Wake: A Novel (26 page)

Evelyn nods.
That’s what I would do. I’d do the same.

“That night, if I closed my eyes, I’d see Michael, strung up. I thought that was what was coming, you see.

“Next morning Captain Montfort calls me in again. He says that Hart is going to be court-martialed for desertion. He says he’s allowed someone to speak up for him at the trial. ‘Prisoner’s friend,’ it’s called. He says Hart’s asked for me.

“I ask him when the trial’s going to be and he tells me Thursday. I ask him what the day is today, he tells me Tuesday.”

He looks up at her, and there’s a silence before he speaks.

“And I know what’s going to happen then, I swear. All of it, from start to finish. Like it’s all written down in a book, like the Bible. Like I could skip through and see the last page already, and read the last line.”

Evelyn clenches and unclenches her thumbs. Her missing finger is hurting her. “What happened then?” she says. “What happened at the trial?”

He stands up, walks over to the window, puts his hands in his pockets, and gazes out. “My bit was nothing. I didn’t even get to see him. There was just me and two men with red on their uniforms in a small room. I was only in there a few minutes. I couldn’t get my words out right. I wanted to tell them how they’d got it wrong, how he was in a bad way after the last bit of action he’d seen, but they kept asking about him shouting on the march. Your brother had already told them about it, so they had him pegged and there was nothing I could say and that was that.”

He turns and steps to the fireplace, spits into the grate, and then rests his head on his good arm, leaning on the mantelpiece.

She watches him in the candle flame, guttering now; this small man, his shirt ridden up at the back, his braces hanging slack by his sides.

“You couldn’t see him, then?” she asks softly.

He lifts his head toward her. He is silent for a long moment. “Not then.

“Next thing, when we were finally out of that bit of line, they round us all up and they tell us that Private Hart has been found guilty and he’s going to be shot. And all I can hear is that phrase going round in my head:
Shot, shot, shot.
It’s my fault, I’m thinking, I should have found him. Should have brought him back. And I’m thinking, Have they told him? Have they told him yet? Have they told his mum? Because judging from that cake she sent she’s going to want to come out here and say good-bye.”

He gives a short, bitter laugh.

“Did they let them do that, then?” Evelyn says. “The parents. Did they let them say good-bye?”

Rowan snorts, a look of utter contempt on his face. “What do you think? You think they bus them out to wave before their lads are going over the top? You think they’re going to bring them over for something like this?”

Of course not.
She feels bile rise in her throat. She lights a cigarette to try to force it down.

He shakes his head. “But all the time I’ve been thinking, Captain Montfort has been speaking, he’s been reading off a list of names. I don’t hear it properly, though. Afterward they say to me, ‘Bad luck, isn’t it?’ ‘What?’ I say. ‘About the firing squad,’ they say. ‘Bad luck to be shooting a chum.’ And then I realize. I hadn’t heard it. But your brother had read out my name.”

He stares at her.

“Your fucking bastard brother read out my name.”

He is shaking.

She prays it won’t start. Not the fitting. Not now.

“They say to me, ‘You can go and see him if you like. He might like that.’ Like they’re doing me a favor. Like they’re doing
him
a favor, having me go to say good-bye.
All right, old chum? Sorry about the shooting. Bad luck it had to be me. Got any last requests? Anything I can tell your mum?

“They said I was supposed to go and see him at seven o’clock. But I didn’t go. I went off into the woods instead. And I just sat there, thinking. What’s he going to be thinking? On his own? I knew I should go there, to see him, but I couldn’t go.”

He stops in front of her, a look of utter anguish on his face. “Do you understand why I couldn’t go? Do you?”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I do.”

He puts his head in his hands. His back heaves once, twice. When he starts to speak again the words come quickly, as if he, too, needs to get to the end. “In the morning they march us out to this place in the middle of nowhere. And there’s a stump there.” He stops. “There’s a stump, just shoved there into the ground. And they line us up in front of it. And then they bring him out. They’ve covered his head in a sack and he can’t stand properly and he looks like he’s drunk. He might have been drunk. Someone told me that they fed them drink before it, so as they didn’t know what was going on. He’s got someone on either side of him, but he’s not standing on his own feet. They’re dragging him.

“Your brother comes down the line to check on us. And I’ve got my rifle in my hands and I’m thinking, I could shoot you instead.” He looks at Evelyn. “I would have done it, too. Happily. But then I’d be shot myself. And I had my Dora already by then and I wanted to go back.” His voice breaks. “All I wanted was to get back home.

“They’re tying him to this post and I can see he’s pissed himself. And the rest. You can smell it; he’s that close. And we’ve been told that we have to be quiet. Standing so he doesn’t know that we’re there. It’s so fucking quiet. And I’m thinking, Does Michael know I’m there? Can he tell?

“I wanted to say something to him, to let him know that he wasn’t facing it on his own. But I couldn’t. And I’d have been lying. Because he was on his own, wasn’t he?”

He puts his hands over his face, so that his head is held in the net of his fingers.

“He starts saying something then. He’s calling for his mum.
Mum, Mum, Mum.
”

Evelyn puts her hand to her mouth.

“And I start praying. Before, I always used to just move my lips a bit in school when they did the prayers. I’d never prayed properly in my life. I’ve got this one thing going over and over in my head. Forgive us our trespasses.
Forgive us our trespasses.
And as I’m praying I think,
What are you praying for, Rowan? There’s no one listening to you, is there?
So I just stop. And then your brother goes over and pins a white handkerchief over his heart.

“I’ve got a plan. I know I’m going to fire wide. So as it can’t be me, but then the man standing next to me, Private Jones—you could see why he had been chosen; he was a coldhearted bastard. But he just whispered to me. Shoot straight lad, he said. You’ll be doing him a favor. Aim for the hankie. Shoot straight.

“And then the order comes and I lift my gun and I fire.

“Afterward he’s slumped over and his head’s down. Your brother walks over to him. He can’t hardly walk straight himself. But he’s got to shoot him if he’s not dead, you see. He goes to take off the sack.”

For a moment, he stares at the empty air. Then he shudders.

“I can’t look. But there’s no shot. So he must be dead.

“Then we walk out. And after that I start to shake. I shake and I don’t stop. And I can’t feel my arm. The arm that fired the shot. After that it stops working, and it never starts again.”

He takes off his sling, so that his arm now hangs, wizened and useless by his side. He hits it. He hits it hard. He pummels it, over and over again.

Ada shapes the dumplings carefully in her palms, humming as she does so—the snatch of a melody she used to love to sing. She lifts the lid off the pan. The stew has been bubbling for hours and is a rich, burnished brown. There is a good cut of beef in there, some of the last carrots from the allotment, and the squash that Jack gave her on Sunday. It felt wonderful to slice it, to see the orange skin giving way to an even brighter flesh underneath. She ladles the dumplings into the stew one by one, and when they are bobbing on the surface of the sauce puts the lid back and brushes the flour from her hands. Moving seems easy. She feels lighter somehow, at once less and more like herself.

She puts her hands to her hair, twisting the strands. Earlier, she boiled water and washed her hair and then pinned it when it was still damp. Later this evening, if she takes it down, it will fall in waves. Jack used to love it like that. He used to love her hair in waves to her back. She lights a candle and takes it over to the table with her. She has bought a couple of bottles of ale. She opens one and pours a glass for herself to keep her company while she waits.

A family stands at an open window: a father, a mother, a daughter, and two small sons. The mother watches as the light spills onto the darkened garden below, illuminating the elm tree at the end of the grass, the swing that her children love. Beyond are the train tracks. The woman grew up in this village, in a house around the corner where her parents still live.

During the war, when she was standing in the garden, and her daughter was a baby, she would see the troop trains go past on their way to the coast. It was always exciting, at the beginning, to stop what she was doing—hanging washing, or playing with her little girl—and stand and wave, in the flower-filled garden. They loved it, the boys; they would wave back, furiously, shouting out, blowing kisses, their faces tight with pleasure and expectation. If the train stopped she would hold her daughter up, passing daisies and dandelions through the windows, which the troops would grab and put behind their ears.

Trains would come the other way, too: hospital trains, laden with bodies, bound for the wards of London. If she had her daughter with her, and a hospital train passed, she would usher her inside. She felt awful but didn’t like to think of it, the injured and the dying, so many thousands of them passing so close to her home.

Twenty-seven men from their village lost their lives. A memorial has been erected, just in front of the church. Twenty-seven names carved in stone.

But her husband came back safely somehow. She had never thought herself a particularly fortunate woman before. She knows that she is lucky now. Cannot escape it. On Sundays, in church, she can feel their eyes on her. Why her? Why him? What was so special about them?

The woman stiffens. She can sense the train before she hears it. Then the faint click of the wires. Click click, click click, click click.

“Here it comes,” she whispers.

Her daughter puts her hand in hers. Her two sons clutch at her skirts. Her husband moves behind them all.

It is upon them before they can think, a chaos of steam and sound. Two ordinary carriages, and then, in the middle, a different one, its roof painted white. They have just enough time to see the coffin inside, the purple lining of the carriage, the massive wreaths propped at either end, and then it has gone.

The woman exhales, leaning back into her family, into her husband’s strong grip, into her luck.

It’s over an hour and a half before Ada hears the back gate clang and Jack’s footsteps coming up the path. She stands and smooths her skirt and hair. Then the door opens and he is there, her husband, smelling of the pub and smoke and the cold outside air, the bulk of him filling the doorframe. It is as though she is seeing him for the first time. He catches in her throat.

He closes the door behind him, takes off his hat, and stuffs it in the pocket of his jacket. “What’s up?” he says, looking around.

“I was waiting for you.” It sounds silly, childish. “I mean, to eat,” she says, covering her embarrassment by going over to the stove. “I made some stew.”

“Stew?” He takes a seat, looking around suspiciously, as though sniffing the air for danger.

“And dumplings.” She tries to make her voice light, unconcerned. The beer has made her heady; she’s not used to drinking. “Are you hungry, then?”

“I am, yes.”

She ladles food onto plates, puts one down before him, and seats herself.

“What’s all this, then?” he says again.

“All what?” She pours him a glass of beer.

“This.” He gestures with his hand. “What’s it in aid of? And you. You’ve done something.”

“Have I?”

He narrows his eyes. “Something’s different. Your hair.”

“Oh—well…I just—put it up.” She can feel heat rising in her cheeks.

He takes a spoonful of stew, staring at her. “Why’d you do that, then?”

“I just—fancied a bit of a change.”

He nods. At first he eats slowly, but then, when he has tasted it, he starts spooning it up in great mouthfuls and doesn’t speak until he’s finished. “It’s good,” he says, wiping his mouth. “Is there any more?”

She stands and dishes him out another bowlful. He watches her as she crosses back toward him. She has hardly eaten anything herself.

“Something’s up,” he says. “I can tell.”

“I just—wanted to make something. For our anniversary. I wanted to mark it.”

“That was Monday.”

“I know. I just—today, I was passing the butcher’s. I thought to get some meat. Make something nice.”

“I thought you’d forgotten.” He looks pleased.

“No.” She shakes her head and takes her seat.

Look at your husband.

He wants to be seen.

She watches him as he eats, the width of his hands as they grip the spoon, the dark spray of hairs across the fingers.

She has the sudden thought that she should like to kiss him. Kiss him on the knuckles of his hands. She thinks about doing it—about catching him as he lifts his spoon. It would be easy. The distance is not far. The thought makes her smile and blush. He looks up and sees her staring.

“What?”

She shakes her head. But he seems to catch something of what she was thinking, because the air between them changes. It crackles. She can see an answering color in his cheeks. A different question on his face. He finishes and puts his spoon down on the side of his plate. There’s a silence, then, “You look nice,” he says. His voice is low.

“Thank you.”

He holds her gaze, watching her as though she is an animal. She feels an old, renewed power in her. They sit like that for a moment, then, “Come here,” he says.

She stands and crosses toward him.

He reaches for her hand, catches it, and rubs his thumb along her wrist.