The Solider's Home: a moving war-time drama Read online

  ‘I’m not sure I want to share you with even one soap-seller.’

  ‘Share me? Vermande, there’s a “me” and a “you” no-one will ever know and never share – not till the ending of the world.’ He stood there, naked in the fire-place.

  ‘Grin you oaf – I’m right!’

  He tried not to grin and it burst past him. ‘Get dressed – yeah?’

  ‘We’ll have to walk...’

  ‘Don’t you believe it, man.’

  She was right. The first car stopped right by her thumb and in she bounced and in he followed and she was right again because he sat enchanted in the back watching her charm the driver.

  She took his hand as they strolled down past the school to meet the circle of shops that is Maurs La Jolie.

  ‘Made a list?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘In your head. Shopping?’

  ‘There’s nothing I want.’

  ‘Tobacco?’ she prompted.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he almost blushed and she hugged into his shoulder. ‘And my jacket.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I left my jacket at the station. With a sandwich. For you.’

  ‘I don’t want it, thanks.’

  ‘No, but the jacket must be there.’ He laughed. ‘No-one’ll have taken it, that’s for sure.’

  She suddenly turned him and placed his back flat into the wall of a house. She was grinning into his eyes.

  ‘Listen to me, Jacques. I have money. O.K.? Let me buy you a jacket. Will you let me shop for some things that will be a tiny touch of me when I’ve gone.’

  She saw terror ransack his mind, watched him tell himself not to feel those things, and she stood on tip-toe to lay her cheek against his to still his whirling thoughts. Only when the warmth in their cheeks was equal did she draw her face back enough to fill his vision.

  ‘It’s stuff, Jacques. You and me... If Janatou is my house, my home, I’d like to furnish it and you a little. Please. That’s all.’

  ‘And will you be so fine and easy when you have to leave?’ She flushed.

  ‘Of course not.’

  She took a whole pace back to look again, at all of him. ‘Aren’t we equals? Aren’t we?’

  ‘No Simone. You have half my life to go back to and I’ll be left with much less than half my life.’

  ‘Yes, and I’ll lose you. Again. For ever. Do you think I think that’s a great idea?’

  ‘It’s what is.’

  ‘That’s right. For both of us.’ They stood, staring again.

  She reached for his hand. It met hers.

  ‘Should we really spend this time discussing the inevitable. Jacques?’

  ‘I can’t deny it.’

  ‘Me neither, love. I hate it, do you hear me? You and him are the best of my life. And I hate that it can’t be here.’

  Their eyes locked.

  ‘What if you become pregnant?’

  ‘What if you sold Janatou?’

  ‘And come to New York?’

  ‘Come to us, yes.’

  ‘I did everything – I built – so you could come to me. Come home.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  He stepped away from the wall, closer yet to her eyes, his hands gripping into her shoulders.

  ‘Sell everything there – come home! To me. Bring him home to me.’

  Tears in his voice – tears in her eyes.

  ‘I have nothing there to sell, Jacques. I have nothing! Nothing but debts. Jacques – I’m poor!’

  He looked at her clothes. She didn’t know the meaning of the word.

  ‘But you have money to buy me clothes? David’s money?’

  ‘No! The remains of our jars and Jack and I agreed I should spend it on you.’

  ‘And the debts – David will pay?’

  ‘I... Yes.’

  ‘So you’re selling yourself to him?’ A beat.

  ‘If you want to look at it that way.’

  ‘Tell me another – because I’ll have to live with it. While I dust the things you bought me. Teach me how you want me to think of you. Wife.’

  ‘Mother is what I am. I’m no-one’s wife. I’m his mother and he deserves better than I can give him. By myself.’

  ‘I should give him the rest.’

  ‘Yes! You should. Only tell me how.’

  A boy-man holding hands with a girl-woman, their eyes searching for the invisible.

  People passing slowly, looking.

  ‘Only tell me how I afford to bring him here.’

  ‘I don’t know how.’

  ‘Neither do I.’ A long quiet.

  ‘But Simone, I don’t want ‘things’.’

  ‘O.K. I know you don’t. But I have a need to leave a thing or two in the home you made for me.’

  A quiet. ‘O.K.’

  Another quiet moment. ‘Then can we go shopping?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They made to walk.

  She said, ‘Even if you throw them away when I’ve gone.’

  ‘I did that already. I won’t again.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Did you go mad, my Jacques?’

  ‘I went – very private. After yesterday – that feels mad. But I shall have to deal with it again.’

  ‘And me. And me.’

  ‘Let’s not talk in circles. That is mad.’

  ‘It is. Let’s distract ourselves. That’s what shopping is.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know.’

  ‘It only works temporarily – but it is the best thing to do with money. Come on.’

  They took one pace before he spoke again. ‘And you will be a wife. David’s.’

  She stopped.

  ‘If you bless us, yes I will. But it cannot be like you and me.’

  ‘No?’

  Her smile surprised him because through the grin she said, ‘I shall slap you!’

  ‘Why? I shall slap you back.’ She laughed to cover her shock.

  ‘You wouldn’t? Jacques Vermande! Would you?’

  Jacques considered. ‘No. But, why would you?’

  ‘To slap the sense into you that Nothing, no-one and certainly never David could be like us. Could they?’

  Her eyes demanded an answer. ‘The you and me who want to go looking for soap? Then we can wash to sex. Do you think?’

  ‘I hope not.’

  She laughed so loud a couple of shoppers turned to stare. To his horror she now spun on her heel and included them as she spoke. ‘Do you think any of these people are like me and you? Yes or no?’

  He blushed puce and whispered, ‘No.’

  ‘Sure you’re not saying that just to shut me up?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We are the only lovers in the world, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We agree?’

  ‘We agree.’

  ‘Let’s shop.’

  Jacques walked the shops of Maurs and watched his woman buy soap, tobacco, a plain blue denim work-jacket, a pair of cord trousers that would last, two paintings, a razor – despite his mouthing, ‘No’ – a bunch of flowers, a vase, a pot-plant; she went into a pet-shop but came out empty-handed. ‘No parrots,’ she tutted and dived into an antiques shop. She came out with a crude painting of a vase of flowers and a couple of old magazines. ‘That’s it. What about you?’

  ‘I was thinking about chickens...’

  ‘Let me buy you some!’

  He held her arm and spun her back to him, ‘I need to think about it.’

  ‘No time like the present.’

  ‘Simone. Stop now. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Am I all of a flurry for you?’

  ‘I don’t know what that means – but yes.’

  ‘O.K. What about tea tonight?’

  ‘Enough – we’re going home now.’

  He took her elbow and guided her back towards the road to Janatou.

  ‘Are you mad? Cross, I mean?’

  ‘Not a bit – but I have had t
ime to think about food. In the four weeks since your letter came.’

  ‘Wine?’

  ‘I have some.’

  ‘Shall I shut up?’

  ‘Just put your thumb out and get us home, eh?’

  He cooked and she arranged flowers and hung the two miniature paintings. One was a violent oil of a storm wave crashing on a boiling ocean; the other a bearded male nude. He laid the table and she opened up the back of the frame of the painting of the vase of flowers to remove the canvas.

  ‘Do you like this?’ she held the painting up to him.

  ‘Er...’

  ‘Nah, it’s crap.’ And she tossed it on the fire. He stood amazed.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You paid for that!’

  ‘We don’t want it.’

  His jaw moved but words didn’t appear. ‘Still I burned it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They looked at each other. ‘You burnt a bed you said.’ A beat.

  ‘I did, yes.’ His body was turning back to the cooking. ‘So?’

  ‘So – nothing.’

  ‘We don’t need it?’

  And slowly he smiled and she smiled and she went back to the empty frame and he to the food.

  They washed away and he smoked into the evening and watched as she went slowly through the two magazines she’d bought, taking the scissors to cut out a fragment of a page, making a careful pile of her choices by the foot of her chair.

  No words.

  As the sun dipped he went outside and the sky was that empty-before-stars and very still.

  ‘We can wash tomorrow – it’ll be warm out there,’ he said when he came back.

  She nodded.

  They made love once and slept as a secular pieta.

  ‘What time will Sara come?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t have that kind of time.’

  ‘Will she bring Zoe?’

  ‘I don’t know. She may not come – she doesn’t always.’

  ‘After Mass. Does she walk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, afternoon?’

  ‘If she comes.’

  They lay, her fingers in the hairs of his chest, printing visual and sensory images in her mind.

  ‘Tell me about Sara.’ There was a loaded quiet.

  ‘Don’t mention Sara in that way.’ She sat up.

  ‘What way?’

  His voice was gentle; his eyes were full and dark.

  ‘It has nothing to do with you – and I hate that you wish something to happen so you would be...’

  ‘No,’ she interrupted, ‘so you could be...’

  ‘You can’t know what I’d be.’

  ‘Neither can anyone till they try.’

  ‘I’m not experimenting with Sara.’

  ‘She loves you.’

  He sat up, their bodies no longer touching.

  ‘If you are going to say this when she comes – I shall go elsewhere for the day.’

  ‘But isn’t it true?’

  ‘It has nothing to do with you.’

  ‘So, some part of it is true.’

  He threw the bed-clothes aside, stepped from their bed and began to dress.

  ‘You’re angry?’

  ‘I’m invaded.’

  ‘Good God!’

  He buttoned his trousers.

  She pulled the sheet up to cover her nakedness. ‘A lot of it is true, then.’ Simone said, sad.

  He opened the door. ‘Don’t you dare leave!’ He turned, shocked.

  ‘The last thing we have is time for either of us to sulk. Jesus!’ Jacques heard an ancient echo of Arbel, ‘Don’t take his name.’

  She drew her knees up in the bed and said, ‘But I will mind my own business.’

  He looked at Simone.

  ‘Is David your business alone?’

  ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’

  ‘He’ll be the father of my son. Is he your business alone? He’s already more friends with Jacques than I will ever be.’

  ‘What’s your point? What do you want to know?’

  ‘I used to think – about me and Sara. When I was thirteen. Because she laughed. And because she had – big tits.’ A blush started but he rushed on. ‘And Madame Lacaze – the night we took you – to Souceyrac – took both of you – that night – she said Sara. And I. Me. Should have. But Sara chose Jerome. Or he her. Doesn’t matter a fig. Because – you came. You.’ His body faced her squarely now. ‘You, Simone with no surname and no birthday. You came. You who are all my Love. All My Loving. My whole Life. Don’t you know that?’

  She spoke as slow as gathering tears.

  ‘Yes. I do. And you mine. But Jacques, we have these few racing hours and then – new lives. Less life each maybe. Me with my sugar-daddy, as they’ll call him. And can’t you be with someone who loves you?’

  ‘Don’t speak about that. And doesn’t this man love you?’

  ‘Yes, I believe he thinks I’m worth loving, yes. But not as Sara could love you. Don’t you see?’

  ‘I don’t think – I should talk about Sara with you. I feel...’ she watched him reach for the words, ‘that I’m dishonouring her.’

  ‘O.K. I understand.’

  ‘She is a friend. I can’t discuss her like – this. Like she’s an idea. Of someone else’s. Even yours.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Tell me about sex with Jerry.’

  She blinked. Wide-eyed for a second.

  ‘Why? Do you need a picture of me and him?’

  ‘I need to find a place to rest it. Him.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘You loved him.’

  ‘I love something in him, yes. I do.’ He stood there. A statue.

  She sat, waiting.

  Only his mouth moved.

  ‘I don’t want to hear these next words. And I’m scared of how much I must have them.’ His knees almost folded beneath him. ‘Tell me.’ He sat on the bed. ‘Is this what they call anguish?’

  ‘I don’t know man.’

  One hand came out of the cocoon of sheets and laid over his.

  ‘Jerry and I wanted too much to be in love. I wanted that he would take your place in my heart, Jacques. I did.’ Her hand pressed hard now, her nails sinking into the leathered flesh. ‘I did. We found a night and I ached for him to be you and more – in me. Body and soul. And he wasn’t and he isn’t and he can’t be. Nor should he be. I love his head but not him.’

  ‘And him?’

  ‘He made love to a woman. Not me. I didn’t blame him. I don’t. I understand need. But I don’t need ‘need’ in my life.’ She almost laughed. ‘I have plenty, thanks.’ Her hand dared relax. ‘You know?’

  ‘I do. Know that.’

  Their fingers entwined. A little. Softness. ‘And David?’

  ‘Jacques. I shall have to write and tell you how that develops.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  A quiet in their room.

  ‘And you would write me about Sara? ‘If – there’s ever reason.’

  Another quiet.

  She stood in the doorway, shielded her eyes from the bright glare of a low April sun to watch him weeding.

  ‘Hey!’

  He turned, his hat falling in the soil. ‘What?’

  ‘I love you.’

  He retrieved the hat and straightened. ‘Peasant that I am?’

  ‘Peasant that you are.’

  He nodded. Smiled. Turned back to the weeds.

  ‘Hey!’

  He held the hat to his head as he turned again. ‘What?’

  ‘What about me?’

  He straightened.

  ‘You’ll have to wait.’

  She leaned her weight into one leg. ‘Yeah? Why?’

  He grinned.

  ‘Because,’ the grin widened, ‘there’s time.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘Ah oui.’

  ‘D’accord.’

  And she was gone.

  Sara made this vegetable patc
h.

  I don’t want to consider Sara now. She’ll come soon. Soon enough.

  And there will always be time to consider her. This time is Simone’s. Ours. Flying by.

  ‘Hey!’ he yelled.

  She came to the door. ‘Quoi?’

  ‘I love you.’

  Again she put her weight onto one leg. ‘So soon?’

  ‘Oui.’

  ‘Yankee that I am?’

  ‘Mine that you are.’

  She nodded. ‘That I am.’ And she was gone again.

  Three more days. Two and a morning.

  When he looked up again she had the big pot, both his pans and a bucket, all of them full of water, out warming in the sunlight in front of the house.

  ‘Bath time in...’ she stuck a finger in the big pot, looked up, ‘a couple of hours?’

  ‘What is all that water for?’ Zoe held her mother’s hand tight. ‘Some American custom?’ Sara was still gawping at this vision – Simone.

  Simone turned to this tiny feminine image of Jerome Lacaze. ‘Can you guess, Zoe?’

  Zoe looked from her mother’s encouraging nod to Simone. ‘What does ‘American’ mean?’

  ‘It’s where I live. It’s a country. Big.’

  Zoe turned to Jacques. He squatted down to her eye-level, took off his hat, and nodded her attention back to the pots and her question. ‘What do you think it’s for?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘So?’ said Sara. ‘Ask some questions.’

  The adults waited while the child thought.

  Sara reached out her free hand and Simone took it and kissed it. Simone said, ‘Didn’t someone tell me you spoke English?’

  Zoe reddened, looked at Sara. Sara nudged her, ‘Go on – I can’t!’ Zoe stared at Simone.

  ‘I speak English. In America.’

  ‘I speak English. In school.’

  ‘O.K. Pretty good! Try a question.’

  ‘Why – why is the water – dehors?’

  ‘“Outside”. Good.’ Simone went back to French. ‘Why do you think?’

  ‘I wouldn’t ask if I knew!’

  Simone grinned and she too squatted down. ‘It’s outside. Right. In the sun? Why?’

  ‘Getting warmer?’

  ‘Yes. And so are you...’

  Zoe turned back to her mother. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘No, I don’t!’