Where Bluebells Chime

‘Listen, Tatty, I know I might be out of order, but Karl only watches over you because he’s so fond of you. Haven’t you ever thought of confiding in him – telling him about Tim? He might even be on your side, cover for you sometimes.’

‘He won’t. First and foremost he’s loyal to Mother. She’s still his little countess,’ she sighed. ‘I really couldn’t risk it. I know I can get out of the house in the morning and it’ll be worth the walk because there’ll be no risk at all of anyone hearing what I say. I’ll be able to tell him I love him loud and clear, and not whisper it down the phone like I’m ashamed to say it.’

‘What time?’ Daisy asked.

‘About seven o’clock. He reckoned he’d be back and debriefed by then. The transport to take them to York station leaves at eight, so that’ll give him time to get cleaned up and snatch some breakfast beforehand.

‘The rest of his crew are going to Edinburgh, them being Canadians and not able to get home, poor loves. Tim’s skipper said he was going to spend his entire leave hunting the shops for whisky, and sleeping. Oh, well – I’ll give you a ring tomorrow night.’

She turned away abruptly because she was so miserable, so utterly lonely, and after tomorrow morning it would be worse. Tears filled her eyes and she let them flow unchecked.

Then she turned abruptly as Daisy called, ‘Tatty – I do know what it’s like. Remember I haven’t seen Keth for two years.’

‘Yes, of course. ’Night, Daisy …’

Daisy didn’t know, she thought fiercely; not really.

Okay, so she hadn’t seen Keth for ages but at least she knew he was going to survive the war. Keth was safe in America and tonight Tim would be flying over Germany, searching the sky for fighters. Tim was a tail-end Charlie and tomorrow morning, if Whitley K-King touched down safely, Tim would have flown his thirteenth op. – the dicey one.

She sniffed loudly and dabbed at her eyes. She would not cry. Tim would be all right. Her love would protect him because now they truly belonged. Now Tatiana Sutton was a living, breathing, pulsating woman who loved and was loved in return. No longer was she a cosseted only child, guilty for having been born a girl. She was one half of a perfect whole that was Tim and Tatiana. She existed, when alone, on a soft cushion of disbelief at the new creature she had become. Just to see a flower bud opening or a bird in graceful flight made her feel warm inside.

When the squadron took off from Holdenby Moor into a peachy early-evening sky, she was sick with despair and hugged their love to her like a child with a precious, familiar toy.

When they came together – really together – their first loving had been sweet and gentle and filled with the delight of belonging but the next time had been fierce and without inhibition and if, she thought through a haze of sadness, their last coupling had made a child, then so be it. And if one morning K-King did not come home, then she would have something belonging to him and she wouldn’t care about Grandmother Petrovska nor a shocked Holdenby that would turn away from her and whisper behind her back that she was no better than she ought to be.

But she would never let them take Tim’s child from her. Daisy would understand because Daisy and Keth had been lovers. And Uncle Nathan would help her because he was the kind of man who, if a child could choose its own father then she, Tatiana, would have chosen him.

She wondered if her own father had been kind, like his brother Nathan, and knew instinctively from things half remembered from a misty childhood that he had not.

She closed her eyes. She must not weep again because if she did, someone at home would ask her what was the matter. Instead, she squeezed her eyelids tightly shut.

‘I love you so much, Tim,’ she whispered. ‘Take care tonight.’

‘There, now! See how it’s done, lass?’ Jack Catchpole held aloft a broom handle from which was suspended the hessian sack of hen droppings. ‘You tie the sack in the middle, then you tie it to your broom handle – or any suchlike piece of wood. Is the tub ready?’

‘Ready, Mr C. Half full of rainwater, like you said.’

‘Then that’s all there is to it.’ Catchpole regarded the zinc washtub his wife had discarded all of three years ago. Lily was alus throwing things away. Thank the good Lord he’d had the sense to rescue it from the rubbish tip. He had known he would find a use for it one day. ‘You lay the broom handle across the top of the tub so the sack is covered with water, then every day you lift it up and down – give it a good ponching – and by next year, that liquid’ll be food and drink to those little tomato plants.’

‘Next year? But won’t it smell, Mr Catchpole?’

‘Smell? Oh my word yes, it’ll smell.’ He closed his eyes in utter bliss. ‘There isn’t a scent on God’s earth, Gracie, like a tub of liquid hen manoor.’ Unless it was the wonderful, spring-morning whiff from a well-rotted heap of farmyard manure. ‘Next year’s tomatoes’ll wonder what hit ’em when they get a dose or two of that mixture. Tomatoes big as turnips we’ll have!’

‘But won’t it attract flies – bluebottles and things?’

‘Happen it could, and happen we might cover it up when the hot weather comes. But we’ll worry about that next summer.’ If they lived to see another summer, that was. ‘And till then, I want you to see to the ponching. Every day. The hen manoor will be your responsibility, lass, so don’t forget, will you?’

‘Every day.’ She closed her eyes briefly and shuddered inside her. Stuffed vegetable marrows were bad enough. Never would she eat one she had vowed, and now, just to think of tomatoes grown red and fat and juicy on hen muck made her towny soul writhe. ‘I’ll remember. And while I’m remembering – I won’t be able to go to Lady Helen’s party. Our forewoman told us this morning we’re to go on leave in two lots. Now the corn harvest is in, she said, we’d all of us best take it whilst we could, because soon the farmers will be busy lifting potatoes and sugar beet. Sorry, Mr C. but we’ve got to do as we’re told.’

She did so want to see her family again, tell them about Rowangarth and Mr Catchpole and all the things she was learning about gardening, yet it was a pity, for all that, to have to miss the party.

‘Can’t be helped, Gracie. I’ll miss you, but a week isn’t for ever. And them little hens are going to miss you, an’ all. Who’ll be looking after them?’

‘Daisy said she and her mother would see they got a hot mash every day, and plenty of water, though I bet you anything you like they’ll lay their first egg whilst I’m away,’ she sighed.

She was fond of Mrs Sutton’s six Rhode Island Red pullets, loved their placidity, the way they scratched industriously, their softly feathered bottoms wiggling this way and that. She had almost given each one a name until common sense told her she must not become too attached to them. But it really would be awful if Daisy were to find the first egg in one of the straw-lined nest boxes. In fact, Gracie was forced to admit, she was getting too contented with her new life in the kitchen garden, and seeing seeds she had helped to plant and pot on growing into fine cabbages and sprouts and leeks.

It was going to be awful going back to Rochdale. It would be unbearable were not Mum and Dad and Grandad there. In fact, the only thing good about leaving Rowangarth and Mr Catchpole would be the certain fact that the war was over.

‘Now don’t look so glum, lass. You look as if you’ve lost a shilling and found a penny. Cheer up. It might never happen.’

‘No, Mr C. It mightn’t.’

But it would happen. One day, one faraway day, the land girls and Waafs and the ATS girls would hand in their uniforms and go home and Gracie Fielding would take off her overalls for the last time and say goodbye to this beautiful garden.