That night in the parlour, his mother rubbing her fingers raw on the rosary beads, he realises she is doing more than reciting the Hail Marys. Between the bouts there are other words. ‘Join up,’ she keeps saying. ‘Enlist.’
‘Enlist where?’
Mamma doesn’t take her eyes off Alessa. Is she waiting for Alessa to rise? ‘Join up. The Regio Esercito.’
‘The Regio Esercito? Join the army?’ Is he hearing her all wrong? ‘You want both your children dead?’ The only favour his mother has ever asked his father is to keep Seppe out of the war, and she has paid for it with every month that the war has continued. But now she wants him far away from her too. He has failed her, failed them all.
Seppe doubles over, can’t look at her. He barely hears her through the ringing in his ears. ‘It will keep you safe. It will keep me safe.’
Rage surges, the rage that belongs to his father’s actions. ‘You want me out there as cannon fodder and this will secure our safety?’ He stares at her now, but she won’t meet his gaze. ‘Fascism has ruined our family and you want me out there, fighting to make it stronger?’ She hates him. She’s a madwoman. It’s the grief talking. It has to be.
‘Safe from your father.’
The knot in his stomach unwinds slightly, becomes a rescue line. ‘But you will still be here.’ The Major is right; Seppe is a coward. How could he leave his mother here? And yet … how could he stay, now his mother has thrown him the rope?
‘With you in the army, he can be proud. It will help with his council election, help him to forget any rumours that might spread about this.’ She reaches for Alessa’s hand, gathers up the rosary in the other.
‘No, Mamma. Come with me. Let us go away. Leave him.’
She smiles up at him, sadness permutating everything. ‘You know I cannot. But you alone – you can.’
Is this true? Possibly. Can Seppe believe it? Enough. For a while – if even for a short while – this will save his mother from more beatings. That was the way to look at it. All the options are bad options.
The day after they bury Alessa, Seppe makes his way to the Livorno town square and enlists. Days later he stands shivering with the others against the stone walls of the station, waiting for the train that will consign them to basic training. There are maybe fifty of them, some Seppe recognises from church and, before that, from school. Plenty for his father to move through, clasping hands and accepting condolences. Seppe presses himself as far into the wall as he can, the cold of the stone not suitable penance. Nothing, nothing will be penance enough for not protecting Alessa. He can barely stand to voice her name, even in his head; it spikes him, an accusation. At least like this he is protecting his mother. Believe it, you have to believe it. Nobody tries to talk to him. Their curious looks make him twelve again, alone in a corner of the playground, not understanding why nobody would play marbles with him. He had always been different; opposed to his father’s views and isolated from his classmates perhaps as a result. Now he must insinuate himself amongst them and fight their battle even as he has lost the only battle that can ever matter.
The padre approaches them, pausing at each recruit. He is a fraction taller than Seppe, his halitosis perfectly positioned to hit Seppe’s nostrils. Surely God could do something about that breath? Seppe raises his head slightly and looks the priest in the eye as he delivers his benediction.
How much does this man know? Seppe had paused outside the church two days previously, drawn by the confessional. How easy it would be to rest in the dark with the smell of polish filling your nose and to say, ‘This is what my father did, this is what I failed to do, this is the man he is, I am, save me, save him, save us, oh Father.’ But he wasn’t man enough for that …
The recruiting officer pushes them onto the train. Amongst the throng of the frantic wavers, Seppe spots the Major, striding firmly away, Mamma scuttling behind him. Seppe looks away, his love for her threatening to bring him to tears. He should stay, should stand up to the Major and protect his mother, his home. But even as he articulates this, another thought engrains itself. This isn’t home any longer. This can’t be home. Home exists no more.
AS SEPPE FINISHED SPEAKING, a gust blew up over the lake. Connie shivered. ‘This is your home, Seppe, here with me, and Joe, and Frank and Amos.’
He gazed again at the island-clinging trees. The roots gave him solace; moss-covered, entirely misplaced, but tenacious.
She reached for his hand, leaned into him.
He inched closer to her, took off his greatcoat and draped it over Connie’s shoulders.
Thirty-Eight
THE WHOLE FOREST HISSED with icy rain; even the birds were drowned out, and they must be half-frozen. Here they all were, almost at Christmas, and Connie’s boots squeaked each time she jammed her chilblains into them, the laces sopping and refusing to budge when she fumbled at them with stiff fingers. She was trying to move as little as possible, to keep the cold from sneaking through her coat and under her overalls, but there was no way of felling that didn’t involve proper moving around. She could only hope it’d keep her a bit warmer, but already she couldn’t feel her toes.
Seppe was driving her batty today, nagging on and on about keeping Joe warm and dry, as if that wasn’t playing on her mind.
‘Connie, cara. Please take Joe inside.’
‘Don’t cara me when you’re telling me what to do. How am I going to stop mid-spruce?’ She should be nicer to him; she wanted to be. But she was bone-weary and the forest wasn’t helping, all the leaves off the trees now and the trunks standing bare and upright like a field full of silent soldiers. `
‘The spruce was not “mid” when I first asked you to take Joe home. You started felling it on purpose.’
She almost missed the old, scared-of-his-shadow Seppe. He’d been a different person these last few weeks, now the shock of his city being destroyed had abated. If anything, it seemed to have given him energy. She understood that; she’d got herself out to the farm and then down here under the same conditions, after all. It made a difference knowing there was nobody else you could fall back on – in his case, because they’d only make it worse, from what he’d said. Either it ate you up, swallowed you whole, or it made you ready to tackle anything.
Now Seppe took the six-pounder every day without looking to her for approval on the first incision, spent handover times chatting to Frank about ‘when the war was over’ as if he planned to stay put in the Forest if the war did ever end. Seppe talking about staying made Connie nervous in ways she couldn’t make sense of. He seemed settled now, ever since they’d had that night-time walk. She’d been trying to make him feel better that night since he’d seemed so cut up about his town, and God knows she could understand how that felt. And it seemed to have worked, because he’d been so much more chipper ever since. But now, just as he felt better, she’d started to feel worse. Maybe it was seeing just how happy Seppe would be with a life in the Forest forever and ever that made her realise quite how trapped she felt when she imagined it for herself? She’d had plans once, too, had imagined a new life for herself the way Seppe was doing now.
Connie was happy enough, honest she was, but she wanted to cry whenever she thought about the fact that she could never plan anything again now. That was it. She’d had her chance, she’d cocked it up, and now life would just unfold the way it did for everyone else. This was her life now, stuck here where, every spring, the trees would turn the world green, every summer the blossom would come and the streams would run warm. In autumn she’d be expected to help pick the apples and the nuts and God knows what else, then the rains would set in and they’d be getting down trees with fingers so cold that they’d probably barely feel it if the saw nicked them. Thinking of life in the forest was like turning a coin over and over. If she considered summer picnics by the brook and juicy apples, and slumping on the bench of a morning with Amos and a brew whilst Joe ran starkers in the garden … well, that was pretty sweet. But, if she flipped the
coin, she was stuck with a life where the same thing happened year after year, as predictable as Dad putting two bob on the horses on a Saturday afternoon. The trees would plod on, varying nothing in the routine until they died or were cut down, and she’d be the same. The same as a bloody tree, for God’s sake! And not even a decent dance or caff to pass the time, and everyone knowing everyone else’s business with not a chance to turn yourself into something new if it suited you.
The city was just a pipe dream now. Her coin was flipped. She’d come to terms with that, or at least had thought she had, but seeing Seppe starting to make even pie-in-the-sky plans made her miss the very possibility of it. She liked Seppe, of course she did, probably loved him, even, on a good day. She smirked. She especially liked him when he unclipped the bib of her dungarees and slid one hand down into her shirt. The roughness of those fingers as they caressed her warm, ready skin – it was something she could never get enough of. But, whether or not that was the case, he was a POW, here at the pleasure of the King. So how come even Seppe had more choices than her? Connie longed to wrestle the six-pounder back off him and lose herself in the force of its blade against an oak.
‘Look, I’ll finish off this last bit with the fretsaw then I’ll take him in, OK?’ Connie blinked away ratty hair and looked across at Joe, or the bit of him she could see. ‘He’s fine in that tree trunk.’ He was, too. Those little gnome holes at the bottom were exactly the right size for him to sit up in and at four months he was desperate to explore whenever he could. Ever since she’d relaxed and let him start nosing around in the tree holes he’d been right as rain out here. When she pulled Joe out he’d smell wetly of moss and twigs, his fists full of worms and tiny weeny woodlice, his hair damp under his cap. She loved to cuddle him best of all when he was like this; all cold and mellow from playing around. But he stayed put – couldn’t get enough of grubbing around in there – and that gave her time to change to the cross-cutter and get a half-decent rhythm going on some of those bigger boughs.
‘Arrgh!’ Seppe had snuck up behind her and put his arms around her. As if getting all nuzzly would change her mind about Joe. ‘You made me drop the saw! Frank’ll do his nut if I knacker that one.’
‘There are better things we can do if Joe can’t see.’
‘Not right now, there aren’t.’ She bent down and picked up the saw and he stroked her bum as it stuck out. She bit down hard on the inside of her cheek and concentrated on not clobbering him with the axe handle. The rest of the lumberjills had been ‘borrowed’ by the Women’s Land Army to get in the harvest, and were never sent back to forestry work. Frank had more sense than to suggest that Connie go with them, had simply told her they needed to do their own pollarding and lopping from now on, once they got the trees down. She was done in. Frozen. Permanently wet. Trapped.
‘But we are losing the light, my little worker. Come with me to see the hut. I have a question.’
Connie’s toes clenched in her damp socks. She knew he was trying to be nice, and she wished she could enjoy it, but instead it made her long to crawl into the tree trunk with Joe too.
‘What question? It’s a wooden hut – no point getting too fancy. I don’t know why you’ve got these grand ideas about living in it. There’s still a war on, you know. The camp guards could call you back inside at any moment.’
He put a hand to her waist. This nearly always made her soften, but today it felt like shackles. She gritted her teeth and lost the rhythm of the saw.
‘I need to know where to put the sink. Beside the window?’
The sink? Was he setting her up in the kitchen now? She almost turned on him with the saw. Instead, her hands dropped and the saw snagged on a knot in the wood. ‘You decide. Make it without one, for all I care.’ They hadn’t talked about what might happen after the war but it was clear where Seppe’s thoughts were leading.
Better not to think at all, if you asked Connie; it would only lead to grief and her letting more people down. She set the saw against the fur of the bark again. It was proper old-growth timber; you could tell from the fungi growing up in its higher branches. She checked the teeth against her finger, exasperated. Sharpened last week; should get through it well enough.
The saw shuddered to a halt again. Seppe was the other side of it, holding it from underneath like they never, ever should, so that she couldn’t even saw on through without risking his fingers.
‘Connie. There are things we need to check about the hut. We are ahead of quota again; Frank won’t mind. And Joe must get out of the rain; I insist.’
His words ignited everything she’d been trying to dampen down. She dropped the saw, not caring when it splashed into a puddle.
‘You can’t insist anything, Seppe. Joe is mine, however much you and Amos think I’m cocking it up. I’m doing my best.’ The rain pelted down, each droplet a burst of shrapnel filleting the sky. Her hair dripped into her eyes and made her blink.
‘Every day his cough is getting worse.’
Seppe wasn’t going to let it go, was he? ‘All right, all right. I’ll take him now if it means you’ll shut up about it. And get off my case about the hut, will you? It’s a glorified shed you’re building with bits of old scrap, not some fancy frigging stately home.’
Seppe dropped his end of the saw too and it twanged against the trunk. The look on his face! It was as if she’d slapped him, not just said it like it was. Oh God. She couldn’t take it, not now. She wished she could be kinder to him, but she just couldn’t. She was a heartless cow, but every time he talked about the hut, the heebie-jeebies got worse.
‘It will be a home. And Gianni – Gianni has a friend from Salerno in a camp up in Scotland. He works on a farm, and Gianni swears that he lives in the – in a building outside the farmhouse. So it is possible, you see?’ His voice was soft, as if she’d just trodden on something in him and he was trying to bring it back to life with his words.
Connie needed to get out before more words escaped. The rain was really stair-rodding it now, blocking her view. She yanked Joe out of the tree and he yelped as he scraped his cheek against the side.
‘Come on, little man.’ She scrubbed at Joe’s cheek with a soaking wet glove and he bawled louder, blood seeping into her glove. Was the cut deep? Seppe would notice in a minute that she’d damaged Joe, and she couldn’t bear it if he told her off about something else this morning. Time to scarper.
‘We’re off now, satisfied? I’ve got a good mind to get all the way out of this poxy forest. I never meant to stay here in the first place and enough’s enough.’ Connie knew that little-boy-lost look of Seppe’s, but she wasn’t falling for it today. ‘You can do all the pollarding on your own tonight. If you miss the truck back to camp, it’ll serve you right for interfering.’
Absolutely typical that today they were at the furthermost reaches of the softwoods. By the time she sloshed down through the apple trees with Joe towards the cottages, a river was raging down Joe’s overcoat and he was coughing like a navvy with a pipe. They were both shivering and though she pulled Joe close, it didn’t seem to make a difference to either of them. The leaves were bulleting down off the trees; she had to twist to duck past them. And there was Joyce, sou’wester pinching her face into a frown, fisting drenched ovals of grain at grumpy-looking chickens from a wooden scoop. For a desperate moment Connie wished she could swap places with the chickens. At least they were content, pecking round out here, being fed their grub come rain or shine.
‘Not been out in this with him, have you? The two of you must be frozen. Come in for a cup of tea, a minute.’ Joyce upended the grain dish on her way back to the cottage door, and the chickens clustered at her toes, their feathers flat with rain and shiny as the autumn leaves. Connie hesitated. She was fit to drop, and Joe needed drying off before he proved Seppe right by getting pneumonia. But Joyce was smiling and a cup of tea sounded good.
‘You’re both drenched.’
‘I know, I know. I’ve had Seppe banging on ab
out that already.’ The tea scalded her throat and held the tears away.
‘Here, love – put him into this while you have your drink. Got a bun here too, I do have. Bet our Joe would like a bun, eh, poppet?’
Joyce put a fat rock cake into Joe’s hands and handed Connie what looked like a sheet made out of wool. It smelt of Frank, of wood and Woodbines and loyalty.
‘Good grief, Joyce, this big enough? Do you and Frank wear it at the same time?’
‘Oi! Enough of your cheek, thank you, madam. It’s warm and dry, that’s what matters.’ Joyce was smiling, though, and Connie couldn’t argue with that, though Joe apparently could. He screamed when she pulled the wet things off over that graze on his cheek. He was soaked down through to his vest, poor little sod. Would he calm down if she jiggled him a bit?
She bounced him once, twice, and the shrieks got worse, mixed in with that hacking, old-man cough of his. ‘I’m sorry, babba. You got dealt the wrong hand when it came to your mother.’
‘Ah, c’mon now, Con, that’s not true.’ Joyce had taken off the sou’wester and her hair was perfect, all tight curls but no rollers in.
Joe had calmed down a bit. ‘This simply isn’t my thing, Joyce.’
Joyce nodded. ‘My Aunt Maud were the same after my cousin were born. But she came round to the baby in no time. You’ll see.’
The tea wasn’t so hot now. Connie took a big gulp, swallowed it down. ‘I dunno, Joyce. I know people get the baby blues, but this is different from that. God knows I try, honest I do, but I’m really not born to it, not like some people are. The bigger he gets, the harder it is. I reckoned I might get the hang of it once he was crawling and sleeping and stuff. But he never sleeps, and the moving around will be nothing but a pain, I see that now. I can’t be watching him and the trunks at the same time; and I’m good at the felling, really good. One day one of them trunks’ll land right on top of Joe and then Seppe’ll give me a right what-for.’
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