Liam's Story

by Ann Victoria Roberts

  Exhaustion broke into the group, and as Tisha went upstairs, Liam helped his brother to bed. As in the old days, they were sharing a room again; knowing he would see Robin later, Liam went down, wondering how he could contrive to speak to Georgina alone. Hesitating at the foot of the stairs, it came to him that if he offered to make a pot of tea, she would probably come through to the kitchen to help. But as he set the kettle to boil, it was his father who came in, closing the door behind him.

  ‘I wonder would you see Georgina back to the hotel? It’s been a long day, and she’s tired, but I’d like to stay with your mother for a little while.’ For a second he hesitated, then went on: ‘It won’t take long, but there are a few things we need to discuss.’

  Liam prayed that his expression betrayed none of his relief and only a fraction of his willingness to obey. ‘Of course, sir,’ he murmured, allowing himself a small smile. ‘I’ll see her safely back.’

  Robert seemed unusually tense. ‘What time is your train in the morning?’

  ‘Half-past six – that is, if it’s not delayed.’

  ‘And a slow journey back to Grantham, I’ve no doubt. Would you like me to come to the station, see you off?’

  Liam’s heart lurched. ‘No, sir, really, I’d rather be alone. Much rather, but thanks all the same.’

  His father’s level gaze met his, regarding him somberly. ‘Don’t worry about your mother. I’ll take care of her – in fact I shall insist on doing so,’ he added with a small, dry smile, ‘whether she wants me to, or not.’

  As he tried to express his thanks, Robert cut him off. ‘No, it’s the very least I can do. In the meantime, take great care of yourself. No foolish heroics, promise me that?’

  ‘I promise. I got these stripes for long service, not heroics!’

  ‘In that case, let’s be seeing another next time you’re home.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’

  There was a silence, and apprehension suddenly struck Liam, he could not say why. His father frowned and looked down for a moment, but although he had his hand on the door, it seemed the interview was not over. ‘By the way,’ he said at last, and his voice was suddenly sharp with accusation, ‘did you know about Georgina’s plans? That she’s volunteered for service abroad?’

  The question caught him completely off-guard, as afterwards he was sure it was meant to do. Liam felt the blood drain from his face, and when he found his voice, he stammered. ‘A-abroad? No – no, she – she didn’t tell me...’ On a vision of casualty clearing stations, often under fire, he closed his eyes.

  ‘I’m sure,’ Robert continued heavily, ‘that you have a better idea than any of us just what that might mean.’ There was a repressed anger in his words that in spite of shock, set every sense on the alert.

  ‘I’m counting on you, Liam, to dissuade her. She’s done enough already, for God’s sake – I don’t want her risking her life out there.’ He paused. ‘I shouldn’t imagine you do, either.’

  There was a sharper edge to his voice as he said that, and his glance, steady and penetrating, told Liam that he knew – or suspected – the true state of affairs. It was worse – far worse – than Tisha’s confrontation, because no accusations were leveled. There was nothing for Liam to deny. Instead of the dressing-down he might have expected, there was just this terribly restrained civility.

  ‘I’ve spoken to Georgina, and I realize there is no point in discussing it further. With anyone.’ His voice was hushed, deceptively so, because every word had the sharpness of an incision. ‘You’re going away tomorrow, and you’ll soon be back in France. Although it grieves me to say so, Liam, it’s just as well. You know the folly of what you’ve been doing as well as I do. Only because I blame myself more than anyone else do I beg you – beg you – to end it.’

  ‘The decision has already been made,’ Liam said gruffly, forcing the words through trembling lips. His whole body was shaking; he found himself clinging to the back of a chair, wanting to apologize, wanting to explain to his father just how it had come about. He wanted to be forgiven. But there was no time. ‘I’m sorry...’ he whispered, and the words were grossly inadequate.

  There was a momentary brilliance in his father’s eyes. ‘So am I,’ he breathed, ‘so am I.’ With a sudden compression of his mouth, he looked away. ‘Do something useful, Liam – stop her from committing another folly.’

  ‘She’s not – not volunteering to be close to me, is she?’

  ‘No, oddly enough. She seems to think that active service will remove her entirely from your sphere of influence. When you come home on leave, she won’t be here. It will also make communication difficult.’

  The truth of that was like a hammer-blow. He could give no more than a puppet’s nod in answer to it.

  ‘But staying away from each other is one thing – getting yourselves killed is quite another. I don’t want to lose either of you – and if your mother knew, she’d say the same. It would break her heart, for God’s sake.

  ‘Promise me you’ll speak to Georgina – persuade her to change her mind?’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Liam said.

  Robert glanced at his watch. ‘Shall we say an hour?’

  ‘If I had a week,’ his son responded bitterly, ‘I’m not sure it would be long enough. But I’ll try.’ He moved towards the door and Robert opened it for him; as he donned his heavy overcoat, he said: ‘Tell Georgina I’ll be waiting outside.’

  The rain had turned to a fine, drenching mist that obscured everything, even the river. The only light was that from the cottage doorway, and, like a blanket, the night absorbed it. Seeking support rather than cover, he stood beneath the first tree beyond the gate and shivered like a man with palsy. April, and it felt like January, and the shocks and miseries of the day gave him no warmth, no comfort.

  A couple of minutes later she followed him out, pausing only to raise her umbrella. He called to her and she hurried to his side; she was upon him before his expression could halt her eagerness, reaching out to embrace him as he grasped both arms and shook her, angrily.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? Jesus Christ, I walked straight into that! Why didn’t you tell me he knew?’

  He saw the shock on her face, saw, too, the sense of betrayal. She glanced back over her shoulder, then up at Liam, and then she hung her head. ‘He said – he promised – that he wouldn’t say anything to you. I’m sorry – I didn’t – didn’t want to tell you... and in a letter, how could I?’

  ‘When, for God’s sake? How did he find out? What did he say?’

  She leaned against him, touching her forehead to his shoulder. Almost against his will, Liam embraced her. ‘Tell me,’ he whispered urgently, ‘I have to know — all of it.’

  Time was passing but he could not move until he knew. The umbrella provided shelter as he lit a cigarette and listened to her brief, staccato explanation. Those stolen few days in Bournemouth: Georgina had arranged her leave with the hospital, but neglected to tell her father; he had needed to speak to her, telephoned, and been told she was on leave. When she came back, he had, quite naturally, wanted to know where she had been.

  ‘It was a risk, of course, and I’d worried about it for days before I came to you. And the trouble was, I couldn’t think of a convincing story to cover the situation...’

  ‘You should have told me – I thought he was in Ireland!’

  ‘I didn’t see the point of worrying you, too.’ With a sigh, she said, ‘Anyway, as soon as I saw his face, I knew that lying would have been a waste of time. He knew, Liam, he knew full well where I’d been. He’d had plenty of time to work it out. He’d even checked with the convalescent home, and been told you were on leave, too. Only the fact that he didn’t want to believe the worst made him accept my version of the truth.’

  ‘And what, for God’s sake, was that?’

  ‘I said we’d taken separate rooms, that I went down to Bournemouth simply because we wanted to spend some time together before you went aw
ay...’ Her voice broke on that. ‘And that, as God’s my witness, is the truth, isn’t it?’

  ‘Except I never slept in mine.’ He threw the stub of his cigarette in the direction of the river, and took her arm. ‘We’d better get moving – I’m supposed to be seeing you back to the hotel, and we haven’t got long.’

  ‘I told him we loved each other. God, he was so upset, and so angry – I thought at one point he was going to hit me, and he’s never done that in his life.’ On a little sob, she went on, ‘I had to go right back to the beginning, to that summer before the war, and tell him everything. He knew how I naïve I was, and so he believed me when I said I thought we were just good friends…

  ‘I told him that it was being together – visiting so regularly when you were in hospital. I said it made us both realize that what we felt for each other was more than just friendship. That was what hurt him – because he’d wanted me to see you...’

  ‘Why?’

  Her voice dropped so much that Liam had to strain to hear her next words. ‘He wanted me to explain the past. He wanted you to understand what he did and why he did it. He wanted your forgiveness. And he knew you wouldn’t listen, or even agree to see him, so he sent me, instead.’

  ‘Oh, my God.’ There was something so ironic in that, Liam was torn between tears and laughter. ‘So he blames himself, does he? Well, he needn’t. I just pray to God he doesn’t say anything to my mother. She won’t take it the way he has.’

  ‘He won’t. She’s had enough grief, he wouldn’t do that to her.’

  ‘He promised – you said – not to say anything to me!’ But the bitterness waned as Liam went over what had been said to him by Robert Duncannon. Nothing direct, nothing specific; it had all been contained in the eyes, in the tone of voice as he dropped the bombshell of Georgina’s plans.

  Liam faced her with that as they walked through town, as deserted streets echoed to every footfall, and a driving mist chilled their faces. Few lamps were lit, and most of those were dimmed. They found their way less by sight than familiarity, realizing with some surprise that they were not far from the hotel. The matter, however, was far from over, a long way from being settled to Liam’s satisfaction. For a moment he thought of her private room, its warmth and seclusion; but there was too little time, and he had no desire to compromise her further.

  They walked on past the Minster, its looming mass shadowed and silent, suggesting an emptiness that made a mockery of existence. Shivering, Liam drew Georgina towards him, seeking the shelter of a little archway off Goodramgate. Mist and smoke and fine, drenching rain made a blanket of the night, cutting them off, in that dry place, from the probing eyes of passers-by. At the sound of muffled footsteps they dropped their voices, huddling against a dry wall, its ancient bricks warm from some interior chimney.

  ‘You might be sent anywhere,’ Liam murmured against the softness of her cheek. ‘And I don’t just mean Boulogne or Flanders or places behind the front lines. There are British nurses in Egypt and Malta, and the seas, my darling, are crawling with German submarines. Didn’t you see that report in the paper? More than fifty ships went down last week, including a troopship with nurses aboard. Why risk that when you can do so much good here?’

  When she did not immediately answer, he drew away. ‘Look, you’re being silly about this. You know how impossible it was for me to get leave before – and after six months off, God knows when I’ll get leave again.’ With an exasperated sigh, he added: ‘Do you want me to make that promise again? I won’t try to see you – and if you don’t want to hear from me, I won’t even write.’

  ‘What use are promises?’ she whispered brokenly. ‘It wouldn’t be any use. If I knew you were home on leave, I’d want to see you, and if I thought we could keep in touch easily, I’d always be looking for your letters. Or writing to you.’

  ‘Georgina,’ he got out bitterly, ‘you’re making this so difficult...’

  ‘But don’t you see why I want to go away? Can’t you see that if I stay, where you and I were together and happy, I’ll never forget? London – the places we went, even the buses we took, everything reminds me of you. At home in the apartment I see your face wherever I look – in the kitchen, the drawing room, by the window, in my bed. God, in my bed. I never sleep. I doze, and I dream of you beside me. I wake and search for you. I even run my hands over my body and pretend they are your hands.’ She clung to him, sobbing. ‘I can’t bear it, Liam. I cannot bear it. All this time, and it doesn’t get any easier. I want you more, not less. I have to go away – I have to.’

  He held her, and he thought his heart was breaking.

  ‘But I just want you to be safe. Don’t torture me with that kind of worry. I have to go – you don’t. Stay, please, where I can think of you in safety...’

  ‘I don’t want safety,’ she said harshly, pulling back from him. ‘I want a place where the work and the danger, and the sheer hell of existence, takes my mind off the worse hell of living without you!’

  ‘You’re being childish. You haven’t the faintest idea what it’s like.’

  She turned on him then, and even in the darkness he saw the flash of fury in her eyes. ‘Don’t, please, accuse me of that – I nurse the casualties! Have you any idea what it’s like living in a place of safety, and worrying – day in, day out, week in, week out – about the people you love, in constant danger? You don’t know what’s happening, you haven’t the remotest idea whether they are alive or dead, and you live for the letters while you dread the telegrams. And the newspapers tell of glorious victories while every other page is full of casualty lists. I nurse those casualties, Liam – I know about the lies!’

  ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said quietly. ‘There’s killing enough, and your life’s too precious.’

  ‘And so is yours, to me! But I can’t beg you to stay, and you couldn’t if I did!’

  In great agitation she paced their little square of shelter, and through the darkness he watched her, bent against the pain, her face a pale oval of anguish. Aware of the trembling in his limbs, he leaned back against the wall. The truth of everything she said was undeniable. It hurt more because they were arguing, because these might be the last minutes they would ever have together. That much had been agreed already: that when he left England this time he would never try to see her again.

  He might have said, in answer to her harrowed distress, that the future seemed just as meaningless to him, that without her, he did not even want to live. There was nothing left for him, and he had nothing more to give; all that he had, had been given, already, to her. It was unbearable to think of it being thrown away like this, on such an empty gesture.

  But he said none of those things. Instead he took her arms, calming her resistance, soothing her towards the bitter release of tears. She clung to his strength, touching his face and hair and neck with passionate, feverish hands, as though needing to impress the feel of him forever.

  That almost destroyed him, and when he found his voice, it was low and husky with grief. It hurt to tell her that pain was a thing to be borne, that there was no escaping it in flight.

  He kissed her then, a deep, tender, loving kiss, and against the silkiness of her hair he murmured that it was time to go, they had to go, it was already late.

  Together they moved out from beneath the archway and into Minster Yard, heads down against the swirling mist. The blank windows of the old College watched them pass, and the great sweep of the Minster’s east end looked down as they paused in the triangle of space before it. They embraced again, and there was passion and desperation in the way their lips met, a feverish longing in the clinging of hands at the parting.

  He took a step or two towards her but she stayed him with a gesture, backing away, hurrying, turning, running, her skirts caught up, cape flying into the darkness.

  ‘Pray for me...’ he whispered, but she could not possibly have heard.

  He stood there for some time, sheltered by the night and the mi
st, and the air was like a cold, wet shroud against his face. Then, blinded by grief, he stumbled forward to cling to the support of a great buttress in the wall. He raged then, and cried out, beating his head against the stone, demanding in the name of all that was holy, why this agony should have to be.

  There was no answer, no consolation.

  Eventually the storm of anguish passed, and he was able to move on leaden feet towards home. He followed a meandering route which took him nowhere near the hotel.

  It was well past the hour he had been allowed when he reached the cottage. Robert Duncannon had already left, and a note on the kitchen table said his mother was tired and had gone to bed. Liam set his overcoat to dry in front of the range and went upstairs.

  Thirty

  It seemed, at first, that he could not go on without her. The animus was gone, and all that remained was unfeeling flesh.

  He stumbled through the days, earned a dozen reprimands and suffered the ensuing bitter weather without complaint. The shooting ranges at Grantham were under several inches of snow, fuel was scarcer than ever, and the activity of German submarines on British shipping meant that rations were very short. For ten days he was cold and wet and hungry, yet it seemed no more than a fitting match for the chill in his soul.

  The news of another big push near Arras touched him in only one way: he prayed that his return to France would come soon, and that death might erase this terrible emptiness.

  The former prayer was answered quickly enough. By the third week in April he was on his way to join a large batch of reinforcements heading for the south coast port of Folkestone. The journey to King’s Cross was cramped and cold, but he was pleased to be moving, pleased to be on his way to that other life he hated but knew so well, the life that had nothing whatever to do with Georgina. As he left the huge, echoing station behind, and set forth with a score of others to cross London, his bitter pleasure withered before an agony he had failed to predict. He knew then what Georgina meant, knew exactly the level of torture she must suffer in her journeys back and forth across the city.