Shoulder the Sky (25 page)

He switched off the engine, took his small case out of the boot, and went to the front door. It was unlocked. He hesitated before pushing it open. It was an idiotic moment, but just for an instant time telescoped and it was a year ago. Hannah would be in Portsmouth, Joseph at St. John's in Cambridge, but everyone else would be here. His mother would be pleased to see him, thinking what she could make for dinner that he would like.

His father would leave his study and they would take the dog and walk around the garden together, deep in contemplation, admiring the view across the fields without ever needing to speak of it, knowing its goodness with quiet certainty. The great elms would stand deep-skirted, silent above the grass. Starlings would whirl up against the sky, and the poplars shimmer gold in the sunset breeze.

He pushed the door open and went in. The first thing he saw in the hall was Hannah's daughter Jenny's blue coat on the hook by the cloakroom door. She was eight, and possibly at school today, but it was too warm for her to have needed it.

The dog came bounding up the hall, wagging his tail, and Matthew bent to pat him. "Hello, Henry! How are you, old fellow?" He straightened up and called Hannah.

There was a moment's silence, then she appeared from the kitchen. Her hair was almost the same colour as her mother's had been, and she had the same wide, brown eyes. It cost him all the strength he had to make himself smile. He must love her for herself, for her griefs and joys, not because she reminded him of someone else. She was probably missing Alys even more than he was. They had been so close, and now she was in so many ways taking her place in the village, trying to pick up the multitude of small duties, kindnesses, unseen things that Alys had done over the years. And she was living here in this house where the past was like an echo to every word, a reflection gone the moment before one glanced at the mirror.

Her face lit with surprise and pleasure. "Matthew! You didn't say you were coming! You just missed Judith, but I'm sure you know that!" She came towards him quickly, drying her hands on her long, white apron. She was wearing a plum-pink dress with a skirt fashionably close at the ankle, but he knew enough to see that it was last year's cut.

He put his arms around her and hugged her closely, feeling how quickly she responded. He must miss Archie dreadfully. She probably was not even allowed to know where he was. It was her duty to keep up the facade of confidence for their three children, Tom, Jenny, and Luke, and hide whatever her fears were, her loneliness or the long hours of gnawing uncertainty. And it was not only about Archie, it had to be about Judith and Joseph as well. If she had very little idea what life was actually like in the trenches, of the horror or the daily hardship, so much the better. He hoped Judith had been as discreet as she had promised.

Hannah drew back in surprise. "You're squashing me!" she said with a smile, but her eyes were searching his, afraid he had come with bad news. The closeness with which he had held her awoke fear.

He smiled back broadly. "Sorry," he apologized. "It's just good to be home, and to find you here." She had moved up from Portsmouth a few months ago. Archie seldom had leave, but when he did it was for long enough to come to Cambridgeshire. It was foolish to let the house lie empty and none of them had wanted to lease it to strangers.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

"No, but I'd love a cup of tea."

She led the way to the kitchen. It looked as it always had: blue and white china on the Welsh dresser, the brown earthenware jugs with 'milk' and 'cream' on them in white, the half-dozen large plates hand-painted with wild flowers and grasses on the wall. She had been making pastry, and the mixing bowls, white inside, ochre on the out, were still on the big wooden table.

She piled the coals in the stove, then pulled the kettle over to the hob. For a quarter of an hour they talked of the village, and people they both knew.

"Bibby Nunn was killed," she said, gazing at him over the top of the cup she was holding in both hands, as if she were cold. "They heard yesterday. Mae Teversham was one of the first to go to Sarah. Ridiculous, isn't it, that it should take a death that could have happened to either of them, to bring that stupid argument to an end? Both Mae's boys are out there too, and it could be her turn next. I think everyone feels that."

He nodded.

"And Jim Bullen from the farm on the Madingley Road lost his leg in France and he's now invalided home. Roger Harradine was missing in action. His father's grieving silently. He can't even speak of it yet, but Maudie still hasn't given up hope."

They had finished tea and were walking in the garden before he dared ask what she had heard from Archie lately.

She was staring at the weeds in the flowerbed. "I miss Albert," she said quietly. "I can't keep ahead of it. The children do as much as they can. Tom's pretty good, although he doesn't like gardening. Luke is too young, but he tries." She blinked quickly, turning away. She would say nothing to him, she would consider it disloyal, but he knew how hard it was for her without Archie. They all missed him, but she was the only one who knew the danger he was in. She read the newspapers and knew every time a ship went down. She hid her fear from them.

She took a deep breath, still staring at the raspberry bed that was Joseph's favourite. He couldn't pass it without picking half a dozen, when they were ripe. "He says he's fine," she answered his question. "Tom is praying the war will go on long enough for him to join the navy too," she said with an attempt at a laugh.

Matthew put his hand on her shoulder. "He's got a father to be proud of. You can't blame him for wanting to be like him."

"He's only thirteen!" she protested, her eyes blazing, swimming in tears. "He's a child, Matthew! He hasn't any idea what he's talking about. He thinks it's all exciting and brave and wonderful. He doesn't know how many men get maimed or killed, or how many are blown to bits. And when a ship goes down, they hardly ever save anybody'

"I know," he agreed. "But do you want Tom to have the same nightmares you do?"

She turned away sharply. "No! Of course I don't!"

"Then you'll just have to put up with it, and thank God he is thirteen, and not fifteen," he said as gently as he could. "And be glad Luke's only five."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, her cheeks momentarily flushed. "It was good to have Judith here, even if it was only a day and a half. She's changed, hasn't she?" She laughed as if at herself. "She's so competent lately, so ... full of purpose. She's just as emotional as ever, but now it all has direction. It seems almost wicked to say it, but the war has given her something. She's .. . found herself."

Matthew smiled in spite of not wanting to. "Yes." It was unarguable. The war had confused Hannah, divided her loyalties between the safety of the past and the needs of the present. It had faced Joseph with horror that stretched his faith beyond its limits; it had taken away all the old answers and left him alone to find new ones. It had destroyed Matthew's safety as well, and filled him with suspicion of everyone. There was no trust any more; he was totally isolated. But to Judith it had given maturity and purpose, something to do that mattered and, for the first time in her life, people who needed her.

"I wish I could," Hannah said quietly. "I'm trying to help in the village, the way I know Mother would have. But everything is changing. Women are doing jobs that the men used to. I can understand that." She was staring into the distance. Clouds were drifting in, bright, silent towers in the sky. "But they like it! Tucky Nunn's sister Lizzie is working in the bank in Cambridge, and she loves it. She's found that she's really clever with figures and managing. She wants to stay on, even after the men come back! She wants to get a lot of us organized to push harder for votes for women. I can't even think of an argument against it; I just hate everything changing."

He put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned a little towards him, comfortably.

"It frightens me," she admitted quietly. "I hate everything changing I mean any more than it has to."

He considered saying that it would probably all change back after the war, but he had no idea whether it would or not; or even if they would win the war. Part of him wanted to comfort her at any price, but just as he would never have lied to Judith, Hannah did not deserve it either.

"Let's get the men back before we decide who's going to do what," he said instead. "I have to go and see Shanley Corcoran this evening. I won't be here for dinner, but I'll come back for the night. If I'm late, I'll let myself in."

"Oh .. ." There was disappointment in her, and he realized again how lonely she was. There must be a million women over Britain who felt the same, and countless more over France, Austria and Germany too. He pulled her a little tighter, but there was nothing to say.

"Wonderful to see you," Shanley Corcoran exclaimed with enthusiasm shining in his eyes. He wrung Matthew's hands vigorously but with a familiar gentleness that awoke memories of childhood again, safety that seemed like another world, just accidentally placed in the same houses, with the same trees towering above, and the same broad summer skies.

"Sorry it's been so long," Matthew apologized, and he meant it. He had had to spend far too much time in London and old, safe friendships had suffered.

Corcoran led the way inside the high-ceilinged house, with its spacious Georgian windows, wide wooden floors and coloured walls whose richness had mellowed into warmth.

"I understand," he said, indicating a chair for Matthew to sit in once they were in the drawing room with its french doors on to the terrace. They were open, letting in the evening air and the sound of birdsong and the faint rustle of wind in the trees. Corcoran's face was grave. He was not handsome in a conventional way, but there was an intelligence and a vitality in him that made him more alive than other men, lit with more passion and more hunger for life. "We're all too busy for the pleasures we used to have. But what kind of a man grudges any blessing at a time like this?" He looked at Matthew with sudden concentration. "You look tired worried. Is it bad news?" There was a shadow across his eyes, an anticipation of pain.

Matthew smiled in spite of himself. "Only war news," he answered. "Judith was home on leave briefly and I saw her the day before yesterday."

"And Joseph?" Corcoran asked, still watching intently.

"It's a hard job," Matthew answered. "I don't know how I would try to tell men out there that there really is a God who loves them, and in spite of everything to the contrary, He is in control."

"Nor do I," Corcoran said frankly. "But then I've never been sure what I really believe." He smiled, a warm, intimate gesture of self-mocking humour. "I couldn't bear the thought that it is all random and senseless, or that morality is only whatever our society makes it. And yet if I look at it closely, organized religion has so many contradictions in logic, absurdities that are met with "Oh, but that's a holy mystery", as if that explained anything,

except our own dishonesty to address what contradicts itself."

His mouth pulled tight. "But far worse than that is the insistence on petty, enforceable rules to the exclusion of the kindness that is supposed to be the heart of all of them. If there is a God as the Christians conceive Him, there can be little room for blindness, hypocrisy, self-righteous judgement, cruelty, or anything that causes unnecessary pain, and there can be no place at all for hatred. And religion seems to nurture so much of it."

"Joseph would tell you it's human weakness," Matthew replied. "People use religion as a justification for what they wanted to do anyway. It isn't the cause, it's only the excuse."

Corcoran's eyes were bright. "Would he indeed?"

"For certain it's exactly what he told Father, to the same argument." Matthew could remember it as vividly as if it had been last week, although actually when he counted, it was over seven years ago. Joseph had been newly ordained to the ministry, not medicine as John Reavley had wanted him to be. But he had still been proud of Joseph's honesty, and his dedication to serve others, even in a different path. They had sat in the study by firelight, rain beating on the windows, and talked half the night. Matthew could see their faces in his mind: Joseph's so earnest, so eager to explain; John's calmer, with deep, slow-growing satisfaction that the argument had logic as well as passion, that right or wrong, it was not blind.

Corcoran was looking into the past as well, at a long friendship stretching back to their own university days when he and John Reavley had studied together, walked the Backs along the river in the sun, or sat up all night sharing philosophy, dreams, and long, rambling jokes.

"Are you worried about him?" he asked, bringing himself back to the present.

"Joseph?" Matthew asked. "No more than about anyone." It was not the truth, but he did not want to admit to Corcoran, or to himself, the weight of the burden he feared Joseph carried. "Tell me about yourself. You look .. ." he thought for a moment, 'full of energy."

Corcoran smiled broadly, lighting his uniquely vibrant face. "If I

could tell you about the Establishment here, you'd understand." His voice had a sudden lift of urgency. He leaned forward in his chair. "We have excellent men, brilliant and I use the term as your father would the best minds in England within their fields. I think much of this war is going to be won or lost in the laboratory, with ideas, inventions that will change warfare, perhaps even stop some of this terrible slaughter of men. Matthew, if we can create a weapon more powerful, more destructive than anything the Germans have, once we prove it to them, they won't throw more and more men into the battlefield where they cannot win. At first the cost would be high, but only for a short time, very short. In the end it would save hundreds of thousands of lives."