The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing

by Mary Paulson-Ellis

  Solomon had known as he reached to flip open the Farthing file that reading it would be to nibble at forbidden fruit. A family tree that had thrived like the blossom of an Edinburgh cherry in spring – full fling one moment, swept into the gutter the next. Grandparents long dead. Parents chopped down, too. Nothing left now but Solomon Farthing standing alone at the foot. All he had ever known about his family was that both his father and his grandfather had been soldiers once. Only to discover when he was seven years old that at least one of those facts might be a lie. That his father was never a hero. Only ever a coward, just like Solomon had turned out. That his father had been too afraid to lift a rifle when the moment came, as once Solomon had refused to take three steps into a river and save another boy’s life.

  As he’d laid his hand upon the documents pertaining to his father’s war, in search of absolute proof, Solomon had wondered if this was the real reason his father and his grandfather had become estranged. One man spent his young life leading his men over the top, only to discover that when his son’s turn came to do the same, he had refused. A man who had never driven a tank, or charged towards the enemy across a beach in France. Who’d taken the easy way out when it all became too much. Straight down into the river. Like an arrow. Caught in its muddy churn. Nothing left of him but that fragment of singing lodged inside Solomon’s head.

  Now, with final evidence of his father’s cowardice in his pocket, Solomon put one hand on the top rail of the bridge and tried to imagine what courage it must take to follow with his foot. To stand on the far side and contemplate oblivion, as his father had once done, consider all the things he had ever done right. And those he knew he had done wrong. A life spent ducking and diving and bartering his way to and fro, fleeing the moment any trouble appeared, rather than standing to fight.

  ‘You’re not going to jump, are you?’

  The boy was so close that Solomon could feel the heat off him, the child’s legs dusty with whatever earth he had been ferreting in while Solomon had been indoors digging up his own. The boy’s hair was almost white in the sun, eyes like tiny slices of mirror as he squinted up at Solomon, while Solomon squinted down at him. Solomon wasn’t sure what he should reply. Yes. No. Maybe. But as though to allay his confusion, the boy didn’t insist upon a reply, laid one hand on the rail very close to Solomon’s instead. Solomon couldn’t help noticing that while his fingers were fluttering, the child’s hands were still. Together they stood staring into the water, nothing but the sound of the river meandering beneath. Also the call of a blackbird somewhere in a tree. Eventually, the boy spoke.

  ‘Are you going home now?’

  Solomon looked at the long stretch of water as it flowed forever onwards towards the city. London or north? There was only ever going to be one way home. Just one more thing to do first.

  It took Solomon Farthing an hour before he arrived at his next destination, somewhere south of the river, deep in the heart of Battersea, surrounded by a tall iron fence. A graveyard of a different sort of green to Kew, haphazard and choked with weeds, not far from the bridge from which Solomon’s father had taken that fateful fall. The cemetery’s burial land had been exhausted in the 1960s, given over now to butterflies and trees, insects and other creatures flitting amongst the stones. Solomon entered by the gate on the main road and was quickly subsumed.

  He wandered south through the graves. No map. No guide. Just a myriad of paths and a reference scribbled in biro on the back of his hand. The cemetery reminded Solomon of his favourite burial ground back home – hundreds of gravestones laid flat amongst the shorn grass at one end, hundreds more buried by nettles at the other. It too was a haven for wildlife – the wren, the magpie, the dog fox and his vixen. Not to mention a thousand tiny mammals tunnelling their way through leaf mould and the crumbled bones of the dead. Edinburgh’s ‘secret garden’, that was what they called it, the nearest thing Solomon had to what could be called a family plot. The perfect cruising ground for the low flight of the tawny owl. And the glorious boys of his youth. The place where he had first met Andrew, standing in the twilight by a soft-grey tomb, all its carving eroded by the rain.

  Solomon remembered escaping from the silence of his grandfather to lie amongst a forest of obelisks and stone crosses, ivy snatching at his feet. Sixteen and dreaming of another life, the soft black of an Edinburgh night cut through by the rustle of a thousand rodents in amongst the undergrowth, human and animal both. The grass had been tall. It had been wet. Cuckoo spit smeared across his shirt. His head had been thumping with an overdose of adrenaline. Or perhaps the stolen sherry he had drunk. Above him the planet had spun on its axis. Beneath him he’d felt the damp embrace of the earth. He remembered doing his count:

  One leg;

  Two legs;

  Two arms;

  Five fingers . . .

  Just as Godfrey Farthing had taught, lifting Solomon to sit on the draining board in the scullery that very first night, checking one limb after another as though to make sure the boy was safe. Solomon had lain in the cemetery for an hour, perhaps, waiting with his heart in his throat to see what might happen next. Then Andrew had appeared and his life had taken a whole new turn.

  Now, he searched for an hour with no luck, mopping at his forehead with a blue kerchief taken from his pocket, before starting again. It seemed an age since he had lost his lucky charm between the floorboards of a dead man’s house, torn shirt flapping about his wrist. Solomon wondered if he would ever see the cap badge again. Or whether he might have to make his own luck from now on.

  Eventually, the day grew too hot and he sat to rest amongst the grasses, pulled the last of the paperwork he had secured at the National Archive from his inside pocket. All that remained of a Captain Godfrey Farthing, such as it was.

  His grandfather’s service record had been blank. Or as good as, given the information it relayed. No dates or details of enlistment. No dates or details of discharge. No personal correspondence or information about wounds. Originally in three parts, the record had been decimated over the years, filleted first by judicious civil servants who had needed the space, then the remainder obliterated by enemy action in a second war, bombs falling on the very place where all the information about a country’s previous heroes had been kept. Even from this distance, Solomon had felt the irony in that.

  There had been nothing left of his grandfather but a name:

  Farthing, Godfrey

  And a rank:

  Captain

  And a regimental number:

  3674.

  Sent out to war as a young man to make sure his men did their duty. Came back an old man, never did know how to keep a lost boy warm. Nothing to suggest he had ever met or known that other lost boy: Alec Sutherland, vanished into the mire at the very end, never did return.

  Solomon had looked for secondary evidence, of course. First amongst the Silver War Badge rolls – those men discharged for wounds or illness – thinking of that pucker of scar tissue hovering over his grandfather’s heart. But there had been no sign of Godfrey Farthing amongst the sick. Nor on the campaign medal index. A Star. A War medal. One for Victory, too. Decorations doled out like sweeties to all the men who had fought.

  ‘Probably didn’t apply for them.’ That was what the expert he spoke to said. ‘Not every man did.’

  Godfrey Farthing, the hero, fought for four years and came out standing, didn’t even want the honours to show. An old man who wore flannels until they were baggy at the knees. Who washed in the bowl at the sink every evening, rather than in the bath. Someone who raised Solomon to know exactly how to behave, but barely spoke a word himself. A mystery to Solomon when he was a boy. And still a mystery now.

  Solomon had the sudden sense then that everything he had ever understood about his grandfather was not quite right. That perhaps he never had been in the war to end all wars, or at least not in the way Solomon had imagined, a hero rushing the enemy’s barbed wire. That just like his son twenty years later, perh
aps his grandfather had kept his head down, too, rather than raising it above the parapet, the little medals beneath the counter in the pawnshop belonging to someone else all along. Another soldier who had fought and survived, pawning his glory in return for a Sunday suit or a decent Friday dinner, never bothering to buy the medals back.

  But still Solomon could never forget how his grandfather marked the end of the cataclysm year after year. Lit a candle in the little chapel at the side of the great grey church by way of remembrance.

  Our Father who art in heaven . . . forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those . . .

  Never wore a red poppy. Only ever a winter rose.

  The sun was playing out its long fall from the sky, as Solomon Farthing began again with his search, lingering over a carved angel here, attempting to decipher a name vanished from a tomb there. He had lost sight of the way back to the cemetery gates long before, could feel sweat gathering beneath his tweed jacket at the prospect that he might have come all this way, only to fail at the last.

  It was not until the sun was descending beneath the top line of the trees that he found what he had been looking for all of his life. There, in a tangle of London grass, a splash of white amongst the green:

  His father, Robert Farthing.

  His mother, Else Farthing née Gold.

  Dirtied somewhat by the years that had passed. Solomon stood for a moment feeling the earth tip beneath his feet. Then he pulled the dog’s blue kerchief from his pocket, licked at its corner, began to scrub the stone clean.

  After, he lay beside his father, beside his mother, for the first and last time. The grass was sweet in his nostrils, the scent of cut hay. Solomon lay so long that he heard his father singing. So long that he saw his mother’s shadow move behind the curtain. So long that he felt their hands upon his hair.

  When he sat up again he unwrapped the treasure given to him by Eddie Jackson at the foundling school. A tobacco tin all scratched and battered, rather like him. The tin was the one his father used to keep his chocolate in, hidden beneath the bed. As Solomon eased off the lid, the sudden aroma of old-fashioned tobacco loosed into the air. But the tin did not contain Woodbines, or even Capstans lined like bodies in a bed. Instead it was stuffed with articles clipped from a newspaper in 1957 about a man who jumped into a river. Because he was drunk, perhaps. Or because he could not live without his wife. Or because he was trying to save a young lady. The first thing Solomon slid from the tin was a cutting that said, Hero. He didn’t bother with the rest.

  1918

  One

  Godfrey ran. Two fields over behind a fold in the land and it sounded, sudden and loud. A single shot. The commencement of battle. Followed by a second. The enemy’s reply.

  At once Godfrey started as though the whistle had been blown. Over the top. Tumbling across empty fields full of ruts and troughs of wet earth, slithering in and out of muddy dips, urging himself forwards, forwards, always forwards, stay upright, stay upright, just follow the man in front. All he could hear as he ran was blood thudding in his ears, the frantic one two one two of his heart. And the ring of those two shots, over and over, puncturing the air.

  Above him a scattering of starlings wheeled in the grey, swooping and circling as Godfrey stumbled on, all the worst things rippling from the soles of his feet to the roof of his skull. A misfire while polishing a trigger. An argument amongst the men. Or the arrival of the enemy. A surprise attack from across that river, one man down already, a single shot, execution style, followed by the next. It wasn’t until Godfrey was almost home that another thought flitted through his brain. Perhaps it had been a warning shot sent up by Ralph – their own company arrived at last. Captains and lieutenants. Corporals and sergeants. Soldiers marching down that lane expecting Godfrey Farthing’s section to be ready. Found instead men playing chicken in the yard and the officer in charge disappeared to wander amongst the trees. Desertion. Punishable by death in the worst-case scenario. Not even there when the moment came.

  Godfrey sucked in great gasps of cold air as he got as close to the farmhouse as he dared. All around him there was a merging of sky and land, the outline of the farmhouse hazy, its accompanying buildings indistinct. Everything was still. The mist low in the hedgerows. The birds silent. No commotion as he approached, crouched low to the earth to avoid the sniper’s eye. Instead it was as though the two shots had only happened in a dream, the backfire of a charabanc on the parade at Hastings, nothing but an ordinary accident waiting to happen if one got in the way.

  Godfrey huddled on the far side of the stream, pain pinioning his lungs, waited for his heart to steady before he moved forwards again. It was some time since he had been required to run that far, scrambling and dodging as shrapnel splintered all around him. How quickly he had become accustomed to something more sedate. A line of smoke from the farmhouse chimney traced the sky. There was the brief glitter of the pond in the gloom. In front of Godfrey was a new latrine pit, half dug, a dark hole in the ground just waiting for him to step inside. He waded through the water, the cold of it soaking through his boots, stepped out the other side with ice already in his veins.

  When he got to the yard, at last, it was empty. No men stood in a semi-circle with rifles to their heads. No chicken scritch scratching at the entrance to the grain store, fixing Godfrey with the black bead of its eye. He crouched in the shadow of the barn, heart beating a loud tattoo upon his ribs. The last time he had spoken to Beach had been in a yard just like this one, mud and a huge heap of slag in one corner, the boom of the guns echoing like a distant thunderstorm calling them to play. What had happened to the boy, he thought, once he was in the ground. Rotted like the rest who had met disaster, or floated from the earth somehow to follow his captain around forever after, reminding him always of all the boys he had lost.

  Across the yard, the door to the farmhouse stood open, warm light spilling on the step, welcoming all comers to whatever carnage they might find inside. Godfrey put a hand to the wound above his heart, felt the shrapnel shift. His revolver was in the attic room beneath the rafters, lying greased and ready to fire. He had left it beside his bed for days now, preferred to walk unarmed amongst the trees. Abandoning one’s weapon. Another offence that drew the ultimate sanction.

  Then came the voices.

  ‘What the damn hell?’

  Heard Jackdaw protesting.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  They were in the kitchen, gathered around the long table, the remains of Godfrey Farthing’s men. Godfrey couldn’t help but count as he stood in the doorway. One, two, three . . . four, five, six . . . like the chimes of his father’s clock. Eight soldiers at the reckoning. Plus Ralph standing at the head.

  Godfrey felt wild, as though the whole world had begun to tilt, anger bubbling in his chest. Or perhaps it was relief.

  ‘What happened?’

  The men turned towards him as he spoke, eight faces caught in the middle of something in which he had no part. Alfred Walker and the two A4 boys huddled together on one side of the table, along with Alec, dog close at his feet. On the other, Percy Flint and James Hawes were gathered around Archie Methven, George Stone standing somewhere behind. They stared at their captain’s sudden appearance, uniform all streaked with mud once more. Except Ralph, who turned his gaze towards the stove for a second as though searching for his supper, before looking back. For a moment, no one said anything, then Ralph stepped forwards.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘A prank.’

  Holding out his hands as though to appease an angry father. What was it, Godfrey thought then, that always threw him into that role when he was still a young man himself?

  ‘A prank?’ he said, clenching his left hand to quell its flutter.

  ‘The grey.’

  And Ralph stood aside.

  There on the table lay the remains of a chicken – feather and bone, the hard scales of its feet. It had been obliterated by a gun shot, nothing left of its head. A bloody mess laid
out on Stone’s scrubbed surface, like the rabbit in the trap that Godfrey and Alec had found laid out on the hill. Standing over the dead bird was George Stone, huge metal pot already in his hands. For soup, Godfrey thought, cock-a-leekie. Perhaps even a jar of prunes dug from a secret supply in the cellar, packed tight in their sweet juice before the war had even begun.

  ‘Christ.’ Godfrey pushed a hand through his hair, left a streak of mud from cheek to brow. ‘I thought someone had been shot.’

  Ralph laughed. The men stayed silent.

  ‘Who got it?’ Godfrey said.

  Eight men and Ralph circling in the yard.

  This way. Grab it!

  Laying bets on who would catch the chicken first:

  A button.

  A matchstick.

  A centime for the grey.

  Godfrey’s second throwing in a twist of officers’ tobacco when the other bets fell away. Sometimes Godfrey thought war was all a game to Ralph, nothing more than a toss of the dice and a chase after a chicken until the mortal bullet came. Then again it was a game for all of them, wasn’t it? A war that amounted to nothing more than waiting and waiting, the only respite a skirmish from which many would not come out alive.

  ‘It was my fault.’

  Jackdaw stood forwards all of a sudden, collarbone in sharp relief beneath his filthy shirt.

  ‘Jackson!’

  It was strange hearing Jackdaw’s real name, a warning in Ralph’s voice. The younger man faltered, fell back to stand next to Promise. Godfrey noticed that the two of them stood apart from each other now, no more touching at the hip bone. Nobody spoke. Godfrey rubbed at his forehead again, made the muddy streak worse.

  ‘Well, what the hell’s going on? Hawes?’