Chapter 1 #2
She couldn’t help feeling a little guilty too, knowing she wasn’t being entirely frank with her husband.
Whenever Charlie bemoaned their lot, Bobby delivered a stern reminder that they ought to count their blessings.
She never confided to him her own occasional feelings of dissatisfaction in the life they now shared.
Or, not dissatisfaction exactly, Bobby hastily corrected herself. She had never felt happier or more loved than she had since she and Charlie had moved into their little home. This was more a sort of… yearning.
She knew it was foolish. She was grateful, so grateful, to be back home in Silverdale with her husband.
She relished being close to the people she loved – her sister, her father, her sister-in-law Mary, and Florence and Jessica Parry, the little Londoners she had grown close to when they had been evacuated here.
Every day Bobby looked up to the fells and said a quiet prayer of thanks that Charlie had made it back from a war which had taken so many.
With the baby that had seemed an impossible dream on the way, they had everything they could have hoped for.
Even Bobby’s much-loved job on The Tyke magazine had been restored to her. Yes, Charlie’s injuries would make a difference to their lives, but nothing was insurmountable. Nor was there anything Bobby regretted about the course her life had taken.
Yet still there was that hungry feeling, as of something promised yet never fulfilled.
She had been about to do important work in the WAAF – had dreamed of a codes and ciphers commission, an overseas posting, really making a difference.
She didn’t regret the path she had taken, but there was still curiosity, even longing, about the one she had failed to take.
Bobby wondered if she was destined never to be completely happy with her lot.
To long always for fresh challenges, and stimulation for her busy brain.
What would her little world look like when Marmaduke came along?
It was so strange to think that before summer came again, she would – God willing – be a mother.
Silverdale had an eerie appearance when Bobby stepped off her doorstep.
St Peter’s churchyard was opposite, and the silhouettes of the stubby gravestones made her shiver.
One memorial topped by a stone angel had nearly frightened her witless the day she had gone back to work, rising out of the darkness like an avenging spirit.
Her heart almost stopped again when she saw one of the squatting silhouettes rise and take on human shape, but Bobby was soon laughing at herself when she recognised what a familiar shape that was. It belonged to her sister, Lilian Scott.
‘Honestly, Lil, you frightened me to death,’ Bobby said when she had joined her twin. ‘I thought you were the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.’
Lilian laughed. ‘I doubt you need an old sinner like me to show you the error of your ways.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘Half an hour.’
‘You should’ve knocked. You could have warmed up inside while I got ready.’
‘I didn’t like to wake your Charlie.’
‘He’s scouring the paper for jobs already. I don’t think either of us will be able to break the habit of early rising now we’ve been in the services.’ Bobby glanced at her sister, who looked washed out, as she so often did these days. ‘What brings you out so early?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Lilian gestured to the gravestone she had been kneeling beside. ‘Annie was sleeping soundly so I thought I’d come and have a little talk with her sister.’
Bobby looked down at Georgia Scott’s gravestone. As always, it was scrubbed clean and adorned with fresh greenery – even in winter, there was always something living to give colour to the stone. Lilian took exceptionally good care of the plot where her baby slept.
‘What have you been talking to her about?’ Bobby asked, slipping an arm through her sister’s as they set off walking.
‘Oh, just foolishness.’
‘You can always tell me your foolishnesses.’
‘Honestly, it’s nothing.’ Lilian laughed.
‘It was mostly moaning about not being able to get any tinned pilchards on points and the quality of the National Loaf. Dad and Tony’s eyes glaze over whenever I vent about housewife business, and I’m not sure Annie’s don’t as well. But Georgia’s always happy to listen.’
‘You come down here too much, Lil,’ Bobby said softly. ‘You’re still recovering from the birth. You shouldn’t be squatting in cold, damp churchyards.’
‘You sound like George Parry.’
Bobby frowned. ‘The captain?’
‘Yes, he gave me some advice too in his quiet, serious way.’ Lilian smiled. ‘“Grief is a necessary thing but don’t neglect the people alive who love you, Lilian.” That’s what he said to me.’
‘That was bold of him. Still, he’s right.’
‘I have to come.’ Lilian swallowed. ‘I… think about her, when I’m in bed. Think about how lonely she must be, alone in the dark.’
‘And about how lonely you are, alone in the dark,’ Bobby said quietly. ‘Can’t you talk to Tony? He’s grieving for her too.’
‘I know, but it isn’t the same for him, is it? I’m her mother, Bobby.’
‘Have you tried talking to him?’
‘I used to.’ She laughed bleakly. ‘He tries to make me feel better, bless him. It’s absurd really.’
‘What is?’
‘The way he acts like he can fix it with words. He reminds me that we ought to be grateful to have Annie, that I’m lucky to be alive, that there’ll be other babies.
’ Lil turned wet eyes to her twin. ‘But I don’t want to feel better, Bob,’ she whispered.
‘That’s what I can’t make Tony understand.
I don’t want him to fix it. I want him to share it. ’
‘It’s harder for men. Dealing with feelings and things.’
‘I know. Tony does his best. And I know he loves me, although I often wonder why. We’re so little alike.’
Bobby had wondered this herself. Tony had long admired her twin, and that was natural.
Many men back in Bradford had sighed over pretty, vivacious Lilian Bancroft.
But Bobby hadn’t realised the depth of Tony’s feelings for his wife until the night Lilian had nearly died in childbirth, when Bobby had overheard Tony’s desperate prayer that God would take him instead.
Yet it was true the pair had little in common and struggled to relate to one another.
Perhaps it was Lilian’s need for Tony, her vulnerable state when she had found herself carrying his baby, that had inspired his fondness.
He had always had a weakness for a damsel in distress.
All Bobby knew was that she had seen Tony in love a handful of times since they had known one another, but she had never seen him display the tenderness he showed to Lilian.
‘I wish you’d come to me when you can’t sleep, Lil,’ Bobby said. ‘I’ll always be there to listen, about tinned pilchards or anything else.’
‘I wouldn’t wake you for my trivial mitherings. You’ve got Marmaduke to think about.’ Lilian forced a smile. ‘Anyhow, never mind me. Did the doctor give my niece or nephew a good report at your last appointment?’
Bobby glanced warily around. They were still some distance from Moorside Farm and the converted barn known as Cow House Cottage, where Lilian lived with Tony and her father.
However, they weren’t far from the place George Parry shared with his daughters, Florrie and Jess.
The two Londoners had been evacuated to Silverdale after losing their home in the Blitz.
They had formed a strong bond with Mary and Reg Atherton, their hosts, which had persuaded Captain Parry to make a home here when he had been medically discharged from the army.
Now, Athertons, Parries and Scotts felt almost like one big family.
‘Not so loud,’ Bobby murmured to Lilian. ‘I don’t want any rumours to get back to Reg. With Charlie out of a job, I need to stay in work as long as I can.’
Lilian lowered her voice. ‘Would Reg really lay you off right away? It is his brother’s baby.’
‘I have a horrible idea he’d try to give us money,’ Bobby said, pulling a face. ‘I’d rather earn my keep while I can.’
‘How long do you think you can get away with it? Reg is one thing, but there isn’t much gets by Mary.’
Bobby felt a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t yet shared her news with her good friend – Lilian was the only person she had confided the secret to.
There were twenty years between half-brothers Reg and Charlie, and Mary had raised her brother-in-law as a son after the death of his mother.
She would be thrilled to learn she was to be a grandmother, in spirit if not in blood.
But while Bobby trusted Mary with a secret, it didn’t feel right asking her to conceal one so significant from her husband.
‘Mary wouldn’t tell tales on me,’ Bobby said. ‘I’m hoping it’ll be at least another month until I need to confess to Reg. Maybe two, if I adjust my clothes cleverly. I’m barely showing yet.’
‘Oh, but you’ll feel rotten traipsing about getting stories when you’re six months gone.’ Lilian looked appalled at the idea. ‘I don’t understand why Charlie can’t just reopen his practice.’
‘It isn’t that simple.’
‘Why not?’ They had reached the packhorse bridge now, and Lilian glanced at the cow house in the distance. ‘His surgery’s been kept as it was before he went to war. Tony, Dad and I can work around him if he needs it again.’
In civilian life, Cow House Cottage had been Charlie’s bachelor residence, and he had run his veterinary surgery from a more modern extension.
However, he had arranged for his practice to be absorbed by the one in the nearby village of Smeltham when he had left for the RAF, and since then the surgery had sat unused.
‘Charlie couldn’t start practising again just like that,’ Bobby said.
‘He made an arrangement with the Smeltham vet, Bill Lawrence, when he moved away eighteen months ago. Bill extended his premises and took on a couple of lads to cover the work. It wouldn’t be very fair to expect him to just hand back all Charlie’s former customers after laying out all that expense.
And… well, things are different for Charlie now. ’
‘Because of his injuries?’
Bobby nodded soberly. ‘With just his bad leg he could still practice, but his arm… I hadn’t realised until I moved to the countryside how strong vets need to be.
Battling huge brawny bulls to get them vaccinated, and the way Charlie describes birthing a calf, it sounds more like a wrestling match than a delivery. ’
‘Won’t his arm ever heal?’
‘Not entirely. There’s been a lot of nerve damage. It’s always going to be weaker than it was.’
‘Well, then couldn’t he tend the smaller animals and leave the big ones for the stronger men? A terrier can’t put up much of a fight.’
‘His specialism is large animals. Maybe he could retrain, but…’ Bobby paused.
She didn’t like talking about this, knowing it humiliated Charlie.
But she and Lilian had shared care of their father from childhood, and she knew her sister would understand.
‘It isn’t just the weakness in his arm,’ she said in a low voice.
‘He shakes, now. His hands tremble constantly, even when he’s calm. ’
‘Yes, I’ve noticed,’ Lil said quietly. ‘His nerves, I suppose, like Dad. Will he always?’
‘Dad does, doesn’t he? You can’t be a fumble-fingered vet, Lil.’
‘I guess not.’
‘Poor Charlie,’ Bobby said with a sigh. ‘He had interviews with two practices last month, but as soon as they saw his stick, his hands shaking and his arm burnt, they didn’t want to know.’
‘That makes me so cross,’ Lilian said, scowling. ‘Why should men injured for their country lose because of it? We owe them a huge debt.’
‘I expect the vets who run these practices are just thinking about their businesses,’ Bobby said. ‘They don’t owe Charlie a living, war or not. If he can’t do the work, why should they give him a job?’
‘Doesn’t that make you angry?’
‘I’ve been angry about so many things in this war, I’ve none left to spare for ordinary people just trying to make the best of things.
’ Bobby sighed. ‘I do hate how being out of work makes Charlie feel though. Cooking and cleaning like a housewife while I’m out trying to earn enough to support us. It humiliates him.’
‘My Tony acts aggrieved if he has to make his own cup of tea,’ Lil said with a dry smile. ‘Men, honestly. It’d do the lot of them good to learn one end of a kettle from the other.’
‘It’s more than that. Charlie’s never been stuffy about me working, and he lived alone as a bachelor so he’s no stranger to chores. It’s more… I suppose that he feels it’s his job to take care of me and Marmaduke, and if he can’t, he feels useless.’
‘That’s understandable.’
‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ Bobby said dreamily.
‘What?’
‘How different they all are. Men. Charlie’s experience is the mirror of Dad’s in some ways, and there’s Reg and Captain Parry – all scarred by war, physically and in their minds.
Charlie and Dad both struggle with feelings of uselessness when they can’t do what they feel is their duty as men.
Yet they each deal with it in their own way. ’
‘What’s Charlie’s way?’ Lilian flashed her twin a worried look. ‘He doesn’t try to cope… like Dad did?’
‘He doesn’t knock back spirits, no,’ Bobby told her. ‘But he hates to lean on anyone, even me. Especially now when he thinks I’m fragile.’
‘But you two are all right, aren’t you? I thought you and Charlie were signed, sealed and delivered when it came to living happily ever after.’
Bobby smiled. ‘Yes, we’re all right in that sense.
I never expected the things that happened to Charlie – to both of us – when we were in the RAF would just fade into the past once we were back on Civvy Street.
We need to take each day as it comes, I suppose, and count our blessings whenever we feel inclined to grouse. ’
‘Do you miss the WAAF?’
They had reached Moorside now. Bobby discovered on glancing at her watch that she was a few minutes late for work.
Mary Atherton was on the doorstep beating out a rug, and she called to Bobby that Reg was waiting to speak to her and Tony in the parlour.
Bobby was grateful to be spared answering her sister’s question as she hurried into the farmhouse.