A Woman's War

by S Block

  ‘She’ll have a right go at me for mucking around with all this,’ he said to Isobel, smiling. ‘But if it takes the smallest amount of strain off her it’s worthwhile.’

  In the parlour, Stan rearranged the furniture to make it easier for Steph to walk around, and placed two chairs in strategic places in case Steph ever felt short of breath and needed to suddenly sit.

  He cleaned out all the fireplaces and had Stanley clean the chimneys so the house could be properly heated and ventilated. The doctor had told him this would help keep Steph warm, which was important for her circulation, and her breathing free of any smoke inhalation, which would place more strain on her heart.

  In the farmyard, Stan lowered the washing line and repaired the decrepit fencing so Steph could lean against it, without fear of falling through.

  He replaced the steps leading up to the henhouse, to avoid Steph slipping or falling through the old, cracked steps. Stanley affixed a leather to the end of a pole to make cleaning the outside of the windows easier for her.

  As she helped Stan and Stanley with all this work, Isobel started to wonder if Stan had told Steph about the preparations he was making for her homecoming.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said, hammering the final tread onto the chicken-house steps.

  ‘Don’t you think you should?’ Isobel gently chided. ‘You could get away with it with me with my eyes, but hers are as sharp as a hawk’s. She’ll spot in an instant that you’re making a home for . . . well . . . an invalid.’

  Stan’s eyes momentarily flashed with anger. ‘That’s not what it is, Isobel. It’s just smoothing off the place for her.’

  ‘But that’s what she’ll see if you don’t tell her. Why haven’t you told her? Why hasn’t her doctor?’

  ‘I asked him not to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she’s in a bad way.’

  ‘How bad?’

  He looked at Isobel for a few moments, then looked away, his eyes travelling across the field to the woodland beyond.

  ‘This condition,’ he started, ‘she’s going to have to live with this condition for the rest of her life. Her heart’s damaged. It’s not like other parts of your body. It can’t heal itself. I’ve had mates scarred for life on their skin. That grows back – different, but more or less the same – and you can get on with it. But this is on the inside, and it doesn’t repair.’

  Isobel looked at him and gently took his hand in hers.

  ‘You’ve got to warn her. It’s her right. She’s a strong woman, Stan.’

  ‘Not anymore.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. Perhaps not physically, but mentally . . . she will be. You know it.’

  As he lay alone in his bed that night, Stan reflected on his conversation with Isobel. It wasn’t Steph’s strength he was worried about when it came to telling her the seriousness of her condition, but his own. He wasn’t convinced he could break the news to her without breaking down in front of her, and she didn’t deserve that. Isobel had suggested asking the doctor to do it, since it was part of his job. Or Dr Rosen, someone Steph knew a little better. Stan had dismissed the idea.

  ‘When she knows what it is she’ll want it to come from me,’ he said. ‘No one else.’

  Lying in the dark, the new items of their small bedroom picked out by the dim glow of moonlight, Stan told himself to bite the bullet, go to the hospital tomorrow, and tell Steph the full extent of her condition. He’d ask the doctor to accompany him tomorrow, to answer any medical questions she might have. But he would tell her. Before that, there was something he had to attend to – with Stanley.

  *

  Steph was the first patient to wake up on the ward the following day. Of farming stock by birth, her body clock was calibrated to the rise and fall of daylight. It didn’t matter if the curtains were open or closed, when the sun began to spray more light into her corner of the world, Steph began to wake.

  She lay in bed and looked around at the mounds of people beneath sheets and blankets around her, lying prone in their incapacities, waiting for the miracle of God or medicine to release them from their pains and ailments.

  She hadn’t been awake more than half a minute before a wave of insurmountable sadness came over her as she remembered Stanley had joined up. She felt a cold fury towards the recruiting sergeant.

  He must have seen he was a boy. Legal age means nothing if he’s not fit for battle. And he isn’t. Never will be. It’s not that he’s not ready. He’s not right for it. Some boys are and some aren’t. He’ll be an easy—

  Steph couldn’t finish the sentence. The images of Stanley in full battledress, trapped somewhere crying out for her flashed across her mind’s eye once more. However she imagined him, her son never looked like a real soldier. Like a man. Like a fighter, able to defend himself, and take another life if he had to. She had seen him only ever run from a fight.

  They could see what he was, so how could they take his signature? Stupid, stupid child. Stupid, stupid. Criminal, that’s what it is.

  She felt a grinding emptiness in her gut, and felt her heart start to race and her breath shorten. She closed her eyes and slowly counted to sixty, as the doctor had told her to whenever she had to try to bring down her heart rate. Some part of her felt she had already lost her son, that he had already crossed into that place beyond a mother’s power to pull her child back to safety and security.

  Steph was coming to the end of her breakfast when Stan came onto the ward, flanked by the doctor. Though it was the beginning of the day, each looked ominously serious. When they saw her watching them approach they each switched on a smile. When they arrived at her bed, the doctor pulled the curtain round to give them privacy. Stan kissed Steph and sat on her left, while the doctor stood on the right.

  ‘Good night, love?’ Stan asked, stroking a strand of hair back from her forehead.

  ‘Aside from one woman’s cough,’ Steph said, lowering her voice and pointedly looking towards the ward beyond the curtain. ‘Be better once I’m out of here.’

  ‘That can be today, Mrs Farrow,’ the doctor said.

  Steph smiled. ‘Wonderful,’ she said.

  The doctor glanced at Stan, giving him his cue to speak. Stan swallowed, readying himself for the moment that had kept him up all night. He looked at Steph. She looked back with a slightly quizzical expression, unsure why he was taking as long as he was.

  ‘You’ll see some changes when you get back, love,’ Stan said.

  ‘Changes?’

  ‘Around the house. And farmyard. Some are repairs, but others are small things I’ve done to make it easier for you.’

  Steph’s brow furrowed. ‘Easier?’

  Stan took a deep breath and glanced at the doctor, who nodded calmly, giving Stan the reassurance to press on.

  ‘You’re not well, Steph,’ he said.

  ‘I know I’ve had a bit of a turn . . .’

  ‘It’s more than that. Your heart’s not right.’

  Steph searched Stan’s face for a greater understanding of what he was trying to say.

  ‘And it won’t ever be what it was,’ he said.

  Steph looked at Stan and tried to make sense of what he’d just told her. The doctor considered this was the time for him to provide some medical qualification on Stan’s announcement.

  ‘It’s quite possible you suffered a heart attack during the harvest, Mrs Farrow. We can’t be sure. Whenever it happened, the muscle tissue on one side of your heart is damaged and it can’t be repaired. The damage is permanent, I’m afraid, and that leaves you in a more vulnerable position than before.’

  ‘How vulnerable?’

  Steph looked directly at Stan when she asked the question. Stan took another in a series of deep breaths. He had anticipated this being difficult, but not as difficult as it was proving.

  ‘Stan. Tell me straight. No secrets. None of that nonsense.’

  Stan nodded. ‘From now on you have to be careful. Any strain could ri
sk another episode.’

  ‘When you say any strain, what do you mean?’

  Again, the doctor stepped in to underpin Stan’s words with some authority.

  ‘It means you will be limited to light work around the house. But no farm work.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Farrow. Your husband is right. You simply must cut out of your daily routine anything that could risk another attack.’

  ‘But we’re farmers. I’m needed on the farm all year round.’

  ‘Steph, what you need is to be well. The rest we can work out.’

  ‘What about the chickens?’

  ‘What about them?’ said Stan.

  ‘That’s farm work, isn’t it? Can I throw a bit of seed around? Hold a bucket of scraps for them? Collect eggs?’ Her tone was less sarcastic than bewildered.

  The doctor nodded. ‘As long as it isn’t strenuous. That’s the benchmark. How much strain will any given activity place on you? Will it leave you short of breath? Will it raise your heart rate?’

  ‘It’s not about what may or may not seem strenuous at any given time, Mrs Farrow. What your husband’s talking about when he mentions the changes he’s made around the farm is a permanent alteration to the way you live. Your heart will not get any better. In fact, over time it will slowly get worse because that’s the natural way of things. But by adhering to my advice, by eliminating as much risk from strain as you can from your life, you can slow down the rate of degeneration.’

  Steph looked hard at the doctor, treating his words as she would a foul-tasting medicine he was forcing her to swallow for her own good. She could scarcely believe what she was hearing.

  ‘I’m home now, Steph,’ Stan said, softly, trying to coat the terrible news with a warming verbal balm. ‘I can do all the heavy stuff. Don’t get me wrong – you’ve done brilliant. But we just have to adapt, don’t we? Your health, love, that’s the most important thing from this point on.’

  Steph turned from Stan back to the doctor, desperately seeking more information – more clarification about how her life was about to change.

  ‘But I don’t have to lie in bed all the time? Or sit in a chair by a window like an old biddy, just staring over land I can’t even walk across after heavy rain?’

  The doctor smiled, and shook his head.

  ‘Not at all. Complete inactivity would be just as detrimental. We want you to lead an active life, Mrs Farrow. That will keep your heart as strong as it can be. It’s about finding the balance, and making permanent changes to the way you approach things. So, for example, yes, by all means you can feed your chickens. But before picking up a bucket of feed, or scraps, give it a moment of thought. Is it too full? Is it too heavy? Are you taking even a slight risk? Perhaps ask someone to hold the bucket for you. Minimising the risk of overstraining yourself, that’s the question you should keep in your mind until it becomes second nature – which I’m sure it will.’

  Steph’s eyes glittered with tears.

  ‘Doc,’ said Stan in a quiet voice, careful not to be overheard elsewhere on the ward. ‘What about . . . relations?’

  ‘Stanley!’ Steph said, mortified, and wiping her eyes.

  The doctor had fielded the question before. Many older couples didn’t raise it, but couples in their late 30s, like Stan and Steph, tended to want to know, and usually found a way to ask.

  ‘Actually, it’s a perfectly reasonable question, Mr Farrow. There may need to be some . . . adjustment. As a rule, whenever your wife struggles for breath she should stop what she’s doing and allow things to return to normal. But take things nice and slow and that side of things should be fine.’

  Stan held Steph’s hand and gripped it tightly.

  ‘Simply avoid stress, Mrs Farrow.’

  Steph looked at the doctor and nodded, her eyes slowly moistening as the extent of her condition – and how her life would have to adapt around it – slowly sank in. One thought kept ringing in her ears. A question, to which there was no suitable answer:

  How can I avoid stress with Stanley joining up?

  *

  On the slow walk back to the farm, Stan carried the overnight bag Steph had taken to the hospital on her behalf. After a week’s stay, and leaving with her life turned upside down, Steph was quiet. She watched Stan’s feet to her left, sure he was walking more slowly than usual.

  ‘I’m not sure I can keep this up,’ she said.

  ‘Keep what up?’ he replied.

  ‘You’re walking slower than we normally walk.’

  ‘You heard the doc. Avoid stress.’

  ‘But I’ve never been stressed walking at our normal pace. I never get out of breath doing that, do I? Because I’m used to it.’

  ‘I’m just being careful,’ Stan said, trying not to sound defensive.

  They walked on in silence for a few more moments, and then Stan suddenly scooped Steph in his arms.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?!’ she cried.

  ‘Not taking any chances!’ he said, grinning.

  ‘You’re going to carry me a mile and a half back to the farm, are you?’

  ‘Why not? I’ve carried men with a full pack further, under fire. You’re nothing compared to that.’

  Steph looked at Stan’s face as he continued home with his wife held firmly in his arms. His pale blue eyes. Weathered skin stretched taut over his cheekbones. Fine, wispy hair, blowing in the cold wind that seemed to simply cycle endlessly through the region at this time of year. She loved him with an incalculable intensity. After a few hundred yards she said, ‘Put me down, Stan.’

  He didn’t, and merely stepped up his pace.

  ‘Stan, I mean it. We have to talk about the farm.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘How can we work it if I’m out of action and Stanley’s gone. It’s a two-man farm at least. Put me down!’

  Stan stopped and set his wife back on her feet as carefully as if she had been a Ming vase.

  ‘Nothing to talk about,’ he said. ‘I’ve sorted it.’

  Steph searched his eyes for more explanation. She seemed to alight upon the answer within seconds.

  ‘Isobel? Stan, she does what she can, and she’s taken on a lot more than either of us ever thought she’d be able to when she first came, but there’s no way she can take over my duties—’

  ‘Not Isobel.’

  ‘Then who?’

  Stan looked at Steph and kissed her tenderly on the lips.

  ‘Ever since the doctor told me how bad you were I’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. With me off the land the farm’s going to be—’

  ‘Not about the farm,’ he interrupted. ‘About you. All right, a bit about the farm, but mostly about what happens to you if Stanley went off to fight. I know how much you worried about me when I was gone, but I can handle myself . . .’

  The lump in Steph’s throat prevented her from speaking.

  ‘Stanley’s not going,’ Stan said.

  Steph stared at him as the wind swirled around them, blowing dry brown leaves across the path. Breaks in the churning cloud revealed patches of metallic blue, shot through with beams of bright winter sunlight.

  ‘Not going?’ she said, unsure she had heard correctly.

  Stan shook his head.

  ‘He’s bloody desperate to go, Stan,’ she said. ‘Every time a plane flew over or a regiment marched past, it’s all I could do to stop him leaping over the bloody gate!’

  ‘I told him if the war didn’t kill him, it might kill you.’

  ‘But . . . that’s blackmail.’

  Stan shook his head.

  ‘I said it’s his choice to make, but he had to understand the real choices. In the real world, not the world of make-believe in his head, where Jerry is lining up to be shot like tin cans on a fence, and you’ll be fine come what may. Real choices with real consequences. I said the war doesn’t need him, there’s hundreds just like
him the war’ll chew up just the same. But this farm, and his mam . . . does need him. With you the way you are, I need him. I told him I hadn’t spoken to you about it. I told him I’d respect his decision if he felt he had to go. So would you. I told him he’s in a vital reserved occupation – feeding the nation and feeding the troops. Nothing more important than that. Nothing. No one would blink an eye if he stayed. No training can save you from the bullet with your name on. But it takes real aptitude to pull food out of the ground year after year after year for folk who need it. Real skill and real craft. All the things you need to know to do that. That’s aptitude the country needs more than another skinny bloody Tommy on the parade ground, dreaming of killing Germans.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Steph asked. Her heart felt as if it was about to burst with euphoria.

  ‘He thought about it. Looked out the window. Gave it some more thought. You know. Then he dropped his head and said he wouldn’t go.’

  ‘No, I mean how did he say it?’

  ‘He said you saved his life from the pilot, so he owes you.’

  ‘I don’t see it like that.’

  ‘I know. But he does. That’s how he sees it. He stood there and thought about it, worked it all out. He said he could go and get himself killed, and you keel over from a broken heart, and we lose the farm. Or, he could stay and you keep each other going, and we keep the farm.’

  ‘He said all that?’ Steph said, scarcely believing her ears.

  ‘He did,’ said Stan. ‘I could tell it was hard for him. I could see in his face how much he was giving up. All the lads his age going off, and him wanting to join them. Be a real hero. Like David Brindsley, and all the RAF boys in the Black Horse.’

  ‘He said all that by himself?’

  Stan nodded. ‘That’s how I knew our Stanley has become a man.’