This Time Tomorrow

by Rupert Colley

  She gasped and clasped her handkerchief to her mouth.

  Arthur spoke, his words unusually soft. ‘What do you mean when you say Jack possessed a special kind of courage?’

  Guy swallowed, perhaps he shouldn’t have said so much. But before he could speak, the doorbell rang.

  ‘Might that be Mary?’ asked Edith.

  Guy and Arthur stood up as Lizzie showed Mary into the drawing-room, wearing a long, dark green dress with puffed upper arms, buttoned tightly to the top. After a muted exchange of hellos, everyone stood, hampered by awkwardness. Edith broke the atmosphere. ‘Come, give me a hug, Mary.’

  Mary fell into her arms and the two women embraced silently. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea.’ Everyone sat down, sighs of relief everywhere. ‘Oh dear, no cup. Let me ring for Lizzie.’

  Mary greeted Guy with a kiss. Arthur enquired whether Guy or Mary would be staying for dinner, to which both thanked him but refused. Mary sat down next to Guy’s mother on the sofa, perched on the edge of the cushion, her knees locked together. Guy had the impression that she wasn’t intending to stay for long. He noticed she was wearing her engagement ring. She appeared anxious and pale and, after a passing comment on the weather, remained silent.

  ‘So, Guy,’ said Edith, as she passed him a plate of neatly cut sandwiches, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had chance to think of your future plans.’ Guy shook his head. ‘You know,’ she continued, ‘you can always come back here once you’re fit enough to leave hospital.’ He thanked her.

  Arthur, leaning against the mantelpiece, stuffed a whole sandwich into his mouth. ‘Well...’ he waited until he’d swallowed enough to talk. ‘There’s no need to worry about work.’ He emptied his mouth and continued. ‘You’ll be wanting to come back to the shop and take over from where you and Jack left off. I’m getting too old for it anyway; it needs a younger man. It’s all yours, Guy, give yourself a couple of years and when you’re ready, I’ll bow out.’

  Guy sipped his tea. He knew it made sense and that he should be thankful, but he wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted any more. His father continued, extolling the potential of the business. Granted, the war had caused a downturn in their fortunes, but plans were afoot for expansion into ladies headwear. Guy smiled. Before the war, he tried to persuade his father that they needed to expand beyond the gentleman’s market, but his father, not knowing anything about women’s tastes in hats, had rejected his suggestions out of hand. But now that war had diminished the male demand, Guy’s father talked enthusiastically of shawls, bonnets and cowls, implying that the idea was his.

  ‘Is that your engagement ring, Mary?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t it pretty?’

  Lizzie re-appeared with a cup and saucer, and a small pot of tea for Mary. ‘Another sandwich?’ asked Edith.

  ‘I wonder where Jack got the money to pay for it. The ring, I mean.’

  ‘Arthur, please,’ said Edith. ‘Don’t ask such things. You paid him a salary didn’t you?’

  ‘Mother,’ said Guy, changing the subject, ‘did you receive a letter – about Jack, I mean.’ His mother sighed and nodded. ‘May I see it?’

  She went to the bureau, opened a drawer and produced an envelope which she passed to Guy. He looked at his parents’ typed name and address. One could tell immediately that this was an envelope that contained bad tidings. He wondered what sort of words the army had used to inform his parents that their son had been executed. His hands shook slightly as he opened the flap and unfolded the small slip of paper. The words were few, the tone cold and formal. It read:

  “Dear Mr and Mrs Searight,

  I am directed to inform you that your son, 8112 Pte. Jack Searight of the 4th Battalion, Essex Regiment, died on active service on the morning of 11th November 1917.

  I am Sir / Madam,

  Your obedient Servant

  Capt. R.H. Handley, Essex Regiment.”

  They didn’t know. They didn’t know that their son had been executed. ‘It’s brief,’ remarked Guy.

  ‘Brief?’ said Arthur. ‘Downright discourteous, if you ask me.’

  Should he tell them? They had to know.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Edith. ‘It doesn’t tell us anything. I remember about six months ago, Mrs Evans lost her son at Gallipoli and she received a lovely letter saying how keenly his friends and officers missed him, what a popular boy he was and how they mourned his death. And even Lizzie, she’s lost her own brother, out in Palestine, said her mother had received a charming letter from his officer. But this... it’s so... so impersonal. It’s as if this Captain Handley had no idea of who Jack was, or, if he did, perhaps he simply didn’t like him.’ She looked imploringly at Guy. ‘How could anyone not like Jack, he was such a kind person. I can’t bear to look at the letter; it’s so short, so brutal. I don’t understand and I daren’t show it to anyone.’

  ‘Guy, I think you should tell your parents.’ The quiet voice had said the words slowly, carefully. Guy, his mother and father all turned to stare at Mary, still sitting rigidly on the edge of the sofa, her knees squeezed tightly together, her eyes focussed on her hands resting neatly on her lap.

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  Arthur broke the astonished silence. ‘What did you say? Do you know, Guy, do you know how Jack was killed?’

  ‘Isn’t it enough to know he was killed, that he won’t be coming back?’

  ‘No, frankly.’

  His mother leant forward. ‘Guy,’ she said softly, ‘if you know, you have to tell us. As his mother, I need to know.’

  All three of them were looking at him, full of nervous anticipation. He realised that he hadn’t yet told Mary what happened – that she only knew of his execution.

  ‘Apparently, one day Jack was reported missing. Everyone thought he’d been killed or lay wounded somewhere. But he hadn’t. He wasn’t dead or wounded.’

  ‘Go on, Guy,’ urged his mother.

  ‘They found him two or three days later, hiding in some French woman’s house near the coast.’

  ‘What was he doing there?’ asked Edith.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ asked Arthur.

  Mary said it for him: ‘He’d deserted.’

  Guy’s parents stared at Mary in total disbelief, unsure what to say, unable to say it. The word hung between them, unexplained, unqualified, simply left to fester in their minds.

  ‘Deserted?’ said Arthur quietly, still grappling with the significance of the word. He shook his head. ‘No, surely not, not Jack, not my son.’ His voice was faltering. ‘They’d have shot him if he had.’

  Mary looked down and whispered: ‘They did.’

  Edith gasped and reached for her handkerchief. Arthur gripped the mantelpiece as if in need of support. Guy wanted to say something, to qualify Mary’s stark statement, to defend his brother. But the words wouldn’t come.

  ‘Guy, this can’t be true?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid it is.’

  ‘But... I don’t understand,’ said Edith, ‘who was this French woman?’

  ‘No one knows. We don’t know her name and we don’t know why he stayed with her or who she is, or whether they knew each other beforehand.’ He noticed Mary grimace as he spoke of this unknown woman.

  Arthur rang the bell for Lizzie and paced up and down as he waited for her. Lizzie entered breezily and immediately sensed the strained atmosphere. Arthur asked her to bring him a whisky. Lizzie glanced at Edith as if seeking permission to provide drink at such an unusually early time. ‘Yes, you heard me correctly,’ snapped Arthur. Lizzie jumped, muttered an apology, and left to fetch Arthur Searight his drink.

  Edith, still clutching her handkerchief, turned to Guy. ‘This is awful. Poor, poor Jack.’ Her words, softy spoken, could not contain the anguish welling up inside her. ‘You didn’t just tell us because of Mary, did you, Guy? You were going to tell us at some point?’

  ‘Of course he wasn’t,’ bellowed Arthur, now clearly agitated. ‘Because he
’s ashamed, that’s why. Ashamed of having a deserter as a brother.’

  Guy stood up but, forgetting his crutch, quickly had to sit down again. ‘No, that’s simply not true,’ he shouted back.

  Edith spoke. ‘Guy, tell us, what happened after they found him – do you know?’

  ‘Yes, Mother.’ Lizzie re-appeared briefly with Arthur’s drink. Guy waited until she had left the room and then continued, knowing he owed it to Jack’s memory and dignity to recount his tale fairly. ‘It was too much for Jack and if truth be known, it was too much for me too. But Jack was caught on a ridge, which was under a sustained attack. Many of his mates were killed. Unfortunately, his sergeant, though wounded, survived.’

  ‘Unfortunately?’ echoed his mother.

  ‘Yes. Well, you know what Jack was like – cheery and confident and I suppose to the sergeant, Jack came across as a bit arrogant and of course he didn’t like that. But what really got the sergeant was that he thought Jack to be weak, but he wasn’t. Jack saved me from certain death once and the sergeant, Wilkins was his name, had been forced to help him, and I suppose it was too much for his brutish pride. So when they found Jack, the sergeant was a witness against him and took his revenge in the cruellest way. They found him guilty and, yes, they...’ he hesitated before saying it, ‘they shot him. Firing squad,’ he added quietly. Edith winced at Guy’s use of words and clenched her eyes shut. Guy continued. ‘I saw him the afternoon before he was shot; they let me visit him. That’s what I meant, Father, when I said he had a special kind of courage, having to endure all that. He told me to tell you – all of you – he was sorry. And he said he was sorry for the shame his... his death would bring to you. Funnily enough, I saw the sergeant as I was about to leave the CCS. He offered me his condolences and said that Jack had been a good lad.’

  ‘A good lad, eh?’ Arthur remained standing next to the mantelpiece and began filling his pipe with tobacco. Edith absorbed her son’s tale silently for a few moments. Then suddenly, she could contain herself no longer. She let out a guttural cry that seemed to emanate from the pit of her stomach, the desperate sound of maternal anguish, a mother’s grief for her son. Mary slid an arm around Edith’s shaking shoulders but offered no words of comfort, the woman was beyond consolation.

  Guy took his crutches, stood up and crossed the carpet to speak to his father, whose pungent tobacco smoke choked the room. ‘Father, please, there’s no need to feel ashamed –’

  ‘Oh, but I do, Guy, I do. I know I shouldn’t but I can’t help it.’ He gulped his whisky. ‘You say he got you out of an awkward spot, well, how can a man who’s capable of such a feat then disgrace himself? I did my stint as you know and I never saw –’

  ‘But, Father, with respect, that was over thirty years ago. Things have changed since Egypt; things have changed even since South Africa. I fought beside men who’d seen service in the Boer War and they said it was a picnic in comparison. We live within spitting distance of the enemy day and night for weeks, months at a time and those heavy guns are huge now, they can blow a man to smithereens.’

  ‘Stop it, Guy.’

  ‘And I’ve seen men mowed down in their hundreds by unrelenting machine-gun fire. And gas. Imagine, Father, using poisonous gas to kill men. And flame throwers. Do you know what a flame thrower is, Father?’

  ‘No, but the fact remains, he still deserted.’ He grimaced as he said the word. ‘He let his fellow men down, those prepared to fight. No one else ran off, did they, you didn’t desert?’

  ‘No, but there were times when I almost did; we all did. I saw men shit their pants out there, sorry, Mother; it was terrifying. And it’s still going on – now, as we speak. This leg – it’s a small price to pay, believe me. And Jack, he was just a boy; remember, Father, he was only nineteen, a nineteen-year-old volunteer, he was never a soldier, you know that, not like you’d been.’

  ‘That’s all very well, but you try tell telling them that,’ he pointed towards the large bay window, ‘the white feather brigade; your sentiment won’t carry much clout out there.’ All at once, he marched towards the window, pulled down the venetian blind, and clumsily closed the heavy, red curtains.

  Mary and Edith looked up, confused by the sudden darkness. The only remaining light was a small gas-lamp shining dimly on the side-table. ‘Arthur, what on earth are you doing?’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing? I’m closing the curtains.’

  ‘But why? It’s not even dark yet?’

  ‘I forbid them to be opened again, is that understood?’

  ‘No, Arthur, it is not.’

  Arthur fought with his words. ‘I loved Jack and always will. But he has brought shame to this family and we have to face up to that.’

  Guy tried to contain his repulsion at his father’s pathetic gesture. ‘And is this not drawing attention to yourself?’

  Arthur pointed towards the window again and the world beyond, his hand shaking. ‘They’ll know soon enough. Jack has put us in an impossible situation. We cannot show our faces in front of those parents out there that have lost their sons in an honourable manner. I have only the one son now.’ He looked at Guy; his eyes still flushed by anger. ‘I only ever had the one son.’

  Mary let out a shriek of pained distress, her hand over her mouth. His harsh words had pierced her to her heart. Edith tried to take her hand but she waved it away, staggered to her feet, and reeled towards the drawing-room door. She turned to Arthur and blurted, ‘You... you devil. I... I won’t forget him, I won’t disown him.’ She hurried out of the room, bursting into tears as she left. Moments later the front door was shut closed with a slam that reverberated throughout the house.

  The three of them remained silent, avoiding each other’s gaze, each unsure as to what to say next. Arthur took a self-conscious slurp of his drink. Eventually Guy spoke. ‘I have to go too,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Oh, Guy, please stay,’ pleaded Edith.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mother, I can’t. Please, don’t disturb Lizzie, I’ll see myself out.’ Holding his crutches, he leant down and kissed his mother. ‘You have nothing, nothing to be ashamed of; you do know that, don’t you?’ She nodded. As he made to go, he turned to his father, who was puffing self-consciously on his pipe. ‘You are so wrong, Father. One day you’ll realise it.’ Studiously, his father stared at Baden-Powell’s image on the commemorative plate to the left of the large mirror. Irked by the man’s stubborn silence, Guy added, ‘Until you see the error of your ways, Father, consider yourself without any sons from now on.’

  Edith gasped. ‘No, Guy...’

  But Guy had closed the drawing-room door gently behind him. Taking his hat and coat from the mirrored hat-stand, Guy stepped outside and, without looking back, closed the front door to the house that had been his family home. His and Jack’s.

  Once outside, Guy buttoned his coat against the chilled late afternoon air. He realised he wouldn’t be able to hail a taxi in the middle of Ladysmith Road, so he resolved to making his own way back to the station. Ahead of him, he could see the figure of Mary, walking very slowly with her head bowed. At first, Guy decided to hang back, as he had no desire to continue the ordeal. But he found himself walking faster and by the time she had reached the top of the road, he had caught her up.

  She turned around at the sound of his crutches. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said as Guy stopped in front of her. ‘I shouldn’t have made you tell them.’

  ‘I would have told them in my own time, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It wasn’t right just to spring it on them like that. It needed building up to.’

  ‘I suppose I’m still in a state of shock, I never thought...’ Her voice trailed off.

  ‘Now look at them – Mother’s distraught and Father... well, you saw his reaction.’

  ‘Don’t be angry with me, Guy.’

  ‘What did you expect?’ He started walking and Mary had to jog to catch up.

  ‘For a man on crutches
, you do walk fast.’

  ‘You get used to it.’ A middle-aged couple said hello as they passed but Guy ignored them. After a while he slowed down as he realised he was walking towards Mary’s house. ‘You called my father a devil. That was good – he deserved it. I doubt anyone’s ever called him that before. Although I could think of a few more choice words, I must say.’

  ‘Yes, but I shouldn’t have forced you into it, I should’ve let you do it in your own time, like you said. Do you forgive me?’

  ‘No.’ But he knew he didn’t mean it.

  They walked slowly in silence. After a while, Mary said, ‘I know it didn’t work out between us, Guy, and I shall always feel bad about that –’

  ‘I’ve got over it by now.’

  ‘But I did love your brother very dearly.’

  ‘That’s fine. He could be an annoying tyke at times, always showing off, but that was Jack for you. We were very different, he and I. But yes, I loved him too.’

  Mary smiled. ‘Just think, had we married, I’d be a nineteen-year-old widow now.’

  ‘Unfortunately, you wouldn’t have been the only one.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right.’

  They continued in silence until they reached Mary’s gate where they stopped and faced each other. ‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I ought to get back. It’s a long way and I feel tired. I still get tired very easily.’

  ‘I suppose it’s goodbye then.’

  He offered his hand but, ignoring it, she leant up and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I’m sure it’s OK to kiss my brother-in-law.’

  ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘You know I can’t go back to your house again. Not now.’

  ‘You could come and visit me if you like.’

  She smiled. ‘Yes, that’d be lovely.’

  Chapter 29: The Advice

  For the first few days following his visit to his parents, Guy remained in a state of shock. His father’s outburst had upset him and no matter how he tried to reason it, Guy found the man’s reaction beyond comprehension. Arthur had always been a proud man, keen to do the right thing. But surely, thought Guy, love ran deeper than public acceptance. Could his father really shun his youngest son for something that had been out of Jack’s control? Jack had asked Guy to beg his parents’ forgiveness and Guy had failed to break through Arthur’s public persona, his outer skin. It was a shock to realise how cold his father’s heart was. He put it down to the jolt, the sudden realisation that his son had died a dishonourable death. He hoped time would do its work, strip away the hard outer layers of the man and reveal the father within.