They could hear the wind whistling over the roof of the shed but the hay was soft and warm to lie on. The rustling from the pens diminished as the calves settled down again and only the odd moo disrupted their peaceful breathing.
George kissed her. It wasn’t the fevered kissing of their cave but slow and tender and full of significance. ‘I can’t cope with the crowd. I just want to be alone with you,’ he said, burying his face in her neck and running his lips over her damp skin.
Her dress was wet from the rain and clinging to her body like seaweed. She smelt of violets and her own brand of innocence and George was reminded, by the contrast, of the loose women he had bedded during the war in order to feel human again and to forget the carnage of combat. But it felt strange. Familiar, comforting, but strange, as if he had come home expecting to fit into his old mould, surprised that he had grown out of it. Rita seemed unaware of the difference, which made it somehow harder to make sense of and certainly impossible to communicate. He looked down at her flushed, still childish face and realized that, as much as he enjoyed her, he didn’t want to mar her purity by making love to her. Everything about the war had been sordid. Rita remained untarnished. He wanted to preserve it for as long as he could.
She looked at him quizzically as if aware of the turmoil of his thoughts. ‘Forget the war, my love,’ she whispered, smiling up at him timidly. ‘It’s over. You’re home and I’m here to comfort you.’
‘Thank God for you, Rita,’ he mumbled, burying his face in her neck again. ‘Thank God for you.’
Chapter 5
The following day Rita sat in church next to her mother and Maddie. Hannah wore a simple beige hat beneath which her face assumed an expression of intense piety as she stared solemnly into her prayer book, unable to read a word because of her poor eyesight. If she had known that one of her daughters sat before God tainted and unashamed and the other entertained thoughts of a sexual nature, she would have sunk to her knees in horror.
But Maddie was careful to keep her voice low. ‘So, what was it like?’ she hissed into her sister’s ear.
Rita blushed and lowered her hat to hide from her mother. ‘Lovely,’ she replied with a contented sigh.
‘Where did you go? You didn’t get back until dawn.’
‘I know!’ Rita stifled a yawn. ‘We went to the shed full of newborn calves. They were adorable.’
‘You made love in a cowshed?’ Maddie gasped in horror.
‘No, we were in the hayloft, not the cowshed. And we didn’t make love.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘Because we’re not married.’
Maddie shook her head. ‘You foolish girl!’ she exclaimed. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘Shhh,’ silenced their mother. ‘Don’t forget that this is God’s house and you, Rita, have much to thank Him for.’ Rita nodded and glanced across the aisle to where Faye and Trees sat with Alice, the children and George. They, too, had much to be thankful for. She caught George’s eye and he grinned back at her discreetly, the intimacy of the night before still shining in his speckled grey eyes.
As Reverend Hammond strode into the centre of the nave, dignified in his long black robe and white dog collar, only his long grey curls rebelled against the studied perfection of his demeanour. Like Hannah, he assumed a different guise in church. He seemed taller, broader, more imposing in his role as vicar than when he was Elwyn Hammond, the husband and grandfather buying vegetables from Miss Hogmier’s village shop. In God’s house he was God’s spokesman. A man of vocation whose duty it was to be God’s shepherd, to lead His sheep home, to show that the way to heaven was through suffering and repentance. Reverend Hammond knew suffering better than most, having lost his only son, and he knew love and compassion too, for his daughter-in-law had brought his grandchildren to live with them in Frognal Point. Every day he saw his son in the faces of those two children and every day he mourned him, but he took comfort that Rupert was with God now. He had found his way home and was at peace.
The congregation fell silent as Reverend Hammond’s deep voice resonated through the church like the low moan of a double bass. He spoke slowly, articulating his words with care so that even the old and partially deaf could hear him at the back. Rita looked past her mother to Eddie, who sat doodling on a small notepad. She was careful to draw patterns of crucifixes in case her mother took her eyes off Reverend Hammond to see what she was doing. Humphrey sat beside her, his small round glasses perched on the end of his nose, flicking through the hymn book. He wasn’t a religious man and found Reverend Hammond extremely tedious and self-satisfied. But he liked to come to support Hannah, who never missed church, even when she was sick.