August 1915
It was Sunday afternoon and Kate waited outside Vanburgh House on the pavement. Archie was home on leave and his letter had told her to be ready and waiting for him at two thirty p.m. She found it difficult to stand still and kept shifting her weight and glancing up the road. She felt both conspicuous and nervous. How would he look? How would it be between them?
He might not come. His leave might have been cancelled or the dates changed. She decided that if he didn’t come, then she would just go for a walk in Horniman’s Gardens by herself. The sun was beating down and she was pleased that Ida had reminded her to wear a hat. She’d treated herself to a straw boater and sewed her own blue, green and white ribbon around the crown. She recalled the final words of his letter:
Remember our visit to the Crystal Palace, Kate? It’s what’s kept me going the past few months, the picture of you in your Sunday best. Happy times.
Your Archie
Her Archie? Was he hers? It was true she liked to be with him and the visit to Crystal Palace was something she would always remember, but was it because she had been with him or her excitement at seeing the palace? She wasn’t sure. She would know when she saw him, she hoped, for she was aware that continuing to see Archie would send him signals that she wanted the relationship to go further. Something made her hang on to her thoughts of Philip, though. Was it a forlorn hope that he could return her love?
She looked up and saw Archie coming along the road wearing his uniform, the buttons on his tunic glinting in the sun and his peaked cap sitting proud upon his head. She noticed he had a slight limp but that he stepped out with determination and pride. He attracted the attention of passers-by who called out their greetings to him, a man who was fighting for his country.
How surprised she was, then, when he tried to greet her. The words wouldn’t come.
‘K-k-k-Kate,’ he stuttered. ‘H-how . . . a-are y-y-y . . .’
‘I’m well, thank you. How lovely to see you, Archie,’ she said, kissing him on the cheek. ‘Shall we go to the gardens?’
‘Y-yes, let’s,’ he replied.
He didn’t talk as they walked along and Kate wondered how someone who seemed the same outside could be so changed. They sat down on a bench in front of the lake and he gazed at it for a while. Suddenly he turned to her and kissed her passionately on the lips. He grabbed her so urgently that he gripped her arms too tightly and she felt herself shrink away from him.
‘I-I-I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Too, r-r-rough.’
‘No, it’s all right, Archie, really, it’s all right. Just that it’s been a while and . . .’
He stood up. ‘L-let’s walk,’ he said.’ T-t-tell me y-your news.’
She told him all about her brother and how the letters from the front took a very long in coming so it was all old news. She talked rather too quickly but felt the need to fill the space between them.
‘He’s fine, though,’ she went on, ‘no serious injuries apart from a few scratches and a bad case of trench foot.’
He nodded.
‘Sounds awful,’ she said. ‘We’ve been knitting socks as fast as we can, Mrs B, Ida and I to keep their feet warm and dry. MissClara, she takes them to her charity and they get sent off to the likes of you and Fred.’
She told him about Mary leaving and how Ida was such a good person to work with, how Mrs B was the same as ever and kept them both on their toes. She tried to make him laugh by telling of the antics of the twins, how they’d got themselves locked in the storeroom one day when they were trying to avoid bedtime and Mrs B had told Ida to lock the door as there had been incidents of theft in the area. Archie appeared to be listening but she could see that his mind was really elsewhere. His eyes kept drifting away and he had a glazed expression. There was a new seriousness about him. The fun-loving Archie had disappeared. She didn’t know much about medical things but she could tell when a person wasn’t right and Archie wasn’t right, he wasn’t the same person as the one who’d gone off to war. He was holding back.
Archie remained silent, staring at the grass and flowerbeds. Eventually he spoke.
‘So p-peaceful here, so quiet. The-there’s no g-grass, only mud,’ he said. ‘There w-were w-wild f-flowers, p-poppies but they all got b-blown to smithereens, Kate. Red petals everywhere.’
Kate reached out and held his hand. They strolled around the gardens until they found themselves outside the gardener’s shed which had been Archie’s once. He let go of her hand and traced his fingers over the warm, wooden panels. His faraway look told her that he wanted to touch that past, bring it back to himself and make the present disappear. A tear formed in the corner of his eye and he let it find its way down his cheeks until it soaked into his shirt. It was joined by another and another. The silent release of all the pain he felt inside made Kate put her arms around him and hold him tight. She couldn’t take away what he had seen or stem the flow of memories that had takenhis spirit of joy away from him. She’d thought, before she saw him, that she might tell him that he shouldn’t hold out any hope for their future, but she knew now that she couldn’t take that from him. It might be the only thing that he could hang on to when he had to go back.
He asked if they could meet once more, before he had to take his transport back and Kate agreed. His mother would be happy to make tea for them, he said. It would be the last opportunity next Sunday as he had to take the train the following Monday morning, his ten days’ leave would be over.
Kate returned to Vanburgh House, troubled by what she’d seen in Archie’s eyes. He was lost, the man who had courted her with such love in his heart. He needed rest and a return to a normal life but that was not about to happen. What was inevitable was that he would have to go back to the battlefield, despite the effects it had clearly had upon him. His body would recover but she feared for his mind. There was something broken inside him. She wondered about Philip and her brother and Carnforth too. What trials would they be going through? Would Philip be holding on to the memories of that one night spent with her or would the constant fight to stay alive make each day just like the other, a day to survive?
She wasn’t sure if anyone here at home realized the damage being done to a complete generation of young men. It was all very well for gentlemen to raise their hats and ladies to smile their approval at a man in uniform, but they didn’t have any idea of what these men were going through. She would go to meet Archie’s mother, she decided, and wave him goodbye, for what happened over the following weeks and months was not to be guessed at. They must all live with no plans for the future, no hopes and no dreams.
Chapter Twenty-Three
September 1915
Kate knocked on the door of the terraced house and Archie invited her in. She squeezed past the bicycle in the hall.
‘C-careful of your dress, the ch-chain’s a bit oily,’ Archie said.
