The Grass Memorial

by Sarah Harrison

  The ranch had an airstrip now, and as well as a little plane that took guests up for joyrides there were one or two guests who had light aircraft of their own, in which they arrived and departed.

  One perfect morning when most of them were out trail-riding or sleeping off the effects of last night’s party, Spencer was doing the rounds collecting trash and taking it to the gate for removal by the Moose Draw trash-waggon. There was a battered flat-bed truck for the purpose, and a strict speed limit of ten miles an hour. He trundled along the narrow paths in back of the cabins, stopping every twenty yards to pick up the next four cans, haul them to the truck and load them upright in neat, tightly packed ranks like gherkins in a jar. You could get sixteen on the truck, and that was it – he’d tried to be clever once by laying them flat and creating two layers, but the result had been disaster, with garbage spilt everywhere, a roasting from Buck Jameson and a cleaning-up operation which – undertaken singlehandedly – had taken most of the day. So there was nothing for it but to make the full six trips, quietly and tidily: it was his least favourite job.

  This morning he’d just emptied the first batch into the container at the gate when a plane came over. The sky was an endless, pristine blue. The honeyed drone of the plane preceded it by a couple of seconds and then it appeared, like a solo dancer taking the stage. It was hard to believe the pilot couldn’t see Spencer, that he didn’t know he had this grounded, trash-stained audience of one. The plane swooped in a graceful curve, climbed steeply, rolled, looped, circled wide, repeated itself, Spencer stood there with, his hand shielding his eyes, spellbound. The engine-song of the plane swirled with it, crescendos and diminuendos, upward and downward glissandos accompanying the fun.

  The impromptu display must have lasted five minutes. Then the plane hummed away to the east. Spencer leaned back on the track, rubbing his eyes. He felt bereft, possessed by the same grey recognition of his lot that overcame him after he’d met the writer, and when he came out of the movie theatre. That was the level on which the rich lived life – one of speed and glamour, drama and romance: life with the dull everyday detail airbrushed out.

  Whereas this – he sniffed the sour smell on his hands and saw the stained butt ends on the ground around his feet – this was his level. For now.

  He hankered after Trudel. It had to be love he reasoned because absence had not only made the heart grow fonder but winched up the physical longing to a quite unbearable degree. Her image remained clear in his mind, and (unlike Bobby, he reflected with grim pride) no one had replaced her in his affections. A couple of dates with other girls had proved as much. Six months went by and it was September, the end of the summer and of the season. From here on in he’d be doing basic maintenance at the ranch for another few weeks and then returning to help Mack – unless something else came up – through the winter. His heart sank at the prospect.

  And then Trudel returned. With no baby.

  He had no idea she was back until he saw her on Sunday morning coming out of church with her parents, and he was too shocked and astonished to go up to her or say anything. She didn’t see him, which made his disappointing behaviour a little less shameful. She’d lost weight, and looked different in some other indefinable way as well. Her bushy blonde hair was rolled up neatly; she wore a black buttoned coat. But it was more than her appearance, a kind of air she had . . . Mr Flaherty walked in front, looking drawn and tired, Trudel and her mother followed, arms linked.

  Something had happened. It was hard, confronted with this mysterious, united adult group, to recreate his spirited feelings of a few months ago. But he had to know. In the end he could stand the uncertainty no longer and on the Tuesday evening he plucked up the courage to go and call at her house.

  She answered the door herself and greeted him as though she’d only seen him the day before.

  ‘Spencer, it’s so good to see you, come on in.’

  With trepidation he stepped over the threshold. As soon as she’d closed the door she kissed him.

  But delightful though the kiss was he knew at once that she’d changed, and so had things between them. With that kiss she acknowledged their former closeness but declared that this was the level at which they now were – that of affectionate and understanding friends.

  ‘Are your parents in?’ he asked warily.

  ‘They’re playing cards at the Driversons’.’ She smiled. ‘You mustn’t worry, everything’s fine – they aren’t angry with you.’

  She took him through into the parlour. The radio was tweedle-deeing away softly, playing dance music, and she turned it off. She made a deprecating gesture in the direction of the dining table on which stood a typewriter with paper sticking out of it and an open Pitman’s book alongside.

  ‘I’m teaching myself, but I’m all thumbs. Take a seat.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You want a beer?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He sat there as she went to fetch it. He rather wished she’d left the music on. He could hear the clock ticking in here, and Trudel moving around in the kitchen. He had to ask her when she came back in, and clear the air.

  As soon as she handed him the glass, he blurted out: ‘What happened to the baby?’

  ‘What made you think there was a baby?’

  He was stunned with embarrassment, but she remained solemn and enquiring. She seemed to have grown up immeasurably, to have left him far behind. He was going to have to shape up.

  ‘Your father told me.’

  ‘I hope he wasn’t mean to you.’

  ‘No – but he wasn’t too pleased either.’

  ‘There was a baby,’ she said quietly, ‘but it went away.’

  ‘You mean—’ He was floundering, way out of his depth, his brain teeming with dreadful half-formed possibilities. ‘You mean, you—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Spencer. It’s over now.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  She tilted her head in the suggestion of a shrug. ‘No need. No one’s to blame.’

  ‘Did you get my letter?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, that was lovely of you. No one else bothered, except Mom.’

  ‘I meant what I said.’

  ‘Of course you did.’

  ‘So if there’s anything you need, anything at all . . . Or if you just . . .’ All his brave protestations of love died in his throat. ‘You only have to ask.’ He sounded like some half-assed, constipated character from an English novel. He could have wept, but she never wavered.

  ‘I know. Don’t worry, I shan’t forget.’

  He was in a chair, and she at one end of the couch. Boldly, determined at least to try and bridge the gap between them, he went to sit next to her. But when he put his arm round her shoulders she was merely quiescent.There was none of the old, welcoming warmth, the open invitation, the delightful sense of mutual anticipation.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Look at me.’ She smiled, and made a little open-armed gesture which, without offering or inflicting the least offence, obliged him to withdraw his arm. ‘What does it look like?’

  He said: ‘You’ve lost weight.’

  ‘I sure needed to.’

  Every word, every second, he felt sadder. It was like the fall from grace of Adam and Eve, the loss of innocence – whatever else had happened in Chicago, Trudel had tasted the fruit of the tree of self-awareness.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ He jerked his head at the typewriter.

  ‘I’m going to get a good job, and work hard at it, and make some money and move out east.’

  He hadn’t expected quite such a forthright and comprehensive answer. ‘Is that all?’

  ‘It may not work out,’ she said, ‘but you have to have a dream, don’t you?’

  ‘I guess so,’ he agreed.

  Crestfallen, in bed that night, with the cold of early autumn pressing on the windows and a skunk bumping around in the trash outside, Spencer realised he’d better
get another dream and quick, because the one about his future, just like the one about his past, was dead as dead could be.

  It was a long time coming, but in early December world events took a hand. The distant mutter of the war in Europe became a sudden thunderclap right overhead, and a simultaneous flash of sheet lightning as the torching of the fleet in Pearl Harbor woke America with a bang.

  Even the small towns and the one-horse places stirred and shook their locks. Their young men swaggered and their maidens swooned and cheered. Mothers grew tight-lipped and fathers wished (at least in public) that they were younger. Even Moose Draw was going to war and that included Spencer McColl.

  He’d always imagined that the expression ‘a dream come true’ meant the instant fulfilment of a wish – you woke up one day and whatever it was your heart desired had come to you, out of the blue. But in his case it came in stages – not easy ones, they were tough – in a process lasting nearly eighteen months. A long hard slog before he jumped down off the lorry into the liquid mud of the airfield at Church Norton, England, and saw his second great love standing there as if she’d been waiting for him all his life this far.

  He wanted to fly. Since seeing the little plane spinning and swooping over Bucks Creek Canyon the idea had been in the back of his mind, but didn’t take on any concrete form till the winter of ’42 when war-fever hit. That was when he suddenly realised it was a possibility. Without being rich, he could be up there – in fact someone else might pay him to do it! Mack said there wasn’t a hope in hell, you needed to be a straight-As guy for that. But Spencer found out that the Airforce was taking on men for flight training with only high-school level education, and with his parents’ blessing he reported to the recruiting office in Salutation and sat the tests. There must have been a dozen of them there on the day he went, sat at individual square tables like grade school, chewing their pens and feeling like fools. But he was one of five who got through, and Mack ate his words and brought him a beer like a gentleman. When it came to the physical Spencer was more confident and his confidence proved justified. He was strong, fit and had twenty-twenty vision. They took him on and he reported for basic training at Montgomery, Alabama.

  Each step of the way Spencer thought would be his last. Basic training wasn’t so bad; it consisted pretty much of putting one foot in front of another, keeping your head and your spirits up and your eye on the objective. But the next step, college, was harder; he had to get back the studying habit, and struggled till his brain felt knotted with math, algebra and simple physics. His confidence took a knock and he was horribly homesick.The therapy for this was writing letters. Caroline wrote him most days – for the first time he was a little embarrassed by her open affection and tried unsuccessfully to pretend that the regular letters were from different people.

  But this time Trudel replied to him too, and, her immaculately typed letters made him walk twelve feet tall.

  I’m so proud of you. I guess we’re both trying to find a way out of Moose Draw, but the war’s made it quicker for you. Dr Lowe’s taken me back on as receptionist and I really like it – I even think I’m pretty good at it, is that terrible? I like dealing with all the people and trying to make them feel a bit better even before they see the doc. It’s made me think I might do some kind of medical training one day, be a nurse or something, you never know. But that’s a long way off. Pop’s not well and Mom’s unhappy so they need me around at the moment, I’ve caused them enough worry for a lifetime! Spencer, I know we didn’t see too much of each other after I got back but I still miss you, and just knowing you were around. Whatever we do and wherever we wind up in the future, let’s hope we can stay good friends. Write when you feel like it but don’t feel you have to, I can always pick up the news from your folks. Take care of yourself.

  Love,

  Trudel

  He was touched by her letter. And another thing – his own separation, physical and emotional, from Moose Draw put him more on a par with her. He thought he understood now the change she’d undergone during that time in Chicago. Only for her it had been a hundred times worse because she’d lost the baby. He could see only too clearly now how impossible it would have been for her to accept his offers of love. She’d moved on and become someone different and that altered everything, created an irreversible shift in life’s tectonic plates. Reading her letter he was sure, now, that they could be friends, and with that certainty came the private acknowledgement that he was no longer in love with her. He was free.

  After the college course came Classification, in some ways the most agonising step of all because this would determine his role in the air: navigator, bombardier or pilot. Until he’d been accepted for flight training he hadn’t, in his ignorance, even realised there was a choice. Now he was cast down by the thought that he might be condemned (as he saw it) to some job other than that of actually flying a warbird.

  But a week later he was told he’d be a pilot, and he seemed to take off. Nothing after that, not the rigours of the physical training, the complexities of pre-flight, flying school and advanced flying, was too much for him. This – this – was the element for which he’d been born, where he felt at home and in command. In basic flying school he went solo in the lumbering BT13 Vultee Valiant (known as The Vibrator) after only eight hours of instruction. He was supremely confident. Navigation, night and formation-flying, even the extreme disorientation of rolling ‘blind’, relying not on one’s senses but on the instruments alone, he came through all of them with flying colours. And during the intensive aerobatics of advanced flying in the heavy snub-nosed AT6 Harvard, he shouted but once ‘I’m here!’ – confusing the control tower, his only bad mistake.

  The day in February ’43 when he received his silver wings was the proudest of his life. He returned to Moose Draw for two weeks’ home embarkation leave already feeling like a hero. His first day back he went to call on Trudel at the surgery at lunchtime and they went over the road to the diner. She was smart and serious, doing a home study course in math and English, and helping look after her father, who could now scarcely breathe for the goop in his lungs. Spencer admired her for the honourable conscientiousness of that, and sensed a mutual affection and respect that was different from what they’d had before. It was more equal, deeper, it allowed for all kinds of possibilities. He was proud of the two of them and how far they’d come. He thought how strange it was that they, the overgrown loner and the easy girl – the very opposite of the prom queen and the sports star – should now be so conspicuously on their way. To be sure they weren’t the only ones. Moose Draw’s habitual torpor was riven with proud and fearful leave-takings and exhortations to do the job and hurry home . . . nonetheless their short shared history cast a reflective light over salt beef and coleslaw sandwiches in the Diamond Diner.

  ‘He’s going to die,’ Trudel said of her father.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I’m not.’ She sighed. ‘The sooner he goes the better for his sake. But I don’t know what Mom will do, he’s been her whole life.’

  ‘And you,’ Spencer reminded her. ‘You’ve been her life as well.’

  ‘Maybe. But I haven’t done all the things she would have liked a daughter to do. When I was going with every boy in town – no,’ she said, putting her hand on his, ‘I was and we both know it. When I was doing that she was busy pretending I was just a nice friendly girl, and Pop toed the line so as not to worry her . . .’ Trudel pushed her plate away. ‘It’s funny to be the same person, but not the same.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Me too, I was thinking that. I was pretty pathetic, wasn’t I?’ He asked this to cheer her up, he could sense her reflections turning a bit sad.

  She rewarded him with a big soft smile, the old Apples shining through for a moment.‘No,you weren’t, you were cute. And always so hot.’

  ‘Weren’t we all?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Can I ask you something – I got my wings, I guess I’m just about brave e
nough.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Was I different at all? I mean, to you?’ She looked down at his hand on the counter, and covered it with hers. ‘Not really. No.’

  It was a relief in a way to have her put the full-stop on things, but a little bruising too, so he tried to turn it into a joke. ‘I mean, don’t feel you have to be kind or anything, just come on and tell me straight out.’

  This time she didn’t smile. ‘You weren’t different then, Spencer. But you are now.’

  On the day he left for the posting to England, his mother didn’t cry. It was Mack who looked all trussed up in unaccustomed, uncomfortable emotion, who crunched his hand and could find nothing to say nor any voice to say it with.

  At this difficult moment Caroline protected all of them with what he’d always thought of as her Englishness – it was a quality she kept spotless and crisply folded in some mental bottom drawer, like a fancy tablecloth, to be brought out and used to put on a good show. She was upright, immaculate, sweet-smelling and self-possessed. If she wept and raged after he’d gone he never knew. What was more, she treated him like a man – there were no little maternal gestures, no fussing over packing, no patting of the cheek nor brushing of the shoulders – and he was more grateful than he could say for that.

  The only thing, the only hint of a thing, that she did that day which recalled the past was not even intended for him. He heard it as he was upstairs changing into his uniform and she was down in the store, opening up. It was the song she was singing – or humming, for she wasn’t using the words. ‘The water is wide, I cannot get o’er . . .’

  By the time he was ready and down she’d stopped singing and he was composed.

  ‘You look after England,’ she said. ‘For all of us.’

  The journey was enough to take the wind out of anyone’s sails, or in Spencer’s case from beneath his wings. Their departure from the States had a certain febrile, farewell excitement, but from there on the uncertainty took a hold on their spirits. It invaded their minds like the Atlantic fog through which they crept at ten knots, for more than two weeks, part of a hundred-vessel British convoy: a huge formation of shipping floating, tiptoeing almost, above the prowling U-boats. Only now did they realise how unprepared they were for whatever lay ahead. Most of them had never been outside America before, had never crossed an ocean nor heard a foreign tongue spoken. They were a bunch of brash, callow youths off to defend strangers in a country of which they had only the sketchiest idea.