The Moon Field

by Judith Allnatt

George nodded. ‘The train stuck at Penrith for ages. I thought I’d be there for the night.’

  His mother squeezed his hand and went to make him some supper, her face white. Frederick glanced after her. ‘Give her time. It’s a bit of a shock, that’s all.’ He looked gravely at George. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  George told him a little about the attack on the burnt-out house and that he’d fallen foul of a sniper but mentioned nothing about the deaths he’d seen, the conditions, the awfulness. He told him that he’d been lucky. He tried to smile as he said it. His father opened his mouth to ask more, but then nodded and let it rest.

  George ate the soup and bread that his mother brought. She fetched a pair of pyjamas for him and he touched the cotton, softened and floppy with washing. He held it to his face to inhale the clean, fresh air smell. ‘Don’t bother washing my uniform,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to burn it.’

  ‘The shirt looks all right,’ she said.

  George shook his head. ‘Lice. You always think you’ve got rid of them but you never have.’ He chewed ravenously on the hunk of bread. ‘The little buggers hide in the seams. Sorry – soldiers’ language.’

  ‘I’ll get something for you to wrap them in,’ she said hastily.

  Despite his hunger, George could barely finish his meal; his eyes kept closing of their own accord. His mother brought some brown paper and string and suggested that he get some rest.

  His father carried his kitbag up for him and George followed him wearily upstairs. When his mother brought a hot-water bottle, saying that his bed would need airing, he came out on to the landing, took the warm stoneware bottle from her and hugged her tight. She rested her head against his shoulder and then patted his back saying, ‘You know, I think you’ve grown?’

  ‘Well, that’s a miracle on bully beef and biscuits!’

  ‘You’re all length though; we’ll have to feed you up. Get you well again.’

  George kissed the top of her head. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘You and Father were right; I shouldn’t have gone.’

  ‘I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’re back …’ She put her fingers to her mouth as if not trusting herself to speak further, squeezed his hand and left him.

  He moved around quietly in the bedroom so as not to wake Ted. When he got into bed, he turned to face the wall and put a pillow behind his back so that he wouldn’t turn over in the night and find himself facing his brother. He took off his mask and put it under the corner of his other pillow, his hand upon it as he fell asleep.

  George woke with a start when a neighbour’s back gate slammed shut. The sharp noise brought him bolt upright, his hand reaching down beside him for his rifle, heart pounding and body prickling with sweat. His fingers clutched a smooth handful of sheets and he let out his breath in gasps as he came to and found himself not at the edge of a dank wood lit by ghostly flares but in his own bedroom with light shining through the thin curtains. He put his head in his hands for a moment while everything rushed back to him and then felt quickly under his pillow; with shaking hands he put on his mask, hooking the spectacle arms behind his ears and fiddling with the catch.

  Ted was lying on his back, his arms up behind his head in the abandoned pose of a sleeping baby. George envied him that kind of sleep. He ran his eyes over the books and games on the shelves; they were all still there undisturbed but below them, the wall was covered with newspaper clippings and drawings. George peered over and saw headlines: ‘Off To War!’, ‘Germans Still Falling Back’, and maps: pages taken from an atlas and marked with a red line, a ribbon snaking from the Belgian coast around the bulge of the Ypres salient and on across France. Still feeling sick with jangled nerves, George saw it for a moment as one huge trench full of water and foulness and death – red, red, running with it … The thoughts kept coming: countless men pouring into the battle line, disappearing into it like grains of sand falling into a crevasse. Lives spent carelessly as loose change on a war that was unwinnable. He put his hands up to his ears and held his head very still.

  He tried to remember what life was like before he went away; he used to fit into it, part of a jigsaw with edges that sat tight against each other to make one smooth whole, a complete pattern. Now he would be the piece that didn’t fit; he was bent all out of shape. Nothing about him was the same. He would have to act a part.

  Ted stirred and then opened his eyes, staring at him unseeing at first as he struggled to consciousness. He gasped and sat up to face him. ‘What’s that on your face?’

  ‘It’s to hide where I got shot.’ George was matter-of-fact.

  ‘Someone shot you in the face?’ Ted said wonderingly. ‘Did you kill him?’

  ‘No. I was rather taken up with the pain,’ George said dryly.

  ‘Did you kill any Germans?’

  ‘It’s not like that,’ George said shortly. ‘Most of the time it’s two sides hurling shells at each other and nobody knows what the outcome is. The people firing can’t even see exactly where they fall, and the people they fall on don’t know they’re coming right for them until they’re virtually on top of them.’

  Ted took a moment to digest this.

  George said, ‘How did you get on with my rod?’

  ‘Quite well. Two pounds was my biggest. I suppose you’ll want it back now.’

  George tried to imagine himself fishing. The picture it brought to mind of standing in clear water with sunlight through alders and willow seemed bizarre. ‘You keep it,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Does it hurt much?’ Ted said in a small voice.

  ‘Aches a bit.’

  Their mother called from downstairs. ‘Ted! Are you up yet? You’ll be late!’

  Ted called out, ‘Coming!’ He slid out of bed and pulled his pyjama top over his head. George looked at his brother’s thin chest, his bony ribs. He thought of Rooke in the queue for baths, all the men lining up naked, their hands clasped over their crotches. Their white skin, their fragile flesh.

  Ted was pulling on his trousers. ‘Aren’t you coming?’ He looked at George uncertainly.

  ‘Mmm? You go on. I’ll see you later.’

  Ted finished dressing, grabbed his satchel from the bedpost and racketed off down the stairs. George lifted his bad leg with his hands around his thigh as he moved round to sit on the edge of the bed. The injured leg was thinner than the other, the muscle wasted. He began to massage his calf between his hands and pushed down with his heel to stretch the tendon that felt solid as a pole, having stiffened overnight. He must get himself moving; there was so much he needed to do: he must go and see Kitty and be what help he could, find out at the post office what work they could give him (he must work or he would go mad), he had to get out to Bassenthwaite to visit Violet … At the thought of seeing Violet, his stomach turned over. He was afraid. Afraid of bringing such devastating news, of her reaction, of his own inadequacy to deal with it. Mixed in with this was a different kind of fear: he was afraid that she would find him repulsive.

  He hobbled over and opened the wardrobe door to look in the mirror inside it. He tried a questioning look, a frown, a smile. From one side of his face all the life and vigour was lost, giving him a strange, lop-sided look. There were no creases when he smiled, just an eerie smoothness. He was a stranger to himself.

  He looked at the sparse range of clothes hanging up. There were no uniforms now: the postman’s uniform was gone and his soldiering clothes were tied up in brown paper at the bottom of the bed. There was nothing to help tell him who he was. He could hardly go visiting in the rough clothes he kept for fishing and chopping logs. He put on his Sunday best: stiff collar and tie, trousers, waistcoat, wool jacket. Was he to be his Sunday self every day? It made him look conspicuous. He would wear his overcoat and a cap when he went out. His polished brogues felt light after army boots, the leather supple. He used to wear them to go dancing.

  He thought of the dusty church hall hung with bunting, the band all pink and sweating, music leading y
our feet so that you could lead your partner, the girls in their graceful dresses, animated, and smiling. He looked at the dark slim figure that he cut, topped by a china face.

  By the time George came down for breakfast, the parlour was empty and the fire burning low. George put on one of the logs that were stacked on the far side of the coal box. He could hear Mother and Lillie in the kitchen. Mother was saying, ‘Don’t do that, Lillie. You’re getting under my feet,’ and there was the noise of wheels over tiles and the tinkling sound of the bell on the collar of Lillie’s pull-along dog. George remembered that he had some chocolate that he’d bought from the hospital trolley that brought round comforts for the troops. He would fetch it for Lillie as soon as he’d had breakfast.

  The table was spread with the detritus of breakfast: plates with kipper bones and congealed bits of egg, crumbs on the cloth and the odd smear of jam. There was toast left over though, and the teapot was still warm. He poured himself a cup, buttered some toast and gazed absently out of the window at the blue-grey stone of the matching row of terraced houses opposite. Mrs Laramie had canaries in a cage on a table by the window, and George let his mind empty by watching the random movement of the scraps of yellow, flitting from perch to perch.

  He heard footsteps and half turned in his seat. Lillie was standing just inside the door, looking at him, wide-eyed. She had grown since he last saw her; skinny wrists stuck out from the sleeves of her grey woollen dress. Her hair was squashed flat and matted on one side where she’d slept on it. One stocking had fallen down in a roll above a buttoned boot. There was the sound of the log settling in the grate and George turned quickly to check that it didn’t roll out.

  Lillie began to scream.

  ‘Lillie!’ George half rose to his feet.

  Her arms were rigid by her sides, her eyes scrunched up as if to shut out a horror. Mother came running, saying, ‘Whatever is it?’

  ‘Lillie! It’s me; it’s your George!’ he said, holding out his hands helplessly.

  Mother knelt beside her, saying, ‘Lillie! It’s only George. It’s only George come home again.’

  Lillie hid her face in her mother’s skirts and sobbed.

  Mother glanced at George as she held Lillie close. ‘Oh dear. Oh George, I’m so sorry.’ She scooped Lillie up, and she clung with both arms tight around her mother’s neck and her face turned away.

  George slumped back into his seat and put his hand up in front of his face. ‘She’s frightened to death,’ he said.

  Mother stroked Lillie’s hair, trying to soothe her. ‘She’ll be fine; don’t you worry. She’ll soon come round. Look, today’s my day at the guesthouse anyway so I’ll take her off there. I’m waxing the floors today so she can have a little cloth and follow me around. She’ll be right as rain by the time we come back; you’ll see.’

  ‘I terrify her,’ George said. ‘She doesn’t even recognise me.’

  ‘No, no, no, she just wasn’t expecting to see anyone, that’s all. You took her by surprise.’ She swayed Lillie from side to side in her arms and shushed her. ‘Can you …?’ She gestured towards the table.

  ‘Yes, yes. You go. I’ll tidy up.’

  She took Lillie into the kitchen and George sat with his head down, listening to the crying subsiding into hiccuping sobs and then the back door closing behind them.

  He felt as though he was shaking inside, a tremble deep within him that he had to keep down. He started, very slowly, to scrape the breakfast scraps on to one plate and to pile the others up. She finds me hideous, he thought. Why had he imagined that Lillie would just accept him with childish openness, perhaps curiosity? She finds me hideous and she has every right to, he thought. Children’s reactions were the honest ones with no overlay of politeness or social grace. He thought of how she used to run to him, yelling to ride on his shoulders, the way she’d fall asleep in the crook of his arm when he read her a story. The trembling inside was like a tuning fork vibrating at an impossible pitch. He carried the crockery through to the kitchen, piece by piece, stacking the china plates into the sink very carefully. One by one, he washed the breakables and laid them down, oh so gently, on the wooden drainer.

  Mrs Ashwell opened the side door at the post office to George as he stood in his cap and muffler, hunched into his overcoat. The spectacles almost made her think it was a stranger; poor boy, thank goodness she had paused and had a chance to recognise him by his stance or she might have turned him away as some travelling salesman. She ushered him into the passageway saying, ‘Come into the warm. It’s awfully chilly today.’

  George took off his cap and held it tightly in his hands. ‘I’m very sorry about Arthur, Mrs Ashwell.’

  Her voice deserted her and she found that all she could do was nod.

  ‘He was very good to me when I started here,’ George said, ‘and I’ll always remember him with affection.’

  ‘Thank you, George,’ she managed. ‘It’s very hard …’ She waited for the tide of feeling that threatened to overwhelm her to ebb a little. This was how she thought of her grief, as a vast moving sea; sometimes she could skirt along its edge, sometimes she waded laboriously through the day, sometimes the waves ambushed her and swept her away. She lived on the shoreline, watching for the swell.

  She led George through to the sorting room where a girl, whom he had never seen before, was thumbing through the mail and shuffling it into the pigeonholes. She glanced, gawped, and then, seeing him notice, returned to her work assiduously.

  Mrs Ashwell went on towards the post office. ‘I’ll get Mr Ashwell. I expect you’d like to talk about your position.’

  George heard Mr Ashwell telling someone to mind the counter for him and then he strode quickly into the room. His demeanour was as irritable as ever but he seemed smaller, and older, his skin lined and greyer, his moustache somehow too big for his face: shrunken. He eyed George sharply, taking in the prosthetic and the way that he leant heavily on the sorting table, supporting himself to take the weight off one leg. ‘Are you invalided out?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘Yes, sir. I couldn’t do a full round; my leg’s not up to scratch yet but I could do some deliveries and work up to it.’

  Mr Ashwell said dubiously, ‘It sounds as though you’re not really fit. We don’t really have anything suitable.’

  ‘There must be something,’ George remonstrated. ‘I could take the cart to the station as Arthur did …’

  Mr Ashwell’s face closed over. ‘We don’t have any openings at present.’

  George looked around him at the trough and pigeonholes filled with letters and the mailbags in the corner as yet unopened. ‘I could help with the sorting to start with and then build up to taking on a round again.’

  Mr Ashwell looked surprised at George’s temerity. When his wife nodded as if to say, ‘There’s the solution,’ he glared at her. ‘I’m sorry but we don’t need anyone. We have Lizzie now.’

  The girl, Lizzie, was trying not to look as though she was listening and was sorting very slowly through a handful of envelopes.

  ‘But, sir, I thought you would hold my job open.’ George pulled at his stiff collar. ‘That’s what most employers are doing.’

  Mr Ashwell stared. ‘You didn’t ask my permission to go; you didn’t wait to join the Post Office Rifles, or follow correct procedure as Arthur did …’ He paused, his mouth working. ‘Arthur did everything right, and now …’

  Mrs Ashwell moved towards him as if she would put a hand on his arm.

  He glowered at George. ‘Well. Now here you are back again. You should be glad you got back in one piece.’

  ‘Geoffrey!’ Mrs Ashwell looked shocked and the girl, Lizzie, glanced round at George’s face. There was a horrified silence.

  Mr Ashwell threw up his hands in a gesture that said ‘To hell with all of you’ and went back through to the counter, pulling the door smartly shut behind him.

  ‘George, I’m so sorry. He’s terribly upset over Arthur; I know it’s no excuse …’ Mr
s Ashwell looked close to tears.

  George, lost for words, and worrying about how he would manage to pay his way at home, shrugged. ‘I was wondering if I could see Kitty.’

  ‘Yes, yes of course. She’s not here at present; she’s out on deliveries. Let me think, let me think …’ She tapped her knuckles against her mouth and then rushed on. ‘She’ll be over by the park by now, somewhere along Greta Street or the Penrith Road, I shouldn’t wonder. Yes, I expect you could find her there. She’ll be so pleased to see you …’ she tailed off.

  ‘Thank you.’ George put his cap back on. ‘I’ll see if I can find her.’

  Mrs Ashwell followed him into the passageway to see him out and fumbled with the door catch, the other hand nervously at her throat.

  George said, ‘If I miss her, could you let her know I’m back?’

  Mrs Ashwell nodded and let him out into the street.

  As George followed the route of his old delivery round in search of Kitty, each house was familiar. He passed the garden where ancient Mr Cleaves was often pottering and would come down to the gate to take his letters and have a chat. Next there was number thirty-three, where the strange man lived who shouted that he’d set the dog on you if you tried to get in. It was a big bull mastiff that threw itself against the door as you approached and you had to put just one corner of the letters through the letterbox, otherwise the dog would chew them up. Then there was the Copthorne family who lived ten in a house; there was so much coming and going that the door was always left half open and there was always a baby carriage in the hall. George felt regret for the loss of his old job and its familiar routine amongst people who knew him. Yet another link to the past had been cut; yet another way in which he defined himself was gone. He would have to start again, become something else, face strangers.

  As he rounded the corner of Station Street, he saw Kitty at the gate of one of the tiny front gardens further down Penrith Road, looking at a sheaf of letters in her hand. She was wearing a navy uniform and carrying a large postbag over her shoulder. He walked down the street towards her. When she glanced up and caught sight of him, she rushed towards him and George opened his arms. She launched herself into them and clung on, the postbag, which had slipped from her shoulder, hanging awkwardly from her elbow.