One Summer at Deer’s Leap

We chatted comfortably on about things in general and nothing in particular – you know the way it is when you phone your mum – until the card began to run out. I said I’d ring in the week and sent my love to Dad. She told me to look after myself and be sure to check the doors at night.

I called, ‘Bye, Mum. Love you!’ just as the line went dead.

Then I looked up at the church clock and realized I had half an hour to kill. If I left at about ten forty-five, I’d figured, I should be at The Place a little before eleven. I decided to walk the length of the village and back, gawping at the pub and the village green as if I were a tourist.

The pub was called the Red Rose, which figured. It looked old and, from the outside, friendly. The village green was ordinary, but the grass was cut short and the flowerbeds either side of an oak seat were well kept. There wasn’t a scrap of litter about.

I sat down to waste a few minutes, looking about me, liking what I saw. Sheets blew on a line, very white against a very blue sky; a lady in a pinafore came out to wash her front windows. The Post Office van was making the morning delivery. I supposed that Deer’s Leap would be its next stop and wondered if there would be any letters in the lidded box at the crossroads end of the dirt road when I returned. There would certainly be milk and a brown loaf, because I’d left a note there this morning.

There was nothing else to think about now except being at The Place at about four minutes to eleven, even though the airman wouldn’t be there; how could he be, just because I wanted it? On the other hand, I had thought about him so much that surely some of my vibes had reached him.

Jack Hunter. A young man with old eyes, piloting a bomb-loaded Lancaster. Young men of my own generation were still kids at his age, fussing over their first car, pulling girls. Once, the Red Rose would have been filled with men from the airfield nearby; women too, because they had had to go to war. I wondered how people could have been so obedient, doing as they were ordered in the name of patriotism. I supposed they’d had little choice.

Would Piers have flown bombers or fighters? Somehow, with his dark, brooding looks, I think he would have been more likely to have been a paratrooper; a swash-buckling type with a gun at the ready.

I pushed him from my mind. There was no place for him in my life for the next four weeks. Correction. There was no place for him, if I faced facts, in my life at all! Piers had served his purpose, satisfied my curiosity. He was nice enough to have around, but in small doses.

I wondered what it would be like to be in love – desperately in love – with a man who might any night be killed. I jumped to my feet as I remembered the war memorial, realizing I hadn’t seen it yet.

I found it on a triangle of grass outside the church gates. It was in simple stone and on the front were the names of men who had died in the First World War. I counted them, horrified that from so small a village, twelve young men had been killed.

Underneath it, three more names were chiselled; dead from a later war. It made me feel grateful those men had given their lives and then I knew I’d got it wrong. They hadn’t given anything! Their young lives had been taken, stolen, squandered!

I looked to the side to see the names of seven airmen in alphabetical order and the simple inscription, In Grateful Memory. 8.6.1944.

I saw the name J. J. Hunter and reached to touch it with my fingertips.

‘Please be there,’ I whispered.

The tingling began at the clump of oaks. Until I reached them I had managed to keep my feelings in check. But beyond those trees anything could happen and I was hoping desperately that it would.

Strangely, I was more excited than afraid, because deep down I was telling myself he wouldn’t be there. In fact, if Beth and Danny hadn’t told me to leave it, if Beth hadn’t half-heartedly admitted she might have seen the airman and told me the people in the village didn’t want the press all over the place, I might have convinced myself he was all in my mind. But Jack Hunter was as real as you or me.

I wound down my window. Then I stopped to lean over and slip the nearside door catch.

‘Hop in,’ I’d say. ‘It’s open …’

Almost eleven. I started the car and crawled past the spot I’d first met him, trying to look both sides and straight ahead at the same time. I looked in the rear-view mirror, but he wasn’t behind me, either.

‘Aren’t you coming, Jack Hunter?’

My voice sounded strange, then I let go a snort of annoyance because talking to a ghost that wasn’t there was worse than talking to myself!

‘That’s yer lot!’ This was a load of nonsense and he’d had his last chance! If he wasn’t interested, then neither was I! He could find his own damn way to Deer’s Leap! I’d come here to look after a house and two cats and a dog; to write in peace and quiet and when Jeannie went back on Monday, that was what I would do!

‘Men are a flaming nuisance,’ I said out loud, and that included ghosts!

I began to laugh. A very real Hector would come bouncing up, followed by a loudly purring cat, when I got out of the car. All very neat and normal. Only Cassie Johns was out of step!

I realized I had slowed, because I was looking for a flock of sheep, wondering if I’d imagined them too. The crossroads was ahead, and the signpost. I turned right, then slowed so I could take the pot-holed dirt road easily.

I could see the roof of the house above the trees. Jeannie was up, because the white gate ahead was open, and I’d left it closed. In front, to my left, was the kissing gate and, oh, my God! He was there! Walking through it! I saw him clearly, and the gas mask slung on his left shoulder.

I slammed on the brake, the engine coughed and stalled. I yelled, ‘Jack Hunter!’ then flung open the door as he pulled the gate shut behind him. When I got there, he had gone. The path, which led to the farm buildings, was empty. I ran down it as far as the conservatory, but there was no sign he had ever been there.

Then I turned, and stood stock-still, gawping in disbelief at the iron gate. Now it was black again with shiny paint, yet when I’d opened it I’d swear it had been rusty! And what was more I had heard its grinding squeak as he closed it behind him! I walked up to it, touching it with my finger, and it swung smoothly and silently on well-oiled pivots.

Yet he’d been there. He had! He was still around. It was just that this morning we’d missed each other by seconds – and fifty-odd years!

Jeannie and I ate a lunch of soup and sandwiches, then lazed on the terrace, gazing for miles, soaking up the August sun, breathing deeply on the air.

‘Y’know, this shouldn’t be allowed. It’s positively antisocial to have a view like this all to yourself. I wonder what they’ll ask for this place, once it goes on the market?’

‘Haven’t a clue. I’m used to London prices,’ Jeannie shrugged. ‘But I suppose that even though it mightn’t be everybody’s cup of tea, it won’t go cheap. Like you say, the view is really something and position counts for a lot.’

‘If you like out-of-the-way places,’ I said.

‘The old ones knew where to build, didn’t they?’

‘Before planning permission came in, you mean, when they could choose their plot and just start building?’

‘Sort of, but they’d have to do their homework first. The most important thing when Deer’s Leap was built would be the availability of water, I shouldn’t wonder.’

‘Danny said there was once a stream, just beyond the paddock wall.’

‘Well, that would’ve been all right for livestock and clothes washing, but they’d have needed drinking water too. Mind, that ornamental well at the back near the conservatory was once the real thing. I believe they only got mains water here after the war. And they still don’t have sewers. That’s why we shouldn’t use too many disinfectants and upset the natural workings of the septic tank.’

‘They were very self-sufficient, though.’ My mind jumped the centuries to the man and woman who built this house. Their initials were above the front door: W. D. & M. D. 1592. ‘Do you realize Elizabeth Tudor was still alive when W. D. brought his bride here? Wonder what they were called – and how many children they had.’

‘William and Mary Doe,’ Jeannie said, off the top of her head, ‘and they probably had ten children and would count themselves lucky to rear half of them!’

‘A bit nearer home,’ I said cautiously, ‘I wonder who lived here in the war, and how they managed. Petrol was rationed, I believe. How did they get about?’

‘On bikes, most likely. Or maybe they’d go shopping once a week on the farm tractor. Who knows? And anyway, who’s interested?’

‘Me, for one.’ I looked straight ahead, pretending it didn’t really matter. ‘Well – I’m an author. I can’t help being curious and it would all be grist to the mill – if we found out, that is …’

‘If it’s so important, why don’t we go down to the Rose, tonight? They don’t get a lot in there, especially since drink-drive came in. I could introduce you to Bill Jarvis, if he’s in. Bill knows most people’s business around here, past and present. Maybe he could tell you.’

‘It isn’t that important,’ I hedged. ‘It’s just that I keep wondering what it was like here when it was a working farm and before somebody tarted up the buildings at the back, and when there were animals around the place, and manure heaps.’

‘Then we’ll go to the village, like I said. The beer is good there. The further north you get from London, people say, the better the ale. I fancy a couple of pints!’

‘So who’s going to drive?’

‘You, Cassie. It’s your car.’

‘And drink Coke and orange juice all night?’