by Ryan Byrnes
When the whistle blew, I slung my bag over my shoulders, then checked the holstered pistol at my side. Still hadn’t the faintest notion of how to use it, but somehow it made me feel official.
“Hey,” Gibson called. “Good luck out there. Keep your wits. Take care of that brother of yours.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I nodded, starting up the ladder.
I’d always considered myself an introvert. I liked people well enough, I guess, except when I was surrounded by them. Seemed like there were a thousand soldiers up on deck, the whole lot of them talking at the same time. Reinforcements heading for the front was what I’d been told.
Whatever, they were infantrymen, and I was an engineer, so I avoided eye contact, pushed up my sleeves—even though it was cold and foggy—and puffed out my chest and pushed through the crowd to the edge of the ship where I saw the city of Le Havre for the first time. Some sailors lowered the gangplank, and I was among the first to file off.
They frowned at me and let off a string of nasal gibberish, then returned to their work lugging crates. Oh yeah, French. Damn. But I’d learned a little French in school, one or two phrases, at least, and now was a good chance to put them to use.
“Wait!” I called after them again. “The bureau de poste, where is it? Bureau de poste.”
They laughed and pointed down the dock. I stood there after they left, just looking around. Was I supposed to just go? I felt like there must be some rule preventing me from walking away from the soldiers and heading out on my own. But nobody seemed to be paying attention to me, so I headed out, lugging my bag through a maze of crates and containers and shipyard material.
The crowd of soldiers shrank behind me, and still nobody was coming after me, asking me what the hell I was doing, because I had no idea. The rain picked up, and I stopped to pull the oilcloth coat out of my bag and wrap it around my shoulders. I walked by more crates and more crates, and eventually found a cluster of warehouses at the end of the dockyard. I cupped my hands to peek through the windows and see if there was anything there. More crates.
It had been ten minutes, and I was already lost.
Should I head back to the ship and find someone who speaks English? I turned around and the ship was barely visible in the fog. So I kept searching, and after peeking around corners for another twenty minutes, I found an alley that led into a street full of marching soldiers, the same soldiers from the ship, I figured. And there, right in front of me, was a warehouse with a sign hanging above the doorway: BRITISH ARMY POSTAL SERVICE.
Now all that stood in my way was a short train-ride to the frontlines, where I would be assigned a posts lorry, get a map, drive to the front, and find Luther. I just hoped my information was good, and that he was still where the clerks told me he'd been assigned. Would he remember me? I hadn’t seen him in about seventeen years. What was that, 1897? Blimey. That was almost half a lifetime ago.
DECEMBER, 1897
LEAMINGTON SPA, ENGLAND
~ THE VILLAGE ~
All along Bath Street, men in tweed caps and woolen sweaters nailed evergreen wreaths on shutters as housewives bundled in well-worn cardigans framed doorways with garlands and set candles in windowsills. Inside the snug row houses of Georgian red brick, sons and daughters unwrapped the newspaper protecting heirloom glass decorations and carefully arranged the family nativity scene on the mantle.
Only the storefront of Baker’s Sweets was quiet. No tree, no tinsel, no candlelit nativity, no evergreen. The only activity was the hanging sign creaking in the blustering wind announcing “Boiled Sweets. Toffee. Handmade Fudge. Since 1821.”
On bright warm days during the summer tourist season, Bath Street would swell with handholding newlyweds, old men in top hats, beggars, earls, fine ladies, artists, scientists, and cripples, all come to visit the mineral springs at the nearby Royal Baths. Many carried pamphlets proclaiming the baths could cure lameness, blindness, even diseases of the brain. The crowds appeared every year, hobbling on canes from shop to shop. Hobble, hobble, stop. Hobble, hobble, stop. They would circulate through Baker’s Sweets and speak to Mrs. Constance Baker behind the counter, who nodded and smiled and pretended to care.
“So how did you come by the candy trade? It’s a rare day for a woman to run such a business all by herself.”
Mrs. Baker would paste on a smile. “I inherited the store when my husband died.”
“Goodness. Well.” Awkward silence usually followed, and then. “Do you ever take the baths? Are they as helpful as everyone says?”
“I tried them for my son. He has fits.”
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry to hear that. Did they help?”
“How many pieces of marzipan did you want?”
The sick and lame and their caretakers would come every day for a week, growing more and more sullen each day, and when their holiday ended, Constance would wave them on, saying, “Now, remember to come back next year. You’ll be healed for sure. Why, I can see you stepping lighter already.” And when the newlyweds strolled in, or handsome, broad shouldered bachelors walked through looking for a gift for a particular sweetheart, Miss Baker would try out her cheeriest voice. “Oh, buy some bonbons, why won’t you? Just made ’em this morning.” And they would buy. All the tourists bought from Baker’s Sweets. Everybody who did not know her bought from her.
Yet when the leaves blushed every autumn and the tourists had all taken their leave, the store fell quiet. Constance ran her business mostly through the mail, packaging and mailing sweets all around the countryside. She wouldn’t see many locals again until Christmastime, and even then it would just be a few housewives without the time or the talent to do their own baking. Sometimes, if they couldn’t find a babysitter, they’d drag their children along and peruse the aisles of pink bonbons, marzipan, mints, saltwater taffy, and the ever-enduring British toffee. Then they would reach over the counter, avoiding an accidental brush of the fingers, snatch their paper bag, hold it away from their bodies like it was a dead rat, and slip off into the night. The doorbells would jingle behind them.
Sometimes, especially during the quiet of a winter’s evening, neighbors would claim to hear shattering glass ring from the shop and echo down the street. On those nights, the neighbors would check the locks on their front doors and pull the blinds shut.
~ CONSTANCE BAKER ~
The bells jingled over the door, and I looked up from the fudge I was cutting to see, of all people, Margie Stoker and her son step inside. Why, God? What does she want from me now? How is it she had to come at this hour, ten minutes before closing? Especially—my chest tightened—when I’d just let Luther down to play in the kitchen. Oh, well, it was too late to do anything about that now.
I squeezed the knife and put on that familiar smile that made my cheeks sore. Margie nodded and smiled back, unwinding her scarf as she stamped the sludge off of her shoes, onto my floor, and crossed the welcome mat. I’d kick her out—or at the least, fantasize about it—if it wasn’t for the jingling music in her purse. She took a few steps and frowned, looking at the bottom of her shoe like she’d stepped in dog poo. I knew what she was looking at. It had been an unusually busy day, and the floor was littered with crumbs dropped by posh neighbors, reluctant customers who turned up their noses at me and expected me to grab a broom every time they deigned to enter the premises. Sorry, I haven’t had the time to clean yet today, everyone. I’ve been busy.
Her eyes took in the tray of fudge beneath my knife. I swallowed, preparing to say something in case she started a conversation. My heart thumped in my chest, and I realized that, in some deep part of me, I was still a little girl afraid of a typical class bully.
The floorboards creaked as Margie and her boy stepped behind a shelf. The beam holding up the low ceiling shivered as a gust of wind whipped down the street. Behind the shelf, she cleared her throat and whispered just for effect. It was a small store, after all. Too small for secrets.
“How about the licorice, Rodney? You thin
k Daddy would like that?”
“He wouldn’t like that very much, mummy. Nobody likes licorice.”
“Your Daddy likes licorice very much, actually. It’s his favorite.”
“But licorice for Christmas?”
“Hey, fingers out of your mouth. It’s not clean.”
Rodney made a few garbled sounds.
A slap and a whimper.
“Sorry.”
“Here, I’ll just grab some of these. Go look over at the bonbons while I buy this, and don’t touch anything. It’s not clean.”
A rush of feet on the creaking wood signaled little Rodney skipping to the back. Oh no you don’t. I stood on my toes to see the kid skip over to the back corner, next to the taffy hook near the kitchen door. If you even think about going in there… I squeezed the handle of my fudge knife even harder, tracing a line through the chocolate and pinching the squares with wax paper.
“It’s dim in here, don’t you think?” Margie stepped up to the counter, set down a half pound of licorice, and handed me the coins. “Rather dreary for a sweet shop.”
“Indeed.”
Rodney’s little head kept poking over the bonbon shelves.
I closed a hand over the change.
“It’s a shame this is the only sweet shop in town.”
I smiled. “Have a good evening, Mrs. Stoker.”
Margie grabbed her bag of licorice, and winding her scarf back around her neck, she headed for the door.
“Rodney, dear, time to go. Rodney?”
His head had disappeared from behind the shelf. And then, Rodney’s trembling voice called from the kitchen.
“Wh—who’re you?”
A deep moan, and the clatter and crash of something thrown against the wall.
Christ Almighty. My knife dropped. I slipped out from behind the counter, pushed past the gaping Margie and the curious Rodney, and stepped into the kitchen. There was my son, nine years old and in his underwear, standing on the table with a pot in each hand. He tottered forward and, with a pale flabby arm, waved one at Rodney. Petrified, Rodney backed into the corner.
“Pity’s sake, he’s not the devil, Rodney. What’re you shrinking away for?”
Luther swayed back and forth, waving the pots, shouting gibberish.
“He sounds like a sick cow!”
I whirled on Margie as her hand flew up to cover her mouth. I could feel the heat in my face and would have socked her about then. I would have, I swear. Luther saw straight past me, now that Margie entered the kitchen. Sometimes I felt like we were all just targets for him to chuck pots at.
I walked up and grabbed the pots, but he held them tight and started jerking his head forward and back so hard it had to hurt his poor neck. Once he started doing that, I knew from experience there was nothing I could say or do to calm him. I didn’t even know if he could hear me. I grabbed him by the waist and heaved him off the table, back toward the tea-room as he flailed his arms and chucked a pot at Rodney. I hoped it hit the brat. Luther kept a tight grip on the other pot, the one he was trying to hit his head with, and as I tried again to snatch it away, he let out a shriek, banged his head against my already bruised shoulder, and kicked me in the thigh. I bent over, wincing, and exhaled all my anger. Love him sweet, I recited my motto, love him sweet. These episodes used to leave me in an impassioned mess, but that kind of energy had fizzled out of me years ago. Handling him now was purely mechanical, and when his shouts rose, I’d sigh and march over to him, a bit more hollowed out each time.
Dragging the last pot out of his grasp and sending it crashing in the corner, I laid Luther on the rug and threw down the pillows from the couch. He jumped to his feet, made fists, and screamed so loud his body spasmed and red veins stuck out of the taught-rope muscles on his neck. Then he started punching himself in the head.
In the doorway to the tea room—they had followed us for a spectacle—Margie pulled Rodney close and covered his ears.
I grappled with Luther to hold his arms down, but he pulled away, grabbed his temples, and rocked back and forth like there was a demon inside. Was he in pain? Would I ever know what was going on in his mind?
Finally, I pinned him down on the pillows and laid my body parallel to his, staring straight at him. His eyes, still wild, saw straight past me. He continued to rage and spasm, even kicking me a few times. With eyes closed, I lay there for about five minutes, pretending I was a statue. His hoarse voice simmered down to his regular blubbering gibberish, and I felt him calm down to that steady thump thump thump as his heart rate slowed and, finally, Luther made his little baby whimper, his happy sound, to signal the episode’s passing. I got up, as I did about three times a week, looked him in the eye, and watched as the spark of recognition returned. He was listening.
“Are you sorry?” I asked.
He whined apologetically.
“Give me a kiss, love.”
He pressed his mouth against my cheek, and I hugged him for a good thirty seconds until finally he hugged me back. I smelled the sweat on his skin and felt familiar tears on my cheek. I whispered a quick prayer to Luther’s father in heaven.
Love him sweet, I told myself, love him sweet.
When I turned around, Margie and her son were gone. I’d be hearing from her come Sunday. The vicar would probably stop by with that concerned bend in his brow, and I’d have to explain again why no, he couldn’t stay for tea and discuss my son’s behavior. And so the gossip would pour forth for the enigma of Leamington Spa, sometimes a subject of sympathy, and other times judgement. Yes, it was true that my son acted out. Yes, it was true that I wasn’t interested in re-marrying. What’s it matter to them what goes on under my roof?
I dropped into the chair and rubbed my temples. Luther stood and began to run circles around the house, making sounds to himself until he tired. I smiled as he opened the cupboard door near the oven—the only cupboard I hadn’t fastened under lock and key—and curled up inside it, shutting himself in. He napped in there. I guess small spaces made him feel safe, maybe like the womb. My eyes closed for a few minutes, and the bong bong bong of the grandfather clock startled me awake. Heavens, I hadn’t yet locked up shop. Two steps in the shop, and the bell rattled, the door opened, and there stood Jim. He stepped in with no pants, no shoes, feet covered in snow.
“What is this? What is this?”
I grabbed his chin and squeezed it like I’d done the fudge knife earlier. Pointed his face left and right and then straight at me, and there was his eye all swollen and purple.
“You’ve been out picking fights again, haven’t you? Must be the third time they’ve taken your pants.”
“They were making fun of Luther, Mum. Making fun of how he is.”
“Think losing your pants and shoes will make them stop?”
“No, I—”
I slapped him. I know I shouldn’t have but, good lord, how much more of this was I supposed to take?
“Boys who pick fights are not gentlemen. You’re the one person in this family with a future, and you’re going to toss it all away! At only seven years old? How many pairs of pants do you have to lose before you learn? How many shoes? Hmm? Where do you think you’ll be when you’re my age? ’Cause I won’t give you the shop if you’re like this. The neighbors know it. Your Auntie Lavinia knows it.”
“No she doesn’t.”
Jim’s voice cracked. I’d hit a soft spot when I mentioned Lavinia. It was probably too far. Jim reached out, and with one arm, he cleared the whole tray of fudge I’d been working on off the counter and onto the floor.
“Why, you—” I raised my hand again when I heard that terrible, hoarse whimpering that made me cringe. I turned around, and there was Luther behind me, shaking and smacking his head over and over again.
Time to get the pillows back out.
Jim raced up the stairs and locked himself in his room, where I knew I’d find him curled up, hiding under his covers with one of his father’s books. That’s what he did wh
enever I lost my temper or Luther had one of his episodes. He never offered to help. He just hid.
Below the red brick clock tower with its white cap, the naked trees rattled. I dragged Luther along the gravel path.
“Stop that blubbering. If you want to talk, use words.”
He made a baby whimper that sounded like “yah” and suddenly stopped, squatting down on his hams to poke a dead worm in the slush. He picked it up and started to put it in his mouth.
“No.”
The worm fell into the snow.
I pulled at Luther’s hand, and he stood and hopped along with me, making that rubbery squeaking sound with his voice.
“Words.” I stopped and enunciated. “No sounds. Words.” He didn’t make eye contact, but instead hugged himself and rocked on his heels, so I paused and pulled his face close to mine. “We’re going to see a very important person today, and you need to behave.”
He made an apologetic whimpering sound and hit himself, so I pulled his tubby body in close and hugged him until he calmed. The words love mum came through the garbling, and it may have been the most thrilling moment of my entire week. He put his mouth on my cheek. It sometimes felt strange, that a boy the same height as his mum still must hold hands. But I don’t give a damn. Love him sweet.
We walked past a wood-post sign with carved letters painted in gold that read:
HATTON NORTHERN HOSPITAL FOR LUNATICS AND THE FEEBLE-MINDED
Sometimes, when it was just me and Luther, which was a lot, I imagined having conversations with him. What would he be like if he was fully vocal? Where are we going, Mum? he might ask. The Doctor’s going to check up on you, love, it won’t hurt, I’d respond. But today his face was blank. He didn’t know where he was, and he didn’t ask.
“I love you, dear,” I said and tussled the light brown hair I’d combed and washed that morning, six o’clock sharp, with him naked in the bath. I could tell his body was changing, and soon he would be a man with a man’s arms and a man’s chest and back and hands. Soon he would be of age, and I’d be unable to handle him. Truth be told, I had no idea how we’d get on then. Or later, when I was gone. Jim would have to look after him. He must, but I didn’t actually think he would. Sometimes I think Luther’s got more sense in his fits than Jim with all his faculties.