Elizabeth Elgin - One Summer at Deer’s Leap

‘Then I’m saying nowt, or it’ll all be in a book!’

‘I write fiction, Mr Jarvis,’ I said, holding out my hand. ‘What I’m interested in is the history of the house. I’m not prying. I’m Cassie, by the way. What are you drinking?’

‘Nowt at the moment, though I wouldn’t say no to a pint of bitter.’ Reluctantly he shook my hand.

‘I want to know,’ I said, when he was settled at the table, ‘who lived at Deer’s Leap in the war. Jeannie said the Air Force just turfed them out without a by-your-leave. I’d have hated that if it had been my house.’

‘Ar, but my generation had to put up with that war and we hated it, an’ all. Didn’t stop the high-ups from London taking whatever they wanted, for all that. Smiths had no choice but to sell up and get out.’

‘And where did they go?’

‘Can’t rightly say, lass. Got my calling-up papers, so what became of ’em, I never knew.’

‘Did they have a family, Mr Jarvis?’

‘Not as you’d call a family – nobbut one bairn, three or four years younger than me. Susan, if I remember rightly.’

Susan Smith, I brooded, then all at once I remembered the initials S. S. and a tiny heart on the strap of the airman’s gas mask. The initials stood for Susan Smith. She, likely, had put them there!

‘How old was Susan when she had to leave Deer’s Leap?’ I managed to ask, a kind of triumph singing inside me.

‘Now then – I’d just been called up, as I remember. Was twenty-two. Usually they took you afore that, but they’d let a young man finish his training, sort of. I was ’prenticed to a cabinet-maker, so as soon as I’d done my time they called me into the Engineers and taught me about electrics! Any road, that would make the Smith lass about eighteen or nineteen. I’m seventy-six, so she would be seventy-two or -three now – if her’s still alive. Fair, she was, and bonny, but quiet, as I remember.’

‘It was rotten about their land – especially as the government expected farmers to work all hours to produce food,’ Jeannie prompted.

‘Ar, but t’farm were no use to Smiths any more. Them fellers from the Air Ministry took all their fields in the end. Nobbut the paddock left them. Then they said they wanted the farmhouse, an’ all.’

‘That was a bit vindictive,’ I said hotly.

‘No. Stood to sense, really. The Air Force wanted to extend the runway at the aerodrome, and they took Deer’s Leap to billet airmen in. ’em could do what they wanted in those days. Would have the shirt off your back if they thought it would help the war effort! They couldn’t get away with it now. Folk wouldn’t stand for it!

‘Mind, once they’d no more use for bombers, they soon upped and went! I suppose Smiths could have got their house back and their fields, an’ all, but they never tried. That farmhouse stood empty for years. It’d have fallen down if it hadn’t been solid-built and a good, tight roof on it. A man who’d won money on the football pools bought it eventually and fancied it up. He couldn’t stand the quiet, though, so it’s been rented out ever since.’

‘I think it’s a beautiful house,’ I said softly as Jeannie took Bill’s empty glass to the bar for a refill. ‘I wish it belonged to me.’

‘You’d never stand the quiet, lass.’

‘I would. I’m there for a month and I wish it was for ever.’

‘Ah, well, there’s folk in it now, so you can stop your fretting for it. Reckon they’m well satisfied with the place.’

‘Yes. They love it.’ I didn’t mention they’d be leaving it, come New Year. ‘I think the view from the front is unbelievable. There’s such peace there.’

‘Weren’t a lot of peace for folk around here in the war. ’Em had an aerodrome, don’t forget, on their doorsteps, and bombers overhead day and night. Bits of kids flying them. It’s a miracle there weren’t more crashes.’

Jeannie returned with a tin tray with three pint glasses on it. Bill Jarvis smiled, and took one of them.

‘Crashes?’ I probed.

‘Oh my word, yes!’ He pushed his empty pipe into his top pocket and took a long drink from his glass. ‘Mind, those bombers were great big things and needed a lot of room for takeoff, but folk around here could never see the sense in the Air Force wanting more land for longer runways. ’Em thought it was going to be something to do with the invasion; that we had a secret weapon that was going to take off from Acton Carey. But it was the Americans came in the end. Mind, I can’t help you a lot there. I was in Italy at the time, on the invasion.’

‘I wonder why the Smiths didn’t come back. I’d have wanted to,’ I said.

‘Ar, but talk had it that he was given some fancy job with the Ag and Fish; didn’t have to work so hard for his money.’

‘Ag and Fish?’ Jeannie frowned.

‘The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. For once, they took on a man as knew a bit about farming! I never found out what happened to him after that. Was none of my business. Now, I mind when I was in Italy …’ His eyes took on a remembering look, and I knew there would be no more Deer’s Leap talk. But I had made contact, and before we left I had arranged to meet the old man again at the Rose on Wednesday night.

‘You’re a fast worker,’ Jeannie laughed as we cycled home. ‘What are you up to with Bill Jarvis?’

‘Nothing at all,’ I called back over my shoulder. ‘But like I said, it’s all grist to a writer’s mill. Life here must have been a bit tame all round once the war was over.’

‘Yes, and a whole lot safer!’

We closed the white gate behind us. It would have been dark by now, but for a half-moon. We hadn’t passed one street-lamp. It made me feel good, just to think of how remote we were. Tommy was waiting, purring, on the doorstep; Lotus was away on her nightly prowl. Hector barked loudly as Jeannie unlocked the back door, then hurtled past us to run round and round the stableyard like a mad thing. I switched on the kitchen light, then filled the kettle.

‘Want a sarnie?’ I asked. ‘There’s ham in the fridge.’

‘Please.’ Jeannie kicked off her pumps, then flopped into a chair. ‘No mustard.’

‘It’s been a lovely, lovely day,’ I sighed as I cut bread. ‘Bet our legs’ll be stiff in the morning, though. I haven’t ridden a bike in years.’

We sat at the kitchen table. It was too late now to sit on the terrace and watch distant lights. Even the birds were quiet.

‘I’m tired,’ Jeannie yawned not long afterwards. ‘All this country air …’

‘Me too.’ I said I would check the doors and windows. I considered it my responsibility since Beth had left me in loco parentis , so to speak. ‘Off you go. I’ll be right behind you.’

Tommy had settled himself on the bottom of my bed, but I didn’t shift him. I cleaned my teeth, washed my face, then lifted the quilt carefully so as not to waken him. Then I sighed and stared into the shifting darkness, glad that Jeannie hadn’t wanted to stay up late, talking, because I needed to think.

Up until tonight, things had been a muddle, yet now it was as if I was looking down on a table top with the pieces of a jigsaw piled on it in a heap. I had found the corner pieces of that puzzle and laid them out carefully in my mind.

One was a long-ago airfield – aerodrome, Bill called it – at Acton Carey. It had been the cause of the Smiths – piece number two – leaving Deer’s Leap, which was corner piece three. The fourth was Jack Hunter, I knew it without a doubt, and that he and Susan were connected – or why were her initials on his respirator?

I had made a start! Next I must complete the entire outline of the puzzle so I could begin to fill in the story, which was the middle bit. I could rely on Bill for some things because Jeannie had been right: his brain was still razor-sharp. For the rest of it, I needed to talk to a sergeant pilot. Only he could help me with the difficult bits.