‘Do you mind if I stay here a while? I need to look for a job.’
‘Of course. You must stay, Tom. It’s your home. Have you thought about what you might do now?’
‘I might go back into the law. Not in the city, of course, but in a small way, helping ordinary people with their legal problems. It’s not well paid, but I should be able to give you something when I start.’
She took his hand on the table.
‘How wonderful to have you back,’ she said, looking into his eyes. ‘I sometimes wondered if you were dead, but something inside always told me you were still alive. A mother’s instinct, I suppose.’
He smiled. ‘I did come close to death a few times,’ he said.
‘You must have been through some dreadful times.’
He nodded, but remained silent.
‘And I couldn’t help noticing that you’re limping. You must go to see Dr. Harvey. He might be able to help you.’
‘Is he still around? He must be very old now.’
‘Yes. He’s still going strong though. Promise me you’ll go? You look as if you are in a lot of pain.’
‘All right, Mother, I’ll go tomorrow.’
Later, as they sipped their tea, she asked softly, ‘You have forgiven me, Tom, haven’t you?’
He was confused by her question. He then realised that she was referring to that moment in 1938 when he had opened the drawing room door and had seen her with that man. The moment had not crossed his mind for years.
He patted her hand.
‘There’s nothing to forgive, Mother. Don’t mention it ever again.’
Dr. Harvey had a small surgery in Bernard Street. He’d been their family doctor since Tom was a child. He made Tom lie on the couch and examined him thoroughly.
‘Your body’s been tested to the extreme. That’s surely obvious, Tom. The malaria will probably keep returning to trouble you every so often. But otherwise you are in fairly good shape, considering your ordeal. Your leg looks as though it might benefit from being pinned. I think I’ll refer you to the hospital for an X-ray.’ He scribbled on a piece of paper then told Tom that they would write to him from University College Hospital with an appointment.
‘That’s with Dr. Roberts, the radiographer there. He’s first class, Tom.’
As Tom got up to go, the doctor cleared his throat and said, ‘Your incarceration will have had an effect on you that is not just physical, Tom. Lots of people won’t realise that, and you may have some difficulties relating to the world again. You might want to bottle it up, but in my experience that would not be very wise. You may want to talk it through with someone. If you do ever need to talk about it, I’m always here.’
‘Thank you, Doctor. That’s very kind. I’ll bear that in mind.’
‘You could also try this, if you’d prefer to talk to someone you don’t know,’ the doctor smiled and handed him a copy of The Times. He pointed to an advertisement in the classifieds: ‘PhD History student looking for Far East POWs to interview for research into conflict – contact Arthur Stone.’
Tom considered the advertisement. At that moment he had no desire to speak to anyone about what he had suffered. But so as not to offend the doctor, he tore out the advertisement and put it in his pocket.
In the weeks that followed, he thought about the doctor’s words. It was true. As he wandered through the streets of Central London, trying to acclimatise himself to the changed city that was once again his home, the well-fed people who pushed past him on the pavements and in the underground, whose hostile eyes occasionally lingered on his bony frame, seemed to come from another world. He felt that no-one would understand what he had been through, and even in his own mind his ordeal took on an air of unreality, an almost dream-like quality.
Back at home, alone in his room, he sat on the bed and took out the objects he had managed to bring back. His father’s watch (whose hands had remained frozen at twelve noon, the time the ship went down), the brown leaves from the pomelo tree, Ian’s ring and Harry’s medal. He turned each over in his hands, remembering. He sniffed the dried-out leaves, but they had no odour now.
He wrote to the Regimental Headquarters of the Northumberland Fusiliers, asking for the names and addresses of Ian and Harry’s relatives. He intended to catch a train up to Alnwick and take the objects to them as a last gesture of respect. But after a week or so he received a letter informing him that Ian had no next of kin, and Harry’s wife and child had been killed in an air raid. He put the medal and ring, along with his own from the Straits Settlements Volunteers, in an old wooden box, then stowed it all away under the bed.
He spent long hours staring at Joy’s photograph, trying to remember the tone of her voice, the sound of her laugh. The fact that they were slowly slipping away from him tore at his heart. Even looking at the photo now didn’t give him the same comfort that it had when he was a prisoner. It reminded him sharply of his loss, of how her life had been so cruelly cut short. Yet it also reminded him of how her image had stayed with him, throughout those years of hell. She had always been there for him. And even though she herself had perished, she had kept his hopes alive.
31
Laura ordered a coffee and waited at a corner table. He was prompt, of course, and as he made his way towards her, weaving between the tables, she noticed the eyes of several other women follow him.
‘Laura. I’m so glad I could meet you while I’m in London. It’s great you’re back from your trip,’ Adam said as he leaned
