Kath wrapped her pyjamas around the hot-water bottle then slipped it into her bed, wondering where the next one would come from should this one spring a leak. What would happen, she frowned, if the Japanese armies overran the latex-producing countries in the Far East as easily as they had taken Hong Kong? They wouldn’t, of course, but suppose they did? There’d be no more hot-water bottles nor tyres for lorries. And what about teats for babies’ bottles? But best she shouldn’t think about it – well, not too much. Leave tomorrow to take care of itself. She wondered if Barney had got her letter yet, and if it had made him happier about her being a landgirl. She hoped so. She didn’t want to cause him a single moment of worry when she was so happy. Because she was happy. To be happy in time of war was wrong, but there it was. Just to be here, in this attic, in this bedroom all her own was bliss enough. Already she had put her mark on it. A jar filled with holly stood on the window ledge, her picture of Barney stood atop the chest of drawers, her dressing gown hung on the door peg and her slippers – slippers Aunt Min had knitted from scraps of wool – stood beneath the chair at her bedside.
And at Home Farm things couldn’t have gone better, she sighed. She could almost drive the small tractor and could harness Daisy into the shafts of the milk-float. She could even muck-out the cow shed now without wrinkling her nose.
She wondered about threshing day. Mat had ordered the team, Grace said only this morning, and it would be arriving at Home Farm any day now. Threshing days, Grace told her, were very important, with everyone turning-to and giving a hand, and extra workers to be fed. Wheat, barley and oats were desperately needed; every bushel they had would be sold.
She switched off the light then opened the blackout curtains, gazing out into a sky bright with stars. Tonight had been quiet. No bombers had taken off from Peddlesbury. Somewhere out there in the darkness, Roz and Paul would be together.
Dear, sweet Roz. They had known each other little more than two weeks, yet she understood her so well, Kath sighed, opening the window, breathing in air so cold that it snapped at her nostrils and made her cough. But soon the days would begin to draw out, nights become less cold. Soon it would be spring and there would be daffodils and lilacs, the first rosebud, and –
The cry was sudden, fearsome and high-pitched. It cleared her mind of all thoughts save that somewhere, not very far off, an animal screamed into the night; a wild shrieking, blood-curdling in its intensity. Was some creature trapped and if it was, how was she to find it? Not a rabbit in a snare; something so small and weak couldn’t give out so terrible a cry. But what, and where?
Hurriedly she closed the window and with feet that scarcely touched the stairs, ran down to the kitchen.
‘Flora! Did you hear it? An animal in pain; such screaming! Come to the door. Listen!’
‘Pain?’ Flora Lyle laid down her pen and pushed back her chair.
‘Oh, yes. Quite near, it seems. Maybe it’s been caught in a trap. We’ve got to find it.’
‘And then what could we do?’
‘We’d let it go. It was awful. Listen. Please listen?’
She flung open the door and stood, ears straining, and it came again, that frenzied cry.
‘There, now! You heard it, too?’
‘Aye. I heard it.’ The Forewoman took Kath’s arm, pushing her back, closing the door. ‘I heard it fine. And yon creature’s no’ in pain, lassie; no’ in pain at all. It’s a vixen.’
‘A what?’
‘A she-fox; a female in season. She wants to mate, Kath. She’s no’ in any trap. Leave her be. There’ll be every dog-fox within miles have heard her. January’s the month for – well, for foxes and vixens.’
‘You’re sure?’ Kath’s cheeks flamed red. ‘But it was such a terrible sound.’
‘I’m sure. Vixens take their pleasures terrible serious, you see.’
‘Oh, my goodness! Don’t tell the other girls?’ Kath gasped. ‘They’d laugh their heads off, wouldn’t they?’
‘I’ll no’ tell,’ the Forewoman said solemnly, though her eyes shone with mischief and she struggled against laughter. ‘The countryside’s a peculiar place, Kath.’
Just a vixen, she thought as she climbed the narrow stairs to her attic. Who ever would have thought it? A vixen, wanting a mate. And such a noise, too. Then her face broke into one of her rare, wide smiles.
‘Oh, but you’ve got a lot to learn, Kath Allen,’ she whispered; ‘an awful lot.’
But it was as Aunt Min had said. The countryside wasn’t all romps in the hay and collecting eggs.
She laughed out loud. ‘Oh, get yourself undressed and into bed, you silly woman!’ In pain, indeed!
Jonty opened the cow-shed door and called softly to the heifer in the stall nearby.
‘Cush, pet. Cush, lass …’
Gently he stroked her flank and she turned her head, regarding him with wide, bewildered eyes.
‘All right, girl. All right …’
She was coming along fine, he nodded. She’d have her calf with ease, though the unaccustomed pain was making her restless.
‘Cush, cush,’ he soothed.
Oh, yes. She would drop her calf instinctively and with more dignity than ever the human animal could muster. Her pain, though, her real pain, would start tomorrow when they took her first-born calf away from her.
‘Sorry,’ he murmured. ‘Sorry, lass …’
They sank into the hay on the sheltered side of the stack, pressing deep into it, shoulders touching, hands clasped.
For a long time they were content to be so, taking in the calm after a storm of fear and outrage.
‘I love you, Paul Rennie.’ Roz lifted his hand, touching the palm with her lips. ‘Where ever you are, whatever you are doing; never forget it, not even for a minute.’
‘I’m sorry, my darling.’ His voice was still rough with emotion and remembered terror. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. It was wrong of me.’
‘It wasn’t, and you should have. From now on, you must always tell me.’
‘So where’s your shining-bright hero, now?’ The despair in his voice thrust into her like a knife.
‘You were never my shining-bright hero, Paul; just the man I loved – love – will always love. And I wish you could be an erk again. I wish they’d take you off flying and send you to some place where they’d never even seen a bomber.
‘I wouldn’t care. Not if I didn’t see you again till it was all over, I wouldn’t. It’s you I want, not some cracked-up hero. I want you with me always. And they could stamp LMF right in the middle of your forehead if I thought there could be a future for us together.’
She reached up and pulled his head to her own, closing her eyes, parting her lips for his kiss. As he kissed her, she lifted the hand she had touched with her lips and placed it beneath her blouse to rest on her warm, wanting breast.
‘Love me?’ she murmured, drawing him closer. ‘Please love me?’ Her body strained nearer and she felt the first stirrings of his need, heard the sharp indrawing of his breath. ‘Remember this morning, Paul? Remember Jock, who’d never lived? I haven’t lived either, and I want you …’
He said no, that they shouldn’t. They’d be sorry, he said, after. But his protests held no substance against the force of her need and she kissed away the last of his doubts.
‘I’ll