IS THERE MORE TO LIFE THAN THIS?
ELLEN IS BURIED IN PADDINGTON cemetery and Tom weeps as the coffin is lowered, he feels so low. Normally a cheery chap, it is too much for him now. After the service he leaves the weeping crowd of people, and walks, and walks, it took him hours but he reaches the canal. There he slumps onto the grassy bank and sits with his head in his hands, wheezing.
“This life…” he says to himself
He looks up; there is the boatman with his horse pulling the coal boat.
“Hello young Tom”
But he just wants to be on his own, so he gets up and ran, he manages to reach the bridge before he slumps on to a stone wall. He gasps, he wheezes and splutters.
“Yes, take me” he says
After what seems like hours to Tom but is only minutes, he calms down. His breathing slows down and he walks off.
Tom finally gets home at midnight. Ivy isn’t there; she is being looked after by Mrs Bushnell and he just sits there in the dim light in an empty house. He sobs until he falls asleep in his armchair. The next morning he wakes up with a start as he hears the door open and Mrs Bushnell is standing there holding Ivy.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she says “and where were you last night?”
He jumps up and quickly rushes to his bedroom where he changes into his postal uniform.
Everyone notices at work that Tom is not a happy man; his clothes look as though they had been slept in and he is unshaven. They try to console him but he is too much down in the dumps, it had been too much even for a cheery chap like Tom. He needs to speak to someone but there isn’t anyone. His father is gone and mother is a misery. Mrs Bushnell herself has locked herself away in grief except when she comes round to the housework at his place. He gets through his day the best he can and goes home, he isn’t hungry and after sitting in his chair for an hour, he goes to bed.
He tries to sleep, although for hours upon hours he is in that twilight state, not quite asleep but not quite awake. He tosses and turns and eventually, he falls into a deep sleep. He dreams, this time he isn’t sure where he is, it looks like No Mans Land. He stands on a piece of solid ground that is wet, surrounding him is mud but he holds his Lee Enfield in ready pose with the bayonet attached. From the darkness appears Tommies all around him who are in various states of injury, they are from his old platoon. Bill with his missing finger, Big Bob with a lump of concrete in his head and blood pours down his face; Charlie is totally covered in blood. Other Tommies are there too, some with an arm missing, some with their chest peppered with bullet holes.
They hold out what arms they have and walk slowly towards him.
“Help us Tom” moans Charlie.
“Yes, help us” says Harry
He drops his gun.
“Please, leave me alone” he wails
“Help us Tom, help us”
As the Tommies walk forward, their legs start to sink into the mud.
“Help us”
The arms are almost within reach of Tom so he tries to move back but behind are more arms. He tries desperately to find a way out but he is surrounded by wailing Tommies.
“Help us”
They sink slowly into the mud.
“Help us”
Their faces disappear into the mud leaving their arms above the surface. Eventually, everything sinks away, leaving Tom alone again. He is panting. He looks all around and sees no one or anything.
“Please, I want to go home” he says meekly “I want to go home”
Suddenly, a hand pops out of the ground and grabs Tom’s leg, it pulls hard and he starts to panic. Then another hand, and another, and another. Several hands have now got Tom by the legs and start to pull him down. He is sinking into the mud himself, which starts to bubble with water.
“Help”
He is down to his waist now.
“Ellen, help me!”
He is down to his chest now.
“ELLEN” he shouts just as his face is about to disappear below the mud.
“ELLEN” he sits bolt upright in his bed. He looks to his left but the bed is empty, sweat is dripping down his forehead.
“Ellen?” he whispers
His hand pats the empty side of the bed. He pulls back the covers and gets up. He switches the light on, puts on his dressing gown and walks down to the kitchen. He goes straight to the sink, turns on the tap and splashes water on his face. He looks up, straight into the mirror at himself; he is appalled by the state of his aged skin. He pats his face dry with a towel and goes back upstairs. He takes his dressing gown off and turns the light off. As he sits down on the bed, he stops.
“Gran’pa” he says to himself “I’ll go see Gran’pa”
On his way home he pops in to see Grandpa William, he pulls up in his car outside his Grandfather’s home.
“Tom!” says Grandfather “come in, young lad, come in”
“Thank you Grandfather, although I don’t feel so young”
“If you were fifty years old, you’d still be young compared to me”
“Sorry, I just feel a bit glum”
“Losing Ellen?”
“Yes. And father”
“Hmm” Grandfather looks pensive
“And the war. That damn war. It took so much away; if it hadn’t happened then things might have been better”
Grandfather points a finger at Tom without taking his hands of his walking stick “but it did happen. Things won’t be any different, they are just the same. You can’t change them”
“Yes…but….”
“Hey, you think that if the war hadn’t have been you would have been any different? Would you have married Ellen if it wasn’t for the war? You might have still been single. All conjecture”
Grandfather stabs the floor lightly with his walking stick
“What has been has happened, all that matters is now. Do you think moping will make things better? What you need is your family. Your child. She needs you. Think of little Ivy”
“Ivy?” asks Tom meekly
“Yes Ivy” Grandfather stabs the floor again “she needs you, and you have your whole life ahead of you. That’s another thing you don’t know, how long you’ve got. There’s a tradition of long life in the Lane family… “
“But Father didn’t live long”
“Don’t you think I don’t know that? He was my son. I’m grieving as well you know, life goes on”
Tom looks down
“You may live long but you never know. Live each day because when it’s gone, it’s gone. You can’t say ‘ooh, I’d like to try it again please but with this and that added, oh and take these bad things away’. No, you only get one life”
Tom looks up
“Look what you’ve achieved so far, who’s to say what you will do next? You never stop Tom. You’re always doing something. Everyone in the neighbourhood knows who you are. Family, friends, neighbours. They don’t want to see a misery walking down the street, you inspire people. What they have seen is someone who went to war and came back”
“They don’t care”
“About the war? Nooo. They just care about their own lives. But if they see someone who is cheery, it makes them feel better. Often they don’t know why and can’t attribute it to anything. I’ve seen the way you make people smile, especially when you play that piano”
“I don’t have anything to be happy about”
“Of course you do. Ivy!”
Grandfather stabs the floor again with his stick “hmm?”
“I suppose”
“No suppose about it. You must continue to strive forward, whatever the problems. The feeling won’t ever go away, I know that when I lost my wife. But I never gave up. If I was fit enough, I would have gone to the Front, eh?”
A smile starts to creep across Tom’s face “you at the Front?”
“Why not? I would have given those Germans something to think about, not that I hate Germans mind”
Tom smirks at the thought of his Grandfather hobbling across No Mans Land on a walking stick with a Lee Enfield.
“That’s the spirit” says Grandfather
The rest of the year Tom spends in mourning, however, he took on board his Grandfather’s words and carries on the best he can, despite the illness. He throws himself into his music and plays whenever and wherever he can. The band still plays, not with the line up that got together after the war. With family life, band members come and go, but Tom is there still, playing his heart out. And when he can’t play in the band, he’ll play in whatever pub he is in at the time.
This particular evening sometime before Christmas Tom is in the Lancaster down in Kensington playing the piano. He is having a break and supping his beer. Ruby’s father is there.
“Evening Mister Baker” says Tom
“Please, call me Bertram”
“Alright…Bertram”
“You play the piano well”
“Thank you; it’s what I do best”
“How are coping without Ellen?”
“Well, I’m er… doing alright”
A cheer goes up on the other side of the pub. Bertram moves closer to Tom.
“Have you thought about our Ruby?” he says
“Ruby?”
“Yes, she would make a fine wife for you”
“Mister Baker!”
“Please, Bertram”
“No, I hadn’t thought about it”
“Well do. She already looks after your daughter and you need someone to look after you too”