War Bonds: A Novel of World War Two, page 30
His eyes still closed, Gordon gave just the slightest shake of his head, the corners of his mouth turning up. So, Al continued.
“And when you get well, you’re coming to the restaurant I’m gonna open at home, in Philadelphia, right there in Little Italy, and I’m gonna serve, well, boiled eggs of course, as I said a couple weeks back in Poland, but also, stuffed ziti with basil and oregano and three kinds of cheeses and cannelloni that’ll be packed with the freshest whipped cream and eggs and sugar and…”
The last few ingredients proved too much for Gordon, who was suddenly upright, gesturing urgently for a bin, a bowl, a bucket, something into which he could heave the contents of his stomach. Up came blood and bile, dark, profuse, foul-smelling, spilling onto his hands, his clothes, his bedding. As he wretched and convulsed, Gordon surrendered to what his body wished to do, to rid itself of infection, to expel hidden toxins—shame, guilt, the hurt that consumed him—that he believed he’d inflicted on Beryl, on Colin, and even Annalise. The events of Legnica that continued to haunt him. His failure to get Melvin and Graham to freedom. His stomach roiled. His head pounded. For a few minutes, he lay still. Then he turned toward Al, and gave him a look.
“Few too many things on that menu, old man.”
“And there he is,” said Al, already removing the soiled blankets, waving a nurse over to come check the patient. “Welcome back, Lieutenant. We weren’t real sure we’d hear from you again. We’ve missed you.” A damp cloth in his hand, Al reached to wipe the drying blood from around Gordon’s mouth, his cheeks, and up under his chin.
. . .
After hopscotching all over southern Europe together, they parted. Gordon boarded a flight that carried him across the Channel to Bristol, while Floyd and Al proceeded to Paris to report in to an American unit for a trip back to the States. They would reconvene next, they agreed, at Al’s restaurant once it was opened in Philadelphia.
The pain in Gordon’s shoulder persisted; he still wore a sling to incline those around him to give him a wide berth. His internal injuries had healed with less pain, he decided, because no one was constantly knocking into them. His hand seemed unaffected and he hoped his ability to draw hadn’t been compromised. With each phase of his journey home, his world grew discernibly safer, more familiar. Having cast off Mussolini, the Italians had been genial and welcoming. The French in Lyon treated him like he was the single reason their country was now free. When he arrived in Bristol, finally back on British soil, he wept—copiously, profusely—a steward on the plane patting his bowed head saying he was hardly the first Tommie to do that.
And now, London. Battle-scarred but still standing, the home he’d naïvely left five years before, never imagining all he’d lose, the pieces of himself he would leave on the battlefield. The violence he’d so easily summoned, his ability to lie, be so deeply duplicitous, left scars in his psyche: he knew himself capable of things that, before the war, he would have been sure his sense of honor would never permit. Circumstances had demanded that he push open the door to that darkness and step through it, do what needed to be done. He wondered if he would be able to seal off that door now that he was home, banish the fearsome images that came to him at night and the pervasive sense of dread that stayed with him in the day. He prayed he could.
The train slowed and Gordon rose to his feet, pulling his duffel from the rack, an older man behind him leaning in to help heave it over his good shoulder. “Welcome home, soldier,” he said, patting Gordon on the back. “So glad you made it home.” Riders seated nearby added their applause. Gordon nodded gratefully, offering his thanks in a voice thick with emotion.
. . .
Beryl stood in the middle of the platform, head swiveling left and right, wishing she’d had time for a haircut, that she’d bought a prettier dress, noticing for the first time the frayed cuffs of her coat. Despite having taken extra time and care in dressing, she felt a bit shopworn, comparing herself to the picture she’d conjured of the German wife with her household staff and her extravagant house. Beryl had anticipated this very moment for five years and now, suddenly, felt completely ill-prepared.
But there he was, stepping from the carriage, striding towards her, a head taller than most in the crowd. His blonde hair was darker, now, his body thinner. His eyes looked tired but, she could tell, happy to see her. He reached for her with his left arm—his good one—and buried his face in her neck, inhaling the rosewater scent she’d placed there, her soft curls draping his face, camouflaging his gathering tears.
“Beryl, am I truly here? Am I to believe it?” He leaned hard into her, his posture one of release, surrender.
“Gordon,” she breathed again and again, one hand traveling the length of his long, familiar back, the other arm crooked around his waist, gingerly avoiding his wounded arm. After they stood a few minutes, getting ahold of their breath, acclimating to the idea of each other, she took his face in her hands and turned it to look into his eyes. He dropped his head to avert her gaze, eyes downcast.
“What is it, Gordon? Can’t you look at me?” she asked, alarmed. Would he have news for her this quickly that his experiences had changed him, that he couldn’t play along with something he no longer felt? “Please, Gordon. Have I turned into an old crone?”
He shook his head and steeled himself to face her. “It’s that… it’s that…” His tears fell freely. “I have dreamt of you, Beryl, longed for you from the very start—every day. Every single day. For so many years. And now that I see your face, you are more lovely, more perfect than I even remember.”
She closed her eyes in relief. She wrapped both arms around him, observing how he felt to her, his torso longer, slimmer than the one she had lately known. She looked up at him.
“We are neither of us perfect, my love,” she said quietly, steadily, “after all we’ve had to do to muddle through all this.” Her first small confession. “But we are still us. We’re here. We’ve made it this far”—she reached gingerly for his wounded shoulder—”mostly in one piece. We’ve done a far bit better than many. We have you back. We have our family. Still.”
“Indeed, we do,” he said, Beryl’s calm steadiness an aspect of her he’d missed. He drew close and kissed her, both of them surprised to find they fit together in much the same way they formerly did.
. . .
They rested for a bit at their flat, the cat circling and circling suspiciously before leaping onto Gordon’s lap and pawing at his chest, demanding an explanation. Gordon told him there was too much to get into just yet, Beryl knowing he was really saying that to her. They were careful and polite with each other, providing scattershot facts on a random timeline of the past five years—Colin’s progress in school and his continued fascination with aviation, the friends he’d made at school and at Kimbolton. Gordon was incredulous over the loss of the Densmores, shaking his head that Beryl might have been lost too had the bomb landed a few meters closer at a different time of day. They steered clear of discussing the very things each most wanted to know: whether their demonstrated ability to manage without the other would have lasting consequences, whether each truly believed they could knit their hearts and lives back together.
That afternoon, they boarded the train for Elsworth, where Colin, the Hughes, and various others assembled to give Gordon a proper welcome. Just like the day in September 1939 when Colin and Margaret and Patsy and so many others first arrived in the country, Elsworth families assembled at the station, waiting to welcome the train from London, Reverend and Mrs. Dowd included, only this time there was no bullhorn to assist in the sorting of refugees, no list-makers to track where those newly arrived would live. Beryl briefed Gordon on whom he was about to meet, quizzing him on their names as they pulled into the station in hopes he would not feel completely at sea.
Gordon helped Beryl down from the train with his left arm, then searched the platform for the boy he’d left so many years ago. Instead, he spotted a tall, rangy, young man with dark, curly hair over smiling, familiar green eyes. Colin ran towards them like the little boy he’d once been.
“Dad!” Colin cried, the voice deep and mature and startling to his father. “You’re in one piece! Nearly!” He slipped his arms tenderly around Gordon’s middle, working around the sling, the two of them nearly identical in height.
“Son,” said Gordon, leaning into Colin, their foreheads meeting, their eyes moist. “My boy.”
“How’s about it, Dad? You made it. We made it. I’d say, except for that sling there, you don’t seem all that different. Some gray hairs, maybe, and some crinkles around those eyes.”
“Ah yes,” said Gordon, drawing himself back with a laugh. “That’s all that’s changed with me, to be certain. And you? Clearly, they’ve been feeding you out here in the country. You’ve grown taller than I am.”
“They’ve done far more than feed me, Dad. They’ve been everything these past five years. Come meet them.”
Margaret charged to the front, pulling Patsy along, both executing a practiced curtsy.
“I’m Margaret and this is my sister Patsy and we’re ten now and essentially Colin’s sisters. And Hugo’s, of course. I am a writer also and I have written a story about your heroic service to the British Empire, for which we are most grateful. In my story, aided by twin girls from Manchester who are actually spies who steal secret plans to…”
“Lovely, Margaret. Very good. That’s enough for now. Gordon, I’m Ivy, the one who’s kept Colin. I believe you’ve met my husband, William.”
Somehow, in all that had happened in the past few weeks, this astonishing bit of information had not been communicated to Lieutenant Clarke.
“Hughes?” he asked, extending his good hand, realization dawning, “from Calais?”
“That’s right, Lieutenant—Gordon, if I may,” said Wills.
“But we thought you were killed in France,” Gordon looked worriedly in Ivy’s direction, “in the hayloft.”
“Fortunately, that was a different chap.” Wills winked. “I hid under the hay and it saved me. Got help from the family there and, well, like you, I was very, very lucky.”
“And then he went on to save others,” volunteered Hugo, who stepped up and thrust out his hand. “I’m Hugo. Your son’s me very best mate in all the world, and this is my father and, of course, my mother and we are all just so bloody glad you’re home.”
. . .
The common room at Holy Trinity hosted the welcome home dinner, attended by all manner of Elsworth residents. Jack’s absence was lamented aloud by some attendees, either obtuse members of the parish who had not grasped the extra-marital connection between Colin’s mother and Jack, or the gossips who had hoped to see some fireworks. The vicar presided, beaming as he welcomed them, saying a rousing grace, lifting a series of toasts, wherein he called Gordon one of Elsworth’s own. Gordon found it all a bit disconcerting, how much these strangers knew about him, recalling the contained, private life he and Beryl had lived before the war. Mrs. Dowd told him Colin had spent many afternoons at the vicarage, where she saw up close his mature and composed way of handling difficult circumstances. Gordon had much to be proud of, she said. Gordon could see the good these people had done for his son and Beryl, too, as she moved through the room after the meal, happily accepting hugs and pats, the twins trailing her like ladies-in-waiting. He spotted Colin and Hugo through the window, horsing around on the lawn with boys from the school, their shirts untucked, ties askew, their faces pure joy. Gordon gave an involuntary shudder, thinking suddenly of Annalise and her conviction that he would willingly trade all this for her. He did not want to think of how very close he came to missing this moment, to dying first in the camp and later, in Czechoslovakia.
It had been two months since he walked away from Annalise, but he still thought of her every day. Not because he missed her, but because he found it hard to shake the idea that he was no longer subjugated to her, didn’t have to lie to protect himself anymore. He wished he knew where she was, having dreamt more than once that she turned up in London, having devised a way to marry him without his knowing. She haunted him, he knew, because of the secrets she carried.
At the close of the evening, Colin argued hard to accompany them back to London but Beryl stood firm: the Germans were still dispatching their buzz bombs over the Channel—one had taken out a Woolworth’s in November at great cost to human life—so until peace was declared, Colin would stay with the Hughes. Beryl and Gordon planned to return the following weekend, at which point Colin wished to take his father over to meet the Americans at Kimbolton.
. . .
Gordon dozed as they rode the train back to Kings Cross, worn out from the travel and the emotions of the day, while Beryl sat keyed up and nervous. Now that they’d visited with Colin and enthusiastically celebrated Gordon’s return, they would take a few more days to rest, then perhaps consider, after all this war had brought into their lives, what their future held. He had seemed genuinely happy to see her at the station and his words had buoyed her. But the wistful look in his eye. The distance. She worried he was missing someone. Or worse, that he sensed a change in her because of the pull she still felt from Jack.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The pleasures of love are always in proportion to our fears.
–Stendhal
London and Elsworth, 1945
Gordon did not wait until the weekend, when Beryl was off work and could accompany him, to return to Elsworth. He rattled around the flat alone for a day and a half and found it unsettling after so many years in the noisy company of men. He left Beryl a note to say he was taking the train to see Colin for a quick visit while she worked her shift at the hospital. He had slept so soundly the past several nights, tumbling into their cocoon of a bed earlier than he intended, then falling asleep before he could rouse himself to reach for his wife to begin, in earnest, their reconnecting. They had yet to have a conversation about anything substantial, their shared goal for the moment to be deferential and solicitous with one another.
Wills met him at the Elsworth station and served him a bite of lunch—a corned beef sandwich that Gordon swore was the single best sandwich he’d eaten in five, no, ten—years. They spoke in depth, finally, of the bullet that killed Graham when he was steps from freedom, the randomness of the projectile finding the artery as it did and draining him of life in seconds. Gordon described how Melvin had essentially given his life for them, drawing the machine gun fire that allowed the others to cut down the sentry. Wills described in greater detail his unexpected escape early in the war, how it compelled him to stay and fight in the shadows.
“I can see why Hugo is so proud of you,” said Gordon. “I’m not sure I could have done what you did.”
“Oh, you could have. You would have,” responded Wills. “We have, each of us, done as the war demanded, haven’t we? For Ivy, it was taking in the children and loving them like her own, doing what their mums and dads were not in a position to do. For your wife, it was the hospital, working seven days a week sometimes, taking care of one hideously injured person after another, then spending a rare day off here in Elsworth to reassure your boy that all was well. Jack and the blokes at Kimbolton pounded the Germans with bombs, hoping to convince them to give up. And you, Gordon, did all the conventional soldierly types of things, didn’t you?” Wills smiled. “Getting captured, getting shot, almost dying several times. All those things in the soldier handbook. Among other things.”
“Yes, just that. Among other things, yes.”
“How’s it going? Being back, I mean.”
Gordon wondered how much to say. “I’m getting used to it, I suppose. I woke up today with a start, afraid I’d missed roll call. Walking around in public still feels odd. I have not yet adjusted to the notion that I’m not under guard or in danger of getting shot. I’m sure you felt the same. I have to remind myself when I eat that there will be more when I wish to eat again. I had it better than many, but I’ve spent five years rationing every morsel of food, stretching it as far as it would go, thinking about it constantly. Difficult to let go of that fear. One thing’s for sure: I shall never eat cabbage again.”
“For me, it’s moving around in the daylight again and remembering that everyone here is exactly whom they say they are—presumably.” They laughed at this. “I doubt our dear little Elsworth is home to a single Nazi spy, but I’ve got a wariness of people. I’d not used my real name in so very long and my wife has accused me of affecting a French accent, so I’ve developed a mild identity crisis, it seems. And then there is the remembering that I try not to do, but it comes to me anyway, all the things that went wrong, the people we lost. Why them and not me, you know? That’s in my head a lot of the time—what we could have done to save them if we’d known a bit more detail, arrived a few minutes earlier or later. I still wish I could have another crack at it, a re-play with a better ending. But we get no do-overs, do we?”
“If only,” responded Gordon.
“And with Beryl? Are things alright?”
“We’re adjusting. Still a bit in shock, I’d say. A lot has happened.”
“Indeed. You’ve both been through it. But the worst is over.”
“We shall see,” Gordon smiled, enigmatically, prompting a sympathetic look from his host.
That afternoon, the two men walked to the schoolhouse and when classes let out, Hugo and Colin skipped into the cold sunshine, smiling at this unprecedented event: their two fathers, waiting for them, together. Colin linked his arm through his dad’s for the walk to Kimbolton, Gordon declining the offer of Hugo’s bicycle as he was not confident he could stay upright one-handed. Hugo and Wills headed back to Boxworth Road, Hugo reluctant but understanding this was an introduction Colin wished to make by himself.
