by Carl Nixon
‘Do you feel up to climbing the tower? There are steps. I haven’t done it since I was a girl but you can see most of the city from the top.’
‘Yes,’ says Lucky, a tourist in his own home town (a tourist in his own life).
Back near the entrance is a small room from which narrow stone stairs corkscrew upwards. They have not climbed far before Lucky is breathing hard. The steps are narrow and he keeps his left hand on the stone outer wall as it curves and curves again, on and on, until even she feels dizzy. Somewhere behind them is Martin Templeton. Elizabeth can hear his footsteps as they echo.
Lucky stops, gasping.
‘We can turn back if you want,’ says Elizabeth.
‘No.’
‘I didn’t realise it was this far.’
‘I’m fine.’
They carry on and finally come to a small doorway beyond which is a ladder they must also climb. The thick ropes of the cathedral’s bells hang just out of reach. Near the top of the ladder, they pass the bells themselves. There are four and Elizabeth could stand inside any one of them without stooping.
It is a relief to Elizabeth when they reach the top of the ladder and pass through another door into the open air. The balcony is set halfway up the spire. A wrought-iron balustrade at waist height is the only thing preventing them from stepping out into thin air. Below, Mansfield is spread out to be inspected, the streets lined up in neat rows. To the west is the green swathe of the Botanic Gardens and York Park. To the north is the river and the more affluent suburbs. To the south she can make out the railway station and the dark plumes from the gas works, and beyond that the swell of the hills where the suburbs splash up onto the lower slopes. The only direction she cannot see is east, because of the tower at her back, but she knows that from up here she would see the blue glint of the ocean.
Lucky runs a hand through his freshly cut hair. ‘It looks like a nice place to call home.’
Elizabeth smiles. ‘Yes, I’ve always thought so.’
She is surprised to find that she is happy, perhaps for the first time in years, and even more surprised to realise it is because she is with Lucky. He is making her feel this way.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asks. ‘You suddenly look worried.’
‘Nothing, just a thought. I’m fine.’
Lucky takes her at her word and goes back to admiring the view but Elizabeth has lost interest in the rooftops of Mansfield. She watches Lucky, her emotions eddying between joy and consternation.
As they walk back from the cathedral, Lucky once again pauses on the bridge. The young couple on the rug are still there and he watches them as they kiss.
Displays of affection that would have been considered offensive, vulgar — even illegal — five years earlier are now commonplace. Everywhere the young are seizing the day, aware that so many of their generation no longer have that chance.
Lucky leans his elbows on the rails. ‘When did you know that you were in love with your husband?’
‘I suppose I really knew for certain after we were married.’ Elizabeth laughs. ‘That must sound strange. But there was a particular day when I knew beyond any doubt.’
‘What happened?’
‘It was the first time we were able to get leave together since we were married. Johnny took the train up and we met in London. He had four days. I had three. On the first evening we went to a nice restaurant just down the street from our hotel to celebrate. The head waiter looked down his nose at us a bit because we were colonial but Johnny was in his uniform and he was an officer. While we were eating, an Australian private tried to bring his girl in. The head waiter told them that they couldn’t. He was quite rude. We could hear the whole thing from our table. The Australian was embarrassed and was all set to leave when Johnny got up and went across. I could tell he was angry although he kept his voice very calm.
‘“This man’s come halfway round the bloody world to risk his life so that you don’t have Fritz marching down that street out there. The least you can do is serve him and his guest a meal.”
‘The waiter held his ground. “It is a restaurant rule, sir, that we only serve officers.”
‘I saw Johnny take the man by the elbow and firmly turn him aside. He leaned in and said something quietly into the man’s ear. The waiter gave a start and his eyes went wide. After that he sat the private and his girl at a table near the back.’
‘What did he say?’ asks Lucky.
‘Johnny wouldn’t tell me. But that was the moment when I was sure that I loved him.’
‘My mother fell deeply in love with a man who had no memory.’ That’s what MN first said to me on the telephone.
When did it happen? I mean, when was it clear to Elizabeth that her feelings for Lucky went beyond that of a nurse for her patient? Surely she resisted the idea. She was a nurse known for her professional detachment, living in an age with far stricter moral codes than our own. She was also a married woman with a child. Lucky was also married, even if he did not acknowledge the fact.
There are no accounts of how or when it happened. MN’s mother never shared this aspect of her relationship with her son. She did not mention it, not even in passing, and it was not referred to in any detail in her letters to him. It is left to me, as the chronicler of this tale, to decide on when and where and how.
There are many possibilities. Perhaps it was a slow realisation, which came upon Elizabeth gradually every day that she cared for Lucky, like drops into a bucket — drip drip drip — until one day the water overflowed.
Or love can be sudden; a single day, a moment in time where there was a look or a touch, after which it was obvious that her feelings were irrevocable.
At some point I will have to decide.
I must also keep in mind that love between two people seldom happens simultaneously.
thirty-eight
The next day, they are driven into town again. The night has been clear and cold and the first frost of the year stiffens the grass and steam rises off the surface of the river as they walk along Nelson Avenue. Elizabeth had planned to take Lucky to the university, to show him the new cloisters and the observatory. It seems, however, that he has different ideas.
‘I want to go into that building over there.’
‘The university is just up the road.’
‘No. I want to see that one.’
Lucky crosses the road, oblivious to a swerving bicycle and the angry glare of its rider and Elizabeth hurries after him. She catches up outside the entrance to the museum where he is scrutinising the entranceway with its four Doric columns and carved inscription.
‘Does this look familiar?’ asks Elizabeth, trying to sound casual.
His frown deepens. ‘I’m not sure.’
Surely it can’t be coincidence that Lucky is drawn to the building where he once worked. The idea that there is some link, however intangible, between Lucky’s past life and his present makes Elizabeth’s pulse quicken.
I must be careful not to rush matters. I cannot pressure him.
‘I’d like to go inside.’ He is already moving towards the entrance and she follows. The door opens directly into a large hall, where the only natural light falls through leadlight windows set high in the south side of the building. A few electric lights are switched on, but even so the atmosphere is at best dim. Large areas are roped off for displays. Glass cases and tall shelves rise up in front of them, every surface taken up with some object or other. The hall is so full of exhibits that Lucky and Elizabeth are forced to navigate a circuitous and uncertain route. Even so, Lucky moves confidently, turning left and right without hesitation and Elizabeth dares to hope that this is another positive sign.
Elizabeth would not have been surprised to learn that the Mansfield Museum had changed little since it was founded in 1865. Its method of presentation is still resolutely Victorian. In one roped-off area alone, measuring no more than 15 square feet, a giant clam shell from Samoa competes for space with a miniature Suma
tran rhino. They are both cheek by jowl with an armadillo, itself giving the impression of being about to joust using the horn of a narwhal. Next to the armadillo a teak mask from East Africa leans on a copy of the Rosetta Stone, alongside a juvenile Australian salt-water crocodile, stuffed and grinning broadly at the monstrous horns of an elk.
In 1885 the Mansfield was identified by the British Museum’s publication Museum as one of the top ten museums in the world. This honour was due largely to some significant bequests of both funds and private collections of bones and fossils. But since those heady days, and despite its record-breaking whale skeleton, the museum has slipped down the rankings like a fading tennis star who is feeling his age, lurching from one injury to the next but gamely hanging on. Better funded museums have stolen the limelight. Now the place has a palpable air of neglect. Dust lies thick on the glass tops of the display cases. The Sumatran rhino and several more of the stuffed animals have been badly chewed by moths.
Lucky seems as interested in a wide drawer full of pinned ants as he does in the African mask which, according to the small handwritten card, was ‘used by the priests of Niger in their fertility rituals’. At one point he stops in front of a display of fossilised crabs. The card explains where the crabs were found and on what date. Looking over his shoulder, Elizabeth notes that they were donated to the museum by the Blackwell Family. If Lucky takes in this fact, he does not comment.
He spends most time standing in front of a huge display case, the largest in the hall, containing at least two hundred brightly coloured birds. Birds, birds, birds and more birds crowd together; all the continents and regions of the world have sent delegates to this gathering. Elizabeth finds it difficult for her eyes to settle on one among so many. Sheer size alone finally focuses her attention on a hook-beaked albatross, its wings judiciously folded. Gathered around it like disciples are a dozen canaries of various colours, also a fantail, a German owl and wading bird with red stilts for legs. Birds of Paradise. Birds of prey: falcon, hawk and even a bald eagle. In the far corner are a pair of weaver birds, mated now forever. A nightingale seems to whisper in the ear of a kiwi.
A man in a grey suit appears, seemingly out of nowhere.
‘Paul! I thought that was you. I can’t believe my eyes.’ He seizes Lucky’s hand and shakes it warmly. He sports large white sideburns. ‘It’s me, Teddy.’
Elizabeth steps forward quickly. ‘Hello. I’m Mrs Elizabeth Whitman, Mr Blackwell’s nurse.’
The man peers at her, uncertain. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m Edward Brown. Paul and I worked together here for several years before the war. Isn’t that right, Paul?’
Lucky shakes his head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know you.’
Teddy Brown looks as though he had been slapped. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. We shared a tent for two weeks on the Grey River dig.’
‘Mr Brown, may I speak to you?’ says Elizabeth.
She takes him aside and explains the situation but it takes several minutes for her to convince him.
‘Nothing at all?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘My God.’
When they return to where Lucky is standing, Teddy Brown looks pale and grim. He seems at a loss for words. ‘I’m sorry if I upset you. It’s just that Johnstone and Sinclair are gone too, you see. Never came back,’ he trails off. ‘Anyway, all the best for the future.’
‘Thank you,’ says Lucky.
‘The damn war, eh. Good day, Mrs Whitman.’
With a final glance of the utmost sadness, he vanishes among the displays as quickly as he appeared. As soon as the man is out of sight, Lucky staggers and puts out a hand to the glass of the bird display to support himself.
‘Are you all right? What’s the matter?’
‘I’m feeling dizzy again.’
‘This trip has gone on long enough. We’ll go back to Woodbridge now.’
Lucky does not protest when she takes him by the arm and leads him back through the maze of exhibits to the door.
thirty-nine
The next morning Lucky is unable to get out of bed without falling and his fever has returned, even higher than before. Elizabeth blames herself for taking him into town two days in a row — it was obviously beyond him. She sits by his bed and encourages him to eat a few spoonfuls of Mrs Booker’s soup but he shakes his head and slumps back on the pillow.
‘Tell me another story,’ he says.
‘I wasn’t sure if you liked my stories.’ He does not reply. ‘All right. Actually I thought of one last night.’
‘No, something that really happened.’
‘Like all stories it’s difficult to say how much is true and how much isn’t.’
He raises no further objections but settles lower on the pillows and closes his eyes.
‘There was a man who was a soldier, although it was not in the war that you fought in.’
‘When?’ asks Lucky, eyes still shut.
‘It doesn’t really matter. There have been so many wars. This soldier was fighting in a desert town. He had been badly wounded and was close to death. Everyone knew that the town was only hours away from being overrun. The wounded soldier lay on a dirty wheat sack in the corner of the town square. A shopkeeper ran past clutching what he hoped to save of his wares and the soldier called to him.
‘“Please, won’t you help me? The enemy will be here soon.”
‘The shopkeeper shook his head. “I can’t. I have to save the goods from my shop otherwise everything I have will be looted by the enemy soldiers and I will be destitute.” He left the wounded soldier lying on the wheat sack and ran on.
‘After a while another soldier from the same division as the wounded man came hurrying along. He was wide-eyed, pale and trembling with fear.
‘“Won’t you help me? Take me with you,” pleaded the wounded soldier.
‘“I can’t. The enemy has returned and is outside the gates of the town. You’ll slow me down too much and I’ll be captured.” And he ran away up a cobbled street.
‘The town soon fell to the attacking army. The first person to find the soldier still lying on his sack was a captain. He rode into the town square on a large black horse and drew up next to the wounded man. The captain climbed from his horse and inspected the soldier’s wounds, then dressed them himself with bandages from his saddlebag. When the captain’s men arrived in the square he ordered them to lift the wounded soldier onto a stretcher. The captain himself rode ahead through the streets until they found a doctor, whom he ordered to take care of the soldier as though he were one of their own.’
Elizabeth stops speaking and a blackbird sings from the tree outside the window.
‘Is that the end?’ asks Lucky.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a strange story. I don’t think it’s true.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why would the soldier’s enemy help him?’
‘Why do you think that he might?’
Lucky frowns. The fever beads his forehead with sweat. ‘Perhaps the captain wanted something from the wounded soldier, maybe information.’
‘So his kindness was a type of trick?’
‘I think it must have been.’
‘And what if I told you that the captain wanted nothing, that it was not a trick in any way?
‘Then I would say that it’s a very strange story.’
Lucky closes his eyes again and despite his fever it is only a few minutes until he is asleep. Putting the bowl of soup onto a tray, Elizabeth leaves the room as quietly as a mouse. Or a nurse.
forty
Boys will be boys.
That evening when Elizabeth arrives at her parents’ cottage in Sydenham Street her mother reports that Jack has been fighting. He has punched the boy who lives in the house three doors down. Apparently there was a dispute over the ownership of a rusted tin can, a stick and a potato. Elizabeth’s father saw the whole thing from the kitchen window.
The other boy is Hugh Taylor, whose f
ather recently returned from the war. Jack’s balled-up fist struck Hugh in the side of the face and blackened his eye.
‘The little bugger went down like a ton of bricks,’ chuckles Elizabeth’s father.
Her mother frowns. ‘Go back to your paper.’
‘I think he’s got a good career ahead of him as a pugilist.’
‘Dad, don’t encourage him. I don’t want him fighting.’
‘He’s just a boy. These things happen. Go easy on him.’
Jack is brought out from his room, but after the inevitable round of tears, accusations and explanations he is still unwilling to apologise.
‘The potato was mine,’ says Jack stubbornly, ‘and the stick.’
Elizabeth sighs. ‘That’s not the point. You don’t hit people just to get what you want.’
‘Why not? Dad’s allowed to shoot Germans if they don’t do what he wants. He can even kill them. All I did was hit Hugh.’
Laying aside for a moment the tricky semantics of the adult world, you have to admit that it’s a very good point. Even so he is sent to bed early that evening and with no bread-and-butter pudding for afters.
Later that evening there is a knock at the door and Elizabeth finds a man standing on the bottom step clutching his hat in both hands.
‘Yes, can I help you?’
‘Mrs Whitman?’ He rubs the brim of the hat between finger and thumb.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Samuel Shepherd. I hope I’m not bothering you at tea time or anything.’
‘No, we have finished eating. What’s this about?’