But could you ever do anything about your luck, or was it an immutable hand of cards, dealt out once and to be played throughout life, with no possibility of change? She had sometimes thought about that. People said that you got the luck you deserved; that if you behaved selfishly or cruelly, you would get the luck that came with such behaviour – and that, of course, was bad luck.
Mike’s luck had held out, she thought. So many fliers had not come back; he had told her about the melancholy duty of clearing out a friend’s locker – as they had done with his, when they thought he had died in the crash. That duty was one that cropped up time and time again, but was every bit as hard the fourth or fifth time as the first.
Although they were married, she felt that she had no more than a tenuous hold on him. He belonged to the air force, it seemed, rather more than he belonged to her. If it was the air force’s will that he should be sent somewhere, then what she felt about that counted for nothing. And so when he came to Annie’s house one evening and told her that there was something he wanted to discuss with her in the village pub, she knew that this would be the news she was dreading – that of his posting.
Her hands shook as she took the small glass of cider he had bought her. He noticed; he was concerned that she was still working on Archie’s farm and would have preferred her to rest. She had said that it was better to remain active; that a baby thrived if its mother still did the things she normally did.
“Are you worried about something?” he asked.
She took a sip of the cider, savouring its sweetness. “About you,” she said. “I know what you’re going to tell me.”
She could tell from his expression it was not going to be good news.
“I’m going to Germany,” he said. “I’m going to be flying transport planes. C-47s. They’re really just military versions of DC-3s.”
She looked at him blankly. She knew nothing of planes, although she could recognise the sort he flew.
“There’s a base at Wiesbaden,” Mike went on. “We took it over from the Germans. I’m going to be there.”
She stared into her cider. I’m going to be there. I’m . . .
“And us?” she asked.
He bit his lip. “We’ll be fine.”
“But you’ll . . .”
“I have to be over there, yes, and at the moment they won’t let us take wives.” He paused, and reached for her hand. “In the future, maybe. In fact, definitely: the air force doesn’t like to split families.”
“Then why . . .”
He cut her short. “Some posts are unaccompanied. It’s just the way they are. They aren’t sending me to Hawaii – it’s to a country we’ve just been at war with. It’s different.”
“Couldn’t you ask to go to Hawaii?”
He laughed. “Everybody wants to go to Hawaii. That’s what Hawaii is for – it’s a reward.”
“Or even California? What about California?”
He shook his head. “I have to go where I’m sent. It won’t be forever. Maybe you’ll be able to come over next year. Who knows?”
There was something else he wanted to discuss with her. “You could be sent to the States, you know. They can arrange that. You don’t have to stay here.”
She had not expected this. “Without you?”
“Yes. You’d get housing on a base, maybe.” He was trying to sound optimistic. “Or you can go to my mom and dad. In fact, that would be much easier.”
“In Muncie, Indiana?”
He smiled. “Yes, in Muncie, Indiana. You’ve always wanted to go there. You said . . .”
“But that was with you. I don’t want to go there by myself.”
He had spilled some of his beer on the table, and now he traced a pattern in it with a finger. “They’d look after you,” he said. “And the baby too.”
“But I don’t know them. I’d be a stranger.”
“You wouldn’t. You’d be my wife. That’s not a stranger.”
She shook her head. “And it’d be different, wouldn’t it? With the baby and everything. Even some of the words – you call nappies diapers, don’t you?”
“That’s not a problem, surely.”
She was struggling with tears. “It could be for me.”
He took her hand again. “All right, all right.” He sounded defeated, and she felt a pang of guilt. After what he had gone through, she should not make it harder for him than it was. “You stay here. Have the baby at your aunt’s place. We’ll be together later, but in the meantime . . .” He tried again to appear positive. “In the meantime, you’ll be comfortable here with your aunt and with Willy. And there’s Peter Woodhouse. He can stay with you, of course.”
She hesitated, but finally decided. “He’s your dog now. Take him to Germany with you. He’s an American dog.”
He grinned. “Do dogs think like that? Do they care about these things? British dogs, American dogs . . . it’s all the same to them.”
She smiled – for the first time that evening, and he pressed her hand in his, encouraging her. “Probably is,” she said. “But still. He’s used to you. You take him.”
He looked thoughtful and almost agreed. But then he shook his head and explained that it would be better for him to stay. “This base is all right,” he said. “But who knows what it’ll be like over there. No, this is his place. This country. This place probably smells right to him – you know how dogs are with their smells.”
She did not argue. “He could go back to the farm – to Archie. He’ll look after him.”
“The best thing for him,” said Mike.
She felt the baby kick, and she took his hand and placed it on her stomach. He thought about what she had said about Peter Woodhouse. American babies, British babies . . . even German babies . . . They were all the same. Things went wrong only after they were born.
He wanted to say something, but no words came. Being close to death can make us look at the world with different eyes . . . It was what the chaplain at the base had said to him on his return. He was referring to the crash, of course, but it had occurred to Mike that the observation could be interpreted more widely; given that the human lifespan was so short, it might apply throughout life. We were always close to death, young or old: we did not have all that long. He had been about to say something to that effect, but he stopped himself; he had heard that the chaplain liked nothing more than a theological discussion, and had been known to detain a busy man for over an hour in the exploration of some abstruse point. On one famous occasion he had even held up a mission –delaying the departure of avenging angels by almost ten minutes.
❖ 22 ❖
He was already in Wiesbaden when the baby arrived. Annie went to the base to hand over the letter that one of the air force clerks had promised to get delivered within two or three days – unlike the normal post, which could take weeks to reach an overseas address. She wrote: Your baby son has arrived safely. I am writing to tell you this because Val is still in the hospital and they don’t want her to do anything very much just yet. We’ll send a photograph as soon as we can arrange one, but Val said: “Tell Mike that he looks just like him.” He took a long time to arrive – it wasn’t easy for her, labour being that long and all, but he’s here now, safe and sound, and as strong and as hungry as can be. One of the nurses says that American babies are all like that – all very strong – and maybe she’s right. Val sends you her dearest love. She says to tell you that she thinks of you all the time, and that she knows you will love your new little Thomas Barnes Rogers the moment you see him, which she hopes will be very soon. She sends you all her love and asks you not to worry about anything – she has everything she needs and is very happy.
It was five days before she was allowed home, and then only on the strength of a promise from Annie that she would enforce bed rest for a further week. She had lost more blood than they would have liked, but gradually her strength returned. Thomas Barnes Rogers – “such an impressive name for a baby” said Anni
e – or Tommy, as he had already become, was bundled up in ancient lace baby clothes from Annie’s attic and wheeled about in a carriage pram that the midwife had summoned up from somewhere. Willy doted on the new arrival, and would talk of nothing else over meals. Was Tommy sleeping enough? Should the district nurse be asked to come to listen to his chest? Was the house warm enough for him? Small babies did not like draughts – they could get croup from them, he had been told. You could never be too careful when they were that small.
“Calm down, Willy,” said Annie. “Babies are tough little things – especially large babies like this one. If he gets his milk regularly and the air in his room is kept warm, he’ll thrive all right, you mark my words.”
“Auntie’s right,” said Val. “You don’t want to wrap babies up too much. Their skin needs air on it. Nurse said that herself. That’s exactly what she said.”
“I know a thing or two,” said Willy resentfully. “I’ve read them books too.”
‘Of course you have, Willy,” said Annie. “And Tommy will be fine, with you and Val looking after him, and the whole village behind him, egging him on. He’s going to grow into a fine little boy before any of us knows it.”
There were extra rations for a nursing mother, and Archie made sure that there was no shortage of eggs, butter and cream. “Cream is what you need,” he said to Val, standing awkwardly at the door of her room when he came to visit, fingering the brim of his cap, embarrassed to enter this room of mother and baby equipment, of bottles and towels, and the soft, slightly sour-milk smell of a tiny infant. “I can get you plenty of cream now.”
She asked him what he thought of the baby. He edged into the room and peered into the cradle. “He’s a proper healthy nipper,” he said. “Got your eyes, I think.”
She laughed. “That’s what Willy thinks too.”
“And when will they let your fellow come back?”
She sighed. “I don’t know, Archie. I’ll go over there, I think, once everything’s sorted out. There’s not much housing yet – even for officers.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You told me that before. I thought they always looked after officers. There are always houses for officers.”
“Not over there there’s not.”
Archie nodded. “You’ll see him soon enough, I expect.” He moved away from the cradle. “And young fellow-my-lad over there will keep you busy meanwhile.”
She enquired about the farm; was he coping now that she was no longer working? He replied that he was, but that there were things he was having to give up. There would be no turnips next year, he thought, but the field he normally grew them in could do with a rest anyway.
“And Willy?” he said, looking over his shoulder towards the kitchen, where Willy and Annie could be heard conversing. “Do you think he might want to come and work at my place?”
“You could ask him. I don’t see why not.”
Archie looked thoughtful. “He’s a good boy, that.”
Val agreed; and she was not just saying that. Willy was a good boy, even if he was impetuous at times and even if he did go on and on about some subjects – babies currently, but that would change as something else attracted his attention.
Willy’s enthusiasm for Tommy proved not to be a passing phase. Not only did he continue to talk incessantly about him – thoughts of the baby occupying his every waking moment – but he proved to be a staunch ally in the watches of the night, when Tommy awoke to be fed and he would make tea for Val, averting his eyes if he brought it to her as she was feeding the baby. Then he would wait outside the door until she called him back in, when he would take Tommy in his arms and rock him, murmuring in the low voice that the baby seemed to find calming. Val watched, and thought of how nobody would ever have dreamed that Willy would show qualities like this, would behave like the most devoted of fathers.
She had spoken to him about Archie, and had been surprised by Willy’s easy acceptance of the suggestion that he should leave the farm he was on.
“That would be all right with me,” he said. “I like Archie.”
“He’s a nice man to work for,” said Val. “He never asks you to do too much. He’s kind.”
Willy nodded. “And it’ll be easier for me to look after Tommy if I work there,” he said. “Closer, you see. I can get back here quicker.”
She was silent. The attachment was deeper than she had imagined.
She tried to be gentle. “Of course, Tommy and I are going to have to go one of these days, Willy. Not now, mind, but maybe . . . well, maybe in a few months’ time.” She paused. “Mike will be counting the days until he sees his boy for the first time.”
Willy looked away. “I know that,” he said.
The next day an idea occurred to her. The vicar visited and spoke to her about the christening. “Have you discussed baptism with the father?” he asked, searching his memory for the name. He had married them, after all, and he did try to remember all the names, but it was difficult.
“Mike,” she said. “No, I haven’t spoken to him, but he’ll not mind. I can write to him.”
The vicar said he thought this was the thing to do. “I’m a great believer in early baptism,” he said. “As early as possible, I always say.”
She smiled. The vicar always said I always say; round and round in a circle, I always say I always say . . .
“And godparents?” he asked.
She had given the matter no thought, but that did not stop her replying. “Willy, I think.”
The vicar inclined his head. “He’ll be very proud of that, I suspect.”
“He will be.”
“And the others? It’s normal for a boy to have two godfathers and one godmother. And the other way round, mutatis mutandis.” He smiled apologetically.
“Is that Latin?”
He laughed. “Yes, it is. I know I shouldn’t quote Latin – people don’t always like it – but somehow . . .”
She said, smiling, “We all do things we shouldn’t do. Quoting Latin is not the worst thing you could do.”
“The other godparents?”
The answer came just as easily as it had with Willy. “There’s Archie Wilkinson up at the farm. You know him?”
“A good man,” said the vicar.
She looked at the vicar’s shoes. They had been good shoes once, she thought, well made black shoes in a style she had seen described as Oxfords. But now there were cracks in the leather, like lines across a furrowed brow. Of course, shoes had needed coupons for a long time, and now they were reduced to only three a week, to cover everything. It was worse than in wartime, because now they had to clothe all those people in Germany who had nothing but the rags they stood up in. They started it, and it was their fault, she thought, but they were still people, and a lot of them were women and children who presumably had not wanted war in the first place; not really, even if there were those photographs showing them waving flags and saluting Hitler just like the men.
“And my aunt,” she said. “She’d love to be godmother.”
“I’m sure she would,” said the vicar. “But will you be discussing it with . . . with . . .”
“Mike.”
“Yes, Mike. Ask the father, I always say, even if he’s not there. He should be asked.”
She said she would do that, and she wrote about it in her next letter. He wrote back, Whatever you want, my darling. Everything for you. You’re the one! Everything.
Now she could ask Willy, and the others too. But speaking to Willy, she felt, was the most important.
He listened attentively, nodding his head as she spoke. Then, when she had finished, he said, “Godfather?’
“Yes. The vicar holds a service. We all go – even Tommy. And the vicar splashes him with water . . . well, not actually splashes, just pours a little over his head.” She paused; sometimes it was difficult to work out just what Willy knew. “You must have seen it, Willy.”
“Of course I’ve seen it,” he said. “Lots of times,
down at the church.”
“Well, there you are. You know all about it.”
He looked thoughtful. “Godfather? That’s like . . . like being a father, sort of, when the father isn’t there? Like that?”
She hesitated. “Well, it’s not quite that. It’s not quite like being the father. That’s different, you see. A father’s . . .”
He cut her short. “I know that.” He gave her a reproachful look. He was sensitive to being thought not to know things; if people thought that he knew nothing, they were wrong. Often, they were the ones who failed to grasp something that he knew perfectly well. How animals felt, for instance, or what the clouds meant for the weather ahead, or the various types of bird nest, or what was wrong with the country. And here was Val implying that he did not know what godfathers were for. “Of course, I know that. But when the father’s away somewhere, or dead, or something, then you still have the godfather, don’t you?”
“You could put it like that. But the main thing is that the godfather’s kind to the baby. He remembers birthdays – that sort of thing.”
Willy grinned. “I can do that,” he said.
“Of course you can, Willy.”
The vicar’s cracked shoes projected from under his white cassock, the hem of which was frayed, as everything was after five years of war and the shortages that war brought. There was even a smell to parsimony, some said: a thin, musty smell of things used beyond their natural life, of materials patched up, cobbled together, persuaded to do whatever it was they did well after they should have been retired. And it was true of people too – with both young men and young women in uniform, those left behind to do the day-to-day jobs seemed tired, overworked, made to carry on with their duties well after they should have been pensioned off. And now the vicar looked up at his small congregation and took a deep breath, as if summoning up for the task ahead what little energy he had left.