Chapter Twenty-Eight: October, 1955
“OK?” Joshua asked.
“I’ll say yes,” Arty replied, holding up his thumb to confirm it. He would be in a few hours’ time, when Jim walked through those gates. Joshua affectionately roughed up Arty’s hair and gave him a smile that conveyed a thousand feelings and thoughts. It was one of his greatest gifts: the ability to communicate so richly with a simple look or touch.
Eighteen months ago, Arty’s life had stalled. He’d read Jim’s letter and his world imploded. Other than the pain in his knees, which had lasted for weeks, the day Jim was sentenced was still a gaping hole in Arty’s memory, and were it not for Joshua refusing to leave him alone, Arty would have taken his own life, or what was left of it. It was the only way he could do what Jim had asked of him.
His knees—he had apparently fallen to the floor—had recovered quite well, and quickly, whereas his mind shifted to some kind of autopilot, and it seemed nothing could switch him back to manual control. He was glad, in a way, for it had been a tragic time. Jean’s baby was stillborn and the doctors had to remove Jean’s womb, leaving Eddie an only child. At the strange, quiet funeral, Arty gave the eulogy, and mourners thanked him for his touching words. He graciously accepted their compliments and their sympathy, though he himself remained entirely untouched. He had not known this child; it was not his loss to grieve, thus it was no hardship to be the lynchpin that day, ushering, and welcoming, and nodding sadly as he listened to countless morbid tales of how the same thing had happened to so-and-so’s sister, or aunt, or maid of honour.
Death, it seemed once again, was everywhere, for Soot also passed away. At the grand old age of eleven years, he’d had a good innings, Arty reasoned. He pictured the three brothers, reunited in their old hangar in cat heaven, chasing balls of shimmering, golden hay and leaping on unsuspecting angel mice. It was a lovely thought; comforting, even. Yet the mirage was no more meaningful to him than the pointless fairy tales he had once loved so dearly. The loss was a constant itch he could not reach; he was paralysed, alone on the battlefield, and still the skies kept falling.
Joshua and Louisa broke off their engagement, their bond unable to withstand the strain of all that had been put upon it by Jim’s incarceration, coming so soon after Jimmy Johnson Senior’s death. In the back of Arty’s mind had been the rather callous notion that Joshua’s willingness to support him was entirely self-serving, for in that respect the Johnson men were quite alike. Nonetheless, it was a shame to see Joshua and Louisa—two people so extraordinarily well suited—torn asunder, but for the longest time Arty didn’t have it in him to care, nor to feel guilty for it.
Then came the horrifying jolt that finally set Arty free, administered by his mother, over the telephone.
“I’m calling with bad news. Uncle Bill is dead.” She said it as if she were telling of the demise of some distant, unfamiliar acquaintance.
“Pardon?” Arty asked, his voice rising shrilly; he was convinced he’d misheard.
“He had a heart attack yesterday morning, but the hospital—”
“Mother, stop!”
She stopped. Arty tried to turn what she’d said into something that made sense. “You told me you hadn’t heard from Bill since autumn, 1943.”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“So… You didn’t know he had survived until now?”
“That’s not quite right, no.”
“You knew he was alive?”
“Yes, we did, but—”
“You lied. All these years, you’ve been lying to Sissy and me. You let us believe he never came home from the war. Why?”
“We didn’t lie. We decided not to tell you…for your own good. The thing is, Robert, he was…he brought shame on our family.”
“How so?”
“He was captured by the Germans.”
“And what? Became a double agent?”
“Nothing so glamorous, I’m afraid. Your uncle…”
She didn’t need to say anything further; her reluctance to put it into words said it all, but Arty was not going to make it easy for her. After all he and Jim had been through, enduring what amounted to years apart, and the countless times Arty had tried to write to his parents—a letter that might have led to discovering the truth about Uncle Bill sooner—there would be no gentle reprieve for his mother.
“Go on,” he prompted coldly. “Say it.”
“Bill was…a homosexual. He was undergoing treatment—electric shock therapy.”
“And that’s what killed him.”
“I don’t think homosexuality—”
“The therapy, Mother,” Arty snapped.
“Ah. Yes. Apparently his heart gave out.”
For the second time in as many years, Arty fell to his knees for Jim, this time to give thanks to God that Jim had refused the treatment and chosen to serve his full sentence.
When Skies Have Fallen Page 44