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It's a bad day. I can feel the unease seeping between the seams of my coat, underneath my nails, even into the pulp of my teeth. My knees and hips complain with every step, and arthritis burns my knuckles and the small joints of my fingers. I'll be home soon, and I will be able to bathe in hot water, scrub myself clean from the grime of the city. I will have to put on the balm the doctor prescribed to protect my hands from infection where I've scrubbed enough that the skin is pink and raw.
I've just been to see Peggy. She's just had her third little one. They're so cute when they're small like that, all chubby-cheeked and curious, though I wish they wouldn't put their dirty hands in their little mouths. It makes me nervous. My sweet grandchildren. I remember when I had two of my own. They were so lovely, so pure.
I have only my daughter left now. My son isn't dead, mind, but he had to leave so he's lost all the same. He was unclean. On bad days I think of him. He's everywhere and I wish he would leave me be. It doesn't do me well to think of him, though now as the wind blows I can't help but wonder if he has a coat to warm him, or if he's somewhere where the sky is always cloudless and bright blue. I think he wouldn't haunt me, if I simply knew what has become of him.
The war years were the worst, full of bad days. All those posters about the young men being shipped off. Stories about the trenches, full of lice and rats. Boys with trench foot, with fever, with malaria. I wonder if the Army took him then, sent him overseas. Is he a poppy in the dead lands of France, a rusted helmet buried in the shores of Gallipoli? I think I would know if he died, though I haven't seen him in years. A mother's heart knows these things.
Wherever he is, I hope - and I'll never say this aloud, not in a thousand years - I hope that he's well. I hope he's found a safe place, someone to love. I hope he never thinks of me. I'm not a good mother, I know that. Peggy tolerates me because she has to, she can't turn away her old mum, but she doesn't love me. She can't return what I never gave her. Wherever he is, my Thomas, he's better off without me.
I shouldn't think of it. No good will come of wondering, and all it leads to is me dithering in the snow, getting cold and sick in the frigid winds. I never think of him on good days. Only on bad days does he send the wind to needle me. Let an old woman alone, Tommy. I'll have to scrub my skin until our blood runs down the drain a nd I've washed the stain of him from my soul.
I'm almost home. Once I'm there I can close the door behind me, lock out the winter chill and the ghosts of lost boys. I won't think of him. I'll make it a good day.