Once a Land Girl (7 page)

‘Nice to meet you. I’m one of Barry’s tenants, as I expect you know.’

Prue smiled. She had never met any of Barry’s tenants, had no idea how many there were. ‘He should be back in an hour or so. Would you like to come in?’

‘I don’t want to bother you.’ He waved the letter again. ‘Just want a word about the tenancy agreement, that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, I wanted to ask about . .
.’ He trailed off.

‘Come on. I’m not exactly busy.’ Prue liked the way his eyes screwed up when he gave even a minor smile. She opened the front door. The early-evening light was flung over the
heavy furniture, the elaborate mirror, the grim pictures of unknown ancestors, certainly not Barry’s.

‘Blow me down,’ said Johnny. ‘It’s not at all like this next door, my place.’

They stood awkwardly in the hall – awkwardly because, as Prue explained on the telephone to Ag the next day, she had suddenly found herself in a social dilemma. Her instinct was to go to
the kitchen, put on the kettle, settle down at the table. But she knew that was not possible in this house. The kitchen was out of bounds. To take a visitor there and start finding tea and biscuits
was not something Bertha, so fierce in her silent way, would tolerate. Prue knew the housekeeper was capable of being rude in her disapproval, and she did not wish anyone to be rude to this
friendly man, who had turned out to be the next-door neighbour. The alternative was to go alone to the kitchen and ask Bertha if she would mind bringing a tray of tea into the sitting room. But in
the shadow-packed hall Prue’s courage left her. Even if Bertha agreed, her grim disapproval would shade, rather than ease, the atmosphere. Nothing for it but to go and sit down and make
conversation. She led the way not into the front room but to the smaller sitting room that overlooked the garden.

Johnny immediately went over to the window and stood staring out, his back to Prue. ‘Same shape garden as mine,’ he said, ‘but otherwise different altogether. You could do a
lot to this – lots of potential.’ He turned round. ‘Have you and Barry got plans? Because I know a lot of plants people . . . I could put you in touch.’

‘I’m not sure Barry’s a very keen gardener,’ said Prue. ‘Won’t you sit?’ She asked this so primly she made herself giggle. ‘I’m sorry I
can’t offer you—’

‘Oh, don’t worry about that sort of thing. I only wanted to deliver this.’ He smoothed the envelope with a swirl of his long fingers. There was a faintly expectant silence, as
if each of them was waiting for the other to suggest the next move. Prue uncrossed her ankles, gave a high kick with one leg and crossed it over the other.

Johnny did not smile, or compliment her on the prettiness of her legs, but seemed deep in thought. ‘You know what?’ he said at last. ‘All that grass? Chickens would make all
the difference.’

‘Chickens?’ Funny they should both have the same thought. Prue felt almost faint with excited possibility.

‘Chickens. I’ve got a couple of dozen Rhode Island Reds, fresh eggs every day in the laying season. It’s a bonus, I can tell you. They’ve got a good run, and a house at
the end of the garden. I’ve camouflaged it with a few bushes. They’ve made a real difference to the place.’

‘I can imagine.’ Prue now chose to uncross her legs, put her elbows on her knees and cup her chin in her hands. Suddenly reckless, she felt like trying out all her poses, see if she
could get anywhere with this man. At least they had one thing in common: chickens. Not a bad beginning. She fluttered her eyelashes, furious with herself for not having bothered to put on her
mascara. ‘On the farm where I was a land girl, there were dozens of chickens, and bantams. In fact . . .’ Prue now screwed up her eyes, wondering whether to confess the small incident
to this stranger.‘. . . the day we arrived we were greeted by all these birds running all over the place, and I was stupid enough to say I’d never seen such small chickens. The posh
girl, Ag, she soon put me down. “I think you’ll find it’s a bantam,” she said, in her lah-di-dah voice. Snubbed me, all right, but we were soon friends. And, I mean,
I’d never seen a live bird before, just the dead one at Christmas for roasting.’

Johnny laughed politely. ‘You were a land girl?’

‘I was.’

‘Well, good for you. Congratulations.’ He nodded, full of respect. Prue felt herself blush. ‘I don’t know what we’d have done without you girls. How was
it?’

‘Best time of my life,’ Prue said quietly.

‘Never be anything like it again. When it comes to history, land girls will take their place.’

‘Maybe.’

‘But to get back to chickens.’ Johnny returned to the window, scanned the bare lawn. ‘I don’t mean to be impertinent, but here’s an idea. Why don’t you
suggest to Barry you have a chicken run at the bottom of your garden, too? I could get you half a dozen layers to start you off. I could even build them a house – I do carpentry in my spare
time.’

‘I might suggest it.’ Prue went to join him at the window. She stood close to him, but not close enough to make him think she was standing close.’

Johnny handed over the envelope. ‘Will you give him this? I just want his permission to extend my own chicken run.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. I’m sorry he’s not back.’ She took the envelope, wanting to detain him for a few moments longer. ‘Do you work in
Manchester?’

The question produced a very large smile: the slight raise of the amber eyebrows indicated self-deprecation. ‘If you can call it work. At home, not in an office. I sit at my desk looking
at my chickens, writing what I like to call poetry. But I’m also thinking of starting a market garden some miles from the city. Not a good time, of course, but I’ll persevere. During
the war I ran an allotment, gave the stuff to people who were having a hard time – sold it just for what it cost me.’ He moved away from the window. Prue sensed a slipstream of chill
replace the brief warmth. ‘I must go and shut up the birds for the night.’ Prue went with him to the front door. ‘Let me know if Barry agrees to the chicken idea. We could go off
and buy the first batch.’ He nodded towards the Sunbeam Talbot. ‘It’d be a good excuse for a ride in your swanky car.’

Prue laughed.

When Johnny had gone a sense of anti-climax swarmed through her, but beneath it simmered nebulous anticipation. With Johnny the chicken-lover next door, perhaps there would be new ways of
filling the days. She had enjoyed his interest in her days as a land girl.

Prue returned to the hall. She decided on a long bath, in which to think about things. Then she would put on one of her new dresses in which to approach Barry about the chicken idea, guessing
that he would not take to it as eagerly as he had to the possibility of a baby, so she would be spared another celebratory dinner in the posh hotel. As she began to climb the stairs, Bertha
appeared from the kitchen. Prue hesitated, looking down at the housekeeper whose jagged line of top teeth dug into her scant bottom lip.

‘Visitor?’

Prue nodded, blushing, even though she could not see any reason for her to be either guilty or ashamed. ‘Just the man from next door,’ she said, ‘with something for
Barry.’ She moved on up the stairs, curiously put out.

An hour later, having made a great effort with her appearance, she came down again expecting to find Barry, as usual, sitting by the gas fire with the evening paper and a cigar. But there was no
sign of him. She went to the front door, looked out. No sign of the car either. She switched on the porch light and saw, on the step, a box of six eggs. She picked it up, opened the lid. No
message, but they were obviously from Johnny to encourage Barry. Prue smiled. The large brown eggs glowed like discreet lamps. She touched each one with a cautious finger, remembering the chill
feel of shell. Then, determined not to hand them over to Bertha, she took them into the sitting room.

Barry came home an hour late that evening, no explanation. Preoccupied by some business matter, he did not notice Prue’s efforts to look particularly alluring. Over anaemic sausages and
mash Prue gently put her idea to him. ‘Think, we could have eggs like this all the time,’ she ended, and pushed the open box towards him.

‘Where did they come from?’

Prue gave an edited story of Johnny’s visit and suggestion. Barry waved a hand, uninterested. ‘You go ahead, sweetheart, do whatever you like. Set it up. I’ll give you the
money. Get that Johnny fellow to help you.’

Prue got up from the table, went round to Barry and kissed him on the temple.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You won’t regret it. Eggs . . .’

Barry patted her stomach with a cuffed hand. ‘Pregnant yet, are we?’

‘Not yet, no.’

‘Can’t for the life of me think why not.’

‘It takes a bit of time.’

‘So it does, too. I must get to my desk, try to sort out this business.’

Left alone for the rest of the evening, Prue wrote a short note to Johnny thanking him for the eggs and telling him of Barry’s agreement. Then she ran up the stairs, one finger skittering
up the grim old banister as if in a lively dance.

I
t was a late-autumn afternoon. Through the mullioned windows of the sitting room the sky was white as paste, thick, cheerless. Prue threw the
magazines she had been trying to read onto the floor. Once again she allowed herself to glance at Johnny who was still there, fiddling with something on the roof of the chicken shed. He had told
her not to come out till he gave the sign.

It had taken just two weeks to make, this habitat for future hens. There had been several expeditions in Johnny’s van to fetch wood, wire-netting, tins of creosote. Prue’s main
contribution had been encouragement and praise. She had been amazed by his skill in measuring, sawing, nailing, heaving it all together. The work had been an agreeable interruption to the days.
Time had gone faster. Prue had a project, a point, two things she had been missing. Now it was finished.

At last Johnny turned and beckoned to her. Prue ran down the garden to join him. They stood side by side, looking at the completed work – a chicken house and run identical to
Johnny’s on the other side of the wall. ‘Not bad, what?’ he said.

‘I think it’s wonderful.’

‘Now for the chickens and the feed.’

‘When can we get them?’

Her impatience made him laugh. ‘Dare say it could be tomorrow.’

As Prue waited for Johnny’s van to park at the gate next morning, she remembered feeling like this on some mornings at Hallows Farm: cold mornings when, after the milking, she and Joe
would have the chance of a word, a look, to confirm the fun they’d had the night before, or would have again shortly. At the beginning of the Barry One time, she remembered feeling so excited
every new day that her clumsy fingers had trembled on the cold udders, making arcs of milk squirt onto the floor. Even in the early days of Robert, who had been a pastime rather than a romance, she
had felt twittery, as she had described it to the others, when she struggled out of bed at dawn. And now here she was, feeling twittery again – a feeling that had never assailed her during
her courtship with her husband – because the man next door was taking her to buy some chickens. Daft, she thought.

They drove slowly through dense fog to a poultry farm some miles from Manchester. Six coops, holding two Rhode Island Reds each, were waiting for them. Johnny piled them into the back of the
van. Prue handed over one of her huge white fivers and was given a handful of change.

All the way back the stutter of the engine was ameliorated by the hens’ indignant clucking. There was a smell of chicken shit and damp feathers. It was bitterly cold – there was no
heating in the van.

‘Much better’, said Prue, ‘than travelling in the Daimler.’ Johnny laughed. It was easy to make him laugh.

They lugged the coops to the run and set the birds free to shake themselves and scurry about exploring their new territory. They watched them try the water in the drinking trough, begin pecking
at the pristine grass. The fog still hovered low on the ground, giving an ethereal quality to their fat bird-shapes. Johnny put an arm round Prue’s shoulders. But only for a moment.

For the second time Prue was faced with a dilemma. Again, she would have liked to ask Johnny into a kitchen she felt was hers and make him a cup of tea. But again she was thwarted by the very
thought of Bertha’s jealous guarding of her territory, the outrage she would incur if she entertained a visitor there. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ she said. ‘I
wish I could ask you in—’

‘Sounds to me as though that housekeeper woman’s tyrannizing you.’ Johnny’s immediate understanding of the situation, and his not requiring any further explanation, was a
relief.

‘Not really. I’m just not welcomed. I keep my distance.’

‘There’s no reason, though, why you shouldn’t come and have a cup of tea with me.’

Prue hesitated only for a moment. ‘No,’ she said, with a last look at the birds who were already at home in the run.

Johnny’s flat was on the first floor of the next-door house – a house identical in proportion and some detail to Prue and Barry’s. They went into a large room that incorporated
an unruly kitchen and a collection of armchairs and tables covered with papers and files. Johnny looked for clean cups. Prue went over to the window and could see that on a clear day there would be
a good view of both gardens and chicken runs.

‘You know what?’ Johnny was saying. ‘I’ll be able to look out and see you, morning and night, carrying buckets of chicken feed. Even better, collecting the eggs.
It’ll give a rhythm to the day.’

‘I’m sorry – all this chicken business has taken up so much of your time,’ said Prue, ‘kept you from your poetry.’ She turned to look at him putting spoonfuls
of tea into a pot the colour of liver. The china was overlaid with a silvery sheen, like the bloom of grapes in a picture she had once seen by some old master. Identical, it was, to the teapot at
Hallows Farm. Prue felt her heart give a downward beat.

‘Don’t worry about that. Nothing takes me from my poetry. It’s in my head all the time.’