Wave Me Goodbye. Ruby Jackson
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Wave Me Goodbye - Ruby Jackson страница 5
‘Of course, he didn’t give anyone a chance to ask him anything,’ said Betty, ‘but said, “Thought not. All right, where are you now? Some of you is pigs, some hens. Have a good afternoon.” ’
Grace laughed. ‘You remind me of a friend who’s a real actress, Betty: you’re good, isn’t she, Olive?’
Olive seemed too weak to reply. She had shivered through the talks on the care of pigs, and the egg producer’s place in the war effort – ‘a hen will lay an egg if it’s properly fed, watered and housed, but you can’t order it to lay. She’ll do it when everything is right and it’s the farmer’s job to see that conditions are perfect’ – gulped tea at the break between lectures and had then caused a small sensation by collapsing in the lavatory. Miss Ryland had been forced to admit that Miss Turner should be given two aspirins and a hot-water bottle and sent to bed.
Grace, on the other hand, had spent what was left of the afternoon and much of the evening cleaning the pigsty. All bedding and food waste had to be shovelled out, and the floor and walls washed down. George, the head dairyman, passing the pigsty in pitch-darkness and, alerted by the sounds of scrubbing, had slipped in quietly and seen a girl scrubbing the floor in the dark.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he shouted.
Grace had no idea how to answer. She was exhausted, filthy, and knew she smelled as badly as the sty had smelled before she had begun to clean it.
‘I can see you’re scrubbing a mucky floor in total darkness. Whose bright idea was this?’
For a mad moment, Grace thought she might throw down her scrubbing brush and run, but she tried to remain calm. ‘Miss Ryland,’ she almost whispered.
‘Ryland? Good God.’ They stood in the covering blackness for a few moments in silence and then George obviously came to a decision. ‘Go and have a hot bath. You’ll miss tea if you don’t hurry and I’m sure she doesn’t want that.’
When Grace hesitated, he yelled, ‘Go!’ Then added more gently, ‘Now, lassie. Get cleaned up. I’ll explain to Miss Ryland.’
Grace, now in tears, had stumbled in the pale light of the moon to the hostel.
Later, as Grace left the dining room, Miss Ryland had stopped her. ‘You seem to have misunderstood me this afternoon, Paterson. You must learn to listen very carefully and to follow orders to the letter. Now we’ll say no more about the matter and, just this once, I’ll make no report.’
Grace could not bring herself to say, ‘Yes, miss,’ and after nodding abruptly she ran upstairs to join her friends.
She had still not written to her friends in Dartford but she sat beside Olive’s bed and thought about them. She compared them with Miss Ryland and castigated herself for being such a poor judge of character. ‘I actually thought she was a kind woman, a good and honest woman. Well, she doesn’t compare with the goodness and kindness of either Mrs Brewer or Mrs Petrie. I didn’t misunderstand her; I understood her only too well. She told a lie.’
‘Liberty bodices and woolly socks,’ she announced to the unusually quiet room. ‘I promised a liberty bodice to Olive.’ Then, turning to Olive, she added, ‘I think I have a pair of socks I can give you too, once we get you well.’
Other land girls stood up and began to go through their often-meagre belongings.
‘Every old lady in my home village knitted me warm stockings, Grace, and I bet there’s a knitted vest in here too,’ said a slightly older girl from Yorkshire. ‘Hate wool against my skin, I do, but what can you say to old ladies?’
‘Thank you very much,’ chorused several of the girls, and everyone laughed.
‘I can’t take all this,’ Olive wheezed, as knitted socks, stockings, vests and even knickers began to pile up on her bed.
‘Don’t fret; we’ll sort it out. We’re all in this war together, aren’t we, ladies?’ Betty made Olive smile as she pulled on a very large woolly vest over her pyjamas. Then she took it off and held it up. ‘Bit too small for me, this one. Any takers?’
Grace, still feeling both angry and unhappy, began to relax in the camaraderie. This was how she had joked with her old school friends. No one would ever take their places in her affections but she smiled as she understood that these young women too would always be a special part of her new life.
Two days later, Miss Ryland admitted that Olive was no better and telephoned for a doctor. Grace and Betty were allowed to stay with her while they waited.
Grace had no experience at all of medical care and could make no suggestions as to how to bring down Olive’s temperature. ‘She’s burning up, Betty. What can we do till the doctor gets here? Should we take off this heavy blanket?’ She made as if to move it.
‘No,’ said Betty sharply. ‘If I remember right, my nan used to put us in cold water when we had a high temperature and then quick as a wink, back into the nice warm bed, just till the temperature broke. I know she shouldn’t be in a draught.’
Grace looked around. ‘Wish there was a fireplace. I could easily find sticks and branches in the wood. It is a bit draughty.’ She walked angrily to the small window and tried to peer out. ‘Can’t see a damn thing. I’m going to run downstairs to watch for the car coming. I can’t just sit here.’
Olive coughed, a loud hacking cough that seemed to shake her whole body. ‘I’ll be all right, Grace,’ she wheezed.
That frightening wheezing had been heard too often in the past few days and, combined with the burning skin that made her attempt to throw off her covers, had added to the land girls’ worries.
Betty, who had lifted Olive up until the spasm passed, lowered her down onto the pillow. ‘You go, Grace, and bring back three cups of tea. You’d like a nice cuppa, wouldn’t you, Olive? See, Grace, she’s dying for some tea; me, an’ all. Run.’
Grace grabbed another jumper and pulled it over her clothes. There would be time to continue the fight for the promised coats when they had Olive well. She strained her ears to hear the ring of the doorbell but all she heard was the clatter of her heavy-soled shoes on the wooden staircase.
It was too cold to stand on the steps, looking down the driveway for the doctor’s car and so she decided to jog down to the gates in the hope of seeing it arrive. She reached the gates without seeing any vehicle of any kind, but as she stopped, leaning against the gatepost to get her breath back, she saw a bicycle at some distance. The bicycle slowly drew near as the rider fought both the wind and the weight of the ancient machine. Disappointment. A woman was riding the bicycle.
Grace had never felt so powerless. Olive needed a doctor, the doctor who should probably have seen her two days ago, but just then the wind blew the cloak worn by the cyclist and Grace saw a bright red lining.
‘A СКАЧАТЬ