The pianist started his first run through the introductory music, a piece in a minor key, full of foreboding, as the audience filed in to take their seats. George rolled up his sleeves and readied himself for the labour of cranking a long film. The audience settled and the lights went down; the curtains opened and George set the shutter speed, turned the handle and started the film.
He knew the story by heart, about a doctor who goes abroad for respite from his wife’s psychiatric disorder, a tale of personal and public tragedy and the pursuit of love. He had shown it several times and was bored with its set pieces: Angèle, the mad wife, creeping around with her scissors; Ingigerd the frivolous dancer, entrancing the hero with her performance as a scantily clad butterfly; the sinking of the ship and the hero’s rescue attempt. He knew all the points at which the audience ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’. The part that caught his attention, as always, however, was a small scene of no consequence to the plot: the scene with Arthur Stoss, the man with no arms, who had learnt to use his feet as hands. On board the ship, the hero was taken to meet him for no other reason, apparently, than to provide an opportunity to show the armless man offer and light a cigarette with his toes. There were no title cards to show what conversation passed between them, and the man with no arms had no further part to play. He was not a character in any real sense, as he’d been given no characteristics beyond his disability. He was reduced to a curiosity, a spectacle, like a performing chimpanzee.
George, still smarting from the encounter with the ragged boys, thought his own experience very similar. To them, he wasn’t a person but an oddity: ‘Peg leg!’ ‘Tin nose!’ They shrunk him down to his infirmity. A thing, not a man.
The squares and triangles appearing at the edge of the film meant that he had only seconds to the changeover; he switched to the other projector, a smooth, practised transition, editing the reels together seamlessly so that no symbols showed on the screen.
George thought, I want Kitty and I want to be a man, nothing more. He mopped his brow on his arm; the heat in the booth was intolerable. The speed at which he turned the handle was creeping up, and the pianist, forced to play faster to keep up with the action, was glancing up at the booth in an irritated manner. What was it his father had said? A wife, a home, children – those were the things that made you a man. Nothing to do with ‘manly qualities’ like bravery or heroism or sticking it out. Nothing to do with fighting for your country or honour or glory. Just being seen as a person and known for yourself.
Who was he though? He didn’t feel he knew himself. He couldn’t join together the boy who used to bike, and fish, and sing at chapel with the man who fought, and killed, and failed everyone who was important to him. The image of Edmund’s body came before him, curled over as any creature curls to protect itself, to present the smallest possible area to a predator: the animal instinct useless in the face of exploding steel. The sides of the booth seemed to press in on him – like Pandora’s Box, full of fluttering evils; his thoughts seemed to fill it.
He toiled on, changing reel after reel, cranking faster and faster, desperate for the feature to reach its end. He wished he could talk to Kitty right now; he longed for the way she made him feel she understood and was on his side. He wished, more than anything he had ever wanted before, that she would say she would be his girl.
Suddenly, George knew what he was going to do; he was going to find her, and make her listen. He was going to tell her how much he wanted her to be his sweetheart and hope that although he was a broken man, and had little to offer her beyond his own self, maybe, just maybe, it would be enough. He couldn’t bear to wait another minute.
The film was coming to a close, the credits rolling. George speeded it along to the end, not caring that the squares and triangles flashed and flickered on the screen, or that the pianist, completely lost, let his last piece peter out. The lights came on and the audience moved along the rows, muttering. He switched off the lamps and rushed to wind off the film, and then watched, impatient at the leviathan slowness of the crowd as it funnelled down to pass through the doors. Beside himself with frustration, George left the dark booth and looked down from the top of the stairs at the milling crowd below. Taking a deep breath, and making fists of his hands in his pockets to stop them from shaking, he set off down the stairs and into the foyer, pushing his way through the crowd, ignoring the staring faces, the girl who tugged her partner’s arm and pointed at him, the man who shouted ‘Oi!’ as he elbowed past and out into the bright, eye-blinking street.
He started towards the centre of the town, weaving through the market-day crowd around the Moot Hall and around the obstacles of traders’ carts and horses being harnessed up by those who had finished for the afternoon. Ignoring the pitying glances and idle stares, George hurried to the post office.
The side door was open and he edged past a bicycle that stood in the hall. In the sorting office, Lizzie was folding mail bags and Mrs Ashwell was wiping out the pigeonholes with a damp duster, taking the opportunity while they were empty to get rid of some of the paper dust that caught so at one’s throat. George greeted her and she turned from her work with a start.
‘I’m sorry to startle you,’ George said, ‘but I had to come. I really need to see Kitty.’
Mrs Ashwell shot an anxious look at the door that led to the counter. ‘She’s out on deliveries,’ she said in a low voice, ‘the near end of the Penrith Road and back to St John’s.’
As George was about to thank her, the door opened and Mr Ashwell backed in carrying an armful of parcels. ‘Tea ready yet, Mabel?’ he said; then he turned and saw George. ‘I thought I told you to stay away.’ He dumped the parcels on the sorting table and scowled at him. ‘Lizzie! Go and take over the counter.’
The girl looked terrified. ‘But I’ve never … I don’t know how …’
‘You’ve got a head on your shoulders, haven’t you?’ Mr Ashwell said icily. ‘Try using it for once.’
Lizzie sidled quickly past him and shut the door behind her while Mrs Ashwell stood twisting her duster in her hands.
‘You’re not welcome here,’ Mr Ashwell said to him directly.
George stood his ground. ‘I think that there was a misunderstanding last night,’ he said. ‘There was … an incident. I was actually protecting Kitty. I would never take her anywhere dangerous. I always have her best interests at heart.’
Mr Ashwell snorted, ‘Indeed!’
George took a deep breath. ‘I came here to see Kitty and to ask if she would do me the honour of walking out with me. Depending on her answer, I was going to ask you for your blessing, but since I’m here, I’m asking you now. Will you sanction my paying court to Kitty, as someone who’s known her all her life and loves her dearly?’
Mr Ashwell stared at George as if he had taken leave of his senses. ‘What, exactly, do you think you have to offer my daughter?’ He counted off George’s shortcomings on his fat, stubby fingers: ‘Invalided out of the army, no prospects, no security, no home! I absolutely forbid it.’
George concentrated hard to block out the words that had rung in his own head for so long. ‘Then you offer me no alternative but to ask Kitty what she thinks herself, and be bound by what she says.’ He looked Mr Ashwell in the eye. ‘I’ll wish you good day.’
As he picked his way past the lumber in the hall, he heard raised voices behind him.
Mrs Ashwell said, ‘Really! Fancy mentioning George’s injury! You were very hard on him. Couldn’t you let them have their chance?’
‘Absolutely out of the question. I’m surprised you’d even consider it.’ Mr Ashwell drowned her out. ‘Even before his … his misfortune, he wasn’t in Kitty’s league. He’s not of the right calibre.’
Mrs Ashwell, who was herself a railwayman’s daughter, was stung. ‘You think there’ll be many young men to choose from after this? More and more telegrams coming through here every day! John Saunders, Albert and Anthony Rawlinson, Mrs Verney’s boy, Christopher, our own Arthur
, all gone!’
George paused at the door. There was a silence.
Mrs Ashwell said more gently, ‘Don’t you know your own daughter? It’s always been George for Kitty.’
George retraced his steps to the top of the town and then followed the route of Kitty’s late-afternoon round, cutting through Standish Street and along the Penrith Road. There was no sign of Kitty delivering, nor taking a rest in the park opposite.
He began to work his way through the smaller back streets, desperate to find her before she finished her round and went back home. Greta Street, Eskin Street, Ambleside Road: he had almost worked his way back to the cinema when he passed the church of St John and saw, between the gravestones, the flash of Kitty’s navy and red uniform. She was sitting with her back to him on a bench at the edge of the churchyard, which looked out towards the lake and fells, her hat and the empty postbag carelessly thrown down on the grass beside her. He straightened his collar and then paused. Carefully, he took off his mask and put it into his pocket. He wanted her to see him as he really was, to say this properly, face to face. The air struck warm against his tender skin, balmy with the smell of lavender and dry mown grass.
As he lifted the metal latch of the gate, the grating noise startled her and made her turn in her seat. A smile spread across her face. ‘I hoped you might find me.’
George walked over and sat down beside her. ‘I’m glad I did. I wanted to ask you something.’ The words spilt out: ‘I’ve seen your father and I have to say he isn’t happy, but I have seen him so it’s all above board and your mother is an absolute brick … I think she’ll bring him round, maybe not straight away but I think she’ll bring him round …’
‘Slow down, George!’ Kitty tried to stop him, ‘I can’t take it all in.’
But he couldn’t stop; he kept talking, quickly, before he could lose his nerve, looking down at the groundsel weeds and speedwell growing in the gravel path. ‘I want us to walk out together as a couple, Kit. I’m getting better: I have work and some hope of advancement; Mr Mounsey’s been good to me and wants me to learn.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I know my leg’s shot to blazes and I have awful dreams that give me the shakes. I’m not much of a catch, all battered about, inside and out,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure I should even be asking you to walk out with me, when it means you’ll have to put up with everyone staring, but I wish you would.’ He finished and looked up at her and she looked back, with something in her eyes that gave him hope. He reached across and took her hand.
Kitty said, ‘I tried to tell you, on the fell, that I didn’t care about all that, but you strode off down the hill as if … well, as if you were furious.’
George considered for a moment. ‘I was angry … but with myself,’ he said slowly. ‘It was my own fault – that people saw me. I should never have taken my mask off. It was wrong to give you the brunt of it and I’m sorry.’
Kitty glanced sideways at him quickly and then away again. ‘I thought you didn’t like me kissing you.’
‘No, no, I did … That wasn’t it at all!’
The smallest smile appeared on Kitty’s lips and was gone.
George said, ‘It was because those people felt sorry for me. No one likes to be an object of pity.’
Kitty tutted. ‘Why are you worried about them? It was just their ignorance. They don’t know you.’
‘I suppose people’s reactions are a kind of mirror, and I can tell that they don’t like what they see.’
Kitty looked at him earnestly. ‘But that’s just the outside, isn’t it? That’s not really you,’ she said, and George felt the warmth that he had missed so badly running like a current between them.
She leant forward. ‘How’s your jaw? Let me see. I’m so sorry about that horrible man.’ He turned his face fully towards her and she bent close to look, touching gently with her fingertips. She drew in her breath. ‘That’s going to be a bad bruise.’ As she looked up, their eyes met and George felt the light-headed weightlessness that he had longed for drawing him forward, drawing him towards her. He took her in his arms and kissed her, a long deep kiss, and it felt right: right as a song in two parts or a dance in perfect time; a jigsaw piece that fitted into place.
When they drew back, they smiled at one another. He put one arm comfortably around her and she leant her head against his shoulder with a sigh. Together they looked out at the hills that encircled the lake and the town.
In George’s mind’s eye, he could follow the tracks that crossed them: the narrow paths through bracken, the wide dirt and shale path that led along the whaleback of Cat Bells; he knew where they ran flat and where they led up outcrops of rock, sometimes in jagged slabs, like steps, sometimes presenting on their sides, riven like slices. He could close his eyes and feel the very grass beneath his feet, not meadow grass but grass with thin blades, cropped short by rabbits, growing densely like a mat. How could he know these things so well, every detail of his outward world, yet for so long not have recognised his inner landscape, not known his own feelings?
‘I’m sorry it took me so long to see the obvious,’ he said. ‘You must think I barely know myself at all.’
Kitty squeezed his hand. ‘George Farrell,’ she said, looking straight at him, ‘that doesn’t matter. Don’t you realise that I have you by heart?’
EPILOGUE
Mrs Burbidge set the parcel down on the table in her dim room at the top of the house, and sat down to take a good look at it. Who would be sending Miss Violet a package wrapped in second-hand paper, and tied with grubby string? The Walters were carriage trade; goods were always brought out to the house from the town for inspection.
She picked at the messy knots with her short, capable nails until the string fell away and then pulled the paper apart to reveal a square tin. When she lifted it, the things inside rattled and slid. She eased off the lid and saw a collection of objects and photographs and a bundle of letters that she saw were addressed in Violet’s hand.
Tutting to herself, she sat back in her chair. She would not be delivering the paraphernalia of Violet’s love affair to her, not when it was breaking the girl’s heart. She had seen the letters that Violet hid in her drawer, the paper softened at the creases by reading and rereading, and the keepsakes she hoarded: gloves and pressed flowers; she’d found them when she turned the mattress and had put them carefully back in place.
She lifted the letters and examined the rest of the contents, taking them out one by one. Miss Violet’s dance-card holder was there, which had once belonged to her mother, together with photographs, keys, postcards, and an amber heart that perhaps the poor young man had intended to give to her as a love token. The gentleman’s gold pocket watch weighed heavy in the hand: that must be worth a pretty penny. As she placed it on the table with the rest, she noticed a piece of paper in the folds of the wrappings and pulled it free, thinking that it might be a note from whoever had sent the box. It was a painting, a view out over the lake. On the back, there was something written in one corner; she squinted at it but it was too small for her to see. She spread the brown paper right out but there was no letter.
A bell rang in the corridor downstairs and she listened for the sounds of hurrying feet. Nothing. Those girls were so slow; they had no sense of urgency. It might be Miss Violet needing something; she would have to go herself. She slipped the watercolour quickly into the box, piling the other stuff on top of it, put the lid on and wrapped it back up loosely.
She stowed the box away on top of her wardrobe, among the lumber of hatboxes, suitcases and old umbrellas. As she stepped away, she thought for a moment how strange it was – the little that’s left of a person after they’re gone: a few objects in an old tin.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am indebted to the many soldiers of all ranks who wrote first-hand accounts of their experiences of the Great War. Sources that helped me to re-create the idiom of the time include letters from the collections of the Imperial War Museum, the writings of the war po
ets and of Henry Williamson, and the private diary of Edward Moore, compiled by his grandson Alan R. Moore and kindly loaned by his granddaughter, Christina Hall.
As well as the many general texts available on the First World War, two books were invaluable in researching the detail of the struggle for Ypres in the first year of the war and the topography of Flanders: Ypres 1914–15 by Will Fowler and The Battlefields of the First World War by Peter Barton, which features the top secret panoramic photographs taken for intelligence purposes by the Royal Engineers and their German counterparts.
In addition, I would like to thank the following people who helped me: Laura Longrigg and Katie Espiner for their ever generous support, astute suggestions, and faith in the project, also Louisa Joyner, Jenny Parrott, Cassie Browne, Richenda Todd, Charlotte Cray and Charlotte Abrams-Simpson at HarperCollins; Janet Lambdon, Lucy Anderson, Pat Kent, Susie Freer and Katie Hill for their company along the way; and my family, near and far, for their unstinting encouragement, in particular my husband, Spencer, my sister, Louise Gillard Owen, and my father Peter Gillard. Lastly, I am deeply grateful to my mother, Isabel Gillard, who through her wonderful example first inspired me to write.
A Q&A with Judith Allnatt
Listen to Judith Allnatt talk to editorial assistant Charlotte Cray about The Moon Field on the BookD podcast
As readers, when we open up a novel about World War I we know that we’ll be opening ourselves to an experience that will illuminate a period of great change but also tremendous pain – how does fiction help us to understand such harrowing times?
In the Great War, almost a million British soldiers were killed and almost three million wounded. The statistics are shocking – we know that they represent a pitiful waste of life – yet they remain strangely abstract; we respond to statistics with our rational minds rather than with raw emotion. What fiction can do is to take one of those soldiers and bring his story to life so that we can properly feel the compassion that the subject demands. The particular is the key to the general: by caring about one soldier through learning of his fears, desires, dreams, faults, relationships and experiences, our empathy for all those who fought is expanded. This is the magic of fiction and in my view, one of its most important purposes: to show us the world through other’s eyes and help us to empathise.
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