Shelter Read online

  ‘No. I will work.’ That was safe enough to say, surely.

  ‘You ever driven a tractor, ridden a horse? Handled an axe?’

  He knew the lie to choose, didn’t hesitate. ‘Yes. I can cut the trees.’ He swallowed down the guilt that followed. How difficult could it be, if this man with the limp could do it?

  ‘Look at that for a turn up, Frank! You’ve got yourself a new tree-felling team.’ The girl was bouncing again, but she wasn’t thumping any more. ‘And if he knows his way around an axe you don’t even need to train him; couldn’t be simpler.’ She flung out an arm to make her point and a sheaf of papers scattered around the hut like seed.

  ‘Christ! Sorry, Frank.’ She bent to pick them up, squatting wide, primitive, like Seppe had never seen a woman crouch before. He fought the urge to close his eyes against the confusion of emotion and instead bent down beside the table to help. It had been patched together from old cords of wood, and listed where someone hadn’t planed off the left-hand leg. Wonky furniture made him all lopsided inside; next time he was here, he’d fix that.

  ‘If I tell you to pair up with this sorry ha’porth here, Connie, will you leave me alone for a bit? Lord knows we needs all the help we can get.’

  ‘Frank! Honest to God, I might hug you!’

  Frank frowned at her, then turned it on Seppe.

  ‘I’ll sort it with the camp guard, but it’ll likely take time to release you because he’ll need to fill out endless paperwork.’ Frank’s face made it clear what he thought of this, if the stack of scrumpled papers on his desk hadn’t already done the job.

  ‘If you fail, if you two can’t get them trees down on schedule, then you’re back up at Wynols Hill and you won’t be out again until this war’s over, you mark my words. And you –’ he picked up a piece of oak and pointed it at Connie ‘– you’re on the next train to Scotland if you cock up, mind.’

  She was already gathering up her things. ‘You’re a gem, Frank.’ She winked at Seppe, waved on her way out. ‘I’m off. I’ll see you at the stand as soon as you’re cleared for work, timber partner.’

  Seppe thought he might collapse with relief. No more taunting. No more repairing endless bits of furniture after they’d been destroyed in a fit of ‘we’ll show them who’s still boss’ pique. Hidden out here, doing honest work. All he needed to do was get down the oaks. He stood up, his hands full of papers, ignoring their trembling.

  ‘I will see you.’

  Twelve

  SEPPE KNEW. AS SOON as it dropped beside his plate, his moist hands and closed throat knew who was inside the envelope. He pushed away his toast and pulled the letter in front of him, sweating. He couldn’t face breakfast now, though he’d needed it today of all days, his first shift out in the woods working for Frank. The hubbub of the breakfasting POWs receded; the world closed down around the envelope.

  Could he destroy it? POWs had no such luxury of ‘return to sender’, but he could throw it away, simply not open it.

  No.

  To not read it would be to surrender, and he couldn’t – wouldn’t – surrender to his father again. Never again.

  He eased the point of his whittling knife into the corner of the crease, then stopped. Not his whittling blade. He reached instead for the butter knife, his sleeve dragging through crumbs.

  ‘Eh!’ Gianni, opposite, threw up a hand in disgust. ‘I needed that!’ It was good-natured, though; Gianni didn’t know any other way. He was from somewhere not far from Salerno and at night Seppe heard him sobbing for his family, the only hint that Gianni might not be as eternally sunny as he seemed. But by daytime he kept everyone laughing with his easy manner and way of treating the camp as if it were a choice. His parents and four younger siblings were safe in Allied-occupied territory and this was enough for him to trust the English. ‘How can they be my enemy when they are feeding those I love?’ It was a dangerous opinion to have around Fredo and his ilk, but Gianni’s openness rendered him untouchable. Seppe envied him this, and was drawn to it.

  ‘Sorry. Here you are.’ Seppe offered the knife to Gianni, who waved him away.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Your need is greater than mine.’

  These spring mornings carried a chill to them in England, but it wasn’t the cold that was causing his hands to shake. Seppe tore open the envelope. The spikes of his father’s rancour were undimmed by the flimsy paper. A spiral of venom rose from the lines, the sheen of anger, pride and sheer vicious temper bitter in Seppe’s mouth.

  Along from Gianni, Fredo turned and leered.

  ‘A letter, eh? The old man finally sending his love to see how his yellow son’s getting on? Or maybe it’s instructions for me about what to do with you.’ Fredo reached forward to snatch it and Seppe jolted back, bashing the porridge vat, which tipped dangerously. He stuffed the letter back into its envelope and jammed it into his pocket, pushing up from the table.

  A row had broken out about the heel of the bread and attention was thankfully diverted as Seppe made his escape. Every morning was the same: constant yelling, arguments; everyone frightened about what was happening at home, stuck here and unable to do a thing about it. Every week a bunch of men would solicit news from letters home and from this attempt to make sense of their country’s fate, posting a ‘fact sheet’ in the parade ground. The censor had, of course, eradicated any meaningful details by the time the letters reached camp, and the ‘newsletter’ struck Seppe as a work of fiction, internal self-generated propaganda to make the men feel they were still out there fighting. He didn’t dare articulate this, of course. Such a view would only result in his shoes or bed sheets ending up stuffed in the latrines again, or worse. The atmosphere here worsened with every new arrival, the camp now divided into those who still fervently supported the beleaguered Axis troops and those whose relief that their families were alive surpassed any broader political views. The peace Seppe experienced when he first arrived had fractured, the edges sharp and tentative. The relief as he struggled into his greatcoat and stepped out was intense.

  Walking out through those gates would never lose its novelty, its sense of illicit freedom. Seppe came down off the lane and turned into the forest, the trees welcoming him in. He turned a corner at the point where the path forked, his boots shivering dew off bearded ferns.

  Fragments of his father’s written words slithered through like the leaves underfoot. ‘Your mother thought it would please me that you had joined the army. Your mother is feeble and knows nothing of the world. Your capture is a disgrace. That you are collaborating, working for these Allies, brings shame upon us all. You have betrayed the family name and you have done this deliberately. I will make it clear to your mother that your actions are those of a coward, and that her suggestion was misguided and false. Next time she is inclined to meddle with the work of men she will have cause to reconsider. You have never amounted to anything and this will continue to be the case.’ He knew what that meant; his mother would be in for a trouncing again, perhaps worse than that night. And it was Seppe’s fault. The ever-present guilt rose again. How was she coping without himself or Alessa to stand beside her, to assume the weight of their father’s wrath?

  He walked, and walked, unseeing, until he was halted by someone in his path.

  ‘Oi, dreamer! Time to start work, you know.’

  The smell of earth, the sound of birdsong, and the woman’s voice. Connie, planted right in front of him, her hair scattering loose from her beret and a curious half-scowl, half-grin. He smiled back.

  Beside the timber pyramid, two women were doing battle with vast logs and chains. The newness of their Timber Corps badges glinted against too-clean uniforms as they twisted this way and that. They’d never get that log secured unless they straightened out the knot. His fingers curled.

  Connie glanced across. ‘Brand new lumberjill trainees; Frank’ll have his work cut out with that lot, all right. Caught one of them asking Frank where the ladder was for measuring the beech trees. You’d hav
e thought she’d asked him to drop his keks, the look on his face! I jumped in before he could have her guts for garters and showed her the tape. Thought measurers were supposed to be the bright ones. Not this lot.’

  ‘Tape?’ What was she talking about?

  ‘You know how this works, don’t you? Measurers go round the width of the tree, not up into the branches. The poor cow almost fainted with relief when I pointed it out.’

  ‘Oh.’ But then how did they know how tall it was? He pushed a shaking hand into his pocket.

  ‘Here, let’s get going. If you’ve done this before, it’s going to be a cinch. You take the four-and-a-half pounder and follow me.’

  The axe handle was oak, smooth from years of those who’d gone before him. Was it odd, to use oak to fell oak? Or was it the only natural way?

  ‘Bit quiet, aren’t you? Everything OK?’ Connie peered at him and his stomach constricted. But she only shrugged and beckoned him along. ‘Come on. One of the locals left a tree half-felled over here when he nipped off for a fag. Frank’d do his nut if he ever found a tree like that, so we can sneak in and pinch it for our tally; the poor sod won’t have the balls to tattle on us.’ She smiled and winked.

  Seppe stared at her. When was he going to start understanding what she said, what any of them said? Her accent wasn’t the same as Frank’s: it was flatter, more nasal. She spoke so quickly, and with such certainty that her words slipped past him before he could gather and examine them. She seemed to do everything decisively, no time wasted pondering the consequences. Already he envied her this.

  Connie tutted again, tugged at his sleeve with gloved fingers. ‘Cat got your tongue today?’ She looked at him more closely, nodded at something. ‘You’re not with me, are you? You’re somewhere else. Well, do me a favour and come back here for the time being so that we can get this show on the road.’ She led him a little way further into the trees and he turned back to see how the new lumberjills were managing with the chains. ‘Don’t you worry about them, they’ll be at it all day.’ Connie trampled down ferns, pushed away branches. Seppe shouldered his axe as if it were a rifle and fell in line behind her. The desert had been cold like this in the winter.

  ‘Here we are.’ He stumbled into her. ‘Whoa – mind out there!’

  Seppe snapped to attention as if on the parade ground and followed Connie’s gaze. In front of them a giant oak tilted as if drunk, a deep wedge cleaved out of its trunk. All the way above, unaware of the tree’s fate, little brown birds feathered branches that dipped towards Seppe then reeled back.

  ‘Is that safe?’

  Coward. He could hear the word forming, almost see it leaving Connie’s lips. He braced for her explosion, but instead she grinned.

  ‘No, not in the slightest. Which is why the silly buggers shouldn’t have snuck off like that and left it. All the better for us though, eh?’ She reached behind the tree, one hand to the small of her back. When she straightened up she was brandishing some kind of saw; a long, many-toothed beast with handles at either end. His mouth became sawdust. It was only a matter of minutes now before his lie was discovered, and he’d be back to the camp, perfect frustration fodder for the small and vicious band of fasci.

  ‘They even left their fretsaw behind. Kind of them!’

  Connie paced around the trunk, and peered at the incision. She bent down, her hand stretched as it continued to support her back. She must have strained it: unsurprising given the sheer physicality of the work. This was nothing like carpentry; it was so much more elemental. The oak towered above them. The birds called to each other from the branches as if the tree itself was singing. How were they ever going to bring it down? Its branches were as long as pews and thicker than his arm.

  ‘This lot at least seemed to know what they were doing, which is more than you can say for half of Frank’s men. Can’t do without them, he reckons, but the only ones he’s got left are so old or crook that they’re no use in the Forces. And no use out here, either.’ Connie was still eyeing the incision in the trunk. What was she looking for? He bit hard on his lip when she leaned into the fulcrum, ran her hand down the plane.

  ‘Right!’ Whatever she had seen, it had galvanised her. ‘Need a few more blows with the four-and-a-half pounder and the six pounder, but I can hang on to that one if you like. Or do you prefer the bigger one?’

  How should he know? But he had told them he could do this. He shrugged, outward insouciance in direct proportion to the anxiety that was building internally.

  ‘You come this side; doesn’t need much more taking out of it here before we switch to the saw. I’ll get this wedge out of the way.’ She darted forwards again with that odd half-bend and fiddled at the base of the trunk. It swayed like a drunk.

  ‘There. Now the bugger will move.’ She looked expectantly at Seppe. His heartbeat pounded in his temples.

  Seppe heaved the axe to hip height, clenched it as firmly as he could in both fists and closed his eyes. Sweat was dripping out from under his hat even though the tip of his nose was freezing cold. The birds had become louder.

  ‘What’re you playing at?’

  He opened his eyes again. His hands faltered and he thudded the axe back to the ground before it slipped from his grasp.

  ‘Is this some special Italian trick, doing it blindfold? In this country, we keep our eyes open when we’re chucking an axe around. We’re in a bloody war. If you want to die there are plenty of other ways, in case you hadn’t noticed.’

  Seppe flushed, heat sweeping up him. He picked up the axe again. His hands were chafing already from the sweat against the grooves of the handle. Frustration blended with panic to chase out reason and his father’s voice hissed into the vacuum. Hopeless waste of space, taking orders from a woman, and an enemy woman to boot. Wouldn’t know men’s work if it came forward and slapped you.

  The axe was even heavier now. His fingers slipped on the wooden handle and it plummeted into the soft earth. He wrapped one hand over the other and hefted. It swung up unsteadily this time, thunked back down.

  ‘For crying out loud!’ Connie strode over to him and wrenched away the axe, pushed something into the tree trunk. ‘You haven’t got a clue.’ Her look of angry disbelief was the most honest anyone had been with him since Alessa. ‘You’ve never done this before, have you?’

  He shook his head, and his toes curled inside his boots.

  ‘Don’t … please don’t tell Frank. Please don’t.’

  Connie glared at him, tugging at her ponytail. ‘Don’t you worry about that. If I tell Frank that half his extra felling team hasn’t got the foggiest, then I’m done for too. You heard him, he’ll ship me off to who knows where to start all over again. And I’m not having that.’

  She paced, one hand twisting her hair. Behind her scowl, the first shimmer of tears.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The words wouldn’t come. Hopelessness torpedoed them and he struggled to retrieve them. ‘The forest – I must stay in the forest. Frank asks me I can cut tree, I say yes. Is wrong of me. But I need to stay here.’ Had he conveyed what he needed to? He watched her.

  ‘All right, no need to stare at me like that.’ Connie’s voice softened, but only marginally. ‘You have no idea, absolutely no idea.’

  She stood stock still for a moment and he held his breath, a child again waiting to see which way this would fall.

  She snapped her fingers, smiled that unexpected smile again.

  ‘We’ve got no choice, then, do we? Story of my life.’ She thrust Seppe’s axe at him. ‘Come on, get in behind me and I’ll show you what to do. Frank needs a felling team, so that’s what we’ll give him.’

  Connie stood away from the tree and crouched as if going into battle, axe thrust out in front of her. Like this, her coat was stretched tautly across the swollen moon of her belly. His eyes widened. There was no mistaking what he saw.

  Thirteen

  Worcestershire, March, 1944

  CONNIE DOESN’T CLOCK IT herself, not at first
. She just knows that she has to get out of the city. After Cass’s mum throws her out and the factory tells her they’ve given her job to someone who’ll actually show up, she goes down to the recruiting office in the centre of town and signs up for the Women’s Land Army, because it’s a job that brings a billet with it. Maybe being away from Coventry will stop the sudden bursts of tears and the urge to yell at people for no reason. But the panic of it all still worms inside, twisting her belly and making her sick when she wakes up and remembers it.

  To start with, she gets on all right at the farm and the farmer’s wife even gives her a pile of cast-offs when she realises how little kit Connie’s arrived with. Then one morning Connie yaks into a fresh ten-gallon vat of milk. The bile floats on the top of the milk, globs of orange and yellow lurid against the yielding froth, and the farmer, normally as soft as you like, yells at her, really yells, when she suggests skimming it off like cream.

  She skedaddles for a bit, round the other side of the milking shed until he calms down. She’s still a bit queasy, so she leans right over the gate just in case. The ground is all churned up here where the cows barge through twice a day for milking. It’s the clay in the earth that turns the puddles that rich red-brown, the farmer told her. Tiny murky lakes of blood, that’s what it looks like to her.

  Blood. Hang on a minute. Connie straightens up. She’s late, isn’t she? Really late. She’s never been the sort to pay that stuff a lot of attention, and since the – since what happened at Hillview Road, she’s had bigger things on her plate than her monthlies. Though come to think of it, she can’t remember dealing with that for a while.

  Connie starts pacing, staying in close to the side of the cowshed for protection. What’s she going to do? She doesn’t have any real cronies to talk to, not for something like this. Neither she nor Cass has ever been what you’d call the pen-pal types and this isn’t the sort of thing you can dump on someone you’ve only just met. And as for telling Don – well! Her lips curve despite the wave of panic swelling.