Hero (6 page)

Dear Simon,

It was with much concern that I heard about your injuries. But I
am encouraged by reports that you will make a full recovery. Sorry to
hear about young Baxter.

You have, by all accounts, played a valiant role in the Somme
campaign. We are all very proud of you here, and fondly look towards
your safe return. I will hurry now to meet the post as I know Mrs.
Baxter and Sarah have their best wishes to send along with this.

Your ever-affectionate father

I feel the sizzle of a retreating wave as I refold the letter and replace it in my pocket. My father is the rolling North Sea on a bleak autumn afternoon. The hurrying to meet the post is, of course, an alibi. Had he twelve hours of reflection at his disposal he would have found reasons to cut his message short. Before the war, this quality of his was strangely endearing. But now there are thorns and briars in every silence. Now the idea of living in the house of a man who hardly talks is terrifying, like a return to the featureless nightmares of childhood, with their blackened spaces and muffled quiet.

I bury his letter in my pocket and pincer the last envelope between my fingers and thumb. Slowly my hand re-emerges and makes its way up the bed, skimming the blanket. This final letter rustles loudly as it is re-opened, as though announcing a possible secret. Listening for coughs, rustles of magazines, cues that the life of the ward continues as usual, I slip the folded sheath of writing paper from its envelope and snap it open, dropping the envelope onto the bed.

I hold my breath.

Oh my dear, sweet Simon!

How mixed with grief and joy are the events of which we have
heard and how poor the words with which we greet them!

I feel so selfish to be at my core overcome with relief that you have
been saved, and that you may soon be coming back to us, while my
poor, dear brother Charles has been taken from us all forever. You can
well imagine how distraught mother has been—the sheer violence of
grief at the dreaded telegram.

I turn this sheet, then let the whole letter drop so that the page I am about to read is face-up on the blanket. The tremor of my hands would otherwise make continuing impossible. I fear that at any time curious eyes may peer over my shoulder, and that I will be quizzed about my wildly trembling hands.

But what a supreme comfort it was to us to hear firstly that you
were well, and secondly that you yourself ministered to our Charles in
his last moments.

You deserve all the love, and more, I can ever give you. I feel
certain that when you are restored to us we will once again find a
version of that happiness you and I and Charles shared together with
our mother and your father. We will once again run along Dunwich's
clifftop with the wind beating in our ears. We will once again throw
stones into the sea.

Charles is on his way home to us and will be buried in the new
churchyard, so he will remain part of our little world and part of our
community. I hope this isn't too sad a thought for you.

Before I go on I should let you know what you undoubtedly
suspect
…

Peeling this sheet from the next, I feel the lick of a breath upon my ear. I turn, enough to see there is no one, just the circling breeze entering through the half-open window above me.

…that I share one horror with all who remain at home—that I am
gushing forth words that may seem vain and foolish to those, like you,
who have fought and suffered and who suffer still. You must forgive
me if this is the case. How unnatural a thing is this experience which
rends our lives!

Your father, you will be glad to hear, is as eccentric as ever in
worry. He will not admit to his anxieties, yet they slip out anyway in
odd little ways. He has not returned to the tannery since hearing of
the news, and lets his manager and foreman run the works. He told
us vaguely that he is no longer needed, that they can run the place
as well themselves. He left his pipe in our sitting room when he came
this morning with his own letter. His distracted air, I imagine, is more
from relief than from any fear he still entertains.

If I find myself at a loss for words, dear Simon, you know it is not
through lack of feeling but because there is too much feeling and too
much doubt about the “right” thing to say…isn't it terrible how this
war conspires to make strangers of us all?

But I will never let that happen, dear Simon. I am yours always
and wait in devotion for your return.

Your Sarah

Bundling the letter into my pocket with the rest, I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling fan. A fly bobs around the turning blades.
Trapped
is the only word my mind can grasp, the only truly meaningful word left in the language, it seems; the rest are variants, florid, embryonic versions of the same. In time all words will lose the poetic lilt, the superfluous letters that dazzle and thrill the ears with hope and possibility. They will be stripped down to that one true syllable—
trapped
—that final destination to which all life and all meaning tends.

I watch the fly as it ducks and dodges around the fan. Certain knowledge descends upon me of the narrow, sordid tunnel through which the next fifty-odd years must take me.

Suffolk, England
1916

CHAPTER 7

Sarah

T
he distant chug of a motorcar carries me to the window once more. Auburn and gold leaves scatter along the street carrying faint applause through the pane. Something in my stomach tips off centre then realigns itself. An invisible acrobat is within me, preparing to attempt that which has never been achieved before: to welcome a hero whose feats have astounded the world, to be worthy, somehow, of his love. The approaching moment is one I have hoped for and dreaded in equal measure.

The storyline of the past two years since war's declaration would have me a figure in Greek mythology, a fearless warrior queen, inspiring armies. Yet here I am in a grey cardigan, a thing of shivers and uncertainties, hugging herself, biting her lip. The Olympian drama engulfing the world has made Titans of dowdy creatures such as myself, or at least it has given us roles that force us to aspire far beyond our natural abilities. We have been pushed unkindly onto the stage where our eyelids batter at the footlights, and our ears burn at the expectant hush of the audience.

Now that I am upon the precipice, certain to come face to face with Simon within minutes, I feel that the challenge is quite beyond me. I have already fumbled in my first attempts at playing consort to a hero. The letter I agonized over for hours ended as an abject failure, a catalogue of inadequacies. It was only after it had been sent and was beyond my recall that I properly reflected upon conveying such foolish sentiments to the very same man who had charged towards the front lines, the very person who even in the midst of hell had retained compassion enough to usurp the least envied of duties, that of comforting my own brother as he lay dying.

A shiver runs through me; I am an inferior creature indeed. I wrote, not of heroics or self-sacrifice, not of the final triumph of the human spirit, but of my own sterile fear that my words might seem vain to he who read them. How grotesque and self-indulgent of me to plead for special understanding. How narcissistic to draw attention to my silliness, and the smallness of my world. How could such trifles really matter to a man returning from the abyss? In trying to lay a bridge between the heroic and the drab, my letter merely drew attention to the difference. I was—and am—a feather to Simon Jenson's volcano. He knows everything, and I know nothing.

The bonnet of a passing motorcar catches the sun. Something both burning and chilled grips my heart, a double clench of hope and fear. The car reaches the clearing in front of our driveway; I view the silhouette of an officer through the passenger window. The soldier has Simon's nose and brow beneath his peaked cap. My arm aches to wave, even partly raises itself to do so. But the face remains in profile—not even a glance sideways at our house—then slips from view.

Towards the end of the lane the engine makes a moaning sound. Even through the glass I can hear the crunch of wheel on gravel as the vehicle turns into Mr. Jenson's drive.

Why did he not turn? I think of my letter again; the ugliness of shame has seared its contents upon my memory. I would be able to quote its contents word for word even if I had not made a copy, which I kept in the drawer of my nightstand:

Before I go on I should let you know what you undoubtedly
suspect, that I share one horror with all who remain at home—that I
am gushing forth words that may seem vain and foolish to those, like
you, who have fought and suffered and who suffer still.

What could a man like Simon Jenson possibly have to say to such hand-wringing? How could I blame him for passing without a sign? I think of the ceremony at the hospital Major Pickard wrote to us about. A small room. No fanfare. An atmosphere solemn and respectful as the general pins the Distinguished Service Cross upon Simon's chest. A cough of slight embarrassment perhaps. A nod. The mere hint of an approving smile. Men who feel oceans but say little. Opposite from myself.

“Is it him?” calls my mother, who is reading in the dimmest corner of the room—her habit of late.

“I believe so, Mother.”

My voice is dull as though the words have been spoken into a sack of flour. Feeling her interest prickle the back of my neck, I turn. She is peering at me, spectacles halfway down her nose, her book upon her lap. Her expression changes from curiosity to kindness, and I feel a first tear working its way into my eye, blurring her face for a moment, until I blink it away.

“Don't worry, Sarah. He has to see his father first. He'll come as soon as he's able.”

I think of mentioning that he did not turn towards us, and that, after a two-year absence, a man in love would surely glance at the house of his lover, but I'm tired of this new side of myself—the bleating, complaining Sarah. Instead, I say, “I don't know who he is anymore.” A short involuntary laugh escapes me as I realize how completely true this statement is. Many times in the last few weeks I have tried to envision the change of two years upon my Simon. Each time my imagination crafted a leaner cheek, a steadier gaze, even the beginnings of an early receding hairline. And each time the clay of my speculations would collapse upon itself, leaving something quite formless with which I would do battle through nights of sleeplessness.

These physical changes, I realized, meant nothing. The man with the black wavy hair, the grudging smile, and the soft manner would look different now. The army would have made him sturdier and wiry, perhaps even gaunt, given recent reports of dysentery among the regiments. My fleeting vision of his profile tends to confirm this.

But when I tried to impose the old smile upon that spare and wiry soldier, when I tried to imagine this older, leaner Simon teasing me about the frizzy red hair of mine, which wouldn't lie straight under a band, I realized two incompatible worlds were colliding, that the new Simon and the Simon of my memory could not mix.

In his letters I glimpsed a depth of slow change. It was like watching a well gradually drying after its spring deviated to another place. There was joviality during training and when he first reached the front. The rough and tumble of young men echoed on the pages—joking between officers, ribbing of the men, a palpable sense of excitement that enraptured even me. Even in the dank underground quarters that became his home, there was still life and vitality. He was so witty about the rats and the mud I felt he had to be exaggerating to entertain me. If he were not, I thought, then how marvellous to be a man, how marvellous not to worry about such things when there is work to do.

But the months wore on and his tone altered. There were fewer details, fewer words of any kind. A forced quality crept into the humour; he crammed jokes into mirthless situations. He talked of the constant noise, and then he talked of the unnatural quiet, how quiet itself became noise. Finally, there was that one last plea, made desperate because only I understood his pride well enough to know that it was a plea. It was a standard letter, saying little, attempting few pleasantries, then those two words after his usual signature:
write soon
. This was the day before the battle.

I had many sleepless nights about Simon after the news came in, and many strange dreams when his letter followed. It haunted me that these two words should be the last he had written to me before his own injury and Charles's death. I had a recurring vision of him standing on the cliff edge, near the old graveyard. He was in his officer's uniform, ribbons and medals on his chest, and in his hand he held a bone the size of a Sunday joint of lamb but thinner. A human bone, perhaps. Although there was no sound, his lips were moving, and I could tell that the circling wind that tugged at his ribbons stole also his words as he spoke them. I rode like a spirit upon that same breeze and with each revolution willed myself a little closer to him so that I might catch his message. Although he spoke continuously, each time I passed his lips I could make out one phrase only:
write soon
. The faint request loosened shells from the bank, and scattered them on the beach below.
Write soon
, I caught again as the breeze scooped me suddenly into the sky.