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POLLY

Polly stood at the farm gate and stared ahead of her at the farmhouse.

It was so long since she’d been here but not much had changed.

Clearly, it had been spruced up. The paintwork wasn’t shabby and peeling as it had been back in her day, and it looked like the windows had been replaced.

She was sure they used to have smaller panes of glass in them.

She got quite a start when she saw Erin striding towards the house, her red hair pinned up in that familiar vintage style, dressed in dungarees and sturdy shoes, and a short-sleeved, white shirt.

She was used to seeing the ‘land girls’ around the village but spotting her out of the blue like that in this environment – it gave her quite a turn and took her back to a time she had such mixed feelings about.

Erin waved to someone and Polly narrowed her eyes. Rissa was sitting on an upturned bucket in the farmyard. Erin stopped to speak to her for a moment, then left her to it, walking into the house while Rissa stayed where she was.

Funny place to sit. What was the girl up to?

Polly went through the motions of taking a deep breath, even though it was an impossible feat. Funny how your reactions stayed the same, she mused. She could swear she had a dodgy tummy right now, but of course she couldn’t possibly have. It was just her nerves playing tricks on her.

‘Just walk through the gate and up the path,’ she muttered. ‘It’s okay. It’s not the same.’

Of course it wasn’t. Helen and Alf weren’t there, for one thing. The land girls, Cissie, Joan and Kathleen weren’t there either, nor Dad and their Norman.

Anselm wasn’t there.

Gerhard wasn’t there.

The pain swirled through her again and she closed her eyes. She didn’t want to remember that night but being here after all this time, she couldn’t help herself.

‘Please! Please don’t shoot!’

Polly wrapped her arms around herself as if to shield her poor body from the bullet.

Too late. Far too late. Not that her arms could have saved her.

The bullet that had penetrated her body had entered through her back as she ran.

She would still have fallen to the floor.

She would still have felt the cold, hard ground beneath her.

She would still have closed her eyes as she wondered why it had to end like this.

She spun round. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t go back to the farm after all.

This had been a terrible mistake, and she couldn’t imagine what she’d been thinking.

Why put herself through it, after all? She’d managed to avoid Rowan Farm for nearly eighty years, and if she had her way, she’d avoid it for another eighty.

‘Rissa!’

Polly hesitated at the call. Slowly, she turned round again, seeing Betty heading out of the house and towards Gerhard’s granddaughter.

She saw Betty speaking to Rissa, and the girl shaking her head in response. Betty folded her arms and clearly wasn’t about to take no for an answer. What were they arguing about?

Curiosity got the better of Polly and, determined not to be such a coward, she marched through the closed gate and down the path towards the farmhouse.

‘A packet of crisps?’

That was the phrase she heard first as she approached, and she felt a moment’s irritation. Is that what they were arguing about? Really?

‘It’ll do.’

‘Don’t be so daft,’ Betty said. ‘I couldn’t believe it when Erin told me. What are you larking at, sitting out here on a bucket with a packet of crisps for your lunch? I thought you were meeting your dad at the teashop?’

‘So what if I was? I can change my mind, can’t I?’

‘Well, a bag of crisps isn’t going to keep you going all afternoon, so I’ll ask you again, are you going to come inside so I can make you a proper lunch?’

‘I told you. I’m not hungry.’

Polly edged her way towards the two of them, forgetting momentarily that they could neither see nor hear her. Rissa looked defiant, but also sad. Betty, meanwhile, wore that mother-hen look of concern that she’d clearly inherited from her grandmother, Helen.

‘Look, I’m not being funny, but why don’t you just go and see your dad, eh? Whatever it is that’s gone on between the two of you, I’m sure it can be fixed.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Rissa muttered.

Polly rolled her eyes. She was a moody little mare, that one. Mind you…

She leaned forward, peering at Rissa more closely. Were those tears in her eyes?

Evidently, Betty had spotted them, too, because she said kindly, ‘Don’t upset yourself, lovely.

Look, I don’t understand why you didn’t tell your dad that you were working here, or why it had to be such a big secret, but the fact that he came here to see you to try to sort this out must mean he cares about you, right? ’

When Rissa didn’t reply, Betty eyed her for a moment, then her face straightened and she said hesitantly, ‘He’s – he’s not a bad man, is he? I mean, you’re not afraid of him or anything? Because you can tell me if he is and me and Nick will see him off, no problem.’

Rissa’s head jerked up immediately. ‘Of course he’s not! My dad’s a lovely man! He would never hurt me…’

‘Well then.’ Betty looked and sounded relieved, as her expression softened once again. ‘That’s good to hear. But if that’s the case?—’

‘He’s not the same!’ Rissa burst out. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘Well, try me. I’d like to understand but if you won’t explain, how can I?’

Rissa sighed. ‘It’s complicated. It’s just, he’s not the same person since Mum died. He used to be fun, you know? And kind and loving. But since then, he’s different. Colder. And he never lets me in any more. We used to be so close, but now it’s like we’re strangers.’

‘Ah.’ Betty nodded, her eyes warm with sympathy, and Polly felt a pang herself for this young girl who was clearly at a loss to understand her father’s change of mood.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Rissa said. ‘I know what you’re thinking: Well, he’s grieving , and I get that. I do. I’m grieving, too. But it’s been six years! We have to move on, right? And the thing is, in Dad, it’s turned into something more. An obsession.’

‘What sort of obsession?’ Betty asked warily, and Polly had a sudden image of Rissa’s father becoming a male version of Miss Havisham: forever trapped in the past, sitting alone at the dining table while spiders spun their webs around him and food festered and rotted in front of him.

Rissa shrugged. ‘It’s complicated. Gran passed away fourteen years before Mum, and Dad had to go back to Germany to sort through her belongings with his sister, my Aunt Gisela.

When he came back, he had Gran’s diaries with him, and he put them away for safe keeping.

They didn’t really interest him then, but after Mum died, he read them and that’s when he started to change.

He got quite bitter and—’ She broke off.

‘Oh, I shouldn’t even be saying all this.

He’d hate me telling you, of all people! ’

‘What do you mean, me “of all people”?’ Betty asked, surprised.

‘Never mind. Dad’s just obsessing about something that he can’t change and it’s not healthy, and I get why he’s doing it. Focusing on the distant past stops him from brooding about Mum. He can’t deal with his grief over her death, so he’s transferring all his attention to something else.’

‘Crikey,’ Betty said. ‘Get you, Sigmund Freud. Who told you all that?’

‘My therapist.’

‘You had a therapist?’

‘Like I said,’ Rissa said heavily, ‘I was grieving, too. The people at uni were great. They put me in touch with someone and she helped me come to terms with losing Mum. I just wish Dad would have seen someone, too, but he refused point-blank.’

Polly’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. Rissa had gone to university? Who’d have thought it. She wasn’t sure about therapists and the like, though she’d heard that they were the ‘in’ thing these days. Back in her day, you’d just had to grit your teeth and get on with things.

Although, looking back at the suffering that had gone on, she thought maybe it would have been much better if they’d all had therapy. God knows, even the small amount of help given to the returning soldiers was woefully inadequate…

‘Well.’ Betty seemed at a loss to know what else to say.

She stood, watching Rissa finish the last of her crisps, then reached out a hand to take the empty packet.

‘You know, I understand what you’re saying about your dad transferring his focus to something else, but it doesn’t alter the fact that he’s in pain.

And maybe you’re the one person who can help him through that pain.

You said you and he were close, so it strikes me that he needs you now more than ever.

And if anyone can get through whatever barrier he’s put up to protect himself, it will be you. ’

Rissa pushed back her blonde hair but didn’t reply. She stared at the ground.

‘He’s reaching out to you, isn’t he? He’s here, in the village, right now. And it’s the second time he’s visited recently, so clearly, you matter a lot to him.’

‘Because he found out I worked here, and I’d lied about that!’

‘Whatever the reason – and I have to admit, I’m baffled why you’d do that – but whatever the reason, he’s here. And even though you pushed him away, he came back. Maybe, in his own way, he’s trying to break down that barrier? If you turn your back on him now, lovely, who else has he got?’

Slowly, Rissa lifted her head, and Polly put her hands to her chest in compassion as she saw the tears rolling down the girl’s face. Maybe she wasn’t such a little madam after all. Maybe she was just carrying a heavy burden she couldn’t talk about. Polly understood that feeling all too well.

‘There now, wipe them tears away and go and see your dad, eh? If nothing else, you get yourself a proper lunch. And mind, I shall call Shona and check that you’ve eaten. Can’t have you working here this afternoon on an empty stomach.’

Rissa gave a half-laugh. ‘He might have gone by now.’

‘Only one way to find out, isn’t there?’

Rissa sniffed and pulled her mobile phone out of her dungarees pocket. ‘I’m only carrying it cos it’s my lunch hour,’ she said hastily.

‘Never mind that now,’ Betty assured her. ‘Just call your dad and tell him you’re on your way.’

Rissa hesitated, then quickly tapped out a message on her phone.

‘I hate calling,’ she said. ‘Makes me nervous.’

‘You youngsters.’ Betty shook her head. ‘Don’t know how to have a proper conversation these days.

It’s all gifs and memes and text speak. Oh yes,’ she added as Rissa grinned.

‘I know all the lingo! I’m down with the kids, me.

No need to look so surprised. I’m only in my early fifties, you know, though the way you and Erin look at me sometimes, I’m sure you think I’m in my nineties. ’

Polly saw Rissa jump slightly as her phone beeped.

‘It’s Dad,’ she told Betty. ‘He’s still at the teashop. He says he’ll wait.’

‘Well, off you go then,’ Betty said, making a shooing motion towards her. ‘And remember what I said about getting something to eat.’

‘Thanks, Betty,’ Rissa said awkwardly.

She turned and headed up the path and Polly hesitated. She looked back at Betty, who stood watching the young girl, shaking her head slightly.

‘Funny onion, that one,’ Betty murmured. ‘Seems like not moving on from a lost love runs in the family.’

Polly nodded, as if Betty could see her. Rissa’s dad might be hanging on to his grief for his wife, but Rissa had hung on to her feelings for Brodie just as tightly. Maybe it was time they both let go.

As Betty returned to the farmhouse, Polly made up her mind. Shona would be at the teashop, but it couldn’t be helped. Polly wanted to know more about this grandson of Gerhard’s and the tricky relationship he had with his own daughter.

There’d been no happy ending to her own story.

She desperately needed there to be one for this.