‘A shock,’ he said reluctantly, staring ahead. ‘I liked it long. You know I did.’
‘But it’s so easy to manage now. No tugging and pulling. Anyway – I like it!’
‘I see. You like looking as if you’re fresh out of gymslips, do you, because that’s what it does to you! You’re a married woman, Lorna!’
‘Of course I am, but I do like my hair short. You wouldn’t understand, but I feel so – so free. And I don’t want to grow it. I couldn’t bear to cart that great mop around with me ever again. I felt so top heavy! And long hair isn’t hygienic – especially when there’s a war on!’ She was protesting too much, she knew it, yet still she muttered, ‘And if I might say so, William, it isn’t very kind of you to find fault when I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you!’
There! Not only had she stood her ground, defended her new image, she had answered back, too!
There were traffic lights ahead. On red. She slowed, and pulled on the brake. Then she took a deep breath, willing the light to stay on red until she got a grip on her feelings, refusing to speak, to say one more word that might get her deeper into trouble. And thank heaven she had decided against lipstick and even the tiniest touch of mascara.
‘Sorry!’ William, actually apologizing. ‘Sorry, old girl. A shock. I mean – well, I’ll look like your father when we’re out together!’
‘Then shave off your moustache!’ The traffic ahead was moving. ‘You’d look ten years younger if you did,’ she smiled, hesitantly. And he smiled back and said that sorry, the moustache was a part of his officer image – gave him dignity, and all that.
‘Very well. You may keep it,’ she said with mock severity. ‘And William, I really am glad to see you.’
Storm in a teacup over, she thought, as relief thudded inside her, and fingers crossed that she would get away as easily with the hens and Ness Nightingale!
They were halfway down Priory Lane and not two minutes from home when Lorna stopped the car, almost without thinking.
‘William – are we friends again?’
‘Well, of course we are! We’ll forget the hair, shall we? Live and let live, eh?’
‘Yes, dear, and I’m sure you’ll get to like it, but – well – I have something else to tell you!’
Best get it over with; best, if there was going to be an argument to have it here in the lane.
‘And what else have we done? Overspent our allowance?’
‘Of course I haven’t!’ She said it more sharply than she intended, because he was talking down to her; talking like he really was her father! ‘It’s just that we have got – I have got – six hens on the back lawn!’
‘You have what? Hens? In heaven’s name, why?’ His face was red again. ‘That is a very fine lawn! Whatever made you want to put hens on it? If the grass cutting is too much, why on earth didn’t you ask Goff Leaman to do it for you?’
‘I’m well able to push a grass cutter, and the reason for the hens is that it is patriotic to produce food and if I don’t, I’m going to get some sly digs from the village. Most people have got rid of their flowerbeds and I thought hens on the grass would be the lesser of two evils.’
‘Without asking me?’
‘But do I have to ask you!’ she rounded angrily. ‘You left me in charge when you went away. Can’t I be trusted? I thought very long and hard before I put the hen ark there.’
‘Ugly things, arks …’
‘Yes, but tidier than a shed and wire netting and posts all over the place to keep the hens from straying. And next time you come on leave they’ll be laying and you’ll have lovely fresh eggs for breakfast.’
‘You could have bought equally fresh eggs from Kate Wintersgill.’
‘All right! But for how much longer? Eggs will be the next thing to be rationed – she said so herself. But if you are determined to put me in the wrong, William, then you have succeeded!’
‘No, Lorna. I’m sure you did what you thought best, but I hadn’t bargained for hens on the lawn. Sorry if I sounded abrupt.’
‘Yes, you did sound abrupt and yes, I will accept your apology. And please remember that I’m not a soldier you can shout an order to – or at!’ Her voice began to tremble. ‘And why are we going on like this? Today should have been wonderful, yet we’re having words again! What is wrong, William?’
‘Nothing is wrong. It’s just that you had your hair cut when you knew I wouldn’t like it and you put hens on that beautiful lawn without a lot of thought. But we are not arguing, Lorna – at least I am not! You, though, are getting very het up. What else have you done?’
‘N-nothing!’ Now, really, was the time to tell him about Ness, but she had pushed her luck far enough for one day. ‘Nothing else.’
‘Oh, but there is! I always know when something is wrong. Tell me, is the land girl still in our spare room?’
The question came suddenly, uncannily. It was as if, she thought, panic-stricken, that the words land girl were written on her forehead in inch-high letters.
‘The land girl is at the hostel in Meltonby, since you ask!’ she gasped. Ness was there – technically. And why was she lying and please, please don’t let anyone mention Ness before William’s leave was over? Hens and hair she had got away with, but admitting to a land girl at Ladybower, when William had said she must leave, was asking for trouble. ‘And if you don’t believe me –’
‘Of course I believe you and of course I trust you to take good care of Ladybower – and yourself – whilst I’m away. So don’t let’s quarrel? I’ve been looking forward to this leave. Can’t we pretend I’m a civilian again – just for three days? No more moods, eh?’
‘All right. And I’m sorry if –’
‘And no more sorries, either.’ He pointed ahead. ‘Do you realize I can see Ladybower’s chimneypots and I want to get home and out of this uniform. So start her up, there’s a good girl, and let’s be on our way!’
‘Yes, dear.’ She said it contritely as the Lorna of old would have said it. Her capitulation pleased him and he patted her knee paternally like the William of old had always done.
Sighing, she started the car.
‘There are a few things to be washed, Lorna – can you do them? They’re in my case – and there are the things I’m wearing now. I’ll get out of this uniform and have a bath, if there’s any water?’
There was. She had switched on the immersion heater before she left for the station, even though the powers-that-be frowned on such things. Electricity was a munition of war and electrical appliances must only be used of necessity. Higher than average electricity or gas bills would come under scrutiny, everyone knew, and the miscreant warned, though no one, this far, had actually been taken to court for wasting electricity or gas. It would have been plastered all over the daily papers as a warning, had it been so – like the woman who was fined seventy-five pounds for obtaining two pounds of off-the-ration sugar. Seventy-five pounds, would you believe? Six months’ wages!
‘Water, dear? For a bath for a weary soldier?’
‘Sorry. I was miles away, thinking about the immersion heater. I’ll pop upstairs and switch it off!’
She did just that, checking the