Annie's Promise (19 page)

A younger man had come through the door and they each helped him up, steadied him and let him sink his weight on to the pylon. Christ, he had no strength at all. He was going to fall, he felt faint, so high up. Christ. Georgie took deep breaths, his body trembling, the pylon was pinching, his stump squeezing it, hurting. For God’s sake he couldn’t bear
any more pain. The harness was digging into him and cutting. Don’t let go. For God’s sake don’t let go!

‘I can’t, sit me down. Sit me down,’ he was shouting.

Bill said, ‘That’s what they all say so don’t worry, we’re here. I might look small but I’m tough, or that’s what I tell the girls. So’s John. Put your arm round me – I promise not to kiss you.’

Georgie leant on them both.

‘Look up, Georgie, pretend that chap in the mirror isn’t you but our Marilyn walking over a vent. Go on get your head up.’

Georgie couldn’t move. He’d fall if he moved even his bloody head just a fraction, couldn’t they see that?

‘Go on, look in the mirror, see that man standing looking at you?’

Georgie lifted his head now, slowly, very slowly and saw a man, thin-faced, pale with hair which hung over his forehead and a metal leg. It was the man who had once run on to the beach with his family, the man who had fought in the jungles, who had struggled over passes and down through valleys. It was the man who had once been Georgie Armstrong.

‘Try a step,’ Bill suggested.

Georgie looked at him then, turning his head slowly, slapping the smile back on to his face. ‘Just one, I thought we were going to have a jive Bill?’

Bill’s face was gentle now. ‘Just one and we’ll trip the light fantastic tomorrow, eh, make your wife jealous.’

Georgie looked back but not at the mirror, as he tried to swing his leg forward but nothing moved. ‘Hold me, hold me,’ he panicked, feeling his right leg trembling, feeling nothing but pain from his stump. Bill’s arm tightened around his waist.

‘Try flicking the stump forward, the knee will bend automatically. Then when it’s forward, kick the stump down and it’ll straighten out on the heel. Imagine you’re at home and the wife’s cracking the whip.’

He did, the knee straightening as the heel hit the rubber mat. He jerked, lost balance, felt Bill tighten his grasp, felt his own arms bearing down on their shoulders. ‘Don’t drop me.’

‘OK, you’ve got that far, now finish it,’ Bill said.

Georgie couldn’t move, the leg was stopping him, it was just stuck there in front, obstructing him. It was lifeless, dead. ‘I can’t move.’

‘I know, no one can because that leg isn’t part of you, it’s not listening to your brain. It’s got no spring because there are no muscles. It’s an obstruction you have to push yourself over, using the momentum of your body.’

‘I haven’t got any bloody momentum,’ Georgie ground out, the sweat of the effort running into his eyes, down his chest, staining his vest and the leather of the harness.

‘Imagine it’s Marilyn over there and the draught from the vent’s becoming a bloody hurricane.’ Bill was laughing and Georgie joined in, though there was no mirth in him.

‘Pull me,’ he ground out, ashamed of his failure.

‘They all say that too,’ Bill said. ‘You’re doing fine.’

They pulled him forward until he was balancing on his stump, frightened that he would fall. Oh God, if he was like this with two men holding him what would he be like alone? It was all too difficult, too damn difficult.

‘Move your good leg then,’ Bill urged, gripping his arm. ‘We’ve got you.’

He didn’t dare. He’d never thought about lifting a leg to walk but you did. You lifted it off the ground, and that would leave him balancing on a bit of metal. He couldn’t – he’d fall, he’d never be able to do it.

‘Hold me,’ he begged.

‘It’s all right we’ve got you. You’re doing fine.’

They held him, he balanced, lifted his leg, moved it forward so slowly, very slowly, don’t jog, don’t fall. There, it was in front.

‘Now the other one.’

He flicked his left stump forward and they pulled him up
and over it. He moved his good leg but not quite so slowly this time. He was closer to the mirror but he couldn’t see himself because of the sweat in his eyes. Now the left again. He flicked it, it stuck. God, it was going to push him backwards. It didn’t but there was sweat all over his body now.

‘Keep going, we’ve to reach the stool by the mirror and then we can all go and have a nice cup of tea.’

He kept going, jerking, flicking, balancing. So much to remember, so difficult. Too difficult. Try, just try. Keep on trying. He looked up, almost there. Once more, flick, stop. ‘Pull me, please.’ Over and down. Thank God. He felt Bill and John take his weight as he sank on to the stool, glad that the sweat was rolling down his face, his chest and his body because he feared that there might be tears there too.

‘It’s always the same the first time. We’ll try you on shorter steps this afternoon.’

They did and it was slightly easier, but that was all.

He dreamt that night of the beach, of Annie when she was fifteen, of their bodies lying together, of his hands on her, his lips on hers and she was calling him a beautiful bonny lad, and stroking his legs, both his legs. When he woke he was bathed in sweat and he longed for her to be here, to be with him but that was before he remembered.

The next day and the next he worked and still it was hard, frightening, and so bloody difficult and by Thursday his stump was chafed and raw and Sister Martins said he must rest it but only for two days. He wished Sister Barnes had been on duty because she would have said a week.

He pushed his wheelchair into the garden and watched the lake, it didn’t matter because at least for this moment he wasn’t in that room streaming sweat, struggling, despairing. He breathed in the freshness of the morning savouring his solitude, glad that he was here, alone, where the hours blended and life moved on without him and there was only dark nothingness for company.

The weeks passed and by the third he was flicking, balancing, pulling himself over without help. By September he was
turning himself round, lurching in a tight semi-circle. In September too, Sarah told him of her first week in her new class, showed him her satchel and he nodded and smiled but it seemed too far away.

Annie told him that Mrs Norris was talking of retiring but that she wouldn’t until he was home for the farewell party.

‘I’ve dried the lavender, made pot pourri for the bathroom. You’ll think you’re back at Gosforn. Oh Georgie, I can’t wait until you’re home. You look better, my darling. I love you so much, miss you so much. The house is all ready for you. I hope you like the wallpaper in the bedroom.’

She talked of the town, of the independence of Malaya, Frank’s pigeons and he nodded, but what had any of this to do with him?

‘I had to insist that Brenda go back to the girls sewing complete garments because production’s fallen off, they need the satisfaction of seeing the finished article, is that all right?’ Annie said, wishing he would say he loved her.

He nodded.

She told him that the children helped them with packaging the garments each evening because they were saving towards a gramophone, that the new mail shot was up and running, that they all missed him, loved him.

‘We need to replace two of the machines though. They have no interlockers and just one wrench will pull apart the seams so Meg and Jean have to hand-finish, it’s ridiculous. I’ve some on order – do you agree?’ She wanted him to feel part of it, to feel necessary.

He listened, though what was it to do with him? Here it was the lake that was important and the roses which were past their best, and his leg. Her world was too far away. It was too dark, too difficult.

As Annie walked back through the building towards her car Sister Barnes called her into her office, telling her that Georgie would be ready to leave before the end of September. ‘He’s very much better physically and should be independent
by then and confident in his mobility,’ she said. ‘But there’s always a psychological adjustment to be made, Mrs Armstrong, and it can take some time.’

Annie nodded, looking out at the lake, at Georgie sitting there, his hands resting on his stick.

Sister Barnes continued. ‘Georgie’s depressed, uncertain. Can you manage?’

Annie didn’t like Sister Barnes, she was blonde and silly, she giggled. She wished that it was Sister Martins sitting there. ‘He’ll need great care, these men have suffered a great deal, they turn inward and need kindness, forbearance, patience.’

Annie nodded. She wanted a cigarette and she did not want to listen to his silly woman telling her how much her husband had suffered. Did she think she was blind, or deaf, or just plain stupid and had noticed nothing over the days and weeks? All she wanted was to have him home and then she would make him come alive.

‘Now, do you have a downstairs room? I suggest you set up a bedroom for him there. He says the stairs are narrow. It would be a problem for him, especially at first. He’s asked us especially to mention this to you.’

Annie looked at the clock on the wall, then back at the lake. Yes, the stairs were narrow, yes she would set up a bed but it would be their bed and she tried not to feel pain at the thought that he could not make that request himself and wanted to go and drag him to the car, back to Wassingham because it was more than time that he came home.

The hospital rang Annie at the end of the third week in September to ask her to collect Georgie at ten o’clock the next morning, Sunday. Tom came round and helped her to dismantle her double bed and lug it down the stairs into the front room. Sarah and Davy brought down the bedside cupboards and the dressing table when they came home from school.

Annie bought food from the market. Plaice because it was his favourite and strawberry ice cream.

Sarah said, ‘Oh, Mum, it’s going to be so good to have him home, have him here eating with us, talking to us.’

‘He’ll be rather changed, he’ll need time to adjust. He’ll be depressed, my darling.’

‘No he won’t, he’ll be glad to be home.’

He was quiet on the journey, sitting with the seat pushed as far back as possible, his false knee bent, and Annie let him just absorb the countryside, which must seem strange and threatening after the restrictions of the world he had lived in for nearly four months.

They approached Wassingham from the north, coming in below the slag heaps. ‘Nothing changes,’ she said, knowing that everything had.

He gripped his stick.

She turned into Wassingham Terrace and there were Tom and Sarah, Davy and Rob, Gracie and Bet and the neighbours, so many of them, waving, smiling.

‘Oh God,’ said Georgie.

‘They’re so pleased to see you, so thrilled you’re home.’ She touched his knee and he jerked away from her, staring through the windscreen.

Annie pulled up, and came round as Tom opened Georgie’s door. She saw him lever himself erect, smile at the neighbours, at Tom, Sarah and the others, saw him walk towards the door, flicking his leg out, kicking, moving over, his jaw set in concentration, his smile rigid. She hardly breathed until he reached the doorway and then she relaxed until she remembered the step.

She moved forward to steady him, but it was too late. His foot caught, he toppled, grabbed at the door, at her, fell out and into the street and there was silence.

She bent down, put her hands beneath his shoulder, saw Tom doing the same. ‘I’m so sorry, Annie,’ Georgie said and the smile was still fixed on his face, and there was nothing
in his eyes and her heart broke for this man she loved so much.

‘Bloody step,’ Annie said, heaving him up, looking across at Tom. ‘Daft bloody step, it’s tripped me up more times than I can count. We’ll go in and have lunch.’

Sarah moved ahead of them, the others behind, but Georgie stopped at the door to the front room.

‘I’m tired. I’d like to sleep.’ Annie saw Sarah’s face and Davy’s too but said, ‘Fine, we’ll eat later.’

He wouldn’t let her help him change and whilst he slept they talked in the kitchen about anything but how dark Georgie’s eyes were, how lonely, how cold he looked. He wouldn’t eat all that day, he just lay in the front room until everyone had gone, until Sarah was in bed and when Annie came to him at last, he said, ‘I toss and turn. I don’t want to keep you awake.’

She lay upstairs in the camp bed in what had been their room thinking of the shape of just one leg beneath the blankets and she didn’t sleep, and so she worked because the tour was coming up in two weeks and the catalogue needed to be proof-read, the samples finished off, their forward planning rechecked because it stopped her thinking of the bleakness in his eyes and her helplessness.

Georgie didn’t get up the next morning. He ate breakfast in bed. Annie worked all morning and though she knew that Bet was in the house she still rushed home at lunchtime to give him salad and tea. Bet and Sarah gave him scones at four, tucked him in tightly, talked to him, soothed him and when Annie came in she helped him to the bathroom, pinning up his pyjama leg before she did so.

‘Can you pass me my crutches?’ he asked.

‘Why not put your leg on?’

‘I’m too tired.’

She handed him the crutches Sister Barnes had put in the boot saying that they might be useful and she liked her boys
to have them. If she had been here now Annie would have slapped her.

He wouldn’t allow her to stay. He locked the door and she wanted to shout, I’m your wife, let me in and throw those crutches away but she didn’t know what harm that would do.

She didn’t sleep that night either. How could you sleep when your husband was in the depths of despair and you didn’t know what you should be doing? But anyway, she had only slept for a few hours at night for so long, what did lack of sleep matter? It didn’t make the headache any worse, or the trembling in her hands.

All week she soothed him, talked to him, told him she loved him, kissed his lips but there was no warmth in his. Did he blame her? She asked him and he said no.

‘Does it hurt?’

He said, ‘No.’

‘Are you very tired?’ He said yes and there were dark circles beneath his eyes and that night she wanted to come down to his room, hold him, comfort him but he had said he wanted to be alone.