The Solider's Home: a moving war-time drama

by George Costigan

  I know this is all words to you – but even though it’s a million miles away – it affects us.

  Because. Jerry was called up to join the reserve army and he refused, so he’s in jail waiting trial and Les heard, and asked did I support Jerry and I said yes and he sacked me.

  So, I have no job. I’m looking – and running out of savings fast (yes, your jars) – I told you it affected us – and I will find a job. I have to – for him – but it means I can’t see how and certainly not when, we’ll come. All I see is ads in the papers. Oh, and I saw a poster – ‘Better Dead than Red.’

  All of a sudden I hate America. I haven’t seen David and I dread asking him for money – but I may have to.

  And Jacques’ has bad dreams.

  I went to school and asked had he been strapped. He had. I told the Headmaster I would take him from the school if he was hit again and he snorted and said, ‘Yeah? And send him where?’ I found his teacher and asked him why, and he said Jacques had been ‘naughty’. I asked how and he ‘Couldn’t remember, why? What’s the big deal?’ I wanted to say the big deal is if it happens again I’ll chop your head off. I talked and talked with Jacques – but he’s like you – he buried the memory deep. And it is his. Maybe I have no right to it. I don’t know – I’ve never been this parent before. Clara said, ‘Darlin’, sometimes they need a good whoopin’...’

  I’ll write when I’ve good news – this is enough bad;

  Me.

  David did a marvellous thing. He took Jack and Dwayne to a game. He had to pay a lot of money but they all three sat together.

  79

  Dear Jacques,

  You’re a roofer! It sounds fantastic. That’s the second really happy letter. They’re the best.

  Life here isn’t. I’m working – with Clara – cleaning office buildings. We go in at night and work till 6.00. Means I take him to school and fall asleep, set the alarm, get him, feed him, Belle comes – Clara and I go. There’s no racial separation of labour at the shit end of the stick. The pay is obscene. We’re struggling. Belle stays every night. Jacques trusts her and so do I but I’m looking everywhere. My old Headmaster has nothing but ‘will ask around.’ That means he’ll find out I was sacked for being a Pinko. The education board, falling over themselves three years ago, has zilch. I’ll do anything – this is stop-gap – it has to be – it’s one rung up from slavery. Organise a union? We’d be thrown on welfare.

  David has been kind – but I hate it.

  Jerry’s ‘hearing’ has been delayed – twice. He wrote he expects it to be delayed indefinitely – I can’t get to see him – I can’t get to see anyone or anything. I’m a creature of the night. We’re not eating well. No treats.

  I sold the television. Jacques didn’t speak to me for five days. I slapped him. No better than a thug with a strap. He hasn’t forgiven me and neither have I.

  And you’re on top of the job. Good for you – I’m proud to know you. Steady now – but you are – and you’re an inspiration – or you should be. I’m very low, Jacques.

  Good news round the corner? Simone.

  One of the cleaners suggested I go whoring. ‘Good money – you being a Frenchy...’

  I don’t think I’ve considered it, but you never know what your brain hides, do you?

  80

  The Last.

  Dear Jacques,

  Don’t ask – I’ll tell you when.

  I’m coming. Today is March 10th. The letter takes two weeks. Two weeks after that – April 5th – I fly to Paris. I land very late on the 6th. There is a train on the 7th with connections that get me to Maurs at 6.04 in the evening. The 7th April. You’ll be there. Are there taxi’s? Anyone with a car? Jerome’s mother?

  I’m coming alone.

  I’ll tell you why then.

  We have six days before I have to go back. I’d love to see Sara and Zoe.

  And we’ll talk.

  April 7th. 6.04. Maurs Station.

  Simone.

  He looked up. He didn’t remember when he’d lit the candle. But the window was black with the night sky.

  Tomorrow was almost here.

  He was at the station by four. At six minutes to six Lavergne drove up, parked his taxi and nodded at the bearded tramp. Who’d paid him 4,000 old francs.

  Ten minutes.

  She would go back.

  This was the six days she would take to say goodbye.

  Why am I shaking?

  That is iffing.

  He swayed.

  Between the two platforms was a small fountain playing in the middle of a threadbare goldfish pond. He sat on the cold stone rim, reached across and ran the water through his hair and beard, ran it till the cold penetrated. He stood and shook his head hard, splashed cold water round his eyes, the back of his neck, his chest. Breathed hard. Straightened. Looked at the people staring. Sat. Should have brought my blinkers.

  Nine minutes.

  He found his tobacco. Rolled a cigarette. Lit it. Hauled the smoke down, chased it with another.

  There were ten people on the platform, sitting, standing, smoking some of them, waiting like him.

  What have I done?

  Have I forced this?

  Have I earnt it? Yes.

  Whatever it is.

  I’ve provided. I’ve made a home in paradise.

  That she doesn’t want.

  She can’t leave him.

  I won’t fight or argue.

  Eight minutes.

  The cigarette burnt his fingers. His hair dripped and his jacket had grown grey blobs where the water had mixed with deep-rooted dust. A kind of mud.

  His boots were open at the right toe.

  His trousers were threadbare at the knee and round the patches he’d fashioned – and across the arse the cold stone reminded him. They’d served him well. The belt was good as ever. He’d washed his socks and vest and shirt – the shirt so very gently and even so another rip – and he hadn’t shaved.

  So, this is definitely me, he thought.

  Seven minutes.

  There was a public lavatory behind him but he knew that was a waste of time now. He was empty – waiting to be filled. There was a sandwich and two tomatoes in his pocket for her. And soup at home.

  At home.

  Home.

  Going Home. For six days.

  Only one bed. Sleep upstairs if...

  Home.

  And then she’ll go.

  Then will it still be a Home?

  I don’t know – I don’t know. I can’t know.

  I will know.

  It won’t be.

  It wasn’t when she left the first time—

  And when she goes this time? Well, I’m not moving it again!

  People turned to stare. What had the clochard found funny?

  Was he drunk? A madman? Laughing out loud.

  Six minutes.

  She said what I hoped for was mad.

  Will there be any joy in these six days?

  Do I deserve some?

  We’ll see...

  He stood.

  Walked round the fountain, looked at the clock – five and a half minutes.

  He watched the koi carp. Began to count them. Again.

  Five minutes and she’ll be here.

  Will she hug me?

  Take your coat off, fool – she’ll hug mud. He laid the poor wretched thing on the pond edge.

  Will we kiss? He ran his hand over his mouth, folding the huge moustaches aside.

  Will I recognise her? Yes!

  Will she recognise me? Will she be ashamed?

  Not her. She’s my friend. Whatever – she is my friend.

  Four.

  We won’t kiss. We’ll meet exactly like before – I’ll take her bag and lead her into a brown house that will become ours. For six days. I’ll feed her and she’ll be tired and I won’t be and that’ll be one night. I’ll make breakfast and take it to her and she won’t say what she said years ago – she�
�ll be different – we’ll be different – it’ll be hard.

  I want to run...

  I won’t leave this spot till a train gives her to me if I have to stand here forever. She’s mine. I’ve earned her.

  I’ve done what I’ve done – for her.

  That is true. It is. It is.

  It isn’t.

  It must be. It is.

  I – I was right.

  Don’t say now it wasn’t; don’t say that now! It was. ‘Right Right Right.’

  He heard his own voice.

  Saw the gawping people.

  He sat down hard and heard the squash as the tomatoes flattened.

  Lavergne watched his customer stand, scrape his jacket-pocket inside out, wash it in the fish-pond and wipe it on his trousers to dry.

  The sandwich was safe.

  Another cigarette.

  He rolled it, lit it, hauled hard on it and the clock said one minute past six.

  She’ll never kiss you – not with a mouth that’ll smell like an ashtray.

  He stood, stamped on the cigarette.

  He strained to listen. A car.

  One of those tractor things. No train. He put the jacket back down. He walked to the platform edge – peered up the oh so straight line – saw a moving column of smoke and heard noise coming. Coming. Like a season, like a year or a birthday or Christmas she was coming. Like night and day. Six of each.

  He stepped back, as the other passengers moved forward, avoiding him.

  He stepped back to his jacket by the pond, planted his feet, crossed his arms and stood solid as his corner-posts to wait.

  Simone had politely fended off the young man travelling back to Toulouse to study.

  She needed the room for her own thoughts.

  When the guard called, ‘Next stop Maurs,’ the fierce instant quickening of her heartbeat told her which thoughts she’d avoided. All of them.

  Her heart clanged with the engine’s bell. Her mouth eased open for more oxygen.

  No harm can come to me – this is Jacques I’m going to. No harm.

  Her pulse slowed.

  She noticed the apple blossom.

  This tiny part of the country was not familiar to her but the tone and the trees and the roofs and the agriculture were.

  But, it doesn’t feel like Coming Home. And I had feared that it would.

  No. He, little Jacques, is Home. The train lost momentum.

  Jacques Vermande. You’ve called me back. The brakes were applied.

  Who willed this? Whose will. Ours?

  The first clusters of houses. Brakes scraping now. The young man stood and took her case down.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  If I was meeting one of Les’ clients, she suddenly thought, I’d be rouging my cheeks and dabbing lipstick.

  Simone gathered her handbag and shoulder-bag and watched the platform arrive.

  The brakes moaned. Gripped hard and the whole thing shook itself finally motionless. The young man opened the door and put her suitcase on the platform.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He got back in and shut the door. A station scene.

  People saying hello, people saying goodbye. Along the platform no-one she knew. Either way. Both ways. The station-master checked the last door closed – the platform had one solitary waver-off left, the green flag signalled steam and pistons and smoke and noise and her eyes moved to the station building, across a thin garden and there was Jacques.

  The train moved behind her. Simone, motionless, with a suitcase.

  A brown coat, a mustard-coloured suit _ no hat, less hair, more flesh _ the train ripped across behind her and gone and she stood against the background of France again.

  He looked smaller. His beard was wild, his hair too yet she could feel o familiar heat in his eyes and from his heart. Or was it her own?

  ‘Can I help you, Mademoiselle?’ The Station Master.

  ‘No, thank you. I have help.’

  He looked round, saw the tramp, looked back at her un-French elegance, saw the ‘Yes, him,’ in her eyes and touching his cap he shrugged and moved away.

  Time stood. Still.

  ‘Just here.’

  Lavergne hauled on the hand-brake. Jacques was out and round and had her case and helped her out.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Lavergne drove away.

  They both stood waiting for the racket to die away. Waiting for their silence.

  ‘Where is my post-box?’

  ‘I don’t have one. He brings it.’

  Jacques waited for the silence to heal the belch of Lavergne’s back-firing vehicle. He picked up her case.

  ‘This way.’

  He led her down the path.

  She stopped, just as he had at thirteen, by the hollowed out ancient oak-tree.

  He stopped.

  ‘It’s quiet,’ she said. ‘It’s really quiet.’

  He nodded and waited till she wanted to walk on.

  Down to that last branch. The curtain that was always leafy in September was now, bless it, in blossom.

  The sunset had gathered to display Janatou as if at Jacques Vermande’s command – a low fast-falling fast-reddening sun lit the valleys in retreating depths of pastel blues all the way to the snowy Cantal, bathed his field and the house in ochre perfection – and as he heard her gasp so every moment of their life together rushed through him threatening tears to flood his sight.

  Simone stood one arm’s length, one pace, in front of him. ‘My God, Vermande.’

  He had never had a desire beyond hearing her say that. Then he thought of their son.

  ‘I can’t speak,’ he thought he said.

  To her left the house waited. Behind her he waited. Ahead Nature’s effortless majesty lingered.

  They moved.

  He led her to the house. Again.

  She stood at the bottom step of this space-ship moved in Time to meet her.

  It was the same. He’d done it. ‘My God, Jacques.’

  He jiggled at the door – opened it. No dog – that was a difference. She followed him inside. Again.

  The room looked different – no plaster on the walls. Bare stone. They walked back into their history.

  A low fire, soup, a chair. No Mother. Same smell. Peace-time. He stood by the fire, as he had eight years before.

  ‘Shall I sit down?’

  ‘It’s your home.’

  Simone slipped off her coat and turned to a hook in her memory and there it was behind the front door. She sat. No cat. Images charged at her, bombarding her with Love and Rape, babe and man, man and woman, even her own mother’s eyes. She shook to a gooseflesh, instant iced erotica.

  ‘Come to the fire.’

  He sat on Arbel’s bench – she on the chair. She’d left here their child’s lifetime ago.

  They both stared into the ashes rather than at each other. Both breathing slower yet, tasting their past, daring to believe this present.

  ‘Food?’

  ‘In a little.’

  He nodded, sat back and reached for tobacco. He had none. None in the niche and none in the jacket because his jacket wasn’t there. He’d forgotten it, left it at Maurs. It’ll be there in a week, unless they burn it. And her sandwich.

  His eye caught her ankle. The brown brogue shoes. Polished. The nyloned legs. Nylon knees, hands on her knees, her arms on her thighs, leaning forward, pretty soft beige blouse, hiding her breasts, her neck with a chain – who gave it to her? – her mouth I kissed that nose I kissed her eyes her eyes her eyes are here.

  ‘You’re staring.’

  ‘Are you surprised?’

  She couldn’t see his mouth move within all that fur but the smile was in his eyes and she returned it with all of her Love and Fear and Admiration for him – the brother-man.

  No need for words tonight. Just be here in the crazy reality of someone else’s dream. This is his – I never dreamt this, for sure. Not e
ver. I’m humbled to be in your capacity to dream. You move houses and you move me. Across oceans. Her head shook.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You.’

  Jacques’ mind slipped back to War. Different clothes, different details – but she was here, again. Speaking. Being here. With me.

  For six days.

  ‘I’ve no tobacco.’

  ‘I brought you some.’

  She took a packet of cigarettes from her shoulder bag. He watched, mesmerised, as she took some almost invisible clear paper off it which crisped instantly on the embers; ripped a corner of silver paper away, knocked the packet and two cigarettes, rolled, offered themselves. When she took one and passed it to him their fingers almost touched.

  They ate and the sun was gone and the candles danced their shadows about his walls. She washed away the plates and he took one candle and her bags and put them in her room.

  ‘Bed,’ he said.

  Her room.

  Where everything had happened once.

  Somewhere else.

  He stood by the door, beckoning her. ‘You’re exhausted, Simone.’

  Her name. Spoken in French. That was her name.

  ‘I am, Jacques.’

  She walked the floor, stood in front of him and placed her hands on his shoulders, came to her tip-toes to reach into the beard for his mouth and his arms were around her and lifting her and carrying her to his chest where he held her as gentle and deep as the slowest ever ocean swell. Then she was back on her toes with his bushy kiss on her forehead.

  ‘Sweet dreams.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She stepped back into her room. The bed, a chair, the dresser.

  The candle. She turned.

  ‘Too full for words,’ he said and she said, ‘Yes.’

  He walked quickly to the fire so she couldn’t close the door in his face. Yet.