Hag

by Kathleen Kaufman

  And so when Paul told Alice that he was leaving for the States in seven days, Alice was not surprised. She was not quite sure as to exactly what had prompted the swift departure, and Paul was not telling. Alice did get a bit of a hint at the truth of the situation from one of the other wives who lived on the base, a stout, mannish sort of woman named Corinne who ran the monthly spouse dinners on the base. Alice didn’t always attend, but since Coira’s arrival, she had been a more regular guest. The dinner had fallen the night after Paul had broken the news to Alice. It was a paperwork thing, he had said, a transfer. It had to do with his hearing loss; he couldn’t do the work, so he was being transferred back to Colorado Springs to a desk job. Alice hadn’t quite believed him, but they were at a place where the truth was negotiable. This was a more savory version of the truth, and the effort Paul had put into concocting the story was rather sweet.

  Coira had the run of Miss Lettie’s house now. “Far too young to be so independent,” the old woman had sighed. Alice had no comparison; she thought Coira to be right on schedule. The determined little girl had been set in her own ways from the very beginning. At barely a year, she had even managed the great wooden stairs. Her brow would furrow, and she would gently and purposefully edge her way down. Alice had held her breath the entire first time she’d done it, but now it was a regular sight.

  Paul’s face had frozen a bit when Alice told him that she wasn’t following him back home. He hadn’t said anything for a few sullen moments, but swallowed hard, and then, in a carefully measured tone, he asked, “What will you do for money? I don’t intend to send money back for you to stay here.”

  Alice had laughed—a most inappropriate response, but entirely spontaneous. She hadn’t relied on Paul’s meager contributions to her living expenses since the first few months of her arrival.

  “Have you forgotten that I have a job, and that I was born in this country?” Alice had said airily. It was true: she had maintained dual citizenship since childhood, and her job paid well enough for her to live in Miss Lettie’s house forever if she chose to.

  Paul had left for the base, and Alice had sat with Miss Lettie in the drawing room, drinking brandy-spiked tea while Coira drew pictures with her charcoal pencils by the fireplace. You’re a brave one, Miss Lettie had said. Alice had shaken her head. She was far from brave; she was a coward, all things considered. She knew what lay in the path for Paul, and there was nothing she could do to change his stars. She had her baby, and as far as she considered things, it was all she needed. She liked England with its sprawling moors, and this house with its drafty windows felt like home.

  So Alice had gone to what she supposed would be her last spouse dinner at Corinne’s dreadful grey concrete flat on the base. All the wives were supposed to bring a dish, and Alice had brought a pot of her grandmother’s chicken noodles, which swiftly disappeared among the gelatin molds and potato casseroles. Corinne had pulled Alice aside while Coira sat with a little boy of similar size, not playing as he was exactly, but observing, as was her way. Alice watched the little boy sorting through a bucket of Lincoln Logs by the foot of the stairs, absorbed in the activity. Alice smiled at her little girl’s furrowed brow as she watched the boy build a house from the bits of wood.

  “I wanted to know how you’re holding up, love?” Corinne had asked.

  Alice gave a polite smile. “It will be a big change, but Paul’s hearing has been shot since Vietnam, so I suppose it’s not too big a surprise.” There was no need to tell anyone her plans to stay in the UK. It was none of their business, after all, and the chances of any of the base wives finding out she had stayed behind were slim.

  Corinne had frowned. “So you really don’t know, then.”

  Alice had, of course, known there was much more to the story than Paul had told her, and she supposed this moment was inevitable.

  “I’m quite frankly not sure I want to know,” she said simply.

  Corinne took this as an invitation to tell the whole story in hushed tones while Alice watched her little girl stack blocks across the room. Paul was being sent home not because his hearing had impaired his ability to do his job, but because he had had a breakdown in his commander’s office. Corinne didn’t know all the details; her husband was a clerk and had heard from someone who had seen it happen through the glassed walls of the office. Paul had nearly broken his hand hammering it through the glass. The commander had ordered a psychiatric evaluation and a transfer back home. It wasn’t unheard of, Corinne whispered, nothing to be ashamed of; the men who had seen combat in Vietnam had issues that others simply could not appreciate. She told the entire story in sympathetic murmurings that held an edge of delight at being the one to break such gossip.

  Alice had simply nodded her head and walked across the room to Coira, who looked up at her mother with her dark eyes.

  “Hello,” the little girl said simply.

  Alice smiled as she held out her hand, and Coira stood to take it as the other hens in the room whispered mundane sympathies to each other. Poor dear, and what would I do if, and whatnot of the sort. Alice ignored it all; she had the ability to floor them all if she wanted. It was tempting as all hell to tell gossipy Corinne that her husband would fail to come home in about three years, after she had added a red-nosed little boy to their growing brood of children. She would panic and fuss and then get a note written on the back of a postcard saying he was sorry. The husband and father of the red-nosed brood of young ones would be living in Malta at that time, AWOL from the Air Force and entirely in love with a girl who was the polar opposite of Corinne.

  It was no use to tell her, and no one would believe her if she did. Looking around the room, the noise seemed to hum; the paths of these women, who had focused their entire beings on waiting for a sense of forever, were laid clearly before her eyes. She closed her eyes and tried to block the rush of lives not her own. She had known that Paul hadn’t told her the truth, and she wasn’t surprised in the least at Corinne’s story. She simply wanted all the sad looks to stop being directed her way. She was okay, she had her place at last in this world, and Paul’s indiscretions, his instability, didn’t reflect on her in the least. A hushed giggle escaped from a set of lips. Alice could not place the source, but the eyes of the gossipy hens settled on her, waiting for her to react. An old anger, one that Alice had not listened to for quite some time, stirred within her.

  “My dear, maybe it’s time you went,” Corinne said, taking note of the stares and subdued whispers.

  Alice nodded, and with a flick of her wrist sent a salad bowl sitting on the edge of the buffet table flying across the room. The women screamed and ducked. Alice smiled sublimely.

  “You’re right. I do need to be getting on,” she said, and with another flick of the wrist overturned a platter of Cornish pasties. Alice didn’t wait for a response. She turned and found Coira standing at her heel, a small smile on her face at the chaos, holding her stuffed bear and jumper, ready to go.

  As they walked down the steps of the base cottage, Alice laughed aloud at the women’s reactions. They would blame it on the wind or perhaps a misplaced hand, and always be fearful of Alice for reasons they couldn’t quite name. As for Paul, Alice steeled herself. She was sad for Coira, who loved her Daddy, and watching the two of them read together at bedtime made her love Paul a bit, but Coira was young and would find joy in so many other things and people.

  Later at Miss Lettie’s, as Coira lay asleep in her cot and Alice lay on the great, dark oak bed staring out the window, she smiled to herself. Her life could really begin now—no expectations, no waiting for the fate she had seen so long ago. Paul would be gone this time next week, and Alice would be free. Maybe she could go back to Glasgow and find a teaching position, or maybe run a shop like her Great-Grandmum Muriel. She could live in the same lane where she’d grown up. Coira could play in the Scottish rain and grow up without the constraints of seeing the paths and intents of all those around her. Alice would let fate play out
around her, time and life enough as it was. The path that Alice had seen so many years ago was still intact, and she knew it was unlikely they could escape it altogether, but it was a beautiful dream, and in this night, as the stars filled the English sky and danced in the rolling heath, it was real enough.

  ROWAN ELIZABETH REID LEANED up against the stained and battered wall of the surgery ward in Royaumont Abbey. The young man inside had been on the table for six hours and lost both legs, and it would be a miracle if he lasted the night.

  Rowan was a nurse, for now, studying under the senior doctors. Miss Frances Ivens herself had told her that after the war, she would see that she was accepted to the finest medical school in all of Britain. But for now she assisted and learned whatever any of the doctors and senior nurses were willing to teach. Her mother and grandmother had been wary when she had joined the ranks of the Scottish Women’s Hospital. She’d only just finished the preliminary medical training at Queen Margaret’s when she’d attended a talk held by Dr. Sybil Lewis, who had implored the scant number of young women at the Women’s Medical College to join, to be part of the future of the suffrage movement. Think of it, she’d said to Mum and Grandmum. Think of it, women doctors, nurses, everything. Her Mum had hmph’d and nodded. Sure, she’d said, and what thanks will ya get? You think the soldiers will let a woman save them and not extract their bit of blood for it? Mum hadn’t been entirely off; the idea had been met with a great deal of resistance, but now the SWH was stationed all along the front. Rowan had kissed Mum, Grandmum, and Great-Grandmum Moira goodbye and left for France that same year.

  Some of the other girls knew about Rowan’s family. They knew about her Great-Grandmum Moira, who, even in the furthest reaches of old age, attracted followers and those who wanted her to contact their lost husbands, their children who had died of influenza or consumption. They knew the stories about her Grandmum Catriona and even her mother, who hardly left the flat or the shop below. Some of the other girls teased her, asked her to read their palms or tea leaves. Rowan laughed back, and in an easy way, the scrutiny was lost to the chaos of the hospital. Truth was, Rowan had never much taken to the reading of palms or tea leaves. She didn’t have the ability to talk to the spirits that her Great-Grandmum Moira or Grandmum Catriona did. She couldn’t call the rain or mix herbs that brought fertility or luck like her Mum. No, Rowan, despite diligent studies with the three great women of her family, was a bit hopeless. She buried her head in science and books. In her secondary studies, she was the only girl in her anatomy class; she had driven the professor mad with questions and angered the boys by scoring higher than any of them. She was fluent in the languages of chemistry and biology to such an extent that she often forgot how to normalize her conversations for regular folk. Mum’s eyes would glaze over as she listened, and Rowan would know that she had lost her attention.

  The war needed nurses, and Rowan had seen it as a way to achieve her goal. One day she would be a doctor, one of a small but growing club of women physicians in Britain like Dr. Elsie Inglis or Dr. Mary Phillips. Today she had assisted the anesthesiologist and kept the young man breathing and unconscious. The ether was strong, and too much would kill him as easily as the wounds to his legs. Her starched white uniform was stained with blood, and her feet ached as if they would fall straight off. She needed to change and get back to the ward. She was on duty tonight and would be looking in on the young man who would never walk again but might open his eyes nonetheless. Another nurse passed her and offered a weary smile. Rowan returned it. She forced herself to move and walk down the hall to the dormitories, where she could change her clothes and maybe catch a bit of rest before her next shift began.

  The young man had bright blue eyes, the color of robin’s eggs in summer, and hair that was just a shade off the dark fire-red that ran in her family. He had looked up at her as the ether began to take effect and locked his eyes on hers. Rowan had squeezed his hand and checked the meter to make sure the drip was steady. He couldn’t be any older than she, and yet his path had already been decided for him in so many ways. He would most likely die; injuries as grievous as his were likely to catch infection, and even if they didn’t, he would be susceptible to the influenza and chest ailments that swirled around the abbey like a storm. Still, she couldn’t get his robin’s egg eyes out of her mind as she stripped off the stained uniform and donned another, lay back on her cot, and closed her eyes, careful not to let herself get too comfortable.

  He took a fever in the night, and Rowan joined the small circle of nurses at the foot of his bed. He thrashed back and forth, pouring sweat, face red and tormented. The doctor, a tiny woman from Liverpool, shooed them all away.

  “Go on, girls, let’s get back to work. You—I can use you. You stay.” She pointed to Rowan.

  So Rowan sat by the bedside of the blue-eyed soldier most of the night, helping the doctor give the man fluids through an IV in his arm and wiping his brow. She talked to him, told him stories about her mother and Grandmum, sang him bits of songs that had been sung to her.

  Oh do you remember a long time ago

  Two poor little babes whose names I don’t know

  Were stolen away one bright summer day

  And left in the woods, So I’ve heard people say

  He moaned and sometimes made sounds that resembled words. At one point, he opened both eyes and again locked them on Rowan.

  “I left the gate open, the goats will be loose.” His voice sounded young, like a little boy. Rowan took his hand and wiped his brow, and he settled back, shaking slightly. Rowan sang softly to him.

  And when it was night

  So bleak was their plight

  The sun went down

  The moon gave no light

  He never spoke again or even opened his eyes. He lay still, and Rowan was filled with a concrete certainty that his spirit had flown. She wiped his brow once more and patted down his mussed hair. She wished she had the sight; she wished she could speak to his spirit now and tell him she was sorry she couldn’t do more. The young man with the blue eyes died just before dawn.

  The next day, the tiny doctor from Liverpool led Rowan to the back of the abbey where there had once stood a great greenhouse.

  “The girls tell me that you have knowledge of herbs and plants. Is this true?” she asked pointedly.

  “Yes, ma’am. My mother and grandmother… ” Rowan answered softly.

  “I know who your family is, Nurse Reid. I’m not one to buy into all that. But you have grown up with a knowledge of plants, true?” The doctor’s voice was stern but not unkind.

  Rowan nodded, and so she became the head of the greenhouse and medicinal herb room. She grew garlic and cinnamon for fever, wormwood and peppermint for dysentery, valerian and St John’s wort for pain. She taught the others how to grind the leaves and roots, how to make teas and poultices, how to reduce a bruise with witch hazel and chamomile, how to ease the blindness that came from shock with gingko and bilberry. She felt herself easing back into her childhood, and she knew the women waiting for her in Glasgow would be proud.

  Many years later, after the war, after she had completed her studies at Queen Margaret Medical College for Women, where Dr. Frances Ivens, true to her word, had recommended Rowan with highest honors for the work she had done at Royaumont Abbey, Rowan still saw the soldier with the robin’s egg blue eyes in her dreams. His face persisted, and his little-boy voice hung in her ears. She sang the little song to her own daughter and prayed she would fear neither death nor the power of her own mind. Rowan Elizabeth Reid lived a long life, free of illness and full of peace, and deep in the lowland crags the Cailleach lay curled in her nest by the black waters in deep hibernation.

  THE FLIGHT TO NEW YORK was just under eight hours, and then it would be another seven to Colorado. Eight hours for Alice to sit, with Coira alternately in her lap or wiggling in the seat next to her. Eight hours to close her eyes and smell the sweet Ceylon black tea that Miss Lettie would be brewing right a
bout now. Eight hours to close her eyes and take a mental walk through the little flat in Glasgow that she had signed lease papers for. One bedroom and a den that was perfectly adaptable for a child’s bedroom. It smelled of cedar and warm things, and Alice had known as soon as she stepped over the entry that it was hers. The manager had been very understanding, refunding her entire deposit.

  “It’s a good thing, it is,” he had said in a thick brogue. “To be with family in such a time as this.” He had nodded at Coira, who was running her hand along the wall, singing quietly to herself, a tune of gibberish that wasn’t intended for adult ears. Alice had nodded, her disappointment and grief at the loss of her potential life still bitter and sharp. Out back of the flat was a tiny garden surrounded by a tall and ancient wall. Alice had closed her eyes and seen it lined with garden boxes and a tea table with a couple of chairs. She had seen it filled with snow in the winter and green and balmy in the summer. So as she handed the keys back to manager with his paternal smile, she said a silent goodbye to these visions.

  Eight hours to remember every detail. Eight hours to feel Miss Lettie’s arms around her shoulders. Eight long hours. Coira, true to her nature, never fussed—or spoke at all, for that matter. She hadn’t spoken any more than was necessary since the incident. When a stewardess offered her a cookie with a broad smile, she was notably disconcerted when Coira responded with little more than a solemn nod. They ate a dry chicken dinner, Coira methodically cutting hers into precisely sized cubes of meat before she would take a single bite. Eight hours to sip the weak tea and wish it had a bit of Miss Lettie’s brandy in it.

  Paul had been gone a bit over a month when she found out. She had signed for the flat in Glasgow and was packing her and Coira’s things into a suitcase and a set of milk crates. It was amusing how few possessions they actually had. The furniture was, of course, Miss Lettie’s, and Alice had never cared much for fancy clothes or shoes. She had reached up to clear off the top of the bureau, and a wave of milky fog had enveloped her. The last thing she remembered was the freedom of the fall: all responsibility to move her body or prevent the inevitable vanished. She had awoken to Coira and Miss Lettie standing over her and looming down on her like a pair of gargoyles. Miss Lettie had brought her an ice pack for the steadily increasing lump on the back of her head and a cup of tea to fix everything else.