Lovely War(89)

Mrs. Puxley saw her opening. “Miss Windicott,” she said, “this is rather precipitate of me, but it’s just my husband and I, here, in this big old place. Our son is married and gone. We lack a children’s pianist right now, for the Sunday school. What could be nicer than to have you stay with us for a spell, practicing for auditions and making this old place a bit brighter?”

Hazel was dumbstruck.

I will not say that I was uninvolved in this rather rash invitation.

“My husband’s always asking me, why do I go to the expense of keeping that instrument tuned,” she went on, “but I tell him, ‘Alfred, you never know when you’ll need a piano.’” She turned to Hazel. “Obviously, you’re a well-brought-up young lady. Have you any luggage?”

Luggage? Had they reached the stage of discussing luggage?

Should she do this dreadful thing? To situate herself just down the street from James, after he’d said he didn’t wish to see her anymore?

Do it, I told her. Seize the chance.

He deserves it, she thought wickedly. Sending her off without even a hello! She’d come all the way from France to make sure he was all right, and she wasn’t leaving until she’d done so. Let him tell her to her face that it was over, and then she would go. Meanwhile, she would stay close by and practice on this lovely piano. Why not?

“My luggage is at the station,” she told Mrs. Puxley.

“Excellent,” said that worthy woman, rising from the sofa and forgetting all about her spasm. “I’ll send the neighbor to go claim it for you.”

The vicar’s wife, having found the piano girl for her lonely hours and her children’s Sunday school, was not about to let her walk to the station and change her mind.





ARES


     Light Duty—June 3–4, 1918





ON MONDAY, JAMES ventured into town, dressed in a suit coat and tie. His appointment was with the military board of review, whose job it was to determine his rate of recovery, and his readiness to return to military service. If they found him well enough, he’d be back at the trenches, where, in his dulled state, he wouldn’t last a week. If they found him unfit, it would be yet another humiliating reminder of his shattered self.

There were three physicians on the board. One seemed to be of the “get back to it, you shirkers” philosophy, while another was full of sympathy for neurasthenic cases, as shell-shocked patients were called, and a third kept his sentiments well guarded. James submitted to an orderly’s poking and prodding, then sat and answered questions fired at him by the panel of three. It felt rather like Judgment Day. When the interview was over, he sat numbly until a verdict was announced: he had made progress. Rest had done him good. He was not yet ready to return to combat but likely would be in time. He was to report to the recruiting office in town the next day for “light duty.” Paperwork. He could don his uniform and do his bit.

He walked home.

Just the thought of his uniform made him shiver. He didn’t want to leave the safety of his room. But maybe it would do him good to get away from his mother’s hovering.

The following morning he bathed, dressed in uniform, and headed up Vicarage Road toward the town.





APHRODITE


     Hoping It Might Be You—June 4, 1918





“YOU LOVE MY brother, don’t you?”

Hazel jumped up. She’d taken a walk at midday through the park around the church, and was kneeling to admire some flowers. Now she rose, nearly colliding with a girl. A girl with frizzy hair.

Margaret.

“You can call me Maggie,” the girl said. “So, do you love him?”

Hazel took a step back. “I—”

“Because I could take him a note for you.”

Hazel blinked. “Your mother certainly would not approve.”

“I wouldn’t tell her,” said Maggie, as if this were the most obvious solution in the world. “That’s why you stayed in Chelmsford, isn’t it? For the chance to see him?”

Was Hazel’s heart that obvious?

They continued the stroll Hazel had been taking before Maggie appeared.

“Maggie,” Hazel said, “how is James? Is he . . . all right?”

Maggie thought about this question. “Mum says he’ll be fine, but Dad’s not so sure.”

A stab in the heart. “And what do you think?”

Maggie walked a bit, then turned to Hazel. “I think he needs something, and he won’t get better until he finds it,” she said. “Mum, I could tell, was hoping it might be you.”

“But now she doesn’t think so.”

Maggie shook her head. “No. She doesn’t.”

Hazel walked unseeing. “I guess,” she said slowly, “that’s what I’d been hoping, too.”





APHRODITE


     Work—June 4–9, 1918





JAMES WORKED ALL that week. Hazel practiced all week.

The first few days at the recruiting office were misery. They had neither a job nor a desk for him, so he sat on a bench until someone produced a meaningless task. Hours dragged, and his attention roved. I’ll never see Hazel again.