by K. C. Finn
“I’ve been thinking about this gift of yours, Kit.”
Bickerstaff had been with us for almost a week and he’d said nothing thus far about what I could do. I’d almost started to think that Blod hadn’t told him.
“You could see into the ambush in Africa?” he asked. I nodded, swallowing back the images that threatened to flood my head. “Were you in my head or Henri’s?”
“Henri’s,” I answered quickly.
Bickerstaff looked down at the hollow trouser leg now flapping in the wintery breeze. He caught it and tucked it up under his leg.
“Then you saw…” he began, but then fell into silence. I could imagine how hard it was to find the words, to actually say “You saw me get my leg blown off”, when it was you that had to sit there looking at the empty space where your own foot should be.
I just nodded again. Bickerstaff sighed.
“Well there’s one good thing that’s come out of it,” I said shakily. He raised a quizzical blonde brow at me. “You and Blod,” I explained.
He sighed again, his features soft but still ultimately moody, then shook his head.
“I don’t think that’s going to work out very well,” he muttered.
“Why not?” I exclaimed, thinking of all the trouble Blod had put me to, keeping watch on him across continents. “Don’t you love her?”
Bickerstaff gave me a brief angry look like the one he frequently gave Henri when he was about to tell him to mind his own business, but then it fell away.
“I do, but it’s not as simple as that.”
“It should be,” I insisted.
“You see, you’re exactly like her,” he complained, waving a hand at me, “All women most likely. She has this great romantic idea that she can take care of me, but she hasn’t thought about the reality of it.” He hung his head down, rubbing at his temple. “At the end of the day, if she marries me, she’d be married to half a man.”
I couldn’t stand his defeatist attitude any longer. He had been wrong about me, wrong about Henri and about the war, and he was most certainly wrong about this too.
“Better to have half the right man than the whole of the wrong man,” I supposed.
He caught the judgemental sort of look I was giving him and started to wheel away. I was terribly pleased when I caught up to him despite the crutches and the cobbles.
“God I wish I hadn’t agreed to help you sometimes,” he muttered, trying to get to the door. I blocked his path with a well-timed crutch that hit his shin.
“Well you did,” I answered, “And now I’m going to help you. And unlike you, I’m going to try and be fairly human about it.”
***
Blod didn’t like the thought of being shut out of what the doctor and I were doing, but she eventually agreed to give Bickerstaff some time un-nursed and we retreated to the dark little sitting room at the front of the house. The fake leg, which he insisted on calling a prosthesis, was mostly made of wood but it had some clever joints in the ankles and where the arches of the foot should be that shone silver. The proud doctor made me look away when he attached the thing to the stump at his knee and when I looked back he’d let his long trouser leg come down so that only the dark brown wood of the foot was showing. Once I’d put a sock and shoe on it for him, you would hardly have known the leg was false at all.
That was, until he started trying to use it. We had to be careful when he tried to walk because there was no way I’d be able to pick him up if he fell and that last thing he wanted to do was have anyone in the Price family see him flat on his face on the floor. I secretly thought it might serve him right after all the times it had happened to me under his guidance, but since I was trying to be the bigger person I kept my mouth shut. I sat on the old sofa whilst he borrowed my crutches for balance, finding that with just one aid under his left arm he could manage quite well.
“I’ll call the place in Cardiff where they made yours,” he said, the first true smile on his face in weeks, “He’s a friend from medical school, I’m sure he’d do me one outside of the practice.”
“Blod would hardly have to do anything for you,” I observed, returning the grin, “All I’ve done is passed you the crutch.”
“You’ve done quite a bit more than that,” he said, turning away again to try another lap of the room.
Pride settled in my chest. It was perhaps the first good thing I’d ever done without using my powers; it gave me a funny sort of satisfaction to think that I had value beyond them. Bickerstaff was almost laughing as he rounded the room quite quickly. He had a clunky sort of walk, but he was spritely and bright compared to the forlorn figure sitting out in the winter wind a few days ago.
“So what do you think then?” I pressed, taking advantage of his rare good mood, “About you and Blod?”
He spun on his good leg and leant on the crutch, looking down at his feet. Then slowly he nodded and gave me a tiny smile.
“Well,” he mused, “it’s certainly going to put a new spin on ‘going down on one knee’.”
***
I knew the proposal had happened by the high pitched squeal that echoed through Ty Gwyn after breakfast one morning. I was upstairs when I felt the vibrations of Blod’s heels trampling all over the house to make sure that everyone had heard the good news. By that point of course no-one was really surprised, especially considering she’d been giving every spare second of her day to him for almost three weeks. For his part Bickerstaff managed to keep a smile on his face for nearly the whole day before I caught him returning to his pensive and moody self just after dinner. He had a long chat with Idrys that night; they were still in the small sitting room when I struggled up the steep stairs to bed.
I hadn’t thought about eavesdropping with my powers in quite a long time, it was as though being restricted from them now made things like that seem frivolous, selfish even. When I settled into my borrowed bed I thought sadly of Henri. Mum had promised to try and look after him, but what if she hadn’t succeeded? Was I supposed to go on living this normal life, ignoring the abilities I had to help and comfort him, and if so until when? The end of the war? It had been a month since I’d used my powers last, when Henri and Bickerstaff were still in the desert heat of Africa. What on earth would Henri think of me for abandoning him for so long? Would he even forgive me?
I reasoned sadly that he probably wouldn’t. But either way, it was time to try and find out.
I decided to try Ieuan first since he probably wasn’t quite as punishable an offence as looking for Henri or my father, if indeed I were to get caught. The advantage of now being upstairs was that all the bedrooms had bolts on the inside of the doors, so I feigned tiredness the day after the marriage proposal and shut myself away for the morning. Leighton was at school, so I hoped there was little chance of Mum stopping by to see what I was up to. I had been very good this month, after all, and done exactly as I was told. Until now.
I found Ieuan sitting at a table in one of the bunk houses of the POW camp; they were having one of their strategy meetings, which usually ended in arguments about who was to blame for the latest tunnel collapse. But this time there was a different atmosphere between the men in their old uniforms that they had been wearing for months on end. There was no belligerence between them. They seemed hopeful. Ieuan sat across from a man who was usually only referred to as Wing Commander, today he was giving his men a satisfied smile.
“This could be it boys,” he said in a proud Scottish boom, “our salvation has come.”
The WC pulled a crumpled square of paper from a hidden fold inside the lapel of his tattered uniform. It was a tiny sheet with miniscule writing upon it. He showed it around, I felt Ieuan leaning forward eagerly at the mere sight of it.
“The Gaullists are working to free us,” he explained, producing a pair of spectacles to inspect the tiny print on the paper, “of course their tunnels will be much sturdier than ours, they’ve got the materials.”
“Another tunnel?” someo
ne questioned behind Ieuan. Everyone shushed him.
“Yes,” the WC answered with gritted teeth, “but as I say, a much better one. It leads out into a village quite a way from here. All we have to do is dig due north to try and meet it. It comes out here two days from now if they keep up their speed.”
Ieuan filled with excited nerves, but I could feel myself frowning. This was no doomed attempt; this was a proper, full-blown escape. If he made it out of the camp and into the rest of France, the consequences of breaking out would be severe. Idrys had maintained that it was sensible for him to stay put, but here these gents were, risking their safety to get home and start fighting all over again. The men in the camp reached an agreement that they would all help to find the entrance to the new tunnel, but their smiling faces filled me with dread.
I decided not to tell Idrys anything that I had discovered yet; there was still every chance that the plans of the prisoners of war would change and therefore no need to worry him. He’d have enough trouble trying to reign in Mam and Blod now that they had a wedding to organise, after all. With the door to my room still locked I sucked up my strength for another trip, my heavy heart settling on Henri as I focused hard.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered immediately.
How do you know that? I asked, a desperate relief spreading through my whole body.
“It’s for your own protection;” Henri answered angrily, “Gail says so.”
So Mum had found him after all. Henri was sitting in a dusty cupboard, his knees almost up to his chest. A book was open across them and he had a tiny torch which he settled between the pages, illuminating his ragged trousers and sore, calloused hands.
Where on earth are you? I asked.
“I can’t tell you anything yet,” he said sadly, “I’m trying to get home.”
And Mum’s helping you?
“Mum?” Henri asked. I felt his eyes flicker to the side as he thought. “Gail is… your mother?”
She didn’t tell you, I mused, of course she didn’t tell you.
“Why did she keep it from me?” Henri whispered.
Because that’s what my family does, apparently. I felt the old resentment creeping into my head. What did she tell you about me?
“That the psychic trips were making you ill,” he said, “please don’t make yourself sick for me Kit, with any luck I’ll be home soon and-”
She’s lied to you, I interjected. Henri froze, I felt him rubbing his palms on his knees like he always did when his nerves were up. She was the one causing my fevers. She’s afraid of people finding out what I am, in case the government pick me up to work for the War Office like her.
“I suppose she’s trying to protect you,” he murmured.
Don’t defend her, I insisted, seething inside. This wasn’t the time for his forgiving nature. And if she comes to talk to you, don’t tell her I’m back in your head.
Henri nodded. “So you’re really not in any pain?”
No more than usual, I replied, I’m not even using my chair any more. Bickerstaff’s got it at the moment.
“He’s there?” I felt a rush of relief in Henri’s chest. He felt thinner than he had been, more frail somehow. “Thank God.”
Yes he’s fine. He and Blod are getting married.
“I don’t know which to feel more sorry for,” Henri whispered, half a laugh in his words. I laughed too, a warm smile overtaking my bitterness for my secret keeping family.
I’ve missed you.
“I should hope so,” Henri replied with a smile, “It would have been much easier to get back to Norway from here, the Resistance are struggling to arrange my passage to England.”
Where are you exactly?
“Somewhere in France, I shouldn’t say more,” he answered, “Look, don’t be too hard on your mother, Kit. She has all kinds of contacts with the Free French; they rescued me when the Italians were transporting me to Egypt. Gail directed me to all these different safe houses until I could get to this restaurant. I ran miles every day from one to the next, avoiding the German patrols. I’ve been well looked after.”
The constant running in my feverish dreams suddenly made far more sense to me. I wasn’t sure I could forgive all of the secrets and lies my mother had told Henri and me, but she had kept her word to help him to safety and that was something I would always have to be grateful for.
“I’ve missed your voice so much,” Henri said gently, “I... I love you still, you know.”
I love you too Henri.
I felt him tingle all over, a warm happiness rising in his cheeks. Then he gulped and something awkward twisted his expression.
“I think I might have told your mother some things I shouldn’t have,” he mumbled, “she asked about us. It’s quite embarrassing now that I think about it.”
I don’t care, I answered, if there’s one thing she can’t get in the way of, it’s me loving you.
“Even if I’ve been living in a cupboard for two weeks?” Henri asked with a chuckle. “I think I smell like the restaurant downstairs.”
Even so, I replied.
All my doubts about Henri’s feelings for me had melted. As much as I had missed him desperately, I hadn’t realised quite how much it meant to talk to him until now. My hands felt wet at home like tears were dripping onto them, but I forced my thoughts to stay with Henri and his warm, smiling lips.
How soon can you be home?
“A meeting is happening here tomorrow,” he explained, “They don’t usually tell me anything until it’s time to actually do something. But I’ve been invited to the meeting, so that’s a good sign I think.”
Perhaps I’ll drop by.
“Be careful,” Henri warned, “Gail might do the same thing.”
I will be careful, I promised, but it won’t stop me now. Nothing was going to stop me from seeing that Henri got home safe.
***
I composed myself and washed my face after I finally let Henri go. We talked at length about nothing at all until I slowly realised it would be time for lunch at Ty Gwyn and tore myself away from the feel of his smile and sound of his laugh. The Free French were in the business of sending Allied forced home so that they could get back to fighting against the ever-encroaching Nazi threat, so by the time I left Henri I was almost certain that he’d be coming home sooner rather than later. All the same, one tiny doubt remained in my head, alerting me to the risks he’d have to take in order to cross the channel safely.
Downstairs there was a huge commotion at the table as we all sat down to lunch. I had been clunking down the stairs and missed the beginning of it, but the middle was clear enough to catch what was going on.
“Next Friday?” Mam bellowed, “And how do you propose we get everything ready in seven days’ time?”
“I’ve done most of it already on the phone this morning,” Blod explained, “My old friends from school are coming tomorrow to fix up the dresses, Steven’s still got his best suit and he’s had a word with our preacher up at the chapel.”
“He took pity on me,” Bickerstaff said with a smile, but I couldn’t miss the bitter note in his words.
“Don’t knock it boy,” Idrys replied with a warning finger, “you’ve had a hard time of it, take what you can while people are feeling generous.”
Mam and Blod were buzzing around the table laden with lunch foods as Idrys, Ness and I sat beside the doctor and started to tuck in. Bickerstaff didn’t seem to like Idrys’s advice much but he was respectfully quiet and gave the old farmer a nod.
“But people won’t be able to travel up in time,” Mam protested, “Your Auntie Gert and-”
“Oh bugger them, I don’t want them yur anyway,” Blod said, waving her off. She brought Bickerstaff a cup of tea and kissed his scarred cheek gently. “Them aunties always cause trouble, nosey things. Besides which Thomas is already coming up on leave next weekend, and he’s the only one I really care about being there.”
“At least you don’t hav
e to worry about my side,” Bickerstaff added with a laugh that nobody returned, trying to hide their pity for the man with no family ties.
“No friends from medical school or nothing?” Mam asked, giving him a kind smile.
He shook his blonde head. “I’m sure they’re all frightfully busy with the war, I don’t expect they’d be free to make it even if it was six months away.”
Mam didn’t seem happy with that, she was clearly looking for backup to have more time to prepare for the big day. She caught my eye over the table and pointed a finger at me thoughtfully.
“That reminds me Kit I invited your mother,” she began, “I thought she might be too busy like, but she says she can make it. Isn’t that great?”
“Leighton will be thrilled,” I remarked, avoiding the question. I definitely wasn’t ready to see Mum again so soon and if she was here at Ty Gwyn there was no chance of checking on Henri.
“Well everything’s all right then, isn’t it?” Blod said triumphantly, “Bampi, you’ll have to take me out today to see about flowers.”
