Heart

by Paula Hayes

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  All the Days are Nights

  “Leslie Robert McNamara!”

  There was a long demoralizing pause. Kevin scrunched one eye shut while the other darted around, surveying the room. Bouncing psychedelic spots were already moving into Anna’s vision. The atmosphere pulsated like a surging amplifier, crackling around the table. Nina’s black long hair began to stand up, Nat’s nose glowed red, Kevin’s eyelids flicked open and Arun had sweat trickling its way down his triple chin. Bubba opened her eyes and surveyed the group.

  “Do your thing gals, I’m getting itchy.” Nina narrowed her eyes at Dylan as her hair crackled loudly.

  “Quit moving Dylan, you’re like a rabbit with worms mate,” growled Deepak. He returned his gaze to Anna. She smiled and looked away.

  Dylan sniggered back, “Sorry, m-a-t-e.”

  “Deepayan Roychowdhury! Hold your tongue boy,” hissed Nina.

  Leo sat on the chaise with his hat in his hand and studied Anna. All his hopes were pinned on this young girl. She was going to make it happen, he was depending on her … she was an unexpected lifeline and he was grabbing it with both hands. Confidence buoyed him on but he had been waiting so long he was not sure what he was going to say. He almost felt shy … just like the eight year old boy again looking, through the windowpane at two cocky teenage boys.

  Anna locked eyes with Leo momentarily and then cast her gaze back down to the table. She had taken Les’ photo out of her wallet and turned it over. She knew whose handwriting it was. Les’ of course …. caught up in the middle of something but what? She had studied the firm hand on the Internet. She stared hard at it for many minutes as she let the pictures Leo created of him flood her own memories.

  Finally, she spoke again into the cold crisp room.

  “Uncle Les, I have been doing a bit of research on you. You are online you know. I guess that doesn’t mean much to you. Your mate Leo Nolan and your Great niece Natalie have filled me in on what you were like. Sounds like you were a real gentleman … a very good fellow. I know you are at Peace and I really hate to bother you but we have a bit of a problem here on Earth. Your mate Leo can’t move on. He can’t join you in Eternity? Or wherever you are? He has got something he needs to say to you and I suspect, to someone else.” Anna paused.

  “He caught sight of you in 1978, the year of your death. He chickened out on approaching you as your mother had forbidden it and Agnes had kept her rules.” As fun suckers often do, she sighed deeply. “I don’t know the whole story, but I suspect you do. Leo really needs you, he says he feels like he is disintegrating and soon he will be nothing. Even though he is an annoying immature pain in the bum, he deserves Peace too. We all need answers. Please come and say hello and clear up a few things.”

  The room remained calm and still. Slowly, a warm spicy scent tickled the air. Kevin shut his eyes and inhaled deeply. “I know that smell, it’s Brylcreem. The room smells like my childhood.” Kevin was overwhelmed with nostalgia and sheer terror.

  “Les always slicked back his hair with Brylcreem,” said Natalie teary eyed.

  A little old man appeared by the fireplace. His crutches stood against the wall.

  “What is all the fuss about Natsy?”

  “Oh Uncle Les, thank you, thank you so much for coming. I have someone here who wants to speak to you.”

  Leo stood up and ran towards Les but stopped short. They both shyly wondered what constituted a manly spectral reunion.

  “Les, how is it going old mate?” offered Leo.

  “Can’t complain.” Les’ eyes glistened with kindness. Leo looked deeply into his aged brown eyes. The muddy iris became a shiny chestnut. The whites whitened and the red broken blood vessels flickered and evaporated. The few strands of slicked back thinning hair grew and rose up from his head like a fresh crusty loaf. The wrinkles tightened and smoothed and the hair up his nose retracted back into his head. His grey cardigan morphed into an AIF uniform.

  They shook hands enthusiastically. Les slapped Leo on the back. “Hello you old bastard. How are you?”

  “A lot better than you are by the looks of it,” replied Leo.

  “Rubbish, I’m a spring chicken.” Uncle Les back flipped forward and backwards.

  “What is happening?” asked Kev.

  “They have reunited after ninety five years, now be quiet Dad,” snapped Anna.

  Dylan’s quivering lip gave way and he sobbed, “I am so touched, I am getting a headache with the joy.” A high-pitched hiccup followed.

  “Touched in the head?” Les nodded in Dylan’s direction. Dylan wiped his tears on his shoulder like a cocky preening his chest.

  “Oh that is Dylan, he is all right. He is one sandwich short of a picnic but his heart is in the right place.”

  “Now what’s this all about?”

  “I’m sorry Les, I’m sorry.” Leo hadn’t counted on feeling so goofy.

  He had watched thousands of restless souls slip away to the light and wondered why he remained so stuck. Stuck with the weight of broken memories and fragmented images. And then great voids of nothingness would pass, years and years flashed by like the distant rattling of gunfire. ‘All the days are nights,’ her voice whispered to him, ‘Until we meet again.’ The memory of her last caress left him with longing and certainty.

  Then he would emerge out of the nothingness, the black hole and he would remember what he was. It’s Les I need. Les will help me. Les will set me straight. He became determined to communicate with him but all he found were resentful relatives and Les … lonely and broken. And now here was Les before him, good as new.

  “For what mate? For what?” questioned Les.

  “You know,” he nodded his head in the direction of Les’ legs. They were perfectly strong and clothed in leather puttees.

  “No, I don’t.”

  Leo pointed to his legs.

  “It’s my fault you spent your life unable to walk or run or dance or cartwheel or play cricket or ride a horse. You lived a shadow life, a lonely shadow life, thanks to me. It really weighs on me.”

  “Well bugger me, all this time I was blaming the Kaiser and the crummy krauts.”

  “You know what I mean, you left the Light Horse for me and came to France. Then you followed me to every battlefield I moved to. You kept an eye out for me, always. You should have still been in Egypt when the shells came down.”

  “Oh yes and Egypt was a walk in the park, wasn’t it. All tea and crumpets and sarcophaguses.” Les sighed.

  “How did you do it?”

  “I told the Officers the truth, you were underage and in a pickle and if they didn’t take me on strength as well, I would blow the whistle. Once an Officer is informed a soldier is underage, he is supposed to send you home. It meant losing a very good soldier like you. I wished to God I had sent you home. You have nothing, nothing to be sorry for Leo … I have your blood on my hands.”

  “Ahh don’t be bloody stupid mate, you looked after me,” smiled Leo. “I would have died of embarrassment if I was sent home.”

  “I guarantee you would not have, little mate. Agnes told me you were sorry, she told me that night at my wake. She said you were awful sorry for the trouble you caused and at the end of the day—it wasn’t trouble … it was just life, life being lived and life being taken.”

  “Deep and meaningful Uncle Les,” whispered Anna.

  All efforts at lightheartedness evaporated.

  “I remember … now,” whispered Leo. “The last thing I remember is seeing your legs all bloodied and twisted. And you are screaming and trying to crawl forward toward me. You are screaming. Pat and Bill grab you under the arms and drag you away from me. Pat’s fingers are missing. Bill is trying to talk to you, he is shouting. But I can’t hear the words and neither can you. I doubt if Bill can hear himself.” Les sat down on the chaise. Leo cont
inued on, “Then he belts you across the face and you pass out.”

  “What happened next?” asked Les.

  “I follow you … I follow you … I try and help the boys carry you. I try to grab your legs but I can't do it. I reach out but nothing happens—I don’t understand. I don’t understand … I know you must be in great pain because you are shouting and screaming.”

  “Couldn’t feel a thing mate, not a thing, I was screaming because I was hysterical. I had just seen you come a gutser.”

  “I died.”

  “Yes, you were blown to smithereens in front of my eyes. You went into the air as my mate Leo and came down in raggedy pieces. The pieces landed everywhere. It was raining Leo. I had your blood on my hands and a bit of your brain and eyeball too.” Les attempted a weak smile at his lame joke.

  Sweat trickled down Anna’s face as she struggled to listen to Leo’s words. They hovered on the far edge of her conciousness.

  “I wanted to get you and put you back together for Daisy … Every time I closed my eyes for the next sixty years, the image of you being blown apart hit me.” Les cleared his throat and attempted to change the subject. “You visited me on and off for years didn’t you? I couldn’t see you. Sometimes I could make out your tall shadow but I could always smell you, Woodbines and burning flesh.”

  “You would sit in your chair and drink a bottle of Emu Bitter and then you would start talking to me like you knew I was there.”

  “Wasn’t sure at first. I wondered if I was talking to myself but hoped I wasn’t. I wondered if I was going crazy. Crazy drunk or just plain insane, I wondered if I would end up in Claremont in a bed next to Bill, especially after you scratched out the word, ‘SORRY’ in front of me in the winter of 1921. You spelt it wrong— SORREE. Thought you were a bloody Frenchie ghost for a minute. Scared the shit out of me. Then I remembered your love of the King’s English and spelling.”

  They both laughed. “Daisy was the one for spelling.”

  “Di Bill come good?” asked Leo.

  “He had a stint in Claremont. Shellshock and body bits will do that to a man. They called it war neurosis. Didn’t have a mark on him but he wasn’t right in the head for a long time. Used to get a very funny look on his face and couldn’t leave the house for days on end.”

  “What happened to Patrick?”

  “Oh Piano man Pat. Lost his hand up to his forearm but he could still bang out a tune on the old piano. He got married but it didn’t last. He was a bit more chipper; he was always cracking jokes, like this one. Why did the one handed man cross the road?” he winked at Nat and Anna.

  “No idea,” said Anna.

  “To get to the second hand shop.”

  Leo bent over with laughter, “That’s a corker, Les.”

  “How do you get a one handed Irish man out of a tree?”

  “You wave to him, everyone knows that one,” said Anna.

  Les raised his eyebrows and made a face at her.

  “Don’t worry about her Les, she has a pineapple up her bum.”

  “A pineapple!! Now that is a bloody cracker Leo.”

  “She needs a cracker up her— ”

  “That will do Leo,” said Natalie sharply.

  Both laughed, sighed soberly and looked at each other.

  “I guess you want to hear the rest of the story.”

  Les walked over to Bubba and moved the blanket, “What a bonnie babe!”

  Bubba gurgled contentedly.

  “Please Les, what happened to Daisy? I followed you home but she was gone and Agnes wouldn’t say a word to me? I couldn’t feel Daisy anywhere.”

  Leo turned to Natalie and Anna.

  “Daisy was having my baby, that’s why I wanted to go to the war.”

  “I knew it!” shouted Natalie.

  “I felt it,” whispered Anna.

  “A soldier’s wage was better than what I was earning mucking out horse stables. No offence Les.”

  “None taken mate.”

  “And if we got married, three fifths of it would be sent to her and my bub. I already had my army papers telling the state I was twenty-two but Daisy had just finished school and everyone around town knew she was Old Man Mc Namara’s sixteen year old daughter. Daisy needed permission and a parent’s signature to get married. Mary Ellen and the Old Man were scandalized. Wouldn’t budge. Said I had ruined Daisy’s chance of going to University or College and taken away her good name. I had ruined her life. Hell would freeze over before they signed her over to a stable boy. So I decided to join the army.”

  “I started to suspect something was up when your beloved bestie, Les punched you in the head. You got his sister pregnant!” interjected Nat. Anna nodded her head and whispered, “Me to!”

  Les sat down. “It was a terrible shock for me, a real shock. When Leo turned up at the train station all set with his kit ready for Guildford I wondered what in blazes was going on. When he told me he was in a bit of pickle with my little sister … well I lost my temper. Daisy was at home telling Ma and the Old Man about the baby.”

  “I feel frightened for her and nearly one hundred years have passed,” shivered Natalie. The four of them turned and looked at the ticked off portrait of Mary Ellen staring down at them. Leo was silent.

  “Poor old Daisy endured Mum’s wrath. Aggie told me later Mum wanted to send Daisy back to her sister in Melbourne. There she could have the baby adopted out to a cousin who was childless and then continue her studies but Daisy refused to budge,” said Les.

  “Good for her,” said Nat as tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Daisy ended up packing her bag and moving in across the road with Mrs. Nolan, your Ma … Mum went crazy and reckoned Mrs. Nolan had never been married. She had never seen a man around and that they were a couple of fallen women together and how fitting was that … I know it broke Mum’s heart, she just had a funny way of showing it.”

  Leo stomped around the room, trying not to curse his mate’s mother to Hell.

  “Broken heart or anger management issues?” mumbled Anna, feeling drained.

  “But Daisy wouldn’t budge, she was waiting for you to return and then the three of you could be a family. Mrs. Nolan said she would take care of the baby if Daisy wanted to study after the war. She hung on for months. Mum wouldn’t go out any more in case she saw the scarlet women.”

  “That is a bit harsh,” said Nat.

  “It put Aggie in a terrible bind. Aggie would make a big fuss about how she was going to see her dear sister across the road and would any one care to join her or was she the only Christian in the house. Everyday Mum would tell Agnes don’t bother coming home and everyday day on her return, nothing was said and they would prepare dinner in silence. Maybe things might have turned around but when Daisy was due to have the baby, things changed for the worse. It was the start of June and it was freezing. They didn’t have Leo or me around to help. Mrs. Nolan’s chest was bad and she had one of those terrible coughing attacks and died. Died in Daisy’s arms. Daisy was beside herself with grief. Agnes and my sisters went to the funeral but Mum, the Old Man and the boys stayed away.”

  “How hurtful,” whispered Nat.

  “Don’t you mean how rude?” said Anna, fighting to stay conscious but needing to have her say.

  “Well Daisy thought it was rude too. After the funeral, she walked in the front door and blasted them. She cursed them to high heaven. She said she would go to Melbourne after all because she didn’t want her child near a pack of self-righteous arseholes. Mum was terribly sorry. Agnes thought the Old Man would roar at her but he didn’t. He sat at this table with his head in his hands. Mum begged her to stay. Agnes begged her to let her go with her but she said no. She packed up her few remaining things and she left with the few bob Leo had saved for her. That was the last time Agnes saw her.”

  “Wow, how many yea
rs passed … did they communicate at all? So sad.”

  “Oh they were in constant contact. She wrote Agnes a letter every week and Agnes replied. Agnes got a telegram that the baby was a boy and they had settled for the time being. She had taken a room with a kind family from Church. She was waiting for Leo and when he returned they would marry, move and start afresh.”

  “But now you go and get blown up,” said Anna, the words tumbled out before she could stop them but she quickly added, “For which I am truly sorry … the rich and random tapestry of life … it sucks sometimes. I’m sorry Uncle Les … go on.”

  Her voice was barely audible.

  “It was Agnes who received the telegrams. One was addressed to the Old Man regarding my injury and the other was addressed to Mrs. Angelika Nolan concerning you. The young lad didn’t want to leave it with Agnes as the news had to go to the next of kin. Aggie explained there was nobody left and the boy handed it over, probably in a hurry to deliver his large sack of telegrams. Agnes gave mine to the Old Man and opened yours. She knew something bad must have happened to both of us and prayed for the Lord to give her strength. She opened it. It was a pink slip of paper.

  ‘Private Leopold Reginald Nolan was K I A on the 21st of March 1918 in France.’ The few words were typed in rushed uneven letters. The crooked typing upset Agnes, she wished they had taken just a bit of care. She was very fussy, our Agnes.” Les smiled feebly and continued on.

  “Agnes said she felt the ground come up and smack her in the face. She wrote to Daisy and enclosed the telegram … Daisy wrote straight back. She asked Aggie to put a bereavement notice in the newspaper for you. I found Daisy’s note later and kept it. I reread it a thousand times. It was supposed to go something like this:

  Pte Leopold Reginald Nolan of Brown Street East Perth, much loved son of Angelika and John Nolan (both deceased) was KILLED IN ACTION on the 21st of March 1918 on active service in France. Dear friend to Private Lesley McNamara and Miss Agnes McNamara. Beloved fiancé to Miss Daisy McNamara, father to darling son Reginald Leopold Nolan. Inserted by his sorrowing fiancé Daisy McNamara. He is gone but never forgotten. Never shall his memory fade. RIP Nols.

  Aggie said she had every intention of entering it word for word in the bereavement notices but Mum found the note and forbad her to write the words fiancé, father and son. Aggie said that Mum was so hysterical, she feared for her sanity. So she left out the words, which changed the meaning.

  Daisy asked Aggie to send her a copy of the death notice, she did so but she was fearful of Daisy’s response. Daisy took a month to write back. One night Agnes woke up crying in her sleep, she could feel Daisy’s sadness and she knew she was in a bad way. Heartsick. Aggie begged her forgiveness for her weakness. Agnes was always one for feeling things deeply … Daisy replied less and less to Agnes’s letters. I had returned from overseas now and was living back in Brown Street waiting for the repatriation. I couldn’t work with horses again.” Les attempted another halfhearted smile. Anna sensed Leo’s sadness—it was physically hurting her. Les continued on. “Agnes fell into a depression. She said she was going to see Daisy and the baby. She said Daisy’s letters were getting distant and more peculiar each week. She wrote to Daisy to let her know she was coming soon. I sent her this photo of Leo and I … as well as the one of Agnes and her. I thought it might help her remember the good times at Brown Street. Daisy telegrammed back and said she was getting married and not to come. She wanted to get on with her new life.” Anna flicked open her eyes and looked hard into Leo’s face. His expression was stunned.

  Les soldiered on, acutely aware of the pain his words caused.

  “Agnes was inconsolable for a time but Mum said it was for the best. Daisy had moved on and so should she. So Agnes threw herself into looking after Yours Truly here and making sure Miss Charlotte kept out of trouble. She helped Veronica with her babies and moved between sisters and brothers. Always ready to burp a baby, peel a potato or man the copper. She wrote to Daisy every month to tell her news of the family and Daisy replied. They got back on an even keel. She talked of her little boy but never mentioned her new husband. She never had any more babies.”

  The room fell silent. Leo stared at Beth, Blake and Bubba. Anna felt sick with his pain. Finally Natalie said, “Leo, are you okay. Leo?”

  “Now what is going on?” said Kev getting slightly irritated.

  “For heaven’s sake, be quiet Kevin.”

  Les continued on.

  “And I will tell you what else I also read a thousand times, Daisy’s letters to you and me. She had addressed them to me, as she didn’t want to embarrass you. She knew I would read them to you. Only problem was with us moving from the Light Horse to the artillery, the letters went astray, never made it to France. When I was discharged, I got a neat pile of letters from my sisters and brothers and Mum, of course. They were all there. Letter upon letter. I wasn’t officially discharged until April in 1919 and by then … by then I thought it would only cause Daisy sorrow to know you hadn’t received them. I never told her.”

  Les turned and looked intensely at Leo, “It was all there, telling you that your Ma had died. Telling you how the cricket was going, that East Perth had won the Premiership, to what kind of veggies she wanted you to plant when you got home. She had lists of baby names and all kinds of things.”

  Kevin started to sulk and then looked up alarmed. “The table is vibrating! It’s bloody moving.” The group stood up and kicked their chairs back as the table moved up past their noses and towered over them. It tipped and swayed as Leo’s power was quickly sapped.

  “Don’t break the circle,” shouted Natalie.

  “Don’t break my skull,” screamed Dylan.

  “Need some help mate?” Les stretched out his arms and pointed them at the table. The table ceased lurching. It settled down into a tiny wobble and eventually became firm and still, although it hung above their heads like a coffin lid.

  “Thanks mate.”

  Leo stood under the centre of the table and pointed to faintly pencilled words.

  There in Leo’s immature handwriting were the words Leo Loves Daisy, 1915. Beneath that in Daisy’s fine script, Daisy and Leo Forever.

  “Forever she said,” whispered Leo.

  “Forever is a long time Leo, you have to be practical. Daisy had a child to look after. Women didn’t have the same advantages as men—” She was too tired to speak.

  “Shut up Anna,” said Dylan tearing up. Jacqui squeezed his hand, glared at Dylan and then glared at Anna.

  “I was only trying to help.” She shut her eyes and tears of exhaustion trickled down her face.

  “The table,” whispered Jacqui, “is the ultimate love letter … a vow of eternal love … so utterly beautiful.”

  Anna looked up at the table and remembered seeing Leo for the first time—he had been silently stroking the wood grain as if it were a loose dark curl slipping out of a hat.

  Les silently lowered the table.

  “Didn’t you see the writing under the table when you were mending it?” Natalie asked Kevin.

  “Just old fashioned squiggles and numbers to me, I ignored them.”

  Natalie sighed heavily.

  “The last of the great romantics,” quipped Les and winked at Natalie.

  “Yep.”

  Les continued on, “Years later when Mum and Dad died, Agnes and I packed up the house in Brown Street. We took the table apart. We were going to store it in Dan’s garage. He didn’t want it in his house and Veronica and Charlotte had homes with tables of their own. I lived in a tiny flat and Agnes still divided her time between our sisters’ homes.”

  Les looked at Leo, “When Agnes read your words, she cried and cried and raved on how she promised Ma she would not speak to you. Seeing as you had been dead for nine years, I thought there was no fear of that but every chance that Aggie was losin
g her marbles. She would make sure the table went to whom it rightly belonged and stuff the husband. Dan paid for the shipment of the table to Daisy’s Melbourne address.”

  “Not like him to be generous.”

  “Well he got so wealthy in the mines, postage was a pittance to him.”

  “Good on him,” said Leo flatly.

  Les looked at him expectantly, Leo shook himself and said, “Thanks Les mate, thanks for that … very good of you to come and see me. It is good to know the truth.”

  “Are you giving me the wind up … here’s your hat, what’s your hurry? You kicking me out the door?” laughed Les kindly.

  “Course not mate,” Leo replied as he stared out the window at the pounding rain.

  Les’ attention wandered over to the group and he honed in on a bottle in front of Kev, “Hmm is that home brew?” Les picked up Kevin’s drink and examined the bottle then sniffed deeply. Kevin made little frightened meowing noises and started to choke on his own saliva.

  “My old friend, Mr. Booze, Mr. Booze, Mr. Booze, go away Mr. Booze.” Les moved the bottle over his shoulder and out of his sight. “Where are you going Mr. Booze? Come back, come back.”

  Leo echoed the last sentence and smiled weakly. He had heard it before in the recesses of Les’s darkened room as he struggled to quell his pain. Leo knew his legs ached and his heart was heavy.

  Les placed the bottle back down on the table. A small splash escaped the stubby and landed on Kevin.

  “Bbbb, Beer … gone warm. It’s hot … like a cuppa.”

  “You’re alright Kevin love,” soothed Natalie.

  Leo shook himself and moved away from the window.

  “I thought I might try joining you,” Leo attempted to sound jolly.

  “Bonza idea mate!”

  Les tipped his hat at Natalie, “Always a pleasure Natsy. Miss Anna, wonderful to make your acquaintance. And to all you folks, a very good evening.”

  He grabbed Leo’s arm and dissipated. Leo remained. His face was expressionless.

  “You coming?”

  “I can’t, I can’t do it. I’m still bloody stuck.”

  Leo pointed a finger at a vase of roses on the sideboard. It exploded into shards of glass. Petals dripped mournfully down from the ceiling.

  “Watch your temper fella. Come on, you can do it. I know you can.”

  “Not more glass,” groaned Natalie.

  He tried again.

  Les looked at Leo, “Once you cross over, it requires oceans of energy to cross back. Where we are going, it’s a place so perfect that you will never want to leave … we fizzle and spark and find ourselves dissolving … almost nestling into all the corners of the Universe. There is no need for words in fact, words are old fashioned,” he smiled at the laptop sitting idly on the buffet. “Mostly we just … are … we are suspended in light, caught in a whisper … floating in a bubble. Our stories remain but our pain is forgotten … so coming back … well it’s a bit of an effort.” Les laughed at his own musings, shook himself and looked earnestly at Leo once more, “You ready for that?”

  “I think I am going to faint,” whispered Anna. The blackness closed in as her head hit the table with a crack.

  Leo turned to face Anna, “You okay?”

  Les raised his eyebrows in concern, “I think that was my cue to leave … It’s too much for her.” Les bowed deeply to Natalie and walked through the window and disappeared into the stormy night.

  The table of friends released their grip. Natalie ran out into the kitchen for a wet flannel, a stiff drink of cordial and a handful of chocolates for Anna. Kevin scooped her up and placed her lovingly on the chaise.

  “What is happening? Did it work? Is Leo still here coz it still stinks,” squeaked Dylan breathlessly.

  “I’m still here,” said Leo forlornly to no one but himself.

  Anna opened her eyes and reached out to Leo. He crouched by her side and whispered, “Please give everyone my thanks. Thank you for trying to give me a send off but I had better get going. There is a card game going on with my fritzy friend Frederic. By the way what does arschloch mean?”

  “He is gone.” Anna relayed the rest of his message to the table.

  “It means dickhead,” said Blake shyly, “I was an exchange student to Munich 2001 … apparently I was one.”