We walked into the heart of Jericho. It was crowded with lunchtime activity, and Gareth nodded at every second person. Every family was connected to the Press in some way.
‘Will he lose you?’ I said.
Gareth paused. ‘He’s particular, occasionally moody, and he drives himself and his staff harder than necessary, but he and I have a way of working that suits us both. I’ve grown fond of him over the years, Es. I think it’s mutual.’
I’d seen it myself, many times. Gareth had an ease and confidence that softened Mr Hart as it softened Dr Murray.
We turned into Little Clarendon Street and walked towards the tea shop. ‘But will he lose you?’ I asked again.
Gareth pushed open the door, and the bell above tinkled. I stood on the threshold, waiting for him to reply.
‘You heard Harold,’ he said. ‘Hypothetical.’
He guided me to a table at the back and pulled out the chair for me to sit.
‘I saw the look he gave you,’ I said, as he pulled out his own chair. ‘It was an apology.’
‘He knows compliments make me uncomfortable.’
Gareth couldn’t look at me. Instead, he looked around for the waitress. He caught her eye and turned back to examine the menu.
‘What do you fancy?’ he said, without looking up.
I reached my hand across the table and enfolded his. ‘I fancy the truth, Gareth. What are you planning?’
He looked up. ‘Essy …’ But nothing came after it.
‘You’re scaring me.’
He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled something out. He held it in his fist between us, and I saw his face flush and his jaw clench.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
His fingers curled back, revealing the crushed remains of a white feather.
‘Put it away,’ I said.
‘It was tied to the back door at the Press,’ Gareth said.
‘So, it could be for anyone. Hundreds of people work there.’
‘I know that. I don’t think it was for me, necessarily. But it makes you think.’
The waitress interrupted, and Gareth ordered.
‘You’re too old,’ I said.
‘Thirty-six is not too old. And it’s better than being twenty-six, or sixteen, for God’s sake. Those boys have barely lived.’
The waitress put the pot of tea between us. I barely breathed as she carefully placed the teacups and milk jug.
As soon as she moved away, I said, ‘You sound like you want to go.’
‘Only the young or stupid would want to go to war, Essy. No, I don’t want to go.’
‘But you’re thinking about it.’
‘It’s impossible not to.’
‘Well, think about me instead.’ I heard the child in my voice, the desperate plea. I hadn’t asked this of him before, and I’d avoided any sentiment that might encourage more than friendship.
‘Oh, Essy. I never stop thinking about you.’
When the sandwiches arrived the waitress didn’t fuss over their placement, but our conversation ceased nonetheless. Neither of us was brave enough to resume it, and we spent the next fifteen minutes eating without a word.
After lunch we walked along the towpath of Castle Mill Stream. Snowdrops carpeted the bank as if challenging winter to do a better job.
‘I have a word for you,’ Gareth said. ‘It already exists, but the Dictionary doesn’t show it being used like this. I thought it should be in your collection.’ He took a slip out of his pocket, a bright white square of paper that I knew had been cut from one of the giant sheets used in the presses. He read it silently to himself, and I wondered if he wanted to change his mind and keep it.
At the next bench, we sat.
‘I set the type for this word, a while ago now.’ He continued to hang onto it. ‘It means so many things, but the way this woman used it made me think something might be missing from the Dictionary.’
‘Who was the woman?’ But I knew before he answered.
‘A mother.’
‘And the word?’
‘Loss,’ he said.
The papers were full of it. Since the war had begun, we could have filled a whole volume with quotations containing loss. The casualty lists in the Times of London kept a count of it, and the Battle of Ypres had overwhelmed its pages. The dead included Oxford men. Press men. Jericho boys Gareth had known since they were small. Loss was a useful word, and terrible in its scope.
‘Can I see it?’
Gareth looked again at the slip, then passed it to me.
LOSS
‘Sorry for your loss, they say. And I want to know what they mean, because it’s not just my boys I’ve lost. I’ve lost my motherhood, my chance to be a grandmother. I’ve lost the easy conversation of neighbours and the comfort of family in my old age. Every day I wake to some new loss that I hadn’t thought of before, and I know that soon it will be my mind.’
Vivienne Blackman, 1915
Gareth put a hand on my shoulder. It was reassuring. I felt the gentle squeeze, the caress of his thumb. Something more than friendship that I couldn’t discourage. But he had no idea.
I’ve lost my motherhood. The words had forced a memory: kindly eyes in a freckled face; an anchor during pain. Sarah, my baby’s mother. Her mother. I tried to recall something of Her, but Her smell lingered only as words I’d once written down and stored in the trunk. When I closed my eyes, I saw nothing of Her face, though I remembered writing that Her skin was translucent, Her lashes barely there. This woman, Vivienne Blackman, knew something of me. It was something Gareth could not possibly imagine.
‘Who is she?’ I asked.
‘Her three boys worked at the Press. They all joined the 2nd Ox and Bucks in August. And two of them were just boys; too young for sense – though sense can make cowards of older men.’ He saw his words register on my face and quickly went on. ‘Mr Hart was unwell, so she told me.’
‘Does she have other children?’ I asked.
He shook his head. We said no more.
