Chapter Text
Memory can be a funny thing. A moment recalled to mind in vivid detail. Relived, as though having happened mere moments before. On the other hand, a memory can be fuzzy, difficult to recall fully. Making you feel as though it happened a lifetime ago. Both these thoughts seemed to collide as I stood at the green painted wooden gate. Suitcase in one hand, a slightly too large for me now skirt and jacket on me. Looking at the neat 1930’s terraced house I felt all at once as if I had never left and had never been here before.
The home I had shared with my husband, Frank. For too few months I thought. War had been declared in 1939 a few months after our hasty marriage. I had joined up alongside Frank. Eager to do our part.
Frank had been selected to join the war office. Working within the intelligence department. I had trained to be a nurse however my war career had taken a slight change of direction a few months after my initial deployment. France had been in chaos, the German war machine pushing our troops back to Dunkirk beach. Severing supply lines and cutting off units. I was part of a medical unit cut off and surrounded. I also became one of only five to survive and get to a rendezvous point for extraction. My ability to speak French, German and Belgian had saved my group. Plus my skills learned over years of travel to dig sites with my Uncle Lamb, an archeologist. Uncle Lamb had raised me somewhat unconventionally when both my parents were lost in a car accident.
It was due to this incident I was approached and asked to return to France. To help the resistance. I was sent for training in Scotland. Learning espionage, sabotage and survival. I was deployed into France in the Freteval forest area. I lived in the forests for most of the war. Working with one hundred men, many displaced from villages and towns or airmen shot down over France.
I had not seen Frank properly since 1940 and had only corresponded a few times and saw him for one hour in Paris at the end of the war. Now in February 1946 I was stood at our gate looking upon the house that should feel like home. Yet yearning for the forests once more. After the war ended I was dispatched to Paris. Reassigned to an office job to help relocate displaced persons. I had then been summoned to London for a debrief in January and then three weeks later discharged from the army. Thanked for my service and encouraged to return to my husband and my wifely duties.
So just like that I now found myself dressed in the suit I had last worn to commence by nursing training. My meagre possessions packed in that same small leather suitcase that had accompanied me on that fateful journey.
I approached the matching green painted front door. The stained glass window darken from the shadows in the hall. Reaching to tentatively knock, my stomach did little flips. “Coming now!” Frank’s mellow tones rang out as a figure approached the door. Nothing more than a shadowy blur due to the stained glass. The door clicked open and swung back revealing Frank. Dressed casually for a Saturday in shirt and jumper with wooden trousers. His face went white with shock as his eyes bulged.
“I’m back”
“Claire.”
He spoke as if in disbelief, allowing his mind to catch up to his eyes. He then grabbed me into a deep hug. Wrapping his arms tightly around me.
“I can’t believe you have returned? When ? How? For good?”
So many questions tumbled from him, as sobs wracked both our bodies. The familiarity of his embrace and smell once more bringing memories back but in clear concise moments from our courtship and the infant days of marriage.
“Come in, come in. I can’t believe you are back!”
Frank pulled me into the hallway leading me into the sitting room. My heeled shoes ringing out on the tiled flooring. As he took my bag from me, grinning from ear to ear. It was the warm welcome home that I had hoped for. We could now pick up where we left off. It was as if the war had only paused our marriage. Despite being wed in 1939 we were like newly weds, learning each other once more. More strangers than husband and wife.
“I was just making some tea. Would you care for some?”
“Yes that would be lovely.”
I sat on the settee, surveying in the room. Little had changed in the years since I left. Our wedding photograph sat proudly on the mantle. Alongside the photographs of me in my Queen Alexandra’s Royal Nursing Corps uniform and Frank in his uniform. Sunlight beamed in through the slightly bleached curtains. The nets covering the window in need of a wash, marked as they were with dust.
Frank appeared back, carrying a tray with teapot, cups and saucers and a few hard biscuits. Rationing still existed and so food was still limited. We sat sipping our tea in stilted silence. It was strange for me to be back here. Much of what I had done during the war could not be discussed. As reiterated time and time again during my three week debrief. Frank had worked for the war office in the intelligence department. I figured he would be the same. I tried to break the silence.
“So have you been busy with your work?”
“Yes, it has been quite hectic the last few months.”
“I have been discharged.”
“Really? That’s wonderful. I have had word that my discharge should come through in July. My position at Oxford can then resume in September. It would work very well for us. I will start looking at housing options in the area straight away.”
Frank was clearly pleased with this news and he smiled as he spoke. It was a warm and full smile. One I had sorely missed these last years.
“You won’t need to worry about working either. Not with my wages from the university.”
“I have some money too. I was paid but never used it as I was, well you know, I was over there. I would like to continue working though. To contribute in some way to help our household.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Claire! I would be laughed at, making my wife go out to work. No it would be much better you being at home. There will be a lot of entertaining to do and you will need to get to know my colleagues wives.”
Laughter rumbled from Frank’s chest and I felt a tightening in my own. How could I possibly get to know and entertain these colleagues and wives Frank spoke of? What would these woman know of what I had seen, how could I ever relate to them? The tightening in my chest continued and I had to force my mind to not worry about that. It was months away I reminded myself.
“Well yes I suppose you might be right.”
I mumbled out continuing to sip from my teacup. It was after all what the Colonel had informed me when handing my discharge papers over. Go home and be a wife. I just wasn’t quite sure how to do that, but I could learn.
Frank moved over to the space beside me. Taking my hand in his. A familiar tingling moved across my skin as he gently caressed my hand with his thumb. I had missed my husband. The years had been long and while he was not on my mind continually, he was there often enough. I moved towards him, our lips touching softly in a kiss. Tentatively at first then deepening as we became familiar with the movement and taste of each other once more.
My arms reached around him drawing him closer to me. The need for him building and the desire to claim him as mine once more. Frank and I had always connected well through sex. It was how we had built our love and resolved issues. He was a generous lover and I was a person who felt with my whole being.
Desire built and lust took over. I was pulling at his jumper and shirt. Removing it from his body as my hands ran to his belt, loosening it. His desire was evident as I felt his erection through his trousers, straining for release. Frank pulled at my suit jacket throwing it to the floor. My blouse pulled from my skirt as Frank’s hands ran up my side and moved under it towards my back. I froze at the same moment he did. Jumping from the settee and pulling me to my feet. My heart was pounding as he pushed me around to face away from him. Pulling my blouse up exposing my back and the large angry welts that covered it. A noise like a wounded animal echoed around the sitting room from Frank. I turned around pulling my jacket from the floor to cover myself further. His face an ashen shade of white. I held back my sob as I bolted from the house.
I ran without a backward glance, needing to get away. I headed towards the small wooded area just down from the neat row of houses. The scent of trees just after a rain shower flooded my senses and calmed me. The tree canopy covering me with mottled shadows from the sun and reassurance. I always felt at ease in the outdoors. It was why I got on so well on my assignments during the war.
I found a wooden bench and sat, enjoying the solitude and trying to forget the look of abject horror and disgust on Frank’s face. My back, a constant reminder of my service to King and country. Large welts the full of my back from shoulder to buttocks. Marks created by a cruel and callous torturer with a hot poker. I had been captured on a mission. Held prisoner at Chateau de Rouche. I was beaten and starved. Raped and attacked time and again. I would not speak out nor betray my colleagues. The garrison commander, an SS officer was loosing patience and I knew I would soon die. In a last ditch effort to make me speak he burned my flesh. The smell of my burning skin still came in waves to me. The pain beyond anything I had endured so far causing me to pass out. Returned to my cell but not before he ensured his masterpiece was complete. I was rescued two days later by my colleagues. They broke into the chateau and got me out. I was barely alive but yet I somehow pulled through.
As I sat with the familiar scent of woodland all around me I could still recall laying on my front in the small tent at our camp. Pierre and Claude gently cleaning my burns. Each time they touched my skin the winch of pain shot through me. They continued with delicate care, whispering loving words of how I was so beautiful, special. That these marks did not detract from me. Yet Frank had been repulsed and horrified.
Because of the words spoken by Pierre and Claude I had been assured. I hadn’t allowed these scars to define me, stop me. Instead they had made me resolute. Now though I was terrified of what people would think. Frank who was my husband had reacted so badly. How could I expect others to react any differently? I knew that yes I could cover them for the most part with blouses and dresses. But to never go bathing? To never wear a low backed dress. All because society would be disgusted and have no understanding of how or why I received them? Sure I had been awarded a medal for bravery but it paled into nothing. Especially if society would not see these marks are honourable. I had known this would happen, it had been a niggling doubt just floating there, never given credence. Now it had come true. Tears dropped down my cheeks as I wept for what my life could have been.
The sun was beginning to get lower in the sky. A chill had crept into the air and the jacket I had grabbed from the floor as I bolted was wholly unsuitable for keeping it out. Two perfectly polished brown shoes entered my vision causing me to look up.
“Frank! What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same. I was looking for you. Didn’t think to look here until ten minutes ago. Are you cold?”
I nodded in answer as he placed a woollen coat around me and settled himself on the bench beside me.
“I should have known you would be here. You always loved the forests and outdoors in general......Seems we have quite a bit to catch up on.”
I again didn’t respond verbally, simply enjoying the extra heat from the coat instead. Frank sighed out loudly and shifted his position.
“I should apologise for my reaction Claire. It was quite the shock. I didn’t know you had been mutilated in such a manner.”
Frank had cleared his throat as he spoke, clearly still upset by what was on my back.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was captured and tortured Frank. There isn’t much to tell. The marks are the evidence, the proof of the cruelty of war.”
“When did it happen?”
“Two years ago next month.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t tell you at the time. I had no idea what updates you did get to be honest.”
“Very little, that’s what I was told. I didn’t even know you had been captured until three months after you had been rescued. They never mentioned your injuries.”
I could hear the emotion in Frank’s voice the hurt and distress. It was never easy being the person left behind at times of war. However it was even harder because I couldn’t write and I didn’t get time off.
“I should have told you when I got home. I shouldn’t have allowed you to find out that way.”
It was the truth. While I was used to the scars now, Frank was not, he needed time to adjust. Time that I had not given him.
“Well I do believe we both got distracted. Do you wish to go home. It is very cold.”
Nodding I rose from my seat. Once again grateful for the woollen coat. We walked in silence back to the house. The last rays of sunlight fighting for dominance against the darkness.
Dinner was eaten quietly and the conversation from Frank was agonisingly contrite. The ackward tension still there. At bedtime he avoid looking at me as I undressed. As though unable to bear looking upon the scars once more. Covered in my nightdress and lying in the darkness of the room, we did find each other. The years apart, the loneliness, the hurt all falling away from us. As we discovered each other anew. Though Frank’s hands never wandered to my back.
The next morning Frank was dressed and out of the room before I awoke. Again to avoid the sight of my back. Throughout the day conversation did improve, as we slowly ebbed our way back to familiarity. Frank told me of his job. He spoke of his return to teaching history, of his hopes for a trip to Scotland to conduct some research. Mostly though he spoke of his desire for a family. Wishing to start right away.
“It will give you a focus, Claire, a purpose after all that you have been doing.”
“Yes I suppose it would. But there really isn’t any hurry. We can take our time and children won’t matter really, if we didn’t have them would they?”
I wished my voice did not shake as I spoke those words, but it did. Frank stopped for only a second eyeing me before continuing.
“Well you know children are important to me. I have always wished to pass on the good Randal name and bloodline!”
Oh Lord his enthusiasm for this is not good I thought. Not only did I return scarred beyond comprehension, I had another secret, a dark secret that weighed heavily on me. My torturer was not just focused on inflicting pain, they were cruel beyond all measure. I had been sterilised, I could no longer dream of holding my child. I could no longer give Frank what he desired most. I could not even begin to imagine how to tell him. The shame I felt at being half a woman, broken beyond repair. There was so much to tell Frank of what had befell me during my war. Each more painful than the last. This however was the breaking point. I knew when he found out he could no longer want me.
I debated just blurting it out there and then as we walked along the country lane through the fields. The winter sun surprisingly warm on my back and the gentle cornflower blue of the sky adding to the picture perfect moment. Is bad news best broke at beautiful locations? I just didn’t know. Frank was still enthusiastically discussing our future plans and children. No, now was not the time. I would continue to enjoy this blissful contentment for a little longer. Perhaps in a few weeks or months I thought resolutely, I well tell the whole truth then. For now though I needed the feel of my husband’s hand in mine, I needed the reassurance of a life together. The hope of dreams planned out. Something I had been robbed off for far too long. I needed time to rebuild my relationship with Frank. Then I would tell him.