Given Time

A man returns from war and aims to excise some painful memories

He felt the cold.  A sharp whip across his face when he was clean shaven, his ears and lips thrawn by frozen wind. 

It wasn’t always like that.  He remembered wishing for the snow or a film of rain.  But now; now he was becoming better acclimatised.  At least that’s what they would say. 

The blood thins in warm temperatures, you know. 

It’ll thicken up.  Given time.

Given Time. He had lost plenty of that.  Of years, of months, of days and minutes until he could count the beats between the seconds. Time, the greatest kleptomaniac. 

A pat on the shoulder.  It’s a great healer you know.

Time. 

Time.  His memories now drops that fell to the ground like sweat.

‘Would you like something Sir?’  

She was dressed in black with a chalk white pinafore folded tightly around her breasts.  Her cap caught wisps of hair that fell around her temples.  She smiled playfully. 

‘From the menu?  Would you like something?’  Her eyes were like her hair, a deep playful auburn that sat on rosebud cheeks.  They looked young and deep and clear. 

Not like his. 

He hesitated and returned a smile.  ‘Thank you, of course - just a pot of tea.’  He folded the menu and locked it against the table.  ‘I’m waiting for someone,’ he added, somehow embarrassed to be alone.

The café was quiet.  He had wedged himself against a window that caught his breath when he exhaled.  It created frosted clouds and he resisted a childish temptation to write on the mist.  Diagonally opposite were two elderly ladies.  Like him, one faced the door and she had watched him carefully as he went to his seat. 

He rummaged in his coat, feeling for the box of cigarettes.  He flicked the lid open in one mechanical movement.

‘There you go.  One pot of tea,’ she giggled.  ‘Players…’

‘What, yes…?’ he looked at the cigarette packet.

‘My brother,’ she said, ‘that was always his.  Every time I see one I think of him.’

‘Would you like one?’ he offered. 

‘Oh no, Sir.  More than my job’s worth to be taking a cigarette from a customer.’  She nodded towards the counter where a stout, heavily rouged woman fussed over some cakes.

‘Of course,’ he agreed.

He left the cigarette unlit, resting it on his lips where he tasted bitter tobacco.  It was better than tea or banana leaves or the saw dust scavenged amongst the dirt that he had been used too.  That he had been acclimatised too.

A bell rang and his gaze moved to the door. 

She was a touch fuller than he recalled; her jacket more fitted around her waist.  She still had the dry porcelain skin that had reflected dance hall lights.  She still had golden hair.  He could conjure her lavender aroma as he lay beside her after the wedding.  His touch, at first heavy and unsure, growing with confidence as she urged him on, as his fingers began to play with buttons and caress her silk.  It was his memory, his life raft amongst the deadly ocean, alive within the deepest of swells and against the mightiest of storms.  It had survived even against time. Until even that too was eventually stolen.

‘I’m sorry I’m late.’ 

He stood to greet her and reached across to kiss a welcome.  He caught her wince but carried on and braved another on the opposite cheek. 

She shook her head.  ‘Alan said I should never have come, but well…’ 

He noticed her gloved hands stayed gloved, her coat remained steadfast across her shoulders.  She shuffled uncomfortably, perched on the edge of the chair.  He gestured to the waitress for more tea. 

‘Unusual place you picked here.  Took me an age on the train.  Three changes.’  She tried a smile.  ‘You look well.’  

He knew she lied. 

It wasn’t like that when he left.  When he put on his uniform and was posted to Malaya.  Then her eyes were wet, the cheeks puffy; a voice that trembled and broke.

‘Thank you.’

But he was thin.  Bones where fat should be.  Sinew and ligament and veins all under a translucent veneer.  He recoiled when he first found a mirror on the homebound troopship, his body an anatomist’s cadaver, his raven hair bleached yellow, his skin now burnt almond.

She reached into her clutch bag and pulled a cigarette.  It danced on her fingers as she raised it to her lips, her draw long and hard and deep, pushing great clouds into the ether.  She spoke to the window. 

‘I thought you were dead,’ she said.  ‘Missing.  Presumed killed in action.  That’s what it said.’  He shrugged.  ‘You can’t blame me.  You can’t.  Over three years it was.  Not a single letter or postcard from you.  Nothing from the Red Cross.’  Her words fired out staccato.  ‘No, no you can’t blame me.  I was young.  Am young.  Was younger.  I couldn’t wait for the war to end and then hope you would appear.  No I couldn’t…’

He cut her off with a hand. 

‘I thought about you.  About us,’ he said softly.  ‘A house in the country.  Our children.  We would have three.  George, after my father of course.  He would be bright and boisterous, would love cricket.  Then the girls.  Twins.  Sophie and Susan.  One with black hair and one with golden hair.  Just like her…’  He looked up.  ‘…well, just like yours.  It kept me ...’

He wanted to say sane but instead left the sentence to linger.

‘Don’t.  Please.’

‘It’s what kept me alive.  In the camp.  Amongst the decay and sickness.  The beri-beri.  The hunger.  The guards.  The senseless cruelty.  It kept me alive.  It was you.  It was us.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.  She looked down at her tea.  Unstirred.  Still full.  She fingered the handle.  ‘It was hard after you went overseas.  Always the worry.  Then the telegram.  I was at my mother’s.  We were listening to the news on the BBC and father was in his allotment.  I can still see him through the curtains, his arms amongst the potato leafs.’

He nodded.

‘I must have cried for a month, but I was playing a game - playing a role of the grieving widow.  How long were we married?  Six weeks.  How long did I know you before then? Ten weeks, maybe eleven.  I never had a proper boyfriend and the next thing I know I’m married to a pilot.’

‘That’s what we both wanted,’ he said.

‘I was nineteen.’ She stubbed her cigarette into the ashtray.  ‘Nineteen.’

‘And now you’re married.  Again.’  He felt no malice, no hatred or disappointment. 

‘Yes.  Yes I am.  And he’s a good man,’ she said defiantly.  ‘He’s a good man with a good job.  He’ll look after me and our baby.’

‘I’m happy for you.’

She laughed and looked away.  ‘And he did his bit - did his bit just like you did.  He was the man who made the planes.  Him and men like him.  The hours he put in.  The nights on shift…’

‘Yes it was such terrible sacrifice,’ he said irritably.

She looked away, back to the window, her eyes following a young mother pushing a pram.  She could hear the baby cry and watched the mother bend down and offer comfort.

‘Don’t be clever,’ she said.  ‘It was hard for all of us.  I made my peace with your memory a long time ago.  And made sacrifices �" as you say �" to be here.  To be with Alan.  It wasn’t easy.’

Her voice drifted to a grumble.  He watched the lips move, the pink tongue curl around vowels and consonants, a face contorted until only silence.  She lit another cigarette.

‘Let me tell you about sacrifice,’ he began quietly, and took her hand, caressing each finger until gradually she pulled them away and his retreated to a ball.  ‘We were coming back from a work party. Clearing the jungle for the Jap planes to arrive.  We were skeletons, nothing more than marching bones.  Dysentery.  Beri-beri.  Malaria.  We all had it.  You could smell us before you seen us.’  He watched as she wrinkled her nose.  ‘Exhausted.  Starving of course.  We were back late but none of us had a watch �" we had sold anything like that long ago for food.  Then the guards took a head count.’ 

His nostrils filled, effluvia and sweat, a sickly miasma that poured over his skin.  He could feel the burning sun at his back, searing through his threadbare uniform.  His legs weak and dried, his tongue bloated and parched.

‘I was at the front.  Beside me - Private Durrant, then Corporal Simm.  My men.  My friends. I was them and they were me.’ 

He allowed himself a wry smile.

‘You see, in the camp you needed an army of three to survive. One to queue for food.  One to forage and scrounge.  And one more to guard what you found.’

He shook his head.

‘We had been together ever since they overran the airfield.  But the headcount.  The bloody headcount.  We were one short.’  He felt his cigarette burn at his fingers.  ‘The Jap guards scurried, their commanding officer slapped one of his incompetent sergeants.  Shouts and curses and screams.  Then the commandant spoke.  There was an escapee.  If we did not inform him of the whereabouts of the prisoner he would take action.’  

He laughed this time. 

‘Nobody came forward.  No tell tales amongst us British.  So we stayed in our ranks, all at attention.  There must have been about 100 of us. He ordered every third man to take a step forward.  So I did.’ 

He grabbed the table, his fingers now roots across the wood. 

‘He picked the first one.  Pulled him down to his knees.  We all knew what was coming.  The sword across the neck.  I was next and I remember the b*****d grinning. His rotting teeth shining out.  Then Private Durrant stepped forward.  I remember looking at him, shaking my head, but he just smiled and said it’s okay Sir, you’ve got a wife and three kiddies.  They’ll need their Da’. Find my mum and my sisters and tell them I love them.  Poor bugger.  He told the commandant his prisoner was hidden amongst the swamp grass to the north east.  Then they cut his bloody head off like they did the one before.’

She reached for a handkerchief and pressed it against her lips.

‘And the thing is.  There was no escapee.  The stupid b******s forgot that one of our men keeled over during the work.  They had miscounted.  The stupid b******s had miscounted.  And Private Durrant, the bravest soldier I ever knew, the greatest friend I ever had was left on that dirt track.  His head in a ditch and his body oozing blood onto the mud.  He died for my dream and he died for my lie.  I gave up on us then.’ 

He felt tears on his cheeks, caught the tremble in his hands, a draining flutter through his legs.  He took lungfuls of air and looked to the ceiling before returning his gaze to her. 

‘I’m sorry, whatever you need, whatever legal forms you need signed I’ll do it.’

She reached across and grabbed his hand, pushing her handkerchief amongst the knotted fingers.  She smiled faintly, her lips pierced. 

‘Thank you,’ she said and lifted herself shakily from the chair.  ‘I’m sorry.’  

He watched her turn for the door.

‘Are you alright Sir?  Would you like something else?’ The waitress cleared the cups and saucers. 

‘No.  No thank you.’  He hesitated.  ‘Perhaps though you would like to share a cigarette after you’ve finished?’

She looked to the counter then to him.  ‘My shift’s over at five, if you don’t mind waiting…’

‘I have all the time in world,’ he said.  ‘Now, what was your name again?’

‘Mary.  Mary Durrant.’

‘Of course it is,’ he said.

 

Author's Note

Happy to have any form of constructive comment but would like to have an idea as regards the interplay between the characters - did it feel believable?