When Skies Have Fallen

by Debbie McGowan

  Chapter Eighteen: January, 1946

  In the quiet solitude of the early morning, Arty set down the book he had been reading and gazed out at the icy haze of fog around the lone street lamp. The gales of the previous few days had blown themselves out, leaving in their wake the sort of bitter frost that made one’s fingers and toes feel as if they could be snapped off as easily as old twigs, but Arty wasn’t cold. In Dalton Place, with its luxurious central heating and vast hearths in every room, it was almost impossible to feel the cold at all.

  Back in 1930, Antonio Adessi had bought the three-storey house for a very good price, and the first thing he’d done was install the heating; the second thing he’d done was transport his entire library and art collection from his home in Florence. The third was to appoint Arty’s sister as housekeeper, which was why Arty felt such an affinity for the house and, ultimately, was how Jean, Charlie and Jim had won him round when they took over his convalescence without his knowledge or involvement.

  Whilst Arty’s memories of Dalton Place were vivid and all-consuming, in reality his visits had been few and far between. Yet there was such wonder and magnificence within those walls, when viewed through the eyes of a child, and it had left a permanent mark on his soul. The sculptures, mostly vulgar, shapeless forms he could not identify, had impressed his younger self far less than the vast oil paintings of large, curvaceous women with skin like porcelain, which would enchant him for hours, while he considered who the subjects were, conjuring life stories for them in his mind. It would have been an interesting experiment to see how he perceived those sculptures and paintings now.

  However, it was the library that had captured Arty’s heart, for it was in that dim, brown, cluttered first-floor room he had discovered himself. In that room, amongst the words of scholars and artists, Arty had found others like him: men who loved men. And it was in that room, in the passionate heat of a chill October night, he and Jim had consummated their relationship.

  Alas, Adessi’s library had returned to Florence with him, and whilst the excessive hotness of Dalton Place spoke of how unbearable the English winter had been for the Italian, Arty doubted his sister was having the same trouble adjusting to the warm Florentine climate, particularly now she was reacquainted with her much-loved books. He missed Sissy dearly, but he did not begrudge her for following her heart. If six years of war had taught the world one thing, it was, alas, not as Arty had once believed. The Allies had won; they had liberated Europe. It was hard to claim that war solved nothing in the face of all the evidence. No, what six years of war had demonstrated beyond doubt was that somehow, some way, regardless of the death and destruction, life goes on, or as D H Lawrence once so eloquently wrote, ‘We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.’

  There was little D H Lawrence in Arty’s own library, which, in contrast to Adessi’s, was quite meagre and staid, consisting of the books he had owned as a child, plus the few Sissy had gifted him over the years. Following his discharge from hospital, he had stayed with his parents for a few weeks, making it clear from the very start that he was moving to London, much to his mother’s apparent relief. She was not the nurturing sort and had flown into an immediate panic, thinking she would have to spend the rest of her days supporting her invalid son. By the time Jean sent word that Dalton Place was habitable, Arty’s mother had already helped him pack his belongings into two trunks, which his father helped Charlie to lift into the back of the van he had borrowed, and so began the next chapter of Arty’s life…or almost.

  Arty checked the time—not long to go now—and glanced down at the cover of his most recent acquisition: the book Sissy had given him for Christmas, entitled Reflections in a Golden Eye, by Carson McCullers. It was a slim volume, for which he was glad; he found it flat and depressing, but it had at least filled the sleepless hours of this final night of waiting: Jim’s ship was due to dock mid-morning and by the evening they would be reunited. Arty shivered in anticipation and laughed quietly, not wishing to disturb Jean and Charlie, sleeping in the room above.

  Glancing around his and Jim’s bedroom, Arty finally allowed himself to anticipate what it would be like to share his nights with Jim. The double bed had felt too big and empty for him to appreciate its warmth and comfort; now, as he looked across from his window seat, he could almost see the two of them cuddled up, reading a book together, not that Jim was especially fond of books, but he had read to Arty in the hospital. And he’d written that ridiculous letter; thinking about it made Arty want to read it again, and he carefully eased himself to his feet, taking a moment to get the blood flowing properly before doing his best to tiptoe across the room—not the easiest thing to accomplish with no feeling in the tops of his feet.

  Avoiding the creakiest floorboards, Arty reached his side of the bed and sat down, smiling as he remembered Jim’s remark in his last letter about oiling the bedsprings. The bed didn’t squeak, but apart from the night in the old library—now Jean and Charlie’s kitchen—he and Jim had never shared a bed. Arty really hoped they would be testing it to its limits tonight. Or perhaps even before then. Jim’s train was due in at four-fifteen—would it be too early to go to bed? Arty covered his mouth to stifle his embarrassed chuckle at the brashness of his thoughts.

  So that Jim’s letters were always close at hand, Arty kept them in his bedside cabinet, and he opened it and took out the entire bundle, fanning it across the bed. The seven months since Jim returned to the USA for demobilisation had been the longest and loneliest months of Arty’s life, and from Jim’s letters it was clear he was feeling it too. Since the previous summer, Jim had been back in West Virginia, waiting for his paperwork to be processed, and all was far from well. Jim’s younger brother, Joshua, who was a civilian and thus under no obligation to go through demobilisation, had remained in London with his girlfriend, leaving Jim at their father’s mercy and, by Joshua’s account, the man had little to spare. He drank heavily and daily, and though neither brother ever used the word, it was clear their father was violent and lashed out at his wife and sons.

  Knowing this, and also that Jim’s mother had let slip about Jim to his father, caused Arty no end of worry, but there was nothing he could do. Molly—the matron who had cared for him after the accident and whom he now considered one of his dearest friends—kept ticking him off for worrying over things that were beyond his control. Not only was it pointless, she chastised, it was also dangerous to his health. Arty tried to argue that his blood vessels were all healed and he could worry as much as he jolly well liked, but Molly ignored him. It was true, as far as any doctor could tell: whilst the atrophy in his upper-leg muscles was a permanent debility and the drop foot could be a real nuisance, in all other ways Arty was back to full health. Indeed, he was confident that once the workshop was up and running he would be able to undertake the lighter jobs, and dared to believe that one day he would dance again.

  Of course, Arty never wrote of his worries in his letters to Jim, instead updating him on progress with the house, his hopes for the future and reassurances that he loved and missed him. Nor did Jim mention any of the trouble going on with his father, but Arty sensed it in the words Jim chose. Although the two of them were the same height, Jim was so much bigger than Arty—broader at the shoulders, wider at the hips, more muscular, larger hands, thicker hair, a big laugh and that glorious deep baritone drawl. When he spoke he used big words—not long words, or clever words with complex meanings—but words that were open and confident, conveying his love, or his anger, or his joy. Jim was a strong man, not afraid to show his emotions, and when he entered a room, everyone felt his presence, but it was never threatening. He was a jolly, happy soul and peaceable, yet able stand up for himself if need be, as Charlie could testify.

  And so it was that through those thirty-one letters, Arty could trace the ups and downs of Jim’s every waking moment. The good days were littered with I love yous, sentences that started ‘I’m so excited about…’ and hilarious observat
ions of the mundane, or tall tales of practical jokes he and his friends played on each other, where everything was ‘real funny’. The sad days still had plenty of I love yous, but the excitement was absent, in its place ‘I cannot wait…’ and ‘Today I missed…’. Then there were the letters written on the bad days, filled with factual accounts of what Jim had been up to—‘fixed this’, or ‘helped out with that’, and so on—and it was those letters that tore at Arty’s heart, because the only time Jim contained his emotions was when they had the potential to overpower even the mighty-happy Jim Johnson.

  That was how it had been when Arty was in hospital, and looking back to those first few weeks after the accident, Arty could only marvel at the patience Jim and their friends had shown him. So many times he had succumbed to dark, bleak thoughts, wishing he had died when the Wellington crushed his legs. Some of it was down to the excruciating pain and the accompanying frustration of learning to walk again. Mostly it was because of the burden he had become to those he loved, and the indignity of having other people tend to his personal care. All of it was selfish, he realised now, even though he’d tried to convince himself he was only thinking of Jim, or Jean, or whomever might be put under duress by his existence.

  In that respect, his mother’s aloofness had worked in his favour: rather than bathe and toilet her grown-up son, she had paid a woman called Gitel Kohn to come in and do it each morning. Gitel was a Jewish refugee whose husband had died in a concentration camp, and she spoke very little English, her favourite phrase being nu gay shoyn, which Arty assumed meant ‘hurry up’, as she usually shouted it when he was taking too long doing whatever he was doing. He couldn’t complain or grumble, or, at least he could, but there was little point when Gitel understood barely a word he said. She didn’t pander or fuss, she just did what was required and went on her way. In spite of the language barrier, the two had got along well, and when Arty departed for London, Gitel had been there to see him off; it had been a tear-free but nonetheless emotional farewell.

  And so Arty had moved into Dalton Place, determined to be self-sufficient, and the adjustments to their living quarters made it possible for him to quickly recover his independence. Originally built for multiple occupancy, the building’s three floors were identical in layout, each consisting of two large and two small rooms. Prior to it becoming Adessi’s London residence, the house had been served by one outside toilet; however, Antonio had lived on the first floor, hence that was where he had put the bathroom. The kitchen and dining room had been located on the ground floor, which he’d used for entertaining guests and displaying his art collection, whereas the second floor had been little more than storage space for those pieces he had grown tired of, because, as Arty had always said, the house was far too big for one.

  Now Dalton Place consisted of three self-contained apartments, one on each floor, and all equipped with a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and sitting room. The apartments were modest, but of a good size, and Jean’s mother, in a conspicuous display of her delight at Jean finding a husband, had given her a substantial sum towards the refurbishment. Once Jim was home it would be straight on with planning Jean and Charlie’s wedding, and then getting the workshop up and running, or else they’d have nothing to live on.

  Once Jim was home…

  Arty sifted through the letters and found the one he knew would put a smile on his face to see him through the next twelve hours. Jim Johnson, attempting to write in the style of D H Lawrence: appalling, amusing, adorable.

  My darling,

  For some time now I have been filled with a restlessness that threatens to take over my very sensibility. It seeks out the very source and core of my innermost, closing in, like the soft, loose passion I sought and found that one sweet night with you.

  I have feasted a thousand times on that memory, died a thousand deaths and in each I see you, as clearly as if you were lying right beside me, your sleek, slender body flushed with the colors of the rising sun, the sunset and all the seconds between.

  Arty, I guess you know what I’m trying to say by now. I can’t get you off of my mind. You complete me, if you get my drift. Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you that.

  We’ll be together soon, though not soon enough. Until then—

  All my love,

  Jim

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