Primrose Square

by Anne Douglas

  ‘Poor Brenda, poor girl, you’re being so brave.’

  ‘I don’t feel brave at all. You know who the brave ones are.’ Brenda sighed and slowly put on her hat. ‘When I was leaving, the doctor said again that Tam might have to be moved to a specialist unit. Possibly the Primrose, which would be convenient for me. I didn’t tell him that the Primrose is the last place I want Tam to go.’

  ‘The last place?’ Elinor stared. ‘But why? I think it would be ideal.’

  ‘Oh, no, Elinor, no. I couldn’t bear to see him there. With all those poor chaps we nurse? Oh, I couldn’t, I couldn’t!’

  ‘I don’t understand. He can get better at the Primrose, and you’ll be there with him. What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘So many blank, dead faces,’ Brenda muttered. ‘No, I don’t want him there, and I won’t be there myself, anyway. I’m going to give up my job and look after him, that’s all I want to do.’

  Dabbing at her eyes, Brenda gazed at Elinor with a sudden spark of interest.

  ‘Listen, do you think there’s any chance that I could get him into a private nursing home somewhere? I’ve a bit of money in savings . . .’

  ‘Brenda, Tam’s still in the army. They’d never let him go to a private hospital. As soon as he’s better, he’ll have to go before a medical board to decide what happens next.’ Elinor sighed. ‘And wherever he goes, the patients will be the same, so he might as well be in a place you know.’

  Again, for some time, Brenda was silent, then she gave a little shrug.

  ‘So be it, then. But it might be like the doctor says, mightn’t it? He might get better very quickly and not have to go anywhere at all?’

  Except before the medical board, Elinor thought, but only said aloud, ‘When can I see him? They did say he could have visitors?’

  ‘Oh, yes. It’ll do him good to see people.’ Brenda stood up, searching in her purse for money for a tip for the waitress. ‘Just don’t expect him to look the same.’

  ‘He’ll be the same Tam underneath,’ Elinor said quietly. ‘We just have to find him.’

  Fifty

  No change. Those were Major Henderson’s words to Brenda some weeks after Tam had been moved from Craigleith to the Primrose. As the doctor in charge of his case, the major had worked hard with him ever since his arrival in late October, and at first had had high hopes of his recovery.

  ‘But there it is,’ he admitted sadly on that winter afternoon. ‘So far, there has been no change in your husband’s condition.’

  They were in his small consulting room, the place where he and Tam ‘conversed’, as he put it, with the major asking questions and Tam writing down answers in his notebook. He had not seemed unwilling to do this, but was not, it seemed, good at expressing himself on paper. He had always been a ‘talker’, as Brenda had told the doctor, never one for sitting down thinking about things, and now, after his traumatic experience at Loos, all he could write was: ‘Nobody understands.’

  ‘At first, that seemed a breakthrough to me,’ Major Henderson told Brenda. ‘If I could get him to see that other people did understand what he’d been through, that could be the start to his recovery. But when I pointed out that the other patients here had suffered in the war, he only shook his head, and wrote: “Not at Loos”.’

  ‘What can be done?’ Brenda whispered. ‘I sit with him every day, I get him to look at me and tell him he’s safe, but all he does is look away.’

  The major heaved a sigh. ‘We must just keep on digging. I feel sure we’ll get there in the end. Tam will become himself again. But it may take longer than we thought.’

  When Brenda thanked him and rose to leave, he put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘The main thing is that he has you. You’re his rock, his real support, and I’m very grateful that you’re here. One day, you’ll see, you’ll have your reward. He will come back to you.’

  ‘But the war’s not over, is it? If he does recover – won’t he have to go back to the front?’

  ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.’ The major opened the door for her. ‘Let’s just get him better first.’

  The days passed and Christmas loomed on the horizon. And a very different Christmas it would be, too, everyone knew, from Christmas 1914, when the hope had been that hostilities would soon be over. Why, there’d even been a truce between British and German soldiers in no-man’s-land on Christmas Day! Imagine that happening now, after all the battles and the terrible loss of life. People now just lived from day to day, waiting for a breakthrough, for a real truce between nations and peace again. ‘Peace and goodwill to all men.’ Aye, that was the Christmas message, but in 1915 it sounded hollow.

  Every afternoon, as Brenda had told the major, she sat with Tam in the room he shared with another corporal, or maybe walked in the West End or the square.

  ‘He really likes to be in the fresh air,’ she said to Elinor, ‘and I’m wondering if you could do me a favour? Could you go out with him today? I have to go to the dentist’s.’

  ‘Oh, sure I will, Brenda. But poor lassie – have you got toothache?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m terrified. It’s shameful, I know, when you think about what Tam and all the others have been through, but when it comes to the dentist, I’m just a coward.’

  ‘No’ the only one,’ Elinor said with a smile. ‘Did you hear how many soldiers had to be seen by the dentist at Craigleith because they’d never dared to go before?’

  ‘Don’t tell me. But thanks, Elinor. Wrap up warmly, eh? It’s freezing today.’

  As soon as lunches were over, Elinor, in her winter coat and an imitation fur hat that had been given to Hessie by an employer long ago, collected Tam from his room and saw to it that he had his greatcoat over his hospital suit of blue flannel, and was wearing his army cap, a khaki scarf and woollen gloves.

  ‘You’re so thin these days,’ she told him, ‘you need plenty of warm clothes.’

  He shrugged, then took off his gloves and fished his notebook and pencil from his pocket.

  ‘So you’re lumbered with me?’ he wrote. ‘I’m not very good company.’

  ‘You’re the best,’ she replied. ‘But where would you like to go today?’

  ‘The gardens,’ he wrote in reply. ‘They are peaceful.’

  ‘My favourite place. Though they might be a bit rugged today.’

  As soon as she’d put her key in the gate, the familiar feeling of peace stole over her, cold though the air was and frosted every blade of grass.

  ‘Too cold to sit down,’ she murmured. ‘I think we’ll have to keep walking, Tam.’

  She took his arm and they began to walk slowly round the paths, Tam breathing deeply, as though he couldn‘t get enough of the fresh, clear air, Elinor covertly studying his haunted face below his army cap. It was as though she was with a completely different person from the Tam she used to know in Stephen’s class, and again she wished, as she always did, that she had a key to unlock his mind, as she had been able to unlock the gate to the gardens. But weren’t they all seeking that? And how likely was it that they’d find it? Though Major Henderson kept telling Brenda it would come, that Tam would get better, Elinor knew how far away recovery might be.

  Oh, how cold it was! She felt her face must be turning blue, and her fingers, even in thick gloves, were probably the same, when suddenly she felt Tam halt beside her, as though jerked by some invisible string.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked, as though he could reply, while he kept on staring fixedly ahead at the railings beyond the trees. Then he raised one hand and pointed and, as her eyes followed his lead, she, too, stood very still. It was like a repeat performance of the scene at Brenda’s wedding, and just as startling, for the same officer who had slipped into the chair next to hers was the same one standing at the railings, gazing in. Only he was wearing a greatcoat today, of course, and his face was reddened with the chill, but she would have known him anywhere.

  ‘Stephen?’ she whispered.


  And then she was filled with such a burst of emotion, she almost trembled where she stood, for Tam’s mouth was working, his gloved hands were at his lips, as though he would force the words out, and then, in a voice no louder than her own, she heard him say, ‘Mr Muirhead?’

  And Stephen came running round to the gate and began rattling it and calling, ‘Yes, it’s me, Tam, it’s me! Elinor, you’ve locked the gate! For God’s sake, let me in!’

  As soon as she’d opened the gate, he ran to Tam and shook him by the hand, as Tam stood, trembling, just as Elinor was still trembling, and the three of them were gazing at one another in something like awe.

  ‘Stephen, he said your name!’ Elinor was crying. ‘When he’s unable to speak!’

  ‘I know, I know, I was told.’ Stephen was hanging on to Tam’s hands, his grey eyes shining. ‘But he said my name, I heard him. Tam, I heard you say my name. Please, please, say it again.’

  ‘Mr Muirhead,’ Tam croaked. ‘Mr Muirhead. You . . . were at . . . Loos.’

  ‘Yes, Tam, I was at Loos, just like you. I came to see you after I heard about you from John Andrews. But let’s go inside, shall we? Elinor, take us in, will you? This fellow needs to see his doctor!’

  ‘Major Henderson, Major Henderson!’ cried Elinor, running ahead. ‘Come quickly, Tam can speak!’

  And as Brenda, who had just arrived back from the dentist’s with a scarf around her mouth, for she had had a tooth extracted, stood transfixed, staring at Tam, he held out his arms to her.

  ‘Brenda,’ he said softly. ‘Brenda, it’s me. I’m back.’

  Fifty-One

  ‘One thing’s for sure, this is nothing to do with me,’ Major Henderson said ruefully. ‘You cured yourself, Tam.’

  ‘No, you helped me a lot, sir,’ Tam told him earnestly. ‘But it was seeing Mr Muirhead – sorry, Captain Muirhead – that did it. If he hadn’t come to visit me . . .’

  As Tam’s strange husky voice trailed away, Brenda pressed his hand, her eyes on his face following its changes, from the blankness she’d so much dreaded to the dear, familiar look of the Tam she used to know.

  They were in Colonel Shannon’s office, all those wanting to hear how Tam had come to speak again. The doctors, Matron and Sister Penny, with Brenda standing close to Tam in a chair, and Stephen and Elinor squeezed in at the door.

  ‘Do you feel up to telling us what happened?’ Colonel Shannon asked Tam quietly. ‘It could be of great help to us to know the trigger that brought back your voice.’

  ‘I know, sir, but I can’t say exactly why seeing the captain did the trick. All I know is that he was at Loos, he understood what it was like – he’d have seen what I saw – and I needed that, I needed somebody who’d been there like me.’

  ‘But why was this so important to you, Corporal? You’d fought before; you’d had experience of battle. Why was Loos different?’

  ‘Because of the gas, sir. It was the first time we’d used it, and it went wrong. The wind blew it back; it came to our own trenches, and I saw . . . I saw the men – I saw ’em trying to get out of the way, I saw ’em gasping, and I knew I’d to get out, too. But then there was this great flash and a terrible pain in my head – I never knew any more till I woke up in the field hospital.’

  As Tam’s voice failed again, there was a long silence, broken by Major Henderson.

  ‘And when you tried to speak, Tam?’

  ‘I couldn’t, sir. I couldn’t make the words come. I could just see – I kept on seeing – all those men, and when I came back home, folk kept trying to help, but they couldn’t, because they weren’t there. They didn’t know what it was like.’

  Tam’s eyes went to Stephen, who was still standing next to Elinor, his hands clasped together, his eyes on Tam.

  ‘But the captain knew,’ Tam said in a whisper. ‘Captain Muirhead knew. He used to teach me, I was in his class. I knew, when I saw him, that he’d understand. Is that no’ right, sir?’

  ‘It’s exactly right,’ Stephen answered. ‘I understand, Tam. But you’re not alone, you know; there are others who understand, too. An awful lot of us were at Loos.’

  ‘But they’re no’ here, sir, and you are. And when I saw you, it was . . . wonderful. I felt the words coming back, I felt I’d be strong again.’

  Again, silence fell. Brenda gave a little sob and tightened her grip on Tam’s hand. Elinor’s eyes, too, were moist with tears; she didn’t dare to look at Stephen. The colonel stood up, the other doctors with him, and Matron cleared her throat.

  ‘Time for a rest, I’d say,’ she told Tam briskly.

  ‘Quite right, as usual, Matron,’ Colonel Shannon said with a smile. ‘I think Corporal MacLean should return to his room now and have a quiet time. Captain Muirhead, I know you’d planned to visit today but it might be better if you could come in tomorrow, if possible?’

  ‘Certainly, Colonel. I don’t have to leave until the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Good man. Meanwhile, Major Henderson and I will discuss this case and make some notes. I think I can say that it’s been extremely interesting.’

  ‘Interesting, he calls it,’ Stephen murmured to Elinor, as they watched Sister Penny accompanying Tam and Brenda back to Tam’s room. ‘It’s a bit more than that to Tam.’

  ‘Thank God you were able to visit. If you hadn’t, I don’t think there’d ever have been a breakthrough.’

  ‘It’s strange, though – I never would have thought Tam would react as he did. He always seemed so strong, so tough. But you never can tell how war will affect people.’

  ‘You seem pretty strong yourself.’

  ‘Lucky, you mean. I’ve had minor wounds but nothing much.’ They had come to Tam’s door and waited a moment. ‘How’s your brother, then? He’s come through all right?’

  ‘He’s been lucky, too. So far.’

  ‘That’s good. Well, I’ll just say goodbye to Tam, and look in tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll see him later.’ Elinor hesitated. ‘Do you have to go back to France, then, after this leave? Couldn’t you have Christmas here with your mother?’

  ‘No, I have to get back.’ Stephen smiled slightly. ‘The army doesn’t take into account what mothers want.’

  And maybe you want to get back, anyway, thought Elinor, to see the lady ambulance driver, but she only returned his smile and wished him well.

  ‘May you stay lucky,’ she told him.

  ‘Thank you,’ he replied, and did not ask why she was saying goodbye, when he was planning to return to the Primrose the following day. Of course, he didn’t know that tomorrow brought her half day and she’d already decided to spend it at home.

  Oh, just wait till her mother heard about Tam, then! She’d be so happy for him, thinking how she would have felt if Corrie had been in his situation. And happy for Brenda, too, who’d been so brave, and had looked after him so well. What an amazing day this had been, hadn’t it? So terrible to think of the scenes at the battle that folk could not imagine if they hadn’t been there, but so wonderful that so far Corrie and Stephen had been spared, and Tam had taken the first steps to being himself again. Wonderful, wonderful day. So why was she still dashing tears from her eyes as the tram rattled her homewards? Best not to ask.

  Fifty-Two

  Christmas passed. Hogmanay passed. And then it was 1916, and who knew what it would bring? Not the end of the war. No one expected that.

  There were two good pieces of news in January. One was that Ada had her baby – a boy she called Robert after his father, but he was to be known as Rob, rather than Bob. Elinor went round to see him, with a matinee jacket she’d knitted, and found herself feeling amazingly cheered by the sight of the new little life, whose clean slate was free from the worries and horrors of a world at war.

  ‘Let’s hope by the time he grows up there’ll be no more wars,’ she murmured to proud Ada.

  ‘Amen to that!’ cried his mother. ‘But I wouldn’t bank on it, Elinor. We’re a stupid lot, eh? What co
uld be more stupid than what’s happening now?’

  The second piece of good news was that Tam had made a full recovery, returning to his old character as though he’d never lost it, and was becoming increasingly restless at what he called his idle life at the Primrose.

  ‘Bring on the medical board,’ he told Brenda and Elinor. ‘I want out of here.’

  ‘How can you say that, Tam?’ Brenda cried. ‘After what you’ve been through, you want to go back to the fighting to suffer it all again?’

  ‘It’s my job,’ he said seriously. ‘I have to go, Brenda; I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.’

  The doctors, however, were not so sure that a return to active duty would be the right thing for Tam. Something had happened to him at Loos that might well happen again, for though he felt his old self, underneath there might still be that crack in his mind that had opened up before. All would depend on the opinions of the medical board members, of course, but possibly a spot of pen-pushing at regimental HQ might not come amiss.

  ‘Pen-pushing? Oh, God, you can’t mean it!’ Tam cried to Major Henderson. ‘It’d be like putting me in a cage – I’d never stick it.’

  ‘Just for a time,’ the major told him comfortingly. ‘Just to see how you go.’

  ‘I know how I’d go,’ Tam muttered. ‘Straight off my rocker.’

  In the end, he got his way. The board pronounced him fit for active duty and in February he returned to France, while Brenda made her own return to full-time work at the Primrose, drooping like a flower out of water, but saying no more.

  ‘What’s the point?’ she asked Elinor. ‘Tam’s doing what he wants; there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?

  Except pray, they both thought.

  They might have taken comfort, as the year moved on, that British forces appeared not to be involved in any major conflicts, if it hadn’t been for the terrible battle of Verdun being fought between the French and the Germans across the Channel with tremendous loss of life. The great naval battle of Jutland, for which both sides claimed victory, had lasted only a couple of days, but Verdun, which began in February, showed no signs of ending, even by July. By which time, the British were in action again at a place that was to be remembered for years to come.