Daughters of Lace

Mary, 1942 - Chapter 3

Photo by Javier Cañada on Unsplash

Jim came home a few months after the wedding. He arrived without notice at five o’clock one afternoon, just as the watery sun disappeared and a cold wind blew up off the Trent River. He stood in the doorway, a shrunken figure, small against the doorframe, his uniform was neat, the St John’s Ambulance insignia wrapped around his upper arm. His face though, was shadowed by the peaked hat he wore low over his brow.

Mary let him in. He dropped his duffel bag in the hallway and made his way to the kitchen where the children were waiting for boiled eggs and toast ‘soldiers’ (little sections of toasted bread cut into slices for dipping into the soft yolk). When Harriet saw him, she burst into tears and then ran to him, and wrapped her arms around his body. George and Peter stood slowly and shook his hand. Little Frank cowered in his chair, his mouth wide open at the serious looking young man sitting down in the chair opposite him.

Jim tousled Frank’s head and smiled. The little boy smiled back, moved his chair to sit by Jim’s side and sat there, silent and staring, drinking in Jim’s aura. Harriet, unwinding herself, sat on the other side. 

‘Hiya,’ said Jim to his brothers.

‘Hiya,’ they mumbled back.

Mary took more eggs out of the pan and let them cool on the sideboard while she tore off some strips of newspaper, folded the ends over themselves, and then tucked one side into the, sitting it on its side, a nest ready for a boiled egg. Egg cups were a luxury many chose to forego for other items.

‘You and Dad are married then?’ asked Jim as Mary set a boiled egg and a cup of tea down before him.

Without thinking Mary covered her wedding ring with her right hand. She avoided looking at him as she replied.

‘Yes. Three months now.’

‘Congratulations,’ said Jim.

Mary nodded. Frank knocked some water over and Mary cursed as she grabbed a dish cloth to mop it up.

‘Where’s Dad?’ asked Jim.

‘He’ll be home soon.’

‘I’ll sleep in George and Peter’s room.’

‘You can have my bed,’ said Peter.

‘Thanks buddy,’ said Jim. His smile was brief, as fleeting as the sun in winter, a mirage of brightness and warmth before disappearing into grey once more. Mary noted pain in his eyes and a scar over one eye. His hands shook as he tapped his teaspoon against the eggshell, shattering it.

There was a bang as the front door closed. Frank ran down the hallway yelling, ‘Daddy, Daddy’.

Jim watched him go and shot Mary a questioning glance. Mary kept her eyes on the eggs as she spooned another one into a makeshift egg cup and put it into the spare place at the head of the table.

Henry appeared in the doorway. His eyebrows shot up when he saw Jim and in one bounding step, gripped Jim’s hand and shook it, holding it for as long as he could before Jim extracted it.

‘Son,’ he said.

‘Hiya Dad.’

‘Good trip?’

‘Long,’ said Jim. ‘We were transferred through Belgium and then London.’

‘How’s London looking?’

‘Bad,’ said Jim. ‘We thought St Paul’s might go but it’s still there. We had a day in London before the train left.’

Harriet, who hadn’t moved from Jim’s side, tugged at his sleeve.

‘We went on a train,’ she said.

Jim looked down at her and his eyes softened. ‘Is that so?’

‘Sh,’ said Mary, ‘Leave Jim alone now. He must be tired.’

Harriet’s face and body deflated like a balloon losing air. Jim patted her hand and she rose up again and gripped his arm in both hers.

‘I’ll hear about it later,’ he said.

‘You look different,’ said George.

‘Oh,’ said Jim. He picked up his knife and scooped some egg onto his toast. Mary noticed he took his time, picking the egg out carefully and spreading it on his toast in an up and down motion that seemed to take forever.

‘How’d you get that scar?’ asked Peter.

Jim dropped his knife, clattering onto the plate. It wasn’t loud, but the noise was sharp and surprising. Jim held his hands over his ears, screwed his eyes closed and groaned. Peter put down the spoon which was halfway to his mouth. Harriet let go Jim’s arm, while George and Frank stared at Jim with their mouths open. Only Mary and Henry continued fussing around the kitchen as if nothing had happened. Jim’s reaction seemed to last a long time but it was really just a few moments. He uncovered his ears, opened his eyes, noticed the children watching him, and blushed from the top of his neck all the way down to the roots of his hair.

He picked up some toast and nibbled at the corners.

‘Eat up,’ said Mary, pushing Harriet’s plate in front of her. ‘All of you, eat up and then go and play. Let your father catch up with Jim.’

A heaviness descended in the kitchen and the meal was finished in silence. Mary ushered the children out of the kitchen and into the sitting room where she took up her bobbins and continued with the lace design she was working on. Harriet took out her little notebook and started scribbling. George and Peter went upstairs while Frank lay on his stomach and drew on a scrap of paper Harriet gave him from her notebook.

The repeated twisting and weaving of the bobbins, clacking around each other, helped Mary forget a little about what was happening in the kitchen.

‘Mummy?’ said Harriet.

‘Mm?’

‘Jim looks different.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Mary. ‘Now be quiet while Mummy works.’

Harriet closed her lips over her big teeth, but they didn’t quite meet and she had a habit of sticking her tongue out when she wrote. She concentrated on her little story and Mary was left in peace to think about Jim’s arrival and what it’d mean for the people in Plumptre Square.

She heard murmurings from the kitchen but no distinct words. Although she quietened Harriet, Mary thought Jim was different too. She knew of other young men, returning, wounded in body, mind and soul, their inner selves hollowed out by what they saw on the front line, the horrors of death made real. It was obvious Jim was breaking, anybody could see that. He was too young for this war — too innocent — a world revealed in gory detestable actions and although Jim wasn’t fighting, he saw first-hand the effects of men doing unspeakable things to other men. He was tending wounds that would never heal, sealing scars that would never close. She couldn’t imagine what he was going through but she saw its effects.

Jim left the next morning, promising to return once more before his leave ended but they didn’t see him again until near the end of the war.