In Another Time

“You think you would mind?” He was clearly teasing her now. “Or you think I should ask you to dance?”

Maisie gave him an exaggerated sigh. “Is every question you ask this complicated, or is this how all Americans talk?”

“Not every question, no. But sometimes, it can be more fun this way.” He held out his hand toward her.

Maisie hesitated. It might not have been the most romantic invitation, but it seemed like a genuine one after all that. And maybe this might be fun.

“Thank you,” she said, laying her hand onto his. “I’d very much like to dance.”

Her heart sped up as they walked the few steps to the dance floor and waited for a space to allow them to enter the dance. But then she noticed that his fingers were moving strangely against her own, and Maisie’s delight quickly evaporated. She’d forgotten about her blisters, and could only imagine how unpleasant they must feel against his palm. Before she could pull her hand back out of his, however, he lifted it up and studied it, frowning again, as if trying to work out a puzzle. Maisie realized with a sinking feeling that he was trying to work out why a young woman would have the callused hands of an old crone, disgustingly rough, with hard-crusted blisters and sharp-edged cuts and cracks. Embarrassment again flooded through her and she snatched her hand from his grasp, tucking both her hands around her waist to hide them from his scrutiny.

“They’re awful, I know,” she burst out. “But it’s the work, the tools. They rip up our hands, and there’s nothing we can do to protect them. It’s vile, I know.”

“Tools?” he asked.

“Axes and saws, in the woods. I’m with the Women’s Timber Corps.” Despite her embarrassment, Maisie lifted her chin defiantly, already anticipating the same derision she had received from her father. “I’m training to be a lumberjill.”

“A lumberjill, eh? Hmmm.” He seemed to be suppressing a smile, and Maisie felt her hackles rise. Why did men find that so ridiculous?

But instead of sneering, he took one of her hands back, resting it flat on his, and let his thumb rub gently across her palm and up her index finger, hesitating briefly by each blister, just disconcertingly long enough for her to feel the warmth from his touch.

“I mean, they issued us with gloves,” she blurted out, “but they’re all too big, so when you’re using an ax, it feels like your hands are slipping on the—”

“Pig fat,” he said.

What had he said? It sounded like pig fat to Maisie, but that was too bizarre, even for an American.

“Pardon?”

“You need pig fat and Vaseline,” he said again, smiling now.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Rub your hands with a mixture of pig fat and Vaseline morning and night, and this shouldn’t happen anymore.”

“But …” Maisie wasn’t sure what to say. “But how would you know …?”

Slowly he turned over his free hand and held it out flat next to hers. Even in the low light, Maisie could see that he had once had blisters in almost all the same places as she had on her own hands—on all three pads of each finger, the two on the thumb, as well as across the bridge and the heel of the palm. His weren’t fresh and crisp and sore as hers were, but there was a distinct whitening of hard skin in each place, the pale shadows of blisters where calluses lay as a permanent reminder of pain in his past. His scars matched hers.

He turned his hand over so it again lay palm to palm on Maisie’s. A sudden wave of relief caught her by surprise. He understood and he wasn’t repulsed.

“But how did your hands get like that?” she asked.

“You’re not the only one who knows how to swing an ax,” he replied with a wink.

The band had begun a new song. Maisie recognized the tune, but in the confusion of having her hand held by a stranger, she couldn’t place it right then. He seemed to know it, though, because he glanced up at the band and grinned, squeezing her hand between his.

“Perhaps we can talk about my magic blister potion later, but while the band is still playing this lovely song, maybe we ought to dance?”

“Thank you. I’d like that”—Maisie let herself smile a little too—“and I’m Maisie, by the way.”

“I’m glad to meet you, Maisie. My name’s John Lindsay.”

It became very clear, very quickly, that John Lindsay was a dreadful dancer.

When he had first guided Maisie into the crowd of slowly spinning couples, she’d enjoyed the reassurance of having his warm hand on her back. And once she had swallowed down the embarrassment of having this tall and rather handsome man holding her so close, Maisie almost relaxed. But then they’d stumbled, bumping into two other couples, and Maisie had had to fight to keep herself from falling. Whether it was because she’d lost her balance when she lifted her eyes to look up into his for a moment, or whether he’d simply tripped over his own feet, she wasn’t sure, but either way, this was not how she had hoped her first dance as an independent woman would go.

As John tried again to swoop Maisie around the dance floor, she couldn’t escape the feeling that she was risking life and limb, his larger frame and extra weight always pulling her off-balance. This was fast becoming a nightmare. How could a young and obviously fit man be so completely incapable of dancing?

She risked another glance up at his face, expecting him to be smiling apologetically, but there was no smile. In fact, it was as if the earlier sunshine had been smothered by the darkest of storm clouds. He was frowning, as if concentrating hard, and his breath came heavily now. Then she noticed that he seemed to be swallowing again and again. Was he unwell or in pain? Or was he drunk? She hadn’t smelled any beer or whisky on him, but even so …

Suddenly, John took Maisie by the elbow and walked her to the side of the dance floor, where he let her go and staggered against the nearest chair, appearing to have difficulty catching his breath. Then, barely glancing up, he held out his hand, palm toward Maisie, as if trying to keep her away.

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry, Maisie. I really can’t.”

“What’s wrong?” Maisie wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or annoyed. “Can I get you some water maybe?”

John didn’t reply but turned and walked unsteadily toward the front entrance. Hesitating only long enough to proffer his cloakroom ticket and grab his hat from the attendant, John disappeared out of the door.

What the hell had that been about? He might not have been much of a dancer, and he certainly wasn’t much of a gentleman either, but even so.

Maisie glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed her untimely abandonment, but everyone seemed to be paying attention only to their dance partners or to the friends they were gossiping with.

Luckily for Maisie, that had been the final number, and as soon as it ended, everyone clapped and the band began to pack up for the night. All the dancers made their way back to their tables, with much laughing and promises of more dances next time, and gradually they all crowded out the stained-glass front doors and into the mild evening.

Out on the street, however, it was clear that what had happened hadn’t gone unnoticed by the other lumberjills after all, and Maisie found herself subjected to an inquisition from Dot and Mary. All the way back to the waiting truck, they demanded details.

“What did he do to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Then, what did you do to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did he step on your foot?”

“No.”

“Did you tread on his foot?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was he really as bad a dancer as it looked?”

“I don’t know! Actually, yes. Yes, he really was. Simply terrible,” Maisie said sadly, which caused much merriment for her friends.

“Talk about having two left feet!” chuckled Dot.

“You certainly pulled the short straw,” added Mary. “Such a shame—he was good-looking too.”

Even as they teased her, simply knowing that her friends were as indignant as she was that her partner had walked away like that made Maisie feel a little better.

On the drive home to the lodge, Dot and Mary delightedly shared with the other recruits the story of Maisie, the American, and their disastrous dance. At first, it was quite funny, even to Maisie, but as more and more of the women joined in, offering ever more hilarious comments at John Lindsay’s expense, Maisie found herself becoming defensive. He didn’t deserve this treatment. He’d been nice enough before they’d started dancing, even funny, and he was handsome, and until he had walked out on her, he’d been scrupulously polite and had shown such concern about her hands. It was only when they started dancing that he became … odd. Even so, he didn’t deserve ridicule from people who hadn’t even seen what had happened.

“Stop it!” she burst out. “Stop saying things like that.”

After a moment’s silence, somebody started a teasing “woo-hoo,” and soon everyone was joining in, making jokes about Maisie having found herself an eligible bachelor at last, Maisie being in love, Maisie and John sitting in a tree.

Maisie put her head down and tried to ignore them. She knew they were only having fun, still riding their own wave of excitement from the dance, but still, she could do without a second, no, a third bout of humiliation in one night.

Only Dot, sitting next to Maisie, was not joining in the ribaldry and teasing. She nudged Maisie and laid her head on Maisie’s shoulder, as the other women’s conversation moved on to discuss their own dance partners instead of Maisie’s.

“It’s all right,” Dot said so only Maisie could hear. “If he was thoughtless enough to walk away from a lovely girl like you, then it was his loss, not yours.”

Maisie nodded, but couldn’t force any words in reply past the knot that was tightening in her throat. Why had she let herself start to think that perhaps he might like her? And she might like him back?

But Dot was right. Walking away from her had been his loss.

Maisie awoke with a start. A drum! Some blighter was beating a bloody drum inside their hut, and on the morning after a late night too!

The usual routine of being woken up at dawn by Old Crabby’s incessant whistle blowing from outside the dormitory was bad enough, but being dragged from deep sleep after a dance by an apparent crash of drums from inside the hut was a hundred times worse.

And now there was shouting too.

“Come on, ladies of Hut C, up you get! Sooner you’re up, the sooner it’s over.”

Maisie was still trying to cling to the last threads of a dream about dancing in the strong arms of a dark-haired man.

“What time is it, for goodness’ sake?” Dot croaked from the next bed over, and Maisie’s dream dancing was done.

“No idea,” replied Maisie, lifting her head blearily from the pillow and squinting toward the far end of the hut, where she saw Phyllis Cartwright, the tallest, strongest, and most athletic of all the WTC recruits, striding along, banging on the end of each bedstead with a stick. So, no drums, after all, just Phyllis with a bloody thunderstorm on a stick. “But whatever time it is, Phyllis has clearly taken leave of her senses.”

“We’ve all had enough of these aches and pains,” Phyllis bellowed, “so from now on, we’ll start each day with some calisthenic exercises to warm up the muscles and get us all ready to work.”

Maisie dropped back onto her pillow with a loud groan.

“But why today? We didn’t get to bed until after midnight.”

“None of that now, Maisie.” Phyllis was standing over her now. “This was your idea, after all.”

The groaning spread quickly around the room.

“My idea?” Maisie protested. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“Yes, you did, Maisie. Yesterday, you said to me how everyone was still aching, and how hard Dorothy here was finding the physical work each day because of her weak muscle tone.”

“You said I was weak?” Dot glared at Maisie. “I’m not weak.”

“No, of course I didn’t say you were weak,” Maisie said quickly, “I only said that you’d never done this kind of intensive physical activity before, you know, because you didn’t play sports at school. That’s what you told me the other day, that your school didn’t even have hockey or tennis or anything.”

“No, I didn’t have much tennis during my childhood,” replied Dot, and Maisie caught a very un-Dot-like bitterness in her voice. “But that doesn’t mean that I’m—”

“Dot! Honestly, I didn’t tell anyone that you’re weak. This is just Phyllis—”

“This is just Phyllis doing her job,” Phyllis interrupted, striding off around the room again, banging on any bed with an occupant still buried under the blankets. “I’m making sure you are all given the chance to develop your strength now, so that you won’t struggle with the heavier stuff later, once you are out in a real camp, taking down real trees. I’m a fully trained physical fitness instructor, remember—five years teaching at Morrison’s Academy in Crieff, then another six at the Edinburgh Ladies’ College—so don’t go thinking I’m only a pretty face.”

Phyllis gave one of her wide rumbling belly laughs, and most of the women in the hut joined in. Phyllis’s face would never be described as pretty—handsome, yes, even striking, but not pretty—but that was something she seemed quite proud of.

Phyllis’s enthusiasm was infectious, because despite the early hour, soon everyone from Hut C was standing in uneven ranks on the wide expanse of driveway outside Shandford Lodge, stretching and jumping, bending and running on the spot.

Women from some of the other huts must have been disturbed by the rumpus, because they appeared up the hill in ones and twos to see what was going on, and some even joined in.

Finally, after half an hour that felt to Maisie like a week, Phyllis took pity on them and released them to get breakfast.

To Phyllis’s credit, the atmosphere in the dining hall was far livelier and more engaged than it had been any morning so far. The women were chatting and laughing, and some were singing along to music from the wireless in the corner. Again, Maisie realized that the exercise, like the dancing, had warmed her muscles to the point where she wasn’t even feeling the aches and strains that had been her constant companion since training began. Now, if she could just work out where to find some pig fat for her hands …

Just then Old Crabby appeared at the door, interrupting the merriment, her very presence demanding silence. She held up a wide, flat basket, tipping it forward for everyone to see.

“Postcards!” she shouted in a voice more suited to an army drill square than a dining hall. “If any of you want to do your family duty, may I remind you that recruits’ mail will be picked up and taken to the post promptly every Saturday morning at nine o’clock. So if you want to write a postcard home, do it now, ladies. They’re already stamped, which will cost you tuppence.”

She slammed the box down onto the nearest table and picked up an old tobacco tin with a slot cut in the lid. “Honesty box is here for the tuppences. Of course, if you are literate enough to write a proper letter home, you can come now to my office. Letter stamps are tuppence ha’penny.”

As Miss Cradditch turned smartly and left the room, there was a scramble of hands trying to grab one of the postcards and a stubby little pencil from the basket, and a tinkle of coins dropping into the tin. Several women got up and followed Old Crabby out of the door, each holding at least two or three thick envelopes.

Maisie stared at the basket, wondering if today was the day she should write a postcard home to her parents. She’d sent no word back since she’d walked out of the front door of the home she’d lived in for all seventeen years of her life, her father’s hurtful words still ringing around the tiled hallway. She wasn’t even sure they would know which part of Scotland she was doing her training in. All the letters from the WTC had been addressed to her by name, and since her parents had been so furious with her for signing up, they’d refused even to look at the information she had been sent. It was only at the last minute, as Maisie was standing in the front hall with her suitcase, that her mother had softened, if only marginally. She’d come out of the kitchen holding a brown paper bag, which she held out to Maisie.

“Here’s a sandwich for the journey. It’s only fish paste, but that’s all there is. And I’ve given you an apple and your ration of cheese for this week. You can get a cup of tea at the station.”

Maisie had taken the bag with a tight-throated thank-you and had stepped forward in the hope that her mother might embrace her, but her mother stayed where she was.

“Will you at least walk me to the bus stop?” Maisie had asked.

“The fact that you’ve chosen to leave home before you’ve even finished your schooling”—her mother hit the well-worn track without hesitation—“suggests you have no desire to spend any more time with us than you must.”

“Mother, please let’s not do this again.” Maisie had tried not to sigh. “I’d like it very much if you’d all walk with me to the bus stop. Thank you.”

Maisie’s sister, Beth, had been the only one who had seemed in the slightest bit excited for Maisie. Perhaps she was already envisaging her own escape from their parents—she was almost sixteen, after all. As if to prove her support, Beth had already had her shoes on and had been grabbing her coat from the hall stand.

“Shall I get your coat too, Mother?” Beth had asked.

Father’s voice from the dining room had not been loud, but it had been crystal clear. “Your mother will not be needing her coat. And neither will you, Elizabeth.”

“But, Dad,” Beth had begun, “what if there’s rain?”

“Put. The coats. Away.” Maisie’s father’s tone had been unmistakable, a command that was to be followed without question. But as she always did, Beth had pushed back.

“But surely—”

“Elizabeth! Your sister has decided she is mature enough to ignore the wishes of her parents and sign herself up for some ridiculous venture with women who clearly have no more sense than she does. She must therefore be mature enough to get herself there alone, so put the coats away, and go help your mother in the kitchen.”

Suddenly he had been at the dining room door, and without even glancing in Maisie’s direction, he’d stalked past his daughters and his wife to his study door. There he’d stopped, his fingers on the brass knob.

“I will not repeat myself again, Elizabeth. Your sister can see herself out. You have breakfast dishes to wash.”

So Maisie had walked to the bus stop alone, and she had not written home since.

Maisie sighed as she looked at the basket of cards. She knew she ought to send something, at least to Beth. It hadn’t been Beth’s fault their parents had reacted so badly, but even so, that morning might have been the first time in years that quarrelsome and complaining Beth had ever supported Maisie in an argument. With two and a half years separating the girls, arguments had been routine, and it was usually Beth who started them.

No, Maisie did not even want to write to Beth.

Now feeling grumpy, Maisie picked up the plates and cups in front of her and Dot, and cleared them onto the pile of dirty dishes stacked on the serving counter. Dot’s nose was still buried in a book, as it was most mornings over breakfast, and all the other women around her were scribbling on their cards. Dot didn’t ever send mail home either, Maisie had noticed, though the one time she’d mentioned it, Dot had evaded her question and quickly changed the subject. Since Maisie had no desire to share details of the misery of her own home life either, she’d let the matter drop.

A sharp stab of pain and a spurt of warm pus across her palm made Maisie realize that she’d been distractedly digging her thumbnail into one of the large blisters on her left hand. Hoping no one else had noticed, she dabbed at her palm with the corner of her handkerchief. She ought to wash her hands, but she was sure that the harsh carbolic soap was partly to blame for her blisters since it dried out her skin, which was already in trouble from its first exposure to an outdoor life. So if she wanted to avoid washing her hands so much, what she needed was …

Maisie changed course and sidled a little nervously toward the kitchen. Old Crabby had made it clear on the first day that Mrs. McRobbie’s culinary domain was not to be entered without invitation. Mrs. McRobbie was the cook for Shandford Lodge, and was married to the old woodsman, Mr. McRobbie, who had been their primary instructor for all the ax and saw cuts, and also for tool care. He also had an encyclopedic mind when it came to all things flora and fauna in the woods around the lodge, something that Maisie had already found useful when faced with a patch of stinging nettles or if one needed to know, as Helen had the week before, whether the snake wrapping itself around one’s boot was a venomous adder or a benign grass snake. Although Mr. McRobbie tried to be gruff and miserable with them, no one was convinced by the act. His wife’s reputation, however, was truly fearsome, and so Maisie knocked gingerly on the doorframe before her toes had even crossed the kitchen threshold.

“Mrs. McRobbie?” she called tentatively.

There was a rustling and shuffling from beyond the pantry door, and the cook appeared, her tiny frame dwarfed by the enormous sack of flour she was carrying.

“Oh, here, let me help,” said Maisie as she dashed forward and wrestled the sack out of Mrs. McRobbie’s arms. “Where shall I put it for you?”

The cook pointed over to the far counter and Maisie laid the flour down. Hoping this favor might make Mrs. McRobbie more open to a request of help, Maisie quickly asked her question. “Do you have any spare pig fat I could have?”

The older woman gazed at her for a moment. “Pig fat?” she replied. “You mean lard?”

“Oh, well, if lard is pig fat, then yes, lard. Please, if you have some to spare. I have money.”

“Show me,” said Mrs. McRobbie, putting out her hand.

Maisie dug her sore hand gingerly into her pocket to find some coins, uncertain of how much pig fat might cost.

“Not your money, girl! Show me your hands.”

Maisie could see now that the cook wasn’t asking for payment but was holding out her hand, palm up, as John Lindsay had done. Self-consciously, Maisie laid her own hand on top as Mrs. McRobbie leaned forward, clicking her tongue and shaking her head.

“You’re in a wee bit of a mess there, aren’t you? But I’m sure I can find you some lard, if that’s what you think’ll work.”

“That’s what I was told would work,” Maisie said, following the cook into the pantry, “by one of the American chaps we met at the dance last night. He said I should mix it with some Vaseline and smear it on the blisters.”

“An American, was it?” said the cook, as she drew back a white muslin cloth and cut into the large oblong of white fat it covered. “I didn’t know that there were any Americans around here. Were they not the Canadians?”

“Canadians?”

Mrs. McRobbie had retrieved a crumpled sheet of brown paper and was folding it around the white block. “Aye, there’s a whole bunch of Canadian lumberjacks up the road a piece, working on the old laird’s estate, clearing it for another army camp, from what I heard.”

“Oh, I’m not sure,” Maisie said, “maybe.”

She remembered that Mary had said that they were Americans, but had John said that himself? Perhaps not. And then it occurred to Maisie that she hadn’t even bothered to press him further on what he’d been doing to get blisters that matched hers, or about where he was from. In fact, she hadn’t asked him anything about himself at all. Her mother would not be pleased if she knew that, because according to her, a lady should always use the eighty–twenty rule when talking to a gentleman.