in her mind already, so that when she saw her first swallow of the summer and when the hay wagon trundled past, she would close her eyes, cross her fingers and say in her mind, ‘I wish to stay at Candlefold for ever, and live here till I die …’

They saw their first swallow next day as they fed and watered the hens. It came swooping and diving out of the sky above the drying green.

‘There you are, Meg. Wish!’

Eyes closed they wished tremulously, smiling secretly.

‘You’re sure it’ll come true?’

‘Always has, Meg, though now I always wish for the same thing – y’know, pile them all up so in the end it’s got to come true.’

‘A sort of long-term wish, like mine. An’ maybe when we load the hay there’ll be another one of the same, eh?’

‘Oh, yes! I do so miss Davie. There wasn’t a letter this morning, y’know …’

Meg had noticed. It was always the same, the no-letter look: sad and yearny, sort of.

‘There’ll be two tomorrow. Maybe he’s on manoeuvres.’

‘Maybe.’

‘An’ he’s out in the wilds with no pillar box.’

‘Probably.’

‘An’ I’ll tell you something else. This isn’t our lucky day, Polly.’ She nodded in the direction of two camouflaged trucks that swooped in from the lane to stop outside the far archway. ‘Wouldn’t you know it? That lot from London, on the snoop! What’ll they say when they see our hay? Just a few more days, an’ we’d have got away with it!’

‘No! It can’t be!’ Polly, face flushed with disbelief, gasped. ‘But it is! It is! Davie Sumner! Darling!’

Then she was running, laughing, to where two soldiers stood, dressed in battledress tops, khaki trouser bottoms bound by puttees, their brown boots shining. And the two of them grinning with delight at the upset they had caused.

With a cry of joy, Polly went into Davie’s arms, to stand close, cheek on cheek, not kissing, just glad to touch and hold, to fondle the back of his neck with her fingertips.

‘You weren’t expected yet!’ She closed her eyes and offered her mouth. ‘Davie – nothing is wrong …?’

‘No.’ He kissed her lips gently. ‘Leave next week.’

‘Then what? Why?’ She turned to hug her brother. ‘Meg, this is Mark.’

‘Mark,’ Meg whispered, offering her hand, feeling it tremble as Mark Kenworthy folded his own around it. And if he was good to look at in a silver-framed photograph, then standing there, warm and real, he was altogether too much to take in. And he looking down at her with eyes bluer than Polly’s, even; eyes that swept her from head to toes – slowly and deliberately so there could be no mistaking his approval.

‘Glad to meet you at last, Meg.’ He let go her hand to raise his cap in salute, all the time smiling as if he really meant it.

‘And this is Davie, my fiancé.’

Polly’s voice seemed far away and strange, like an echo, because something had hit Margaret Mary Blundell with such force that she recognized it as a very real boing! and knew that unless she held her breath and counted slowly to ten, she was going to do something very stupid, like falling in a delicious, disbelieving faint.

‘Davie …’ Meg murmured, knowing she should be liking what she saw – a happy grin, a fresh, freckled face, thick, untidy hair the colour of a ripe conker. But she was incapable of doing anything because the boing! was reverberating unchecked around her stomach and slipping and slicing to her fingertips and toes.

‘Well – come on, then – tell. Why are you here, and are you sure it’s nothing sinister?’

‘Nothing more than a thirty-mile detour on the way down to Burford Camp – in Wiltshire.’

‘You’re both being posted somewhere new, then?’

‘No. Going to collect a convoy of trucks and lorries, actually – escort them north,’ Mark supplied. ‘Fifty-three to be exact and all newly passed-out drivers. First time any of them will have done a long-distance convoy. And to add to the confusion, there are ATS drivers amongst them – women …’

‘And what is wrong with women?’ Huffily, Meg found her voice, stung to defend her own sex, and because she wasn’t going to let him get away with being so gorgeous nor play havoc with her insides without some show of protest, she glared as she said it.