LITMIR.BIZ

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Connie spotted Joyce and Esther and shot them a smile of sufferance. ‘And you boys are welcome to come along, providing you’re both over sixty.’

      ‘Sixty?’ The American looked bemused.

      ‘Yes, it’s a party – a meal – for the old folk.’

      ‘I don’t think I’m that old.’ The soldier smiled before changing tack. ‘But how about I take you out for our own party?’

      ‘Yeah, sounds good. I’ll just ask my husband,’ Connie grinned. Knowing when they were beaten, the Americans shrugged and walked away. Connie turned to the watching Joyce and Esther.

      ‘Can’t blame them for trying, can you?’ Connie raised an eyebrow archly, ‘You coming inside then?’

      Esther nodded.

      ‘We thought you could do with some help.’ Joyce unfastened her coat.

      ‘Henry could, that’s for sure.’

      Inside, they found her husband, the Reverend Henry Jameson. The good-looking and earnest young man was struggling to move a trestle table. ‘Where have you been, Connie?’

      ‘Some people wanted to know if they could come along.’ Connie raised her eyebrow slightly in Joyce’s direction. It was technically true, Joyce supposed. ‘But I don’t think they were quite old enough yet.’

      Connie turned her attention to sticking up a piece of bunting that had drooped. Joyce grabbed the other end of the trestle table and they lifted it together. Esther and Connie started to put out chairs. Each year, Lady Hoxley would donate money to a fund run by the church to organise a Christmas meal for the old people of Helmstead. Local business people and good Samaritans would contribute beer, wine and food; a lot of it grown on the fields and houses around Helmstead. A lot of people in the village, from Mrs Gulliver and the other busybodies to the local butcher would pitch in to arrange the meal. Finch had promised them a bag of spuds to help them along.

      And the meal wasn’t the only attraction for the old folk in the village. There would be songs at the piano and maybe a little dancing. Sometimes the event happened on Christmas Day itself, but this year it was happening earlier. The lunch was organised by Henry Jameson for anyone who wanted to spend the day with the community. With so many loved ones away overseas, Christmas could be a lonely and sad experience, so this event distracted everyone from their problems for a day. And Henry liked to think he’d gain a few new parishioners at the Sunday Service as a result too.

      As Esther, Connie and Joyce helped Henry set up the hall, their conversation turned to who would be at Pasture Farm for Christmas.

      ‘Connie and I hope to have the day together – after I’ve finished my service and my visits to parishioners.’ Henry placed a beer mat under a wobbly table leg.

      ‘That means he’ll be home at five in the evening and I’ll have been on my tod all day.’ Connie rolled her eyes to her husband’s amusement.

      ‘So what about Dolores?’

      ‘Oh, she’s got nowhere to go, so she’ll be there,’ Esther replied. About twelve years older than the other girls, Dolores O’Malley kept herself to herself. Joyce remembered Connie playing a game over the summer, to try to find out details – any details – about Dolores’s life. Connie would try every trick she knew to get Dolores to divulge even the smallest detail. What colour did she like? What was her home like? Was she courting anyone? But as skilful as Connie was in digging, Dolores proved equally adept at deflecting. She was as closed as a clam in deep water. Joyce felt that Dolores deserved her privacy.

      ‘At least I don’t think she’s got anywhere to go,’ Esther mused. ‘You never know with that one.’

      ‘And that’s the point, innit? We’ll never know.’ Connie laughed.

      Joyce stood on a chair to put some more bunting up. The streamers had been cut and assembled from strips of old magazines, giving the bunting a colourful and varied effect.

      ‘And of course, Martin and Iris will be back with us for the big day,’ Esther volunteered, spooling the bunting up to Joyce. ‘Fred will be back by then too.’

      ‘We’ll have a good time.’

      ‘Will we?’ Esther pulled a sceptical face.

      ‘Yes,’ Joyce grinned. ‘Especially if we persuade Fred to open his carrot whisky.’

      ‘Joyce Fisher! I never had you down as being naughty.’

      ‘It’s living with him what’s done it!’

      A distant rumble distracted her. It wasn’t thunder. Joyce’s laughter died in her throat as she noticed a flash in the sky which illuminated the glass of the window pane, making the rain drops glisten like pearls for a brief moment. There was another flash and a distant bang, further away. If there wasn’t a war on, Joyce would have marvelled that they might have been shooting stars or some strange firework show.

      Esther, Connie and Joyce peered through the window their hands cupped over their eyes to help them see outside. In the sky, a small grey shape moved quickly across the horizon, with two other similarly-sized shapes following. A flash went off to the right of the first object. It was the last stages of a dog fight. Joyce squinted to try to work out whether it was an allied or German plane being chased. The first plane banked round, and Joyce glimpsed the markings. A yellow band around the rear fuselage and a black cross told her all she needed to know. It was a German bomber and it was being gained on by two Spitfires. One of the allied planes reeled off machine gun fire.

      Henry came over to watch and they all peered intently, trying to glimpse the action.

      Joyce instinctively ducked down slightly from the window. Esther put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The truth was that they were far enough away to be out of danger. The bullets wouldn’t reach the village hall from that distance. But a basic innate need for survival meant that they shied away nonetheless.

      Joyce craned her head. At the corner of the window frame, the second Spitfire looped round, cutting off the escape path of the German bomber. The Spitfire fired its guns and there was a flash of fire on the wing of the bomber. It banked sharply away, an erratic movement that told Joyce it wasn’t an evasive manoeuvre but a sign it was out of control. Sure enough the bomber spiralled down and away, with the awful whining sound that signified an imminent crash. Joyce could just about make out a plume of black smoke from the rear of the plane. Fire was gripping the rear section. It disappeared behind some trees several miles away. The Spitfires pursued it over the canopy to check they had completed their task. After a few moments, a smoky mushroom of fire billowed up from behind the trees. Esther looked solemnly at what she had seen.

      ‘There’s one for our boys.’ But there was no hint of celebration in Esther’s voice. They knew it could have so easily been a loss to the allied side. They both knew that death wasn’t anything to celebrate. Instead this was a grim tallying up of a minor victory in a war that was dragging on above the skies of Helmstead. Another mother would be getting a telegram.

      Joyce continued to put up the celebratory bunting; an action that seemed darkly poignant now. But for now, she didn’t think any more about the German plane or what had happened to it.

      Twin paths of blackened, smoking grass etched their way into a copse of trees on the edge of Frensham Fields. And there, its nose smashed into an ancient oak tree was the German plane, one of its engines whirring in a death throe of aviation fuel and smoke. The fuselage was already sparking with fire and the fuel caught alight suddenly, sending a dense cloud exploding into the sky like some nightmarish purple and black peony. The men in the cockpit were frantically trying to escape. One of them smashed open the canopy, sending it cascading down the side of the plane. He was up and out, falling over the side onto the singed heather beneath. His partner quickly followed, but being nearer the fuselage, he found his arm engulfed in burning fuel.

      The man screamed and fell hard onto the ground. The first man was on his feet, scrambling to his aid, rolling the burning man over and over

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