He stiffened against the wall and resisted the urge to kick it. If Connie had wanted to be in touch with him, she could have done it. If he didn’t even merit correspondence of his own, then she couldn’t expect him to go begging to Joyce to pore over a second-hand letter. It wasn’t for him to chase after her. He had more backbone than that, whatever she apparently believed.
That was it, then. He narrowed his eyes. He had no choice, but he’d been in that situation before. All he could do was what was in front of him. And that meant building the hut, continuing out on the felling sites with whichever partner Frank found him, and making sure Joe had everything he needed.
Except a mother.
He reached for the whittling knife, found a nub of wood, and dug in hard.
THE STARS ARE COMING TO CINDERFORD GRAND CONCERT
Specially in aid of Returned P.O.W.s
TOWN HALL, CINDERFORD, SATURDAY, JUNE 16TH
Presentation during show to a number of Cinderford lads home from prison. Roll up and give them the Forest Welcome.
ADMISSION 2d / Get your tickets now
Dean Forest Mercury, Friday, 6th June, 1945
June 1945
Forty-Nine
‘COME ON, YOU! HAVEN’T you heard? They’ve posted the demob orders in the parade ground. The first convoys leave for Italy next month!’ The door to the barrack clanged behind Gianni as it raced back on its hinges.
‘Demob?’
Gianni cuffed Seppe lightly on the back of the head and ducked around him as he bounded down the steps.
‘What kind of a soldier are you? Demobilisation orders! We could be kissing Italian soil again within weeks! Me, I am taking a photograph of Mary to show Mamma and then she will love her as much as I do, and Mary and I can be married!’ He ducked between two of the ablutions huts and was out of range.
Four weeks today since the war was over. Victory in Europe. Seppe still hadn’t established how he felt about this. The war was at an end, and in theory this was good. But what would happen to him now? Every night since 8th May he’d lain awake chasing his thoughts until the blackbird switched places with the owl.
Seppe stared at the clothes peg in his hand. It was one of a set he was making for Joyce, the divide down its centre still jagged and unfinished. In the warm June wind, dead leaves scuttled at the steps to the hut. How could demobilisation be so soon? It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – leave, couldn’t go back to Livorno. He was never going back. But would the powers that be make him? How did this work in practice? Gianni’s plans to marry his English girl could be pie in the sky for all they knew. Seppe’s hand grew sweaty on the smooth metal of the whittling knife. Could he stay now anyway, without Connie? She was in every swing of the axe, every fret of the saw. He missed the most trivial things about her – that little ‘ah!’ of satisfaction when a tree started to fall in the direction she’d meant it to, the brush of her eyelashes up against his cheek. Staying here without her was to be abraded by memories, a thousand dropped needles of pain in every pace. To leave here, though, would be to walk away from the thread that bound them.
And what about Joe? Since Connie had left, Seppe’s days had been too full to think of the future, his mind too empty. Getting to Amos’s cottage after the day’s felling, handing Joe back over, helping to feed him or change him, getting back to camp without arousing questions from Gianni or Fredo – this took time, and energy. Until VE Day he had had no time for thought, had welcomed even the break from it, the way his mind shut down with sheer physical activity. After VE Day, all action had slowed as if the forest were waiting to see what came of it next.
Another pair of campmates pushed past him on the step, hell-bent to the parade ground from the looks of things. Already the noise levels were rising, the chatter drumming like thunder. He should go and check, see if his name was on a list along with the others. Seppe scooped up the finished clothes pegs and carried them back into the bunkhouse.
‘You’re going the wrong way!’ someone shouted, the joy of homecoming already in their voices. He turned and joined the tide surging towards the parade ground, the shove and sweat of these men as familiar to him as his own breathing.
The noticeboard itself was obscured, the clock above it knocked askew again by the throng of men jostling to find their names. The crowd carried him forward. The campmate to his side, a southerner he’d never really talked to before, grabbed Seppe by the scruff of the neck and embraced him on both cheeks. ‘We’re going home!’ Tears streamed down his cheeks. He looked at Seppe’s face, recoiled. ‘You don’t care! How can you not care? We are going home, man!’ The southerner’s expression turned to disgust and he pushed Seppe roughly to one side. ‘What kind of an Italian are you?’
Seppe didn’t belong here. Whatever that list said, he certainly didn’t belong in Italy, never really had. Finding out the details wasn’t going to change that. He needed to think, but here in the middle of this departure party wasn’t going to be the place for it. If he stayed here, things might erupt, just as he’d almost made it through.
He needed to talk to Frank and Amos.
Seppe heard them before he’d rounded the hut. They must be out in Amos’s garden. Sure enough, as he stepped over the wall he could see them. Joyce sat on the bench, tickling a giggling Joe, with Amos and Frank bookending her. As they saw Seppe, they waved as if seeing him off for the journey of his life (and how true that might end up being). Was the good mood from the camp infectious? They were obviously delighted to be regaining their forest. His head ached.
‘Seppe lad!’ Frank strode through the trees towards him, apple blossom dusting his shoulders. ‘Just the person! Come and have a drink with us. We’re celebrating.’
‘Celebrating?’
‘That’s right.’ Frank filled a heavy tankard with the apple-smelling substance Seppe remembered from Christmas. ‘Amos got a telegram today. His Billy’s coming home!’
Amos was beaming. Had he ever seen Amos even smile before? He must have done, but any memory of it was eclipsed by the sight of this: Amos’s face creased into lines that must have been there all along, just never put to use these past years.
‘He’ll be home even before autumn dipping time, by the sounds of things. Not long at all, now.’ Amos’s voice was even different. Rounder, warmer.
Joyce got up too, walked over to Seppe, Joe hitched on her hip, the same smile on her face. Joe wriggled to get down and Seppe smiled despite himself. Joe had recently discovered the joys of pulling himself upright and now unless his feet were planted on the ground, he complained. Joyce sighed exaggeratedly at Joe and placed him carefully down. The baby clamped on to Seppe’s trousers and started his trek to the vertical.
‘Billy.’ For a minute Seppe thought Joyce had forgotten his name. ‘He’ll be with us again soon, Seppe.’
Would anyone have wanted him, Seppe, back this dearly? Alessa, maybe. He looked down at Joe’s curls. And here was someone else who hadn’t met Billy, but loved and needed him. Seppe swallowed, reached down for Joe and pulled the baby up close. Joe giggled, patted Seppe’s cheek with fat fingers. They were cold from the ground so Seppe tucked them under his chin and Joe giggled again.
Frank filled another tankard, handed it to Seppe.
‘Things can go back to normal with our Billy back.’ He looked over at Amos. ‘I reckon we might stand a chance of persuading him to stay above ground with me now, old butt, what do you think? No need for him to go back down those drift mines.’
‘You know our Billy, Frank. He’ll do as he darned well pleases; always has, always will.’
‘Aye, but it’s worth a shot, isn’t it? Your Billy knows his way round these trees better than most.’
Seppe took a long draught, the cider scorching his stomach. Frank needed more fellers for all these rebuild quotas that were pouring in. There was nothing to read into this.
‘I’ll need to keep a closer eye on my chickens an’ all, once Billy’s home and bringing back e
very waif and stray he can find.’ Joyce’s voice contained the same warmth as Amos’. ‘Be just like him to bring in a fox cub because it looked lonely.’
Amos laughed. Laughed! ‘Aye, and our Bess’ll have to get used to sharing the rug again with whatever creature he’s wrapped up and put there to get warm.’
‘I can’t remember a time when he didn’t do it. Do you recall that …’
Their conversation was smooth as a stone from the brook. They span round and round the core of their memories, binding the knot that would hold fast now Billy was coming back. Seppe joggled Joe and watched them. They would be whole again, in ways they hadn’t even realised they were fractured.
Joe wriggled to get down and Seppe bent to swoop him to the ground, his cider tipping with the motion. Joe crawled over to the apple tree and levered himself upright yet again, laughing at his own brilliance. It wouldn’t be long before the baby was walking. Time was moving and Connie was missing it, missing her own child. If Seppe was working a long shift and didn’t manage to see Joe for a day, he raced down the next day, could see a change in the child almost perceptibly. Connie had missed layer upon layer upon layer of change, the infant she’d left behind growing into this laughing, expressive non-stop child. He didn’t know how she could bear to be without him. He missed her still, but in a more abstract way, missing a Connie that perhaps didn’t exist as much as the one that did. Whereas nothing was less abstract than Joe, his sticky fingers in your hair, his milky breath hot on your cheek as you swooped him into the air to hear him giggle.
Seppe looked back at Amos. He’d left his crook to one side, had put down his cider tankard to describe something with his hands. Everything had been freed in Amos. His movements, his stories. Amos was never going to be Gianni – and just as well, since one Gianni was more than enough some days – but he was lighter now.
He couldn’t talk to Amos, nor to Frank nor Joyce, about staying. It would be wrong to ask to stay, he saw that now. They had been kind to him, so kind – he felt for the whittling knife, safe in his pocket – but one of their own was coming home, and in watching this he understood how he could never belong.
He drained the cider, stepped round the bench and put the tankard onto the window sill beside Amos’s.
‘It was delicious. Thank you. And Amos …’ He put out a hand. Amos looked confused, but shook it anyway. ‘It is very good news that Billy will be home soon. I am very pleased for you all.’
‘Not off, are you, lad? You’ve only just got here.’
He nodded, sadness loading into him with the movement. ‘I must –’ He waved vaguely in the direction of the forest behind them, but Amos, already full up with his own joy, wasn’t really paying attention.
‘Aye, well see you in the morning, then.’
Seppe couldn’t risk saying goodbye to Frank or Joyce in case it betrayed how little space they had for him now, too. He bent to kiss Joe, the long grasses around the tree tickling his neck as he did so. ‘See you tomorrow, carissimo.’ Joe gurgled and turned back to his inspection of the tree trunk.
Back at the camp, jubilation still reigned. A guard and an Italian staggered past Seppe as he passed through the truck stop back to the parade ground, hand clamped either side of some big object. It was only as he reached it that it hit him what they’d been carrying. That was one of Gianni’s moonshine vats.
The parade ground was one big party. Someone had pulled Seppe’s benches from the mess and guards were sitting knee to knee with campmates, matching them drink for drink by the looks of things. A line of men in wigs and costumes pilfered from the theatre congaed past. Everywhere there was singing, dancing, weeping.
Where was Gianni? But no – today wasn’t going to be the day to get any sense out of him. Sorrow tugged again, laced now with a bitter anger. Why was Seppe always so out of step with everyone around him? Today should be a time for elation, he saw that, but the home that didn’t want him no longer existed, and the home he thought he had here had turned out to be borrowed. Amos and Frank didn’t need him, not now Billy was coming back. He’d been ridiculous to think that he could stay. It would only take another day or so and Amos would see that Seppe’s hut was intrusive, that the last thing a British soldier would want at the end of his garden would be one of the enemy.
Seppe couldn’t – wouldn’t – voice this to Amos, nor to Frank. To say something would be to force them to confirm the rejection and they had been too good to him for him to put them in that position. He needed to be gone and not their concern by the time Billy returned.
And what about Joe? He stood stock still in front of the bulletin board, the names blurring before he’d even found his own. Joe’s room was Billy’s room first. Now that Billy was coming back, life was returning to normal – and normal didn’t include Joe any more than it included him. Bloodlines must come first.
Blood came first. Seppe dug down hard on the knife in his pocket as he thought it through to the end. He needed to take Joe to Connie. She couldn’t do this to Joe. She didn’t know what she was missing, what Joe was missing. He, Seppe, had tried – would keep trying – to be the parent that Joe needed. But Seppe couldn’t stay here. The gap in the forest that had opened up and let him in was only there because of circumstance, like a strut propping up the trunk of a sapling until it was strong enough to bear its own weight. Now the war was over, the forest was shedding its temporary occupants, regenerating from the old-growth. Gianni was full of fine words about staying and marrying Mary, but he had no way of knowing if this would even be possible. And Gianni was Gianni – the Foresters would long to retain him here; he brought joy to every situation. He, Seppe, had served a purpose but now that purpose was eradicated, unnecessary, and he would need to move along.
His hand shook on the blade as he thought of packing up, leaving the hut almost finished. He couldn’t bring himself to picture leaving Joe. The Forest was closing back in on itself, displacing the invasive species. It was time to go.
Fifty
London
THE MINISTRY FOR RECONSTRUCTION was worlds away from the forestry HQ, further than the distance between the Forest of Dean and London could ever suggest. But the queue of men looked so familiar that Seppe saw with ease and regret how Connie would have thrived on the move from one to the other. Seppe shifted Joe onto his other hip and tried to find a spot on the wall to lean against without knocking off any of the posters or official-looking lists of instructions. Joe snuffled and snuggled into Seppe’s shoulder, grounding him. When Seppe was agitated, like today, the baby seemed to divine it and pull in tighter.
It was a mark of how used they’d all got to handing over the baby for the early mornings that Amos hadn’t seemed to think anything of it when Seppe showed up just before dawn. He had merely said a quick ‘thank you’ and strode off to check on the late lambs. Amos’s mind was more than half on Billy now. It had been an easy enough task for Seppe to slide in, parcel together a few things that Joe might need. He hadn’t told Amos of his plans, kidding himself it was because he didn’t want to bother the older man. Actually it was because he couldn’t bear to see Amos’s reaction. Amos would need Joe’s room back for Billy; rationally, Seppe knew this. But to see Amos relieved at the prospect of a burden removed; that would be too much. Better not to mention it to any of them, to just slip away.
The queue shuffled forward, Seppe with it, toeing before him the parcel in its brown paper and tarpaulin. Many of the men carried their own tools in heavy cotton bags contained between their feet; they’d have a surprise if they could see into his own wrapped bundle, containing not hammers and nails but half a dozen napkins and a battered knitted teddy Joe couldn’t sleep without these days. On closer scrutiny, this workforce was nothing like the timberwork detail. Nobody seemed to be speaking English, or speaking much at all really. Heads were down and there was none of the chatter and jostling Seppe knew from the camp or from Frank’s timber workers. A close-shaven man with searching eyes had eyed Joe closely when t
hey’d entered, but had looked away when he saw Seppe watching.
Seppe looked now at the man in front of him, older than Seppe, more Frank’s age. His jacket and trousers hung loosely, had seen better days, but there were no black patches sewn on. These weren’t prisoners of war, though it was clear they weren’t local either. Seppe tipped his head to hear the odd angle of a word spoken here or there, but it was sharp, muttered; he could get no purchase on it. Not a language he’d encountered before.
Joe squirmed in his sleep, knees drawn up to his chest, head resting in the crook of Seppe’s shoulder, where it had found comfort ever since Joe was a tiny infant. The weight and warmth of Joe’s body was an anchor, pulling Seppe into life, keeping him rooted when all else threatened to set him adrift. What was going to happen to him once he and Joe were separated? Don’t think about it, he repeated to himself, as he’d needed to often this last week. People need their families, not artificial facsimiles that can’t last. You’re doing what’s right for the boy, that’s the important thing. He rubbed his spare hand over his eyes to get rid of the thoughts and the tiredness. Neither shifted.
‘Next!’
Their turn now. He ducked into the flimsy chair. The woman opposite him kept up with her paperwork better than Frank; this was a desk that looked like it might even sometimes see polish. She had her head down, ticking off a series of boxes on a list. The all-familiar quota sheets. Frank would appreciate this. The war in England was still being fought by quotas according to an exasperated Frank, even though peace had been declared. As Seppe scraped his chair towards the desk, she extended one hand, her eyes still on the check boxes in front of her.
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