They had moved to Cairnfield with his grandparents when his mum and dad came back from Geneva, Switzerland — just before they had split up. Jack had been only six. Jack’s mum had kept the Cairnfield estate when first, Jack’s grandfather and then, later his grandmother, had died. This had left him and his mum on their own rattling round in the big old house together. His mum didn’t talk much about their life in Geneva or why they had left. Nor did she explain why she had split up from his dad soon after they’d moved to Scotland. She had just said he was “too obsessed with work” or “there wasn’t room for us and his work”. Jack sometimes tried to find out more, but his mum would become all buttoned up and quickly change the subject.
Jack prodded Angus as they made their way down the drive. “Stop!”
Angus pulled the bike to one side, and the engine puttered away in neutral.
“Put it somewhere, we’ll walk from here. Mum’ll go berserk if she sees me on the back of this thing.”
“If you say so.”
Angus pulled the WRE behind the thicket of yews that flanked one side of the drive. They left their helmets and pressed on down the track. Soon the big white house loomed into view.
Jack’s mum was making tea and looked up as they came through the back door into the kitchen. Her hands wet, she blew her hair from her face. Carole Christie looked a lot like Jack. She had the same grey-blue eyes and blonde hair. She was still slim, although her figure had thickened a little with her forty-three years.
“You’re back early…”
Jack looked at Angus nervously. Angus avoided the subject and attempted his most winning smile, displaying a mouthful of uneven teeth in the process. It was a sight that would have traumatised a small child.
“Hello Mrs C. My cake ready?”
Carole Christie looked at Angus with mock affront. “So it’s
Angus started to move towards a large bowl of chocolate cake mix.
“Looks tasty.” He brought a large, dirty-nailed index finger dangerously close to the sugary mixture. But Mrs Christie was too quick. She whipped out a wooden spoon and landed a swift blow expertly on Angus’s knuckles. He yelped.
Jack approved. “Nice one, Mum.”
“You’ll just have to wait,” she said. “Go and do something for an hour.”
“Mum — has it arrived?” Jack asked.
His Mum’s smile quickly vanished and she gave him the look — a sort of grimace that passed over her face whenever the subject of his father came up.
“It’s in your bedroom.” She turned back to the worktop. In his excitement, Jack did not notice the hint of satisfaction in her voice, when she said, “But I don’t think it’s much to get excited about, love… definitely smaller than usual.”
He ignored the comment and rushed out of the kitchen.
Soon they were in his bedroom, and there it was sitting on his desk, just like all his other birthdays: a parcel wrapped in brown paper and string. He flipped it over and instantly recognised the italic writing. His heart beat faster.
“Come on… open it.” Angus said impatiently.
But his mum was right. Based on size, the parcel looked disappointing — compared to earlier birthdays, anyway. He placed the precious package on the floor and stared at it, inspecting it from each side in turn. His mind flicked through the presents from previous years. The year before, there had been the remote controlled aeroplane and before that, all the fly fishing stuff. Every year, a present had arrived, like clockwork, and it had always exceeded his expectations. These birthday presents were his only connection with his father now.
Jack could no longer resist and, egged on by Angus, tore open the wrapping paper. Then his jaw dropped in disappointment as the contents were revealed.
“It’s a book.” Angus was alarmed.
Jack picked it up and shook it. Maybe something would drop out — like a cheque for a thousand pounds or an airline ticket to some exotic holiday destination. But no. It was a book. And, worst of all, it was a textbook.
“It’s a school book,” Angus said with growing horror.
Jack’s heart sank. He read the title:
“It’s called,
“I can read.”
This present did not have the ‘wow’ factor of those from previous years, but maybe it was better than nothing.
Angus had already lost interest and busied himself with a particularly annoying wooden pyramid puzzle that rested on the mantelpiece and which he had failed to master even after several months of trying. It had taken Jack four minutes and twenty-eight seconds.
Jack scanned the front cover and then opened the book to inspect the crisp, sharp-edged photographs arranged in three sections. They showed trenches, ships, barbed wire, ‘over the top’ howitzers, aeroplanes, tanks, maps, women in factories, leaders, soldiers, medals, observation balloons, trains and more… Some pages were blurred and sepia, others were crystal clear, but together they gave Jack an instant insight into the four years of brutal war.
“Weird.”
“What?” said Angus, without raising his head from the puzzle.
“I get this history book from Dad, right, and yesterday you talked about your Great Grandfather Ludwig who was in the war, and then Pendelshape was on about the same stuff today in class.”
“What stuff?”
“You know — the First World War — all that…”
Angus shrugged, “So?”
“Quite interesting — don’t you think?”
“For a boffin like you. Doesn’t do it for me.”
He looked up at Jack with a piece of the puzzle in each hand. “How do you do this stupid thing, again?”
Jack leaned over, took the pieces and manipulated them expertly. In under a minute the puzzle had been done and Jack handed it back. Angus stared at it in awe.
“See — easy.”
“You’re really annoying sometimes.”
“Pendelshape was saying today that millions of people died in the war. Millions. And that if things had been slightly different it might not even have happened.”
Angus yawned. “If you say so. For me, it’s all in the past. Gone, dead, finished.”
“What about
“That’s different — it’s a game. It’s real.”
It’s what Jack would have expected Angus to say. But something about the images and the clear black text on each page of the book stirred a distant but strong emotion in Jack. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He sometimes got a similar feeling when he played
He remembered that they had been on a family holiday. He had been vaguely aware that Dad had not had a day off from the lab for months and had been working very late. This was to be his first break in a long time. They had gone to France or Belgium and had visited Cambrai or some such place — a monument to the First World War. He had been aware that his father was interested in history and, he supposed, this period of history in particular.
What had happened and in what sequence had remained a disconnected patchwork in his head — sometimes fragments came into greater focus when he thought back but they would evaporate, chimera-like, as he struggled to make sense of it all. He remembered visiting graves — an endless sea of white crosses — and also the grassed outline of old trench networks. He recalled a voice describing “how it was”. Maybe it had been his father’s voice, or
