The Moon Field

by Judith Allnatt

  That evening, as the ward settled down, men making desultory conversation or writing letters, he remembered the parcel and retrieved it from the shelf under the table. The handwriting wasn’t his mother’s but he assumed it had been repackaged when it was sent on. In the absence of scissors, he worked the string towards the corner until he could slip it off and then started to unwrap the brown paper, envisioning knitted gloves, writing paper, a Christmas card, maybe cocoa. When he pulled the paper away, what met his eyes was Edmund’s green tin, with its incongruous picture of the boating party, the lid scratched and dented. He stared at it in disbelief. A string around it bore a tag that said, ‘Pte G. Farrell, No. 1893. Pay book enc.’

  He prised up the lid. On top, like a memento from another life, lay his pay book. Beneath it was a wad of letters; beneath them, a muddle of small objects. Someone must have found it in the tumble of bricks that was once the farmhouse billet, he thought. They had found it and looked no further than the pay book for an owner. He picked up the dog-eared book. A picture of Edmund as he handed it to him for safekeeping came vividly into his mind: his hair ruffled up on end where he had been leaning his hand on his forehead; his tired, patient face. He thought about all the ways that Edmund had shown his sense of responsibility to his men: how he had taken trouble to get to know small things about them, asked about their families, listened to their problems, made sure they kept their bedding dry and their feet oiled. And what had he, George, done in return? He’d got lost in the polders so that Edmund had to go out on a limb on his behalf with Hunton; he’d lied to him about knowing Violet and spied on him by looking at the studio portrait. If he hadn’t been so weak, such a coward, if he’d obeyed a command with the snap-to-it immediacy, the reflex efficiency they’d all been trained to deliver, Edmund would still be alive.

  George lifted out Violet’s letters and placed them aside. A gold pocket watch gleamed amongst the sepia photographs. He opened it: a beautiful half-hunter with a heavy gold chain. Inside the case were inscribed the initials E.L. followed by: ‘Fugerit invida Aetas: carpe diem – Envious time is fleeing: seize the day’.

  He thought that it must have been a gift; the inscription was a woman’s touch: maybe Edmund’s mother or sister, maybe Violet. The thought of all the people who loved Edmund and would miss him so sorely filled George with despair. When his father said that death was not the end, he meant that the spirit went on, that there was an afterlife. George also knew that death was not an end, oh no, the pain of the final moments of dying were in reality a beginning: the stone in the pool that starts ripples of grief spreading outwards through the hearts of others; the agony of empathy for the suffering of a loved one, the aching to see, to hold, to speak together again, the terrible, never-ending loss.

  As though the tin had come to him as a penance, George continued taking one thing after another from it and laying them on the blankets around him. A set of keys led him to thoughts of Edmund’s family home; a half-used pack of cigarettes brought back the smoky farmhouse kitchen near Ypres.

  A tiny, exquisite dance-card holder with a minute ebony pencil he felt sure was a gift from Violet. He opened it. Inside on the first page was a list of dancing partners’ names: Lucien, Albert, Peter, Harold, Lucien, then Edmund, Edmund, Edmund. For a moment it hurt him to think of Edmund dancing with Violet, his arms around her, their heads so close together … There was no escape from it; she had been completely bowled over. The dance-card holder had been given to Edmund – why would she keep it? She was never intending to dance with anyone else. He checked himself, stamping on these feelings; he had no right to think of Violet in that way. All that was gone. She had loved Edmund and he, George, had been the cause of his death. He had ruined her life.

  He shuffled through the photographs: the calm faces of Edmund’s parents and the good-humoured faces of brothers and sisters; he wondered what lines were drawn upon them now. The telegram would have read Missing in action, as no body had been recovered. Would they have accepted its implied message? Oh God, would they still be hoping from day to day that better news might come? He knew that he would have to see Violet, face to face, bringing the news she dreaded to hear. He owed it to Edmund; he owed it to her. The thought of telling her was unbearable.

  Something small and shiny was tucked in the corner of the tin. He picked it out and laid it in his palm. Tiny imperfections at its centre were like specks of fire caught in golden liquid. Another love gift from Violet: a heart carved in amber. He held it in his hand.

  Over the next few days, as Patterson had instructed him, George moved around as much as possible on his crutches, trying to overcome the temptation to hop on one leg. He must place not just his toe but also his heel to the ground to attempt to stretch the tendon, which had shortened in healing. He did small errands for the nurses, taking messages or delivering newspapers to patients. Those whom he saw often began to get used to his appearance and no longer reacted to him in the same way. When he met someone new, he braced himself for how their eyes changed and then slid away; he tried to think of his scarred skin as rhinoceros hide, a tough layer through which hurt must not be allowed to pierce, telling himself that at least he was doing something useful.

  As the January freeze made way for a wet, cold and dismal February, George found that, at last, he was able to manage on one crutch and then none. He had a limp, as he was still not able to straighten his leg completely, but he was moving around a little better each day. When his leg ached badly, rather than succumbing to rest he pushed trolleys for the nurses, taking some of his weight on the handles so that he could carry on the process of exercising and strengthening his wasted leg muscles. By the time that he was asked to return for the fitting of his mask he was walking unaided.

  This time, when he visited, it was the sculptor who greeted him. He looked very much the artist rather than one of the medical staff, with his unruly, dark hair and pointed beard and his artist’s smock, its grey cloth paled by clay dust and daubed with smudges of paint.

  He asked George his name and then went to a chest with a series of small drawers, each one labelled in tiny handwriting. It reminded George of the chests that stored the collections at the town museum back home: each drawer lined with blue velvet and opening to reveal butterflies pinned on cards, the whorls of ammonites or miniature, crystalline pinnacles of quartz. The sculptor took an object from a drawer and brought it to George in his open hands, carrying it as carefully as he might a bird’s egg.

  The mask had a pair of round, wire spectacle frames attached to it and was made of a piece of thin metal designed to cover the top left quarter of his face. From top to bottom, it extended from just above his brow to just below his cheek. From side to side, it covered the upper portion of his nose and extended to the hinge of his jawbone, blending into the skin beside the ear. The aperture for the eye was sculpted with painstaking detail; even the creases in the eyelid were present.

  ‘It may take a little getting used to,’ the sculptor said. ‘Let’s see how the fit is, to begin with.’

  George leant forward to accommodate him as he placed the mask over his scarred features and hooked one arm of the spectacles over his ear. The other side had a long wire attached that reached all the way around the back of his head. The sculptor fiddled with a catch that linked it to the first so that the whole mask was fixed firmly in place. It was cold to the touch but fitted like a glove.

  ‘How does that feel?’

  ‘It feels …’ As George spoke, he felt the stiffness of the mask against his lower cheek, its unyielding substance. ‘It feels strange but not as heavy as I thought.’

  ‘Good. Good. It’ll be about four ounces though, so you may find you don’t want to wear it all day. You may be more comfortable without it when you’re in your own home, for instance.’ He took a mirror down from a high shelf and held it up. It took George by surprise and he gasped as he remembered the shock he had felt when he first saw his naked face; he had not looked at his reflection sinc
e. This time, however, what he saw was a transformation, instant and amazing, the sudden recognition of the correct pattern of a human face. It was as though Midas had passed his hand over part of his face and then taken his metallic touch away. The expression was wooden but it was a proper, evenly proportioned human face – like looking at a sculpture of oneself.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s … It’s remarkable.’

  The sculptor nodded quickly as if embarrassed by thanks. He returned his attention to the catch behind the ear. ‘A little too tight, I think.’ He fiddled with it until he was happy that it was no longer cutting in but was still secure. ‘Now we shall paint you.’ He took George’s shoulders and turned him this way and that until he was happy with the way that the light fell on him; then he fetched brushes and a palette with worms of paint to mix flesh tones: titanium white, cadmium red and yellow, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue.

  ‘I try to match the subject’s colouring as closely as possible,’ he said as he started to work. ‘But it’s bright in here so there’s a danger of using tones that then appear too highly coloured on a dull day. One has to strike a range somewhere in the middle.’

  The rich, nutty smell of oil paint was cloying in George’s nostrils and he stifled a sneeze. The sculptor smiled and stepped back. ‘Feel free,’ he said, ‘better get it over with than risk an eyeful of paint.’

  George put his handkerchief to his face, his hand meeting flesh on one side and metal on the other. He sneezed and they both laughed. The sculptor applied the paint in tiny dabs of colour, standing back frequently to assess his handiwork or tipping George’s face to see it from a different angle.

  ‘What’s the blue for?’ George asked.

  ‘For the lower area of the cheek – here. To capture the tinge of blue where you shave.’ He worked on, telling him about the process and how to take care of the mask as the paint was prone to chip. When all the colour had been applied, he fetched a card to which strands of human hair were pinned and held it up beside George’s face. ‘I use real hair for the eyebrows and lashes,’ he said. ‘Even the lightest, most feathery strokes of the brush look too flat. So …’ he finished, picking a strand out, ‘I will apply the hair and send the completed prosthetic down to you.’ He removed the mask, holding it by the edges with his fingertips and placed it on the bench. ‘You’ll be ready to go home then, I imagine?’

  George’s heart lurched. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘No one’s told me.’ Terror gripped him as he thought about going out into the streets and walking among strangers.

  The sculptor patted his shoulder. ‘It won’t be so bad, you’ll see. Where there’s life, there’s hope, eh?’

  George felt that he had barely got used to moving within the small world of the hospital among those who had some cause for sympathy. Outside, surely he would be seen as a freak. He told himself that his mask made his face far more acceptable, that he must just carry it off with aplomb and that if he made no reference to it, neither would anyone else. He would think about it over the next few days and try to prepare himself for the change.

  When he returned to the ward, he had a further shock. On his bed was his uniform, neatly folded, and underneath the bed were his boots. He opened out the jacket and then the shirt and trousers. They had been mended as far as possible. The trouser leg that had been torn by the bullet had been slit up the front and had a large area of fabric removed. George reckoned that they must have had to cut it to get at the wound. It had been patched from inside and carefully darned, albeit in a darker thread. He lifted the jacket to remove the ticket with his name and number that was pinned on to the collar. There was a smell, faint but unmistakable. The mud may have gone, the clods and the clots of it, but he could still smell in the fibres the very particular type of Ypres mire: soil mixed with latrine water and dead things, the odour of corruption. He dropped it on to the bed with a noise of disgust and then looked around to check that no one had seen him. He sat down on the edge of the bed, slowly refolded the garments and put them underneath the bed on top of the boots.

  The next day a sergeant came with George’s discharge papers, wished him good luck and left him sitting on the edge of the bed in his dressing gown reading through the sheaf of forms. George finished reading and put them aside. He sat on, looking at his uniform but still couldn’t bring himself to put it on.

  Patterson arrived bringing him an envelope. ‘Here’s your rail warrant for your ticket home,’ she said cheerily. She glanced at the folded clothes. ‘Is everything all right?’

  George made a huge effort. He would not seem afraid. How could he possibly be afraid of a small thing like taking a train? And he dreaded appearing ungrateful after everything that had been done for him, everything she had done for him.

  ‘It’s all right. I’m all right,’ he said.

  ‘Only I’m on my day off tomorrow and I didn’t want to miss saying goodbye and the chance to wish you the best of luck.’

  ‘So it’s for tomorrow – the warrant?’

  ‘Yes – here.’ She passed the envelope over. ‘Nurse Moss is bringing your prosthesis down. You should maybe wear it for the rest of the day. Get used to it, you know.’

  George remembered his manners. ‘Thank you. For everything,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. Only doing my job.’ She stood up and he followed suit. ‘Look how steady you are on your feet now!’ She looked him in the eyes. ‘You’re going to be fine.’

  They shook hands and he watched her walk away down the ward and out of the door.

  The next day he made himself put on his battle clothes. He strapped on the mask and packed his kitbag with his few belongings, his pay book and Edmund’s tin, which he carefully rewrapped. The duty sister filled out his hospital discharge papers and got an orderly to find him a cab.

  George sat shivering, pressed against the seat as they joined the stream of horse and motor traffic, as if to get as far away as possible from the onslaught of noise and cold: the bright, brash outside world. At the station, it was not too bad if he kept moving but standing in the queue for tickets he felt exposed to the blatant scrutiny of every passer-by.

  He bought a newspaper so that he could hide away behind it in the corner of a carriage. Nothing had changed in the paper’s determined optimism. He read about ‘some progress’ on the Western Front, ‘current consolidation’ and hopes for a ‘Big Push’ in the spring. He knew the reality was hardship, stink and stasis.

  When he changed trains at Crewe, there was going to be a long wait so he ventured out to find the Station Hotel. The waitress took one look and seated him in a corner away from other customers, as far away as possible from the window.

  16

  26 LEONARD STREET

  As George made his way along Leonard Street, the pools of yellow light from the street lamps lit a fine drizzle of rain falling upon shining wet cobbles. His leg pained him badly after walking from the station; his limp had become more and more pronounced and he made slow progress, stepping carefully on the greasy surface. When he reached the front door of number twenty-six, he paused and leant against the doorjamb.

  The parlour curtains were not quite closed and he looked in at the lamp on the table with an open newspaper beside it, the small fire in the grate and the wooden clock on the mantelpiece. He wondered whether it still showed half past four as it had done for as long as he could remember. Nothing had changed. He had a strange detached sensation, as if he was looking into someone else’s life. He almost expected to see the real George Farrell walk into the room, pick up the newspaper and settle himself in the fireside chair. He took a deep breath and rapped on the door with the knocker.

  His father hurried through from the kitchen, came up to the window and pulled back the curtains to look out. In a reflex action, George shrank back out of view. He heard his mother calling out, ‘Who can it be at this time of night?’ as his father drew back the bolts and opened the door.

  ‘Yes?’ he said. There was a
moment’s silence as he took in the sight of his son. ‘George!’ His voice broke on the word. He drew him into the room and threw his arms around him. George closed his eyes and breathed in the familiar smell of pipe tobacco as he hugged his father. When he opened them, his mother was coming out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. When she saw George, her hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘It’s all right, Mother, really it is,’ George said as he saw her eyes fill with tears. His father let him go and he dropped his kitbag on to the floor and embraced his mother. She squeezed him tightly and he could feel that she was crying. He said, ‘I’m back safe, remember. That’s all that matters.’

  She wiped her eyes on the towel. ‘Oh, your poor face! Whatever happened? Why didn’t you tell us?’ She took his hands and made him sit down by the fire. ‘You’re so cold! Frederick, build the fire up a bit.’

  George’s hand went up to his mask, patting it automatically to check that it hadn’t been knocked askew. ‘It’s just my nose and my cheek,’ he said. ‘I can still see. I’m better off than a lot of the others. Well, my leg caught it as well but it’s healing up; it’ll be as good as new eventually.’ His voice had a pleading note.

  ‘But your dear face! Can I …?’ She put out her hand as if she would take off the mask and attend to his wounds, as if she could bathe and dress them as she had so many times tended to grazed knees and burnt fingers: the cut on his forearm from a rusty nail from squeezing through a gap in a fence, the broken finger he got when he came off his bike and trapped it between brakes and handlebar. Childhood injuries.

  George gave the slightest shake of his head. His mother let her hand fall. She pressed her lips together as if trapping the words she wanted to say. His father put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I expect you’d like something to eat, wouldn’t you, son?’