My Father, My Son

by Sheelagh Kelly

  Bertie nodded, tight-lipped, then simply walked away. It was only when Sergeant Hazelwood received a later summons from his Commanding Officer that he learnt that the troop ship carrying his son to safety had been shelled by a German gunboat under the guise of a merchantman. There were no survivors.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  ‘A year!’ Rachel was complaining to Charlie. ‘A blessed year since that priest of yours promised to get you into college and never a word since. He’s as irresponsible as my husband. I’ll give him another couple of weeks and then I think you can start looking for a job.’ She saw Charlie’s look of surprise. ‘Well, you are fourteen! Old enough to be contributing to your upkeep. Other boys have to – those that haven’t been stolen by the Army!’

  Yet another family dinner was being eaten without Bertie. Rachel had stopped laying an extra place in the hope that he would suddenly walk in and sit down. Her worry had long since reached its crescendo and was now on its way back down – one couldn’t remain at such a fever pitch; life just had to carry on. But still she damned the Army for its incompetent and long-winded handling of the situation. Upstairs there were now two sets of birthday presents waiting to be opened by her son. ‘Robert’ll be twenty-one before they manage to find him. Men! They’re all the…’ She broke off as Biddy brought a telegram in. ‘Oh, not another!’ She sighed impatiently and inserted a portion of sausage in her mouth before snatching the envelope. ‘I wonder what they’ve done with your father this time.’ Sure in the belief that it pertained to her husband, she opened the telegram.

  ‘Is Father missing again?’ asked Rhona as her mother’s face changed. The hand holding the telegram started to shake, slightly at first, then more violently as though Rachel were caught up in an earthquake. Before anyone had the chance to ask what was wrong she screamed, ‘Robert!’ and broke into racking sobs.

  The girls being too shocked, Charlie made the unforgiveable error of trying to comfort the hysterical woman. She launched herself at him, slapping him about the head and shoulders, anywhere she could reach, so that he backed away in alarm.

  ‘Why was it Robert? Why isn’t it you who’s lying dead at the bottom of the sea?’ Her arms windmilled at him. ‘What did he ever do to anyone? While you cause grief and pain to all you meet – get out of my sight!’ She landed one more blow as he fled upstairs to shut himself, weeping, in the attic, while she broke down, thinking only of her own bereavement and nothing of her daughters, who had to turn to Biddy for comfort.

  Even Lyn cried freely – there was no one who would laugh at her, for all were equally stricken – but she couldn’t understand why she was crying, for she had always fought with Bertie. Becky buried her head in the maid’s lap and sobbed her heart out, for she had loved her brother, as had Rowena, who had to cuddle the little ones. Even if Robina had felt nothing for Bertie she would have cried in sympathy with her sisters, and the younger ones cried because they were frightened by the wailing. Biddy was the only one free of tears, trying her best to console in her clumsy Irish brogue. And none of them gave a thought to Charlie, who had to bear this alone.

  The younger ones recovered after having a good cry, but Rowena continued to burst into tears every half hour, when of course Beany joined her. Rachel, after her long spell of hysteria, was flattened, wandering ghost-like about the house as if in search of her dead son. It’s a mix-up, she kept telling herself. In a couple of weeks there’ll be another telegram to say he isn’t dead. He isn’t dead.

  That same evening, Ella Daw, having heard the news from Biddy over the yard wall, decided to put aside her differences to go and offer commiserations. Rachel was sitting, glassy-eyed, at the kitchen table, screwing and unscrewing a damp ball of handkerchief. The children – but not Charlie, who still dared not leave his attic – were with her, all sporting red eyes. Lyn noted with interest that Aunt Ella was wearing trousers. Rowena put an arm round her mother, who did not appear to be aware of Ella’s presence. ‘Mrs Daw’s here, Mother.’

  ‘I’ve just heard, Rachel,’ began Ella in grave tone as the woman lifted bereft eyes to her. She sat down opposite and reached over to clasp Rachel’s hand, which was cold. ‘I’m ever so sorry. Eh… it’s just tragic.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ murmured Rachel, frowning. ‘It only seems like yesterday I was nursing him…’

  ‘Aye… I know how you feel.’ Ella bolstered herself with a deep breath and revealed, ‘I’ve just lost my little Kim. Thirteen years we had him – he was nearly the same age as Bertie. I just can’t believe he’s gone.’

  Only now did Rachel appear to be fully aware of her neighbour’s presence. She looked at her in wonderment. There were tears in Ella’s eyes. Her answer emerged on a breath of disbelief. ‘You’re comparing my Robert to a dog?’ She came up slowly from her seat. ‘How dare you? How dare you say you understand my loss! He was my son!’ Ella was mortified that her intended comfort was being rebuffed. She rose, intending to leave forthwith, but Rachel hadn’t finished.

  ‘And you can number yourself responsible!’ she yelled, brown eyes wild. ‘You’re the one who started all this!’

  Ella didn’t understand for the moment. When she did, she looked Rachel calmly in the eye and said quietly, ‘If you’re harking back to that letter business, Rachel… I never wrote it.’

  On the woman’s silent departure, Rachel pressed her knuckles into the table and swayed in anguish.

  Then it was Biddy’s turn to say the wrong thing. ‘I don’t think she intended it as an insult, ma’am. She loved that wee dog o’ hers. She was only tryin’ to make ye feel better.’

  Rachel’s eyes fixed her with such venom that she shrank. ‘And well you might talk about making people feel better with your countrymen taking up arms against us! Isn’t it enough that our boys have to fight the Germans without being attacked from across the Irish Sea?’

  ‘’Twas only a bit o’ trouble in Dublin, ma’am,’ offered Biddy in hurt voice.

  ‘And how d’you imagine this war started? I’ll bet someone said, “Oh, ’tis only a bit o’ trouble in Belgium!” And that traitor, Casement… we’re being attacked from all sides – you might even be in with them for all I know.’

  ‘Me?’ spat Biddy at this neurotic conjecture.

  ‘Yes, you! Goodness knows you spend most of your time sneaking about the house, I can never find you when there’s work to be done…’

  ‘What?’ cried an astounded Biddy.

  ‘Lazy! You are a lazy Irish slob! Look at these pots, they’re not even cleared away.’

  ‘But we’ve only just eaten…’

  ‘The coalscuttle’s half empty…’

  ‘’Cause you won’t pay the coalman!’

  ‘He’s profiteering like the rest of them! The sink’s filthy… you’re nothing but an idle baggage!’

  ‘Right, that’s it!’ Biddy ripped off her apron and threw it down. ‘I’ve put up with all kinds of insults from you over the years but bedamned if I’m being told I’m idle. My God! I’m two inches shorter than when I started what with all the running about ye’ve had me do, it’s worn me legs away. I’m sorry to leave yese when ye’ve just had this dastardly shock but I can’t stand any more – I won’t stand any more!’ She pounded upstairs to fetch her belongings while Rachel continued to rant at the foot of the stairs. A slam marked her departure. The children watched a crazed Rachel charge down the passage after her, fling open the door and shout down the street – a thing their mother would never have done in her right state of mind, ‘Good riddance, you idle baggage! You ought to be executed like that other traitor!’ Then she stormed back in, rushed up the stairs and invaded Charlie’s room. He looked up, startled, as she seized a large brass candlestick and descended on him.

  The girls heard his cry of protest. When they rushed up to see what was happening, they saw him holding up his arms as protection as the weapon came down again and again.

  ‘Mother, stop!’ Rowena tried to catch her mother’s arm. ‘Please
! It’s not Charlie’s fault!’ Becky and Robina were sobbing.

  ‘It’s all his fault!’ raged their mother. ‘You devil!’

  Charlie gave a howl of agony as the heavy candlestick made contact with his arm for the fifth time. Rachel fell back, panting and staring wildly. Then, with the sound of sobbing, she seemed to come out of her fit and gazed upon him with horror as he supported his fractured arm with another that was cut and bruised. With a shriek, she flung the candlestick aside and fell beside him, hands clasped over mouth in abhorrence of what she had done. ‘Oh, God! Oh, God!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ he gasped through distorted lips.

  ‘It’s not all right!’ She made one final howl of despair, then broke down, swaying and moaning like an animal.

  * * *

  Russ had been granted a precious green envelope – precious, not only because a man might have to wait a month to get one, but because missives of this colour were not subject to regimental censorship; the sender could be as intimate as he liked without fear of local derision. He could tell her anything – tell her how he had wanted to cry when they had given him the news about Bertie, but how he had not been able to; tell her of his last meeting with his son; tell her how sorry… oh God, that word, Russ closed his eyes, that ineffectual little word he had used as a shield so many times…

  He pictured Rachel in her grief. She came crashing into his mind, her bonny face distorted by anguish, fingers clawing and scratching at him, ripping his flesh, screaming at him, ‘Murderer! You did it! You killed him! I hate you! Don’t you ever come back!’ Then she took hold of him and banged his head against the wall again and again, slapping, kicking, ripping his hair out, gouging his eyes, and with every blow he shouted, ‘Yes, more! Again! Hit me again!’ Rage and self-hate boiled through his veins, trying to volcano from the top of his head… but like the tears he could not shed he suppressed it, kept it bottled tightly inside, savoured it, kept it simmering…

  After staring at the blank page for half an hour, he crumpled it in his fist and tossed it into the mud. Die, he said, die.

  * * *

  ‘How’s she taking it?’ Mrs Phillips asked Ella after the latter had told her that yes, she had heard right, Bertie was dead.

  ‘I don’t know how she is and I don’t care.’ Ella slapped her money onto the counter. ‘I’m damned if I’m going cap in hand to find out after the way she spoke to me – you’d think it was me who’d killed him!’ She tucked her chin into her neck, snapping her purse shut. ‘Anyway, she’s never once asked about my Jack. Not once in two years.’

  ‘Is that Mrs Hazelwood you’re talking about?’ enquired another woman who had entered halfway through the conversation.

  ‘Aye, we’re just on about their Bertie,’ muttered Ella.

  ‘Aw, I know, it’s terrible.’ The woman’s face creased in sympathy. ‘He was only thirteen or fourteen, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Well, sorry as I am, I shan’t be going out of my way to offer help,’ said Mrs Phillips firmly. ‘She must’ve heard about our Fred being wounded but she was the only one round here who never popped in to ask how he was – walked right past the door, she did. It’s them little lasses I feel most sorry for. I’ll bet she’s got them running around after her now she’s sacked Biddy – oh, didn’t you hear about that? I’d’ve thought you could’ve heard her a mile away, screeching down the street she was – “Good riddance, you idle baggage!”’ She chortled, then looked serious again. ‘That poor lass, the eldest, what’s her name? Rowena, she looks like a little old woman. Have you seen her? She came in here to do the shopping. I tried to find out what sort of state they’re in, but she plays her cards pretty close to her chest, does that one.’

  ‘Here’s another who’ll be keeping well out of it an’ all,’ stated Ella. ‘I feel sorry for the kids, but I’ve had my nose bloodied enough. If she wants to keep herself to herself she’s welcome.’

  * * *

  What made it so unreal was the lack of a body. Rachel stitched mechanically, her glazed eyes fixed to the hat on her lap but not really seeing it. The days had bled into weeks and still her only vision was that of her son floundering in the water, his face going under, the salt water filling his lungs. She could taste the salt on her own lips… and yet she still kept telling herself it wasn’t so, Robert wasn’t dead. Despite the condolences and the letter from his commanding officer, it was a mistake.

  She had left the house only once. What an ordeal that had been. People had come up to her, heads cocked to one side as if they were deformed and with earnest faces would enquire how she was feeling. How did they think she was feeling? But she did not scream at them, had replied politely that she was quite well considering, thank you, and then slipped away. Worse than these were the people who had seen her coming and had deliberately crossed the road to avoid having to talk to her, as though losing her son had made her a leper. After this she had left the shopping to Rowena and had stayed inside.

  But even here she wasn’t completely safe, for people would call, asking her to make them a hat – ‘If you’re sure you feel up to it, of course.’ She didn’t feel up to anything, but she took their orders, for with the shop closed she had no income other than the separation allowance from the Army. Besides, as the well-meaning visitors would say, ‘You want to keep occupied – take your mind off things.’ Which was all very well… but she sewed with her fingers, not her mind.

  The spate of madness was over, but to Rowena the mood she was in now was just as frightening as the rages. Normally, Mother rushed about the home like a whirlwind; now she just seemed to sit there in a trance, and when she did move it was as though someone were holding her ankles. She had never listened to anything the children said, of course, but now it was more than that. She didn’t appear to know they were even there. Rowena wanted to ask her questions about Bertie, but daren’t for fear of invoking another tempest. There was no one else she felt able to talk to about her brother. Biddy was gone, and she couldn’t go and see Aunt Ella. The others were too young to understand, and she was rather frightened of the form teacher at her new school. Oh, how she wished her father was here. She battled to fix her eyes to the book she was working on… but she just kept thinking of her brother.

  With Biddy’s departure and the girls’ return to school, Rachel had been forced to stay at home to take care of the youngest child, who was nearly three, and prepare the meals for when the rest came home. Though quite often they were greeted by a neglected child, an empty table and a vacant expression, leaving Rowena to take command. Somehow, Rachel had gathered sufficient wits to place an advertisement in the press for a general maid, but even though it was in for three nights, not one person applied. Probably they were all working at the munitions factories. Rachel had never been on her own before. For the nineteen years of her married life she had always had someone to help her cope. For the first time in her occupation of this house, a layer of dust was allowed to settle. This in itself showed how ill she was, plus the fact that they were now all sitting in the best parlour instead of the kitchen, with books and bits of material strewn all over the place.

  After a time, she finished stitching the hat and, taking her scissors, cut the thread. Putting scissors and needle aside, she lifted the hat. There followed a moment of ponderance… then Lyn started to laugh. Mother had sewn the hat to her skirt.

  ‘Stop it.’ Rowena saw the look of confusion on her mother’s face. ‘Lyn, I said stop laughing! It’s not funny.’ She sprang up and took hold of the scissors, carefully unpicking the stitches while her mother just sat there like a mute. Lyn bit her lip. Then, after a look at Beany, exploded into giggles again.

  Dealing her a warning glare, Rowena put the hat on the table and asked Rachel, ‘Should I make the drinks, Mother?’

  There was a long silence, during which Rachel stared from one face to another. Then she nodded wanly.

  ‘I’ll help.’ Charlie, arm in a sling, rose and made for the door.

  Rowe
na stopped him. ‘You can’t do it one-handed. Lyn can come and help.’

  Subdued, Charlie reseated himself and stared at his feet. Why, when things were just beginning to settle down, did Bertie have to go and die? And then there was the worry about Father Guillaume. Charlie didn’t think, as Rachel did, that it was mere irresponsibility which stopped the priest from writing. He had the dreadful feeling that something had happened to his friend, for he knew that the Germans were no respecters of the priesthood.

  In the kitchen, the normally placid Rowena unleashed her frustration on her younger sister, rebuking her for laughing at their mother’s mistake.

  ‘Well, it was funny,’ objected Lyn, kneeling on a chair to arrange the mugs. Her hair was a mass of snarls. With no Biddy to drive her, Lyn couldn’t see the need to brush it or to get washed – her fingernails were ridged with dirt.

  ‘No, it wasn’t! Mother’s ill, she doesn’t need you to make her feel worse!’

  ‘You would’ve laughed normally!’ came the objection.

  ‘Normally, yes! But things aren’t normal, are they? Our brother’s dead.’ Rowena’s face screwed up in pain. ‘Don’t you care?’

  ‘Of course I do!’ The wide mouth took on the appearance of a frog’s.

  ‘I don’t think you do, otherwise you’d know how Mother’s feeling and not be so cruel!’

  Lyn’s eyes threatened tears. Before they showed, she ran from the kitchen and into the lavatory. Rowena grasped the back of a chair, wanting to cry herself. It was all so horrible. She wished there was an adult there to tell her what to do. The page in her mathematics book was still blank. She had tried to do it as soon as she had come in from school, but then she had to get the tea ready, throughout which Beany and Lyn had fought and Mona had whinged and refused to eat the prepared meal, and then Regina had been sick: all whilst Mother had been closeted away in the front parlour. And then there had been the washing up to do. She had attempted to tackle the maths straight after this, but her mind wouldn’t seem to function. This was partly because she hadn’t been listening properly when Miss Greenwood demonstrated on the blackboard. Her mind kept straying to Bertie and Father. Even if she had been capable of doing them, there would be no chance of this in the morning before school, for she would doubtless have breakfast to see to and the sheets and nightgowns to wash, for Becky was still wetting the bed. Charlie had offered to do these, but how could he with his arm in plaster? Then at lunchbreak she would have to slip out of school to do the shopping. Being at secondary school made it all the harder to keep a check on her sisters. The responsibility made her feel as if she were carrying all the members of her family on her narrow shoulders.