The Soldier’s Wife by Pamela Hart

Author:Pamela Hart [HART, PAMELA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Published: 2015-04-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

27th–28th January, 1916

On the last Thursday in January:

AGAIN REPORTED HUSBAND PRIVATE JAMES HAWKINS STILL DANGEROUSLY ILL. WILL FURNISH FURTHER PROGRESS REPORT WHEN RECEIVED.

Again still dangerously ill. Again still dangerously ill. Again still dangerously ill.

‘He’s a fighter,’ Mr Curry said, patting her ham-fistedly on the shoulder. ‘He’s made it this far, he’ll pull through.’

People kept talking in clichés, she thought wildly. There’s nothing original to say. Men have been dying since the world began and there’s nothing new to say.

That night she pushed Maree’s mutton stew around on her plate. The smell filled her head until she felt as though she’d already eaten it; was full up to her gizzard, as her uncle used to say.

‘Go to bed,’ Maree said. ‘You look like death warmed up.’

That was a good idea. There was a blanket between her and the world; perhaps it was tiredness that was making her feel so numb.

She got into her nightgown and sat limply on the side of the bed, but lying down felt too much like giving up. So helpless. Nothing she could do. She could feel the pain and the grief and the terror lurking just behind that numbness, threatening her. If it broke through, she would break too, into tiny sobbing pieces which might never come together again.

But the fear was coming, and the grief, and she couldn’t stop it.

Like an old woman, she clambered down from the bed and onto her knees. Elbows on the smooth cold coverlet. Hands together, like the nuns had taught her. No, that wasn’t right, her hands were empty. She reached to her bedside table and got her rosary beads. Better. Eyes closed.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The rosary was both comforting and demanding: comforting in its familiarity, demanding because she had to keep track of each decade. Only the Sorrowful Mysteries tonight. Keeping Mary company through the dark days. Each decade dedicated to remembering part of His journey. The Agony in the Garden. The Scourging. The Crown of Thorns. The Carrying of the Cross. The Crucifixion.

She prayed, and kept praying, even though the numbness wore away with each prayer, because each known word was a bulwark against the fear which seeped through, seeped up, from toe to knee to thigh to body, swamping her heart and lungs, catching her throat and closing it.

A great shadow loomed over her, pressing her down; she prayed as she had never prayed, her head buried in her hands, scalding tears sliding over her face and onto the blankets. She lost the words: all she could do was cling to the beads and say meaningless jumbles: God help him, Mary help, fruit of thy womb, as we do unto others, world without end, without end, bring him back, Lord Almighty, Blessed Virgin, help him, save him, help.

She lost the words, but she built his face in her mind and kept it clear. He was here, now, caught in her words and her prayers and her yearning, and she had to keep praying or he would be pulled away from her.

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