The Swallow and the Hummingbird(9)

Faye and Alice walked into the house with the children. A weather-beaten red-brick farmhouse with small windows into rooms with low ceilings and wooden beams, it was typical of the 17th century. Trees was loath to spend money on repairs which he believed he could do himself, so in wintertime there were buckets to collect the rain that seeped through broken roof tiles, and rugs were placed over the stains in the carpets caused by the damp or mice. Classical music always resounded from either the gramophone or Faye’s own piano playing, and flowers spilled over vases in order to distract from the questionable decoration and chaos.

George held out his hands for Rita and she jumped down from the truck. They were both aware of the sexual tension that now quivered between them and their faces burned with anticipation. ‘Come with me to the beach after tea,’ he hissed into her ear. ‘I want to be alone with you.’ She felt his breath on her skin and nodded eagerly.

George was happy to change out of his uniform and to find his room exactly as he had left it. His mother had made sure it was clean and tidy, the only room in the whole house that remained unaffected by her chaos. He took a moment to sweep his eyes over the place that had once been his boyhood sanctuary and felt saddened, for the things it contained now seemed to belong to somebody else. To an innocent boy who had not yet grown into a man. He blinked away his wistfulness and pulled on a pair of slacks and a shirt, then remembered they were going to the cave later and wriggled his feet into a pair of brown boots.

Faye had prepared a cake especially for her son’s homecoming. They were fortunate enough to have fresh eggs from their chickens and butter from their cows, and the children had covered the icing with small sweets that Trees had acquired on the black market in exchange for a pig. There was a pot of steaming tea and china cups from the set they had been given as a wedding present, handed down from Trees’ parents. They sat in the sitting room, surrounded by the homely chaos of Faye’s artistic life. Little Johnnie tinkled the keys of the piano until Alice told him to sit down and eat his Marmite sandwiches.

‘Come on, sweetie,’ she said. ‘We can’t hear Granny’s nice music if you’re clanking around over there.’

‘I’ll teach you how to play it properly when you’re a little bit bigger,’ suggested Faye, watching him reluctantly slide off the stool. The child gazed at George with wide eyes full of curiosity.

‘I don’t want to play, I want to be a soldier like Uncle George,’ he whined and wandered over to help himself to a sandwich.

‘You can play soldiers with me any time,’ said George.

‘Do you have a gun? Grandpa has a gun and shoots rabbits. We ate a rabbit, didn’t we, Mummy?’

Alice smiled at him indulgently. ‘Yes, we did, Johnnie. It was delicious, wasn’t it?’

‘Do you shoot rabbits, Uncle George?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘Will you teach me how to shoot rabbits? Grandpa says I’m too little.’

‘Why don’t you go and fetch Granny’s box of toys,’ interrupted Alice, pushing him gently in the direction of the cupboard. ‘You know where they are.’ And Johnnie skipped off to find them.

There was a moment of silence as they all wondered what to say. George had been away for so long they didn’t know where to begin. Rita was speechless with love and admiration, and Faye was overcome with happiness marred by anxiety. She noticed something strange in her son’s countenance, something dark and unfamiliar. George knew that he could never describe to them the unspeakable horrors of war, that he could never share them with anyone. They were beyond any decent person’s comprehension. Only Trees knew how much he had changed for he had lived through the Great War. ‘So, son, how do you find your home?’ he said, and everyone looked at him with surprise for it wasn’t like him to indulge in small talk.

‘Nothing’s changed, Dad,’ he replied. He suddenly looked sad. He was sitting on the long stool in front of the grate, his knees apart and his arms resting on his thighs. The china teacup looked ridiculously tiny in his large hands. Shaking his head he gazed into the tea leaves. ‘Nothing’s changed. Everything’s just the way I remember it.’

How could he describe his sense of loss, his sense of guilt? He had survived when so many had perished. How could he explain the feeling of displacement that came from suddenly finding himself in his mother’s sunny sitting room, drinking tea out of pretty china cups, in a place untouched by conflict. The war may as well not have happened for them. They could never understand.

‘We had a good crop of winter barley,’ Trees continued, much to the astonishment of his wife who looked anxiously from him to her son.