A Home in the Country Read online

  I recalled that small cabin James and I had shared on the journey from England and in retrospect it seemed as though we had spent all our time crying and being violently seasick, most often simultaneously. We had had an ‘escort’ to be sure, a childless woman of middle years who was to keep an eye on us and several other children – of which we were the youngest – and see that we kept ourselves clean, brushed our teeth, changed our underwear, ate our vegetables, and went to bed when we were told. But her tasks were made somewhat simpler, since we were often too seasick to dress and leave our cabin at all and, some days, a simple rap on our door, followed by her head peering around it to verify our presence, were all that were required of her.

  Mounting the gangplank of the ship going back to England on a frigid December morning in 1944, and accompanied by a middle-aged woman chosen by somebody or other to look after me during the journey, I wondered if I would have to share a small cabin with her and was very relieved to find we were shown to a large cabin containing ten or twelve bunks. It was suggested to me that I take one of the upper bunks and this I did, grateful that for once James was not there to push me down to a lower one.

  We had not been on board long when we were told that the noisy hooting we could hear outside signified that we were departing New York. All of us in the cabin hurried to an upper deck to observe this event. The woman I was travelling with told me to wave goodbye to the country that had been my home for four years but all I could think about was nasty old Agnes and, to my companion’s dismay, I accompanied my waves with a lot of ugly faces and sticking my tongue out, while my farewell wishes had to do with her imminent demise.

  We were travelling in a convoy of ships and I can only guess now at the number of vessels accompanying us, perhaps twenty, but all the people surrounding me assured me and each other that in their midst we would be very safe from the enemy submarines that still plagued the ocean.

  No sooner were we back in our cabin after the farewell than I began to feel the first stirrings of the seasickness that had been such a part of my previous journey and I was disgusted that, in the four years between journeys, I had not outgrown it. For, as best I could recall, it seemed that none of the adults on the previous journey had succumbed to it.

  I was particularly unhappy to feel such seasickness as I had really looked forward to being able to eat all the kinds of food that Agnes had never served and now just the thought of any of them made me feel sicker than a dog.

  So there I was, back in bed on the third day out and feeling horrible when the loudspeakers blared that we were all to report to the lounge as the captain had an important announcement to make.

  I was told to stay in bed but my companion, on returning, told me that our ship was undergoing severe engine trouble and we had to go back to New York for repairs.

  Unlike my fellow travellers, I was pleased to hear of our problems as they would give me a little more time away from my father.

  ‘You just don’t comprehend,’ my companion told me, sourly. ‘Surely it’s better to face your father than to travel back to New York without a convoy to keep us safe.’

  ‘You mean we have to turn back alone?’ I asked.

  ‘Now you’ve got it,’ she replied. ‘The submarines can blow us to bits if they feel like it now. Won’t be anything there to stop them.’

  One way or another, we made it back to New York safely and were told we would be there five days while repairs were made. We could, however, leave the ship every day on shore leave as long as we were back on board by six p.m.

  Everybody but me was thrilled and talked about doing their Christmas shopping and browsing the New York department stores.

  I didn’t have the money to buy so much as a lollipop so decided not to go, but my cabin mates insisted, and I had a good time with them buying me lots of stuff, both to eat and to wear. I particularly remember seeing what I would have sworn was the real Santa Claus sitting in a department store window, laughing his head off and slapping his knee. But I was told it was just a guy in a Santa suit, which really took the fun out of it.

  Our five days were over and we were told we were seaworthy once more and could begin our journey all over again. And that, with a bit of luck, we’d be in England for Christmas. But … this time there would be no convoy.

  Oh, my but that ocean looked awfully big, and awfully grey and awfully cold and lonely. I couldn’t help but wonder why there wasn’t some adult somewhere who would put a stop to our journey at once. But then, I had already learned that adults are never ready to behave like adults when you really need them to. It’s just easier for them to appear helpless, keep their mouths shut, and look the other way, I guess. It made me wonder what kind of an adult I’d be when the time came? A better one than most, I felt sure.

  We had lifeboat drill practice sessions every day on our way home and, in the end, I was almost disappointed we didn’t have a real attack as I felt very ready to deal with the enemy in whatever shape or form it took.

  As it was, the biggest enemy I had to deal with, then and for weeks thereafter, was a case of ferociously itching athlete’s foot, picked up, no doubt, from padding around our cabin in my bare feet. After all, it wasn’t written anywhere that Agnes had to provide me with slippers.

  We had only been at sea a couple of days when some of the ladies took it into their heads that we should put on a ship’s concert on our second to last day on board. All those wishing to perform were asked to sign up in the ship’s lounge after breakfast the following day and indicate the manner in which they would perform.

  Thanking God for not burdening me with any particular talent, I was just helping myself to an extra piece of toast when a woman pounced on me and said she would teach me to sing a song. I assured her I would not and could not sing, but somehow or other, on the night of the concert, I stood alone on the stage and warbled a ridiculous song about a lonely little petunia, during which I had to look very pathetic and pat my heart. I imagined the expression on my face looked angry rather than pathetic but a lot of people clapped anyway.

  Finally, we were pulling into the docks at Liverpool (I think it was Liverpool) and I was going to have to get off the ship and go out and act happy about rejoining my family.

  I stood for quite a while in the customs shed near my suitcase, looking out fearfully for my father and mother, hoping I’d spot them before they spotted me. I did see them, and by standing sideways and keeping my head mostly turned away from them, I was able to look them over without them having any idea who I was. Studying them thus, I surprised myself by starting to feel sorry for them.

  My father looked like just any other old man and not at all the fierce, violent person I had carried in my head for four years. As for my mother, she looked bone tired and was dressed in the same threadbare clothes she had worn before I went away. Her hair had now turned completely white and I could only imagine how ghastly it must have been for her to have had only my father and Hitler as companions through those long, lonely years.

  Propelled by my surprising rush of pity for both of them and abandoning my pretence of examining suitcases, I approached them, pleased to realize as I did how much I had grown during my absence. Why, now I was no longer peering up at my father from down around his knees but from mid-chest. And I looked at my mother from almost her neck. I felt confidence surge through me as they finally recognized me, and I gave them a big smile that said, ‘I’m back!’

  EPILOGUE

  When the day arrived that James and I, like spent volcanoes run out of steam, came to the end of our reminiscences, we sat staring at one another in silence for a very long time.

  James was the first to speak. ‘So …’ he said, ‘it wasn’t just about four years after all, was it? More like our entire bloody lives if you ask me. But … it’s all out now, isn’t it? I mean, we didn’t forget anything?’

  ‘Nope,’ I said. ‘We got it all.’

  ‘Wonder what took us so long?’ he mused.

  ‘We
weren’t ready,’ I answered. ‘Simple as that.’

  ‘Still … sixty odd years is a hell of a long time.’

  ‘Could have been seventy,’ I shrugged.

  ‘You’ve had the advantage, though,’ he said. ‘All along, you knew. You were there. I wasn’t. Think of the years I’ve had to wonder.’

  ‘You could have asked,’ I said. ‘Anytime.’

  ‘You could have mentioned it,’ he replied.

  ‘I thought about it once in a while but it wasn’t something I wanted to talk about,’ I said, ‘It’s obvious now that neither one of us wanted, or were ready, to bring up any part of it.’

  James stood up and pulled on his jacket, ‘You did what you had to do and you survived. And I can better understand now why we never discussed it before. Quite simply, we were afraid that if we once prised open the can, we’d never get the lid back on again. Can you believe that after all those years she still haunted us to the degree she has?’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘She’s always been there, hasn’t she? A part of who we are, really. Maybe now the nightmares will end, too. You know, the one where the old fool calls for her little pointy scissors. The one where—’

  James frowned and put his finger to his lips to silence me. ‘They won’t be back,’ he said. ‘Trust me. It’s all truly behind us now.’

  He was right. Agnes, and the nightmares that went along with her, are gone. Gone wherever it is memories go when their time runs out. And, Agnes, it’s time now for you to go rest in peace, too. No one, not a single soul, will miss you.

  Copyright

  © Sheelagh Mawe

  First published in Great Britain 2013

  This edition 2014

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1484 6 (epub)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1485 3 (mobi)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 1486 0 (pdf)

  ISBN 978 0 7198 0983 5 (print)

  Robert Hale Limited

  Clerkenwell House

  Clerkenwell Green

  London EC1R 0HT

  www.halebooks.com

  The right of Sheelagh Mawe to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988