The Solider's Home: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  She sat on the bed.

  He’s right – too full. At least lie down, eh? She zipped her skirt down and folded it onto the dresser. Her blouse on the back of the chair, the nylons and belt and her bra went in a drawer and her pyjamas were cotton warm as she slid back into that bed where everything of human wonder had happened to her.

  I’ll never sleep.

  These cigarettes are strange. Leave them and they burn away. A rolled one goes out. He lit another and sat and looked and felt and smelt and breathed in and breathed out.

  She’s here. They would be married for this week.

  ‘Where did you sleep?’

  ‘Above you.’

  ‘Not next door?’

  ‘I – chopped that bed up.’

  ‘Firewood?’

  ‘I used it for firewood, yes.’

  She nodded, waited. No more.

  She sat up in the bed, patted it and he sat.

  He said, ‘You’re here to say goodbye – not write it.’

  ‘Yes.’

  They stared at each other.

  Slowly their eyes dropped. Precious time passed. ‘Your life is there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why six days?’

  ‘The most I dared leave him. Wanted to leave him,’ she added softly.

  Silence.

  ‘Sara comes Sundays.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I didn’t tell her you’d be here.’

  ‘Ohh. Why?’

  ‘Don’t know...’

  He stood and left her. She heard him light a cigarette. He came back with a saucer, sat down and tapped the cigarette on the saucer’s edge.

  ‘These taste burnt,’ he said.

  ‘They roast the tobacco.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Different flavour.’

  He nodded. ‘It’s different.’ He took a deep pull.

  ‘Tell me about David.’

  She told him David had asked her to marry him and she had said she couldn’t until she’d seen him, Jacques. And, of course, he had paid.

  ‘What about this Jerry?’

  ‘He thinks I should.’

  ‘And – what about you?’

  She looked him straight in the eye. ‘I think I should.’

  ‘But you came for my permission?’

  ‘Your blessing I hoped.’

  He looked at her, stubbed the cigarette dead and put the saucer on the dresser.

  ‘So – what about you?’ she said.

  ‘What about me? What do I think?’

  She nodded, waited.

  ‘I try never to think.’

  ‘And you fail.’

  ‘Every hour.’

  He sat on their bed. Bearded, hairy and heavy. Silence fell.

  Simone and Jacques. Jacques and Simone.

  ‘I have coffee,’ she heard.

  ‘I’d love some,’ he heard.

  He took a bucket and she listened to him go down the stairs and into the field. There was a well, then. Or a source, a spring.

  She thought of dressing and stayed where she was.

  She remembered his chest lying on hers and how deeply they had loved.

  Would, always. Why not? He was Jacques. He was Jacques.

  I must write to Jack – but I’ll be home before it got there.

  The cement-work round the window lintels was neat and painstaking. Pains taken. Pain.

  Get up – get dressed.

  She was still sitting there when he came back in and set the water to boil. She listened to him washing two cups. Grinding beans with a mortar. He stopped. Silence.

  ‘What?’ she called.

  ‘I can’t remember – do you take sugar?’

  ‘I didn’t. One now, please.’

  He moved again.

  She yawned, then shivered. It was cold. Her feet were cold. It was bright but cold outside.

  At home she made instant coffee. Across the ocean it took the time for the electric kettle to boil. What will I be at the end of six days at this pace?

  She heard him pouring liquid. He appeared with two cups. He put his on the dresser and when he reached across to put hers on the bed-side chair and say, ‘It’s hot,’ he inhaled the night-smell of her.

  Isn’t it mine? It was.

  I daren’t ask him what he’s thinking.

  He said, ‘You’ll give me time to think about – what I think. About– David.’

  Simone felt the smile rise from her toes to her eyes. ‘I would give you the moon on a sixpence.’

  ‘I don’t want that.’

  ‘I know. Forgive me my nerves, please.’

  She watched him pick up his cup and the cup find a way through the beard and he slurped and the cup went to his knees and his hands wrapped around it. She did the same and was almost scalded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We take milk in coffee. Us Americans.’

  ‘Do you want some?’

  ‘No. I’m French here.’

  He slurped again. She watched him wipe his moustaches and beard and re-wrap his hands round the cup.

  She remembered that silence with him was never a problem – but in just six days shouldn’t I ration them?

  Why? Who are you to judge? Decide?

  He felt her toes through the blankets, pushing at his thigh.

  What?

  ‘Sit on my toes, they’re cold.’

  He lifted and sat gently. Through the blanket through his threadbare trousers passed the heat of him.

  When it was time for the silence to end he said, ‘Tell me about our son.’

  ‘I’ve brought photos.’

  ‘In words?’

  The day rose and she talked.

  ‘I brought letters and drawings from him, too.’

  ‘Good. But keep talking. I’ve missed talk.’

  An hour later, dressed, they sat on the doorstep watching the morning stroll by.

  ‘Tell me the top of your thoughts, please, Jacques?’

  ‘That I’ll never see him.’

  She took his heavy hand to hers. He watched her hand squeezing at his but the nerve-ends didn’t yet register.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Can you love David?’

  ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘You wrote – you said he has a wife...’

  ‘Divorced.’

  Silence. A cuckoo far off.

  ‘So he isn’t Catholic?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Not any more. You?’

  ‘I don’t go.’

  Silence.

  ‘Anywhere,’ he added. ‘Maurs, to post. Buy tobacco. Things.’

  ‘You’ve been busy.’

  ‘I won’t go anywhere now it’s done.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Why would I?’

  ‘Live in – Paradise – without people?’

  ‘It’s not for other people.’

  His swollen hard heavy hand. Hers. Small and soft. The cuckoo called again.

  ‘Sara?’

  He shrugged that thought away.

  ‘You came back all this way to finally leave me?’

  ‘I said – he’s a Good Man.’

  ‘He deserves you?’

  ‘Jacques – I think it’s the best thing for Jacques.’

  Jacques’ father nodded.

  No sound. Pine trees moving in the thin breeze. ‘Are you hungry?’ he wondered.

  ‘No. Talk to me.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘What you feel?’

  ‘Loss.’

  ‘Me too.’ Silence.

  After a lot of silence she took his hand to her mouth, brushed it with her lips and returned it to his knee. He stared at it.

  ‘What do we do with five more days?’

  ‘You always asked me questions I didn’t know the answer to...’

  When he prepared lunch she walked a little, down the slope. This view, she thought, must be awesome night and day. He came to the door, watched
her being here at long long last and then she turned. She turned and waved and she smiled. And when she turned away a dam broke in him. Warm, cleansing, bitter, fearful, proud, love-sick, self-pitying, shocked, furious, helpless, thankful tears – the man emptied the surplus out like a great long piss. Tears for my own funeral he thought and turned back to the food.

  Simone sat. This earth was his. This view, this sight. These flies and moths, birds and worms and the moles he’d never see were his. They all live in his paradise. And so do you.

  Come on – you are the paradise. Be honest, Simone. It’s paradise Now.

  And when I’ve gone?

  How do – how can I – leave it healing?

  Oh God, have I come here, like some nascent sadist, to nail this man into this earth? Surely not.

  Don’t you know?

  No, I don’t know a darn thing now I’m here, with him, in this place.

  I know – What?

  I know this is another unknown time with this good man. And? What else?

  That I cannot give him what he wants. For more than these six days.

  That’s pretty arrogant, girl. And pretty shallow, too. And so what about what I want?

  I want to be loved by him again.

  And that’s plain selfish, mademoiselle.

  I want him to accept my version of our future. And do you think he possibly can?

  Who dare say what that man can do? Look around at what he’s done.

  O.K. But then – is it fair to fuck him?

  I won’t ‘fuck’ him!

  I have need of him. I love him. He is the father of my child and – he is mine. I’ve tried so hard to forget that. Deny it. In my American world. But here – it’s true. Though this is all I’ll ever have of him.

  O.K...

  So, do I pretend these days won’t end? Or – try to make him glad I’ve gone?

  Simone – let the ants in your hair again. Let your sense of responsibility trust you!

  He watched her stand, turn, walk towards him.

  ‘You have seven years to tell me about.’

  ‘Simone – I’d rather not talk than talk about the past.’

  ‘Was it bad?’

  He smiled, it felt to him, for the first time since her train pulled out of the station.

  ‘Are you going deaf?’

  She smiled. ‘I hear you,’ she said.

  ‘Good.’

  They ate. When he looked up again she was still smiling. ‘What?’

  ‘When you smile I see your son.’

  She thought – it’s five years since I had a salad without Thousand Island dressing on it. And Jack never has.

  ‘Have you – did you use a horse?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Those blinkers,’ she gestured at them.

  Jacques looked at her, finished his mouthful carefully, and said, ‘They’re mine.’

  Simone blinked.

  He put another forkful together, concentrating. When he raised it to his mouth her eyes were waiting for his.

  She looked at this, her man, as if for the first time. ‘I see.’

  ‘I couldn’t with them on.’

  ‘O.K.’

  They ate.

  As they washed up she said, ‘Will we – be together tonight?’ He turned slowly and smiled again.

  ‘Do you think I’ll say no?’

  ‘Vermande – I don’t know what you’ll do.’

  ‘Well, I’ll lie with you.’

  ‘Oh, good.’

  My. soul. is. in turmoil. My. soul. is. at peace. nearly. nearing.

  His body. is part. of my. turmoil. and this. coming. peace.

  I. wish. this. sex. could. never. never.

  ever. end—

  ‘Go on go on never never stop...’

  ‘I don’t intend to...’

  ‘I have missed every centimetre of you. And the smell of you.’

  ‘That’s us. I missed us.’

  Another deep bearded kiss. Never stop.

  ‘I said once—‘ he gasped a breath and lifted up onto straightened arms to look down at her, ‘—words were better than loving.’ Her pelvis ground a new angle into his and sensation robbed him of words and she laughed.

  ‘And you were wrong, weren’t you?’

  ‘Very, very very very wrong,’ each word a new search inside her velvet. A new and an old search. A memory and the making of a new memory.

  ‘What? What was that thought?’ Her hands grabbed the beard and shook the head as their flesh re-entwined, slid into a different shape of legs and sweat.

  ‘I was remembering and forgetting.’

  ‘Which was best?’

  He kissed her bony shoulder. ‘The forgetting.’

  Her finger nails scratched slow and deep across his arse and he arched, ‘Ohhhhhh.’

  ‘Let’s forget everything but this.’

  Harmony and trust and the talking was done and the turmoil on hold and the sky too as they hunted down each other’s orgasm.

  ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Day two,’ he said.

  She punched his shoulder. ‘O.K. – when’s Sunday?’

  ‘Day four.’

  ‘Friday, then.’

  ‘If you say so.’ They lay.

  ‘What time? On – Tuesday?’

  ‘The train? Tea-time. Twenty after five.’

  That anvil thrown in his pond. Tidal waves of silent bedlam. They lay. Listening to the other’s breathing.

  ‘Your body’s changed, my man. All these muscles. Sinews. Like you’re a body-builder.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A man who builds up his body – his muscles.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To show.’

  ‘Show who?’

  ‘Other people, silly.’

  ‘Ohh – women?’

  ‘Well – no, men really, I think.’

  ‘What! Why?’

  ‘I guess to make them envious. To encourage them to look like that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re like Jack! “Why?”’ A beat of silence.

  ‘Have you seen these people?’

  ‘In magazines – sure.’

  ‘Are they – attractive?’

  ‘No! They look gross.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You don’t. You look like you – tough. They’re all oily and disfigured.’

  He nodded.

  ‘And I’ve put on weight, haven’t I?’ She said.

  ‘There’s more of you – but that’s good. It wouldn’t matter to me if you were a mountain.’

  She kissed him. He took the flesh magic of her lips and kissed it right back. In the briefest moment ecstasy engulfed them again, as natural as the night that must at some point fall around them.

  He asked. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘No! You?’

  ‘Not for cooking.’

  ‘No..?’

  ‘I’d like to eat your feet.’

  ‘Do.’

  She sat at one end of the lovely wreckage of the bed, Jacques at the other with her toes in his mouth. Her ankle bones and instep to lick and kiss. The flesh of her calf in his hand, the muscle warm and liquid. He lay that leg on his shoulder, kissing the calf and shin and took her other foot, the underside of it, each toe in turn, oh but there was no particle of her he couldn’t love. He placed that leg on his other shoulder, his eyes on her. Her, her self, her body, her wee breasts, the soft darker hair at her armpits, her spread arms, her hair on the pillow, but all her sexuality and sensuality irrelevant to the smile at her mouth and in her eyes – the smile that was his and for him alone.

  And for her she watched this incandescent transformed smile between her thighs, saw some of the cares of the years had left him, saw they would return when she left, left him in the void that was inevitable, and she squeezed his face, as much to distract herself as him.

  ‘What?’ the face asked.

  ‘Nothing I want to put into words,’ she said.


  His hands rested on the flat of her stomach, a thumb reaching into the hair around the very her of her and she took one hard hand, pulled him forward so she could kiss into the palm of it and take it to her breast and her legs dripped from his shoulders and it could all continue, this their brilliant oblivion.

  ‘Are we still Day Two?’

  ‘I think it’s night two, but yes.’

  ‘Would you like a cigarette?’

  ‘I’ll go – what would you like?’

  He sat up in the bed to pull the sheet away and she took his flaccid self to her lips, hearing the breath rush out of his mouth and everything was forgotten as she took what she liked, as he crashed back into the pillows, wide and wanting her to never never stop, again. Wanting to not climax, ever, so it would last till her boat had sailed.

  The room was black with night but sight was past any relevance now.

  ‘Day Three...’ Silence.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘no more numbers.’

  ‘And no more “sorry”. Yeah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I feel sore.’

  ‘I am sore.’

  ‘Can we have a bath?’

  ‘A swim?’

  ‘No, a warm bath.’

  ‘No.’

  He looked out at the morning sky, clear as if there were only blue in Nature’s palette.

  ‘Well...’

  Jacques had lit a fire and filled his biggest pot, his smaller one and the bucket with source water by the time she rose, only a little dressed, and he grinning like a naked loon.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can wash you.’

  ‘Ohh, I’ll settle for that. Where’s the soap?’ A silence.

  She laughed. ‘I should have guessed! What do you use?’ Silence. She laughed again.

  ‘You mean we can wet each other?’ He grinned.

  ‘When is market day in Maurs?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘But the shops are open today, yes?’

  ‘You can’t leave me.’

  ‘I’m not. We’re going.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Jacques – I’m an American – we go shopping!’

  ‘There’s nothing I want.’ His face clouded. ‘And – I don’t want other people... taking a second of my time...’

  ‘They won’t – you’ll get to watch me talking to them. You’ll get to see me from a little distance. And me you. It’ll be good practice for us. And when I’ve done one whole hour of that we can come back here and we can lather one another. Get it?’