The Moon Field

by Judith Allnatt

  He placed it on top of the box, folded the creased brown paper around it, tied it up with string and addressed it in bold capitals. He didn’t want to take it down to the main post office where there would be a queue of people who stared and then slid their eyes away. He would go over to the little post office at Crosthwaite and the walk would take up some of the morning before he was due at work. Knowing that today would be a black day, he must try to fill every minute. Already he felt it coming over him, the deep sadness that settled on him like a pall.

  24

  NO MAN’S LAND

  Late one evening, George was returning from walking on Latrigg, the fell behind Brundholme Wood. George liked it for its clear view of the sunset over the lake and its lack of paths, other than the faint tracks made by sheep, that deterred other walkers and left him in solitude, able to walk tall without bending his face to the ground in fear that he might startle people in the dusk with his pale mask.

  As he rejoined the long, straight road that led back to town and ran alongside the park, he pulled his cap well down over his eyes in his customary manner and was about to lower his gaze once more when he saw a group of young people come out through the park gates and go on ahead of him. With a jolt, he recognised Kitty and her friend, Suzanne, walking with three men in uniform and a girl he didn’t know. He noticed their even numbers.

  George slowed his pace so that he wouldn’t overtake them. The young men were in high spirits; one of them was holding a banknote high in the air, using his superior height so that the others couldn’t reach it, whilst a disagreement went on about who had won a wager. He didn’t like the look of them – they were rowdy types, and seeing Kitty with them made him feel acutely uncomfortable. He wanted to know who they were and how Kitty knew them.

  At the top of the road, Kitty and Suzanne crossed over towards the Borrowdales’ house and the rest of the group spilt into the road after them, still jostling and arguing. There was a scuffle as one of the men, a stocky chap with a kitbag over his shoulder, made a lunge for the tall man’s arm and was repulsed with a shove and a curse. By the way both men staggered, George felt sure that they had been drinking. He pulled in hard against the park railings and moved along to get as close as he could, keeping in the deep shadow of the trees, so that he could watch over the girls.

  At Suzanne’s gate, the group divided. Suzanne went into her garden and shut the gate but paused there and one of the soldiers leant against the gatepost, clearly aiming to stay and talk. The unknown girl and the stocky young man paired off and walked away arm in arm, and, to George’s consternation, the tall soldier moved off after Kitty, clearly intending to walk her home.

  George’s heart beat faster. He could hardly intervene; what right had he to say what Kitty should or shouldn’t do? Nonetheless, he waited until they had walked on a little way and then followed after them on the other side of the street, slipping quickly through the pools of lamplight and lingering in the dusky shadows cast by trees and shrubs in the guesthouse gardens, the air perfumed with the sweetness of buddleia and night-scented stocks.

  The soldier was talking too loudly, with what George recognised as the loose mouth of a man who has drunk his wages. He seemed older than Kitty. He walked with his hands in his pockets, which gave him a swaggering air, and he had his cap tipped back on his head and a stripe on his sleeve. George could hear snatches of their conversation: the man asking Kitty about herself and Kitty answering briefly, not giving much away. Although there was a good space between them and the man had made no attempt to get close to Kitty, George felt uneasy and as they turned a corner he hurried after them, anxious not to lose sight of her for a minute.

  It was after ten and the visitors had thinned out in the town, either retired for the night or ensconced in the hotel bars and public houses that cast a glow from their windows on to the street. The sound of laughter and voices raised above the tinkling of a piano came from the Four in Hand and the soldier slowed his step and bent towards Kitty as if to persuade her to join him inside. The light from the open door fell upon them and George saw Kitty smile but shake her head and turn away to walk on alone.

  George’s relief was short-lived. The soldier hesitated for a moment, jingling the loose change in his pocket; then he hurried after her. As she came level with Pack Horse Court, the cobbled alleyway that led under an arch down to the inn, he caught up with her and, as she half turned in surprise, slipped his arm around her waist.

  Fury welled up in George and he broke into a limping run. He saw Kitty push the man’s arm away and step sideways and heard the man exclaim, ‘Oh no you don’t!’ as he took hold of her wrists and tried to draw her into the darkness of the archway.

  ‘Let me be! I have to go home!’ Kitty tried to pull away as he forced her back against the wall.

  ‘Kitty!’ George shouted. ‘Leave her alone!’ he panted as he limped to a halt.

  The man released her. ‘What the devil do we have here?’ he said, taking in George’s strange appearance. He held his hands up in mock surrender; then, as George, gasping for breath, bent forwards resting his hands on his knees, he lunged forwards, his fist meeting George’s jaw. George was knocked stumbling into the street with blood salty in his mouth. He could hear Kitty saying, ‘George, leave it! Come away!’ but his blood was thumping in his head and ringing in his ears as he regained his feet and launched himself at the soldier, throwing him back against the wall of the passageway. In a move that he thought he had forgotten, he jammed his forearm across the man’s throat, pinning him there, struggling for breath. He leant harder against his windpipe until the man’s eyes ran and he made a choking sound in his throat.

  ‘Don’t … you … dare … touch … her,’ George hissed, pressing down with each word, his face so close that he could smell the liquor and stale tobacco on the man’s breath. He stepped back and the soldier fell forwards, bent double, wheezing and gagging.

  ‘What are you doing? Come away!’ Kitty pulled at George’s arm. He took her hand and they hurried down the street.

  The man staggered a few steps after them, called out ‘Stuck-up tart!’ and then collapsed into another fit of wheezing.

  George stopped once they were out of view, beside a barrow left over from market day. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, putting his arm around her.

  ‘I’m perfectly fine,’ she said.

  George could feel that she was shaking. She put her head against his shoulder and they stood for a moment embracing. George could feel her heart racing against his own. He held her tight and safe in his arms. Lightly, so lightly that she might not even notice, he kissed the top of her head, barely grazing her hair.

  She put her hand to her face as if she was wiping away tears.

  ‘We’d better get you home,’ George said.

  They walked on, hand in hand. George hardly daring to speak in case the spell were broken and she took her hand away.

  ‘That awful man,’ she said.

  ‘How do you know him?’

  ‘I don’t. We were watching the bowls at the park and the three of them just sort of latched on to us and wouldn’t be put off.’

  ‘You must be careful,’ George said vehemently but stopped in case she might think that he was criticising her. ‘I mean, I wish I had been there to take care of you,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Oh, George,’ she said, squeezing his hand.

  As they reached the post office, they saw Kitty’s mother in the parlour window upstairs, as she peered through the half-opened curtains. She turned and said something to her husband, who rose and left the room.

  ‘Quick, he’s coming down; you’d better go,’ Kitty said. A light bobbed in the fanlight above the side door as Mr Ashwell, carrying an oil lamp, made his way downstairs.

  George said, ‘I want to talk to you properly. Promise you’ll meet me. When can I see you?’

  She rubbed the heel of her hand across her forehead in a worried gesture that George knew well. ‘Father’s going to b
e so angry. I was meant to be home hours ago. I’ll try but I don’t know how easy it’s going to be to get away – but Sunday … I’ll be at chapel on Sunday for sure.’

  ‘You promise? You won’t change your mind?’

  The key grated as it turned in the lock. ‘Quick, go!’ Kitty said, giving him a little shove. ‘He won’t like you being here and you look as though you’ve gone ten rounds.’ She pulled away from him and started towards the door as it squeaked open over the hall flags. ‘I’m here,’ she said, as her father stood in the doorway with his fob watch held ostentatiously in his hand. ‘I just got talking to Suzanne and didn’t notice the time. I’m quite safe,’ Kitty gabbled.

  ‘Who’s that you’re with?’ Mr Ashwell peered beyond her and raised the lamp to see. ‘You!’ He stared at George, with blood on his face, his jacket dirty and buttons off his shirt, slowly looking him up and down. ‘Kitty, go inside,’ he said peremptorily and Kitty went, pulling a desperate look over her shoulder at George.

  George, afraid that if he tried to explain what had happened he would only get her into more trouble said, ‘I’m sorry, sir. I know Kitty’s late but I brought her safely home …’

  ‘I don’t know what’s been going on but I certainly don’t want Kitty mixed up in it,’ Mr Ashwell said. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d stay away from my daughter.’

  George stood helpless as he followed Kitty in and closed and locked the door behind them.

  George lay awake late into the night. He wanted so much to talk with Kitty but how was he going to get to speak with her? Her father would be watching over her closely, and she would be loath to risk his ire and slip away. Even at church, he would be keeping his beady eye on her and it would be impossible to have any time to talk alone. He couldn’t bear it. He had had her in his arms; he wanted to keep her there, safe by his side. How cruel it was that she was to be whisked away just as he learnt what he really wanted.

  A stiff breeze had got up and loosened a branch of the creeper that covered the back wall. It moved to and fro across the window as the wind tugged and released it. The room seemed full of sounds: the creak of boards, Ted’s steady breathing and the twigs scraping over the pane. George pulled the pillow around his ears.

  He was angry with himself for not putting right Mr Ashwell’s opinion of him. But what could he have said about the soldier that wouldn’t have made it even worse? He had left him imagining that he had taken Kitty to some rough bar, some brawling house. It seemed that he had saved her from one sort of trouble only to drop her in another.

  What a fool I’ve been, he berated himself. He didn’t make peace with her properly when he was away at the war. When he came back, she had tried in every way to help him whereas he hadn’t even managed to do the one thing he had promised: to take her to the cairn as a memorial to Arthur. Worst of all, after she had kissed him and he had felt such joy and tenderness, he had let himself be parted from her through his own stupid pride. And now he would risk losing her if he was barred from seeing her. He’d had so many chances and always managed to let her down. He always let everyone down: his parents, Edmund, Violet. What a mess he had made of it all and how lonely his life had become.

  Tossing and turning, he listened to the scraping of the twigs against the pane. Hot and tangled in the bedclothes, he drifted into an uneasy sleep. As the wind blew up, the sound of the branch tapping sharply on the glass entered his dreams as the crack of rifle fire and he started and called out, and then subsided once more into sleep. He dreamt that he was out in no man’s land, alone. Bright moonlight picked out the glint of metal debris, the dull gleam of the weapons strewn among the dead and the shimmer on the surface of water in shell holes. He stumbled across the uneven ground, his greatcoat weighed down with mud, but never a shot was fired and no living creature crossed his path. There was no sound: not a moan from a wounded man, not the rustle of a foraging rat nor the shush of an owl’s wing. The silence was palpable; it pressed on his eardrums. All around, the scene was the same, without wood or building to give a bearing: an endless, treeless, cratered plain with no sign of friendly or enemy lines. He began to look at the bodies, turning each one over with his foot, unmoved by contorted faces or shattered flesh, simply searching through them, at first methodically but then more desperately, taking hold of shoulders and rolling them over or hauling on stiffened arms.

  He found the body of the soldier he had killed. He knew him not by his face, but by the badge half hanging from his collar. He saw it now, the detail his memory had strained over for so long: large, inexpert stitches along one side of the insignia, in mismatched thread – the stitches of a soldier like himself, making do, far from home.

  ‘Is there anybody there?’ he called out into the dead air, his voice muffled and weak. ‘Where are you?’ he called again, and the sound died away without reply.

  He came to a shell hole where bodies floated and knelt beside it, leaning over to pull them towards him. Rooke was there, his face a pale oval, his form riding low in the water. He thought he saw the faintest movement, a feeble twitching of his floating hand and knew instantly that Rooke was the only one, the only other person left alive. He stuck his rifle in the mud and, holding on to it, leant over, further, further … until he could almost touch his hand. He strained forwards until he could grasp it and his fingers went through it like soft butter to the sticks of the bones beneath.

  George woke to find Ted shaking him hard by the shoulders, saying, ‘Shut up! Shut up! What’s the matter with you?’

  He gripped Ted’s elbows and hung on.

  Ted said in a loud whisper, ‘You were shouting. What’s wrong?’

  George stared, disoriented, into the darkness of the room. His pyjamas were stuck to him, soaked through with sweat. ‘Stay with me,’ he gasped, clutching at Ted.

  ‘I’m going to get Mother.’ Ted, out of his depth, tried to pull away.

  ‘No, don’t! Don’t wake her. Just … just don’t go for a minute.’ George relaxed his grip a little and Ted stood still. ‘There … I’m all right now,’ he lied. As he took each hand away, they shook uncontrollably, like the hands of an old man. ‘You go back to bed now. I’ll be all right.’

  George lay back on to damp pillows, chill at his neck, straining his eyes to make out the familiar bulky outline of the wardrobe, the four-square shape of the chest of drawers, the softer line of the beds and the steps of the books and boxes stacked on the shelves. Where a curtain hook was missing, the curtain heading tipped forward revealing a chink of pale grey. George fixed his eyes upon it and lay, stiff as a board, watching it, waiting for it to lighten and the day to come. Half of me is lost, he thought, still in Flanders, never to be retrieved. What have I got to offer Kitty? A man afflicted by the shakes and the horrors?

  25

  WALKING OUT

  The dream stayed with George the next day, and even when he managed to close his mind against its scenes, the mood of desolation remained. He carried it with him like a smell in his nostrils, a taste on his tongue.

  On the way to work in the afternoon, he hardly noticed that the wind had dropped and the day had brightened. His thoughts elsewhere, he turned down the alleyway at the back of the baker’s yard. The gang of boys lounged as usual against the back wall. He looked at the ground as he approached them, at the beer bottles and chip papers in the gutter behind the taproom of the Four in Hand. As he came level with them, one lad called out asking for some coppers, whilst the thin boy slipped down from his seat on top of the wall. ‘Hey, mister! What happened to yer face?’ He plucked at his sleeve and George shook him off, scowling. He wanted to pin him against the wall as he had the soldier and had to remind himself that he was only a boy, a stupid, ignorant boy trying to impress his friends. He went on, neither faster nor slower, cursing his limp: their confidence that he couldn’t catch them made them cocky, egging each other on to see who could bait him the most.

  ‘Oi! Tin nose!’ another voice called out. George carried on, seething. T
he other boys joined in, jeering and yelling, ‘Tin nose!’ after him. A lump of clinker from one of the ash cans landed beside his feet and as he rounded the corner there was the sound of laughter and then breaking glass, as a bottle smashed on the wall behind him, small brown shards skittering out into the street.

  George turned the next corner and gained the sanctuary of the cinema. A queue was beginning to form at the box office and he slipped past quickly, ignoring Millicent’s nod, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He climbed the stairs to his eyrie above the auditorium, wishing that Thorny wasn’t taking the afternoon off. The thought of an afternoon in his own company was daunting.

  He struck up the arc lamps on both projectors to check them, and began to lace up the first projector. They were reshowing Atlantis, a film that included the sinking of a liner, just like the awful Titanic disaster. Some people thought it in bad taste and there had been letters to the press, which had, of course, only piqued curiosity and sent folk to the cinema in droves. George had noticed that: the way that anything billed as ‘shocking’ produced a ghoulish interest. His opinion of the public had fallen since he’d started work at the cinema; he’d concluded that people really loved to be horrified as long as the horror was happening to someone else.