My Father, My Son

by Sheelagh Kelly

  ‘Maybe he’s run back to Africa, ma’am.’

  ‘I’ve ceased believing in miracles,’ retorted her mistress as she dashed away to tend her son. ‘He’ll come crawling back to give us more pain.’

  * * *

  ‘Eh, what’re you doing in there, my little lad?’ Ella, home from the factory, responded to the dog’s frantic yelping by opening the door of the front parlour and lifting him up to pet him. ‘Aw! Was it that naughty Bertie who shut you in? I’ll cut his tail off. He’s left my door unlocked as well, the varmint.’ She fondled his smelly muzzle. ‘Come on, let’s go have a cup of… oh, who’s that come to disrupt us?’ The grumbling dog still in her arms, she went to answer the authoritative knock. ‘Oh, it’s you!’ She showed surprise. ‘I am hon—’

  Rachel cut her off. ‘This isn’t a social visit! I have a very serious complaint.’

  Ella stared at her, then riposted smartly, ‘You’d best come in then.’ She led the way through to the kitchen, then stopped dead. ‘Eh, there’s blood on my carpet…’

  ‘Yes, my son’s blood!’ snapped Rachel. ‘My son, who almost died through your stupidity. As if you hadn’t done enough to this family already!’

  Ella put down her burden, who waddled to the fire. ‘What the hell are you gassing about?’

  ‘I’m talking about the fact that you keep a loaded gun in the house! I realize of course that someone who has no children wouldn’t…’

  ‘Loaded gun? Aye, Jack has guns but loaded, no.’

  ‘Then how do you account for that?’ Rachel jabbed a finger at the stain on the carpet.

  ‘Rachel,’ Ella sighed, ‘if I were qualified in cracking codes I’d be working for the Army. Will you just explain in terms we can all understand?’ In stiff tone, Rachel told her of the shooting. ‘But what were they doing here?’ demanded Ella after first enquiring if Bertie was badly hurt. ‘They had no right!’

  ‘I believe you asked Robert to lock up for you after he’d taken your animal for a walk,’ said Rachel. ‘Against my instructions, I may add.’

  ‘Aye I did…’ Ella slipped her coat off and threw it on a chair. ‘But that didn’t include checking the lock on my wardrobe door. The gun was in there, so you see it wasn’t just lying around, he had to be nosying.’

  ‘Then I admit Robert was in the wrong,’ conceded Rachel. ‘But to have a loaded gun in the house at all…’

  ‘I told you it wasn’t loaded! Jack keeps the ammo in a different room from the gun, just in case anyone breaks in.’

  ‘Robert told me he had no idea the gun was loaded!’

  Ella sniffed and crossed her arms. ‘Well he would, wouldn’t he, if he’d been up to summat he shouldn’t.’ Rachel asked what this meant. ‘I mean, Rachel, that he must have been having a good old root about upstairs to be able to find the ammunition, let alone the gun. The only instruction I gave him was to drop the key back through the letter box.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I still say…’

  ‘You can say what you bloody well like!’ Ella had been on her feet all day and the chemical atmosphere of the factory had given her a headache. ‘You’re not shoving the blame onto me. That weapon was in perfectly safe condition until your son got his hands on it – and why did he need it loaded, might I ask? Doesn’t he know that loaded guns are dangerous? Of course he does! Our Jack’s warned him hundreds of times when he’s shown an interest. That lad knows as much about guns as anybody. It makes me wonder where Charlie comes into this.’ She glared expressively at her neighbour.

  ‘Are you insinuating that Robert intended to…?’ Rachel wavered, then scoffed, ‘That’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Is it? It makes sense to me. He hates the sight of that lad.’

  ‘Then how come he gave Charlie the gun?’ hurled Rachel triumphantly.

  Ella mused over this for a moment, then shrugged and began to fill the kettle with water, placing it on the fire.

  For once in her life Rachel had been granted the last word… yet she drew no comfort from it, for her own sentence had raised another question. If Robert had known the gun was loaded, why had he given it to Charlie?

  Though dreading the answer, this was the first thing she asked him on her return.

  His prime response was to repeat the earlier lie. ‘We were only playing soldiers. I didn’t know it was loaded. Honestly, Mother,’ he added, seeing she didn’t accept this.

  Rachel, sitting on the bed, put a hand to his brow and smoothed away a strand of hair. ‘Robert, Mrs Daw says she’s certain the ammunition was in an entirely different place to the gun. Whatever else Mr Daw might be, he is extremely diligent in the care of firearms. She says… she says you must have been searching the cupboards to find the bullets. Is it true?’ After a long silence, he gave a lachrymose nod. ‘But why?’ she entreated disbelievingly. ‘I mean, why did you tell me those silly stories before?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He picked at the sheet.

  ‘You do know! You’ve made me look a fool in front of that woman and you’re going to tell me! Robert,’ she cupped his face. ‘I know you’re unhappy about that boy being here, but you wouldn’t… I mean… Robert, you didn’t give Charlie the gun hoping he’d shoot himself?’ Straight away he shook his head.

  ‘You’re fibbing! I can tell. Now come on. I won’t scold you any more but I must know what happened. The police may get to hear of it and I’ll have to explain. I can tell them the gun went off by accident… but did it? Robert, I must know.’

  Again he shook his head. After a short silence, during which his dark eyelashes rested on his cheeks, he said, ‘I told him to pull the trigger.’

  Her chocolate-drop eyes were blank at first, then the truth sparked a look of horror. ‘You mean… you wanted him to shoot you?’ He nodded. ‘But why?’

  The wound was hurting like mad, transmitting the pain to his eyes. ‘No one wants me any more since he came. Becky used to hang around me all the time, now she hangs around him ’cause he’s older and he talks posh. The girls like him better than me.’

  Rachel’s face was still harrowed. ‘Robert, of course they don’t!’

  ‘They do!’ His sudden movement had jarred him. He covered the bandage with a hand, then went on fervently. ‘You never have any time for me either, you’re always too busy. I’ve got nobody… I wanted him to shoot me so’s you’d all feel sorry for the way you’ve been treating me.’

  ‘Just to get attention? For heaven’s sake, Robert you could’ve been killed!’

  ‘I don’t care,’ was his flat answer.

  With a moan, she hugged him to her breast and petted him. ‘My poor dear boy! What has he done to you?’ By ‘he’, Rachel did not just mean Charlie, but her husband.

  Bertie seemed to know this. ‘I hate Father,’ he wept into her shoulder. ‘I hope he gets killed.’

  She seized his wet face, distorting his cheeks. ‘Robert, he doesn’t love Charlie, you know. You must believe that.’ Her worried eyes darted over him, only now seeing his real torment. What he must have been suffering for the last five months!

  ‘But Charlie loves him,’ sniffed Bertie knowingly. ‘I won’t share him, Mother. I’ve always been the only boy. I won’t share Father – I’d sooner he was dead.’

  She gave another moan and clutched him more tightly. ‘Everything’s going to be all right. You are the only boy. He’s nothing… nothing.’

  ‘Mother?’ came the plaintive whisper from her bosom.

  ‘What, love?’ She cradled his head in her arms, resting her chin on the shiny brown hair.

  ‘Will you let me have a pair of long trousers now?’

  She leaned back to examine his face. ‘Oh Robert, you’re only twelve…’ The pleading in his eyes claimed her. ‘Oh, very well!’ She pressed his head back to her shoulder, rocked and kissed him. ‘If they mean so much to you, yes, we’ll get some next week. And you shall have a party – you didn’t have one for your birthday, did you? We can call it a getting-better party.’

  �
�I suppose he’ll have to come?’ mumbled Bertie.

  ‘Oh, Robert, there’s nothing I’d like more than to send him away… but where to? We’ve been deserted on all fronts: your father to his soldiers, the priest to Belgium.’

  ‘You could put him in an orphanage,’ said Bertie hopefully.

  She could… but then there would be people saying, ‘That cruel bitch’, forgetting what she had been forced to put up with, seeing only this callous act. Besides, Charlie wasn’t supposed to be still here. Rachel didn’t want to draw attention to him because that would bring the NSPCC back and if they saw Robert’s wound they might take him too, saying she wasn’t a fit mother. The mere thought of this caused her to hug him closer. ‘I’m sorry, dear, he’ll have to stay.’ She patted his head. ‘But don’t worry, I’ll speak to your sisters and make them aware of how upset they’ve made you with their behaviour. And please,’ she lifted his head to look deep in his eyes, ‘don’t ever do anything like this again. Whatever anybody says or does, I love you.’

  * * *

  Downstairs, Charlie was restating his innocence for the third time. ‘Becky, I swear, I swear I didn’t mean to shoot him!’ He still couldn’t believe that what had happened was real, kept seeing it over and over in his brain but still could not give it credence. After the gun had gone off he had simply stood there looking down at Bertie’s unconscious body. Until Becky’s accusation had tugged him from his shock. Then he had fallen beside his half-brother, searching frantically for a heartbeat with his ear, while a tearful Becky had sped home to fetch Biddy.

  There had been vast relief that Bertie wasn’t dead, but still he felt it prudent not to be here when help arrived. He had run off and spent a long time pacing the streets before deciding that he must be a man and face the consequences. One of these consequences was that Becky refused to speak to him when he slunk into the kitchen, where everyone seemed to be. The hero worship that had once been his had vanished. In her eyes shone enmity. ‘Please believe me!’ he told her yet again. ‘Bertie told me the gun wasn’t loaded.’

  Yes he had, Becky frowned and thought to herself, she had heard him. But still she chose to ally herself with her wounded brother and the dumb animosity remained.

  ‘He told me to pull the trigger!’ Charlie’s pink palms beseeched her and the others, who had been just as silent and accusing. Then Rachel entered and his expression changed. He didn’t know how to approach her, knowing that she would not regard ‘sorry’ as adequate.

  But how strange – the expected attack did not come. He waited apprehensively while she gave Biddy orders to make a pot of tea, watched as she moved tight-lipped about the kitchen, not looking at him.

  Don’t speak, Rachel felt his eyes following her but issued the mental warning, if you don’t speak I can pretend you’re not here. If I keep my hands occupied… This she tried to do by carving a loaf, buttering the slices, rattling the teacups – but if you say one word…

  Charlie looked at each of them, and each looked away.

  ‘May I go see my brother?’ Becky’s voice cracked the silence.

  ‘Robert’s resting,’ her mother informed her, putting saucers firmly on a tray. ‘But you can go up later – if he wants to see you.’ There was definite accusation in the comment.

  Becky was quick to interpret and slumped over the table, cradling her woebegone face in her hands to watch Biddy pour the boiling water into the pot. I wonder what that would feel like if I were to put my hand under it, she thought. Would it hurt as much as being wounded by a gun? Poor Bertie, she felt awful now for the way she had neglected him in favour of Charlie.

  Rachel was about to place the bread and butter on the tray, when there came a shrill scream. She spun round, mishandling the plate and littering the floor with bread.

  ‘Jesus, Miss Becky, have you been rollin’ in the catnip again? What did ye ever go an’ do an eejit thing like that for?’ Biddy, kettle still poised over the pot, stared aghast at the girl, who clutched her wrist, the hand beyond slowly inflating like a red balloon.

  ‘I just wondered what it would feel like,’ she whimpered.

  Charlie took a step forward to help. It took another scream from Becky as he tried to tend her arm to bring Rachel out of her stupor. She launched herself at him, grasped both shoulders, spun him round and hurled him away as hard as she could. He stumbled against a dining chair.

  For three seconds everyone was silent again, watching his reaction; which was to take another step back, placing him outside the family circle, mouth agape with shock. Then everyone forgot about him, offering only a wall of backs as they attended to the scalded hand. Only a pain-faced Becky noticed his exit. ‘Charlie’s crying,’ she informed them weedily as he slipped away.

  Rachel ignored the information. ‘Biddy, go pick that bread up and then run along to the doctor’s and fetch him back!’

  Biddy made a face of disgust as she peeled the bread from the carpet. ‘Holy Mother, doesn’t it always fall butter-side down.’

  * * *

  ‘It’s just like soddin’ England,’ complained Private Dobson as 5 Platoon, along with thousands of others, disembarked at Boulogne. ‘Bloody fish an’ chip shops…’ He ran his fingers through his curly black hair and replaced his cap. The place was awash with khaki.

  ‘I’m sure that’ll go down as the patriotic declaration of all time, Dobson – just like soddin’ England.’ Lance-Sergeant Hazelwood had overheard the grumble as he was issuing his platoon with orders. ‘I can arrange for you to have a plate of snails before we leave for the front if you like.’

  ‘We-ell!’ The lad screwed his nose up and wrung his hands, which were red from the cold. ‘I thought it’d be more foreign, like.’

  Russ took his elbow and, with his free hand, pointed. ‘See them matelots there? Just go up to them and say “Joan of Arc”, they’ll show you how bloody foreign it is. Right! Let’s go get summat in our bellies, then we can sort out this Hun before tea.’

  The repartee among the men helped to keep his mind off his problems, but sometimes it could become testing. Russ, not feeling particularly chatty after the Channel crossing, was glad to reach his billet. Once here, he sought out the lavatory, the only place where one could be completely alone, could sit and ponder for fifteen minutes – or at least until some lout hammered on the door.

  He was in for a let-down. The French equivalent was not the oasis of comfort, the reading-room, the place of dreams that he knew from home, but a hole in the ground with a support rail at either side. Russ studied the crude necessity, hand scratching head. It baffled him how anyone could execute a natural function here, let alone read a newspaper. A silly picture formed in his mind of himself performing gymnastic feats on the parallel bars, trying to hit the target below. It made him laugh. He unbuttoned his trousers and got on with the job – what did he want to sit and think for anyway?

  The next move was to base camp at Étaples, where a period of intensive training began. ‘Intensive torture’ would have been a more fitting description to the recruits who, up until now, had been merely playing at war. On first arrival, the newcomers remained blissfully unaware of what lay in store for them. After receiving certain items of equipment, they were allowed to wander around the stalls that had been set up by the locals who came here daily to sell chocolate, fruit and postcards.

  The sight of one postcard, embroidered in silk with the words Happy Birthday, brought a quick mental calculation of the date, then a feeling of guilt to Sergeant Hazelwood. He had forgotten his son’s birthday – Rachel had always been in charge of that sort of thing, he was hopeless at remembering dates. To send one now would only make the omission worse… besides, he couldn’t recall the dates of his daughters’ birthdays either. The thought was abandoned. He turned away from the stall – and was immediately snapped by Private Strawbridge, a keen amateur photographer from his own platoon. Complaints were bypassed. Strawbridge roped in as many as were willing to pose by the stalls alongside the peasants. />
  Day Two removed any false impression that this was like the places they had stayed at in England. A sweet voice billowed the sides of each tent at five-thirty am. ‘Right! Let’s be havin’ you, oh cream of British manhood. Move it! Soldier, what’s that bloody thing stickin’ up in the middle o’ your blanket? Looks like you’re sleeping in your own private tent. Get it down! Come on, come on! Rise and shine. Go shave your palms before breakfast. Can’t say what that’ll be but then most of you won’t be able to see what you’re eatin’ anyway!’ At eight, the men were paraded before an officer whom they had not encountered before and whose unfortunate speech impediment caused hilarity, especially from Dobson, who started to mimic. To his great misfortune, he was spotted.

  ‘Sar’nt! We’ll have that man out!’

  ‘Get your bloody arse out here now, Dobson,’ growled Russ and, marching the private up to the officer, barked Dobson’s name, rank and number. Dobson, being a cheeky lad, was well accustomed to being hauled in front of the teacher and was not unduly perturbed by this treatment. Taking the officer’s emaciated build as a sign of weakness, he stood casually.

  The officer’s nostrils flared. ‘Sar’nt, are you sure you have this man’s name right?’ Icy eyes bore into Dobson’s. ‘Private, might you be related to a fellow called Modo?’

  Dobson cocked his head. ‘Sorry, sir?’

  ‘As in Quasi – get those bladdy shoulders straight!’ Dobson gave a taut jerk. The officer spoke evenly now, hands behind him clasping his baton. ‘Dobson, I should like you to see something. Come with me – you too, Sar’nt.’

  ‘Dobson, le-aft turn!’ yelped Russ and marched alongside the private. ‘Left, right, left, right! I’ll have your balls for this, you little bleeder,’ he muttered from the side of his mouth.

  The officer came to a halt. Russ took five more paces then stamped to attention, shouting commands at Dobson.

  ‘Now tell me, Private,’ mouthed the officer. ‘What do you see on that tree?’