And there was Joyce whose husband was back from the front, too disabled to work. Their separation allowance had ceased but no pension had been paid. Hannah had written but the authorities said no arrangements had been made on his discharge, they would just have to wait. Did they live on air in the meantime, Hannah thought, these thousands of families which starved and wept? No, she would not think of Esther. She would think of Albert, not Esther. Albert who used to scrub potatoes here and the leg he had lost at the Somme. He had been awarded twelve shillings a week and told by the authorities to go out and earn the rest.
Hannah looked up into the clouded sky, dark without the moon and stars. Tonight was Christmas Eve and tomorrow morning all the children would have their stockings, but her own four, Naomi, Kate, Annie and now Matthew, would also have a Christmas card drawn by Joe and signed by them both, with all their love. No, she would not think of Esther.
She looked away from the window now, to the bed, big and empty. His letter was still folded and lay on the bedside table. It would stay with her until his next one arrived and only then would it go in the box with the others. She walked to the bed in her thick nightgown, her hair plaited and heavy down her back. She sat on the edge, feeling the letter, knowing the words. Knowing too that life expectancy was three weeks now for the pilots leaving England and that Joe had lived a very long time.
She looked at the hessian bags which she had carried from the sitting-room, they were full of the stockings, bright and colourful and full of promise. She thought of the flecks of hessian clinging to the rich brown velvet.
Get out, she shrieked inside her head, but it was no use and now she was forced to listen as tiredness allowed the words past the images of war, of want. She listened again and again and again, flinching as the layers within her head were lifted and the words pried at forgotten feelings, memories, and dug at the darkness and at last she knew that Esther had spoken a truth out of spite and Hannah should be grateful. As though it were the calm after high screaming winds she saw the fear which she had not allowed herself, Mrs Hannah Arness, to recognise or even seek, but which had ruled her life for ever and ever and ever.
Now she sat in the darkness and let it come and cover her. She remembered the days when her mother had breathed in the foul air, and the cradle had been removed, empty. When her father had set his face against the failure and her mother had wept and grown thin and ill; how she had died too young, too defeated. The cold clung to Hannah as she sat on the bed and frost lined the windows but she only saw the pear tree, felt the bark under her fingers, smelt lavender all around and then she reached for the folded letter. It was firm and smooth and had been held by Joe. His words of love were written by hands that had stroked and loved her, held her and held the children and she knew now that he would never let her die, or her babies, and she wept because too much time had passed and she did not know when she would see him again. But she would because she loved him more than any woman had ever loved any man and no God could be cruel enough to take him from her.
Joe came when Christmas was over and the New Year of 1918 was pounding into being. It was cold on the day he walked in through the front door and Hannah held his shivering body close to her, breathing in the chill which still clung to his damp coat, his skin, his hair.
‘I love you, I love you,’ she whispered and kissed his lips, his cheeks, his hands and then the children came and caught at him, pulling his coat and laughing, dragging him through into the room where Hannah had been reading to the class. Joe nodded to Hannah, his eyes tired but full of love, and as she read he sat back against the wall as he had done each time and made the transition from machine to human being.
Matthew had grown, he thought as the boy moved from the group and came towards him, his brown hair hanging across his forehead, his eyes questioning. Joe raised his hand, beckoned, and Matthew came to him then, leaning first against his leg and then climbing up and on to his knee. Joe held him close, his face pressed deep into the boy’s hair, breathing in the smell of chalk and youth and innocence.
‘I’m glad you’re home, Dad,’ Matthew whispered.
‘I’m glad too, Matthew. I’ve missed you all, so much.’ So much, so much, his mind echoed as they clung to one another and Joe hoped that Matthew would not notice the shaking of his hands, the eyelid that quivered and drooped.
The room was rich with paintings and colour and Hannah. Her presence was everywhere, in the lavender and rose-leaves which lay in bowls on table-tops, in the square wooden pit which stood in the corner and held Penbrin sand, in the kites which hung from the ceiling. He listened as she told the children of the robin who wanted a yellow breast, of the fish who wanted legs and he watched the faces, heard the laughter and slowly, in the midst of such life and light he left the noise, the guns, the death.
That night they lay in the light from the cold white moon and Hannah held his hands which could not stop shaking and kissed and held them to her breasts, kissing his mouth, his eyes, every inch of his skin because by covering him with her love, she would make him inviolate.
‘I want a child, Joe,’ she said as he stroked her body and he drew her closer then.
‘We have four, my darling.’
She could feel his breath on her hair, his strength against her.
‘I want one that is half you and half me.’
She could not feel the shaking of his hard, gentle hands as they held her face.
‘Are you sure, Hannah? What about your mother, your fear?’ His eyes were dark and shadowed in the half-light, his eyelid quivered, his lips were full.
She kissed him and clung close because all this time he had known, though she had not and had waited and she couldn’t bear the thought of such love leaving her in just a few more days.
‘Don’t go back,’ she cried and tears were wet on her cheeks and in her mouth and they were salty but as he kissed her and the moonlight touched his red-gold hair she felt the strength of his body against her and wanted him too much to wait any longer.
Later Joe held her, watched her steady sleeping breath but would not sleep himself. He must not because his screams might wake her and she must never know the man he had become. He would think of Penbrin, his workshop, his soft, smooth, warm wood. He would think of the school that he and Hannah would run, the children they would teach, the child which might already be stirring in her body.
What had happened, he wondered, to make her suddenly put aside the thoughts of her mother which he had always known dragged at her and blocked all thoughts of pregnancy? But then he paused. Did it matter as long as she was free now of the past and they could go forward? Please God, let him live so that they could go forward. He felt the shaking begin in his hands again and so he made himself think again of Penbrin, the wind, the moors, the cry of the gulls. He would take the children to the hill and fly the kite. But no, he would not think of a kite, not a bloody kite. Not something that flew then plunged.
Joe looked around the room, fixing his eyes on the chair, the print on the wall. Hannah’s clothes, flung impatiently across the chair, his own next to hers; dishevelled, normal, not like those he wore where the air was thick with noise and fear. But no, he must try not to think of the fear or let the war inside this room, and so he held Hannah close and she murmured and turned her face into his shoulder.
But it was not enough, he knew it would not be, for the war never left anyone in peace, and he could feel it dragging him back, like a greedy lover but he must not close his eyes, he told himself. As long as he did not close his eyes it was he who would dictate the path his memory took through the sounds and sights and feel of the war.
He stared out at the sky. While he was with Hannah he would think of routine; ordinary, manageable. He would think of patterns and then the nightmares would not be able to take hold, this insatiable lover would not drag him to the depths again, so he pictured the dawn on the air-station, so fresh and clean and his walk across mist-covered ground to the dressing hut; checking
the wind strength and direction, evaluating the humidity and cloud type. Could he ever fly a kite again, he wondered, ever walk in the open air without humidity, cloud, wind strength ticking themselves off inside his head?
The hut would be dark and cold, the silk underwear cool and light at first, the looser woollen underwear making him warmer, the cellular vest and the silk undershirt warmer still. Then the khaki shirt, one and then two pullovers. He would be hot now but there was still the gaberdine Sidcot suit lined with lambswool, the musk-rat-lined gauntlets with silk inners, fur-lined goggles with triplex glass, thigh boots, also fur-lined. Silk scarf to stop the air getting into the flying suit. Must not allow that. No, too cold, too cold. Then the whale oil smeared into every pore on the face, the balaclava helmet, the dog skin of wolverine-fur face mask to further protect the skin but what for the lips? Nothing worked, they always cracked.
Then there would be the walk to the CO’s hut over frost-starched ground, stumbling, cursing. The filling of the boxes with all he held dear. The form, black on yellow. I swear on my honour that I do not have on my person or my machine any letters or papers of use to the enemy. His signature, jagged, shaky. The walk out across the grass again, the cold catching in the throat, warm skin beneath the layers. Riggers and armourers near each machine. Morning, Sir, they would say to him. He would hold the Very pistol in his hand and fire the flare; the signal which means ‘Into machines’. Up now on to the petrol tank, the fuel that explodes and burns and kills. But don’t think of that. Just climb forward, into the cockpit, slide into seat, ducking head below upper wing. Don’t think of the fear. Mustn’t think of the fear.
Think of the cushion on the wicker seat, slide feet under hoops of rubber. He couldn’t breathe. He looked at Hannah but she couldn’t drag him back, nothing could now, the greedy lover had come again. But try, he must try to think of routine, of patterns, not fear, not flames.
Think of the safety harness, the four separate straps for the shoulder and thighs, each one twelve inches wide and a quarter of an inch thick which come together over a large diameter central conical pin held down by a spring clip so that you can’t get out now. They have pinned you into their web. But no, don’t think of that. Think of the checks.
Rudder, bar, control column, throttle, instruments. All fine, damn it, all bloody fine. Look round now for the raised arms indicating readiness. Poor young fools.
Good luck, says the mechanic. The nod, the order to start up. His voice is quite clear. How strange.
The mechanic is moving the propeller, his face is strained as the clonk, clonk, clonkety clonk begins.
‘Contact, sir.’
Contact, damn it, flick ignition, push choke right back, open throttle halfway as mechanic swings the propeller hard against the compression. One jerk is enough this time. Blue smoke jets and the slipstream flattens the grass for fifty yards behind. The nutty smell is here again. All around. The lubricant is burning but that is as it should be. Nothing is wrong. Keep calm. A mechanic is holding each wing and a third is across the tail fuselage in front of the tail plane.
Chocks are away. Don’t let me go. Don’t let me go up there again, but they do and the machine is there at the cinder runway and at one-minute intervals we’re up, up into the air.
It’s cold up here, I always forget how cold it is and lighter than the ground. The line is crossed at 1500 feet, always at that height and always there are the artillery flashes. Now patches of white mist lie in hollows and steadily the light is seeping from the east. Lighting hills, dispersing the mists, blinding pilots for a moment but now there is so much soft colour either side of the grey roads, the railway winding threads, the woods which merge with ploughed fields. How strange that people still farm in this hell.
Over Ypres, looking like broken teeth. Beyond it, in the far distance gleams the white of the Dover cliffs. Let me go home. But they won’t, they won’t. It must be peaceful over there by the cliffs and in that convoy of ships. The curve of the earth is the same as it always is and we are just trivia after all.
But then the anti-aircraft shells burst and deafen, jerking the machine about in the air. Metal fragments cut the face, the machine, and now we’re in the fighter zone, behind the German lines and I can’t hear the planes because my own is so noisy. I can’t hear them, Hannah, and so I don’t know if I’m going to be shot from the sky. Can you hear my heart, Hannah, it’s so loud, my breath is slow, sweat is trickling in runnels down the whale oil, fear is foul in my mouth.
And then they’re here and I must dive, take a breath, stick forward, feeling crushed, the left hand on the throttle, the right on the stick. Two fingers slightly on the gun buttons, and now I must slow, Hannah, to eliminate vibration and let the target fill the whole Aldis screen. I must take my right hand from the stick, stretch out slowly and fire in one- or two-second bursts until I kill another man, Hannah. Another bloody man but it might have been me, you see.
And I can’t stop hearing the screams of my pupil as they took him out of the plane. He was a flamer, you see, and he didn’t jump out. I would jump. I couldn’t burn, but he burnt. He was blind and burnt and they gave him morphine and he died, thank God. But someone’s coming again. I must dive, Hannah, feel the pressure, I’m diving, diving, diving.
His screams tore into her sleep and she gripped him, held him and talked and kissed until the dawn came but she knew that she could not take the thoughts from inside his head, or the war from around his body and they both knew that Harry had been right and nothing was worth this slaughter.
In January propertied women over thirty were given the vote because they had shown their true value, it was said. Hannah drank wine with Frances and they were glad but the children had the influenza which was sweeping Europe and so had some of the women and Joe had gone and she could not forget his screams.
Only two women had died and no children and Frances said that they had been lucky and Hannah nodded because she knew it was true. In April the buds were forcing through the ground and Hannah no longer felt sick each morning but was tired and sat with Naomi and Kate to listen to their reading and Annie and Matthew wrote their words for her. And the other children too. Frances would no longer let her sit up for night duty in the wards and in May Hannah took the bus to the station with the four children because Frances said that Eliza needed help at Penbrin but Hannah knew it was because her baby was growing and she was too tired.
The spring turned to summer and there was talk of peace perhaps but Joe did not come because he could get no more leave. Hannah watched the children in the sea and the men who coughed the gas remains from their chest and laughed as they laughed, smiled as they smiled, and slept as they slept, with a measure of peace, for Joe’s screams had faded as the baby grew.
In the evening, with Eliza and Sam she talked of the school and they decided that she should buy Penhallon which was bigger and no longer spoiled by her father’s past presence. She sat in the warm evening air, breathing in the thyme, watching as Sam, so broad, so grey now, smoked his pipe and swatted at the mosquitoes and decided that she would write to Esther and take her son, because she owed that to her cousin. She felt the baby move within her and smiled. It was strong and she was well and ready for the birth which was due in two weeks, at the end of September, and tomorrow she was taking the children on the moor but not far, for she was too heavy – like a great cow, Matthew had said.
‘Are you all right, Hannah?’ Eliza asked, leaning forward and pulling at the cushion behind Hannah who smiled, for how many times had she done this for her mother but she was strong and this was Joe’s child and nothing could go wrong, not now.
The next day was cooler but still they went out on the moor with Kate and Naomi carrying the kite and Matthew the picnic. Annie held her hand and pulled at her dress which was too tight, she said.
Gulls wheeled over them and gorse flashed yellow against dark green. Primroses were pale yellow and violets vivid blue. The heather was purple and white and Kate picked s
ome and brought it to her.
‘This is good luck, Mother.’ Her blonde hair lay in curls about her face, her wide mouth smiled as she tucked the heather into Hannah’s bodice, and as Hannah kissed her she could smell the soft sun on her skin and hoped that Kate’s mother could see her child. They ate pasties and the children ran down the hill to the brook and Hannah flew the kite, feeling the string taut around her hand as the wind snatched and pulled. She sat on her jacket and could hear the bees amongst the heather. She was tired but the air was good and clean and the children were laughing and splashing.
‘When Daddy is home he will show you how to tickle trout,’ she called, pulling in the kite, watching it flop and plummet as it dropped beneath the cushion of wind.
Was it really so long ago that Joe and she had lain on the bank, their hands growing numb as they caught trout without lines and flies? She knew that it was an eternity.
‘My oil lamp is smoking,’ Naomi said as they walked back to Penbrin when the wind grew chill and that scent of late summer seemed stronger in the air.
‘Bring it to the kitchen when we get in,’ Hannah said. ‘I’ll clean it. I quite enjoy that job for some reason.’
The men were still at the beach with their families so Hannah sat on the kitchen chair and eased her back, feeling the baby kicking, longing to see and hold it. Was it a girl or a boy? Did it look like Joe, red-gold and blue-eyed or like her, dark-haired, dark-eyed? Naomi brought the lamp and then Hannah heard the knock at the door but knew that Eliza would answer. She stood, stretching her back, her shoulders, and drained the bowl of the lamp into the tin which she always used. The smell was the same, thick and rich.
Eliza came in and Hannah looked and her face was pinched and her lips were strange, thin and pressed hard together and her hand was reaching for Hannah.
‘Sit down, my dear.’
But Hannah knew she must not for there was a telegram in her aunt’s hand, a buff telegram, the same as the one they had sent for Harry and if she sat down she would have to read it, and she would not do that because she was cleaning the lamp. It needed cleaning.
A Time for Courage Page 44