1919
THE NEW YEAR AND THE winter is cold again; a flu epidemic hits the country. Tom goes round to see his parents and his mother lets him in.
“Your father’s ill” she says as soon as he walks in “he’s got flu”
But he doesn’t listen and goes straight upstairs as fast he can manage to the bedroom.
“He won’t want to be disturbed” shouts mother from the bottom of the stairs.
He walks into the bedroom and sees his father there lying in bed, it reminds him of that day in Beaversbrook. Tom senior looks up “Hello son” he croaks
“Hello father. How are you doing?”
“Alright” he said although Tom knew that he wasn’t, the flu had killed many people already over the country.
“After all we’ve been through at the Front” wheezes father “we have to succumb to this”
“I’m sure you’ll get better, you did it before”
The two men sit in silence. Tom coughs. His father turns his head and wheezes “you need to be careful son. In your condition you do not want to get the flu”
“Sorry father, but I worry about you”
“Don’t be silly. I’ve got my family; you need to see your little girl grow up”
Another silence.
“She’s rather a sweet little girl. She looks like Ellen, you know” says father
Mother comes in with some hot tea.
“I think it’s time for you to go son” wheezes Tom senior.
Tom stands up and walks to the door.
“I’ll pop in again tomorrow father” then he walks out.
But Tom doesn’t see his father the next day because he himself has been exposed to the flu virus. He is in bed feeling sorry for himself while Ellen called the doctor out who examines Tom. He wraps up his stethoscope and turns to Ellen as he put his instruments into his case.
“Keep him indoors, don’t let him go to work and make him drink plenty of water”
The doctor leaves the house while Tom wheezes. Ellen sits down next to the bed and watches her husband gasp for air while he turns his head slightly and looks up at her. All she can do is lay a hand on Tom’s shoulder to reassure him.
Mrs Bushnell is at home in Kensington and bounces Ivy up and down on her knees.
“Whee!”
The little girl giggles. Mrs Bushnell stops and sits in silence.
“Your Mummy will be here soon, don’t worry, it’s just that she can’t leave your Daddy alone”
Ivy gurgles.
“Your Daddy will get better you know”
The baby turns her head towards her Grandmother and gives a toothless grin.
“I hope he’ll get better” she says
Ivy gives a scream and waves her arms around.
“Alright, here we go”
She bounces the baby up and down on her knees.
“Whee!”
A week passes and the doctor is at Tom’s side again holding the sick man’s wrist.
“Hmm, seems like a healthy pulse to me”
Tom coughs.
“So, I’m fit and healthy again”
The doctor gently put Tom’s hand down.
“Not by a long way. Your chest sounds like it still has a lot of stuff to get rid off, but that could be your war wound”
The doctor slips his stethoscope in his bag.
“I’d stay in bed for a while longer if I were you. You’re not ready to go back to work yet”
“But I can go down the pub then?” says Tom with a grin
“You stay in bed for another few days at least”
He turns to walk out of the room and looks at Ellen
“Good day Mrs Lane”
“Good day doctor, and thank you”
The doctor goes and Ellen walks over to Tom, bends over and then tucks in a sheet.
“How’s my father, have you heard anything?” Tom asks
“He’s fine” replies Ellen with such assurance in her voice “he’s up and about, fit as a fiddle”
“Good old Father, he never gives up, does he?”
Tom is bored being stuck in bed all day so he gets up and staggers to the piano where he plays a little, the March sunshine beams through the windows. He stops playing for a bit, listens the birds singing then plays some more. Ellen walks into the room, she is coughing a bit. Tom stops and turns on the stool towards her.
“You know, I’d love to get back into the big band stuff, I really miss it”
“You get better first before you start thinking about things like that”
“Yes, the big band sound”
He carries on playing the piano while Ellen carries on coughing. Tom stops playing.
“Are you alright?” he asks
“I’m fine, just a little chest infection. I’ll be right as rain in a few days time”
Both Toms survive and are better or at least to the condition they were at before they caught the flu. However, Tom senior seems to retain a little of the symptoms and although he goes back to work, he can never fully recover. Tom has spent two weeks off work but is now fit enough to go back to work at the depot at Regents Park where he works until Wednesday May 7th, when he is himself discharged from the army to return to work at the Post Office. The army has sent the relevant letters to the Postmaster and all the paperwork has been sorted out.
He gets ready for work, pins his medals to his postal uniform jacket and an hour later he walks into the sorting office, albeit slowly, down the gap in between the crowd of postal workers who are mainly old or very young. There were a few men who had been in the war and return relatively unscathed but not many, he is one of the few. The main difference Tom notices though was there are more women postal workers. Occasionally, a man takes Tom’s hand and shakes it. He sees Bill there too.
“Welcome back Tom”
A few murmurs round the back of the crowd “yes, welcome back”
He gets to the end and the Postmaster is standing there with a sack.
“Welcome back, Tom. I hear you had quite a time at the Front” and he hands Tom his sack of letters.
At first he tries delivering letters but a two hour delivery takes five hours as he has to constantly rest. His breathing won’t allow him to walk far before he has to sit down. On this particular day the sun is shining Tom sits down on a low wall wheezing with his hands by his sides on the wall. He feels something on his hand and looks down, it is a Labrador that looks at Tom with big brown sad eyes, one of the dogs he used feed before he went away and the dog remembered Tom.
“Sorry mate, I haven’t any chocolate for you” he says as he strokes the dog’s head.
“Well, I have to go. See you”
He gets up and walks down the road, wheezing. The dog’s eyes follow him and he can see that Tom isn’t at all well and gives a whimper.
At the sorting office the main sorting area is nearly empty of postal delivery people, there are a few people milling around sorting letters. The Postmaster comes out of his office “where’s Lane?”
Everyone nods their heads.
“He’s been gone five hours” looking at his wrist watch.
He turns to walk back into his office when one of the sorters calls him back and as he turns, Tom walks into the main room with his empty sack gasping for breath.
“Tom? Are you alright?”
Tom sits down and gasps “yes…I’m fine”
The Postmaster isn’t convinced but walks off and leaves Tom sitting there gasping for breath.
Tom walks home that takes over an hour, a journey which normally takes twenty minutes. He opens the door of his home, hangs his jacket up and drops into his armchair where he falls asleep. At five o’clock, Ellen wakes him up for dinner. Ruby Baker who lives above Ellen’s mother was there looking after young Ivy while Ellen cooks. She picks up the baby and put her in her high chair, Ruby is now sixteen and often helps out with the baby when she has finished work. Ivy has a wooden clothes peg in her hand and is chewing it but Ruby gently pulls the peg away while Ivy giggles and waves her arms around. Ellen dishes up the food and turns to Ruby and says “you can go now Ruby. Thanks for your help”
The young girl puts on her coat “alright Mrs Lane. Bye Mr Lane” and with that, she is gone.
Tom sits at the table and says to Ellen as she put the dinner plates down “I must get some chocolate”
“Oh! For me?”
“No, for the dogs on my round. I didn’t have any for the Labrador today”
Ellen looks slightly disappointed. After dinner, Tom falls asleep in the armchair again.
At 8 o’clock, he wakes up and put his coat on and walks, although very slowly, to the pub. There he drinks with some old mates, the rest not coming back from the war.
“Tom!” shouts someone across the not so crowded bar room.
“Over here”
As Tom walks over, he can see the man standing by the piano.
“Come on Tom, give us a tune”
He doesn’t need much encouragement and sits down and plays without getting breathless doing this, he has plenty of energy for it. It isn’t long before people gather round for a sing-along along with half pints of beer for the piano player.
The next day Tom goes to work. He is late again and as he walks into the sorting office wheezing, he is called into the office.
The Postmaster says “Tom, someone has gone out on your round”
“What?”
“Sorry, but it cannot be not noticed that you are finding it a strain to complete your round on time. I’m afraid I have no choice but to put you on sorting duties”
“But I like my post round”
“I know, but we need to get those letters out, and you er… find it difficult to keep up. Go to bin 42 and help out there”