The Love of a Lifetime

by Mary Fitzgerald

  She was sitting up in the bed, supported by numerous pillows and a folded up eiderdown. Her white hair flowed around her head in its usual wild way and from where I was standing, she looked no different from how she had when I’d left her only two weeks before.

  “Is it himself?” asked the doctor, who was standing beside the bed.

  “Yes,” she said, and grinned. “See, I told you he would come.”

  I hurried across the big room and slipping past the short, pixie-faced medical man, sat down on the bed beside Elizabeth. “What is it? What has happened?”

  “I told you not to fuss,” she said, but I knew she was glad I’d come. Her hands held mine in a surprisingly strong grip and she leaned forward to give me a kiss.

  “It’s the heart, this time,” said the doctor. “Haven’t I been telling her these last months not to do so much. But will she listen? Not a chance.”

  “Away with you, you’re nothing but an old woman,” Elizabeth whispered, resting her head on my shoulder. I took her in my arms then and held her, glad that she seemed to be her usual self.

  “She should go to the hospital in Galway town.” The doctor gently pulled me away. “I’m going to get the ambulance.”

  “No!” She was determined and when I looked up at the doctor he shrugged.

  “I’ve been trying all afternoon to send her away. She said she was waiting for you.”

  I turned back to Elizabeth. “You must do what he says.” I spoke gently and sat down beside her again. “He knows what he’s talking about.”

  But she shook her head. “There’s no point,” she said. “And he knows that fine. It isn’t only my heart. I’ve got cancer in my stomach. Haven’t I?” She stared fiercely at the man who was even now unwinding his stethoscope to listen again to her chest.

  “You have,” he said, “and didn’t you refuse an operation last month?”

  “Right. So I’m staying here and Richard will stay with me. He promised,” she put her hand onto my face and weakly stroked my cheek. “You will, my love, won’t you?” Her voice dropped then and she leaned wearily against my chest. “I don’t want to die alone,” she whispered, “stay with me.”

  I stayed. For only the three weeks that it took, for her decline was rapid. I got a couple of nurses in for her and the doctor called every day. He was a good man and never allowed her to be in pain, so that in those three weeks, we were able to talk and laugh over the good memories from our childhood and remember our happy times in the years after.

  “I wanted you here after I’d gone,” she whispered one afternoon. We were in the great drawing room, she, wrapped in a tartan rug, sitting in one of the leather armchairs and me beside her, in another. She had been quieter today and I could see that the pain medicine wasn’t having its usual effect. In a minute, I thought, I’ll go and telephone the doctor, but she was looking at me and compelling me to stay. Speaking had been an effort for her all day but she was still her determined self and forced the words out. “So that we’d still all be together. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Will you forgive me?”

  I nodded. I would always forgive her, whatever she did.

  “Good.” Her head drooped back against the buttoned back of the chair and she closed her eyes. This was my opportunity to telephone the doctor and I started to get up.

  “Richard!” Her voice was as clear and sweet as it had been all those years ago when we’d raced across the hill above the farm and thrown ourselves breathless onto the heather. I leant over her and she opened her eyes so that I once again saw that brilliant blue that matched the blue of the glass beads in the silver necklace. It glinted now above the collar of her nightdress, silver and blue lying heavy on her wasted neck.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “And me you.”

  She closed her eyes again and lay back against the chair and when I came back from the telephone, she had gone. I hope she hadn’t known that I’d left the room and I hope that her last words and mine were echoing in her brain as she passed away. I think they were.

  Of course, I let her down by not staying at her great house and being close to her and John. But I couldn’t. It wasn’t the same with her not there and I needed to be at home for my own comfort. It was at the farm that I could feel her presence. I could walk across the fields and remember her laughing as she drove the cattle in and I could lie in the little bedroom above the front door and imagine that she was beside me and that we were young again.

  After the first couple of years I didn’t even go back to tend the graves. It was too painful. But I’m going there soon and we’ll be together, like she wanted.

  Chapter 26

  I copied all the last recording even though I thought my heart might break. Poor, poor Richard, all those people that he loved dying before him and he has lived on for so many years.

  He is so tired now and thin. I can barely get any food into him even though I prepare the things he likes, little squares of cheese on toast, egg sandwiches and soup. The other day he said he could fancy a junket. For a moment I thought he meant a trip out and I must have looked at him with a look of astonishment, for his face cracked into a smile and his shoulders started to shake.

  “Not that sort of junket, you soft thing,” he growled but he was laughing really. “The milk pudding sort. You must know how to make that. God knows, it’s easy enough. Mother made them all the time.”

  I looked in one of the old recipe books on the shelf beside the Aga. It has a well-thumbed blue cover and a symbol of the Women’s Institute on the front, and the name Mary C. Wilde in small neat writing on the frontispiece. I found a junket recipe and it seemed simple enough, if I could get the rennet. I’d never heard of it before but they had some at the health food shop. When I came home I put it all together and let the pudding set. I’m sure I did it as per recipe, but he didn’t want it.

  “Sorry, my dear,” he said, “I’m too tired just now. Maybe later.”

  Thomas tried some after tea but made a terrible face after one spoonful. “This pudding is absolutely yucky,” he announced in disgust.

  Funny thing is that I quite liked it. It slips down easily and I liked the coffee flavouring that the recipe called for. I’ll try him with it again later when he’s in a better mood but God knows when that will be. All this last week he has been sitting in his chair looking at the garden and not wanting to continue his story. I know there’s more because he told me yesterday that he was thinking about it. “My mind is so full,” he said. “Everything is swirling around and getting mixed up.”

  “Talking about losing Elizabeth is bound to have an effect,” I said sympathetically, but he shook his head.

  “It’s not that,” he called after me as I went out of his room. His old voice shook with anger. “It’s what I haven’t said yet, you silly girl. I have to make sure I tell it right. It matters.”

  He sounded a bit like Thomas does when he’s upset and I don’t like it. It reminds me too much of my old life at home. Shouting and bawling was regular there. But at least, Richard does have the excuse of age and infirmity, so I’m prepared to forgive him and carry on writing his story.

  Actually, I’m beginning to enjoy it. At college, one of our tutors said we all should keep a diary, because even random thoughts were worth recording. “It will improve your reasoning skills,” she said. And I do find a certain relaxation in a meandering account of day-to-day events. The only time I kept a diary Mum took it out of my bedside table one day and read it. She even showed it to Dad and Mrs Lane next door when they were all out at the pub. I swore then that I would never allow anyone to know me that well again. And they haven’t. Even James didn’t know me.

  I hardly knew him either and if he walked into this house tomorrow, I’d have a job recognising him. He was a useless piece of humanity. His contribution to the world was Thomas and he didn’t even know it. And never will.

  Richard only asked about
Thomas once, in a roundabout way and I didn’t tell him much and probably lied.

  I have been in to Richard’s room to help the nurse, although reluctantly. I hate those nursing jobs but I wouldn’t tell him. That would be too cruel.

  “Mr Wilde is getting weaker,” she said, “and can’t hold himself up when I want to change his pyjamas. Do you mind coming in?”

  These days, she’s nicer. Not so bossy. Even Thomas will run a message for her if she asks and he’s very choosy about his friends. He can’t bear Donald Clewes and makes a face whenever he calls to see Richard. Donald has Donasked me out twice, both times to a meal at the new Italian restaurant. I couldn’t go out with him; he has fat hands and clean polished nails. It makes me shiver, just imagining those hands touching me. Stupid of me, I know, for the man is quite harmless.

  Jason has dirty hands most of the time but he does try to get them clean. He’s forever got them plunged in that special cleaning jelly when I go round to his house for a meal. As though I cared. I love him as he is.

  God! I’ve said it. I love him.

  Richard was sitting up in bed when I went in with the nurse. He looks a bit brighter today and gave me one of our special looks when nurse started speaking.

  “Just going to get you all tidy,” she sang in her most irritating nursery voice. “All shipshape and Bristol fashion.”

  “God give me strength,” muttered Richard.

  “What’s that, dearie?”

  He looked over her shoulder at me and grimaced and when I moved forward at her beckon, his eyes followed mine. He was trying to tell me something, I know, but I couldn’t pick up what it was.

  “Jim-jams off,” nurse said and slipped his wasted arms out of the baggy sleeves. I haven’t seen him undressed before so that the livid puckered scars on his right shoulder and the crescent shaped one along his rib-cage came as a shock.

  “Oh!” I said before I could stop myself and the nurse looked round from where she was rearranging the pillows.

  “War wounds,” she stage-whispered as though Richard was deaf and couldn’t hear or see what we were looking at.

  “Courtesy of a couple of bastard Japs,” he said with a grin and lifted his arm painfully to point at the scars. “Soldier with machine gun here,” he touched his shoulder and then let his hand trail down to his ribs, “officer with sword, there.”

  “Is that when you got your medals?”

  He nodded. “Bring me a drink when this bloody woman has finished because I’m ready to tell you about it.

  “Cup of tea?”

  “Whisky!” He looked defiantly at the nurse waiting for her to object, but she said nothing. All three of us know that it makes no difference.

  “Is the microphone in place?” he asked after I’d put the glass in his hand and arranged the tape recorder beside him. I pinned the mike to his collar because sometimes he gets breathless and his voice drops to a whisper so I can’t understand what he’s saying. When I stay with him, I can remember what he says, but he doesn’t always want me about. It’s as though he thinks that some of the stories are too private for my ears, even though he knows I’m listening to the recording and writing it all down. Maybe it’s a pretence he’s keeping up. He was like that today. First he said he was going to tell me how he won his medals and then he wanted me to leave him alone.

  “Just leave me a while,” he said, “let me collect my thoughts.”

  “O.K.” I said and I left him, wondering what he would remember. These memories are getting so mixed up because he jumps around in time. But he is desperate to tell them so I went into the kitchen then and got Thomas. He has grown out of his school clothes and as nurse is here, I had the chance to go to into town. Besides, I need to get out of the house for a few hours. The waiting is getting me down.

  I don’t want to talk about the war or how I won my medals. It was a long time ago when I was young and full of life and although the Japs and the jungle did their combined best to rob me of it, I managed to survive. Shot and knifed, I was, but I managed to walk out of the jungle. Being shot isn’t immediately that painful, it’s like someone punched you and it comes as a surprise, even though you are in the midst of bullets and grenades and people screaming.

  Poor Jack Barnes got caught in crossfire one early evening when we walked into a Jap patrol.

  “Scatter!” came the order and, as we ran into the sparse shelter, they started up firing and we responded. Jack got it from both sides and when I reached him, he had a groove of flesh taken out of his left cheek and several bullet wounds in his left leg.

  “Christ!” I said as I made a tourniquet out of piece of webbing and tightened it around his thigh. “You should have been more bloody careful.”

  He grinned, but his face was suddenly white and his eyes were beginning to roll back. “Take charge,” he muttered, “leave me.”

  “No!”

  This was the first time I’d disobeyed orders, but I couldn’t leave him, I had too many fond memories of his parents. So, as soon as it was safe to do so, I hoisted him on my shoulder and with him hanging limply across my back, led my patrol back to base.

  We were two days away when we were caught by another Jap patrol. That’s when I was shot, standing up after lowering Jack Barnes to the ground when a bullet exploded into my shoulder and sent me spinning round to fall over the prostrate form of my officer.

  I gasped and reached out to grab my rifle. It was then that the Jap officer burst out of the trees and slashed down at my chest with his sword.

  It was his last effort on this earth, for with a contemptuous “Fuck off,” Lewis shot him in the face and he toppled over into the scrubby undergrowth and died.

  “Thanks,” I panted, grabbing my chest. When I looked down I could see a dark stain spreading over my breast pocket and beginning to travel in every direction. I struggled to my feet. Lying down wouldn’t do me any good.

  “You saved my life,” I said.

  “My pleasure,” Lewis laughed. These encounters with Japs made him manic sometimes. It was just like the old days when he would fight all the civilians in the pubs. He was a cocky little bugger and I loved him.

  He got his the next day. I was leading the patrol now while two men carried Lieutenant Barnes on a makeshift stretcher. My wounds, although not serious, kept breaking down and bleeding, so Potter and McLean were managing him. In truth, we shouldn’t have carried him; it was against general orders and was slowing us up, but nobody was prepared to abandon him to the jungle and the enemy that was even now on our trail. We all thought the world of him; even the lads who were new to soldiering and hadn’t known him like I had.

  Fever had set in on him too and he was getting delirious. I think that it was his shouting that gave us away. That bloody jungle was crawling with Japs and out of the blue, a burst of gunfire raked through us, as we walked, Indian file, through the trees.

  It didn’t take long to finish off the two snipers but we lost three men and two wounded, including Lewis.

  I had lost him in the melee and had to call his name.

  “Here,” he replied in a halting voice and I turned towards the sound. “What’s it look like?” he grunted, raising his hand weakly and indicating his wound.

  It looked terrible. He lay, splayed out with his belly open, his guts scrambling out over his shaking body. The mixture of blood and shit dribbling over his trousers and shirt gave off a terrible stench.

  “Not too good,” I said, as I grabbed the morphine shot out of my kit-bag and stuck it in his arm.

  “Lift me up, for God’s sake; put me against that tree,” he whispered. He had tears in his eyes and a thin stream of blood trickled from the side of his mouth.

  It was a struggle to lift him, for my left arm and shoulder were very painful but I dragged him to the tree and propped him upright. He looked down at the mess that protruded out of his uniform.

  “Oh Jesus!” he gasped.

  What could I say? His face was already going grey and I
knew that he would die within the hour but I kept up the pretence.

  “Chin up, mate,” I said and got out the first aid pack to stick a dressing over the worst explosion of guts. I reached into his kitbag and took his morphine syringe. “What the hell,” I said, “a double dose – can’t do that much harm.”

  “Get going,” he gasped, “there’ll be more of them coming. Leave me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Fuck off. I’m finished, you know it.”

  He was my friend, you see. My mate. The person I grew to manhood with. Leaving him was hardest thing I ever did. And I mean that, even considering the things that came after.

  “Give me my gun.” He wouldn’t look at me, didn’t want to see what was obviously showing in my face. “And, Richard,” he coughed and the flecks of blood that were bubbling into his mouth, spewed into the air and smeared onto his face.

  “Yes. What?”

  “You’ll see Sarah?”

  That was when I bent and kissed him goodbye. My friend. My best mate.

  We were back at our base camp within twelve hours and even though I worried about it for weeks afterwards, I know that Lewis wouldn’t have lived that long. Besides, there weren’t enough men left to carry him. Not him as well as Jack Barnes. McLean had been killed so I shouldered Jack again, determined now that at least one of my friends would get out alive, but it did me no good. My wounds tore open and by the time I got to the field hospital, I was delirious with infection too.

  And that was the end of my army career. I was sent back to India on the Red Cross plane and spent many months regaining my strength. In the end I was invalided out and came home.

  It was September nineteen forty-five when I got back to the farm. The war in Europe had been over for five months but the country was depressed. I was still in uniform then, although I was discharged from the army. My civilian clothes had been sent on home so I travelled all those miles still as a sergeant and proud of my service, but the uniform didn’t seem to carry the same cachet that it had three years previously. I think people were sick of soldiers and anything to do with the war. All their excitement and sympathy had been used up on V.E. Day so none was left for us coming back from the Far East.