Wake

by Anna Hope

  He stops in front of her, a look of utter anguish on his face. “Do you understand why I couldn’t go? Do you?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”

  He puts his head in his hands. His back heaves once, twice. When he starts to speak again the words come quickly, as if he, too, needs to get to the end. “In the morning they march us out to this place in the middle of nowhere. And there’s a stump there.” He stops. “There’s a stump, just shoved there into the ground. And they line us up in front of it. And then they bring him out. They’ve covered his head in a sack and he can’t stand properly and he looks like he’s drunk. He might have been drunk. Someone told me that they fed them drink before it, so as they didn’t know what was going on. He’s got someone on either side of him, but he’s not standing on his own feet. They’re dragging him through the dust.

  “Your brother comes down the line to check on us. And I’ve got my rifle in my hands and I’m thinking, I could shoot you instead.” He looks at Evelyn. “I would have done it, too. Happily. But then I’d be shot myself. And I had my Dora already by then and I wanted to go back.” His voice breaks. “All I wanted was to get back home.

  “They’re tying him to this post and I can see he’s pissed himself. And the rest. You can smell it; he’s that close. And we’ve been told that we have to be quiet. Standing so he doesn’t know that we’re there. It’s so fucking quiet. And I’m thinking, Does Michael know I’m there? Can he tell?

  “I wanted to say something to him, to let him know that he wasn’t facing it on his own. But I couldn’t. And I’d have been lying. Because he was on his own, wasn’t he?”

  He puts his hands over his face, so that his head is held in the net of his fingers.

  “He starts saying something then. He’s calling for his mum. Mum, Mum, Mum.”

  Evelyn puts her hand to her mouth.

  “And I start praying. Before, I always used to just move my lips a bit in school when they did the prayers. I’d never prayed properly in my life. I’ve got this one thing going over and over in my head. Forgive us our trespasses. Forgive us our trespasses. And as I’m praying I think, What are you praying for Rowan? There’s no one listening to you, is there? So I just stop. And then someone goes over and pins a white handkerchief over his heart.

  “I’ve got a plan. I know I’m going to fire wide. So as it can’t be me, but then the man standing next to me, Private Jones—you could see why he had been chosen; he was a coldhearted bastard. But he just whispered to me. Shoot straight lad, he said. You’ll be doing him a favor. Aim for the hankie. Shoot straight.

  “And then the order comes and I lift my gun and I fire.

  “Afterward he’s slumped over and his head’s down. Your brother walks over to him. He can’t hardly walk straight himself. But he’s got to shoot him, if he’s not dead you see. He goes to take off the sack.”

  For a moment, he stares at the empty air. Then he shudders.

  “I can’t look. But there’s no shot. So he must be dead.”

  “Then, we walk out. And after that I start to shake. I shake and I don’t stop. And I can’t feel my arm. The arm that fired the shot. After that it stops working, and it never starts again.”

  He takes off his sling, so that his arm now hangs, wizened and useless by his side. He hits it. He hits it hard. He pummels it, over and over again.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  Ada shapes the dumplings carefully in her palms, humming as she does so—the snatch of a melody she used to love to sing. She lifts the lid off the pan. The stew has been bubbling for hours and is a rich, burnished brown. There is a good cut of beef in there, some of the last carrots from the allotment, and the squash that Jack gave her on Sunday. It felt wonderful to slice it, to see the orange skin giving way to an even brighter flesh underneath. She ladles the dumplings into the stew one by one, and when they are bobbing on the surface of the sauce puts the lid back and brushes the flour from her hands. Moving seems easy. She feels lighter somehow, at once less and more like herself.

  She puts her hands to her hair, twisting the strands. Earlier, she boiled water and washed her hair and then pinned it when it was still damp. Later this evening, if she takes it down, it will fall in waves. Jack used to love it like that. He used to love her hair in waves to her back. She lights a candle and takes it over to the table with her. She has bought a couple of bottles of ale. She opens one and pours a glass for herself to keep her company while she waits.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  A family stands at an open window: a father, a mother, a daughter, and two small sons. The mother watches as the light spills on to the darkened garden below, illuminating the elm tree at the end of the grass, the swing that her children love. Beyond are the train tracks. The woman grew up in this village, in a house around the corner where her parents still live.

  During the war, when she was standing in the garden, and her daughter was a baby, she would see the troop trains go past on their way to the coast. It was always exciting, at the beginning, to stop what she was doing—hanging washing, or playing with her little girl—and stand and wave, in the flower-filled garden. They loved it, the boys; they would wave back, furiously, shouting out, blowing kisses, their faces tight with pleasure and expectation. If the train stopped she would hold her daughter up, passing daisies and dandelions through the windows, which the troops would grab and put behind their ears.

  Trains would come the other way, too: hospital trains, laden with bodies, bound for the wards of London. If she had her daughter with her, and a hospital train passed, she would usher her inside. She felt awful but didn’t like to think of it, the injured and the dying, so many thousands of them passing so close to her home.

  Twenty-three men from their village lost their lives. A memorial has been erected, just in front of the church. Twenty-three names carved in stone.

  But her husband came back safely somehow. She had never thought herself a particularly fortunate woman before. She knows that she is lucky now. Cannot escape it. On Sundays, in church, she can feel their eyes on her. Why her? Why him? What was so special about them?

  The woman stiffens. She can sense the train before she hears it. Then the faint click of the wires. Click click, click click, click click.

  “Here it comes,” she whispers.

  Her daughter puts her hand in hers. Her two sons clutch at her skirts. Her husband moves behind them all.

  It is upon them before they can think, a chaos of steam and sound. Two ordinary carriages, and then, in the middle, a different one, its roof painted white. They have just enough time to see the coffin inside, the purple lining of the carriage, the massive wreaths propped at either end, and then it has gone.

  The woman exhales, leaning back into her family, into her husband’s strong grip, into her luck.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  It’s over an hour and a half before Ada hears the back gate clang and Jack’s footsteps coming up the path. She stands and smooths her skirt and hair. The door opens and he is there, her husband, smelling of the pub and smoke and the cold outside air, the bulk of him filling the doorframe. It is as though she is seeing him for the first time. He catches in her throat

  He closes the door behind him, takes off his hat, and stuffs it in the pocket of his jacket. “What’s up?” he says, looking around him.

  “I was waiting for you.” It sounds silly, childish. “I mean, to eat,” she says, covering her embarrassment by going over to the stove. “I made some stew.”

  “Stew?” He takes a seat, looking around suspiciously, as though sniffing the air for danger.

  “And dumplings.” She tries to make her voice light, unconcerned. The beer has made her heady; she’s not used to drinking. “Are you hungry, then?”

  “I am, yes.”

  She ladles food on to plates, puts one down before him, and seats herself.r />
  “What’s all this, then?” he says again.

  “All what?” She pours him a glass of beer.

  “This.” He gestures with his hand. “What’s it in aid of? And you. You’ve done something.”

  “Have I?”

  He narrows his eyes. “Something’s different. Your hair.”

  “Oh—well—I just—put it up.” She can feel heat rising in her cheeks.

  He takes a spoonful of stew, staring at her. “Why’d you do that, then?”

  “I just—fancied a bit of a change.”

  He nods. At first he eats slowly, but then, when he has tasted it, he starts spooning it up in great mouthfuls and doesn’t speak until he’s finished. “It’s good,” he says, wiping his mouth. “Is there any more?”

  She stands and dishes him out another bowlful. He watches her as she crosses back toward him. She has hardly eaten anything herself.

  “Something’s up,” he says. “I can tell.”

  “I just—wanted to make something. For our anniversary. I wanted to mark it.”

  “That was Monday.”

  “I know. I just—today, I was passing the butcher’s. I thought to get some meat. Make something nice.”

  “I thought you’d forgotten.” He looks pleased.

  “No.” She shakes her head and takes her seat.

  Look at your husband.

  He wants to be seen.

  She watches him as he eats, the width of his hands as they grip the spoon, the dark spray of black hairs across the fingers.

  She has the sudden thought that she should like to kiss him. Kiss him on the knuckles of his hands. She thinks about doing it—about catching him as he lifts his spoon. It would be easy. The distance is not far. The thought makes her smile and blush. He looks up and sees her staring.

  “What?”

  She shakes her head. But he seems to catch something of what she was thinking, because the air between them changes. It crackles. She can see an answering color in his cheeks. A different question on his face. He finishes and puts his spoon down on the side of his plate. There’s a silence, then, “You look nice,” he says. His voice is low.

  “Thank you.”

  He holds her gaze, watching her as though she were an animal. She feels an old, renewed power in her. They sit like that for a moment, then, “Come here,” he says.

  She stands and crosses toward him.

  He reaches for her hand, catches it, and rubs his thumb along her wrist.

  “What have you been doing today, then?” he says, slowly. “Besides making stew.”

  “I was …”

  “What?”

  She is silent.

  “Go on.”

  He keeps passing his thumb lightly over her wrist. His touch is turning her to liquid. She leans back against the table.

  “I was … speaking with Ivy.”

  “Oh, yes?”

  “She wants me to go down to the abbey with her, tomorrow.”

  “To watch the burial?” He presses lightly, his thumb on her pulse, and she can feel herself, beating against him. “And what did you say to that?”

  “I just—”And suddenly it seems wrong not to tell him, not to share this with him, and so she reaches for him, clasping his hand. “I went to see a woman, Jack, earlier today.”

  “What woman?”

  “Someone Ivy went to see in the war.”

  “Oh?”

  “She’s”—she gives a small laugh—“supposed to be able to talk to the dead.” The air between them has changed again: It is stiller, but it is not a pleasant stillness. It is clenched, like a fist. She can feel his grip leave hers, the flesh detaching, drawing back. He lets go of her hand.

  “She lives in Walthamstow. The most ordinary house—you’d never think it …”

  “Think what?”

  “Well—that—someone like that lived there.”

  He is silent, bringing his hands together in his lap.

  “Are you all right?” she says quietly.

  “Go on,” he says. “You went to see this woman. Tell me what happened.”

  She feels a bit sick. What did happen, then? She can’t remember. Her palms are damp. “I—took a photograph with me.”

  “A photograph? Of what?”

  “Of—Michael. I took a photograph of Michael. To show to her.”

  “You took a photograph of Michael?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She told me not to look at it again.”

  “What did she tell you that for?”

  “She said it wasn’t good for me.”

  In the force of her husband’s scorn she can feel it wither, this feeling she has had all afternoon, feel it curl and die like a plant in the frost.

  “Something lifted,” she says. “And I felt lighter.” Her voice peters out. She can hear how ridiculous, how stupid, it sounds.

  There’s silence again. The matting on his chair creaks as he leans backward.

  “How much did you pay her?”

  “I—”

  “Go on.” He says. “How much?”

  She swallows. “Ten shillings.”

  He shakes his head and stands up. “You’re mad,” he says. He comes toward her, and for a moment, she thinks he will hit her, but he doesn’t; he puts his fingertip to her forehead instead, and presses there. “You’ve been mad for years. Living with the bloody dead. You might as well be dead. You think you’re a wife? You think you’re a real wife?”

  She opens her mouth, closes it again.

  “Do you?”

  “I was going to—just then. I was going to—”

  He takes his finger away, but she can feel where it was, burning against her skin. He grabs his hat and pulls it on.

  “You’re not a real wife,” he says. “You’re a ghost. You’re nothing but a fucking ghost.”

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  Victoria Station. A mother stands against barriers, her young son beside her. She has been here since eight o’clock this morning, determined to get a decent view. She has. She can see the empty platform that the train will come into: platform eight by the Buckingham Palace Road.

  Since she read about it in the papers she has been determined to be here, to bring her son to see his father. Her boy is almost four now and looks just like him. The same blue eyes, the same strong brow.

  She met him when she was fifteen. They were married two years later. He went away two months after that. Their son was born when he was away in France. She went and had a photograph taken, holding their baby up to the camera. She knows he had the picture on him when he died because she was sent his things. They arrived with the postman, a parcel of bloody uniform and, inside the jacket, a bundle of her letters and the photograph of her and their son. She was horrified, incredulous, putting her baby in the garden and locking the door. She rinsed the uniform, soaking out the blood. But not too much. She wanted it to smell of him still. Then she dressed a tailor’s dummy in it.

  She keeps it beside the bed.

  It has been hard to keep her son amused for the long hours they have waited. They have played all sorts of games. She has told him all about his father—all of the stories she can think of. Whenever her boy has needed to pee she has held him up over the barriers so that he could do it on the platform. She got some funny looks for that, but she wasn’t prepared to lose her place, and as the day has worn on, everyone has started doing it; most of the men have had a go. There was even a woman who squatted down on the ground, her skirts ballooning around her like a strange sea creature.

  But all around her, now, she can feel the crowd stirring. The train is coming; it’s time. She gathers her son, and he puts his arms around her neck. “He’s coming,” she whispers, to his neck, to his
ear. “Daddy’s coming now.”

  The boy looks around him. “Where is he? Where?”

  “Shhh.” She strokes his head. “He’s coming on the train.”

  The train approaches, and there’s a moaning in the crowd, and then they start pushing, jostling from the back. The woman is pressed hard against the barriers. Someone screams, “Stop it! There are children here. Stop!”

  The woman holds her child tighter. The pushing gets harder. On the other side of the barriers, officials move with clipped, hurried purpose. Then, as the train pulls into the platform, the barriers fall and the crowd swarms out. At first, she cannot see anything, just smoke and the steam that billows high up to the roof of the station, until the smoke clears and she can see the carriage. There’s an electric light inside. Some of the young men are trying to climb up on to the carriage roof, and everything is chaos, and all around women are sobbing, loud and unrestrained.

  “There’s your father,” she says, pointing. “There he is.’

  “Daddy!” he calls. “Daddy?” Her son wriggles from her arms and runs forward.

  Young men still pour on to the pavement. Policemen run here and there now, shouting at them to get back. The woman has a terrible vision of her son, trampled by running feet. She darts after him, but a large policeman holds her back.

  She screams for her boy. She can see him, twenty feet from her, looking wildly to and fro. Then, a policeman stops, leans down, takes her confused son by the hand, and leads him back to her. The mother bends forward, gathering him up. She sobs into his neck, holding him tight, tight.

  . . . . . . . . . . .

  There seem to be no streetlights anywhere out here, only the hunched, low shapes of buildings, and then scattered yellow lights at the bottom of the hill. Evelyn cannot remember which way she came. She walks a few steps forward and then remembers: Down the hill is where the docks are.

  Her feet are numb blocks at the end of her legs. All the time she was in Rowan’s house, all the time he was talking, there was no fire. She has no idea how long she was in there for. It might have been two hours; it might have been six.