A Dangerous Act of Kindness Read online

  ‘Really?’ Millie said, other thoughts clattering around in her head.

  ‘You know that pork shop on the corner of Church Street?’

  ‘Wolfs?’

  ‘That’s right. Josef was interned at the start of the war and Mary’s been running it on her own.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘A whole load of women went down there when news of the Bristol bombing raid came through. They smashed her windows and cornered her in the shop.’

  ‘She’s not German.’

  ‘She’s married to one. They said she was a collaborator.’

  Millie felt as if her guts were giving way, caving in, like mud tumbling into a post-hole.

  ‘I hurried over to see what was going on. It was awful. The poor soul was terrified.’

  ‘Did they hurt her?’

  ‘Not as such. They spat on her – so many of them that by the end she was grey-white from the top of her head to her shoulders.’

  Millie felt a wave of nausea rising into her chest. She wasn’t sure if it was disgust or terror.

  ‘God, Brigsie. You didn’t take part, did you?’

  ‘No.’ Her eyes slid away and she looked troubled. ‘I didn’t really help though, if I’m honest, not until later. You know what those Shawstoke women are like. Rough as houses. I went back after they’d gone. Mary was out the back, scraping the mucus off her face. Her hair was full of it. I wanted to help, find out what she was going to do next but she told me to go away and mind my own business.’

  She unbuttoned her oilskins and spread her legs out towards the range.

  ‘It’s really warm in here. You must have had a bloody good fire going last night,’ she said, glancing over her shoulder towards the grate.

  Millie followed her gaze and froze. The two empty glasses of poteen were still on the table in the living room beyond. Brigsie sat, smiling up at her. From there she couldn’t see through to the sitting room but it was only a matter of time.

  Millie mustn’t look towards them again; and she must quell the rapid rise and fall of her chest. She moved away from the range and towards the window, trying to draw Brigsie’s gaze.

  ‘I had a lovely fire,’ she said, aware that she sounded breathless. ‘I sat up quite late – but it’s always warmer in the house when the roof’s covered with snow. Must work like a great big blanket.’ She reached the window and looked out.

  ‘Good God!’ she shrieked, perhaps a little too theatrically. ‘What’s that ruddy dog got now? Be a dear, Brigsie and call him in, would you?’

  In her agreeable way, Brigsie got to her feet and padded down the corridor.

  Millie whipped into the sitting room. She could hear Brigsie calling Gyp but knew she had no time at all. She stuffed the glasses underneath a cushion and was back in the kitchen before Brigsie sauntered in.

  ‘He’s just rootling around,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t seem that keen to come in.’ She patted the top of the range. ‘Better get some more fuel in here.’

  ‘You’ve done enough for one morning Brigsie, I can manage.’

  ‘You’ll be running out of wood soon.’

  ‘There’s plenty under the lean-to.’

  ‘I’ll get a load in for you before I go.’

  ‘No.’ Millie spoke with more vehemence than she intended and seeing a frown cross Brigsie’s face, she added, ‘It’s better for me if I keep busy.’

  ‘All right then – if you’re sure.’

  Millie riddled the bottom of the range, hooking out the ash tray and carrying it down to the back door. Opening it, she flung the clinkers onto the porch steps – they would make the compacted snow safer.

  She could see Gyp over by the dung heap, his nose to the ground. Despite Brigsie’s reassurances, she called him, feeling that as long as he was outside, he posed some sort of indefinable hazard. He trotted towards her but as he neared the house, he hesitated, sampling the air and turned as if to scurry off round the side of the house.

  ‘Gyp,’ she called, her voice cross with impatience and he dropped his ears and slunk towards her. ‘Get inside,’ she said and he scuttled past. She felt a pang of guilt. Poor old Gyp. She caught up with him and patted his shoulder.

  Brigsie sat and watched her packing the fuel down into the burner.

  ‘So why did you lock the door?’ she said again, ‘were you feeling jumpy with all that talk about German pilots crash landing?’

  Millie didn’t dare turn round. She didn’t trust the expression on her face. Instead she grabbed the wire brush and dashed the smuts into the burner, her face glowing.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘It was Gyp – I went up to check the silo yesterday afternoon and he ran off towards the combe. I had a terrible time getting him back. I was worried that if you let him out when you arrived he’d be off again.’

  ‘That’s not like him. Mind you, there’s precious little scent to follow out there this morning. It’s a winter wonderland.’ Out of the corner of her eye Millie could see Brigsie watching her. Then she heard the chair creak as she leaned forward and said, ‘Any chance of a cup of something hot before I go?’

  Millie swung round and stared back at her.

  She didn’t want to make her friend feel unwanted when she’d been so kind but she had to go. Everything around her felt tinny and unreal. She didn’t know if she sounded normal, wished she could remember what they usually chattered about.

  ‘Of course, if you think you’ve got time. It’ll take an age for the range to get back up to heat though.’

  Brigsie watched her for a moment then said, ‘Perhaps you’re right.’ She stood up and began buttoning her oilskins. ‘Look. Why don’t you let me stay? Robbie’ll understand.’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. I won’t allow it. You’ve done so much for me.’

  ‘Sure you can manage? You’ve only got to say, you know.’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s not the first time we’ve been snowed in.’ She gave an abrupt laugh and immediately wished she hadn’t because Brigsie narrowed her eyes a little. But then she laughed too and said, ‘Nor the last.’

  Brigsie still seemed reluctant to leave. Millie felt her face freezing into a sort of rictus smile, saw her friend’s eyes travel around the kitchen until something caught her attention and she said, ‘Would you like me to put the weight back on the feed bin on my way out?’

  Millie felt an uncomfortable glow spreading up from her chest. She broke away from Brigsie’s gaze and went over to where the brass weight still sat on the floor by the table. She heaved it up and handed it to her.

  ‘Thanks – would you mind? I brought it in last night. I’d a notion I’d make a batch of pressed ham but then Gyp ran off and I didn’t have time.’

  ‘OK,’ Brigsie said.

  Millie could see from her expression that she didn’t believe her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brigsie put the weight back on the feed bin and brushed the dirt off her gloves. Through the gap in the open door, she could see Millie standing in the yard, hugging her arms around her waist as if she were holding herself together.

  ‘What have you been up to?’ Brigsie said under her breath, a raffish smile on her face.

  Clearly she’d had one hell of a night but quite how the weight fitted in, she couldn’t imagine. She pulled the barn door shut and gave Millie a wave.

  ‘Cheerio,’ she called.

  She rounded the corner of the yard and plunged into the thick snow, pushing her legs through the drifts like a convict in leg irons.

  She was glad Millie was having herself a spot of fun. Shame it hadn’t cheered her up a bit more. She wondered who he was, the fellow who left the deep footmarks in the snow round the side of the house. It couldn’t be Hugh or she’d have said. Perhaps he was Canadian, like Robbie and if he were, she wouldn’t blame her. They were pretty dishy, with their film-star accents and lovely teeth.

  Half way down Sheppington Way she stopped to take a breather and stood, hands on her h
ips, looking out over the escarpment. Below she could see the white roofs of Merewick, the pretty downland village in the valley. Robbie had scrounged some petrol coupons and planned running them over to the pub there for the evening. It was a lovely pub, thatched, would you believe? Pretty as a picture and in winter there was this great log fire and all the horse brasses shone.

  The snow clouds were already building along the horizon. There was going to be another big dump tonight, that’s for sure. Perhaps they’d get stranded, have to stay the night. That would give the village tongues something to wag about and as she set off again she chuckled to herself, wondering if Millie would get snowed in with her fancy man too.

  She stopped again. Of course. That’s why Millie was being so secretive. Brigsie knew all about the unpleasant gossip that went around after Jack topped himself – what on earth would the community say if they knew the young widow up at Enington was fooling around with another man, her husband barely cold in his grave?

  She felt a wave of relief. She thought of Millie as one of her best friends and frankly, she’d felt a bit hurt that she hadn’t confided in her. Now she understood. Millie didn’t want people knowing she was putting it about again so soon and she certainly wouldn’t want dear old Hugh to know, poor chap.

  ‘Good on you girl,’ Brigsie said out loud, and hurried on through the snow, thinking about a pint of beer and a plate of stew beside the pub fire, the drifts silently building up outside until they came to leave and, Oh, what do you know? Snowed in. Rooms? Marvellous. And then, when everyone’s asleep, the thrill of the creak of a floorboard, her door opening, stifled giggling in the dark.

  Brigsie was having one hell of a good war.

  * * *

  As Brigsie disappeared over the brow of the hill, Millie gave a great sigh of relief and headed back to the house. The cold sweat of anxiety was ebbing away, leaving her clammy. She put the kettle on the range and made her way upstairs, into the chilly bathroom, where she vigorously cleaned her teeth.

  Back in the bedroom, she stripped off the clothes she’d slept in, her skin shivering in the bright morning light, and stirred around in the pile of things on the chair until she found a different shirt, tugging a green ribbed jumper over the top and flicking out the collar.

  Looking in the mirror, she thought Brigsie was right, she did look exhausted. She gave her cheeks a few sharp pinches, made an ‘Ow,’ face at herself and smiled. She pulled the pins out of her hair, shook it out, then gathered it back up into a scarf and tied it at the front, pulling a fringe of curls forward from underneath.

  She had a cold, clear feeling that she’d got away with something momentous and wished this sensation of lightness would last. But it was more than that. Those terrible events back in July had stolen her mind, filled every idle hour with recrimination and guilt – perhaps if she’d been kinder to Jack, she could have saved him; if she’d been more loving, less critical, he’d still be alive.

  Last night stopped that dead. This stranger’s gentle question cracked something open in her and she’d wept, not for Jack’s despair and suffering, but for her own.

  She wandered out into the corridor and across to the second bedroom. Jack used it as a dressing room, said he couldn’t move in their bedroom with all her clutter.

  It was clamped with cold. The hoar frost had thrown glistening fronds across the windowpane and Millie scratched a small hole in the ice with her nail. She could just make out the path that Brigsie had taken in the fresh snow. She scratched off more ice and gazed across the wilderness of white towards the distant copse on the other side of the combe.

  He’d gone. Sometime during the night he’d slipped away and was out there in that vast frozen landscape. There was no point wondering about him. Their story began and ended last night.

  The enormity of her betrayal was keen as a knife in this cold, bare room and yet, when she conjured up the image of that German pointing a gun at her head, it disintegrated and reformed as the sensitive face of Lukas Schiller. Now that the immediate danger had passed, she felt sorry she’d imagined him to be a threat. He’d turned out to be an honourable young man after all.

  The sin was all on her side. If she couldn’t help her own husband when he was in distress, she certainly should not have helped an enemy soldier. What was she trying to do? Salve one crushing guilt with a more intense one? Her thoughts were fragmented and muddled. It felt as if she were fighting another terrible loss but her rational mind raged against the idea. All she could do was fill her days with physical work to stop her mind from wandering.

  The kettle was steaming merrily on the range but she’d lost interest in a cup of tea. She pulled on her outdoor clothes and went into the yard, calling to Gyp who bounded after her, snapping his teeth in the air at flurries blowing off the roof. The snow stuck like melted wax to the bricks of the outhouses. She looked across the fields and saw that the darker features on the horizon were fading; more snow would come before the afternoon.

  Brigsie had let the chickens out and they were scratching away near the sheds among the spilled cow feed. She went over to the coops to check if there were any eggs – unlikely at this time of year but possible – then she gathered up the water dispensers and made her way back to the house to thaw them. Before going in, she put her hand on the latch of the door for balance as she tugged off a boot.

  Her foot came free with a jerk and she stumbled, her socked foot crunching onto a clart of snow.

  ‘Blast!’ she said loudly.

  Feeling rather disagreeable, she gathered up the metal feeders and pushed the kitchen door open with her shoulder. The feeders clanged against one another, ringing out as she lowered them into the sink. She banged them upside down against the porcelain. As the plugs of ice dropped and slid away, she heard another noise behind her and turned.

  Lukas Schiller was standing in the shadows of the darkened sitting room watching her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  At about the same time that morning, Hugh Adamson was up at Church Piece digging out the sheep. Tom Watkins, the shepherd, had sent his lad down to fetch him when Hugh was in the middle of breakfast and, stuffing the last piece of fried bread into his mouth, he apologised to his mother for not doing full justice to the fried eggs, and headed out on foot towards Sheppington.

  As the lad took the rest of the flock down the hill towards the shelter of the churchyard, Hugh and Watkins spent an exhausting few hours searching for three missing ewes, which they eventually dug out of a bank of deep snow that had drifted against a stone wall.

  ‘Had their noses pressed to the gaps between the stones,’ Watkins said, struggling to keep a disorientated sheep from toppling sideways. ‘Could have left them there for days.’

  ‘Or lost them altogether,’ Hugh said, rubbing his hands across the poor animal’s packed nostrils. She leant against his legs, her breath forming a cloud around her mouth as she panted. After a few minutes she jerked away, gave a weak bleat and tottered off down the hill to join the rest of the flock.

  ‘That’s them all, Mr Hugh,’ Watkins said.

  Hugh watched the shepherd fall in line behind the sheep, stepping high to plant his feet in the snow. His eyes lifted above the thin procession of man and animals to the horizon. No doubt about it, more snow was on the way. He wondered if Brigsie got up from Shawstoke this morning or if Millie was having to cope on her own.

  He needed to go over this afternoon and make sure everything was all right. She’d be cross with him, he knew that, but he didn’t care. She was always cross with him when he fussed, but deep down he knew how much she needed him, how much she depended on him, especially now Jack was gone.

  It was pretty annoying when she started stepping out with Jack but not surprising. Jack was good looking and Hugh – well, he hadn’t grown into his face back then; big nose, big smile and acne. God, that acne. No wonder Millie went for Jack, but Hugh never imagined it was anything more than a teenage crush.

  Then old Mr Sanger ups a
nd dies, Enington passes to Jack and, lo and behold, Millie’s going to marry him. It was madness. They were both so young. It soon became clear Jack needed all the help he could get, running that farm, and Millie… well, Millie wasn’t a country girl, not back then. She was a Shawstoke girl.

  Mind you, she learned pretty quickly. To be perfectly honest, Hugh was pretty pleased when Jack struggled. Hugh liked to be needed, particularly by Millie.

  Mrs Adamson was busy at the range when Hugh came in for lunch. He thought his mother was looking particularly well these days. She shed quite a bit of weight when she was widowed a few years back and it suited her, made her look younger. She’d stopped setting and colouring her hair and left it to grow out pepper and salt grey, swept away from her face, making the most of her sharp features and clever blue eyes.

  ‘Have we lost many?’ she said.

  ‘Not one,’ Hugh said, washing his hands and snatching the tea towel off his mother’s shoulder to dry them. ‘We left them in the churchyard.’

  ‘The churchyard? But there’s more snow on the way. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get them down to the sheds?’

  ‘It would, but it’s too far. They’d be exhausted and I can’t get the trailer up there today. They’ll be sheltered enough for the time being.’

  His mum laid out the bread, cheese and pickles while he poured them both a tumbler of ale.

  ‘I thought I’d take the tractor over to Enington this afternoon,’ Hugh said.

  His mother looked up from cutting the bread.

  ‘If you couldn’t get the trailer up to Sheppington, you’re not going to get the tractor over to Enington, are you?’

  ‘It’ll be fine. Sheppington’s a good climb – the track across to Millie’s is all but flat.’

  ‘Well,’ she said with a heavy sigh, ‘if you must, but I think you’re absolutely potty.’

  By the time he’d finished lunch and set off towards the sheds, the blizzard was blowing hard, blotting out everything except the buildings around the yard. Perhaps she was right, he was potty, but if he didn’t go, she’d have him in that office doing paperwork.