The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  ‘Let me,’ Tom said and took it from her. The maid went to pull a small table over. ‘It’s fine,’ Tom continued. ‘It’s no trouble to me–’

  ‘Madam says I shouldn’t let you or Master John worry yourselves,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all right, we won’t say anything. After stretcher-bearing, this is a nice change.’ The girl hesitated.

  ‘It really is all right,’ Joss said kindly. The girl curtseyed and backed out.

  Tom mouthed, ‘Master John?’

  Joss coloured up. ‘They’re still rather feudal around here.’

  ‘I think I prefer Joss.’

  ‘So do I.’ he looked at him, there was a strange awkwardness threatening to descend on them. ‘Or even better Short-for-Joss.’

  This seemed the cue Tom needed. He took off his boots and sat on the edge of the unoccupied half of the bed.

  ‘Come on, move over,’ Joss said, smiling up at him with their old ease. Tom hesitated then dragged the tea tray onto the bed.

  ‘Do people always knock before they come in?’

  ‘Of course they do.’

  Tom shrugged. ‘I can’t be caught even sitting on the bed, you do know that?’

  Joss’s expression clouded. ‘Lock the door, if you want.’

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting that... Not in your parents’ house.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be up to “that”, as you call it – I can barely sit.’

  They looked at each other. This was going horribly wrong.

  ‘Joss...I’m sorry, I’m out of my depth here. Come here,’ Tom said, pulling him towards him.

  Joss looked down in alarm as he felt Tom trying to fight emotion, felt his own despair rising up in him.

  ‘Sod this,’ Tom said, and emerged, red-faced and tear-stained. Pulling out a clean handkerchief, he blew his nose and, without thinking, handed it to Joss to use who blew his nose loudly.

  ‘So then,’ Joss said. ‘Let’s start again... How are you Tom-Thomas?’

  ‘Not bad, Short-for-Joss. It’s a lot warmer in the trenches; there’s not been much action on our stretch of the line. The lice are having a field day, and Nico’s been treated for fleas. And thank you for the postcard.’

  ‘You must have wondered why I didn’t write but I came back here, and the following morning I was flat out. I was kept sedated and–’

  ‘Word came down the line what had happened. In fact, Barratt went out of his way to tell me, and that you wouldn’t be in touch because you were sedated.’

  ‘Barratt’s a good man,’ Joss said.

  ‘So what’s happened...I mean with the back?’

  ‘Discs, I think. I was having problems–’

  ‘Don’t go back,’ Tom interrupted in a different voice. ‘You don’t know how much it helps knowing you’re safe back here. Makes it bearable.’ He spoke quickly, looking away. ‘This war can’t go on for much longer, so try staying here. Do that for me.’

  How could he tell Tom that he would fudge any medical board to get back out. That it seemed less dangerous if he was out there with him, but he knew that was absurd, death at the Front was random, without meaning. The only way he could survive being crippled up here with the war still raging on and Tom in the firing line was to be unconscious, and he knew the doctors would not agree to that. Or would they? Or perhaps he could buy something to do the job, on the quiet. No, he had to go back. Tom was the deciding factor, and would always be.

  They were silent. The smiles dropped. Tom patted his hands on his own thighs. One of us will start whistling in a moment, Joss thought sourly.

  Tom sighed, gulped down another cup of superb tasting tea – but everything out of the trenches seemed superb. The air was clearer, the sky bluer, the clouds whiter – everything was better.

  ‘There is talk – unofficially of course,’ said Tom with a seriousness that strangely seemed to lift the depression, ‘that the Germans want to sue for peace, so it could be that you won’t need to go back. Or if you do, ask for lighter orderly duties in one of the base hospitals, or something.’

  ‘You make it sound as you don’t want me back.’

  How could Tom tell him, ‘actually I don’t. You being back in Britain is the only thing that’s making the bloody war bearable’. But all he said was, ‘I don’t want you back in danger.’

  Joss nodded. If he was in Tom’s position, he knew he would be saying the same thing. No greater love. Selfless. But still somehow, it hurt.

  ‘Are you able to get out of bed?’ Tom asked, aching to get out of this stuffy room, out into the early spring sunlight that was dappling the tree tops in the distance.

  Joss grinned. ‘I’ll have a go.’ Before Tom could stop him he tried to shuffle sideways and winced, his expression suddenly contracted as a sickening flashing pain shot down his leg.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Tom muttered. ‘You’d better stay where you are.’ Getting off the bed, he hesitated. ‘What can I do?’

  Joss waved him back. ‘Nothing... Actually, you could open the window. It’s like a bloody dugout in here. I don’t think they’re keen on fresh air in this place.’

  Tom stopped still, heard the bitterness and the third-party descriptions “they’re”, “this place”.

  Joss noticed the odd look. ‘They really have no idea what we’ve been through,’ he said.

  ‘How can they?’ Tom said, trying to undo the catch on the large sash window; the frame and the catch were painted together. Still Tom tried to break through and only stopped when cramp gripped his hand. Moving along he tried another catch, but it too was stuck fast. He went along several other equally impressive sash windows, shaking them to find if any had some give. Joss had the fleeting image of a man shaking the bars of a prison cell, and was aware of the racket Tom was making. Almost on cue, there was a light knock on the door. One of the young female servants opened the door.

  ‘Madam wants to know if you need any assistance?’ she asked.

  Pity Madam didn’t come up and ask for herself, thought Joss, then, ‘No, it’s fine. Mr Fielder’s just trying to find his way back to sanity,’ he said tonelessly.

  Tom and the maid looked up. Joss gave a heart-swelling smile.

  ‘I could do with a mallet and chisel,’ Tom said. ‘Would you ask if I can borrow them?’

  The maid looked more carefully at Tom, recognised the north western Worcestershire accent, the private’s uniform, and tried to work out why he was in Joss’s bedroom, wrenching at the windows.

  They waited until her footsteps had receded. Tom sat down again on the edge of the bed.

  ‘It’s strange this,’ he said, scratching his forehead, ruffling the hair. ‘Out there, it seems so much easier somehow.’ He shook his head. ‘And I know that sounds mad.’

  ‘No it doesn’t. Out there, we’re equal as we are, and back here there’s all this rubbish to contend with,’ Joss said, waving his hand disparagingly at the finery of the room, because, although it was rather airless, the room was fine, luxurious even. A healthy fire burnt in the grate, the windows draped with rich-hued heavy damask curtains, the floors were covered with large, expensively-woven rugs. The bed would have housed a family, Tom thought.

  ‘You can see why I want a farm,’ Joss said. ‘All this is like drowning in trappings.’

  Trappings? Tom looked around, and never felt so distant from Joss, so aware of how much he really did not know about his background, his life before the war, before they met. But did it matter?

  ‘Just get me out of here, will you?’ Joss’s voice cut through.

  ‘How?’

  Joss pulled out a pad and wrote quickly. ‘Here,’ he said, handing him a sheet of paper. ‘Go to these estate agents and see what’s on offer, farm-wise.’

  ‘I put the cottage up for sale on the way over,’ Tom said.

  ‘I didn’t suggest the farm to you because I want you to stump up any of the money. You do know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a knock at th
e door and an elderly man and a young apprentice peered round.

  ‘Madam says you need some work done,’ said the older man.

  Joss waved them in and smiled. ‘Could you free up one of the windows, so I can get some air in here?’

  Tom held the paper up. ‘I’ll follow this up,’ he said, and left the room.

  He clattered down the large, wooden staircase then stopped short as he saw the tall, thin figure of Mrs Deerman standing by the closed drawing room door, as if she was expecting him. As he drew closer he was struck by how worn she looked, how old even.

  ‘Does John need anything?’ she asked, appraising him with cool blue eyes.

  Tom frowned. John? The he realised, Joss. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then why does he need a mallet and chisel?’ Her tone was very slightly sarcastic.

  ‘Joss wants one of the windows opened. Needs the air. It’s probably all that sleeping under the stars that’s done it,’ Tom replied, aware of her tightening expression.

  ‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘Do you require anything?’

  Tom was at the bottom of the stairs, unsure whether he should step down on to the highly polished floor or stay on the last step. There was so much etiquette to consider, it was virtually impossible to think of anything else. ‘Not really, thanks. I mean, thank you.’

  ‘John would like you to stay here during your leave. Would that suit you?’

  ‘If that’s convenient.’

  Mrs Deerman noticed the change in his tone, the slight chill. ‘It’s not inconvenient and I know John would enjoy the company.’

  ‘Then thank you, I’d like to stay. But I have to go to town first.’

  ‘Back to London?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘You say you have to go to town.’

  ‘I meant Worcester.’

  ‘I see. Do you need a driver?’

  ‘I could do with being taken to the railway halt.’

  ‘I’ll call Evans. He can take the car.’

  After a silent drive to the halt, Tom was relieved to get out into the open air and wait alone for the train that steamed into view minutes later. The next few hours were spent at the three estate agents, asking for details of smallholdings and small farms within the price bracket Joss had suggested, which had still seemed astonishing. Then he checked with the agents that were dealing with his house sale; they assured him it would be for sale within days. Events were happening quickly but Tom had no sense of anything running out of his control; rather the reverse – there was a feeling that it was happening as it should. The next visit was to a solicitor where he made an appointment for an hours’ time to make a will in which he was to leave everything to Joss if he died. That too seemed right, and as it should be. After all this, he went to a pub he knew in the town centre and drew on a pint of bitter, reading the train timetable. He decided to walk back from the halt to the Hall; a walk that he guessed would take about twenty minutes.

  Joss was sitting up expectedly as he knocked and entered the bedroom.

  ‘Please don’t knock,’ Joss said, making space by him. ‘Just walk in.’ Tom pulled off his boots and sat down beside him, using a spare pillow as a backrest. Undoing a side bag, rather like the Red Cross panniers, he delved in and pulled out sheets of paper.

  ‘These were the only ones that fitted the bill,’ he said. Joss studied the particulars carefully, deep in thought, handing them to Tom as he finished reading. Tom watched him from the corner of his eye. It was unusual to see him so engrossed in reading anything; usually he was a magpie reader, reading bits here, bits there, like the bird extracting the shiny extracts that drew his imagination, leaving the rest behind. Joss had certainly filled out in his face and, for a daft moment, Tom wanted to look under the covers, peer beneath the shapeless pyjamas; see if the lower half was similarly filling out. A waxy sheen lay on Joss’s rather pallid skin, testament that he had not been in fresh air for a considerable while.

  ‘Would you like to get outside?’ Tom asked.

  Joss looked up distractedly, refocused then considered. ‘Yes, I would. In fact, I was going to ask you if you’d help me outside. The doctor thought it would do me good. What’s it like out there?’

  ‘Mild spring temperature and mildly sunny.’

  Joss grinned. ‘Help me up, would you?’

  Tom’s training and experience at the Front was suddenly of acute relevance, as they heaved and stumbled, but at last, Joss was on his feet. In the next second, he had whipped off his pyjama jacket and Tom stared at his perfect back, then his chest was exposed. No weight gain there, he thought. No lice bites or flea welts. Just smooth skin and soft chest hair. He swallowed, felt the now familiar sexual desire stirring.

  ‘Hang on, I’d better get you some clothes,’ he said striding forward. ‘Otherwise you might give those out there an eye-full.’ He waved to the empty gardens stretching away to the distance.

  ‘There’s no-one there,’ Joss said. ‘They’re all out at the Front with us.’

  Tom found a chest of drawers and discovered underclothes, and threw them over to Joss who was holding onto a chair. Pulling on the vest, he dropped his pyjama bottoms unselfconsciously, and, in profile, pulled on underclothes. His long legs were still well muscled, and what Tom could see of his backside was still pert, his penis arching gracefully down over firm balls, all perfect. Tom looked away, feeling embarrassed at his own growing sexual need, especially as Joss seemed oblivious to it. It was as though undressing in front of him was as normal as brushing his hair. Except for that one time in the barn, Tom could not remember being in such a one-to-one situation, with the intimacy that it might imply. Then he remembered Joss’s account of his being away at school, at the whole dormitory culture of public schools and the apparent indifference to physical privacy. Thought of how painfully shy he was, unsure of his body when Joss seemed so at ease with his own.

  Joss looked round. ‘I can’t wait for you and I to be together properly again,’ he said. Tom smiled back in relief, walked over to him. Joss held him, stroking the back of his hair, kissing him gently on the head.

  ‘Not here Joss,’ came Tom’s muffled voice. ‘It’s making me too...um–’

  ‘And me.’

  They laughed, drawing away from each other.

  ‘A blast of fresh air should cure it,’ Joss said, rearranging himself. ‘I just hope we don’t meet any of the maids on the landings. It might shatter their maidenly illusions.’

  Joss managed to dress in stages, wincing but with his jaw set. Then he tackled the stairs with Tom’s help. How could he tell Tom that each step felt as though a knife was being plunged into his nerves, that the nerve endings felt pared back, how it felt like foil on an exposed nerve in a tooth? The pain felt abnormal, like a pain that shouldn’t be in a body, electrical and alien, with an intensity that exceeded anything needed for a warning, like using a howitzer to open a door. On a trip back from the bathroom the previous night he had suddenly not been able to feel his legs, couldn’t put one foot before the other, however much he’d willed it. He had stared with mounting horror at his feet, then, like water through sand, the sensation had come back. He had not told anyone because he needed to get mobile again. Whatever it took, he would blag through that next medical board.

  Mrs Deerman had come out of the drawing room as soon as she heard the commotion and was looking up, her expression narrowed.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing, John?’ she demanded.

  ‘Getting mobile. Doctor Scott recommended it.’

  ‘Oh did he?’

  ‘Yes,’ Joss snapped as he thumped awkwardly down to ground level. Tom hung back. It was as though a neighbour had caught them trespassing.

  Mrs Deerman stared at Tom. ‘Was this your idea?’

  ‘It was mine,’ Joss said. ‘Tom is an expert at helping cripples, so if you’ll give us room to pass.’

  Tom stopped, looking from one to the other.

  ‘It’s quite all right, Mr F
ielder. I am quite used to my youngest son’s insolence.’

  Joss peered over to her, having the decency to look surprised. ‘I’m sorry, Mother. Tom. This hurts like hell sometimes.’

  Mrs Deerman walked forward to take his arm. ‘Do you need sticks?’

  Joss nodded.

  ‘Mr Fielder, would you get the sticks from the stand by the main door,’ she said motioning to the ornate holder in the front entrance.

  ‘We’d both much rather you called him Tom,’ whispered Joss to his mother.

  Tom returned with two sturdy walking sticks.

  ‘Thank you, Thomas,’ Mrs Deerman said in a kinder tone. Tom smiled enthusiastically, like an over-helpful child. She smiled back, a cool but well-disposed smile.

  She watched as her son, steadied by this quiet, thoughtful friend, edged over the hallway to the sunlit world outside, and knew she should leave them.

  Joss stopped as the sun fell on him and, arching his back a little, held his face up to the sun. He stayed like this for several moments, as though life was being restored back to him though his lungs, his skin and his senses. Spotting a couple of garden chairs he waddled over to them and finally slumped down with a grimace as the pain streaked down his leg.

  ‘You can certainly get out of the war with this,’ Tom said as he hesitated around him. ‘Please just–’

  ‘I want to get back to be with you,’ Joss said shortly.

  ‘So you think crippling yourself to get back is going to help either of us?’

  Joss’s expression contracted, thinking of the moment when he could not walk the previous night. ‘I suppose it’s going to be a while before I can come back,’ he muttered. ‘I’m no use to anyone like this.’

  There was a silence. Then Joss looked up as Tom thwacked him on the head with the rolled up farm details. He grinned.

  ‘Which one do you like most?’ Tom asked, pulling his chair up close. Joss shuffled through the small roll and presented a single sheet: the brief details of a small farm called Heathend in the north-west extremity of the county, on the Shropshire border.

  Tom nodded, ‘There’s something about it, isn’t there?’