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

by George Costigan

  O no. O no.

  Thirty years too late – I should have made them write about him. Invited them to channel their passion. Express it.

  O blessed retrospection.

  Elvis. His blatant peddling of sex disturbed me too, yes, and I chose to ignore him because of it. It took me far too long to realise the man could certainly sing and by then he, like Mother, was gone.

  A person needs must forgive themselves for who they were. This person must. Will.

  Starting here, just leaving Amiens.

  I bored myself, bored myself and others with my holiness of purpose.

  I encastled myself in my certainty. Was I rigid? I fear I might have been.

  See, I have no friends, not really. Val, yes I was close to Val for a time.

  Our first two years of teaching together, sharing our conviction. This is sudden sad – she was the last person I giggled with. Her marriage to John burst on the banks of his insatiable infidelities and she emigrated to Australia. I was shocked, my God I was, by her first letter detailing the characteristics of her new love, Eve, and their intimacy. Sex. When Val next confessed I was the only person, previous to Eve, she had ever considered ‘in this way’, I believe I came to some sad rigid lonely conclusion (frightened Enid – tell the truth rolling south! – you were frightened) and mea culpa, our correspondence dwindled to birthdays and Christmas and now, last year only Christmas and – I never even sent her either of my last two books!

  I will write to Val, from Paris. I will. She’ll be pleased for me.

  She’ll be proud of me. Maybe I will be, too. Rain, now.

  I am confused by the word ‘soul’.

  I know – it is my profession – language evolves. It must. Or we’d all end up speaking and thinking like the book of common prayer. Or worse.

  But.

  Where is this train now?

  My head is a jumble. A jangle.

  Yes, it is. You threw the rule-book away. Called it handcuffs.

  I want to linearise the past. Is there such a word? Yes, now there is.

  Because if I can put the past in order, and behind me – then won’t I be able to see clearly, a path forward?

  Well, Enid Makin, you don’t know and you must try.

  How fearful Daddy and I were to be left alone.

  The poor dear man completed one recovery – only to lose his partner and guide. And be left with me, unfit, unlearned, for emotional tasks.

  The title of my book in his memory, ‘Cruel, Cruel Life.’

  And in losing Mabel he completely lost God and consequently he and I lost one whole ritual – Sunday.

  I never asked him what he did while only I took communion and prayed for the strength and the right to forgive the Almighty for His vile robbery of both my parents. And he never asked me. A thing. We would not speak till we were around the Sunday tea-table. That’s a sizeable silence in a school-teacher’s weekend.

  When it changed, it was The Miners’ Strike. And because he needed to. Talk. Couldn’t stop himself. And, I now believe, he heard the clock ticking towards ‘finite’ and needed us to make up lost time. Which we couldn’t. No-one can but I don’t want to be sad, again.

  Then leave this. For now. Linearise tomorrow. What does the word ‘soul’ mean? In 1988.

  I think of Mabel’s soul gleaming when Daddy bought the piano.

  I saw it shining with delight for him. That was her soul. If it wasn’t we’re missing a whole new word. And it used to mean immortal. The everlasting part of a being. Didn’t the judge say, ‘And may God have mercy on your immortal soul?’ And the Sacrament was the ‘body and soul of Christ’. And it was born somewhere deeper than rational. ‘In your soul’ was a sacred inviolate place. Morality clung there. ‘He’s a bad soul’ – how utterly damning that was. I read once that no flowers grew on Billy the Kid’s Grave. Bad soul?

  And Daddy’s soul? Where was that by the time Burma was survived? It felt lost. Left scattered there, with the horrors that silenced him.

  And, why didn’t I ever ask him? Sad.

  Did England have a ‘soul’? Some would say it had surely been Churchill, and his inspirational command of language. Some might say now it was The Royals, but not I. Is it then a changing thing, evolving like everything now – in a rush. A race. The human race? The soul dragging behind somewhat, left. Stalled in Religion? Has my country of birth lost its soul? Was the soul obsolete in a world of house-brick sized walking telephones? Was Mrs Thatcher a version of the soul of Britain? And if yes – and she herself certainly gave off an impression of believing that – then am I on this train to escape that?

  Yes. In part. In some part.

  I am on this train, in part too, because of the all too audible sound of my father’s heart breaking.

  Or was that not, indeed, his soul?

  I will – and did – defend Mrs Thatcher this far. She approved the creation of more comprehensive schools (which, though I taught at a grammar school, I came to believe in as A Future) than any other Education secretary, before or since. And yes, she became the Milk-Snatcher, but being honest – my memory of crated school milk? It was horrid. Yes, calcium, yes teeth; but from this teacher’s point of view, that soubriquet, ‘Thatcher Milk Snatcher’, was a glib and convenient way of pigeon-holing her, pillorying her, and her (then) liberal attitude to education was conveniently obscured.

  Daddy hated her just for her politics, for her party, certainly at first. Later it became personal. And that is something else about Mrs T; she demands a personal response (Like being on this train, racing away?). Few are genuinely indifferent to her. I respected that quality, stemming from that energy, for as long as I could. Because I felt she was also hated because of gender, and some collective perception of her being unfeminine. Unattractive. I related to that, so I did. And what a nest of worms that is. And how deeply unqualified I feel to hold an opinion on any aspect of it. Even, seemingly, in my soul.

  Does your soul need experience? A participation? If yes, then in giving up teaching, have I lost mine?

  Paris. Soon. Metro to Austerlitz and last train into the evening and be there, Figeac, for a late late supper. Marvellous. All this change in one beaming day.

  It’s Dad.

  In the end, and I loved and adored and I respected my mother, my head and heart are still wrestling with the only man in my life; and the life I lived with him, after Mabel had gone.

  The train is slowing. Suburbs, les banlieues, are sprouting.

  I never told Daddy about the first book. The one about his wife.

  I never told him about any of them.

  Was I ashamed of him, or them? Or me? I never told hardly a soul about my books. Val. Lyndy. I preferred it that way. I still do.

  Bustle. Enid had heard people say, ‘I can’t take Paris. Too noisy, dirty, too snobby.’

  As she stepped from the train at Gare du Nord – they were the snobs! How could you not love this city? Shame to have no more time than to cross it, this evening, but, it would always be here. And God willing, soon only one train away.

  I’m a Francophile snob, she thought. Well then, I’m in the right place. Aren’t I?

  And my snobbery extends to pretending not to notice the travellers on the metro are as indifferent as those on the Victoria line. Big city life.

  Austerlitz. Last lap. The station seemed quiet, so a last seat to herself, then?

  ‘Un aller-simple pour Figeac. I believe there is a train in twenty minutes, arriving near midnight.’

  Enid had her money ready from the separate section of her purse.

  ‘Non, madame, there are no trains south this evening.’ Paris gaped.

  ‘What? No. You are – have I misunderstood you?’ Nooo.

  ‘Your French is excellent madame, so I imagine you know the word ‘grève’?

  Oh Paris, how could you? ‘A strike?’

  ‘Voila. Je regrette, madame but the next train to Figeac is eleven o’clock tomorrow morning.’

  He
was talking in slow motion. What would it take for him to say, ‘April Fool!’ or, ‘Just an SNCF blague madame…’?

  He was now looking at the queue behind her. Helpless her. ‘Madame?’

  Enid moved away, everything in slow-motion. Forgot her suitcase. The next person in the queue handed it back to her. She took it. Held it. Turned. Which way?

  She was alone in the city with nowhere to sleep. All momentum stalled. The journey, the adventure, the escape squashed. For a second she was even scared. And that cooling thought prompted a welcome surge of practicality. You have money, this city is awash with hotels. The nearest decent one to this station, please Ms Sensible.

  The station hotel was too ludicrously expensive to consider and the concierge, tacitly agreeing with her, offered options of pensions close by and a map which he marked with an arrowed path for her to follow.

  Rue Poliveau.

  Passing a phone-box she found change and the number, dialled Zoe and explained. Zoe was full of commiserations and would be there, never fear, to meet her tomorrow. ‘Best laid plans, eh?’ she said, surprising Enid with the quote. She gathered her suitcase, the map and following her arrows, arrived at an uninspiring building.

  ‘Poor thing. But, still six this weekend, Mother.’ Zoe didn’t disguise her pride.

  ‘And all wanting those dangerous breakfasts?’

  ‘Not all of them are from the North of England, no.’ Zoe slid into patient-with-your-parent mode.

  ‘Those beans...’

  ‘Yes, mother – and the bread fried as I showed you.’

  ‘And that spicy mud?’

  Sara didn’t disguise her disgust. ‘Ours not to reason why mother dear.’

  ‘That’s as well, then...’

  ‘Come down with me to shop? Figeac. To the Supermarket?’

  ‘You go,’ Sara shuffled away. ‘I hate those places – no-one talks to you. I’ll do the rooms.’

  ‘Just two singles – for the English woman and the American. Give him the south-facing one.’

  Zoe knew that as a rule, Northern English people considered a croissant and a coffee to be a long way from an acceptable first meal of the day. She had worked hard to convince an under-manager at Leclerc’s in Figeac. The man had weakened to her lipstick and eye-lash batting, but was convinced only when she brought in statistics Marie-Jo faxed at her request. There they were, in Governmental triplicate. Influx of the English...

  Bien.

  Baked beans, back bacon and HP sauce there would be.

  Enid accepted a single room with a single bed, left her bag there and crossed the boulevard to the Café Nuage for a light evening meal.

  It was functional and her appetite was thin. The wine was poor, really quite poor. She felt marooned in her favourite city. Awful feeling. And at the moment she told herself to stroll, take an evening stroll, the drizzle, la blasted bruine, began.

  The room, if it had an atmosphere, was at warmest, unwelcoming. Almost damp. The kind of room one didn’t want to undress in.

  A grève. A strike. Damn. Damn their bloody strike.

  Enid’s blood ran sudden ice-cold.

  What did you say? What did you just this second think? What was that thought?

  That thought was damn their strike.

  That is some betrayal.

  Outside the Parisian traffic roared. Damn that, too. ‘I fear, Ratcliffe, I fear.’

  He was 21, Shakespeare, when he wrote that. Scholars say. How do they know? How did he know?

  I fear too, Ratcliffe.

  I am afraid of my shallow breathing.

  Aware and afraid of a temper. Rising in me.

  And what is the fear? What is the temper, Enid? Miss Makin? It’s dad. It’s always Dad. I want the toilet.

  That was cold and damp too and she hurried back and lay on the bed. Pulled the cover over herself. Stared at the dreary ceiling.

  I’m in fear of events – strikes – overwhelming me. Sending me back. Tail between my legs.

  I’m afraid of events I can’t control, or predict. What was exciting – and distracting – when the trains rolled is now black ice and I slide and fear to fall.

  Like me and Dad after Mabel went.

  Everything starts with Dad. The only man in my life.

  We buried Mabel and we clung together there at her graveside. Babes in the wood. Canon Kirkby droning platitudes and generalisations about her – I do understand why Father broke with both the Church and it’s earthly representative in Pendlebury – and we clung together through the sandwiches and cakes, the stories and remembrances of her friends and neighbours and we clung together by the door, seeing them off and we cried when there was just us, tidying up, and tidying up to how she would have wanted it left and then we went to our rooms and we could never ever be, were never, that close again.

  We got on. Didn’t we? Did we?

  We got on with our lives.

  Mine fuller and more occupied than his, left alone to ruminate – telling me how he missed the companionship of the pits.

  At first, each weekend I would suggest an outing. Go for a drink even, or a walk and just the once he came.

  We took the Sheffield train to Edale, and we gently climbed gentle Mam Tor and him at the summit, weeping, weeping into the wind. Perhaps it was the sight of the open cast mine and it’s belching huge chimney but as we turned for home he squeezed my hand and said, ‘Good, love. Thanks.’ And I don’t remember us going out together again.

  Stray thoughts.

  Turn them off, with the light.

  She did. It didn’t work. The curtains too thin. The thoughts too fat.

  The traffic was passing from continuous to sporadic. There would be no silence. Not in a twenty-four-hour city.

  Enid had removed nothing more than her shoes.

  Dad and me and the Other Woman. That would be the title for this book, this chapter, this long pain.

  He’d hate me.

  He’s hating me now in heaven for saying ‘their damned strike’. I can hear you.

  Disappointed. Not for the first time. That was D.H. Lawrence. Remember Enid. Recall. Be clear now. Be brave.

  Penguin books were prosecuted – at the Old Bailey no less – for publishing, finally, the unexpurgated Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

  Father sat in his chair, read the newspapers, listened to the news and re-cycled their opinions as an opening for a conversation. I didn’t welcome it, as I feared I would disagree and, typically I tried to say nothing. Father, I believe the phrase is – I don’t know its provenance – yes, I do, it’s betting at poker – Damon Runyan – upped the ante.

  ‘Disgusting.’

  I said, ‘What is?’

  ‘Trying to publish filth.’

  ‘How do we know it’s filth?’

  ‘It’s an obscenity trial. And I can read.’

  ‘And have you read the book?’

  ‘No, and I wouldn’t want to.’

  Then. ‘Have you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  His eyes widened. He turned to look at me. I remember screwing my courage to the sticking place. ‘Yes father, I have.’

  ‘You have read those words, Enid?’

  ‘All those words. In their context, yes.’

  ‘How? How have you read them if it’s not published?’

  ‘I read it at University.’

  O Jesus Mary and Joseph but that cold beat of silence. That precursor to worse. He almost snarled at me, at that word. ‘O…’

  I said, ‘He’s a local writer. They’re proud of him.’

  ‘He’s a disgrace.’

  ‘He’s a miner’s son, father.’ And as he didn’t speak, I dared add, ‘And you heard those words down the pit.’

  ‘Aye, I did. Where they belong.’

  ‘Oh, Dad,’ Now I made my mistake, if mistake it was. ‘Trust me, I know. I’ve read almost everything he’s written. The man is a beauty. You’re wrong.’

  Nothing more he could say, now I had exposed his literal i
gnorance. And perhaps he tasted condescension in my voice. A teacher’s voice at his table.

  Six days later I was ‘proved’ right. By law. And I had proved to both of us he was capable of being both puritan and reactionary.

  Did he forget? And forgive? There is a delicate moment in the parent-child and now adults-both axis and he made me feel I had forced something.

  He sulked and rumbled and picked petty squabbles he could win and I wished I had more life outside the house.

  Did my breadwinning take what little was left of his masculinity? That, his masculinity, and what he felt he ought to be able to do with it – Everything – become a lead dead weight. He became a knot, my father. And the Guinness loosened it, yes. But it was Mabel who took him to drink and without her the drink came to him, alone. Not the same thing. And, worst, no piano playing. He buried that with his wife.

  She took the tunes with her.

  My head hurts. Why this dank room, why this night, why now?

  Why can’t I be where I want to be? Why am I being held here?

  I don’t want these thoughts. This room, this cell. Because of a strike.

  ‘Yes, daughter, like The Miner’s Strike. That I gave the last gasps of my physical energy for. My being.’

  ‘Whose Side Are You On?’ became England; and my Father in his seventy-fourth year got dressed, made a lunch, brewed a flask, said, ‘Duty calls,’ and caught a train to join a picket line across the county border in Yorkshire. He came back as I had never seen him – frightened. He only said, ‘Coppers with no numbers on their shoulders? She’s pitched her army agin us.’ Thinking now, being frightened must have reminded him of the war. And, to be reminded of that, on England’s green and pleasant land.