She laughed. Mouth opening like a split peach, a dirty smoker’s laugh barking out, followed by a coughing fit. She actually laughed! When was the last time he’d… He couldn’t remember. He joined in, a hand half shielding his eyes. His belly felt warm and nervy – how starved he’d been of her laugh. She tossed him another cigarette. He lit it, glancing at the unconscious man a few feet away, almost surprised to find him still there.
‘So what’s she like?’ he asked. ‘Your woman?’
‘Lovely. Lovely. I’ll be honest – I only really went for her because… well, it’s not as though there’s ever an abundance of women for me to choose from, and one gets so… frustrated. Physically, I mean. She was just there. But it turns out she’s a perfect fit and I think I might even be falling in – you know.’ Blushing, she returned her attention to her boot – there was still some mud on it, apparently. ‘What about you? Have you – is there a special someone?’
He shook his head. Thought of Archie, who he was still trying to will himself to desire (he’d even tried to masturbate over him) but it was never going to happen. You liked who you liked. ‘One day though, eh?’ He cleared his throat. ‘Can I ask you something? And I want you to answer honestly.’
‘Of course.’
‘If our situations had been reversed and Henry had caught me and tried to blackmail me, and we were here now, as we are, would you have gloated?’
She looked at him. ‘Oh, yes. Unequivocally. Viciously.’
‘Well. I want you to take note of the fact that I am not gloating. That’s all. I’m not trying to congratulate myself or get one over on you. I just want you to take note.’
She nodded, warily.
‘I suppose this is my way of saying… well, what I’m trying to say…’ He started to fiddle with his earlobe. Just three words. Damnit. ‘I’m trying to make up for past misdeeds.’ He grinned. His face felt like a stupid clacking skull. Now it was her turn. It shouldn’t be this way, but here they were.
She squirmed. Oh God, why were they like this with each other? What was wrong with them? ‘I wish I was drunk,’ she said. And so – it was coming. He was sorry but unable to say it, and she was also sorry and she probably wouldn’t be able to say it either, but just something – give me something.
But then a siren went off in the near distance and they both hopped to their feet.
‘It’s just the lunchtime bell at the factory,’ he said, pressing a hand to his chest. ‘Jesus, that gave me a— Phew.’ He dropped his cigarette in the mud. ‘Shall we attend to the issue at hand?’
They collided as they re-joined the path.
‘Sorry,’ they said at the same time.
They glanced at each other.
Maybe that would count? Couldn’t they just let that be it, and have done with it?
They crouched down by Henry.
‘Can you smell that?’ said Bettina, scrunching up her face.
‘Oh, look at that,’ said Bart, seeing a bulge at the back of the man’s trousers. ‘He’s shat himself.’
‘Oh dear.’ That black humour in her eyes. ‘He’s not going to like that, is he?’
‘He’s going to be very cross.’
‘He should’ve thought about that before he got his disgusting old willy out,’ she said. ‘Shall we flip him onto his back?’
They put their hands on Henry. He was cold. And of course, he would be – he’d been lying in a shaded puddle of mud. Of course he was cold.
‘Towards me,’ Bart said. ‘One, two, three.’
Over he flipped. His back landed in the sludge with a wet smack and little droplets of mud splattered up. The whole front of his body was caked in black mud and little twigs. A coiled worm stuck to his shirt.
‘Oh my God,’ whispered Bettina.
Henry’s eyes had rolled up so only the whites were showing, but they weren’t fully white, not any more – the left one had a red bloom on it, like a poppy petal, from where his blood vessels had burst. He had brown sick coming out of his nose – it’d dribbled out onto the sock and mixed in with the mud – brown sick, black mud. His skin had a grey-purple hue in places, except for his face, which was the colour of frogspawn. He was unmistakeably dead. Bart reached out with a tentative hand and pulled the sock out of Henry’s mouth. Backed-up vomit poured out. A brown, lumpy porridge.
Bettina jumped up and lurched away, groaning. Bart fell back on his haunches and looked up at the sky through the trees. He could see everything with great clarity – the pale pear-green of some leaves jostling with the deep toad-green of others, the little knotty nubs sticking out of the uppermost branches, a gasp of milky blue sky.
‘How the hell have you got so good at that?’ he asked, watching as she brought her boot down on the upper blade of the shovel.
‘Because I’m always bloody digging,’ she said.
They were in a small clearing – a patch, really – some hundred yards or so into the thick and off the path. Brambles and bushes enclosed them all around. They’d looked for the gun before digging. Hadn’t found it.
‘Sometimes, for the big jobs, we get the Italian POWs to help. But most of the time, it’s just us.’ She paused and held out her right hand. ‘See that there? I’ve developed a callus.’
They were down to their vests and trousers. Bart had on a pair of wellingtons now, retrieved from the garden shed. He’d also brought the shovels, rope and a large spool of sackcloth.
‘So. Why a land girl?’
‘Oh, God,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Don’t ask.’
‘Come on. Tell me.’
‘You’ll laugh.’
‘So?’
‘OK. It was because of the poster.’
‘What poster?’
‘That one they put up bloody everywhere. With the gorgeous woman in the green jumper? Holding the pitchfork? “For a healthy, happy job.” I imagined myself in her place. I had all these romantic ideas in my head. Fresh air, real work.’
‘For King and country?’ said Bart.
‘Oh, you know I don’t care about the King. Country, yes, but not the King. I wanted to not be me any more. At least that’s what I tell people who ask.’ She paused in her digging. ‘You know me well, husband. You know my motives better than anyone. I’ll give you one guess. You tell me why that poster so appealed to me.’
‘You fancied the girl.’
‘No. Well, yes. But there’s another reason.’
‘You wanted to be the girl.’
She made her hand turn in lazy circles. ‘Because…’
‘Because she was thin.’
‘Jackpot.’
He laughed. ‘You joined the Women’s Land Army to get thin?’
‘Subconsciously, yes.’
‘Well, it worked.’
She nodded. ‘And I love the work. So goody gumdrops.’
‘What do you do exactly, on the farm?’
She unloaded a shovelful of earth, her knees carefully bent. ‘I kill rats.’
He stopped. ‘You kill rats?’
She nodded. ‘I’m part of the anti-vermin squad. We kill rats and moles and the like.’
‘You’re a rat-catcher?’
She sighed. ‘Yes, it’s funny. I know it’s funny.’ She continued to dig. Sweat was darkening her white vest.
‘Can you remember the last time we were together?’ he said. ‘I mean in a friendly capacity.’
She shook her head.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘It was when the children came here to stay with our mothers for a week.1937, I think. We played Scrabble and I kept making rude words. Do you remember?’
‘I do now, actually.’
‘I even remember what the words were. “Teats” was one. “Scrotum” was another.’
‘“Quim”,’ she said. ‘I remember quim. We debated the spelling.’