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

by George Costigan

  Simone drained the glass, pushed it forward for a re-fill. ‘Because,’ she watched him stand and pour, ‘it wouldn’t have been – fair and honest to David.’

  Jacques now filled his own glass, took it to the bench and sat down slowly.

  ‘So. My son is a bounty to make sure you return?’

  ‘No...’

  ‘But yes. He is.’

  ‘Why would a man pay for me and my son to leave him?’

  Jacques’ back met the wall hard. ‘Jesus, Simone – you can ask me that?’

  ‘I didn’t mean – you know what I mean.’

  ‘Jacques stayed so that you would come back. Have to go back. Proof.’

  Simone put her glass on the table, turned it in her hand, made the eye contact. ‘I didn’t think of it like that.’

  ‘Did you say – “I have to go and see him – but he needn’t see his flesh and blood?” Did you?’

  ‘No.’ Simone took a breath. ‘I said – “I’ll go and I’ll come back and then we’ll live with you.’’’

  ‘So. A Fait accompli.’

  ‘He offered.’

  ‘He offered what?’

  ‘To pay for me to – come and see you.’

  ‘I am to be grateful?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But it is decided. So – what is this?’

  ‘This is the best we can make of it.’

  ‘This is what he’s allowed us.’

  ‘He’ll never know you – but he’d respect you.’ Rain.

  A fire.

  Her looking evenly at him.

  He threw the dog-end on the ash. ‘I’m thinking of kidnapping you now.’

  ‘You’re that bad a parent, huh?’

  ‘A choice between one of you and neither – that’s not difficult.’

  She looked carefully at him. His eyes were dark and full again. ‘Are you frightening me? For the first time?’

  Jacques drained his glass. Re-filled it, and hers.

  ‘You wouldn’t be worth kidnapping – you’d kill me as soon as I slept.’

  ‘How do we get to Maurs tomorrow?’

  ‘Walk.’

  ‘O.K.’

  The second bottle emptied.

  Satisfied with her pasting, Simone threw the cuttings and scraps on the fire, placed the finished work with its face against a wall and came with her glass to sit opposite him, across their fire.

  Some Time passed again. ‘We’re staring.’

  ‘Can we blame us?’

  They almost grinned.

  The rain was only dripping now.

  Jacques looked deep into her and said simply, ‘What do I have that you needed to come here for?’

  Her eyes widened as she considered her response and he went on, ‘Not me, not the physical. And not this emotional ocean – that has to end.’ He felt hot. ‘What? Simone?’

  Simone came to sit next to him, pushing him along the bench to make space. She took his hard hand in both of hers.

  Firelight. Dying rain.

  ‘I’m saying goodbye to the woman you made. I will not ever be this woman again. Never this young, this greedy, this selfish, this needy. So, perhaps I came to let us say – goodbye to both of us.’

  She felt his face move. Was it a grin? ‘What?’

  ‘Is that drink talking?’

  ‘I don’t think so, Vermande, no. And I don’t think you should think that either.’

  They climbed into bed and she lay her head into his shoulder. ‘How long will it take to walk?’

  ‘Two hours.’

  ‘O.K.’

  ‘No lifts.’

  ‘No.’

  As sleep drifted nearer and the rain almost silent, and when they both knew they wouldn’t make love now, she whispered, ‘Have you thought of something for him?’

  ‘He gets you.’

  ‘OK.’

  Sunlight. Dawn.

  The weight in his chest like one of his corner-stones.

  He looked at her and knew the idea of one last loving was impossible.

  He slipped quietly from the bed, knowing she’d woken and was watching his body, watching his nakedness disappear.

  In the big room the fire had died.

  He wanted to sit and watch her body but instead he left her in the room to dress and do her awful packing.

  He had to go outside to not hear the sounds her cases made. In a while she appeared behind him. With a camera.

  ‘Come and stand in the door, please.’ He did as she asked.

  ‘Are these my present for him?’

  ‘Yes!’

  She took almost all the roll. Pictures of him and him and the house and him and his view of paradise.

  ‘We’ll find someone at the station to take a picture of us. Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He stepped outside again as she busied herself with her bags. ‘Where are you going?’ There was the trace of panic in her voice.

  ‘For a piss.’

  ‘Ohh.’ Her nerves spilled into a giggle. ‘You may, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, madame.’

  He strode to the compost and wondered by what process a human being walked and talked and thought and felt and breathed and didn’t explode or fly, dissolve or burn or do anything rather than this mundane fatal, goodbye dance.

  Whose will was this? Who was pulling these strings?

  The only certainty was it could not be anything meriting the name God.

  He watched his fingers tying his new trouser fly buttons together.

  Everything functions. My hands, my dick, my bladder, my speech, my legs.

  Only my heart feels actually alive, and that’s because it’s dying. And it’s not, it’s not, and I know because I have been here before. A woman stood framed in the door. A smartly dressed woman. ‘What time is it?’ the scrubbed face asked.

  ‘I don’t know – you have a watch.’

  ‘It stopped days ago. I forgot to wind it.’

  ‘We’ve – some time yet,’ he nodded at the sun. ‘It’s not really afternoon.’

  He walked back towards her and they met at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Would you lie?’

  ‘Would you wish I did?’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘No. Me neither.’

  ‘This is his present.’

  She went to turn the picture frame.

  ‘Don’t show it to me now, please Simone. I’ll see it tonight.’

  ‘Ohh.’

  ‘And please don’t be disappointed.’

  ‘No...’

  ‘There’s so much we’ve asked each other to understand. It’s only one more.’

  She looked around for the next thing to do to use up some more seconds of this gaping space.

  Two people in a room in a house. Their history swirling around them and in the spaces in between them. Nothing they could do to stop it or change it.

  Helpless in Time’s indifferent vice.

  ‘Have you money for food?’

  ‘You asked me. Yes.’

  ‘Have we said everything, then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I know I can’t think of a thing to say.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing.’

  ‘Let’s go. I’d rather sit there than here – this is killing me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He closed the door.

  She watched him as they had both watched everything the other had done today. Printing the sequence in the mind’s eye, in memory. She walked down the steps quickly, to turn and see him, standing there – him and his house and he picked up her case, just as he had walked with a different case of hers into that same house ten years before. He could see her mouth trying to set itself, like his, to find the right shape for these last few hours – till the train would release them from this torture. It will be a kind of relief, for both of us. No-one should live this intensely, surely.

  His eyes swept round Janatou with her in it for the last time. She walked away, leading him up t
he path to the curtain of blossom and leaves.

  He held the branch and she stepped under his arm. No last backward glance. He followed.

  A car stopped and offered a lift but they declined. ‘What time is it, please?’ Simone asked.

  ‘Three. Bonne route.’ O.K.

  Spring everywhere.

  A photo of us – that’s all now. He hasn’t said he blesses me.

  But then I never promised him things I couldn’t, once.

  He can’t release me. Only I can. Forgive myself for the joy and the torment in the loving him.

  They walked.

  ‘I wanted to shave you. Cut your hair.’

  ‘Why?’ His voice was thin and suddenly high, like half his vocal chords didn’t care to work.

  ‘To take to Jack.’ He nodded a little.

  ‘I bought that razor – you could do it. Post it.’ They walked.

  ‘But would you? Will you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Her smile as thin as his voice.

  ‘No-one walks – like this – in New York.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘They couldn’t afford the time.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Time is Money. In America. Walk two hours? Crazy.’

  They saw Maurs in the valley beneath. Finite.

  Waiting.

  They were very quiet now.

  And silent, they walked into the circle of shops.

  He switched hands with her suitcase to take hers and she squeezed gratefully but couldn’t look to see if he wanted or needed eye-contact now. She would have been reassured to have seen his eyes pinned ahead only. Like he was wearing his blinkers.

  The station clock said they had forty minutes to wait.

  They sat on the rim of the pond, the fountain playing behind them.

  She found the camera and said, ‘Wait here.’ He almost smiled.

  Where else would he go?

  In one whole minute – he watched it all tick by – she returned, explaining something to the station-master. He nodded, looked at Jacques, looked at her and nodded again. Jacques could see him shifting social credibility to one side as he concentrated on the task described.

  Simone took Jacques’ hand and stood him up next to her. ‘Wait monsieur, please’ – she held up a hand to him, turned to

  Jacques and whispered. ‘I know this is difficult for you, but put your arm around me as though you love me half as much as I love you...’ and then her breath was taken as his arm whipped around her waist, lifting her to his lips et voilà, the photo the station-master took.

  ‘Are you going to ask about your jacket?’

  ‘No.’

  Speech, as the clock counted down the last seven minutes, was too difficult.

  Looking at her was too difficult. Holding his hand was the easiest thing.

  Placing her cheek against his bearded warmth meant neither could see each other’s grief.

  Each passing second tolled slower, heavier and still heavier.

  A signal clanged down, a hundred yards up the line. Both of them strained not to hear the train enter the tunnel, its whistle announcing its entrance to their stage.

  The station-master came forward, red and green flags in his hand, a whistle in his mouth.

  Jacques stood first. It would have been too awful for her to have stood first.

  He picked up her case and walked towards the platform where the train was squealing to a halt.

  Simone followed. Mesmerised one final time by how capably he performed an action that was breaking her and must be breaking him.

  The train stopped.

  Jacques opened a carriage door, stepped in, placed her case on the rack over the seat and stepped out again.

  They looked at each other. Into their eyes.

  ‘Please – messieurs mesdames!’

  He bent to kiss her.

  They kissed.

  Her arms so tight round his neck.

  ‘Madame, s’il vous plait?’

  They parted.

  She stepped into the train. Jacques Vermande shut the door.

  Simone lowered the window, leaned out and held his face in her hands.

  Nothing but her.

  A terrible rush of steam and brakes and the station-master and she was moving and he was too and her hand left his face, kissed her mouth and came so briefly back to his mouth before the gathering pace separated them down to hands, finger-tips, a millimetre a centimetre a whole metre of air between them and now only eyes and waving hands and his racing clattering feet and the breath burning in his lungs and her waving waving waving as he slowed to stand and watch her diminish to a moving shape a blur on a carriage of a train that was steam and was gone.

  We never asked each other’s birthdays.

  I don’t know her surname. Yes, I do. Vermande.

  David would have her companionship for life. For money. For loving her.

  He’d better.

  If she and I have lost everything, he has gained everything.

  Is there a kind of man who could simply shrug and let this go? And do I wish I was that man?

  No.

  What will I do – with this rest of my life? Move the house back? People stopped, startled, as a man laughed aloud in the street.

  Sara?

  Let that be. Reap and sow.

  A woman squeezed her child’s hand tighter as the bearded tramp loomed in her face. ‘Madame, when is market day?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘Thursday. Thursday. And this is – Tuesday?’

  She stepped past him as she said, ‘Yes, of course...’ He walked home.

  As he moved to lift the branch aside to see empty Janatou he waited for desolation to engulf him and the tears to wash him. But grief was arrested by the evening light and the thought of how many times in his short life he had stepped back into that house to be alone. Surely it was done now. Surely there would be a rest.

  The picture – ‘his present to you’ leaned against the wall near the stairs.

  I can’t look at that tonight. I cannot. Sleep – please consume me, please.

  There was a knocking. Someone at his door.

  He stumbled from the bed, made himself decent enough with a shirt and opened the door to a man in a brown coat with a box in his hands. A cardboard box, one corner of which was damp.

  ‘Vermande?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re not easy to find! Here.’

  He offered the box. It made a noise and seemed to shift in the man’s hands.

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘A young lady came in last Saturday – paid for this to be delivered this morning.’

  Jacques opened the lid and the puppy blinked and squealed.

  Simone watched The Atlantic roll beneath her.

  The picture was a collage. It centred on a photograph of their seven-year-old boy, black hair, small nose, incandescent smile. Spinning out from that centre were a cascade of photos of him at almost every age, so Jacques could trace his face forming and the body developing. Then he began to notice fragments of drawings, a stick man standing by a crudely crayoned house stopped his heart for it said at the bottom, ‘Poppa et notre maison.’ A woman holding a child’s hand was, ‘Me and my Mom’. Simone had filled all the spare space with photos cut from the magazines – Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, Broadway and Times Square – all nothing to the wonder of his son’s face. And now, at the top middle of the frame, was a letter. Written, Jacques presumed because he couldn’t understand it, in English. The top line of this Simone had pasted above the line of the frame, making it look like a title for the whole picture. It read ‘Dear Dad...’

  He leaned the picture on the dresser in his room but after one whole sleepless night watching it, he put it over the fire on the mantle-piece.

  By market day he had forgotten the idea of buying a beast or chickens. He moved and ate and shat and walked and dug at his vegetables a little, played with the pup, threw the dead
flowers away, watered the pot plant – he existed. He seemed to continue.

  It took Zoe, walking back home with Sara the first Sunday after Simone had gone, to identify that, ‘He’s empty inside, mamman.’

  My dearest Jacques,

  I’m writing on the plane. One hour out of New York. Too many from you. I’m writing full of you – not our son or the life I have promised elsewhere.

  Part of me is stupidly proud to find I have nothing to say that we didn’t say.

  Will we meet again?

  When will you and he meet? What might our futures hold?

  Why ask? The world will turn and us with it.

  Somewhere inside my baggage, rolled up inside a box, on a piece of material I can’t begin to pretend I understand, is a picture of you and I. There is a moving one in my heart – and I believe in yours too.

  My father’s name was Cascals. Our son’s name on the school register is his fathers’ so I am known as Madame Vermande. Mrs. Vermande.

  Forgive me, but I’m writing without thought now.

  My mind is blank.

  This heart is full.

  Simone.

  The day her letter arrived he walked to Maurs and bought three hens and a cockerel.

  The day his first letter arrived was the same day she and Jack moved into David’s apartment.

  Sara came without Zoe.

  ‘I seem to have spent years asking you to talk.’

  ‘I was always grateful you were here – when I was silent sometimes.’

  ‘Sometimes! You flatter yourself. More life in the stone.’ He nodded.

  ‘Jerome’s in hospital.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Perigreux.’

  ‘That’s…’

  ‘—too far, I know.’ They sat. Thought.

  ‘This dog got a name yet?’

  ‘No. Any ideas?’

  ‘No.’

  The sun was warm. Summer was waiting on tiptoes.

  ‘You are going to harvest this?’ She nodded at the field.