Black Diamonds (25 page)

Lilly says: ‘What's up, love, are you all right?'

It passes. Of course I am all right.

No I'm not. I put my head on the steering wheel and lose it spectacularly. Breast milk pours out into the padding of my corset —
Deo gratia
for new and improved feminine undergarments for nursing mothers. I can't stop it all pouring out of everywhere.

Lilly gets out of the car and comes round to the side of me. ‘Shhhh. It's all right.'

No it's not. Nothing's ever going to be right again. Can't tell Lilly that — doubt she'd believe me anyway. I force a laugh out and tell her: ‘I'm just missing my husband. Just jealous listening to you two talk.'

‘Ohhh,' she says, tears quick and real for me.

Stan reaches over and pats me on the back. ‘Let's just go home, love — we'll go another day.'

‘Not on your life,' I turn around and tell him. ‘I should not be left unsupervised today.' I can't let these people down because of my overactive imagination.

Stan says: ‘Fair enough.' But best of all he laughs right at me for the fool I am.

Then I ask him, I suppose just to know some small thing against everything I can't know: ‘What's a Distinguished Conduct Medal?'

‘Ah-ha. Your lad got one?'

‘Apparently. What does it mean?'

‘Who knows, but I can tell you this: you get a Military Medal for not losing your lunch, but you get a DCM for asking what's for dinner.'

‘Oh Stanley!' says Lilly. ‘What a horrible thing to say.'

But he ignores her. ‘Means your lad's got a screw loose or two, and you probably should be proud of him.'

‘Have you got one?' I ask him. ‘I mean a medal, not a screw loose.'

‘No. You get nothing at all for being shot before breakfast, but I've probably got more than two loose screws.'

‘You should get a very big medal just for making me laugh,' I say.

But Stan just wants a very big beer instead, and I'll need a ladies room shortly to deal with the sticky mess under my blouse.

A few hours later it's time to head back, Lilly's chastising Stan outside the pub for becoming so pie-eyed in so short a time, and my breasts have calcified to rock, they're so full. I'll leave Lilly to wrestle her Stan into the car, while I stop in on Miriam, who only lives around the corner. I was looking forward to that when we set out this morning, but now I don't want to hear: ‘Heard any more from that hopeless little brother of mine?' First thing she says as she opens the door of her big terrace house.

‘No.' Immediately aching, leaking heart and breasts.

She waves away my angst in her effusive, jovial way, then says, archly: ‘I'll bet money that he's only feeling sorry for himself, Francine. He's a big sook, really. You'll see.'

‘How's Roy?' I ask her, automatically, because I'm lost again in wondering what awful thing Daniel must be feeling sorry about, what awful dinner he must have eaten to get that medal.

‘No idea,' says Mim as a shrieky squabble erupts from the children inside. ‘Wherever he is, it's probably quieter than here. Last letter, he was fixing the boilers at some hospital in Belgium — what an adventure! Chippy goes abroad to learn how to tinker.'

She's so buoyant, vivacious, nothing like her big tough sook little brother; and now she's pulling a face at me and waving at her chest.

I look down at my own: soaked right through. She hurls me a cardigan to cover it up. ‘You'd better make tracks for home, before you explode.'

January. I haven't exploded or disappeared and Little Danny loves his mashed potatoes, what a surprise. And I haven't had a thump- spin morbid moment for a few weeks. Still haven't heard from Daniel either. But I'm doing a good line in acceptance: whatever's happened to him, it's too awful for words. It's even crossed my mind that perhaps he doesn't want to come home. That happens sometimes, doesn't it? Possibilities endless. I'll leave it one more week before writing to the Red Cross; add my little plea to the thousands of others:
To whom it may concern, I wish to make an enquiry as to my husband's state of gravity
…

I must concentrate on what I am doing, though: almost removed my thumb with the paring knife just now. I'm making a special dinner for Louise: a farewell one. She won her training position, and she's going off on her adventure tomorrow.

She's in her room now, packing. And I am not going to blubber at the wrench that's coming. It's something to celebrate for her, and celebrate I will. Celebrate her courage and her plain ambition: she wants to be a
headcase
nurse eventually, psychiatry I think it's called; she'll probably know more about all that than the doctors. Her Paul might have been ignored, but I have a good suspicion that she won't allow herself to be.

Knock on the front door: signal for Francy to drop whatever she's doing and race up the hall hoping it's mail.

And it is mail, except Mr Symes is holding it; Odysseus's prow powering across the valley behind him. I'm about to have a morbid moment, thinking he's brought a special salvo from the AIF. But Mr Symes is smiling. Never seen that before. He says: ‘I recognised the scrawl — must be from your fella. Hope it's good news. Leave you to it, then.'

Breathe: ‘Thank you.'

I look at it for a moment. It's Daniel's scrawly hand on the front, very scrawly. Very deep breath. Open it.

It says, in writing that's mostly barely legible, even for him:

My France

Sorry I haven't written, but I've not been very good company for a spell, and not a lot I wanted to share with you or anyone I might have got to write for me. Thanks for all your letters, stopped me going all the way round the bend. You should be proud to know that I'm famous over here for having spent almost as much time in bed being a pain than in active service. Well deserved too. Lately I've been busy learning what legs are for, slow going, but I'm getting there. I'm in London now, can't wait to see the place where the big decisions are made when I'm allowed out to practise walking around it. My arm is no good, though, managed to do a very good job of wrecking my elbow. Explains worse writing than usual. There's a quack here who is going to have a look at the damage, but it's a doubtful cause. You might get a bill from him if he has a go. Can say that I'll be on one of the next ships home. You'll get word from AIF, I suppose. But please don't bother coming to Sydney, you probably won't want to anyway. I want to make my own way home and see you there, nowhere else, not ever again. Just you and the kid. Mum and everyone else can wait in line till I find a way to forgive myself. I'm so sorry, France. I love you more than ever, but I don't know that there's too much to love about me.

x Daniel

Oh dear. I know this voice, as well as if I can hear it. Tight-jawed, morose, fierce.

First rush of thought: I won't take this nonsense from you.
Not ever again.
There was I worried I wouldn't recognise you. Ha! And you've got two legs, which you walk on.

Second rush: scream with joy.

Louise runs into the hall. ‘What?'

Wave letter.

‘Oh! How is he then?'

‘Sounds terrible! Two legs, no good elbow. Wonderful!'

Third rush: oh dear God, maybe he's on his way home right now. I've had no
word
from the AIF, so telephone call needs to be made, and I'll camp in the post office armed with Sgt's name, rank and serial number and one serious demand, and I'll keep calling till they tell me which ship he's on. As if I wouldn't.

In any event, he's not going to get away with his lone-dog act this time.

 

DANIEL

If I thought Egyptians were small and scrappy that's only because I'd never been to London. Anyone who says Australia is the arse end of the world hasn't been to London either. I know I'm still
melancholy
, very, but this is the saddest place I've seen. Full of people pretending to cope, cracking hardy hard as, with a smile, a wave, a joke, got a smoke, but please, Fritz, don't bomb the Palladium or we'll be really unhappy. The French just shrug and look tired of it all as they starve and watch whole chunks of their country being razed; I could understand them better, without a word of the language, except for Frogs' reluctance for shaving and preference for long hair — why would you do that to yourself deliberately when you're living in a trench? It's an eye-opener being here, though, in this Old Dart, this great imperial capital. Does something to confuse my anger to see it: seems Blighty's own are copping it worse than anyone else, and I'm not sure how much that's got to do with the war. Even if things are bad at home, at least you've got the sun, and colour, to remind you that you are actually alive. Here, it's all little grey shapes in the fog, all of them looking like they need a good long feed. Something must happen when they come and live in Australia that suddenly makes them grow; I know they've got food shortages here, but I don't think you can shrink the overall height of a population by that much in a couple of years, even after culling all the tall ones. I know they've got goods shortages here too, but it took half of yesterday to find someone who could sell me a toothbrush: I don't think Londoners believe in that sort of thing; might make their cheery smiles more convincing if they did. And I love the cold, I really do. I love the sleet and the snow and the wind that comes up through the gully at home, but here, although it's colder by far, it's more than cold: it's dismal and filthy, miles and miles of dismal filth around a stinking wide grey river. Not pleasant for creaky bones either, the damp sinks right into you. They should put opium in the drinking water. Maybe they do.

Us animals are certainly popular here, though, at least among young females. We're the only ones with money, with our six bob a day rattling in our pockets, and a bit extra these days in my case. If another girl looks at me with half-starved eyes, I'm just going to give her the bloody money. My hand's always in my pocket anyway, since that's about the position my arm seems to prefer, even when I take off the brace I have to wear on it so it doesn't get any further beyond repair. I can hear Stratho laughing when the skirts look at me — it's not funny. I've got to go and see this other quack tomorrow, but today, to torture myself, since that's what I am best at at the minute, I'm going to pay a visit to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. I've never stepped inside an art gallery, and I suppose it's time to see what I should see. I still don't know anything about anything; didn't get around to further reading, since I fell down that hole full of sedative. When I first caught sight of my legs again I didn't think I'd ever be able to do without it; they were just bones, so stripped of flesh that I could feel the lump of bone under the scar where my right leg had healed. Pam told me before she said farewell: ‘You might not think you'll be getting up on them, but stranger things have happened.' She was right: five minutes in the convalescent hospital here in London and they strapped me into calipers; best way to convince a bloke: no chance I was going home wearing that lot. They still feel strange, though, different, like they're not quite my legs. They do the job as well as anyone's now, and I don't even limp, not really; there's just half an inch of extra leather on the sole of my right boot to even me up a bit, and I don't know why it doesn't feel right, this
ambulation.
They do the job, they do the job, they're doing it right now, and here's Lord Nelson, pigeons shitting on him through the fog.

Grand façade across the way, flash foyer inside, halls decked with paintings and paintings and paintings and some more paintings; must be in the right place. They're mostly portraits of this noble personage or that, or some bloody religious scene, or a classical one which I reckon they must have gone for as an excuse to paint people in the altogether. Couldn't care less about how old some of them are. None of it says anything to me. Maybe it's not for me anyway. Don't know what I'm going to do when I get home. Read? Something left-handed? I've tried to draw, but it's no good. Whatever's gone on inside my elbow makes my hand shake when I hold a pencil, makes writing an athletic event: I have to take off the brace and sit on the floor to do it, foot holding the paper, while my left hand holds my right wrist to keep it steady, and I've got to put my shoulder into it to keep the whole scrawny, scrammy, crooked thing in motion. I'm not really stewing about it, or trying hard not to; it's a case of not missing what you never really had, I suppose. Still, I more than hope it's fixable. Either way, I'm sure I'll get what I deserve: seem to have all round so far.

‘Magnificent, isn't it,' says this bloke standing next to me.

I look at him: he's balding, overfed and puffed-out middle class. Then I look at what he's looking at, what I've been standing in front of for who knows how long without seeing it. Don't know who the artist is, why would I, but it's a massive painting of a battle scene, gilt-framed, with far too little shit and mutilation in it. I look at the plaque that tells me this is
The Battle of Hanau
, 1813, painted in 1824 by Horace Vernet. French and Germans at each other near Frankfurt during Napoleon's shot at imperial idiocy.

I look back at the bloke and say: ‘No. That's rubbish.'

A huge laugh tears out of him and echoes. Then he says, very seriously: ‘You fellows are doing a marvellous job.' He means Australians; he can see what I am by my brand-new uniform, and the rest.

He goes to shake my hand, but changes his mind when he sees the brace; he says: ‘Oh, I am sorry, dear boy.'

I say: ‘I'm not.'

And I'm not. The good oil's finally dropped a load on me. Just like that. I know now what I want to do, and I'll teach myself to do it left-handed if I have to. I am alive. I couldn't count my blessings if I tried. Wish I hadn't written that dismal letter to France, though. I want to see her as soon as I step off the ship. Too late now. Too bad.

I tell him: ‘I'm going home soon.'

He says: ‘Well, good luck to you.'

I salute him with my left hand as I leave: I don't need any more luck. Had buckets of it already. I really am an arse. And cheers to that too. I've done my
penance
and she will have me
pure.
This time. Just don't fucking sink my ship, Fritz.
Bitte.

Doctor Myer is about a hundred and two and talks like he's got to get it all said before his final moment. So far he's told me that he's really a Mr, rather than a Dr, because that's what you call them from the Royal College, but I can call him doctor because he grants it's easier, should all be called Dr, save confusion; and he's told me that his son's a surgeon too, and is working in France, knows the chap who did that
splendid
job on my leg and hip, which I know, because it was a letter from Lovejoy that got me in to see this bloke here at his private surgery, inside this old stone building that stinks of Lysol and centuries of rats' piss. Advantage of being Doctor Joyful's melancholy miracle pet with own funds at home: he visited me when he came back to London on leave to check on his
splendid job
, and when he found out that the surgeon who came to see me at the convalescent hospital had said my arm was a no-goer, he sorted this appointment out for me with Mister Doctor Myer, who's still rabbiting on now.

‘… I've always said that such splinting is a life-preserver, invented by a Welshman, you know, half a century ago, and it's taken two years to get it to the battlefield. Shame. Shame there's so often so little time for more than mere preservation, especially in the orthopaedic field, lots of messy work going on there, and too much sepsis to contend with, but can't be helped.' All I want to know is if he can help me, but he's saying: ‘It's been very interesting for me, however, looking at the mess brought back. There'll be leaps and bounds come out of this when it's all over.' He has a chuckle at his funny. Good for him. He finally sees I'm a bit beyond it and says: ‘Yes, well, let's have a look then.'

Under the X-ray in the room next to his office. ‘Hmmm.'

Prodding, twisting. ‘Hmmm.'

Well?

‘Hmmm.'

Well?

‘Hmmm.'

What?

‘Yes, well, there are two problems here. Very unfortunate for you, very interesting for me. Not surprised there's been a baulk at the challenge.' And he's off after a rabbit again, telling me about the four different places that broke and how; but he pulls himself up: ‘In ordinary English I'd have to reset all three bones in your arm to attempt to restore any reasonable function to your elbow; or in other words, your elbow is simply not in the right place. But to do that all at once would be impossible, even for me. The wonder is that it ever healed at all without surgical intervention. What I suggest is that for the moment we look only at the second problem, which is how this affects the function of your hand. This is the worst of it for you, yes?'

‘Yes.' Bloody oath.

‘Well then, let's see if I can't do something about that, restore some movement, improve your grip. No promises. But I can't make it much worse, hmmm?'

Hmn. Just bloody do it. ‘When can you do it? I've got to leave in a few weeks.'

‘Leave? Oh no.'

Oh no? Just bloody do it. I'm already on a ship and I have to leave. I have to get home. Please. ‘Please.' I've never begged in my life before, except with France, but there you have it.

‘Hmmm,' he says. ‘Do you have a doctor at home?'

‘Yes.' Quack Nichols.

‘Is he attached to a hospital?'

‘Yes, Lithgow.' Backyard job. Well, no that's not true, but I'm fairly properly certain that he won't know how to fix me up this time. This Myer bloke obviously does this day in day out, probably for the last hundred years. He has to do it for me. I tell him: ‘His name's Doctor Nichols, he's fixed bones before, and mine.' Still begging.

‘Hmmm, never heard of him,' says Myer. I'm sure you wouldn't have, I'm thinking; glad you haven't since I now recall he started his professional life as a vet.

And another: ‘Hmmm.' And then: ‘I'll have to give him instructions … the exercises you'll have to do later on … it's a rigmarole.' I'm a spanner in the works again. Please. And then he adds: ‘It's important that I know how things go, you see, and that they go well. It's not just about your poor old elbow, it's about elbows in general.
Everyone's
elbow.'

Fair enough. And I can't say how glad I am he cares so much about the subject. He's going to do it. Thank you. I tell him: ‘I'll do anything you tell me to do.'

He squints and smiles, funny little old man, and says: ‘Yes, you will, won't you.' He looks at his watch. ‘Well, come on then.' Gets up off his chair.

‘Now?'

‘Why not? I've not got to be away today till four, plenty of time. You don't have anything better to do, do you?'

‘No.' But don't you have other things to do? Apparently not. I follow him out of his room and down the hall.

He says as he's walking: ‘We do it now, with any luck we'll have you out of the traction before you board your ship.'

Traction, on my arm. Good-o. Why not try all means of torture while I'm here? Rather not have the experience at sea.

I have to ask him: ‘Shouldn't I let someone know where I am first?' I've been known to go AWL from convalescence a fair bit lately, but this is extreme.

‘Nurse'll sort all that out later,' he says, as if nurse sorts out everything, and she probably does.

‘Well, here we are,' he says, tapping the operating table. ‘Get your kit off and hop up. I'll get my mallet and chisel.'

This is too strange; I don't know if he's joking. ‘You are going to knock me out first, aren't you?'

He's looking at two heads, horrified. ‘Of course. Don't know how it's done in the antipodes, but I'd have thought you'd have noticed we're civilised here.'

Yep. And I'm not sure if he knows that I was joking either.

He leaves to get whoever and whatever he needs, and I cross all the fingers I can. But I'm already thankful. I can hear Francine saying,
I've formed an unfortunate attachment
, and as the chloroform hits me the last thing I know is that I'm probably going to wake up with one.

Halfway home across the Indian Ocean and I haven't chucked once. Funny that. And it's not rowdy this time, in this floating infirmary. It's full of uncertain blokes, full of wondering. Who will be there, what will I find, what will I do, what have I done to myself; not that you hear it outright. I reckon it'd be fair to say that some are more scared going this way, especially those that have been mutilated, or stuck inside some other place in their heads, and I wonder who'd be more scared: those who've got a wife to face, or those who haven't got a hope of getting one now. It's just too sad, some of it, so sad you have to separate yourself from it. And you don't need to be told twice to steer clear of the big cage on C-deck where the proper nuts are fenced off from the rest of us. Keep your distance from pity, anger and shame, or take your sedative.

None for me thanks, I'll keep practising separation: my greatest skill to date. I'm aloof; here's cheers for the loofs. Practise being pleasant and civilised too. If I practise hard enough I might come out of this thing less of an idiot than I went in. You could put that on a recruitment poster:
IDIOTS! Let the AIF fix you up!
Quacks could bottle it:
WAR! Recommended for idiots. Contains fear, horror, pain, humiliation. Try it — you'll never look back.