Time Shall Reap (19 page)

‘I’m not scared,’ he protested automatically. He wasn’t scared, he was petrified, panic-stricken, but he knew that he would have to face it one day, and it may as well be now.

They gave him a greatcoat to put over the blue suit he wore as a patient, and money for his fares to and from town, plus a little extra in case he wanted to buy some-thing. Dr Menzies, who knew that the young man dreaded leaving the sanctuary of the hospital, asked, gently, ‘Why don’t you go to see your father?’

David didn’t repeat his reason for not contacting his father – he had told it often enough. How could he go home when his mother’s place had been taken by someone else?

During the long walk to the tram terminus, he wondered for the hundredth time how his father could have married another woman when his wife had been dead for such a short time. The letter had really upset him. They had been back off the line for a respite when he received it and had opened it eagerly. What he read was still imprinted on his mind.

Dear Son,

No doubt you will be surprised to hear I am getting married next week. I met Isabel at Willie Black’s, and I think he meant this to happen, for she was a widow and we were both lonely. We started seeing each other and we get on very well together, so we think we would be happier sharing our lives.

In blind fury, David had ripped up the letter without reading any more. His friends had told him to accept it, that it was his father’s life, not his, but he could never forgive his father, not even after what he had been through himself since.

He sat rigidly all the way into the city, his arms across his body, trying to force his distress out of his mind, but it was still too vivid. Coming off the tram, he walked down Market Street to the harbour where there was always some activity, but when he reached the water his legs felt weak, his head throbbed and he knew he could not go on. It would be best to step off the side of the quay and let himself be swallowed up by the filthy water in the dock ... but someone would be sure to see him and try to save him. Turning, he went slowly back up towards Union Street, doubtful if his strength would hold out long enough for him to reach the top of the hill, but when he came to the Market, he remembered that there was a tearoom inside. A little refreshment might help him to pull himself together.

‘Tea, please,’ he managed to get out to the young waitress who served him, shaking his head when she asked if he wanted anything to eat, and when the cup and saucer were placed in front of him, he watched the pretty, golden-haired girl smiling and joking with people at the other tables. Maybe she had wondered why he had been so unfriendly, but he had never been good at clever repartee, and he never would be. What was more, he did not want anybody feeling sorry for him. Death was what he craved, not pity, and if the only place he was likely to get himself killed was Belgium, he would have to go back there. He returned to the hospital determined to make the doctors discharge him ready for active service again.

He spent most of the next day trying to persuade doctors and consultants that he was sound in mind and body – especially in mind – until at last he was told that he would possibly be released in two weeks’ time, provided that he had no relapse. Surprisingly, although he was totally exhausted – or perhaps because of it – he had no night-mares that night.

The following morning, Wednesday, he felt better than he had done for a very long time, and when he went out in the afternoon he went directly to the People’s Cafe, sitting down in the same corner and enjoying the bustle and the hum of conversation. The same waitress served him, smiling when she said, ‘What can I get you?’

Making a great effort, he smiled back. ‘A cup of tea and a bun, please. One spoon of sugar.’

She returned in a few minutes with his order. ‘Which hospital is it?’ She gestured to his blues.

‘Oldmill, but I’ll soon be going back to the front.’

She gave a little giggle. ‘Back to the front? That sounds funny, like back to front, but I don’t suppose it’s funny over there.’ She could see that her remark had upset him a little, but there were people waiting for attention and she had to leave him.

As he cut open his bun and spread it with butter from the little dish already on the table, David wished that he could have laughed with her, but he had felt slightly disappointed in her for making light of what he had said, although he knew that she had no idea what it was like at the front. Was he being stupid wanting to go back? Should he tell Doctor Menzies that he had changed his mind? Suddenly remembering why he had wanted to go back to Belgium, a black mood descended on him, and he rose and walked out, leaving tea and bun untasted.

On the tram journey back to Oldmill, he admitted to himself that his emotions were still far from stable. It was best that he went back to the front ... back to front? ... so that his useless life could be ended. What future had he like this?

That night, he awoke screaming because of the renewed nightmares, and refused point blank to go out on Thursday afternoon. Doctor Menzies, having been given a report by the ward sister, came to see him. ‘What’s this I’m hearing about you not wanting to go out today? What’s the problem?’

‘I’m just not wanting to go out,’ David said, his face surly. ‘I bet you don’t do anything you don’t want to.’

The other man smiled. ‘I’ve to do many things I don’t want to, but I thought you wanted to go back on active service, and this is a bit of a setback, you know.’

‘Do you mean I won’t be released?’

‘Not if you go on like this.’

After considering briefly, David mumbled, ‘If I do go out today, will you forget about it?’

‘I might, if your progress gets back to normal.’

‘All right, then, I’ll go. I was feeling a bit ... well, you likely know I had nightmares again last night?’

‘Yes, and you’ll probably keep having them from time to time, but they’ll become less real, I promise, and there will be longer between them. It’s up to you to fight them.’

David knew that he could not fight them, but in his desperation to get back to Belgium he said, ‘I’ll try.’

‘Good lad. Now, off you go, otherwise you’ll be late in getting back for tea, and Matron’ll have your head on the chopping block.’

David was over an hour later than usual when he left the hospital, and had made up his mind not to go to the cafe, but he found himself drawn to the Market opening when he walked down Market Street. He told himself that he should have got off the tram at a different stop, that he should have gone to the beach, anywhere to avoid this place, but he knew that in his heart of hearts he wanted to see the little waitress again. When he went inside the People’s Cafe, however, there was no sign of her, and his spirits sank when a rather busty woman came to serve him. ‘What’s happened to the waitress who usually serves this table?’ he asked.

‘Elspeth? She’s on early shift this week and next, and she finishes at three.’

He ordered only a cup of tea, and left as soon as he had drunk it, but as he walked up Union Street – giving himself a little time to think before he returned to Oldmill – he wondered where the little waitress lived. Elspeth? It was a nice name for such a pretty girl. Could he possibly arrange it so that he would be in the cafe tomorrow when she was going off duty? Would she let him walk a little way with her, so that he could find out more about her? Even though he would soon be leaving Aberdeen, it would be good to have her to remember, to pretend that she was his girl. Just for the little time he had left to live?

‘Do you remember me telling you on Monday about that soldier wi’ the sad eyes?’ Elspeth asked Helen when she went home. ‘He didna come on Tuesday, he was back on Wednesday, though he went out without drinking his tea or anything, and he wasna in the day again. I wonder what’s happened to him.’

‘His leave’s maybe finished.’ Helen gave seventeenmonth-old John another bounce on her leg.

‘He wasn’t on leave, he’s a patient at Oldmill Hospital.’

‘Well, maybe he’s been discharged. Och, John, you’ll have my leg off me. That’s enough the now.’

‘He’d have said yesterday if he was being discharged. He just said he’d be going back to the front soon, and I think I upset him by laughing.’

‘You laughed because he was going back to the front?’

‘No, I was laughing because it sounded so funny. Back to front. Oh, I hope I haven’t annoyed him.’

Lying back in her chair to recover from her exertions, Helen gave the girl a searching look. ‘Were you taken wi’ him? Is that why you’re worried?’

‘No, it’s nothing like that, but I felt that sorry for him on Monday, and he’s a real nice lad.’

‘He’ll maybe come in the morrow.’

‘Aye, maybe. Has John been a good boy the day?’

‘He’s aye a good boy, are you not, my wee lamb?’ Helen ruffled the dark curls beside her chair, and the child looked up, showing his small, even teeth in a wide grin.

Elspeth turned away to fill the kettle. She could see his father in him every time he smiled like that, and it tore at her heart to think he didn’t know she was his mother, but how could she say anything after all this time? She should have made a stand from the very beginning, and Helen would have had to get over losing her own baby, but she had let the opportunity slip away because she’d been sorry for the woman. She had nearly protested the first time she heard John saying ‘Mam-mam’ to her landlady, but Helen had looked so proud that she hadn’t the heart to disillusion her, and maybe it was best to leave things the way they were, Elspeth reflected sadly. At least she knew that John was being cared for lovingly when she was at work, and the boy himself was happy. When he grew old enough to ask about things, to wonder if she was his sister, she would tell him the truth ... if Helen hadn’t done it herself before then.

On Friday, Elspeth was rather disappointed that the sad-eyed soldier did not come in at his usual time, but was pleased to see him when he turned up at ten to three. ‘You didn’t come in yesterday,’ she observed, when she went to his table, then turned pink as she realized that he might think she was prying.

‘I did come,’ David said, thinking how fetching she was when she blushed, ‘but you’d gone home.’

‘Aye, I go off at three this week. Is it just tea the day, or do you want a bun, as well?’

‘Yes, please.’

Elspeth could feel his eyes following her as she walked away, and a warmth stole over her when she realized that he must have asked about her yesterday, otherwise how could he have known she’d gone home? But maybe he’d just guessed she’d gone home when he didn’t see her ... and what did it matter, anyway?

When she took his order to his table, he looked up at her and smiled, which encouraged her to say, ‘Was it France you were wounded?’

‘No, it was Belgium.’ He was too ashamed to tell her that it had been shellshock, not an actual wound.

She moved away to serve other customers, but when he stood up to leave, she turned round and called out, ‘See you the morrow?’ She was glad to see that his eyes brightened as he nodded, because she’d been worried by the sadness in them before. Maybe he didn’t want to be cured and have to go back to Belgium, for it must be awful there.

David lay awake for some time that night, thinking about Elspeth, and wishing that he’d had the courage to ask if he could walk home with her. Instead, he’d gulped down the tea and bun and gone out about one minute before she was due to be off duty, but when she’d asked if he was going back the next day, his heart, frozen for so long, had given a tiny skip of pleasure. She wanted to see him again.

‘Two nights running with no nightmares,’ one of the nurses smiled on Saturday morning.

‘No,’ he said proudly, not daring to say that his dreams had been of the little waitress in case the nurse teased him. It was too new an experience for him to joke about it.

All forenoon, he looked forward to seeing the golden-haired girl again, but he felt embarrassed when one of the other patients remarked on his cheerfulness, and he said nothing when Doctor Menzies complimented him on the fight he was putting up.

It was ten to three again when he sat down at the table he had come to regard as his and the subject of his dreams came to take his order. When she brought it to him, she smiled and said, ‘My landlady always says it’s better to know folk’s names if you’re speaking to them. Mine’s Elspeth Gray. What’s yours?’

‘David Fullerton.’ He hesitated for a moment, then added, ‘So you’re in lodgings?’

‘Aye, at Quarry Street. It’s not far from Oldmill.’

He knew that she was probably just making conversation, but the opening was too good to miss. ‘You’ll be finished here in a few minutes, will you not? If ... if you didn’t object, I’d ... I wouldn’t mind going up in the tram with you ... that’s if it’s the same tram and you’re going straight home?’ The brightness had vanished from her face, and he said hastily, ‘It was only an idea, for us both to have company, but it’s all right if you’d rather not.’

His eyes were so anxious that Elspeth capitulated. ‘No, I don’t mind, really. It is the same tram, and I’d be glad of your company.’

Left alone, David started to tremble. He should never have asked her, for he knew he couldn’t sustain a conversation with her on the long journey to the terminus. He couldn’t talk to anyone ... but he’d already told her his name and a few other things. Bewildered, he nearly rose to leave, but something held him back. He was going to be killed soon – but this Elspeth was so ... she was the kind of girl he could have fallen in love with if he had been normal.

At two minutes past three, she appeared with her coat on. ‘Are you ready, David?’

A tramcar came almost as soon as they stood up at the stop in Union Street. Elspeth plumped down on the wooden seat with a sigh of relief, and he sat beside her, trying not to let any part of his body come in contact with hers. ‘It’s good to get off my feet,’ she observed. ‘Working in a cafe can be real tiring.’

‘Aye, it must be,’ he murmured, shyly.

‘Where were you wounded?’

The question was natural, but unexpected, and he didn’t want to talk about it, so he misunderstood deliberately. ‘It was at Wipers, and there was a shell, and ... ’