Coming Home (4 page)

Three

Steven
stood outside the door of the sturdy stone built farmhouse where he had been born and stared incredulously at his half-brother. He couldn’t believe Fred could dictate who should, or should not, live at Willowburn. Their father had followed them outside and he turned to look at him. His heart sank at the sight of his haggard face and the look of defeat in his eyes. He looked beyond them to the fields sloping upward towards the head of the glen. They were green and fresh after the city streets with their shells of burnt out homes and factories. How often he had dreamed of the Scottish hills and glens during the hellish years spent fighting for his country and for the freedom of people like Fred. It was the dream of returning to the farm and the home he loved which had sustained him in his darkest hours.

In
the tense silence he could hear the familiar gurgle of the burn which ran by the stack-yard boundary, beyond the house. He had played there as a boy. He knew every inch of Willowburn Farm. He had spent the first eighteen years of his life here. As soon as he was fourteen he had worked in the fields and the farm steading. All that was before the war. It seemed like another life.

His
eyes narrowed as Fred’s words echoed in his brain as clearly as they had five years earlier.

‘I’m not going to the army. I’m staying here. He’ll have to go.’

‘But Steven isn’t eighteen yet.’ He recalled his mother’s anguished protest.

‘
I don’t care. He’ll be eighteen in two more weeks.’ Now he knew Fred had wanted rid of him even then.
Steven had a mouth curved for laughter but his upper lip curled in contempt as he brought his gaze back to Fred’s sullen face. Had his brother hoped he would perish in a foreign land as so many others had done - as his best friend Sam had done? He would never forget those last hours as they had lain side by side knowing Sam was dying. No medal on earth could replace a friend like Sam.

Anger
began to burn in him. He drew himself to his full height, his chin jutting proudly. Fred’s piggy eyes narrowed warily and he took a step backwards. Steven raised an eyebrow. His blue eyes flashed.

‘Coward,’ he hissed between his teeth. ‘I suppose you always were, but I didn’t know that when you were bigger than me. Did you hope I’d be killed like Sam? Did you hope I’d never return home?’

‘So what if I did?’ Fred sneered. ‘There’s no place for you here. We don’t need you. Willowburn is my birthright—’

‘
The farm still belongs to father, and he’s my father too, or had you forgotten?’ Steven looked at his parent, willing him to raise his eyes from contemplation of his boots. His father’s gaze remained lowered.

‘
I’ve made him a partner in the farm,’ he muttered slowly. ‘I would have made you a partner too, laddie...’

Steven’s
heart sank.
Would
have
? What did his father mean by that? A shaft seemed to pierce his heart as he stared at his father’s bowed head. Willowburn was the place he had remembered when he wakened and before he went to sleep, the home he had fought for and dreamed about.

‘
Father?’ he prompted with a note of desperation. Slowly his father raised his head, lifted his cap a little to scratch his forehead. It was a habit Steven remembered well. ‘Father?’ he repeated.

‘
We-ell…’ Eddy Caraford cleared his throat. ‘I’ve told Fred we need ye lad. I’m not so young as I was. There’s more work than we can manage, especially now the land girls will all be going home. I expect Edna will be leaving now the war is over.’

‘
No!’ Fred protested hotly. ‘I told you! I don’t need him here. There’s no place for him. We’ve got a tractor now. Anyway Edna is staying.’

‘
None o’ the other girls stayed very long,’ his father reminded him sharply, ‘and they can’t do the work Steven can do.’ Fred flushed. He considered himself the boss and he was not used to his father disagreeing with him these days. He sensed his disapproval and his resentment of Steven increased.

‘
If he’s so good at working he can get a job somewhere else, him and his medals and promotions,’ he jeered.

He
talks as though I’m not here, Steven thought and guessed Fred had stated his opinions before.

‘
We ought to be keeping more cows and an extra sow or two,’ Eddy said meeting his younger son’s direct blue gaze. ‘You were aye good with animals, Stevie. And I remember you learned to plough when you were only thirteen.’

‘
We have the tractor for ploughing now,’ Fred exploded. ‘I’ve stayed here and worked while he was roaming about the world. Willowburn is mine. You said you’d tell the landlord to make me the tenant before
he
came back.’

‘
I can’t tell the landlord anything, I can only ask. It’s out o’ my hands,’ his father said firmly. ‘When I mentioned having a joint tenancy, the land-agent said you needed to prove yourself. He preferred to wait until we knew whether Steven was coming back.’

‘
It’s nothing to do with him! You could have persuaded him to put my name on the tenancy if you’d tried,’ Fred argued belligerently.

‘
I made you a partner to encourage you to pull your weight, Fred. It hasna done much good so far,’ his father said wearily.

Steven’s
gaze darted from one to the other. He saw the strain in his father’s face. His heart sank. Fred had always been a bully but he never thought he would try bullying their own father, even less that he would succeed. Thinking back, he knew Fred had always expected to get his own way, even when he was quite young. His mother reckoned it was because Fred had lost his own mother when he was a baby and his father had tried to compensate for the loss. Fred had played on that from an early age, manipulating their father to get what he wanted. If there was no place for him at Willowburn, what would he do when he was finally demobbed? Farming was the only thing he’d ever wanted to do. He could have attended Dumfries Academy and had an education as his mother had wanted him to do, but he had longed to work with his father, learning to plough and to sow, to shear the sheep and help with the lambing.

Even
at school, Fred had been lazy and he had never been clever enough to pass for the Academy but he hadn’t wanted his younger brother to have the opportunity either. Steven allowed himself a glimmer of a smile as he remembered it was the one and only time he had welcomed Fred’s support. He grimaced at the memory now. Fred glared at him.

‘
You needna smirk. Farming’s not the easy life you had here before the war,’ he said, ‘its bloody hard work and—’

‘
Nay lad,’ their father protested, ‘farming was never easy and Stevie aye buckled to and got on with things. He was keener to farm.’

‘
He knows nothing about the way things are now,’ Fred snapped, glaring at Steven. ‘There’s men in suits who come breathing down our necks, telling us what to do, ordering us to plough pasture that’s never been ploughed before and—’

‘
My heart bleeds for you,’ Steven drawled with rare sarcasm. ‘I told you the first time I came on leave that the farmers all over the country were ploughing up pasture, and even ancient parkland, to grow more cereals because the country needs food, but you wouldna even keep an extra cow. It’s only the inefficient farmers who have visits from the War Ag. I heard they’d threatened to turn you off. You would never have bought a tractor or learned to plough if the government hadn’t made you grow cereals. It was only my mother and her poultry that saved you from being turned out of Willowburn.’ Steven regretted his outburst immediately when he glanced up and saw the colour had drained from his father’s face. He looked more like seventy nine than fifty nine. The war had not been easy for him. He guessed Fred still didn’t do his fair share of the work.

‘
I suppose
she
told you that,’ Fred snarled furiously, jerking his head towards the kitchen.

‘
No, Mother never mentioned it. She didn’t need to tell me. It’s the talk of the county. Even when I asked about it in my letters, she avoided answering. You should know she’s always been loyal even though.’

‘
Loyal! She’d had one husband but she still poked her nose in where it wasna wanted as soon as she got a chance o’ trapping another fool into marriage.’ Steven saw his father wince but he jerked upright.

‘
Nay, that’s not the way of it.’

But
Fred ranted on.

‘
She should have stayed a widow and got on with being a bloody housekeeper. That’s all she was good for but she wanted—’

‘
Fred! That’s enough of such talk! You should be ashamed.’ Eddy Caraford’s face was chalky white now and he sagged back against the house wall, one hand clutched to his chest, but for once Steven was too incensed to pay attention to him. In the army he had earned respect for his self control, his handling of tricky situations. He rarely panicked or lost his temper but his half brother’s insults regarding his mother made his blood boil. Fred’s sneering smirk was the last straw. His fist struck at the thick lips almost before he realised what he had done.

‘
Why you…!’ Fred wiped a hand across his split lip. He saw blood. Instantly he lowered his head. Just in time Steven remembered that nasty habit of old. He jumped aside, remembering how painful Fred’s head butts had been in his tender young stomach. Now he wanted to laugh as his brother sprawled heavily on the dusty yard. Only the anger still coiling in his stomach prevented his mirth.

‘
Dinna fight. Aah lads there’s nae need to fight. Surely there’s been enough o’ that,’ their father said in genuine distress. He had never known Stevie strike his elder brother before.

‘
You’re right, Father,’ Steven grimaced, ‘I’ve seen enough to last me a lifetime.’ He looked more closely at his father’s drawn face and saw the way his hand clutched his chest. ‘Are you all right Father?’ He frowned in concern.

‘
Aye, I’ll be fine in a minute. Hush now laddie, don’t worry your mother.’

‘
We-ell, if you’re sure you’ll be all right?’

‘
Aye. We could do with ye back home, laddie, but I canna do with fighting. I’m too old for…’

‘
Don’t worry Father. I haven’t had chance to tell you yet. We’ve been drafted to Palestine. We’ll be gone about a year to eighteen months I think, then…’

‘
Good riddance!’ Fred muttered, glowering at him as he dusted himself down. Steven ignored him.

‘
It will give us all time to decide what’s best, Father.’ He squeezed his father’s shoulder, grabbed his kaki haversack and slung it over his back. ‘I couldn’t promise we wouldn’t brawl again.’ He glanced at Fred in contempt, ‘but I dinna want to cause you a heart attack so I’ll not stay where I’m not wanted.’

‘
Eh lad, ye canna leave. This is your home and your mother’s cooking ye a good roast dinner.’

‘
It’s better if I go now, Dad. Tell Mother I’ll see her before I leave and I’ll explain about Palestine. I didna want to go there but now I see the way things are it will give me time to think about the future.’

‘
But ye’ve only just arrived. Where are ye going?’

‘
Where I’ve always been welcome.’ He strode off down the lane, away from the farm, away from the place he had dreamed of as home.

He
regretted his outburst and his loss of temper as he walked down the road away from Willowburn. Deep down he was hurt that his father seemed to accept Fred’s decisions. After all they were both his sons and he and his father had worked well together. He had always thought they were close. He hadn’t even said goodbye to his mother and he regretted that now but pride wouldn’t allow him to return while Fred was around. He would come back and see her tomorrow when he had calmed down. He wished she had told him that Fred was a partner in the farm. She ought to have warned him he was angling after getting the tenancy into his own name too. Maybe he should have realised Fred wouldn’t want him back at Willowburn after five years of being an only son. Right now he felt rejected, cast adrift like a ship without a rudder. What did the future hold for him now?

His
Commanding Officer had tried to persuade him to make a career in the army but his heart wasn’t in it. He craved for the countryside; he wanted animals around him and land to plough and work and care for. He wanted to farm.

It
was a mile and a half down to the main road and another couple of miles to Martinwold Home Farm where the Oliphants stayed. They lived in the original farm house which adjoined the dairy, and the byre beyond it. As owners, the Turners occupied a newer, more imposing house which was separated from the farm yard by a large garden. Steven knew Sam’s parents would give him a warm welcome and a bed for the night. He had spent many happy hours wondering around Martinwold when he and Sam were boys but he had seen Sam’s parents only once since his death. It had been a brief, sad visit. This time he knew they would have questions to ask, they would want to hear all he could tell them about Sam’s time in the army, including his death.