Jacqueline Winspear - The Mapping of Love and Death

Here are a few words I've learned. The Tommy calls his rifle his "barndook," I think because it's harder to say than "rifle"-that's a limey thing too. And I've started liking the thick sludge they call "char." It's tea, but the way they brew it! "Go on, mate, it'll put 'airs on your chest!" they'll say. It's more likely to cut off the blood supply to your throat! I really don't mind Oxo, a sort of beef cube that when dissolved in hot water makes a fortifying drink-the boys' mothers send them out because the advertising says that Oxo is "British to the Backbone."

Another one: gum boots-rubber boots to keep your feet dry in the trenches, should you be one of the lucky lads to get a pair (the rest of us just get wrinkled feet that you have to rub with rum, otherwise they'll drop off when you most need them). And the lads have all sorts of nicknames for the different bombs-the hairbrush (looks like one), the Minnie (Minnewerfer, a German trench mortar, you don't hear it until it hits you), a fifteen-pounder (one of ours, thank God!), five nine (one of theirs), and the one the Germans hate-the four-point-five. There are so many of them, I could write a dictionary of British warfare! But here's a name I like-the "housewife"-Tommy calls it a "hussif." It's a little needlework kit, so you can fix your own uniform, otherwise that guy with the pips will be all over you like a rash of cooties if you're so much as missing a button-and it doesn't matter if you lost it while narrowly avoiding being hit by a Minnie!

Maisie smiled as she read more of Michael Clifton's impressions of the men who were serving alongside him, and could see that these early entries had been made before he had received his promotion to junior officer. But although she was drawn in by the young American's observations of life among the Tommies, she was more interested in the unfolding of his love affair with the woman known as Tennie. She went over paragraphs she'd read before, then came to a place where the pages had fused and she had not attempted to pry them loose earlier because she thought they might tear. It seemed that only layers of mold were holding them together. Once again, she used her Victorinox knife-Caldwell had sent a man over to the office to return the gift from her father-to work on the pages, taking care to protect the handwriting as far as she could. Soon the task was accomplished, with only a few words here and there missing.

I don't know how I managed to swing another short leave in Paris, but here I am, and it is perfect. Even more perfect than it was before, and I thought I came here to walk down memory lane with my head low, but instead…who would have known the outcome. I don't know how this will end, but I know that right now, in this place, I am a man who is on top of the world, yet on the edge of the precipice.

Maisie frowned. She picked up the letters and identified the point at which, according to letters from "Tennie," the courtship had ended. Then why was Michael Clifton so happy at what she thought must be a later date? Had there been further correspondence from the unknown woman that had since been mislaid? Were they reunited in Paris? Perhaps there was another letter he'd kept close to heart and that had been lost in battle, or mulched down into the earth along with skin and bone? After so many years, when human remains were discovered, she knew they really were remains . Had Michael's lover changed her mind? Was there news from her that elated him? Here was a man experiencing a joyous hiatus away from war, and at the same time he could see ahead, down into an event he called "the precipice," which she took to be his return to the battlefield. Indeed, as she turned the pages, she realized that this was Michael Clifton's last journal entry-what she had assumed would be the next page of writing was a combination of mold and ink that had soaked through the paper.

I am a man who is on top of the world.

But why?

Maisie looked back and forth through the journal and letters, scanning over excerpts again and again. She ached each time she read of the affection between Michael and his English nurse, and recognized that feeling of joy juxtaposed with a sense of despair waiting in the wings. Had she not felt the same when she was with Simon on leave? It was as if the thrill of the moment, that being together, was intensified, framed by the knowledge that their emotions were distilled in an almost make-believe hiatus from the war. Soon they would be there again, among the dead and dying, and the intimacy so dearly cherished would be like a dream gone before morning.

She rubbed her forehead, closed the journal, and set it down on the table, but as she did so, she noticed a loose page opposite the back cover that had slipped free. She reached forward, opened the book, and saw that it was not a page, but a folded sheet of paper. Using her knife, she teased the sheet apart and set it down to reveal a single curl of black hair. She picked up the hair to examine it, then placed it on top of the journal while she read the note, which had faded into invisibility in several places. It was a poem fragment.

What's the best thing in the world?

June-rose,

Truth, not cruel to a friend;

Pleasure, not in haste to end;

Beauty,

Love, when, so, you're loved again.

– Something out of it, I think.

Though Maisie enjoyed verse, so many other aspects of her studies had demanded attention that she immersed herself in poetry only to the extent necessary to pass an exam or gain a respectable mark on a paper. She knew that to discover any significance in the curl's wrapping, she would have to take the fragment of verse to someone who knew poetry and see if knowledge of its author might help her in some way. She had no idea who might assist her, but there was something about the words that remained with her, that nagged at her to take notice. Pleasure, not in haste to end. She picked up the lock of hair, turning it between thumb and finger. Love, when, so, you're loved again.

Later, after she'd put away the letters and journal, first taking care to replace the poem and single black curl, she turned off the lights and made ready for bed. And try as she might to banish all thoughts of the day so that she could meditate before sleeping, the words echoed in her mind so that, eventually, when she at last went to bed, she drifted to sleep knowing that this was one poem, or fragment thereof, that she would not forget:

Love, when, so, you're loved again.

When Maisie first bought her MG, she had taken the opportunity to drive everywhere. She loved the freedom to go where she wanted, when she wanted, and when she traveled outside London the open road ahead beckoned, along with the promise held in the journey itself. But now, often frustrated by slow-moving London traffic, she drove to work only when her day demanded an excursion outside the metropolitan area, or she had to visit a place not reached by the transport services. For the most part, within the capital the bus, tram, and tube served her well, and in particular, she had always enjoyed traveling by bus. She would step aboard, make her way up the winding stairs to the top deck, and from that vantage point look down upon the world as it went about its business. The bus passed houses where people were getting ready for their day: a husband kissed his wife on the cheek as he stepped out on his way to work, briefcase in hand and bowler hat in place; a woman opened the door of her ground floor flat clutching a worn kimono around her as she let the cat in from a night on the prowl and collected the milk from the doorstep; and in another house, she saw children being made ready for school by a uniformed nanny. As the bus drew nearer the shops of Oxford Street, already clerks and assistants were walking and running purposefully towards their day's toil. And she could see the moving throng as it formed into tributaries and streams, running ever onward towards the ocean of commerce, a day's work and a day's pay. Each of the people had a life and, if they were fortunate, family who loved them and who they loved in return-perhaps a wife at home, a babe in the nursery, an aging parent who needed help, brothers and sisters. It was as if she had been looking down upon a landscape of human activity, a charting of everyday endeavor. As she considered, not for the first time, the part she played in the grand scheme, a question came to mind, almost as if Maurice had prompted her. Was she forging ahead in a stream of her own making, or was she allowing herself to be carried out by a riptide, ever onward towards…what?