Sunday 30 November 2014

No, no, no more Mo...

Thank goodness today is the 30th November! We both hate the Mo! It probably wouldn't have been so bad if Himself had trimmed it, but, oh, no. If we were going to Mo, we were going to Mo with complete abandon...
And we did.

Just a recap: Day One:
 Day Eight:
 Day Fifteen:
 Day Twenty Two:
And for comparison: Day Thirty again
:We're staying up until midnight to shave it off at one minute past...

Monday 24 November 2014

A Monday story, first in a while...

Mostly because I'm working on several long projects, I haven't been writing so many short stories and keeping up with one a week is just a bit much if I'm to keep the quality up.

But there is one I haven't posted yet. It was written for the British Libraries' Pathfinder Projects to commemorate  World War I. The Leeds project included an in-depth look at the Gledhow Scrapbook, a compilation made by Edith Cliff, Matron of the Hall when it was a convalescent hospital for the injured ranking soldiers. We had a trip out to the hall...
In the scrapbook is a poem. 'Lady Maude', which tells the story of a typical, fictitious VAD - a body of volunteer nurses who looked after the soldiers.  That, combined with the fact that the soldiers had a mascot doll dressed up in uniform and bandaged as if injured, formed the backbone of the story.

Looking for Lady Maude

‘She weary toils from morn ‘til night
With heavy eyes and cheeks so white,
She suffers from a “Housemaid’s Knee”,
The Lady Maude – a VAD…’

Where was Lady Maude? He kept looking for her.  Ever since he had heard one of the VADs reading out the poem a few days ago, he had tried to find her. It was important to keep occupied while he was like this, and as all he could do was stare, he stared into the face of every VAD who came near him, just to check if it were Lady Maude.

They had put him with two others who seemed to share the same affliction; he thought of them as Tommy and Jock.  Tommy was a strong looking fellow with strange, blond hair that was definitely not regulation. He, too, had sergeant stripes, but there was an odd, feminine cast to his mouth.  A sergeant shouldn’t look like that, flowing hair and strange rosebud lips.  It wasn’t natural.  Jock was a little chap, small and dark with intense eyes that had seen too much.  He wore his Highland Regiment cap at a jaunty angle, but he was in regular fatigues like the rest of them, no kilt, no socks with clocks.

He didn’t know what regiment Jock was from, or Tommy, for that matter.  He wanted to ask, but Jock and Tommy didn’t say much.  Didn’t say anything, not even when the VADs came to check on them.  None of them said anything.  Like Jock and Tommy, he had no voice, either, so he couldn’t even ask if he’d got their names right.

Maybe they didn’t know their names; he hadn’t known his, until one of the VADs, after settling him more comfortably in his chair one day, turned to her colleague.

‘Who’s this, then? Doesn’t he have a name?’

‘Of course he has a name! This is Sergeant Michael Cassidy.  You’re a terribly brave soldier, aren’t you, Sergeant?’ the second VAD had said. 

She stroked his hair, but he couldn’t feel it.

He couldn’t feel anything.


***

One day, Michael realised he had dark hair.

This morning’s VADs – neither of whom had been Lady Maude – had sat him near the window with a kind word, and once they had gone, he realised he could see his own reflection there.  He had dark hair that curled in a boyish fashion, and dark, staring eyes with long eyelashes.

The VADs had taken Tommy and Jock away, and he wondered why. They hadn’t said.

Sometimes he wondered what was wrong with him, other than not being able to talk. Other than being confused as to who he was and why he was here.

He stared, unblinking, at his reflection in the window, at the window…

Through the window, at grass, and trees, and gravel paths.  He wondered if it was crunchy underfoot, noisy and rough, and how hard it was to get along it in a bath chair.  He could see one now, the soldier in it was smiling, delighted to be in a bath chair with a VAD struggling to push him along.  Rough.  The gravel must be rough since it seemed very difficult to push the soldier.  He wondered if the VAD was Lady Maude, but she was too far away to be sure.  He knew he would recognise her, though, when he saw her.

He noticed two familiar figures with the soldier; Tommy and Jock.  He was startled to see that Jock’s right arm was in a sling, and Tommy had a bandage around his left knee.

On a table beside Michael’s seat was a book, the scrapbook from which the VADs had read the poem about Lady Maude.  Today, though, he saw a group photograph of many soldiers, gathered outside the house – an impressive building, very beautiful with huge windows.  Perhaps he was looking out of the very same window now? It was a comforting thought, even though he was sure it was wrong.

At the side of the photograph was a handwritten list detailing the names of the soldiers and their injuries.  As he looked it over, he wondered whether Tommy was Pte Green (sprained knee).  And Jock? Was he perhaps Pte Baker (gunshot wound, right arm)?

He wished he could ask them.
He wished they could tell him.
He wondered if they even knew; after all, he hadn’t known his own name before the VAD had said it.

‘Oh, Sergeant, are you left inside on your own?’

The voice was gently brisk, if there was such a thing; another of the VADs. She bent over him and he looked into her face.  Kindness, gentleness, exhaustion… he saw them all there. Could this be Lady Maude?

But no.

‘Corporal Millar’s looking a little glum.  Why don’t you sit with him for a while, cheer him up?’

Carefully she lifted him from his chair.  Was he paralysed as well as mute? Certainly, he couldn’t feel anything, any touch of her arms around him as she bore him away.

‘We just need to sort out a dressing for you first; can’t have you appearing amongst the men without your wound dressed, can we, Sergeant?’ she said, carefully settling him down while she deftly bandaged his foot.  ‘There. Is that better?’

She bore him off again without waiting for an answer, which was perhaps a good thing, as he couldn’t feel the dressing, or the injury.

He couldn’t feel anything.

***

Corporal Millar shared a hut in the gardens with someone – the second bed was made tidily, and a neat little stack of kit at its foot proclaimed an occupant.    The hut was small, decorated, had a wooden roof and walls, and lots of fresh air.

Millar had a sorry look to him.  His left foot was swathed in bandages, just like Sergeant Cassidy’s, and for a moment while they stared at each other, Millar was as still and expressionless as a porcelain doll.

‘I’ve brought Sergeant Cassidy to visit you, Corporal,’ the VAD said in a cheery voice.  ‘He doesn’t say much – quiet sort of a chap – but he’s an excellent listener.  I’ll come back for him later – he mustn’t be out too long, this is his first day up.’

It was nice to be out in the fresh air, to have company who would talk to him. Oh, the VADs tried, but they were so efficient, so stiff in their starched uniforms and regimented smiles.  And when he didn’t answer, they tended not to try to start a conversation again, not beyond the niceties.

But Millar was different.  He looked at Michael for a few minutes and lit a cigarette.

‘Where did you serve, then? What regiment?  We were at Vimy, so they told us… Can you trust them, though?  I mean, really? I don’t like to say it, but…’ he lowered his voice.  ‘Saw so many good men lost, you have to wonder why…  No, no don’t listen to me; it’s just tiredness talking.    Wounded in the foot, like me?  Gun go off when you were cleaning it? Happens.  You can’t be too careful with guns.’

Later, another VAD – still not Lady Maude – carried Michael off to the house and sat him down beside Tommy and Jock.

He wondered about their soldier, in the bathchair, if he’d fought at Vimy, maybe, if you could trust them.

The days rolled on.  One morning, he discovered his foot had healed, but that he couldn’t wear his smart peaked cap because his head was swathed in bandages.  But the VADs (Angels, they looked like angels, beautiful, tired, stiff-starched angels), they took him to a hut where a chap had a gunshot wound to the head, and Michael thought himself lucky; this fellow had a dressing over his eye, too, and talked about how he’d never again be able to tell when he’d had enough beer to drink – he wouldn’t be seeing double in future.

Michael’s head got better, he wore his peaked cap once more, but then his left arm had something unfortunate happen to it, and he went to a hut where Private Saunders (gunshot wound, left forearm) was wearing a black sling, and he sat down with him and waited to hear the story of how it had happened.

And it rained and the sun shone and he spent time indoors and time outside, and then he somehow lost track and everything went dark…

***
And time passed.

The darkness lifted, just a little and he heard a voice. 

‘Oh, here you are!’  The VAD smiled at him and reached out to touch his dark curls, stroke his face.  He lay staring, broken.  An angel. That’s what she looked like, an angel. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had spoken to him, couldn’t remember anything since the darkness.  There had been something about a VAD,  a lady who left everything refined behind her to volunteer with the soldiers, to nurse them and mop up after them and restrain them while they screamed and raged… and recovered and went away to be shot at again…

Lady Maude.  How could he have forgotten?  He had never really stopped looking for her.

Tender, gentle hands.  Hands with rough, reddened skin and short, broken nails.  Hands that smelled of carbolic.

‘Oh, my dear friend, oh, Sergeant, what happened to you?’

He didn’t know.  He didn’t remember.  All those years, the soldiers, the VADs, the different injuries…   The bandages, the cigarettes.  Guest of honour at the Christmas Entertainment, watching Tommy and Jock ride in a staff car… his friend Corporal Millar (gunshot wound, left foot, self-inflicted he had confessed to Michael one long day of rain when nobody else could hear).  Accidental discharge of weapon, it said on the report; the Captain had been kind that day.

So they had sat, Millar and Cassidy, and Millar had looked into Michael’s dark eyes and whispered, ‘I bet it was like that for you, too, wasn’t it, old chum?’ and Michael had said nothing, which was as good as a yes to Millar, who leaned forward, full of emotion in the eyes, and shook his hand.

‘You’re a good fellow, Cassidy.  I’ll be all right now.  You’ll see.’

And that was how it had been; Michael bore their injuries – left foot, gunshot to the head, compound fracture, right femur – and they saw his bandages echo their own, and they got better.  And he – he suffered.  Without feeling their pain, still he carried it, carried it into the long darkness of the post-war peace, the strangeness of later, the attic where something fell and crushed him, really broke him, shattering his limbs...

And then the forever night…

‘Don’t you know me, Michael?’ The soft voice brought him back.  She reached out to take his hand, and suddenly he was flooded with warmth and heat, and colour flew around him, and he felt the frisson of her hand, the pressure of her touch and he realised who she was, and he was, and he felt his face smile, he blinked his dark, still, unblinking eyes.

‘Lady Maude,’ he said, finding a voice at last, words, at last.  ‘You’re my Lady Maude.’

Her smile widened and she nodded and he understood, finally, why he had never found her before; he had been looking in the wrong place, in the face of each VAD.  But, just as he was not only Sergeant Michael Cassidy, porcelain doll and hospital mascot, but was every injured soldier whose bandages he had ever mimicked, so he saw that Lady Maude wasn’t just any VAD; she was every VAD ever, and she had come back for him.

‘Come along.  It’s time to go home, young man.’

She took his hands and she tugged him up out of his broken body, out of his darkness and he stood tall and renewed and strong at her side, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders, smiling down as she smiled up, and together they left the darkness and the ghosts of all the VADs and the broken body of a porcelain mascot doll in sergeant’s uniform, and together they went into the light.






Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.  Any names or places used are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely accidental and .

Quote from ‘The VAD’ taken from the Gledhow Hall Scrapbook.










Sunday 23 November 2014

One man meant to Mo... Week Three...

I hate it. He hates it. Both of us loathe and despise the Mo of Doom.  And the really, REALLY annoying thing is that the villains who talked him into it aren't even seeing it, as he's laid up after knee surgery.

But it's for a good cause.

So here we are at Day 22.
A reminder of the start of the month:
PLEASE can I have him back...???


Sunday 16 November 2014

Half a Mo...

So the Movember Challenge is still continuing in spite of Terry's allegedly-minor knee surgery on Friday. I am pleased to note that T out-Moed his surgeon, also  participating...
Day 15, halfway through the month...
By comparison, here is Day One...
It is a wonderful thing to do, to support men's cancer and mental health charities, but I will be Glad When It's Over...

And the surgery? It seems to have gone well. Just recovery time now... 

Sunday 9 November 2014

A Week of Movember...

So, I have been taking pictures every evening since November 1st, documenting the Growth of the Moustache... I won't post every one, but here is Day One...

Time has passed... and yesterday's photo shows a week's growth...

Which I think is rather impressive to look at.

To live with, it is tickly and distracting, but it's for a worthy cause.

Next Movember update will be after another week's growth... watch this space and prepare to be impressed.