Elizabeth Elgin - Whisper on the Wind

‘Seen to by an Italian , because that’s what we’ve been offered.’ Her voice shook with anger. ‘That’s what my husband gave his life for, Polly; to have his land worked by a man who fought with the Germans.’

‘Nay, surely not …’

‘A Fascist, I tell you! We’re so short of manpower that we’re having to make prisoners of war work. But I don’t want one here. Didn’t Italy declare war on us after Dunkirk; stab us in the back? He’ll be every bit as bad as a German!’

Why must they do this to her, to a woman who had hated all things German with a bitter intensity since the December day the telegram came. From that day on she had never trusted them and she had been right, because now they were at war with us again. And Italy fighting with them.

But thank God that no one at Ridings need speak to the man when he came, for there must be no fraternization, the War Ag. had told Mat. The man would be brought to the farm each morning from the camp at Helpsley and taken back there by a prison guard. He’d be trusted not to try to escape and anyway, who could hope to escape from an island?

Don’t worry, they had said on the phone. One or two farmers had already taken Italian prisoners and it was working out all right. Worry? It would be worry enough just to have the man on her land; on Martin’s land.

Yet did she have a choice when the first of March would be on her before she’d hardly had time to think? All the lonely years she had struggled to keep Ridings land intact, yet now it would be given to others to farm if she refused the help of a prisoner of war. But to have such a one walking Martin’s acres was too much. The world had gone completely mad.

‘Tea,’ said Polly briefly, setting down the tray with agitated hands. She knew the Mistress almost as well as she knew herself; knew the pent-up emotions that had found no relief with the passing of time, that writhed and festered inside her, still. Pity the poor woman couldn’t have given way to her feelings as she, Polly, had done. The day they told her about Tom’s death she had walked and walked, hugging herself tightly, weeping until there were no more tears inside her. In Flanders, her young man had been killed, the spring after the Master was taken.

But Mrs Fairchild’s sort didn’t weep and rage at life. The gentry hid their feelings because that was what they’d been brought up to do. Pity she’d had to stifle all that grief and bitterness, because hating got you nowhere. Thank the Lord that what happened that December day hadn’t affected young Roz, she thought gratefully, for the lass was as happy as the day was long. Which was just as well, all things considered, for it would be her and not the Mistress who’d have to work with the prisoner.

‘Wonder what Roz is up to on her first day as a farm-worker?’ she offered cautiously, but her effort was wasted, for she got no reply. Not that she’d expected one, but it had been worth a try.

If only, she sighed inside her, Mrs Fairchild didn’t take on so about Ridings. If only she would accept that none of this was any of her doing, that there was no price to be paid for what happened all those years ago. But she blamed herself and always would, the proud, foolish woman.

‘Damn that magpie,’ she muttered. ‘Damn the evil creature!’

Washing milk bottles and placing them in the sterilizer required little in the way of concentration and allowed for chatter. It must also, Kath decided, be the warmest job on the farm this bleak, winter morning.

‘There now.’ Roz smiled. ‘Just the milk churns to scald and the floor to mop …’

‘You know so much about it,’ Kath sighed, ‘and I don’t know anything at all. I’m a dead loss.’

‘You’ll soon learn – get used to the routine and the seasons. It’s the seasons that govern farming. I don’t really know a lot; it’s just that I seem to have been in and out of Home Farm since ever I can remember. It grows on you, I suppose. It was only yesterday they told me officially that I could stay on and work here. I’d half expected to be called up, you know. What’s it like, Kath, leaving home and living in a hostel?’

‘It’s going to be great. The Forewoman is fine and the Warden, too. They were really concerned because there was nowhere for me to sleep but the attic. And I didn’t mind at all. I hope they leave me there. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a room to myself – can’t get over the novelty …’

‘You’re from a big family, I suppose,’ Roz demanded, enviously.

‘Yes, you might say that.’ Her laugh was genuine. ‘As a matter of fact I was brought up in an orphanage.’

Best get it over with; let everyone know, right from the start. You knew where you stood, then, with people.

‘Oh, Kath, I’m sorry – well, sorry if it was awful, I mean. I didn’t mean to pry.’

‘It’s all right.’ She laughed again at the sight of the bright red face. ‘And I don’t really know if it was awful – I’ve never known anything else, you see. I was left outside a police station when I was two weeks old. That much I do know because there was a piece of paper pinned to my blanket with Kathleen written on it and my date of birth. They gave me that paper and the blanket when I left the orphanage and they’d already given me the surname Sykes after the policeman who found me, but I’m Kathleen Allen, now. That name is really mine.’

‘Then that makes two of us,’ Roz hastened, eager to make amends, ‘because I’m an orphan, too. My parents were killed in a car crash in Scotland, though what possessed them to leave me with Gran and go careering off just days before Christmas, I’ll never know.

‘It’s just about now that it happened. Gran hates this month. All the awful things have happened in December. And I’m sorry if I seemed rude, but I didn’t know –’

‘Of course you didn’t and I don’t mind about it any more. Can’t change things, can you, though sometimes I wish I knew who I really am and if my name is O’Malley or Rafferty or Finnegan.’

‘Why Irish names?’

‘Because that’s what I think I am. Kathleen – it’s an Irish name, isn’t it? And Barney’s aunt says my colouring is Irish.’

‘Then I wish I had it,’ Roz sighed. ‘This red hair is no end of a nuisance. Poll Appleby says I’m a throwback.’ She laughed out loud. ‘Quite an act we’re going to be – an orphan and a throwback, wouldn’t you say?’

Kath laughed with her. In spite of her accent, Roz seemed not to mind about the orphanage and her not being wanted, because not being wanted was the worst part of the whole thing. She could still weep, if she let herself, for that two-week-old baby; still felt grateful to Barney for giving her an identity. ‘That’s the floor finished,’ she said. ‘Now what?’

‘Well, the leftover milk is put in the churns for the milk-lorry to collect. Jonty usually does that, but I suppose we’ll be doing it now. I’ll ask him.’

‘I like your boyfriend,’ Kath confided. ‘Lovely and tall, isn’t he? Doesn’t look like a farmer, though. More the studious type, but I suppose that’s because of his glasses. D’you know, when he took them off he looked really handsome.’

‘ Jonty ? You’re talking about Jonty?’ Roz squeaked. ‘He isn’t my boyfriend! Whatever gave you that idea?’

‘Sorry! Must have got it wrong. I thought, you see, that –’ That when a man looked at a girl the way he looked at Roz, his eyes gentle and loving, following every move she made, his face lighting up the minute he walked into the room and saw her there … ‘that – well, I got it wrong, I suppose.’

‘You certainly did! My boyfriend is called Paul. He’s aircrew, over at Peddlesbury. I’m seeing him tonight. You’ll be coming, won’t you, to the dance? But Jonty – well, he – he’s Jonty. He’s been there as long as I can remember. More like a brother, really, and you don’t fall in love with your brother, now do you?’