Alice
The nurse wheels me in before the frosty window.
“There we are Alice dear. Now you can enjoy the view! Isn’t that nice?” I sigh inwardly. The woman only looks about thirty-five. She’s just a girl. Far too young to be calling me ‘dear’.
“That’s delightful!” I grimace, answering in her own sugary tone. She smiles, obviously pleased that her idea had been a success, and wanders off to deal with some of the other old people in the home.
As I stare at the pane of glass in front of me, I look but I don’t see the view. Instead, I watch as a tear slips down my wrinkled reflection. I was old. Tired. And so alone. I sit back with a hollow sigh, and let my mind wander back, back to those days of my girlhood. To the people of my childhood…
It was the night of the village dance.
“Hurry up Alice!” moaned Joan. Joan was my best friend, a fiery confident girl, always bossing me about, left right and centre. I smiled at the slender, red-headed young woman sprawled over my old eiderdown bedspread.
“Patience is a virtue…” I grinned infuriatingly; laughing at her hard glare, as she silently dared me to finish the age old proverb. Turning my back on her, I pushed a pair of scratched gold earrings into my ears, heirlooms from my long dead grandmother.
Joan, always inconsistent in her moods, leapt off the bed with a creak of springs, her faded best dress whirling, her blue eyes sparkling.
“Are you ready now?” she demanded impatiently.
“Of course I am” I replied sweetly. I performed a small pirouette on the spot. “How do I look?”
Joan’s face softened.
“You look beautiful, as always.” Joan surged out of my bedroom, taking the wooden stairs tow at a time. I winced at the crashes.
Glancing in the large shard of age stained mirror propped up on my mantle piece, I scanned my familiar face. I suppose I was quite pretty, if a little ordinary looking. I pushed back my glossy, chestnut brown bob, which Joan had recently cut for me to look like the film star Ava Gardner. She said it suited me. I wasn’t so sure. And I wished I could get rid of my freckles.
Jimmy used to pretend he was doing a dot-to-dot picture when we were little.
Jimmy.
I followed Joan’s footsteps, pausing at the top of the unevenly floored landing, in front of a closed door; Jimmy’s door.
Jimmy was my kind-hearted, compassionate brother. He’d left to join the front line last year, just a boy, just nineteen years old. I smiled at the memory of him marching proudly around the house in full uniform, polishing his tin helmet in front of the fire, his warm brown eyes bright, his bright blonde hair gleaming.
As I had fretted about him going out there, Jimmy had just smiled and hugged me close.
“Don’t worry about me Alice. They say this world war’ll not be like the first one. It’ll be over by Christmas – that’s only 3 months away!”
A year had passed.
We knew he was fine. He had been sent to France, and we received weekly letters from him, telling us all about the recent advancements, the living conditions, the other men.
And about Charlie.
Charlie and Jimmy had been best friends even before the war, and it was pure chance that they had been issued the same company, being christened Private Charles McConnell and Private James Gordon, names far too sophisticated and manly for the two smiling teenagers I knew so well. I smiled wanly as I recalled the three of us, best friends, comrades, playing in the country lanes and the woods near our village. Charlie had never thought of me as anything but a kid he would hang around with, despite me being only a year younger, but two months before he left for France with Jimmy, something had changed between us when we had first kissed, atop Oak Hill and very soon we had realised that we were falling in love.
It broke my heart when they went away. I barely slept those first few weeks, from the terror that something might happen to them. And although I received letters from them both most weeks, for some reason Charlie had never visited. Jimmy had been able to take leave and come home twice since he had left, but even I could see that he had changed so much. He went from a bright, carefree boy, to a muscular, battle hardened man. But despite his quietness and clear unhappiness, at least he had visited.
So why hadn’t Charlie?
I asked Jimmy over and over again why Charlie had refused to come, but he evaded the question, saying that he ‘had promised’. The worst thoughts ran through my head; had he met another girl, prettier, cleverer? She was probably a beautiful bombshell of a waitress he had met when on leave, visiting other people instead of me…
Jimmy insisted that this wasn’t the case, but I continued to mope around for months until his next leave, when he revealed Charlie’s secret to me. He wasn’t cheating on me; he was an alcoholic. Jimmy refused to use the term, but I wasn’t a fool. He drank to get rid of his fear, to forget the terrible sights that he saw, things that Jimmy refused to tell me and my parents. He was a drunk.
And so that was why he hadn’t visited. He was afraid that I wouldn’t love him if I hadn’t seen him as the grand soldier, going out and defending his country, but what he couldn’t see was that I loved him with all my heart. What was there not to love? Wars and drunkenness were insignificant; they were simply unimportant. I would help him through this. I would.
But he still didn’t visit.
“ALICE!” I was jerked from my memories as Joan’s disgruntled voice shook through the house. With one last glance at Jimmy’s closed door, I slowly and sadly descended down the wooden stairs. Joan was in front of the aga in the kitchen, slipping on her large black regulation boots. She shot me a wide, excited grin and we made our way down the winding country lanes to the village dance.
By the time we had approached the old village hall, dusk was already beginning to set in.
Suddenly the realisation of what I was doing dawned. My eyes began to well up and I stopped suddenly. I couldn’t do it.
Before Charlie had left, when we still ‘courting’, we had gone to every single dance in the village, even getting on our rusty bicycles and riding out to neighbouring villages to gatecrash their dances! Just so we could spend the whole night, wrapped in each other’s arms, swaying gently in time to the music.
When he, had left I’d silently sworn that I wouldn’t attend another dance unless Charlie was there, dancing with me.
But now, a year later, I was breaking my vow. Did it mean I was falling out of love with him anymore? I didn’t know.
Joan saw the silent tears trickling down my cheeks and sighed.
“You are such hard work…What’s the matter now Alice?”
“I just can’t do it.” I shook my head wildly, trying to desperately clear it of the whirling thoughts residing there, arguing and shouting rabidly. “Not without Charlie.”
Joan took me firmly by the shoulders and looked deep into my eyes with her crystal blue ones.
“Alice, darling. It’s been close to a year since Charlie left. I’m not saying you should forget him, but you can’t put your life on hold for him. He hasn’t. I mean, really….not even visiting once in a whole year…Jimmy could. Why couldn’t Charlie?”
I half listened to her indignant ramblings. I knew she was right. And so did the blustering, uncontrollable thoughts in my head.
The village hall had been decorated especially for the dance, transforming from an ancient, cobwebbed, sparse room, to an ancient, cobwebbed, sparse room, with the occasional bundle of red, blue and white crepe paper adorning the cracked walls! The room was full of teens just like us, but it wasn’t how I remembered. I struggled to pin down exactly what was a different. Then I realised; the whole room was nearly all girls! Of course; the young men were all at war.
The only boys there were younger boys or the injured men from war. Joan and I went to some spare chairs against the walls. Joan was almost immediately asked to dance by a young ex-pilot, handsome, but brutally disfigured on part of his face and neck.
“A souvenir from a plane crash”, he winked at Joan, before he whisked her off onto the dance floor, her looking happier than I had seen her in months!
I remained in my seat, humming along to the vinyl spinning frenziedly on the gramophone in the corner of the hall, feeling awkward, but doing my best to seem like I was enjoying myself; more for the benefit of Joan than myself, when one of the only other young men in the room approached me.
“Hello!” He grinned. “I’m Paul.”
For the rest of the evening, Paul and I chatted, danced and laughed together. I hadn’t had so much fun in a year – literally!
When the end of the dance approached, Paul and I sat on an old bench, waiting for Joan to get her things and leave, while Paul told me all about his life at war. I nodded every so often, my attention dwindling.
“…and I just wanted you to know – you’re a terrific gal…” This sentence caught my attention and I sat up quickly.
“What?”
“I said you’re a terrific girl Alice…” he laughed and his smile faded as he looked deep into my eyes. He leaned forward slowly.
“NO!” I gasped, shying away. “I mean, I can’t…I mean…oh!” With that I tore down the lanes, stumbled up to my bedroom and collapsed onto my bed, sobbing. I hadn’t fallen out of love with Charlie. I loved him stronger, fiercer than ever. I just hadn’t realised the extent of it until now.
I lay like that for ages, finally falling into a weary stupor, devoid of any more emotion.
Tap. Tap. Tap. BANG.
I woke with a start. The noise had come from my window. I hurried over to the drapes and pulled them back.
It was…it couldn’t be…but…it was….
“Charlie.” I whispered. Charlie smiled back at me.
“I’m back Al’. It’s only for a bit, but I’m back. You goin’ to let me in or am I goin’ to have to freeze my ears off?”
Once he had got into my bedroom, he sat on the floor while I sat on the bed.
“Why didn’t you visit?” I murmured. In the faint glow of my candle, I could see the physical change in him. His once boyish features had turned man-like, chiselled and strong. He had deep shadows beneath his eyes, and I could see the three day stubble on his jaw, but his eyes were still the same. Still dark, and open and laughing. It was still him.
We talked for hours that night. H explained why he didn’t visit. As I knew, he had been having problems with drink, and he hadn’t felt that he could visit me until he was feeling better. And know he was feeling better.
Charlie smiled at me gently from the floor, stood up and sat next to me on the bed.
“I’ve missed you so much Al’. I…I love you.” He leant forward to kiss me, and this time…this time I didn’t shy away.
A month later, two girls sat on a tartan blanket in a park. They were laughing and gossiping, their eyes bright, and their hair flowing. As they giggled at a joke one of the girls had told, a thin, greying man approached the blanket, his eyes pink from the tears that stained his sunken face. He spoke briefly to pretty chestnut haired girl, the red-head looking on, her face horrified, and he broke down once more, his head bowed. The chestnut haired girl stood up, almost in a daze and ran past them, through the twisted iron gate and ran up the road.
“Alice. Alice!” Joan’s cries rang through the street as I pounded down the dusty road. My papa’s words reverberated through my thoughts, amplified, screaming the truth at me.
“They’re dead Alice…our Jimmy and Charlie. Both…dead….” My feet were carrying me to a place, my mind was too full, my heart too broken to think, to feel properly.
I was at the top of Oak Hill. The place where Charlie and I had shared our first kiss. I dropped to my knees, my raw emotion pouring out of my heart, tears spilling unceasingly down my cheeks.
“Jimmy…Charlie…” I sobbed. I’d lost the two people I cared about most in the whole world. And now they were dead. A bomb had hit them in the village in France that they had been situated in. Their whole company had died. At least they had been together. But how I wanted to be with them too.
Then I stood up. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and smiled. I could see Charlie and Jimmy. They grinned at me and beckoned and then…disappeared. I walked slowly to the steep side of the hill, focusing on the sharp jagged rocks that lay beneath me. With one step it could all be over. I could be with them again, close to them. We could be together, Charlie, Jimmy and me. Together.
I felt a dull feeling rise in my stomach and turned away to be sick, reminding me of the fact that I had confirmed a few days ago with my doctor. I was pregnant with Charlie’s baby. That moment I knew that I couldn’t ever see them again. It was over. I had to hold on and stay strong for this baby. Charlie may have died, but he would always live on in his child. Our child.
I stepped back from the edge of the steep drop, and smiled hollowly at the memories that laughed and waved at me.
I turned my back and walked slowly back down the hill.
Eight months later I gave birth to a little boy. I called him Charles in memory of his father. My baby Charlie. I didn’t ever marry. How could I? No one would have me, and even if they had, I wouldn’t have wanted to. I belonged to Charlie, whether he was alive or not.
Of course my parents were ashamed that I had given birth out of wedlock, but they loved baby Charlie with all their hearts, and supported me from the gossipy whispers that constantly surrounded me whenever I walked into the village. But I didn’t care.
Behind my closed eyes, it was Charlie, me and our baby; together; happy; alive.
In my dreams I’m with Charlie and Jimmy again, young and carefree. No war. No death. No pain.
“Mrs Gordon? Mrs Gordon? Quick, get the nurse…”
THATS KINDA OF MY POITN THO…ANYWAY PLEASE DONT CHATISE ME ON GRAMMER, JUST TELL ME PLEASE IF YOU HATE IT OR LIKE IT (PERSONALLY IM THINKING WHAT WAS I THINKING?)