Avalanche of Daisies (45 page)

It was pitch dark and they seemed to be alone in the middle of a field. The German was piddling against one of the trees in a small copse about a hundred yards away. So they got out of the truck too and followed his example. Then they weren't sure what they were supposed to do and stood by the truck awkwardly ill at ease.

Their captor was standing at the edge of the field, smoking and looking out into the darkness.

‘What's he doing?' Dusty whispered.

Again that enormous effort for Steve to pull his thoughts into his mind. ‘Waiting for someone?' he ventured. ‘Maybe it's a rendezvous.'

But nobody arrived and presently, the German flicked his dog-end into the copse and walked briskly back to the car. He took a pressure stove, a coffee pot and two billycans out of the truck and signalled to his prisoners that they were to prepare a meal. It was most peculiar. And what followed after the meal was even more peculiar. The German climbed into the back of the truck, motioning them in ahead of him. Then he produced an army blanket from under the pile of clothing, wrapped himself up in it, pulled his revolver from his belt and lay down to sleep with the gun in his hand.

‘Run?' Dusty mouthed.

Steve shook his head. Weighed down by misery he couldn't see the point of it. They were miles into German territory and unarmed. They'd only be picked up again in the morning. They might as well stay where they were and wait to be handed over. He pulled a greatcoat from the pile, huddled into it and settled to sleep too. The German could be lost – he'd been driving without any reference to a map – or he could have come here to meet up with his unit. Either way he'd hand them over tomorrow and then they'd be registered as prisoners of war and sent to a camp somewhere and the whole thing would be out of their hands. No soldier would drive about the countryside with two prisoners. Not for long anyway.

But the next day, they drove on further and further east, using the minor roads and avoiding the towns, and they weren't handed over. And in the evening they stopped in another empty field, ate and drank as before and bedded down for yet another night.

‘It don't make sense,' Dusty whispered when the German seemed asleep. ‘What's he playing at?'

But whatever it was he had very good hearing, for at that point he sat up, threatened them with the revolver and bellowed at them, ‘
Halt die schnauze!
', obviously telling them to shut up. He was an ugly-looking man with a long horsey face and small eyes and his anger was making him look cruel, so they did as they were told, looking away from him in the sullen way of all captured soldiers.

So another night passed and the three men slept fitfully, the German irritably watchful, Dusty cold and puzzled, Steve more and more depressed.

On the morning after her quarrel, Barbara got up at half past five. Her sleep had been broken by bad dreams and when Steve's alarm-clock trilled her awake, she was so weary it was an effort to open her eyes, but she had no intention of being in the house when her mother-in-law woke. So she got up at once, had a lick and a promise in very cold water, made a cup of tea, ate a slice of bread and marge and was gone before the kitchen clock struck six.

It was a bright, clear, empty morning and she had the street to herself. Being out in the open restored her spirits, and especially at that moment, in that town. She walked past the dusty privet hedges, enjoying the mottled yellow of the brick walls, the gull-grey of the tiles, the stolid bay windows, still curtained and sleeping. She felt she belonged there and was glad to be alive, despite her stupid mother-in-law. This is such a brave town, she thought, such a good, solid, dependable sort of place. We been bombed an' buzzbombed, we've had rockets dropped on us, an' people we love have been killed, an' we've put up with everything. We hain't the sort to give in.

But at that moment she saw a familiar figure trudging along the road towards her. She'd forgotten that six o'clock was the time Bob came home when he was working nights. Oh dear! she thought. I really don't want to talk to him, nice though he is. Not now. What shall I say? But she couldn't avoid him, not without being deliberately rude, which would hurt his feelings and she didn't want to do that. So they met at the bend of the road.

They were both embarrassed, he because he knew there'd been a row, she because she knew that he knew. But they made light of their meeting and their embarrassment.

‘You're up early!' he said, smiling at her.

She made an excuse. It sounded feeble even to her ears. ‘I promised to see Mr Threlfall,' she said. ‘Before work.'

He kept so calm that he didn't register any emotion at all. ‘Ah!' he said and walked on. But once he was indoors, his annoyance couldn't be contained.

Heather was in her dressing gown in the kitchen, setting the table for breakfast and looking anxious but for once her fraught expression roused no pity in him at all.

‘I've just met Barbara,' he said.

She closed her face. ‘Oh yes,' she said dismissively. ‘Bacon an' fried bread be all right?'

‘What's she doing out this time a' the morning?'

Her answer was truthful and aggressive. ‘Keeping out a' my way I expect.'

‘You went for her.' It was more a statement than a question.

‘Somebody had to say something,' she told him. ‘You can't let things go forever. We've got our Steve to think about.'

‘And this is going to help him?'

‘She shouted at me, Bob. She was horrible.'

He didn't doubt it but there were other things that were more important at the moment. ‘What she say about the fly in the ointment?'

‘As good as admitted it.'

He'd hoped she would have denied it. No, more than hoped, he'd expected her to. Was there truth in what that boy had said then? He sat down wearily in his chair before the fire and unlaced his boots.

‘Did you ask her? Straight out, I mean.'

‘'Course. She couldn't deny it.'

So there's real damage been done, he thought. Whatever possessed her, silly girl? She might have known there'd be trouble. ‘So now what?'

Heather turned the rasher of bacon in the frying pan and reached for the slice of bread. ‘Don't ask me,' she said. ‘You know more than I do. She went rushing off without a word to me. I wasn't even up. I suppose she'll move back with Sis, if she'll have her. I can't keep pace with her, coming an' going all the time. Poor Steve.'

In fact Barbara had no intention of moving in with Sis. It wasn't something to make a habit of and, besides, she had no reason to run away, not having done anything wrong. I'll sleep there and eat there, she decided, and I'll keep my head down and stay out of her way and wait. Sooner or later she'll have to eat humble pie. On which comforting thought, she reached Sis's flat.

Sis had just lit her first fag of the day when the bell rang. Spluttering and coughing, and with the cigarette stuck to her bottom lip, she trailed her dressing gown cord down the stairs to let her visitor in.

‘Don't surprise me a bit,' she said, when Barbara told her what had happened. ‘There's no one like our Heather for gettin' hold of the wrong end a' the stick. You done the right thing getting out of it. You 'ad any breakfast?'

‘Not much,' Barbara admitted. ‘I was in a rush.'

So they made a big pot of tea and scrambled up some powdered egg and settled down to talk politics among the newspapers just like old times. Sis was full of plans for a political meeting at Bellington South.

‘There's got to be more supporters there than we seen at that meeting,' she said. ‘I mean, that stands to reason. Mr Craxton's gonna suggest we call a public meeting. He says he'll propose it on Tuesday week. Week today. Why don'tcher come with us? Be a nice evening out for you.'

So it was agreed. And they went on reading the
papers. And Sis found an article about the new prefabricated house. ‘Look at that,' she said. ‘Just up your street. In every sense a' the word.'

Engineering experts, the paper said, were being released from airfield work
within the next few months
to switch to preparing roads and drainage systems for building sites. ‘
In the first two years after the end of the European war, there are plans to build up to 300,000 houses
–
100,000 in the first year and 200,000 more in the second.'

‘You'll be in your pre-fab before you know where you are,' Sis promised.

Yes, Barbara thought, happily. I shall. The war'll be over, an' he'll be home, an' we'll have a place of our own right away from everybody, an' all this silly nonsense will be put in proportion. Oh I can't wait. It wouldn't be hard to keep occupied in the meantime, not when there was so much going on.

Sis looked at the clock and gave a squawk. ‘Land-sakes! Look at the time! We'd better look sharp or we'll be late.'

So they went their separate ways to work. And the spring sun shone on them both. ‘See you next Tuesday!' they called to one another.

But that Tuesday didn't turn out the way they expected.

Barbara passed the rest of the week in almost the way she'd planned. She worked afternoons and evenings until her day off on Sunday, which she spent with Sis, and by Monday morning, when she returned to the day shift, she and Heather had established a speechless truce that didn't require either of them to communicate beyond a simple good morning. Heather cooked the breakfast, Barbara made the tea and washed the dishes, and as it was washday, she washed her clothes too, by hand, and hung them in the garden before she left for work. And that evening she and the two girls went to
the pictures and then sat talking until it was very late so that she came home after Heather had gone to bed.

Bob had sat up to see her in, but tactful soul that he was, he didn't say anything about the way she was behaving. He simply asked her what the picture'd been like, and hoped she'd enjoyed it.

She kissed him goodnight, glad of his discretion and unaware that he was secretly wondering how much longer she and Heather would keep up their quarrel. Neither of them could have foreseen that it would come to a conclusion the very next morning.

They were eating their silent breakfast when Mrs Connelly called up the stairs. ‘I've a letter for you, Barbara, so I have. Shall I be bringing it up to you?'

There was something so strained about her voice that Barbara left the table at once to go and see what was the matter. She met the old lady halfway up the stairs and one look at the envelope in her hands told her the worst. It was an official letter. OHMS. The sort that brought bad news.

She opened it where she stood and pulled out the letter, heart thudding and hands shaking. ‘Oh dear God! Dear God!'

Bob and Heather were on the landing, leaning over the stairwell, alarmed and anxious. ‘What is it?'

‘He's missing,' Barbara said, and as she moved her head to look up at them she began to cry.

Heather ran down the stairs so precipitately it was a wonder she didn't fall, grabbed at the letter and read it aloud. ‘Oh my Steve!' she cried. ‘My poor dear Steve. It's not true!'

But the words were inescapable. ‘
Missing in action.
' There was even a date.

Bob tried to comfort them, his face strained. ‘It don't say killed,' he pointed out. ‘Missin' ain't killed. It just means they don't know where he is.'

‘They didn't know where our Betty was either,'
Heather said wildly, ‘an' look what had happened to her.'

It was too much for Barbara, for wasn't that exactly what she was thinking herself? She knew if she stayed in that claustrophobic stairwell a moment longer she'd be screaming. She had to get away. ‘Work,' she said, struggling past them all. ‘I got to go to work.'

‘Is that a good idea?' Bob asked, putting a hand on her arm. ‘I mean …'

But she shook him off, pushed on up the stairs, grabbed her red coat from its hook on the bedroom door, snatched up her handbag and ran headlong down again and out of the house. Work! It was the only thing.

But for once in her life keeping busy didn't help her. Her anxiety was so extreme and her fear so terrible that it was as if the news had punched a hole right through the centre of her body. Every time she thought of him, or remembered the letter, her heart dropped down and down into the pit. Missing. Like Betty. Blown to pieces and never found. She tried to be sensible, to persuade herself that missing
didn't
mean dead, but the most she could hope was that he might be injured somewhere and that they might find him. And imagining him wounded brought back all those awful memories of the dead and injured lying in these streets and bits of body falling from the sky. Oh please God, not that! Not that!

Barbara cooked her usual meal that evening, although none of them had the appetite for it. They sat round the table saying the same useless things over and over again without comforting one another in the least. ‘Missing don't mean killed.' ‘We'll just have to hang on and wait, won't we.' ‘Mustn't give up.'

‘I told Sis and Mabel,' Heather said as they were clearing the table. ‘They came into the shop. Sis says not to worry about the meeting if you don't feel up to it.'

Barbara looked at the clock, checking the time. She'd forgotten all about the meeting. ‘Thass all right,' she
said, sadly. ‘I'll go. That'll give me something to think about.'

‘They'll understand if you don't want to,' Bob said.

But Barbara felt she had to go. Life didn't stop because you were worried. There were things to do.

Sis was waiting at the bus stop with all the rest of the committee except Mr Craxton.

‘You all right?' she asked, giving Barbara a hug. But although Barbara nodded, she couldn't smile and she couldn't think of anything to say.