the nights?’
He sees her hesitate, the struggle between loyalty and desperation painful to witness. ‘Bad,’ she says at last.
‘Nightmares?’
‘Worse than that. He wakes up and it’s still happening. I can remember him being like this when I was a little girl. I used to stand at the kitchen door and watch your gran try and get him back into the house. But he’d got over it, that’s what I can’t understand. He hasn’t had turns like that for years. And now it seems like it’s all coming back. You know, he thinks he sees Harry being killed. But the thing is, it’s not like he’s remembering it, it’s like he’s actually seeing it. He’s shouting “Harry” and waving his arms about and when you get hold of him he doesn’t see you, he’s in a world of his own. To be honest I’ve been frightened of him once or twice and it’s an awful thing because he never once lifted a finger to any of us when I was little. He was never a violent man.’
‘Look, when he comes out, I’ll do the nights.’
‘You can’t,’ she says immediately. ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘Not till October. I can manage the first few weeks.’ To himself he’s thinking (hoping?) that a few weeks may be all that’s needed. Shepherd said he could go any time. ‘You need your rest,’ he says. ‘You can’t do nights and days.’
She blinks doubtfully. ‘Well, if you’re sure. I can’t say it wouldn’t be a help, ’cos it would.’
On his way back to the hospital, Nick calls at Geordie’s house to check that everything’s all right. It’s typical of Geordie that he won’t surrender his independence and go to live with his daughter, though there’s never a week goes past that Frieda doesn’t try to persuade him. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m all right as I am.’
And until recently he was. He lives in a terrace of two-up, two-down houses, in what used to be a poor district, though now it’s rising rapidly as young professional people move in. It’s an attractive area, only a short drive from the city centre, yet the houses back on to woods and fields.
The house smells cold, musty and unlived in, though Geordie’s only been in hospital a week. Nick checks the windows and the back door, but everything’s secure. He goes upstairs, switches on the light in Grandad’s bedroom, not knowing what he’s doing here. Wanting some contact perhaps, some feeling of closeness that he doesn’t get from that semi-stranger in the hospital bed.
Two books on the bedside table. One’s called Soldier, from the Wars Returning and includes an interview with Geordie, though that’s not why it’s there. It’s there because of the inscription on the title page, To Geordie, with love and admiration, Helen .
The other’s a scrapbook for cuttings of his public appearances. Not many recent cuttings, only one in the last three months, but before that they come thick and fast. Grandad at the Imperial War Museum, talking to children in schools and colleges, on a televised trip to the battlefields, framed by the arches of Thiepval. The record of an ordinary man who, by living long, had become extraordinary.
On the table beside the wardrobe there’s a photograph of two young men in uniform, not obviously brothers, though they were brothers. Tinted sepia, drained of life and colour, as if the mud’s already reaching out to claim them. Born to die, that’s the impression, though only one of them did. Harry’s the one who copped it, dead in 1916, just before the Somme. Yet in the photograph the shadow of what’s to come seems to lie over them both. Eighteen years old, a self-conscious moustache framing his upper lip, Grandad looks closer to death than he did this afternoon, 101 years old, riddled with cancer, lying in a hospital bed.
Beside it there’s another photograph, a glossy Polaroid taken by Nick on a visit they’d made, earlier this year, to the battlefields. The last week of February, snow on the ground. No time for a
He sees her hesitate, the struggle between loyalty and desperation painful to witness. ‘Bad,’ she says at last.
‘Nightmares?’
‘Worse than that. He wakes up and it’s still happening. I can remember him being like this when I was a little girl. I used to stand at the kitchen door and watch your gran try and get him back into the house. But he’d got over it, that’s what I can’t understand. He hasn’t had turns like that for years. And now it seems like it’s all coming back. You know, he thinks he sees Harry being killed. But the thing is, it’s not like he’s remembering it, it’s like he’s actually seeing it. He’s shouting “Harry” and waving his arms about and when you get hold of him he doesn’t see you, he’s in a world of his own. To be honest I’ve been frightened of him once or twice and it’s an awful thing because he never once lifted a finger to any of us when I was little. He was never a violent man.’
‘Look, when he comes out, I’ll do the nights.’
‘You can’t,’ she says immediately. ‘When’s the baby due?’
‘Not till October. I can manage the first few weeks.’ To himself he’s thinking (hoping?) that a few weeks may be all that’s needed. Shepherd said he could go any time. ‘You need your rest,’ he says. ‘You can’t do nights and days.’
She blinks doubtfully. ‘Well, if you’re sure. I can’t say it wouldn’t be a help, ’cos it would.’
On his way back to the hospital, Nick calls at Geordie’s house to check that everything’s all right. It’s typical of Geordie that he won’t surrender his independence and go to live with his daughter, though there’s never a week goes past that Frieda doesn’t try to persuade him. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m all right as I am.’
And until recently he was. He lives in a terrace of two-up, two-down houses, in what used to be a poor district, though now it’s rising rapidly as young professional people move in. It’s an attractive area, only a short drive from the city centre, yet the houses back on to woods and fields.
The house smells cold, musty and unlived in, though Geordie’s only been in hospital a week. Nick checks the windows and the back door, but everything’s secure. He goes upstairs, switches on the light in Grandad’s bedroom, not knowing what he’s doing here. Wanting some contact perhaps, some feeling of closeness that he doesn’t get from that semi-stranger in the hospital bed.
Two books on the bedside table. One’s called Soldier, from the Wars Returning and includes an interview with Geordie, though that’s not why it’s there. It’s there because of the inscription on the title page, To Geordie, with love and admiration, Helen .
The other’s a scrapbook for cuttings of his public appearances. Not many recent cuttings, only one in the last three months, but before that they come thick and fast. Grandad at the Imperial War Museum, talking to children in schools and colleges, on a televised trip to the battlefields, framed by the arches of Thiepval. The record of an ordinary man who, by living long, had become extraordinary.
On the table beside the wardrobe there’s a photograph of two young men in uniform, not obviously brothers, though they were brothers. Tinted sepia, drained of life and colour, as if the mud’s already reaching out to claim them. Born to die, that’s the impression, though only one of them did. Harry’s the one who copped it, dead in 1916, just before the Somme. Yet in the photograph the shadow of what’s to come seems to lie over them both. Eighteen years old, a self-conscious moustache framing his upper lip, Grandad looks closer to death than he did this afternoon, 101 years old, riddled with cancer, lying in a hospital bed.
Beside it there’s another photograph, a glossy Polaroid taken by Nick on a visit they’d made, earlier this year, to the battlefields. The last week of February, snow on the ground. No time for a
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