life outside. The physical work is good for them. Makes them feel better about themselves. No sitting around in bath chairs and blankets here. We go into Sevenoaks to the pictures occasionally--it's dark in the picture house, no one can see.'
'And how long does a patient stay here?'
'Not 'patient,'Miss Dobbs. 'Guest.'We call them guests.'
'What about the first names only, Major Jenkins?'
'Ah yes. Reminds them of better times, before they became pawns in the game of war. Millions of khaki ants clambering over the hill and into oblivion. The familiarity of using Christian names only is in stark contrast to the discipline of the battlefield, of this terrible experience. Relinquishing the surname reminds them of what's really important. Which is who they are inside, here.' He held his hand to the place just below his rib cage to indicate the center of his body. 'Inside. Who they are inside. The war took so much away.'
Maisie nodded accord and sipped her tea. Maurice had always encouraged judicious use of both words and silence.
'Now then. Your brother?'
'Yes, Billy. He wasn't injured facially, Major Jenkins. But he walks with some difficulty, and has been so very . . . very . . . unwell. Yes, unwell, since the war.'
'Commission?'
'Commission, Major Jenkins?'
'Yes, is he a captain, a second lieutenant?'
'Oh. Actually, Billy was a soldier, a corporal when he was injured.'
'Where?'
'The Battle of Messines.'
'Oh God. Poor man.'
'Yes. Billy saw more than enough. But then they all saw more than enough, didn't they, Major Jenkins? Major Jenkins, why is Billy's rank important?'
'Oh, it's not important, really. Just enables me get a sense of what he might have experienced.'
'And how might that have been different for Billy than for, let's say yourself, Major?'
'It's just that we have found that men have different experiences of recovery.'
'Are you a doctor?'
'No, Miss Dobbs. Simply a man who wanted to do some good for the men who gave their identity for the good of the country and returned to a people who would rather see their heroes walking tall or at best limping, than reflecting the scars caused by our leaders' ill-conceived decisions.'
Maisie took another sip of tea and nodded. It was a fair comment.
She left The Retreat thirty minutes later after a tour of the premises. She had been escorted to her car by Jenkins, who watched as she made her way to the gate at a very sedate five miles per hour, the gravel crackling under the tires like sporadic gunfire.
Archie waited for her, touched his forehead in a partial salute as she approached, and leaned down toward her open window as she drew alongside him.
'So, what do you think? Will your brother be joining us, Ma'am?'
'Yes. Yes I think so, Archie. I believe it would do him a power of good.'
'Righty-o. We'll look forward to seeing him, then. Hold on while I open the gate.'
Maisie waved as she pulled out onto the road, the roses once again nodding in the breeze as Archie waved her on her way.
While she hadn't flinched or drawn back from his wounds, Maisie felt the discomfort of Archie's injury. The sun shone through the windshield of the MG, its heat and brightness causing her eyes to smart and a sharp pain to move from the socket of her left eye to a place on her forehead. The body empathizing with another's pain, thought Maisie. The subconscious mind alerting her to Archie's agony, though she had been successful in appearing to ignore the scar and empty eye socket.
Maisie didn't go far. Stopping once again in Westerham, she sat on a bench in the old churchyard, took the notebook out of her handbag, and began to write an account of her visit.
A walk through the grounds of The Retreat accompanied by Major Jenkins had revealed very little to her that she did not already know, only now she was familiar with the extent of the house, where the 'guest' rooms were, and how the farm worked.
There were twenty-five guests living in the main house and an old oasthouse, no longer used for drying hops--Kent's most famous harvest. Though converted to living quarters years before, the oast-house still bore the strong peppery aroma of warm hops.
The youngest man she met must have been thirty, which meant that he had been shipped to France at about age seventeen. The eldest was no more than forty years of age. Questioning Jenkins, Maisie had learned that although the guests were free to come and go at will, most remained, comfortable in the freedom from stares The Retreat afforded them.
Though the farm was to a large extent self-sufficient, each guest entrusted his personal savings to The Retreat, to draw upon for expenses beyond those of day-to-day living, and to contribute to the cost of helpers. If the farm's produce was bringing in a tidy sum, and providing much of the food, the pooled savings must have earned interest and amounted to a pretty penny in someone's bank account. The thought troubled Maisie.
The needs of the guests seemed to be few. There was no doctor on staff to provide for the physical care of
