Judith Allnatt - The Moon Field

‘Who’s Harry?’ George asked.

‘His brother,’ Turland filled him in. ‘He was in the Territorials so he’s already been mobilised.’

Haycock asked Rooke, ‘How old are you anyway?’

Rooke flushed: a blush that reddened his cheeks and rose to the tips of his ears. He shot a swift glance at Turland as if to refer the question to him, which George thought very curious.

‘Leave it, Haycock,’ Turland said.

‘It’s just that you have to be eighteen to join, nineteen if you want to serve overseas …’

Rooke stared fiercely at Haycock. ‘I don’t know how old I am.’

‘Don’t be daft.’

Turland said quietly, ‘Shut up, Haycock. Now’s not the time.’ He tapped his cards on the table whilst he thought. ‘We should go up to the castle together,’ he said. ‘Rooke might have more of a chance if they see us as a job lot.’

George imagined the three of them in khaki, swinging their arms as they marched together and suddenly felt awkward sitting there in his postman’s uniform. The role he’d been so proud of was safe, civilian. He felt reduced to a mere message-taker, little better than an errand-boy, while the others would be part of something huge, a glorious endeavour, taking their places as men. He was tipsily aware that somewhere beneath the muddle of his feelings about England and honour and protecting one’s family lay the unease he felt about seeing Violet again: a troubling mixture of deadly embarrassment that he had revealed something of his feelings, and shame that he hadn’t behaved with more gallantry. He felt an unbearable awkwardness that he had no idea how to overcome. Then his mind flipped unaccountably to Lillie and the fragile feel of her small bones as he lifted her that morning, and he felt a lump form in his throat.

At the next table, the bearded man was nudging his neighbour and drawing the attention of his drinking partners so that all turned round to look. One of them, who had a kitbag slung on the back of his chair, said, ‘You shouldn’t have too much of a problem. You’ll soon shape up, even the young ’un.’

Haycock spat on his hand and held it out over the jumble of glasses and cards.

‘Are you in, Farrell?’ Turland asked.

George hesitated. The scrutiny from the table behind had spread and even the men standing at the bar had turned to see what had caused the dramatic gesture.

‘Soldiers in the making!’ the bearded man called out, and with that, Turland and Rooke spat on their palms too and the three of them joined hands, fist over fist, to a chorus of approving voices. George leant back on his stool as if to move out of the bearded man’s eyeline.

‘Three soldiers and a postman!’ the man shouted and the swell of congratulation died away into laughter as George hunched his shoulders and stared into his pint. Rooke bent beneath his downcast face and grinned up at him, saying, ‘Cheer up, mate, plenty of time to change your mind.’

George shrugged and downed the pint in huge gulps until there was nothing left. He saw that he’d fallen behind the others; there was a full glass set ready in front of him. He tried to focus on the task of stretching out to pick up the glass but his hand seemed to move independently of his will, jerking forward and nudging the full glass so that it slopped a pool of beer on to the table. He stared at the beer still frothing on the dark wood.

‘Steady,’ said Haycock, setting the glass in his hand.

‘You shouldn’t have bought him that last one,’ said Turland.

‘Needs cheering up, doesn’t he?’ Haycock said. ‘Spot of woman trouble.’ He winked at Turland and dealt the cards again. Turland and Rooke picked up their cards and another game began.

George took a sup and put his glass down very carefully but waved Haycock away when he tried to give him his hand of cards. ‘I’ll pass this one up,’ he muttered.

We must have been here a while, George thought, as the girl who had been collecting glasses reached across a table to open a window and he saw her reflection in the pane and realised that it was now fully dark outside. He hoped that there was a moon and wondered how he would make the ride home without mishap otherwise. A cool draught of air reached him. He breathed it in deeply and tried to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach and the sensation that if he didn’t concentrate very hard on the three of spades which lay abandoned in front of him, the room started to waver slowly on the borders of his vision.

The girl reached their table and began to gather up the empties. She had coarse features, hair the colour of brass and the high colour that often goes with it. Strands of her hair had escaped her pins and stuck to her brow and neck.

Haycock said, ‘Where’s Mary tonight then?’

‘She’s ill; I’m just filling in this once,’ the girl said. She paused to roll her sleeves up, revealing plump, freckly arms. She leaned across the table to pick up the empty glasses in front of George, and Haycock tipped his stool backwards so that he could give her posterior a long, appraising look. ‘Bottoms up,’ he said and drained the dregs of his beer. George thought this uncouth. Haycock sat forward again and put his glass down but as the girl reached to take it he moved it further away. She shot him a glance as if to say ‘I know your game’ but still leant over further to take it, and when he wouldn’t let it go and looked at her with a challenge in his eyes she laughed and drew it slowly from his fingers.

George, noticing as she bent forward that her figure beneath her blouse didn’t have the corseted solidity that he usually associated with the female form, but instead a loose movement as if all below was only constrained by petticoats, dragged his eyes back to her face. Feeling the effects of the drink, he was aware of a delay between thought and action and realised that he was staring, yet was strangely fascinated by her blond eyelashes, which gave her eyes a red-rimmed, unfinished look.

‘Your friend all right?’ the girl said to Turland. ‘He’s looking a bit queer.’

‘He’s had a fair bit to drink.’

‘Maybe more than he can manage,’ Haycock said, knocking George’s arm so that his elbow slipped off the table, jolting him into action. George sat up as straight as he could.

‘I’m perfectly …’ George found that even his lips now seemed to be rebelling against him, with a numb sensation as he pressed them together and tried to form the words. ‘… fine. And it’s my round,’ he finished, fishing around in his pocket for some money. He tried to rise but had to put his hand on the table to steady himself.

‘I’ll bring them,’ the girl said. ‘You stay here.’

George subsided and she picked out some threepenny bits and pennies from the handful he held out, her wet fingers leaving the remaining coins sticky in his hand.

Haycock and Turland were talking about giving in their notice at work. Both felt that their employers wouldn’t ask them to work it out; they would be released straight away if they had their military marching orders. Rooke said that when he decided to move out he just did it, although always on a payday – no point going without what was due to you. George stared into his drink; the conversation seemed too hard to follow. He very much wanted to go to sleep. He tried to marshal his thoughts by concentrating on what was before him; the beer reminded him of the colour of a beech hedge, ‘a distillation of autumn’. He thought the phrase rather good but couldn’t trust himself to share it in case it came out all wrong. The sound of the words moved through his head in a slow, pleasing procession. Why couldn’t he just curl up somewhere warm and go to sleep?

The voices of his companions rose as they explored the heady excitement of being able to escape their normal humdrum lives so quickly. The anticipated freedom of having extra money in their pockets bred madcap plans for their return. Haycock would join forces with his brother to sell motors; Turland would move to London and try his hand at a job on a bigger paper, maybe even take up travel as a foreign correspondent somewhere glamorous, ‘Paris or New York,’ he said grandly. Rooke said he would get the best cycle money could buy and eat out like a king every night. His ambition didn’t seem to extend further than a more comfortable version of the life he knew.