Since he’d left the RAF, Joyce felt comfort that John was now working as a farm manager on a neighbouring farm. After worrying about each and every flying mission he went on, she could at least get a good night’s sleep knowing that he was sleeping safely in a similar room under two miles away. Joyce tried to put her feelings into perspective. Any separation they had to endure now was hard, but not as traumatic as when he’d been in the forces and flying who knows where.
She hoped in her heart that any real danger to him had passed. It seemed inconceivable now that the nights of insomnia and days spent with an inability to eat were over. Once, every waking moment had been taken with fearful anxiety about John’s safety while he was navigating for the RAF. Now the most she had to worry about was whether she could get away with staying overnight at Shallow Brook Farm without being caught by her Women’s Land Army warden, Esther Reeves. Esther was more lenient than some wardens she had heard about, but she still drew a line about Joyce spending weeknights with John. She wanted Joyce at Pasture Farm, ready to work, not gallivanting off with her husband. Fridays and Saturdays were different, with Joyce allowed to stay over at Shallow Brook Farm on both those nights. But if she wanted to sleep in his arms in the week, she had to risk being caught creeping out of Pasture Farm at night and returning at first light. Joyce enjoyed that manageable level of danger though. She knew that even if she was caught, it was unlikely that Esther would give her an official warning for her behaviour. The worst outcome would be a firm telling-off followed by unimpressed scowls for a week or so as Esther made her point. But whatever the outcome, Joyce knew it was easier simply to not get caught.
John pulled down the carriage window so he could crane his neck out to give Joyce one last kiss. She hooked her arms around his neck and pushed her lips softly against his.
‘You take care, you hear?’ Joyce tried to stop herself welling up.
‘You too!’ He smiled back.
The train remained stationary for a moment. Joyce and John looked at one another, with a moment of amused awkwardness, as they waited for the train to leave.
‘It’s never like this in the pictures, is it? The train always goes straight away after they’ve kissed, doesn’t it?’ Joyce was enjoying a few extra seconds with her husband.
‘Or sometimes it goes as they’re kissing, and they have to stop halfway through. Lovers torn apart and all that.’
The small delay, the shared joke, had helped. Joyce felt herself relax. It was all going to be alright. John would chivvy Teddy to a speedy recovery and then they’d share Christmas dinner together back at the farm in a few days.
‘See you very soon!’
‘You’re seeing me now. Given the time this takes to go, I’ll probably still be here next week!’ John replied. As if John’s comment had been overheard by the driver, the train started to edge forward.
The guard blasted a final volley on his whistle to warn people to stand back and the train belched out smoke as it crawled out of the station. Joyce watched the other women running alongside, waving goodbye. But she remained still, waving from where she stood. She was struck by a sense of déjà vu, remembering the other times John had left on the train from this station; usually with a brow furrowed with worry and a kit bag full of his RAF uniform and home-made cake for the journey.
Joyce watched as the train receded into the distance, aware of the other people drifting away around her like ghosts disappearing from view. She pulled her cardigan around her shoulders and braced herself for the walk back to the farm.
A starling swooped down low in front of her as she ambled along the country lane, a light drizzle adding to the already wet ground and making the leaves of the evergreen hedgerow glisten. Lost in her thoughts about the impending Christmas celebrations, Joyce walked the well-remembered route without really thinking where she was going. She’d done it so many times, it was automatic. She could recite it with her eyes shut: the walk across the road from the station; the town square, the vicarage, the little bridge by the newspaper office leading to the fields beyond. It had been nearly forty minutes since Joyce had seen him off at Helmstead train station and she assumed he’d be well into his journey by now.
The blue sky was fading to grey as evening fell. She rounded a corner and trudged across a muddy path to the stile that would lead her to the back of Pasture Farm. She remembered when she had first made this journey, burdened with suitcases and a complaining Nancy Morrell. What had happened to Nancy? She’d been her first roommate in the Women’s Land Army; a cantankerous sometimes entitled young woman who didn’t enjoy getting her hands dirty. She’d even tried to get Joyce to carry her suitcase from the station. Flaming cheek! Joyce had flatly refused. She smiled to herself at the memory. It seemed like a lifetime ago now. She had seen so many things in her time here, found solace in her new family of Esther, Finch, and the other girls. She had seen great, life-affirming times of friendship. Even through the bad times the resilience of her friends, her surrogate sisters, had helped her pull through, finding her inner strength to face whatever problems came her way.
The grey sky continued to half-heartedly drop its drizzle. Joyce thought the chances of snow this Christmas would be slim. There had been freezing fog in the lead up and some of that still hung around, but there wouldn’t be snow. That would be fine. John would have more chance of getting back in time if there wasn’t any snow on the tracks.
Joyce reached the back door of the farmhouse. She could hear muffled voices from within along with the sound of the radio. She sloughed off her muddy boots on the step like a snake shedding its skin and opened the door to the kitchen, enjoying the warm air as it greeted her.
‘Did he get off all right?’ Esther asked, her hands in the sink, washing some carrots. The stalks and leaves were spilling over the edge of the basin, leaving trails of muddy dirt on the top of the counter.
‘Yes, that’s him gone.’ Joyce sat at the table, pulling off her sock to deal with a small stone that had got lodged inside her boot.
‘Don’t you worry, I’m sure as soon as he’s spent a couple of days with his brother, he’ll be back on that train,’ Esther remarked. ‘And we’ve still got eight days until Christmas day.’
Eight days.
‘Better put the sprouts on to cook soon then.’ Joyce was making the best of the situation and finding her humour. Esther threw a tea towel at her in mock outrage.
‘Flaming cheek!’ Esther let the rebuke land and then added, ‘I’ll have you know they went on last week.’ The women giggled, good-naturedly.
The sky was a bruised purple colour as night fell outside the window, the colour refracted and warped into hallucinogenic patterns via the large raindrops on the pane.
Shortly, Esther and Joyce put on their coats and boots and left the warmth of the kitchen to walk into the village. As they crossed the bridge into Helmstead, Joyce could see the lights of the village hall. The small rectangular building with its corrugated iron roof seemed designed to be too hot in summer and too cold in winter.
‘Is Martin already here?’ Joyce asked as they approached.
‘No, I don’t know where he’s gone,’ Esther replied. ‘He went off mooning after Iris. He’s wasting his time with that one. Thinks he might start courting her. He’s got his hopes up because they’ll be at Shallow Brook Farm together.’
‘While John’s away?’
‘Yes, Martin and Iris are going to take up the slack until he’s back.’
‘Ah it’s going to be quiet at the farm without them both,’ Joyce had reached the door to the village hall where Connie Carter was talking to two American soldiers. From the men’s postures – one holding the door frame, the other primping his hair – Joyce could see they were flirting with her. She could also tell from Connie’s posture that she was having none of it.
‘Why