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The Keepsake
Sheelagh Kelly
For my dear daughter, Gayle.
Neither woman felt in the mood for a party. It was impossible to concentrate on the trivia of bunting and buns for the Peace Celebrations after four, almost five gruelling years of shortages, the agonising worry over one’s husband, one’s son, yet Etta and Aggie had decided they should make some sort of effort for the children’s sake. Dressed in black, each was silent, going over the business of sandwich-making automatically, scraping knives across bread, their thoughts otherwise engaged by memories. The room was silent, its only other occupant fast asleep in his fireside chair, pipe on chest, his nose and cheeks burnt bright red after an accidental nap under a blazing sun.
‘Marty used to like these when he was a boy,’ murmured Aggie, even in her best attire looking haggard as she stacked another round of condensed milk sandwiches on the plate with its paper-lace doily. ‘Of course, that was before he developed expensive tastes. Nothing was ever good enough for him after that.’
Etta gave an absent smile, deep in her own thoughts as she sawed and sliced, contributing to the pyramid of sandwiches. It seemed like a lifetime ago that, after being let out of prison with all charges dropped, she had staggered back into this kitchen, thrown herself into Aggie’s arms and sobbed out her misery, to be just as dramatically assuaged by a letter which told of the petition to the Commander in Chief, organised by her mother, her meek little mother who had never uttered a defiant word in her life but had rallied her influential friends to save her daughter’s husband. Whether this had swayed Sir John French’s decision one could not say, but, with a telegram to confirm the reprieve, it had not mattered. For whatever reason, Marty had been spared execution. Had Etta but known it then, that even in such wondrous moment of relief there would be three more years to suffer…
‘God!’ An agitated Aggie paused abruptly in her task to rest her hands on the table and to shake her head, her face grim. ‘I know I said I wasn’t going to mention it and spoil the children’s party, but I don’t think I’ll ever get over the shame. That boy…’
Etta paused too, looked at her sympathetically and parted her lips to speak, but her mother-in-law announced, ‘No, don’t say a word! I don’t even want to think about it, not today.’ And she got on with her frivolous chore.
‘Any more plates, Granny Lanny?’ fourteen-year-old Celia tripped in to ask.
‘I’ll give you Granny Lanny!’
The young woman laughed coquettishly, and, carrying the plates that were thrust at her, returned to the tables that had been set up in the street, from where others’ happy laughter could be heard.
‘I suppose we’d better join the party then,’ sighed Aggie, smoothing her grey hair and casting a harassed glance at Red still asleep in his fireside chair, then at the empty one opposite. ‘Much as I don’t feel like it. Seems disrespectful to be kicking up our heels just after a wake.’
Etta sanctioned the need for them both to have fun. ‘I don’t think anyone would begrudge us after the hardship we’ve been through.’
Red woke up then with a grunt, cast his glowing face about him in mild surprise, before picking his pipe off his chest and puffing it back to life.
‘I should buy you a lace waistcoat,’ his wife chided him sourly. ‘’Twould save you the trouble of burning the holes in it.’
Red gave a philosophical brush at his chest. ‘Have I missed the party?’
‘No, we’re still waiting on himself,’ replied his wife, looking somewhat aggrieved.
All looked round as the back door opened.
‘Oh, here you are at last,’ chided Aggie. ‘I thought I’d have to come and dig you out.’
‘I can’t help it, it’s what you do go feeding me!’ A grumbling Uncle Mal shuffled in at the speed of a tortoise, his twig-like hand upon a stick, having to summon help from Etta in negotiating the shallow step up from the scullery.
‘My feelings exactly!’ A younger male head poked itself round a different door and a voice chipped in, ‘Is there nothing more interesting to scoff? Christ, I was stuck on condensed milk and bully beef for four years – this is meant to be a celebration, ye know, Ma.’
A grossly indignant Aggie put her hands on her hips and beheld Etta. ‘Didn’t I tell you he always wants what he can’t damn-well have?’ Feigning violence, a sparkle in her eye, she advanced on her grinning son.
‘Call her off, Da!’ begged Marty, but at the first sign of laughter Red fell instantly asleep, awaking every few seconds to issue a brief spurt of amusement before falling asleep again and again and again. ‘I was only asking, Ma!’ Marty yelped.
‘And I’m only telling!’ She smote and jabbed him. ‘I haven’t the money to waste on you after emptying my purse on the wake!’
‘Nobody said you had to,’ objected her son, laughingly trying to fend her off, bending this way and that to avoid her flailing hands.
Aggie pressed forth the mock attack, poked and prodded him till he shrieked for mercy in a boyish falsetto, whilst her blue eyes sparkled with delight at having him home. ‘I’m damned if I’m having your Aunt Joan, God rest her, sitting up there in her heavenly abode complaining to Uncle John that I didn’t give them the very best send-off!’
‘So we have to make do with a crummy shindig!’ taunted Marty, green eyes twinkling as, having left off, his mother now came back to re-launch the assault. ‘Ah, don’t just stand there, Ett, save me, save me!’ And for the benefit of his amused audience that now included little William, who had just come in and joined the game by helping Granny smack Father, he danced this way and that to avoid her blows.
‘I shan’t lift a finger,’ announced Etta loftily, maintaining a steadying hold of Uncle Mal’s arm. ‘I thoroughly agree with your mother.’
‘Oh, fine wife you turned out to be!’ accused Marty, finally allowed to escape from Aggie’s clutches, but his eyes were warm as they locked with Etta’s dark brown ones. And for a moment they were to remain like this, each sharing the same thought, silently wondering what it had all been for, those years of suffering, when here they were in this little house as if he had never been away? Was Marty returned to a better world? A world fit for heroes? Different, certainly, but better? With all his heart he prayed so, not from any selfish desire for, unlike many, he had walked straight into a job that enabled him to rent a modest house, and so he didn’t have to rely on his parents, and could feel like a man. No, his prayer, his fervent hope, was that his less fortunate comrades had not been trodden and pounded into the French earth simply to add to its fertility…for a second the nightmarish memories that he had managed to suppress for today’s celebrations now came rushing back, the thunderous bang and whistle of artillery, the smell of burnt flesh, the pitiful cries of the dying that would ever reverberate…
But he fought them, for he was not dead, he was here, alive, with his dear, brave wife and his beloved children and his parents and siblings and his brothers-in-law, all of whom had survived – few families could boast that – and here he would be, forever. Just in time – for Etta had gauged his flicker of despair causing her smile to falter – the warmth of contentment flooded back into his gaze, he and she composing their smiles as a more serious outpouring came from his mother, who undid her apron and tidied her hair for the party.
‘As if I haven’t enough expense with that blessed brother of yours rushing a wedding upon us – Holy Mother, I’ll never get over the shame, never!’ Aggie stopped in her tracks to press her cheeks in horror at