Soldier, Sail North (1987)

by Pattinson, James

  Randall had eight days of leave to look forward to, and his heart was happy. Two days earlier his ship had docked in Liverpool after a ten-month voyage to Australia and New Zealand. Randall had sugar and tea and butter in his kitbag and twenty-five pounds of back-pay in his wallet. He had ten pairs of silk stockings, a silk nightdress, a pair of embroidered slippers, and a crocodile-leather handbag; and he was happy because he was going home to his wife after ten months. Add two weeks to that period, and you had the length of time he had been married. So he was happy.

  There were no taxis at Liverpool Exchange; so Randall had to carry his kitbag across to Lime Street Station. It was hard work, thus loaded, toiling up the last slope towards the entrance, the din of tramcars sounding in his cars and a thin drizzle of rain falling. Then he was under the arch of the station, mingling with the crowds of khaki-and blue-clad men and women, the lucky ones departing on leave, the unlucky ones coming back.

  Randall had two hours to wait for his train. He climbed up to the Y.M.C.A. canteen, which was above the R.T.O. office, and waited in a queue for sausage-and-mash and a cup of tea. He ate his meal at a dirty table, which he shared with five other men—three sappers, a Royal Marine, and a leading seaman. He scarcely tasted what he was eating, because the joy of going home was like a ferment within him, a strange, exultant feeling in his stomach and chest that swept away the taste of food. He ate mechanically, washing down the solids with gulps of tea, and began to imagine how Lily would greet him, the words she would speak. He pictured the surprise in her eyes turning to delight. He had a little speech prepared; it was the sort of thing they said on the films: “Here’s the man you married. Remember me?” In his mind he never got any further than that because that was the point at which she came into his arms and he kissed her.

  “Pass the salt, mate,” said the Royal Marine.

  Randall came out of his dream and pushed the salt-cellar along the table. The Marine shook salt on to his potatoes.

  “Going on leave, mate?”

  Randall said, “Yes; eight days.”

  “Lucky bastard!” said the Marine. “I’ve just had mine; it’s a sod coming back. It’s all right going, but it’s a sod coming back. Married?”

  Randall nodded. “I got married on my last leave—ten months ago.”

  The Marine whistled. “Ten months; that’s a long time. You bin abroad?”

  “Australia. I’m in the Maritime.”

  “Oh, merchant ships; that lark. Well, she’ll be glad to see you. No need to knock at the front door and run round to the back, eh?”

  The Marine laughed and applied himself to fried spam; but his words had called up a tiny cloud on the horizon of Randall’s happiness. Of course he did not have to knock at the front door and run round to the back; he could trust Lily; he had never for a moment thought of distrusting her. But why did the Marine have to make such a remark? It was as though a dirty finger had been rubbed across a clean page; the smear remained.

  Randall finished the last of his tea, recovered the deposit on his knife and fork, and went downstairs again to the sombre platforms where human beings swirled and eddied like flotsam borne upon the evil tides of war. Already, though there was still an hour to wait, a queue was forming for his train. He attached himself to the queue, in front of him a tall and very beautiful Wren, behind him a short and extraordinarily ugly infantryman. They waited with that dead, unfeeling, infinitely elastic patience to which people had become accustomed. They had almost forgotten that it had not always been like this; they scarcely dared to hope that it would not always be so.

  Randall was lucky; he found a seat in the train. The Wren sat opposite him, a table between them. Between Liverpool and Crewe Randall told the Wren all about himself. She was sympathetic. Randall thought her pretty—not as pretty as Lily, of course, but nice, real nice. She seemed to understand just how he felt, going home after being so long away. He showed her the photograph of Lily and himself taken on their wedding-day. It was not a good photograph really; Joe had taken it with a box camera and the day had been cloudy, so that it had not come out too clearly. But the Wren said she could see what it should have been like, and she thought Lily looked sweet.

  Randall was pleased. He was so pleased he gave the Wren one of his pairs of silk stockings. She refused to take them at first, but he could see that she wanted them, and in the end he persuaded her. He had to change trains at Rugby and leave the Wren. The rest of his journey was less comfortable.

  At Peterborough he had four hours to wait. It was the middle of the night and cold. While he waited he smoked a whole packet of cigarettes, and his tongue was like a piece of cracked leather. But he was patient; he had waited ten months; what were a few more hours?

  He arrived at Yarmouth at ten in the morning, and it was raining. Walking over Vauxhall bridge with his kitbag on his shoulder, he could see the raindrops dimpling the surface of the river. The water looked dark and cold, as it always did, even in summer; and the rain was cold too, running down off the hand that supported the kitbag, under his sleeve and down his arm. He could feel it trickling down towards the elbow and feeling its way along to his armpit. But the rain did not worry him. He was nearly home now. Soon he would be seeing Lily. His heart jumped.

  But she might be out; she might be shopping. He had not let her know he was coming; he had meant to send a telegram, but the post-offices had always been shut when he had the time, and so it had never been done. It’ll be a surprise for her, he had thought, I’ll just come on her sudden like and hear what she says.

  The house was the end one of a row. It was not much of a place, but they had been lucky to find a house of any sort, one of their own. And, as they had both said, it would only be for the duration; when the War was over they would be able to find something better. Neither of them had ever mentioned the possibility that they might not need a house after the War, but the idea had sometimes come into Randall’s mind, nagging him. For he wanted very much to come back; he was only twenty-two, and life seemed particularly sweet to him, so sweet that he wanted to live it out to the full. Yet there were a lot of fellows of his age who were not going to taste much more of life, and there was no telling that the cards might not run against him also. Some men said if the bullet had your number on it there was nothing you could do. That was fatalism. In a way, of course, it was true; but he had never cared for that kind of outlook. Somehow he had a feeling that he would pull through. There might be no reason why he should do so; but he had the feeling, nevertheless. It was a comforting feeling.

  Randall pushed open the gate of the tiny front garden, a garden about ten feet square with a path of crazy paving and weeds springing up between the slabs, and tried the front door. It was locked. Randall put down his kitbag on the doorstep and pressed the bell. He could hear it ringing inside the house; then he took his finger off the button and waited, listening for the sound of his wife’s footsteps.

  The rain had stopped, and a beam of sunlight was pushing its way through the banked clouds, glinting on the dripping road. A horse and trolley clattered past, the driver sitting on one side, his feet dangling. Randall watched it to the end of the road, the sound dying gradually away. Then he rang again.

  He waited two minutes, and then rang a third time. Then, as there was still no answer, he left his kitbag on the front doorstep and walked round to the back of the house. At the back was a tiny yard, separated from the road by a brick wall, and from the next property by a wooden fence, falling into disrepair. Jutting out from the house was a shed which was used as a coal store; by the shed stood two dustbins and on the shed wall hung a galvanized-iron wash-tub.

  Randall tried the back door, but it was locked. So he rapped with his knuckles, not because he thought there was now any likelihood of Lily’s being in, but because he had not yet thought of anything else to do. He had just stopped knocking when a voice said, “You’ll have to knock harder than that if you want to wake her up.”

  Turning his head, Ran
dall saw a plump, middle-aged woman leaning over the fence. He remembered her at once; it was Mrs Hawkins, their neighbour.

  “What do you mean—wake her?” he asked. “Doesn’t she get up before this?”

  Mrs Hawkins shook her head. “Not as a rule. Well, it stands to reason, don’t it?” She was about to say more, but something in Randall’s expression seemed to jog her memory, and she cried, “Why, it’s Mr Randall, isn’t it? It’s bin such a long time, I’d almost forgot you. I must say you’re looking well. ’Course they feed you well in the Army. Better than what we have to put up with. Still, I’m glad to see you home again. Mrs Randall didn’t tell me you was coming.”

  “She didn’t know,” said Randall. “I couldn’t let her know. It’ll be a surprise for her.”

  “It’ll be that all right,” said Mrs Hawkins.

  “You think she’s in?”

  “Oh, bet your life! Give a good old bang on the door.”

  Randall did as suggested, while his adviser rested her elbows on the fence and watched with every appearance of deep interest. After a while there were sounds inside the house. A bolt was drawn back, and the door opened.

  In the long months of imagining this reunion Randall had never pictured his wife greeting him like this—sleep clinging to her eyes, her hair in curlers, an old blue dressing-gown flung over her pyjamas, and her feet thrust into worn-out slippers. His mental picture had been idealized, the picture of Lily as she had been on their wedding-day, an excited, happy, nervous girl. Slovenliness had formed no part of that picture.

  There was a sulky look on her face as she opened the door, as though she resented being dragged out of bed at half-past ten in the morning. Then, as she saw who it was who had awakened her, surprise drove the other expression away.

  “You!” she said. “But how? When?”

  Randall had a feeling that Mrs Hawkins was still leaning over the fence, and he had no desire for onlookers at this moment. He walked in and closed the door behind him, standing in the tiny kitchen, with its smell of stale food, facing the girl he had married ten months ago.

  “Well,” he said, “aren’t you pleased to see me?”

  “Of course I’m pleased, Sid! But why didn’t you let me know you was coming? Springing on me sudden like this! Give me a shock.”

  “Never mind the shock, Lil. Give me a kiss, a real big kiss. God! I’ve waited long enough for it.”

  When he had her in his arms and her lips warm on his, Randall forgot that his home-coming was not just as he had planned it. He rested his cheek against hers, and felt all the weariness of his journey dropping away from him. He was home again, home for eight days.

  “Why,” she said, “you haven’t shaved; you’re like a hedgehog.”

  “I’ve been travelling all night.”

  “Well, you’d better shave now. I’ll put some water on.”

  “Never mind that,” he said. “There’s plenty of time for that. Let’s have some breakfast. I haven’t eaten for fifteen hours.”

  Lily said, “All right; I’ll cook some in a jiff; but I must go and do meself up first. I look a fright.”

  “You couldn’t,” said Randall, “not as long as you’re you.”

  She patted him on the cheek and went upstairs, leaving behind her the vague odour of her body to mingle with the sour smells of the kitchen. Randall suddenly remembered his kitbag and went to fetch it. He unpacked the silk stockings, the nightdress, the slippers, and the handbag, laying them on the table so that Lily would see them when she came down. Then he washed his face and hands at the sink and dried them on the roller towel. He felt better after that, fresher. He lit a cigarette and waited for Lily to come down again.

  When she did return she looked different, more like the picture. The curlers were out of her hair; she had touched up her lips with lipstick, and she was wearing a pleated skirt and a jumper which accentuated her figure. Randall’s heart gave a leap when he saw her; but he was nervous. In a way it was as though they were strangers; it was like starting all over again. Still, he would not grumble at that—not if it was as enjoyable as the first time.

  Lily said, “Give me a cigarette, will you?” Then she saw the things on the table, and she uttered a little cry of surprise and delight, her eyes sparkling. She took one of the stockings out of its cellophane packet and pushed her hand into it, spreading out her fingers to allow the light to shine through the silk. She drew her breath in a long sigh of rapture.

  “Silk! Real silk!”

  Randall grinned. “So’s the nightdress.”

  She lifted the nightdress by its shoulder-straps and held it against her body.

  “I hope it fits,” said Randall. “I can’t take it back.”

  “It’ll fit,” said Lily. “Where did you get it?”

  “Sydney—Australia.”

  “All the way from Australia! Fancy! You can’t get things like this in England now, you know.”

  “I know. That’s why I got them in Australia. There’s a handbag and slippers too. Look.”

  She folded the nightdress and took the bag in one hand and the slippers in the other, looking at each in turn.

  “You must have spent a lot of money,” she said.

  “I earned some,” Randall explained. “I worked on the ship and earned some on top of my pay. I’ve got plenty left.”

  He opened his wallet and showed her the wad of notes. “We’ll have a good time while I’m home. It won’t be long, but we’ll have a good time while it lasts. What do you say?”

  “Of course,” she said; “of course.” But she said it vaguely, as though her mind were not on what she was saying, as though it had drifted off at a tangent. Suddenly she said, “Well, Sid, what about that cigarette?”

  He gave her one and lit it for her. “You didn’t used to smoke,” he said. “When did you start?”

  “Didn’t I?” She seemed suddenly to be on the defensive; she spoke with an edge of defiance to her tone. “Well, I got to pass the time somehow, haven’t I? You aren’t going to object to me smoking, are you?”

  Randall was surprised at the effect his words had had. “I don’t object at all. I only said you didn’t used to smoke.”

  “Well, I do now.”

  She took an overall from a peg, and put it on over her jumper and skirt. “Do you mind sausages? That’s about all there is. I didn’t know you was coming, or I’d have had something in.”

  “Sausages will do me fine.”

  He was still wondering why she had spoken like that just because he had remarked on her smoking. Of course he had no objection; why should he? He smoked himself. So why should Lily not smoke? But there had been no reason for her to speak like that; quite sharp, she had been. It was just as though she had a feeling of guilt. Because she had taken to smoking? The whole thing was ridiculous. He brushed it from his mind and watched his wife frying sausages on the gas-stove.

  “Where would you like to go to-night?” asked Randall. “Pictures? Theatre? Pub?”

  Lily shook the ash from her cigarette so that it should not fall into the frying-pan, and spoke with the butt still in her mouth. She was holding the handle of the pan in one hand and moving the sausages with a fork.

  “I’m on at the canteen to-night,” she said.

  Randall almost shouted: “What?”

  “I’m on at the canteen.”

  “What canteen?”

  “The Forces canteen. Didn’t I tell you in my letters? I help there.”

  “You didn’t tell me.” Randall’s voice was hard and angry, though he was trying to keep the anger out of it. “What made you take on that job?”

  “Well, I had to do something, didn’t I? You didn’t expect me to sit here twiddling my thumbs till you came back. Besides, it’s work of national importance. Somebody’s got to do it. I expect you’re glad enough of a canteen yourself now and then.”

  Randall knew that what Lily said was true; somebody had to do canteen work. He knew it would be unreasonable if
he were to object to Lily doing it while he was away. She had nothing else to do; it was not as though there were any children. But, unreasonable or not, he did not like it. He would have preferred her to take any other job than that. Yet, what was his objection, reduced to essentials? It was simply a dislike of having her serving sailors and soldiers and airmen; being jollied by them, cracking jokes with them, just being friendly to them. He wanted her to be his, his alone, and the root of his objection was jealousy. He knew it, but the knowledge made the objection no less strong.

  “How long have you been doing this?”

  “Six months; thereabouts.”

  “Oh!”

  He lit himself another cigarette from the stump of the old and sat for a time smoking in silence. Then he said, “Can’t you get off for this week? It’s not often I’m home.”

  “I’ll try,” said Lily. “I expect I can; but it would have bin easier if you’d let me know you was coming.”

  “I couldn’t—not until we docked. I didn’t know even then. I might not have got leave.”

  “All right; I’ll ask. I expect it’ll be O.K.”

  Randall slept most of the afternoon. He had not meant to sleep; sleeping was a waste of his all too short hours of leave; but sitting in an armchair in front of the living-room fire sleep took hold of him, and he dozed. When he awoke it was nearly five o’clock. He listened for sounds of Lily moving about the house; but there were none, and he supposed that she had gone down to the canteen, as she had said she would, to see about having the week off.

  Randall fingered his chin, and the roughness reminded him that he had not yet shaved. He had better do so at once, for he could not go out in the evening with thirty-six hours’ growth on his face. He went to the kitchen, drew the black-out curtains, and switched the light on. Then he filled a kettle with water and set it on the gas-stove to heat.