I only really use three rooms anymore, and the bed is just too big. I miss him terribly. His warmth. His scent. Even his farts after eating cabbage.
His chair by the fire is just as he left it, with the creases in the throw cover from him sitting there and the worn patches on the arms where he'd rest his elbow while smoking. Sometimes, very briefly, I will sit there and pretend everything is OK again. Just for a little bit. His VC hangs above the chair like a talisman, reminding me that he did what he had to do. Small comfort, but better than none.
I remember when we met, as if it was yesterday. Momma was having one of her bad days, and was confined to bed. Which meant I could not go to school yet again. 16 years old, and unlikely to get my diploma. I am not stupid at all, just a lack of schooling. It was just me and her, as Daddy had left the farm and gone off to war years ago. We got one letter from him when he arrived in France, then a week later a telegram from the War Office. The sort of telegram that begins "We regret to inform you ...". She needed me. My needs did not matter. Such was the time and the expectation.
The quiet knock on the door was almost lost beneath the squish of the sheets as I ran them through the mangle. When your Momma has "accidents" most nights, you get pretty good at doing laundry fast, before it dries to an uncleanable, revolting mess.
The knock, repeated. Thinking it was the egg man, as it was his day to collect, I simply shouted for whoever it was to come in. The back door opens straight into the kitchen anyway.
The door opens and there is a soft thump as the person collapses across the threshold. A young man, horribly battered and burned in the tattered remains of his uniform. Almost unconscious. I rushed forwards and dropped to my knees beside him to check him. His pulse is slow, but steady. Blood loss, and a few broken bones, but it seems like nothing serious. They make sure we girls know first aid, it is all part of the War effort. Being able to look after our pilots if they crash. When they crash. It happens to all of them, according to my cousin. The planes they fly are not much more than fabric and string, held together by good wishes and faith.
He is much bigger than me. I cannot carry him upstairs, so drag him though to the sitting room and lay him on the sofa, my back burning like fire. He moans something I cannot understand, though I hear the words well enough. Dry and raspy voice, like he has been without water for weeks. Carefully squeeze some water into his mouth and watch him swallow. As I tend his injuries, he says the first clear words I hear:
"Thank ye, lass."
Then he passes out. Problem time. I am no fainting maiden, after all this is 1916, but it isn't right for me to take off what is left of his clothes. Yet he is still bleeding badly. Even if I send for him now, the doctor won't be here for hours. Our little village is not that important. Momma is asleep. Slow, Sophie, what did Daddy always say?
"Do what needs to be done, when it needs to be done. Worry about the morality of it later."
I get the large shears from the sewing box and cut off his clothes. As I stitch his wounds with boiled thread, I keep glancing at his face. He can't be much older than me. No more than 18 or 19 years old. Something stirs deep within me. Something primeval. Intensely protective. And a feeling I have never felt before, talking about the boys in chapel with my best friend.
Finish cleaning him up, the scraps of uniform go onto the fire. Blood makes them smoke a bit, but we have a good chimney. The smell doesn't spread though the house, and soon they are ash. Odd fabric, it didn't really feel like wool. Well, not my problem.
Over the next week he had a bad fever. Momma was the same as ever and never came downstairs, so my soldier belonged to me. Oh, yes, I was madly in love. I can admit that now. He even said my name in his fever dreams.
Sophie.
* * *
What the hell? Where am I? Pain all over my body, as if I have been beaten by a giant. The gentle pull of stitches as I try to move and shift the intolerable weight of the single sheet off my chest. Can't breathe.
"Rest, my soldier." The voice low, musical, with a bubbling good humor hiding under the concern. Familiar. Comforting.
Wait! Who am I? Start to panic, then gratefully dive back into unconsciousness. And dream.
"Smith, take these orders forward and delivery them to Captain Rikard personally, as fast as possible." Pick up the packet, salute and leave. A quick check of the map shows me where Rikard's company is supposed to be - twenty miles forward of the command post, two miles behind the front lines and bivvied in a farm outside some nameless shell of a town. Couldn't pronounce it if I knew the name anyway, French is a mystery to me. Kick my motorbike into life and jounce through the potholes and frozen ruts onto the road. The dim, shielded headlamp is almost useless against the dark, but that is immaterial. I have very good night vision and these dispatches are to get there as fast as possible. Settle into the saddle and open the throttle wide, the regular throb of the engine radiating a comforting warmth against my thighs, countering the icy wind.
It isn't bad, being a dispatch rider for HQ. Decent enough posting for a man right on the age limit for active service. At least I am not slogging towards Germany through mud and bullets with the other Tommies. And, warming me more than the engine, are the papers in my breast pocket.
Three weeks leave, starting as soon as I return from this ride. I am going home again. Back to our little hill farm. Back to Sophie. My love.
A loud droning above the noise of the engine as a plane flashes past overhead, it's silhouette pitch black against the moonlit sky, the squared off wings slicing through the air like razors.
Squared off wings? Oh, fuck, it's a Jerry! Too late to evade, crouch and open the throttle wide, the roar of my engine and the windrush concealing the whistle of the falling bombs. I am not going to die! I am going home to my Sophie!
The world goes white as the bombs hit.
No! Fuck this! I AM GOING HOME!
Agonising blackness.
* * *
As he got better, we found that my soldier couldn't remember much of his past at all. Just snatches here and there that didn't make any sense at all, of a huge war covering most of the world. Nonsense machines and occurrences that were obviously fever dreams. Nothing of his family, his friends, not even his name. We decided his name was Smith. First name William, as it is a name we both liked. The times just sitting and talking after the farm work was done were precious indeed. He helped as he could and steadily got stronger. Yet as he got better, Momma got worse. She died November first, 1916.
William was a pillar of strength. By that time he was pretty much mobile again, and active around the farm. He dealt with the Doctor and the Priest, with an assurance well beyond his years. And when Father O'Callahan suggested that him living here with me might lead to gossip, if not outright immorality, he simply turned to me and proposed, in front of witnesses. We were married two days after Momma's funeral, with the entire village turning out for the occasion. Even the old cats, who love to gossip and pick faults, were happy for us. There was some chat about the man from nowhere, but his scars, earned in the Great War, silenced most of that.
We had a good life. Farming is hardscrabble work, especially in the hills, but somehow William made it pay. It was like he knew from year to year what to plant and what to raise. When to increase the flock size, and when to sell them off. The other farmers, who started by laughing at his ideas, started to copy him. Or they went under, and we bought their land and flocks. We had a good balance in the bank, and were of good standing in the village. In '25, when we had our daughter, also called Sophie after both me and Momma, our happiness and our family was complete.
Even the Great Depression didn't hurt us. In September, 1929, William came home with a huge bag of gold sovereigns, our entire life savings, and said
"Put these somewhere safe, lass. We'll be needing them soonish." He was right. We did need them. And prospered while others did not. He jokingly referred to his luck, but something bothered me. I remember his fever dreams, the disjointed sentences he would speak during the time I watched him while he was healing. He saw all of this before it happened. Somehow.
His first ever words to me bother me now he is gone. I sit here, in my lonely room, with that empty chair in front of me, and try to puzzle out their meaning.
* * *
The blackness fades to leave me facing a very familiar door. Still immense pain, but I can move.
I knock. And hear a familiar and beloved voice call "Come on in."
As I collapse across the threshold, I see a young girl running towards me.
My mind expands. As my beloved drags me into the sitting room and hoists me onto the sofa, my mind fixes on the thought. How many times has this happened? A thousand times? A million?
"Oh, god, not again. Jut let it end."
