by S. C. Howe
Tom looked at her blankly.
She gave a short laugh. ‘As soon as he was properly compos mentis he was blaming everyone for leaving you down here.’
Tom tried not to smile. She caught his look and raised her eyes.
‘Well, we all know he can be a bit of martinet when he thinks he’s being thwarted,’ she said.
Do we? Do I?
‘Anyway, let’s get you out of here.’ She looked around for an orderly and beckoned the nearest with a slightly imperious gesture, then patted Tom’s hand. ‘Are you well enough to travel?’
He would walk the entire bloody distance if he had to, he thought, but he merely nodded. The openness in his face, the trust made her look away. ‘Are you driving the car?’ he asked, for something to say.
She looked back at him oddly, as though irritated. ‘Of course I’m not.’
She walked off to find a doctor. Tom stretched out in the clean sheets. He was torn up but he was safe. He sighed and slumped back in the bed and heard the footsteps coming towards him and the creak of a wheelchair and a quiet conferring of voices.
‘The doctor says you can go now,’ a nurse said. ‘So we’ll pack your things and help you out.’ Tom saw the embarrassment in the girl’s eyes. They were short of beds and more men were waiting to take his place.
It was only as he tried to sit in the wheelchair and thought of the journey ahead that he considered his injuries. It was as though he had a mass of razor-sharp little eels writhing around in his shoulder in a throbbing, jellied mass. He stopped stock still and winced. Mrs Deerman took his arm and, wordlessly, she and the orderly helped him into the chair. It was very warm outside and the mulch below the bandages ached and itched. It was a sticky sensation as though nothing was healing up, just congealing and quietly tearing open again. When the pain made him too nauseous, he grabbed hold of the sides of the chair and clenched his eyes shut.
‘I’ll get the car round,’ Mrs Deerman was saying. ‘Can I leave you for a few minutes, Thomas?’ The voice was kindly and he looked up but couldn’t reply. He nodded and watched as she walked away. People hurried by. A young woman and an older man, who, safely out of conscription age, scowled at him and gave him a wide berth and Tom realised his wound smelled. In fact, he stank of inadequate healing and possible infection, but there was nothing he could do to disguise it. Of the few who stared, they looked away quickly when he stared back. Why are we tearing ourselves apart in the trenches for you, he wanted to shout but instead was sick down the side of the chair.
The only people who met his eye were other soldiers. He sat back and considered. Why was he surprised? Before he had gone out, how would he have reacted? Better just to have the quiet sense of belonging, of community with those who could understand. It was odd because, even with those who walked by muffled-up, you could still tell they were soldiers.
Mrs Deerman returned. Tom imagined her remembering not to wince, as she smelled him several feet away.
‘Are you all right, dear?’ she asked, peering into his unusually pale face. A sheen of sweat smeared his forehead and cheeks. For her sake, he said he was.
The driver showed no reaction as he helped Tom into the back of the car, and he was grateful for that. But the drive was appalling, as though someone had a blade and was twisting it around in his shoulder muscles. The heat in the car was making the wound smell worse. Mrs Deerman looked on helplessly when they had to stop several times by the side of the road as he strained to vomit. Hardly anything came up. He looked up, corpse-pale and running with sweat, wanting to lie down and go unconscious. Somehow, they got him back into the car each time.
At first he tried to make conversation, but soon leaned back and then became aware that leakage from the bandages might stain the back of the seat. After several minutes of trying to sit forward, he leant back fully, too ill to care.
The long windows of the Hall at last came into view. For some reason the picture of a bloodhound’s eyes edged into Tom’s mind. As he was wheeled into the wide entrance hall, he heard a shrill nasal voice: ‘Thomas who?’ which stopped abruptly as the speaker entered a room towards the back of the house and a door slammed.
The next morning, Tom was wheeled into the drawing room and parked opposite Joss. As the door closed, he waddled over to Joss who leaned awkwardly forward, his left arm in full plaster and the hand hidden in a great balloon of wadding and bandages; his shoulder was heavily dressed. His left foot was raised on a stool; it too was heavily bandaged. They tried to embrace, not helped by Joss’s plastered arm accidentally thudding Tom across the side of his head a few times. There were plenty of ouches, ows and dissolving sniggers as they drew apart.
‘Imagine anyone eavesdropping on that!’ Joss said.
They started laughing, Tom holding onto the side of his face as the stitches pulled beneath the dressing.
‘What can you remember?’ Joss asked suddenly.
‘I remember Miller being hit, then...well, blackness.’
‘Apparently a sniper nearly got us,’ Joss said. ‘Luckily we passed out... Poor Miller... I really thought he was indestructible.’
They fell silent.
Tom looked through the long windows at the riot of spring outside. ‘Do you fancy going outside?’
‘I certainly do. They won’t even open the window,’ Joss said. ‘They think I might catch a chill...Can you believe it? I’ve sat in filthy, freezing trenches for nearly two and a half years and they think a draught might be unhealthy!’
‘Don’t be too critical, Joss. They don’t know – how can they? We don’t tell them.’
Joss gave a bitter laugh. ‘From my experience they do everything they can to avoid even mentioning the war. We’re an embarrassment, Tom. We inconveniently remind them of things they don’t want to think about.’
‘Your mother doesn’t act like that.’
‘Yes, she has a brain. She’s an exception. I was wheeled out to quite a few meals with their friends last time and it was as though I had some contagion. I was either ignored or patronised. This time they haven’t even suggested taking me out.’ Nodding to the hand bell by his side, he added, ‘How the hell do they think I am going to ring that? With my teeth?’
‘Joss...,’ Tom warned, and leaned over, took up the bell and rang it too loudly.
It was good to sit in the sun in a large garden. Tom held his face back as the sun shone gently on his skin.
‘As soon as I realised you weren’t here, I moved hell and high water to get you transferred,’ Joss said, and Tom wondered why he had to explain. ‘It sometimes works having relatives who are brass hats.’
Tom was going to say he understood about being left in hospital, but then remembered the slap of anger. There was too much potential hurt, too much explaining.
‘My back’s also taken a bit of a battering too, I’m told,’ Joss was saying. ‘But they’re loading me with so many opiates I can barely feel anything.’
‘Same here.’
‘I wonder what we’re going to be like when the bandages come off,’ Joss murmured. ‘What we won’t be able to do?’ He was staring into the middle distance. ‘What we’ll look like, even.’
Tom studied him. He had never seen Joss look like this. Lost? Anxious? He wasn’t sure.
‘The fact that we survived is what matters,’ Tom said. He put his hand on his friend’s cast, wondering if he could feel anything of his touch, wondering, in fact, what was left underneath all the wadding. ‘And I’d say you’ll certainly be invalided out now.’
Joss turned to him. ‘And you. Surely?’
‘I’m not as banged-up as you are.’
Joss turned to glare back across the lawns which were bright with the midday sun. ‘They can’t send you back. They can’t.’ The colour had risen in his cheeks. Tom was looking at him as he realised the sun had gone and a dark shadow was being cast over them.
‘Oh...and here we have our broken heroes,’ came a nasal, rather whiny voice.
J
oss rolled his eyes and looked over to a fair, smoothed-haired man of tall, athletic build in his thirties, standing side-on with his foot on the front wheel of Tom’s bath chair, as though consciously exhibiting his best side. Tom looked up at him.
‘Meet my brother, Roger,’ Joss said flatly.
Tom nodded. ‘Good afternoon.’
Deerman silently walked around and stood directly in front of Tom, looking down at him with his head slightly cocked, so it appeared as if he was staring down one side of his nose. Tom shifted. If he looked ahead, his gaze fell directly on the man’s crotch and his breeches were well cut – rather too well cut. He tried to shift to a sideways position but flinched, as the gouge in his shoulder seemed to split open.
‘What do you want, Roger?’ Joss said.
Roger Deerman’s pale blue eyes met his brother’s. The smirk on his face dissolved.
‘Mother said I should convey my felicitations.’
‘Oh just piss off, won’t you.’
‘There’s no need to be like that, John. If you will go in the trenches as a plod, then what do you expect?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Sitting here, feeling sorry for yourself.’
Joss began to laugh without humour. ‘We were enjoying the spring sun until you put yourself between it and us.’
Deerman drew himself up. Even though it was becoming hot with a cloudless sky and increasingly strong sun, Deerman was dressed in full major’s uniform. Tom wondered how long it would be before he loosened his tie. Without warning he sat down, with his knees drawn up, facing them.
‘I did actually want to see you.’
‘Well now you have, so you can leave.’
Tom fidgeted, flicked a concerned look at Joss.
Deerman pulled a face. ‘And I was also going to ask how you were.’ The voice was very polished.
‘Oh very well, thank you,’ Joss said. ‘As you can see, it was just a scratch.’
‘I hear you have a farm now.’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘What?’
‘Well, where is it? How are you going to run it?’
‘It’s about twenty miles away to the north-west. And it’s being renovated at the moment.’
‘Ably with Papa’s money, no doubt.’
Joss looked up at him sharply. ‘No actually, with our money.’
‘Ohhh... Like that, is it!’
‘Like what?’
‘How does he have any money?’ Deerman asked, flicking a thumb in Tom’s direction.
‘I had a property in Durnley which I’ve just sold,’ Tom cut in. ‘That’s gone towards it,’ his tone suggesting If it’s any of your business.
Deerman looked at him as though surprised he could speak. Tom sensed being sized up, both physically and mentally. He looked away. Deerman was still appraising him when he looked back. Unlike Joss, he had a thin, sculptured face. Each component would have been termed conventionally handsome, but on closer inspection, his features were put together in a way that gave it a knowing, almost cunning look. The corners of Deerman’s mouth twitched.
‘Somewhat unexpected, aren’t you?’
‘Pardon?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought a private would have a house to sell.’
Joss waved him away. ‘Oh go away, Roger. Go and play soldiers with the brass hats.’
Deerman looked again at Tom, then went to move away but tripped as his foot became wedged in the wheel of the bath chair. Tom looked into the middle distance, motionless, as though unwilling to move until Deerman had disappeared across the lawn and into the house.
‘Clumsiness is not something I associate with him,’ Joss mused.
Tom turned to him, shading his eyes. ‘You were a bit harsh on him, you know.’
Joss snorted. ‘You’ll get to know him. And I’ll warn you, he’s pretty rampant.’
Tom frowned in question.
‘I think he’s had most of the men servants and maids. By consent, so he tells me.’
Tom shuddered. ‘Even now?’
Joss shook his head. ‘Probably not. The maids here are too young for him.’
Tom sat back. This was the first time he had seen a family behind the scenes, as it were. He had witnessed the behaviour of his few friends at school with their siblings when he had been invited for tea; had watched the irritation of an elder sister with a younger brother; the patronising long-suffering of an elder brother for a younger sibling, but this overt dislike was of a different order and suggested past treachery.
‘So come on, tell me about the work at the farm,’ Tom said, eager to change the subject.
Joss tried to move his body to face him but unbalanced; Tom moved round to him.
‘The downstairs is being done first in the farmhouse and there have been no unpleasant surprises. In fact, the workman who’s leading it says he’s pleased with its condition, especially considering the place has been empty for so long. Upstairs is next. Which room shall we have?’ he asked, and suddenly pressed the tips of his fingers, exposed from the wadding, into Tom’s forearm.
They talked on for a long time. Running through the uses for each room, enjoying the picture of the renewing house, the outbuildings soon to be rehabilitated, of slates replaced, of stone repointed, of windows opening freely to new air. They stretched at intervals and felt the sun healing them, the clean air working into their bodies. Then they slept. One of the maids found them and smiled fondly as she saw them napping in the late afternoon sun, and then, just for a moment, saw the two old men in bath chairs far away in the future.
CHAPTER FIVE
The clump of boots over the polished wooden floor made Tom turn his head to the door. They had gathered for breakfast. Roger Deerman appeared and sat down at the table without an apology for his obvious lateness. He looked up at the maid, expecting to be served. Tom glanced at Mrs Deerman; she was watching her son, tight-lipped. Tom felt there had been words said the previous afternoon between the two. Deerman smirked slightly at her then turned his gaze to Tom.
‘So what do you and little brother have in store for today?’ he asked, his pale, glacial blue eyes fell on him with the dead stare of a snake.
‘There’s not much we can do,’ said Tom. ‘Perhaps read in the sun.’
‘Oh how exciting.’
‘Roger...,’ his mother warned.
‘What do you expect us to do?’ Joss cut in. ‘Run a bloody cross-country or something?’
‘John!’
Joss tossed his napkin aside. ‘Well I ask you, what a stupid comment.’
Mr Deerman looked up from studying his bacon and eggs. ‘You had better be quiet,’ he warned Deerman. ‘Not everyone’s been sitting on their arse behind a desk, biding their time.’
Tom stared straight ahead.
‘You can’t run a war merely on guns and bombs, Father, ‘ Deerman said, colouring. ‘Ask your brother.’
‘And I don’t need a whipper-snapper like you telling me my business,’ said Mr Deerman, snatching up his newspaper.
Mrs Deerman smiled towards Tom. ‘And what are you reading, Thomas?’
‘Thomas Hardy,’ he said. ‘The Woodlanders.’
‘And how are you finding it?’
‘It reminds me of the wilder bits of the Wyre Forest in autumn,’ Tom said, ‘the reds and the browns, and all those tracks through the forest.’
‘How interesting,’ said Mrs Deerman, and she looked more carefully at Tom. ‘A chalk and a sandstone area, but so alike.’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s the gift of the writer.’
Tom caught Deerman mimicking her from the corner of his eye.
‘Get out!’ roared Mr Deerman. ‘And don’t come back until you learn how to behave.’
Deerman got up, scarlet with the humiliation at being caught. Mrs Deerman followed Roger out of the room. There were raised voices in the hall, a slam of a door and, seconds later, Mrs Deerman reappeared, pretending equanimity. Througho
ut, Joss had eaten his breakfast with his head down, shovelling the food in with a fork. Tom sat frozen.
‘I am sorry about that, Thomas,’ said Mrs Deerman, kindly. ‘Now, tell me about how you’re finding the book.’
They talked for several minutes about the book and Tom’s enthusiasm for Hardy, banishing the heavy, strained atmosphere. Even Mr Deerman looked up and muttered, ‘You borrow what you want from the library, Fielder. No need to ask. Just go in and take what you like.’
Joss watched Tom, his dark blue eyes shining, a smile of deep affection dimpling his face. What surprised Tom most was that Joss didn’t try to conceal it.
Later that morning when Tom was lumbering on crutches from the garden to use the bathroom, Deerman blocked his way; looked away momentarily, then faced him.
‘I think I need to apologise to you,’ he said. His face had lost the amused look and now looked serious. ‘I behaved like an ass, and you don’t deserve that.’
Tom wondered just how much of this was Mrs Deerman talking.
‘I think all of us are feeling the strain, of war,’ he said lamely.
Deerman leaned back against the wall. He had dispensed with his jacket and was now in rolled-up shirtsleeves, and the tight-fitting, light breeches. The colour of the latter would have got you shot by a sniper on the first day at the Front, Tom thought, and he struggled on by, felt Deerman watching him then felt him at his elbow.
‘Are you and John – you know?’
Tom tried to walk forward.
‘All I can say is, if you are, lucky old him!’ said Deerman, and with that walked off down the hall.
It was about ten minutes later when Tom had dragged himself back out into the garden. The sun was bright again and Tom squinted, momentarily seeing nothing but black as he stepped out. Focussing on Joss, who was lying back in his bath chair, dozing in the sunshine, he walked forward. Joss opened his eyes and smiled up at him, an unselfconscious, loving smile as Tom levered himself into his bath chair.
‘Is it me that’s causing the trouble between you and your brother?’ he asked.
