Once a Land Girl by Angela Huth Page B

small roads, but there were no signposts. Perhaps returning them was not a priority for those who had to put things back. The
locals knew their way: who cared if strangers were confused? And there didn’t seem to be many people about – the occasional woman on a cumbersome bike, a rare car eking out its petrol
ration by driving at twenty miles an hour. In one farmyard, only a few yards from the train, Prue saw an old man backing a cob into the shafts of an ancient cart while in an upstairs window his
frail wife was hitching black material to one side of the frame, perhaps too exhausted to replace the years of blackout with the original curtains. Protected by her narrow, privileged married life
in Manchester, Prue realized she had not been aware of the slow process of Britain’s recovery. Now, on this journey to Yorkshire, she was aware of a sense of inertia. It was hard to imagine
the return to normal, a distant time of incalculable years.
    The station, cloudy with smoke and steam through which very weak lights made a pathetic attempt to brighten the place, was crowded with people in shabby clothes of uniform dullness. With a
strange feeling of impatience, Prue wondered how long it would take before there was brightness on the streets and in public places again. And when clothes rationing came to an end, would people
want brightness after so many years of dreary dressing? Would beautiful colours start to appear in the shops?
    Prue took a taxi from the station to the Lawrences’ farm, a half-hour ride through unfamiliar country: wide views, no hedged-in narrow lanes, villages scattered beside the Dales. The house
itself was much smaller than Hallows Farm, its cracked face a little lopsided, its window small and lustreless. The farmyard was to one side, and a small barn housing a Fordson tractor. No sign of
any animals: no pigsty for Sly’s grandchildren, no stable for a replacement Noble.
    Prue walked up the narrow front path squeezed between a painted fence plainly not homemade. This made her smile. The idea of a fenced front path at Hallows Farm would have been risible. Mr
Lawrence’s brother, from whom this house was inherited, must have had very different ideas from Faith and Tom, whose aim was always practicality rather than neatness. In the patch of garden
opposite the farmyard, a washing-line had been slung between two trees. Mrs Lawrence’s sage-coloured cotton dress, which she must have worn a thousand times, was pegged to it. Puffed up by
the breeze, it blew about, only star of the washing-line. How on earth could that old dress still exist? thought Prue. None of her own clothes had more than a few months of life. At the thought of
Mrs Lawrence’s parsimony, and seeing the thin cotton in its last dance, she felt tears pressing again. Quickly she turned away.
    Prue had never knocked on the Lawrences’ door and decided not to do so now. Inside, she saw an open door off the dark passage. She made her way there, wondering whom she should find, where
everybody was. She looked through the door, went no further.
    Mr Lawrence was sitting at the table – the old table, the old chairs, but how clumsy they looked in this strange, much smaller kitchen. He had an open newspaper before him but he was not
reading. The toll on him of his wife’s death was rampant in his face. The ravines that ran from his nose to his chin had become deep enough to sharpen a knife. The whites of his eyes were
confused with red veins, and the lids, previously so taut in their hollows, were now swollen. He moved his hands together in the shape of a spire, the rough fingers quivering. The familiarity of
those hands – seen so often helping with an udder, showing how to hold a chopper or skin a rabbit – made Prue want to cry out loud this time, but she controlled herself. ‘Mr
Lawrence,’ she said quietly.
    He raised his head. ‘Oh, Prue.’ He stood up. ‘I’m mighty glad you’ve come, all of you.’
    Briefly, they