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Tommy doesn’t remember how he got here. There might have been a business meeting? But there aren’t so many of those these days, not since he didn’t run in the last election. Not since he stepped back from the business. He could have been meeting with Lizzie and Charles – he’s been seeing them every now and then to try to be present. As present as can be when the constant memory of France looms over his head.
The constant reminders of France are debilitating. How can he move on? How can he get on with his every day when every day is a fresh reminder of the terror he experienced? When every bomb dropped on London and Birmingham and Coventry is a underground explosion, or shell creating a fresh crater for him to shelter in for days while him and his fellow soldiers wait to freeze to death.
It’s only 1940. The war has only been waging properly for a little while, and shows no signs of letting up. If Mosley and the fascists are anything to go by, the Nazis have a lot in store for this war. Days are long, but the nights are so much longer.
He’s taken to finding refuge out in the countryside, where he can find some quiet. But often, the quiet only makes it worse. In the silence of the fields and horses and trees, he still hears the bombs dropping miles and miles away. The relief is brief but the dread of the next bomb hitting Charles, or Lizzie, or Ada and her family, is too much to bear. So he finds a phone each day, to call and remind himself he has a family to stay alive for. And every so often, brings himself back to reality, back to the war-torn streets of Birmingham and London to be present for his family, to see Lizzie, to see Charles, to see Ada and Elizabeth and Karl.
Surely that’s where he had been. It’s a mystery, in any case. He's not sure why he brought his horse into the city centre, but the beautiful thing is, and he finds himself riding it through the streets of London. People are watching – he’s covered head to toe in ash and smoke.
He smells like death, like burnt. It reminds him of long nights in France wishing for death. It reminds him of days in the medical tents hearing the desperate dying screams of men burnt half dead. The men who never made it through the night.
He doesn’t think he’s burnt. Nothing hurts right about now, but he doesn’t feel much of anything at the moment. His eyes are heavy under the cap on his head. People are reaching for him but that’s too all encompassing. He moves past them all, doesn’t hear their words of sympathy and encouragement above the ringing in his ears and distant sounds of bombs which he doesn’t know whether are in his head or real.
He doesn’t know where he is heading until he reaches Ada’s doorstep. He can only hope she is at home. It’s Wednesday, he thinks he remembers, so the children won’t be home. He can never really remember if she has a job these days. She certainly doesn’t need one, but he thinks she is working on the war effort – remembers something about an allotment.
“Tommy?” A strangled gasp escapes the voice in front of him. Tommy looks up from the horse’s nape. Ada, in the doorway. He hadn't gotten off the horse just yet, let alone knocked the door, so to see her was a great relief. The gasp reminds him of a story she’d told him from years ago, when he appeared at her doorstep half dead from a fractured skull. He still doesn’t remember much from that night, or the nights before and after, but remembers the same shocked gasp, the concern in her voice, the hand holding his in the car to the hospital and in the long early days and nights in the hospital.
“Tom?” she repeats. It’s calmer now, but with an edge of deep concern. She’s not so much shocked as worried. She no longer seems surprised. It’s been a long time coming. Tommy notices she’s wearing green trousers with a white long-sleeved shirt and braces. This kind of outfit had been a culture shock at first for Tommy, but something he’d gotten used to. “Come on, off the horse.”
Tommy doesn’t react. His limbs feel heavy, like the sheer effort of staying upright, staying on the horse in one piece, takes everything he has. It does. After a breath and consideration, Ada reaches her brother’s side. “It’s okay, Tom. Don’t worry, I’ll help you.” She doesn’t force it but helps guide one leg over so he can slide off the horse. “Bareback? Been a while.”
It hasn’t, actually, but Ada wouldn’t have seen that. He rides bareback through the mountains when he needs air. Which is most of the time. Plus, he doesn't know how to say this to her. He can barely hear her, and his tongue feels just so heavy in his mouth. And he wouldn’t know what to say in any case.
“Come on, come inside. It’s freezing out here.” She puts a hand on his back and guides him through her door. Once, they lived in a house the size of one of these rooms. She guides him into the drawing room on the front of the house. She’s been talking about moving somewhere smaller for years, but has never quite reached the point of moving.
“What hurts, Tom?”
“Nothing,” Tommy mumbles back. He’s surprised the word comes out at all, though Ada doesn’t seem immensely impressed with his choice of response.
“I doubt that very much. You look like you’ve burned yourself. Your coat is charred.”
But Tommy doesn’t notice that. For a period of time since he’s been sat down in the darkness of the kitchen Ada clearly hadn’t opened the curtains to yet today, he’s somewhere else entirely. The smell of death and flesh reaches a peak, with constant reminders of something he feels entirely immersed in. And Freddie is back, with Danny, and they’re stuck underground, and it’s been days since they’ve seen sunlight. The last person they’d seen had been the rotting corpse of their 16-year-old tunnelling soldier working alongside them.
“Tommy, Tommy.” Ada’s voice. Why’s she down here? Shouldn’t she be back in Birmingham? She’s much too young to be down here, in France. Has she come to see Freddie? Silly girl, it’s awfully dangerous. “Tommy, come back to me.”
“I don't understand?” Tommy pushes out. She shouldn’t be here. No one should be here. Why can’t they just go home? Or die, a nice painless death he’d give anything for right now. Much better than suffocating a mile underground, where their bodies would probably never be found. Where there would never be a definitive place for Polly and Ada to visit when they fancied. For Danny’s wife, for Freddie’s mother.
“You’re not there, Tommy. You’re in England, in my house. It’s Ada. You're not there.” But that can’t be right, because there’s no bombs in England. England is safe. England is something he looks forward to when he allows himself hope. “It’s over, Tommy. Your war is over, I promise.” He shakes his head. It can’t be. This can’t be right. “The war ended a while ago now, Tommy. Remember coming home? Me and polly picked you up from the station. Arthur and John were already home but you insisted on staying until all the men in your command were home, too. You were covered in bruises, but still let me hold on tight. You remember that? That means you’re home. It’s over.”
When Tommy forces himself to open his eyes once more, he’s greeted with the – now brighter – image of Ada’s kitchen, his sister kneeled, concern all over her face, in front of him.
“You with me?”
Tommy nods. “I think so.” His hands are shaking. One of them rests in Ada’s. It feels warm. In the hospital years ago, it had felt oppressive, clammy and too much. Overstimulating, tingly. Now it feels comforting, a reminder she’s there. A bridge between the real world and his head.
“Do you want a tea?” Tommy nods again. Tea was something they hardly had in France. Perhaps a cup of hot mud every now and then, which they could pass of as chocolate, though it hardly included it, perhaps a granule from the rations.
“My ears are ringing like hell,” he responds when Ada is on the other side of the room, preparing tea.
“You must have been in an air raid. Went all night, last night. We should get you to a doctor.” Tommy ignores the doctor comment. He at least needs to calm down first. He feels… jittery, and he can still hear the bombs in the distance even though Ada isn’t reacting, which tells him they are probably in his head. Freddie’s panicked “Tommy!” Repeats over and over.
“I don't remember…” Tommy mumbles in response.
“I shouldn’t think so.” She pauses, stirring two cups of tea. “Has this happened a lot recently? I don’t see much of you on days like this.”
“It’s better to be in the countryside when it’s like this.” He deliberately obfuscates the question. He shouldn’t like to worry her with the truth that this is most of his days, at the moment. It’s too loud with the sounds of war, or it’s too quiet so his mind plays them anyway.
“I’d rather you told me, Tom. I can help you with this.”
“You already tried to convince me with that rubbish about doctors and-“
“I’m not talking about doctors, Tommy. I want to help you. Is that so wrong?”
Tommy ponders this for a while, while Ada sets his tea on the table and sits opposite him. “But what about Karl and Elizabeth?”
“It would be good for them to get away from all this. Plus, you might be able to convince Karl he shouldn’t be signing up to fight.” Tommy’s stomach drops. Had this been a consideration? “He’ll probably be called up soon, anyway. But I won’t let him go a minute before I have to.”
“He wants to fight?”
“That school puts such ideas into his head about patriotism and fighting. What good did it do you? Only made you hate king and country more.”
“Can we?”
“Can we what, Tom?”
“Go off together. Just for a little while?”
“If you think it’ll help, I would love to.”