Page 64

Chapter 64

July 2011

When Tess and Baxter come down for breakfast in the morning, the second box is open and Georgia has already started to make an attempt at organising things.

‘Tea?’ offers Tess.

‘It will be CT3 for me; I was up early. But yes, tea and toast. And marmalade as well, please.’

‘Are you getting anywhere?’

‘Sort of. This is Finlay’s box.

There are a lot of school exercise books, and what looks like university notes.

And there are these.

’ Georgia has already laid some items out on the table.

‘Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, the First World War medals.’ The medal ribbons are bright, but the medals themselves are dull metal.

‘Everyone got them, pretty much. It looks as though Finlay gave up university to go and fight because he was there from 1914 but sadly he didn’t last until the end.

’ She picks up a letter and hands it to Tess.

‘This is from his commanding officer. He was killed during an offensive in France and led his men courageously, whatever that means.’ Her voice drops.

‘I suppose whatever the circumstances were, being described as brave might have been some comfort to the people who loved him.’

She picks up a square of brown cardboard, folded in on itself, the diagonals looking like the start of a child’s fortune teller.

‘And this is a Dead Man’s Penny.

They were issued to the families of the fallen.

’ She slips the metal disc out of the cardboard sleeve and passes it to Tess.

It’s dark grey, almost black, and about five inches across.

‘His name is on it, see? And the date that he died. Some families had special stands made so they could put the medal on a mantelpiece as a remembrance. But that happened later.’ She paused.

‘Annie always left the scullery door open for him, as Ursula had.’

‘Why?’

‘Because his body was never found. She didn’t believe that he was gone, even though they went to see the place where he was supposed to have died.

It’s the reason they weren’t here for the census in 1921.

’

‘Could that explain why there were all those notes about trains and ferries?’

‘Possibly. She said that if for some reason he couldn’t tell anyone he was on his way home, she might miss him.

He might arrive on the train at Waverley and walk up from the station to surprise them, and find the door locked.

Ursula was worried that if he couldn’t get into the house he might go away again and they would never know, so the scullery door was never locked, just the kitchen door.

And there was always a chair set aside every evening, and a piece of bread in a tin, and a bottle of ale.

’

‘In a tin?’

‘To stop the mice.’

‘But he was dead?’

‘She never believed it. She was convinced he was still alive.’

‘I suppose you can see how she might have thought that, if he was never found.’ Tess turns the black disc over in her hands and reads the inscription.

‘It was a compulsion. She told me that in the end everyone stopped commenting and just let her do it. And I suppose if it allowed her to sleep at night, then what was the harm?’

‘You leave the door open now.’

‘It’s what I grew up with.

I just continued with it.

And occasionally a lodger has stayed out late or lost a key and I have found them asleep on the chair in the scullery in the morning.

’ Georgia smiles. ‘But I don’t leave bread and ale out for them.

’

‘Is there anything else in there?’

‘There is a photograph of him. That’s the last thing.

’ Georgia studies the black and white photo and automatically unpinches her fingers over it, as though to enlarge the image.

‘He looks like a fine young man. Most of them were.’ She draws it closer to her face.

‘He has grown a moustache, see? And he’s in his uniform.

I think he wants to look like an officer who leads his men.

’ She props the photograph up against a pile of cookery books on the dresser.

‘Welcome home, Finlay. I’ll get you a proper frame very soon.

’

‘What do you want to do with his medals?’ Tess says gently.

‘Back in the box for now. They’ll be safe there.

And the Dead Man’s Penny as well.

’ She pulls herself back to the present.

‘We can do the last box after lunch. We’ll eat in the garden, under Finlay’s tree. ’