Page 48

Chapter 48

November 1931

‘Will you and Rab be going up to the High Street on Wednesday?’ Ann was sitting at the kitchen table and in front of her was a cardboard box filled with brown envelopes and seed packets.

‘On Wednesday?’ replied Isobel.

She lifted one of Rab’s collarless work shirts from the pile in the ironing basket and put it on the ironing board.

It might just be an old shirt, worn when he was stripping wallpaper, but she still wanted him to feel loved and cared for.

‘Yes. For the Armistice parade.’

‘I’m not sure.

’

Ann took the envelopes out of the box and began to put them all face side up so she could read what was written on them.

‘Keith and I are going.’ She looked across at Isobel, who was positioning a chair below the central ceiling light.

‘Stop! Don’t do that until I’ve turned it off at the wall.

Do you want me to steady it for you?

’

‘Please.’ Isobel waited for the switch to be flicked and then climbed up and removed the lightbulb before fitting a two-way connector into the hanging socket.

She refitted the bulb into one side of the Y junction.

‘Pass me up that cable for the iron, would you? And then do the switch for me again once I’m finished so I can make sure it’s working.

’

When the iron was safely plugged into the light fitting and they could smell it starting to warm up, Isobel got down off the chair.

She licked her finger and dabbed it quickly on the soleplate.

‘Not hot enough yet.’

‘You can walk with us if you like?’

‘Mmmm?’

Isobel arranged the shirt across the ironing board and dabbed the soleplate with a wetted finger a second time.

‘That’s more like it.

’ She pressed down firmly on the slightly damp cotton, hearing a gentle hiss as the heat met moisture.

Ann knew her offer was being ignored.

She went back to arranging her collection of seeds in alphabetical order.

‘I thought I might try some more vegetables next year. You know, in the borders. I know that’s not how anyone else around here does their garden, but I don’t care.

’ She looked across at Isobel.

‘What do you think?’

Isobel appeared to be lost in thought as she pushed the nose of the iron into every pleat and fold of the shirt with a precision which absorbed her completely.

‘I was thinking giant leeks and perhaps a few zebras and a fleet of tadpoles?’

Eventually, Isobel realised she was being spoken to.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.’ She lifted the shirt off the board and arranged it on a coat-hanger.

‘What do you think about the seeds?’

‘I’m sure whatever you are planning will be splendid.

’

‘Isobel!’

‘What?’

‘You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said.

’

Isobel propped the iron up where it wouldn’t scorch the ironing board.

She came over to the table and sat down.

‘I was listening, actually. I just didn’t know how to answer you.

’

‘About Wednesday or about the tadpoles?’

‘Rab doesn’t want to go.

’ She picked at a bit of rough skin on her thumb.

‘He says it’s too difficult.

’

Ann nodded. ‘I thought there had to be something. Keith asked him and couldn’t get a straight answer.

’

‘It’s different for Keith.

He was too young to be called up, wasn’t he?

And all his classmates were the same, so they never went.

’

‘But?’

‘Well, Rab’s a couple of years older than Keith and most of his friends did go.

Once Kitchener and Derby got their hooks in, it was bound to happen.

’

Ann poked around at what Isobel wasn’t saying.

‘Rab only has the use of one eye, though, because of the lime plaster thing. He would have been exempt, surely?’

‘The government still tried to call him up. They said that as long as he could fire a rifle, he could serve his country.’

‘So what happened?’

‘It’s all very difficult for him.

’ Isobel shrugged. ‘It wasn’t straightforward.

He wanted to go and do his bit, but of course he had to pass a medical.

It was the same for everyone.

’

Ann waited. She had a dozen questions.

‘He went for the tests and they told him he had a problem with his heart, and it meant he couldn’t fight or be anywhere near the front line.

’

‘That wasn’t his fault, though.

’

‘I know that. And he knows it too. But almost all of his friends signed up, and quite a number didn’t come back.

’

‘Like Finlay.’

‘And Harris and Gregor.’ Isobel rearranged the shirt on the ironing board.

‘And a lot of those who did get home weren’t the same afterwards.

’

Ann leaned forward, trying to touch Isobel but she couldn’t reach her.

‘Like I said, it wasn’t his fault.

’

‘You don’t understand.

’ Isobel felt for the old penny which she still wore around her neck and rubbed it as though it might help her explain.

‘He has this guilt. He thinks he should have gone, regardless. It’s nonsense, but it’s how he feels.

And when he has gone to the Armistice parades in the past, he thinks everyone is judging him.

His friends that are there have medals on their chests, and he has nothing.

’ Isobel pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and her eyes filled with tears.

‘He wants to go so his friends will understand that he respects them, and that he believes what they did for the country, and for him , matters.’ She sniffed and wiped her nose.

‘But the guilt is terrible and he can’t stop thinking about it.

’

Ann ran her fingers along the grain of the wooden table, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.

‘I don’t think any of us are in a position to judge other people.

’

Isobel sat up straight.

‘I know that, but he won’t be told.

Last year he went to see a Pathé newsreel at the cinema and it was all about the Armistice parades around the country.

He watched the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London, and he said the King put his wreath down, then turned his back on it and walked down the steps.

And then he saw more news reels about other cities and he says everyone does it.

All these important people lay their wreaths and then they turn around and walk away, back to where they came from.

He says that’s what the world has done to all the men who were injured.

They have just walked away and left them to sort themselves out.

And he says it’s not enough.

’

Ann nodded slowly.

‘I can see why he doesn’t want to be there.

’

‘He is so angry about it. And guilt and anger at the same time is not a good combination.’ Isobel stood up again and picked up another damp shirt from the ironing basket.

‘So, if it’s alright with you and Keith, I think we’ll just stay here.

We might go for a walk instead.

’ She shook out the shirt.

‘He said last night that he wants to talk to me about something important, so we’ll enjoy just being the two of us for a few hours and we won’t go anywhere near any ceremonies. ’