The Soldier's Return

by Melvyn Bragg

  ‘You can’t be worried about Mr Kneale.’

  ‘I’m not’

  Sam turned his face to the fire, ashamed to look her in the eye. He shook his head, to rid himself of all this. ‘What does Mr Kneale know?’ he said.

  Ellen felt her throat go dry at the savagery of his tone. It was new and it was disturbing. By the sea, in the pine wood, on the green, on the bus he had been like his former self.

  ‘What does he really know?’

  She wanted to say something to help but words failed her. Maybe he should get it all off his chest to her. But how could she encourage him to do that? He would always work out hard decisions for himself. And she was not able to say – Why not talk to me, why not tell me?

  They sat and between them the silence was like a wall.

  ‘I’m ready!’

  Joe careered into the kitchen, united with the train which had been denied a journey to Silloth. Sadie had washed him down and put him in his pyjamas and scraped his thick red hair into a good imitation of his father’s neat flat military style.

  He all but leapt on to Sam’s knee, jolting his father, who took a fast breath to steady himself for the demanded instant change of mood.

  ‘Up carpet hill!’

  ‘Down sheet lane.’

  ‘And into the blanket shop.’

  The child smelled so fresh and clean, so soaped with newness, that Sam felt a disturbing prickle of tears. ‘Off we go!’

  He stood with the boy in his arms and first Ellen and then Sadie came across for a goodnight kiss. Joe no longer kissed the photograph.

  Up the dimly-lighted stairs, up again and into Joe’s room.

  ‘Can’t I go in Mammy’s bed until you come up?’

  ‘This is your bed.’ Sam found that he was having to strain to speak calmly.

  ‘Just ‘til Mammy and you come up, then I’ll come back here.’

  ‘You’re a boy now, Joe. Not a baby. Boys have their own beds.’

  ‘Please.’

  The plea had an edge of fear in it. But the boy had to learn.

  ‘You’ve been in Mammy’s bed for the last time, Joe. That’s final.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s final’

  ‘Not the last time.’

  ‘The very last. Now say your prayers.’

  ‘No story?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m a bit tired, Joe. I’ll give you two tomorrow night. After the seaside, you’ll sleep like a top.’

  ‘Please, Daddy.’

  Why was it such an effort? So weary at the simple request.

  ‘Tell us about the donkeys.’

  ‘The mules.’

  ‘When Jaspar ran away into the jungle.’

  The soap smell was strong. The boy’s face flushed from the sun and the sea air was like Ellen’s, strikingly so at the moment, his smile was hers, his eyes were hers.

  ‘Jaspar was the oldest mule we had and he had a mind of his own …’

  The repetition of the story had drained it of all significance and Sam himself now saw Jaspar much, he imagined, as Joe did. Jaspar was a funny old mule, always into mischief, and the hinterland of Asia over which he had carried his mountainous load was a magical land without fear, without hurt. Sam whispered the stories and Joe smiled and, smiling, fell asleep.

  Sam hesitated a moment. The child was so unmarked, so peaceful in sleep. Just like Ellen.

  He kissed him on the forehead. As he went out he reminded himself that he must fit a bolt to the door of his own bedroom.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jackie’s wife sent word for Sam and he went right after his dinner. He had been on the morning shift – from six to two – and he had relished the newness of having a leisurely meal. Now he gobbled through the Irish stew. Grace had kept it warm in the oven. Ellen was out cleaning. She had not surrendered any of her jobs. The subject had been shelved.

  It was a Monday and the washing was out in yards and sidestreets everywhere. As he hurried up the street Sam thought – this is our bunting. He enjoyed the thought and smiled at the sheets and pillowcases, the shirts and underwear, snapping in the dry brisk wind. The sky had turned grey, scudding with clouds. Sam preferred it that way. It felt more like Wigton should be.

  Jackie lived in two rooms in a damp semi-basement two doors up from ‘King’ Haney the mushroom and soft fruit dealer, who also dabbled in scrap. His wife stood in the middle of the front room, stock still as if she had been waiting since sending the message. Sam had never seen such poor and bare accommodation in the town. There were two mattresses, a couple of worn blankets strewn on them. A rough bare table was served by a wooden bench and three assorted chairs. A cupboard stood on a slant. There was nothing on the floor, not even linoleum. The walls were bare. Annie herself was short, broad, her coarse hair cruelly cut, a long green pinny half covering a cheap flimsy summer dress. Bare legs and feet; old sandals.

  ‘He’s in the back,’ she said. ‘I can’t do anything with him, Sam. The boys just laugh at him now.’

  There were three sons, always on the loose around the town, half-hungered, scavenging.

  Sam went through. The back room was a smaller, darker, even bleaker version of the room he had left. There was a sink, like a trough, against the back wall. Jackie was squatting in a corner. He seemed asleep.

  ‘He sits like that when he eats,’ she said. ‘He’s given up talking. He can go crazy halfway through the night, running about shouting. I’m at my wits’ end, Sam.’

  The grief and her tone made him turn to look at her closely. No one had ever once called her pretty or even presentable. She had lived on as little as got you by in that town. Her skin was poor and spot-infested, and she had always been at the bottom of the heap, but the loving anguish in her words moved Sam.

  ‘We’ll see what we can do, Annie.’

  He went up to Jackie, whose eyes flicked open, scared. Then smiled.

  ‘Me old marra,’ he said. ‘Sam.’

  ‘Hello, Jackie.’

  ‘How’s Sam?’

  ‘Fair to middling. What about you?’

  ‘I’m jiggered, Sam. I’m doolally half the time. Did she send for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She’s very good, Sam. But she doesn’t know, does she?’

  ‘You’re a lucky man, Jackie, with her.’

  Jackie looked away, vaguely, and Sam had an eerie feeling that the conversation had not taken place.

  ‘Fancy a walk?’

  ‘Aye. Grand.’

  He was up immediately. He had been sitting on his jacket. He put it on.

  ‘When will we be back, Sam?’

  ‘Oh, an hour or two.’

  ‘An hour or two, Annie.’

  ‘It’ll do him good, Sam.’

  ‘We’ll go up the Lonnings.’

  They went up Water Street, left past the burned-out site of the tanning factory, past the lemonade works and into the narrow lane which led to a bigger lane, the Lonnings, which in turn led to a village of allotments, pigeon sheds and the town rubbish dump.

  As in the town there were sheets and pillowcases, shirts and blouses pegged out, flapping against the iron railings which flanked one side of the Lonnings. Women who had no yards brought their washing to dry here and sent children along to shoo off the cattle which threatened to nibble it or brush against it.

  ‘I can’t get them Japs out of my mind, see,’ said Jackie, hitting a fast pace, ‘especially when it gets dark, Sam. There’s thousands of them.’

  The shorter man stared hard ahead, never once turning to Sam. ‘I can’t go out on my own. My lads are no good. They’re not bad lads, Sam, but they can’t know. It’s Annie I feel for. What can I tell her, eh? Japs everywhere? She’d have me put away.’

  They went past the allotments and into open fields.

  ‘Fag?’

  Jackie stopped, turned to Sam and took one.

  ‘Take a couple for later on.’

  Sam lit both their cigarettes and stood quietl
y, looking across the fields. ‘I think an uncle of mine was hired over there for a few years.’

  ‘Maybe I should take up farm work. Animals keep your mind off things.’

  ‘You were at Pringle’s, weren’t you? You were conscripted. They’ll have you back.’

  ‘I couldn’t hold the job down, Sam.’ Jackie drew cadaverously on the cigarette.

  ‘I couldn’t hold it down,’ he repeated. ‘I’m jiggered, Sam. They’re everywhere.’

  ‘Here?’

  Jackie sucked the last quarter inch of cigarette and then heeled it into the grass.

  ‘Everywhere.’

  ‘Let’s get them!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Let’s get them, Jackie, you and me. Now! C’mon!’

  Sam dropped on one knee and mimicked holding his Lee Enfield. ‘Come on, Jackie!’

  ‘You daft bugger.’

  ‘Come on, Jackie. They’re in that copse. Fire! Fire! Keep down!’

  ‘Fire!’ Jackie said, ‘You bastards! You bastards! Fire! Fire!’

  ‘Keep it low. A bit to the left. Fire!’

  ‘Got one! Got one, Sam!’

  ‘Let’s rush them. We’ll be covered. C’mon, Jackie.’

  Sam sprung up and, ducking and weaving, he raced across to the copse with Jackie at his heels. ‘Fire! Fire! Bayonets, Jackie. Use bayonets.’

  Into the meagre copse they went, stabbing, shooting, yelling. Then they were through.

  ‘Cleared it.’

  ‘We did, didn’t we?’

  ‘Got the lot.’

  ‘Got the lot. ‘Well done, Jackie.’

  Jackie beamed with pride: for a moment he was back there. Then he laughed. ‘We must’ve looked a right pair of clowns.’

  ‘Round the bend,’ said Sam, laughing with him.

  ‘They’ll think we were plastered. Anybody that saw us.’

  ‘Somebody always does. Never mind.’

  They lit up again and smoked squatting against a tree.

  ‘You daft bugger,’ said Jackie and as they walked back through the Lonnings, he seemed to have lost some of that crippling tension. But as they swung into Water Street and came nearer his house, Sam could see the fear take a grip again, see it as clearly as if the man had started to stagger.

  ‘Come in for a cup of char.’

  ‘I’ll have to get back, Annie.’

  ‘I’ve just boiled the kettle.’

  The plea in Annie’s voice could not be ignored.

  The three of them sat at the table. Two of the boys bolted in, ravenous. Annie gave them a slice of bread scraped with jam. Every now and then, Jackie laughed aloud, but he would not tell Annie what had happened. ‘You’re a daft bugger, Sam,’ he said, when they parted.

  Sam hesitated at the entrance to the yard and watched them. They were completely absorbed. Joe had been back from school for an hour or so and Ellen had just finished a cleaning job and they met as, it seemed to Sam, they had done often, to complete the day’s washing. There was the last lot to be unpegged from the rope lines which had been strung up criss-cross in the early morning.

  It was a little performance, he thought, and he was the audience. He edged back so that he was hidden behind a buttress. Joe would lower the prop so that Ellen could unpeg a sheet. The boy concentrated so that the rope was low enough for his mother to reach but not so low as to dip the sheets on to the cobbles.

  Then they would stand, the two of them, each with two corners, and flap the sheet so that it snapped in the air. Joe’s arms were fully extended. Flap, snap, snap, the rectangle of white lit up the yard. Then, rather solemnly, they closed the sheet in half, lengthways. Flap, snap and snap again and then they advanced on each other as if in a country dance, each holding high the edges of the sheet, and when they met, Ellen took Joe’s portion and the sheet was quartered. Joe held out his arms, palms upwards, like a page boy waiting for a tray or a cushion, and after Ellen had laid the sheet across them, he all but marched to the mangle in the corner. Ellen always passed them through the mangle a second time. It was not necessary but she liked to see Joe enjoying it.

  Quite expertly, the small boy fed the thick folded end between the two wooden rollers, took the iron handle and heaved it through, squeezing out any last moisture. Three times he did this until the sheet was flat and stiff as a board. It would then be placed in the large swill basket, one woven by the gypsies who came through the town every year. That done, he went back to fold again.

  Ellen had not told Sam that the boy had begun to wet his bed.

  It was so well drilled, Sam thought, so well practised, they were so close, those two. Sometimes he knew that Ellen sensed his jealousy of their intimacy and tried to cover up, pretend indifference, even scold the boy. But Sam was not easily deceived.

  Another sheet, then another, now the pillowcases – Joe did two of these himself – all well worked out, nothing hurried. Finally, with the basket full, Joe manoeuvred the long wooden prop back into the wash-house while Ellen unhooked the line, the last in the yard, leaving it clear again as it was the other six days of the week.

  Sam, feeling a little embarrassed, walked towards them over-heartily and picked up the swill basket, taking it back to the house. It began to rain.

  They always had tea in the kitchen before the commercial travellers came back. Sometimes Mr Kneale preferred an early tea and joined the family rather than waiting for his fellow lodgers.

  He brought a square biscuit tin, with blowsy red roses painted all over it. His sister had sent him a fruit cake. ‘Where she would get the ingredients,’ said Grace, shaking her head in wonder, ‘I do not know.’

  ‘I want everybody to have a good slice.’ Mr Kneale twinkled with benevolence and his little hands floated over the cake as if he were about to turn it into a rabbit. There was even a layer of icing on the top, thin, very thin, but still a layer. ‘And put a slice aside for Leonard,’ said Mr Kneale.

  ‘Bank managers,’ said Grace, nodding at Ellen, ‘these bank managers.’

  The cake was sliced into two and then into four and then the quarter was cut into six portions.

  Joe licked the icing, took a nibble at the cake and quietly put it back on his plate.

  ‘It’s beautifully light,’ said Grace, who knew about these things. ‘I haven’t had my hands on ingredients like this since I don’t know when.’

  ‘Delicious.’ Ellen’s reaction was genuine, but the emphasis was designed to encourage Joe, who felt the force of it, had another nibble and spat it out.

  Sam was not displeased. It was not nice but there it was. So the boy hated Mr Kneale’s cake. Grace, very ostentatiously, said nothing. Ellen looked at Sam, read him, felt an urge to smile, resisted and told Joe to say he was sorry to Mr Kneale.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Kneale.’

  ‘Too rich, I suppose,’ said Mr Kneale, being strictly fair. ‘Too rich.’

  ‘It is rich,’ Grace concurred, pleased that Joe was being let off lightly. ‘But some like it rich, Mr Kneale. Me for one.’ She popped in the last chunk of her portion and with an easy gesture reached out to take what Joe had rejected.

  ‘Can I get down?’

  Ellen glanced at Mr Kneale before answering Joe’s request. Why the hell, Sam thought, did she have to look at him? Did she need the schoolteacher’s permission for his son to leave the table?

  ‘Let him go out and play,’ said the schoolteacher and Joe was released.

  ‘Back before dark.’

  Joe heard the words but pretended not to, which, he thought, gave him some leeway.

  Sam considered his options. He would be welcome to sit quietly in the kitchen, reading or even listening to the wireless until and while the commercial travellers had dinner. He could go to the bedroom or he could go out.

  Ellen would be busy about the place. Leonard might suggest they slip up street together. Whatever it was he felt dependent. It was time to look for a place of their own but this, like her work, was not a subject which could attract mu
ch of Ellen’s attention. Perhaps she was the sensible one. Just do things slowly.

  ‘Imphala,’ said Mr Kneale, announcing the subject. ‘Now, how much did you get to know about that, Sam?’

  A lot. From men who had been there. Imphala and Kohima where the full force of Japan had finally been stopped. Why was it that yet again he could not respond to Mr Kneale’s genuine and kindly curiosity?

  ‘Not much. We went in later.’

  ‘I’m thinking of making a study of Burma. So many people are just interested in Germany.’

  ‘I wish everybody could just forget about it,’ said Ellen. She got up abruptly and began clearing the table. Tt’s over now.’

  ‘We have to record it, we historians. That’s what we do. It has to be put down for the future.’

  ‘It does no good picking away at it.’

  ‘Do you agree, Sam?’

  ‘You both have a point,’ he said, wishing he could be like Ellen, knowing he was with Mr Kneale.

  ‘I’ll leave you both to it.’

  Ellen began to set up the ironing board in the back kitchen which announced her retreat from the conversation.

  Sam swallowed the weariness which swept into him at this prospect, this quasi-examination, this remembrance on demand. He would have to offer information for the sake of politeness.

  ‘I spent a few weeks with some lads who had been with the Kents at Kohima,’ he began.

  He was in the Crown and Mitre with Leonard later on when one of Jackie’s boys sought him out. It was late evening. The gas lamps had been lit in the main streets.

  The alleys and runnels and passages and yards were inky with occasional dabs of the yellow street light flickering through.

  Water Street had only four gas lamps the length of it, but one was near Jackie’s cellar. Annie stood in the doorway, the light just reached her. From inside came the weak illumination of a small paraffin lamp.

  ‘He’s got worse, Sam,’ she said, ‘since you took him out.’

  ‘He’s gone daft,’ the boy – Jackie’s youngest – had said nothing since asking Sam to come down. His head was a stubble of hair, recently shaven. The pullover was full of holes, the trousers too long and patched, hand-me-downs. He wore plimsolls long since white, no laces. His face was hurt and taut, his tone pitiless. ‘He’s a dead loss.’