‘The hospitals are calling for volunteers,’ he said, glad to think he’d found a solution. ‘Not all the boys are from around here, and some never get a visitor.’
I nodded, but it was no solution.
When Gareth went to Cowley Barracks, he left bits of himself behind. His civilian clothes hung ready to wear in our wardrobe. A comb with strands of hair still in its teeth – black and wiry grey – sat on the bathroom sink. By the bed, a collection of poems by Rupert Brooke was open face-down, the spine bent in half. I picked it up to see what poem Gareth had been reading. ‘The Dead’. I put it down again.
I took refuge in the Scriptorium. How long, I wondered, before the slips began to mention this war?
Ditte had sent me Back of the Front by Phyllis Campbell. I kept it in my desk and would read it when everyone else had left for the day. Her war was so different to the war in the papers.
It is context, Da had always said, that gives meaning.
German soldiers had skewered the babies of Belgian women, she wrote, then raped the women and cut off their breasts.
I thought about all the German scholars whom Dr Murray consulted about the Germanic etymology of so many English words. They had been silent since the start of the war. Or silenced. Could those gentle men of language do these things? And if a German could commit such acts, why not a Frenchman or an Englishman?
Phyllis Campbell, and women like her, nursed these Belgian women – those who were still alive. They arrived on the backs of trucks, scraps of cloth wrapped around their chests to soak up blood instead of milk, their babies dead at their feet.
My hands shook as I transcribed quotations on slip after slip, heading each with the word war. They added something horrid to the slips already sorted and waiting to be turned into copy. When I was done, I was exhausted. I stood up and searched the shelves for the right pigeon-hole. I took out the slips that were already there and shuffled through them. The slips I had just written would bring something new, something awful, to the meaning of war. But I couldn’t add them. I returned the original slips to the pigeon-hole I’d taken them from, then walked towards the grate. I threw in the quotations from Phyllis Campbell and watched as they became shadows of themselves.
I remembered lily. Back then, I had thought that if I saved the word something of my mother would be remembered. It was not my place to erase what war meant to Phyllis Campbell; what it was to those Belgian women. Among the propaganda of glory, and the men’s experiences of the trenches and death, something needed to be known of what happened to women. I returned to my desk, opened Back of the Front and began again. Once more, I forced each terrible sentence from my trembling pen.
If war could change the nature of men, it would surely change the nature of words, I thought. But so much of the English language had already been set in type and printed. We were nearing the end.
‘It will find its way into the final volumes, I expect,’ said Mr Sweatman when we discussed it. ‘The poets will see to that. They have a way of adding nuance to the meaning of things.’
June 5th, 1915
My Dear Mrs Owen,
I can’t imagine I will address you as anything other than Esme, but just once I wanted my pen to acknowledge the woman you have become. I do not place much stock in marriage, but yours to Gareth is right in every way, and if all unions could be as good I would perhaps change my mind about the institution.
You may think my pen has been idle this past month. I assure you, it has not. Each day since you wed, I have had a mind to write to your father and tell him how beautiful you looked, and how perfectly comfortable you were, standing beside Gareth with St Barnabas behind you, lily of the valley in your hand.
I have been writing to your father for four decades, and it has been a difficult habit to break. I tried, but found I was unable to think properly without the prospect of his thoughtful reflections. I am not ashamed to admit (and I hope it does not offend you in any way) that I have decided to resume my correspondence with Harry. Your wedding has been the catalyst for this – to whom else was I going to report the day in all its glorious minutiae? So, when I say I had a mind to write to your father, what I actually mean is that I did write to your father. He is not silent in my mind, Esme.
He would be particularly charmed by your decision to throw your bouquet, even though most of your female guests were married or confirmed spinsters. What a surprise when you turned your back on the little crowd. I saw you take a sprig for yourself and knew what was coming. I hoped the girls from the bindery would step forward, but when the bouquet left your hand it was clear where it was headed. Lizzie and I must have looked stricken – neither of us daring to be the one to catch it, but neither wanting the blooms to fall to the ground. I could see Lizzie hesitate, and it fell to me to put her out of her misery. I must admit to a moment of giddiness (though no regrets); the flowers were my sweet companions all the way back to Bath.
And now I return them to you, pressed and ready to be preserved in whatever way you see fit. I imagine you will use them as
