Read Online Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson - Free Book Online Page B

home after the second battle of Ypres; he’d been in hospital in Southport with a septic foot and was given a few days’ leave before going back to the Front. It was odd because before the war they’d hardly known him yet now he seemed like an old friend and when he came knocking at the back door they both hugged him and made him stay to tea. Nell ran out and got herrings and Lillian cut bread and put out jam and even Rachel asked how he was doing. But when they were all sat round the table, drinking their tea from the best service, the one that had gold rims and little blue forget-me-nots, Frank found himself unexpectedly tongue-tied. He had thought there were a lot of things about the war he wanted to tell them but was surprised to discover that the neat triangles of bread and jam and the prettiness of the little blue forget-me-nots somehow precluded him from talking about trench foot and rats, let alone the many different ways of dying he had witnessed. The smell of death clearly had no place in the parlour of Lowther Street, with the snowy cloth on the table and the glass-bead fringed lamp and the two sisters who had such soft, lovely hair that Frank ached to bury his face in it. He was thinking all these things while chewing his bread and casting around desperately for conversation, until with a nervous gulp from the gold and forget-me-nots he said, ‘That’s a grand cup, you should taste the tea we get,’ and told them about the chlorinated water in the trenches. When he saw the look of horror on their faces he felt ashamed that he’d ever wanted to talk about death.
    They, in turn, told him about Billy Monroe and he tut-tutted in the right places although secretly he wished he had a mother who could somehow – anyhow – prevent him having to return to the Front because Frank knew he was going to die if he went back to the war. He listened politely while they told him about all the things they were doing – they showed him their knitting – they’d stopped knitting for the Belgians and now they were knitting socks for soldiers, and Nell told him about her new job, making uniforms, where she’d just been made a forewoman because of her experience with hats, and Lillian was working as a conductress on the trams and Frank raised both eyebrows and said, ‘Never!’ because he couldn’t imagine a woman conductress and Lillian giggled. The two sisters were so full of life that in the end the war was left more or less unspoken of, except, of course, to say that Jack was well and sent his love and that he hadn’t seen Albert at all but he was a lot safer behind the big guns in the artillery than he would be in the trenches.
    And Rachel, the toad in the corner, unexpectedly spoke up and said, ‘It must be dreadful in those trenches,’ and Frank shrugged and smiled and said, ‘Oh it’s not too bad really, Mrs Barker,’ and took another drink from his forget-me-not cup.
    Frank spent most of the rest of his leave with one or other of the girls. He took Nelly to the music-hall at the Empire and Lillian took him to a meeting at the Educational Settlement but it was a bit above his head. They were all Quakers and conchies and socialists and they kept on about negotiating an end to the war. Frank thought they were a load of slackers and was glad he was in uniform. ‘Do you think you should be mixing with folk like these?’ he said to Lillian as he walked her home and she just looked at him and said, ‘Frank!’ and laughed. More enjoyable was when all three of them went to see Jane Shore at the New Picture House in Coney Street which had just opened and was really grand with its one thousand tip-up seats.
    When he had to go back to the Front he felt worse than he had done leaving the first time and he could hardly bear to leave Nell and Lillian behind.
    Lillian and Nell had plenty to occupy them after Frank went back. They worked long hours and they still had Rachel to contend with, although even she wasn’t