by Susan Gandar
She’d heard it said before, the war would be over by Christmas, when the man and the soldiers came to their village to take the boys away. That was three years ago.
‘We’ll have a holly wreath on the front door…’
Jess could see it, the hope on her face, the need to know that when the war was over everything would be the same as it had been before. But how could it be? When the war started, Jess had had a father, a mother and a baby brother. Now she had no one. And the Major’s wife had had three sons. Now she had only one.
‘And a big tree in the hallway…’
Jess read the papers, down in the kitchen, when the Major had finished with them, and it was easy to see that the casualty numbers were going up, not down. There were pages and pages of them. And the highest casualty figures were in the ranks of the junior officers.
‘If Sir Douglas Haig gets his way, mother, I doubt very much if you’ll have any sons at all by the time it gets to Christmas.’
This wasn’t her Tom talking. It was another Tom, thin-lipped and straight-backed, sitting at the table.
‘I’m sorry, Jess.’
He was looking up at her.
‘I know you had to queue for hours.’
The Major and his wife had eaten their breakfast but their son’s remained untouched. She bobbed her head.
‘Sir.’
She leant across to remove his plate. His eyes on her face, the warmth of his breath on her cheek, she could feel him but she couldn’t look. And she couldn’t touch. She didn’t dare. His parents would see and she would be thrown out of the house onto the street.
The Major’s wife rose from the table.
‘If you would excuse me.’
Tom and his father stood.
‘Jess, clear breakfast and then come up. We need to talk about today’s shopping list.’
Today just for once, the opening and the stripping, the airing and the clearing, and the brushing and the sweeping, and the Major’s wife and her shopping list, they could all wait. She sat down at the kitchen table and she ate, down to the last crumb, the egg and bacon on toast that Tom had left for her on his plate. Would they, one day in the future, be able to sit down in the same room, at the same table, to eat a meal together? She pushed the thought away. Just get through today. That would be difficult enough. Tomorrow, the future, whatever it held, would have to wait.
She climbed back up the stairs to the ground floor. The door leading into the living room was closed. Eavesdropping on your master and mistress’ conversations was something Ellie had insisted she should learn how to do. Particularly when the conversations were taking place behind closed doors – because that was when they were talking about you. She leant her ear up against the door. She could hear nothing. The Major and his son were doing their talking quietly.
She went up the stairs to the first floor and knocked on the bedroom door.
‘Enter.’
The Major’s wife was sitting, a notebook open on her lap and pen in hand, beside the window. There was a real chance if she was sent out shopping, and had to queue at more than one shop, that she wouldn’t get back until after Tom had left. Perhaps it would be better that way. Having to remain silent, with her eyes down, as he walked past her and out of the door was going to be more than she could bear.
‘We haven’t talked about your mother.’
Jess stiffened.
‘Tom tells me that she had a cold and it went to her chest…’
They’d agreed a plan. Her mother had died from pneumonia. Suicide, however desperate the situation, would be regarded by the Major and his wife as a sign of weakness, unreliability, even insanity.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
And if the mother was insane then it was more than likely that her daughter would be too.
‘She went quickly and with no pain. A good life…’
The Major’s wife closed her notebook.
‘And a good death.’
She put down her pen.
‘There’s no shopping for you to do today. The Major and I have eaten more than enough. We will make do with whatever is left in the larder…’
Jess curtseyed.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You may go.’
She turned towards the door.
‘Tom has also asked whether it would be possible for us to pay you for the work you do here.’
Ellie was on ten pounds a year but Jess couldn’t expect that. The house next-door was Ellie’s third job; she was far more experienced.
‘The Major and I have discussed it and we feel that it would be best if we keep to the agreement we made with your mother. You’ve been here less than three months. And you came here knowing nothing. And it costs us money to feed and clothe you.’
One pound, two pounds, even just ten shillings, would make all the difference.
‘When you’ve been here a year and have proved that you are capable of performing all the duties that are expected of you, without instruction, then we will reconsider the situation.’
She was worth nothing, not a pound, not a shilling, not a single penny.
‘But you will always have a home here. For however long you want to stay.’
She curtseyed.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘You may go.’
She wanted to find Tom, to thank him for what he had tried to do, but wherever he was and wherever she went either the Major or his wife, or both of them, were always with him.
And now, finally, three hours later but just seconds before he was due to leave, here they were, alone together in the dining room. She tightly buttoned up in her maid’s uniform. He tightly buttoned up in his officer’s uniform.
‘You’ll wait for me.’
He stepped towards her.
‘Promise you’ll wait for me.’
The glass in the windows shook.
‘I will come back.’
The ground under their feet trembled. The war had taken her father and now it was going to take her lover. The dogs were streaming down the hill towards the fox sitting, hunched, waiting for death, in the ditch – and there was nothing she could do to stop them.
‘Tell me that you love me, Jess. Tell me that you love me…’
She stepped towards him.
‘I–’
‘Tom?’
The Major’s wife was standing in the doorway.
‘Your father’s found a cab.’
Jess turned towards the dining table.
‘It’s waiting outside. Hurry now, you mustn’t be late for your train.’
And now the clocks were striking mid-day. He was walking along the hallway and she was standing there, eyes down, holding the front door open, his locket round her neck burning into her flesh. He was kissing his mother’s cheek and shaking his father’s hand. He was turning to look at her and nodding the nod that a son of the house would give to the maid-of-all-work. He was putting on his cap and she was curtseying and he was walking out of the house, down the steps, and across the pavement to where his cab was waiting.
And her heart and her soul were both screaming, ‘Don’t go, or if you have to go, then take me with you.’
THIRTY-FOUR
THE BUS SLOWED. THE doors opened and closed and she was left, standing alone in the rain, in a main road lined with four-storey late-Victorian houses. She turned and headed back in the direction the bus had come from. Grand Avenue, Acacia Grove, Victoria Road, the names which had once meant everything, a good education and a good family, a house in a street you and your wife could be proud of, now meant peeling windowsills, kicked in front doors and piles of rotting rubbish.
The houses gave way to a parade of shops: a carpet supplier, an electrician, a hairdresser, a butcher and a baker, all boarded up. Squeezed between the electrician and the hairdresser was a squat, red brick building. There was no sign or notice board but it looked like some sort of community hall. The doors were open and propped up outside on the pavement was a bl
ackboard advertising soup and a sandwich for 50p.
‘Jane, dear, why don’t you bring that heater over? This poor girl is blue with cold.’
The woman’s hair was grey, her back was stooped and her hands were crooked but her eyes sparkled like a child’s.
‘Why don’t you sit yourself down, dear?’
She was pushed, very gently, into a chair.
‘There’s nothing like tomato soup on a chilly day. And, for the sandwich, we’ve got either ham or cheese?’
There was a gust of warm air against her leg.
‘There you go, now. That should do it. And why don’t you take your coat off and put it over the back. You and it will dry faster. And, Jane, dear, couldn’t she have a bit of both, ham and cheese?’
‘Yes, Joan, I’m sure we can manage that.’
Sam looked from right to left and then from left to right. She blinked and blinked again. Jane and Joan were identical. They were even wearing the same checked skirt, white blouse and blue cardigan. And they had the same dancing eyes.
Jane disappeared through a door.
‘That’s better. Now, dear, what’s your name?’
Joan pulled up a chair.
‘Sam. Sam Foster.’
‘We haven’t seen you here before…’
Rows of wooden chairs stretched through to a platform at the front of the hall. Vases of white lilies stood either side of a podium. “God is Love. God is Light” was written in large gold letters on the wall behind it. She’d only been in a church once and that was for her grandmother’s funeral. She stood up.
‘I think perhaps…’
Joan grabbed hold of her hand. ‘There’s a bed, no, several beds, and lots of machines, in a place that’s high up, that has no windows…’
Could it be the intensive care unit? If it was, how did she know?
Sam sat back down. Joan patted her hand.
‘That’s better.’
The door opened. Jane walked out of the kitchen carrying a tray.
‘Eat up, dear, you don’t want it to get cold.’
She now had a twin sitting either side of her.
‘Jane, dear, did you remember?’
‘Yes, Joan, dear, in its usual place in the cupboard over the top of the fridge.’
The sandwich was piled high with ham and cheese.
‘So what’s happened, Sam? Why aren’t you at school?’
Chutney oozed out between the slices of bread.
‘My dad’s in hospital…’
The twins nodded.
‘He’s got a haemorrhage, in his head, it happened yesterday…’
Joan leant forward in her chair.
‘And what do the doctors say, dear?’
Joan had seen the hospital. What else might she be able to see?
‘He will be all right, won’t he?’
Joan shook her head.
‘I’m sorry, my dear, but we can’t say what you want us to say because we simply don’t know and to lie would be wrong.’
She reached out and took Sam’s hand.
‘But whatever happens, however bad it gets, you must never give up. Just ask for help and it will come. Because help is always near…’
She needed help now.
‘I’m seeing things but I’m not just seeing them, it’s like I’m there, like I’m somebody else, walking down the street, wearing their clothes…’
Joan nodded.
‘And when I woke up in my room, yesterday, and this morning, when I was with Dad, at the hospital…’
Joan smiled.
‘Being different, seeing things, hearing things, going to places other people can’t, is a gift – a very special one. But it isn’t easy. Five hundred years ago, they would have called you a witch or a heretic. You would have been tortured, stoned, even burnt at the stake.’
Joan leant back in her chair.
‘There’s a girl. She’s waiting for you. You’ll recognise her when you see her.’
She closed her eyes.
‘Come now, Sam, it’s time for you go.’
She followed Jane towards the door.
‘Is she… all right?’
Joan’s eyes were still tightly closed.
‘A cup of strong, hot tea and a biscuit always works wonders.’
Sam threw her rucksack over her shoulder.
‘Thank you for the sandwich, and the soup. They were both lovely.’
She pulled out her purse.
‘I need to pay you.’
‘No. No. That won’t be necessary.’
‘But it said on the–’
‘When Joan was five years old, she was outside in the garden and, suddenly, there was her favourite uncle, Jack. Nobody had said that he was coming for a visit but there was nothing else odd about it. He was just her usual Uncle Jack. She ran inside to tell our mother and the phone went. It was her Aunt Alice. Uncle Jack was dead. He had died that morning from a heart attack.’
Joan glanced over Sam’s shoulder.
Sam turned to look. The street was empty.
THIRTY-FIVE
SHE TWISTED THE KEY in the lock. The door opened and got stuck. She kicked it.
If being “different” meant spending the afternoon with two spooky old ladies, in some weird church in the middle of nowhere, then whoever or whatever it was who was trying to suck her up into their life could stick it. If it dared to come back, she wouldn’t allow it in. She would order it to go away.
‘I’m home.’
She threw her rucksack down, took off her jacket and hung it, in its usual place, next to her father’s coat. She buried her nose in the sleeve. He was there. It was him; the father who used to pick her up when she was very little, swing her up and over his shoulders, so she could sit there, the queen in her very own castle, looking out at her kingdom, the rivers, the fields and the hills, rolling away as far as she could see.
‘I’m in the kitchen.’
Her mother peered at Sam over her glasses.
‘I didn’t expect you until after the fireworks.’
Sam slumped down at the table.
‘Heard anything?’
‘I called an hour ago. No change. How was school?’
‘OK.’
She shouldn’t have run away. She should have stayed with Katie, Lou and Shelly and she should have gone to the fireworks. This time last year, the four of them, just girls, there had been no boys, had sat on the beach, stuffing themselves with fish and chips, oohing and ahhing at the rockets exploding up into the sky. It wasn’t their fault they didn’t understand. How could they? If it had been Katie’s father in hospital then she, Sam, would have behaved in exactly the same way.
Her mother’s mobile rang.
‘Hello, Rachel Foster speaking.’
It was a man.
‘Right, yes. How long do you think it will take? Yes, I understand.’
Her mother was doing the listening rather than the talking.
‘Thank you. Yes, we’re fine. Thank you for letting us know. Yes, I’ll be here all evening.’
She put the phone down.
‘That was Mac.’
It wasn’t good news. She knew that already, without her mother having to tell her.
‘There’s too much pressure on the brain so they’re going to have to drill a hole and suck off some blood. It’s a routine procedure. They’ll call when it’s over. Shouldn’t take more than one, maybe two, hours…’
Her mother closed her laptop.
‘Do you want something to eat? There’s the chicken casserole, the one we were supposed to have yesterday…’
Her mother upstairs in the bedroom crying, Sam downstairs in the kitchen getting drunk, just thinking about it made her to want to creep upstairs and crawl under her duvet.
‘Thank you for taking it out of the oven…’
Had she?
‘Casseroles are always better the next day…’
If she had, and she must have done, if that’s what her moth
er said, she had no memory of doing so.
‘No, thanks, I’m not hungry. Maybe later…’
Her mother picked up her mobile.
‘I’ll let you know if I hear anything…’
She unlocked the door that led out onto the small balcony. A jumble of rooftops, a straggle of grass, a strip of shingle and there was the sea. Tonight it was calm. But when the wind and rain howled in off the Channel, standing out there, on the balcony, was like being the captain on the bridge of a ship.
And that would be where her father could always find her when the weather was rough. He would come up to her room and they would go outside onto the balcony. Together, side by side, they would battle the towering waves that threatened to suck the two of them down into the depths of the deep, dark ocean. But her father wasn’t standing beside her – she would be doing the battling alone.
There was a long, drawn-out sigh, followed by the tearing of the air. The surrounding darkness was split by a flash of white light as a rocket shot into the sky. She expected to see the lights on the promenade twinkling off into the distance, the wings of the angel statue silhouetted against the moonlit sky, the cliffs standing sentinel at either end of the town. But what she expected no longer existed.
Stretching out ahead was a vast wasteland; a filthy, oozing sea of mud studded with the blackened stumps of lifeless trees. Craters, filled with slimy water, touched and overlapped all the way to the horizon. Beaten down into this mess were bits of equipment, helmets, rifles, coils of barbed wire, even a military tank.
A gold ring, embedded in a piece of rock, lay beside her feet. She looked more closely. The piece of rock wasn’t rock but a human finger. As she looked even more closely, the finger connected itself to a hand, a hand attached itself to an arm, a head stuck itself onto a neck, the neck onto a back with two shoulders. The bones jerked and a rat, as big as a cat, tore itself out of the ribcage of a man who used to be somebody’s husband.
The sea of mud wasn’t that at all. It was a sea of blood and bones. There were arms, legs, heads and hands, some still wearing clothes, some still with eyes and hair, layer upon layer of them. And the blood and the bones weren’t all dead. Some were still alive and still suffering. Their cries rose up all around her.
A head rose up. A pair of blue eyes blinked. And blinked again.