Work Text:
London
September, 1939
If you were to ask Martin Blackwood whether or not he believed in the existence of such a thing as God, he would not be able to give you a straight answer.
His mother had, ever since he could remember, been quite firm that they were to attend on every Sunday service, for the Lord would not take kindly on their souls if they did not. He would not protest, for he never did, as she’d stuff him in his Sunday suit, stiff and uncomfortable and smelling unpleasantly of week-old incense – and neither would he make a sound, kneeling on the rough wood of the pews with his mother’s firm hand on the back of his neck until his knees were red and aching. The repetitive, droning words of the old priest did not provide any of the comfort that he had been promised, but rather a sort of detached exclusion. Everyone around him, people who all knew him and yet he didn’t really know none of them, would nod and nod at words of salvation and repented sins, and the world would get just a little bit smaller.
He could not feel the closeness to God his mother preached so ardently, especially not in holy places. The sky above the premises of St. Michael’s would always seem gloomier than the rest in spite of weather or season, the ever present, placid roll of fog in the churchyard hungry-looking and beckoning. But that was not to say that he had not tried to seek that closeness, however, or that he had never felt it in all his life – he had, in isolated and unexpected occasions, felt something akin to faith. The first rays of warm sun on his face after a particularly harsh winter, the sky a pale cerulean hue peppered with the whitest of clouds stirring up in him the first lines of a half-formed poem. The safety of his bedroom walls as a child, the house blissfully silent in the late hours of the night, his nose buried in an old, yellowed book and his mind alight with thoughts of faraway castles and fantastical adventures. The shy, hidden smile of the baker’s boy as their hands touched over a warm loaf of bread he was sent to fetch for him mum – the incessant thumping of his heart as an elusive dimple disappeared back into the corners of a lovely mouth.
But just like his faith, almost all of those moments, stolen and cherished and the closest he had ever felt to the supposed creator of all things beautiful, would all end up inevitably tainted by bittersweet shame.
When the letter appeared on the old wooden table of their barren living area, it was a beautiful day.
There was not a single cloud in the sky, and the late afternoon breeze that blew from the open window was warm and pleasant. It shifted the curtain gently, making the orange light of a sun that’s just starting to set peek in, dancing and moving over the small room like rippling water. He was suddenly so very aware of himself – of the way his work clothes reeked of the foul waters of the docks, of the way his arms ached with a day’s worth of fatigue, of the dirt caked underneath his fingernails. He was suddenly so very aware of his military service uniform, tucked away underneath his bed in a trunk covered in dust and cobwebs.
Compared to the worn grain of the table, the letter looked as pristine as if just pressed with a hot iron, white and immaculate. His name, black ink dried on perfect paper, was readable even from where he was standing, frozen on the doorstep. His mother sat on her usual chair, totally unmoving but for the tremor in her hands that characterised the latest turn her illness had taken. There was no emotion in her eyes, and she did not look up at him – she kept her gaze firm on the notice, whose corner was being slightly lifted up by the wind.
“You will go.” Was all she said, in a raspy, firm voice, breaking the spell by which the world had not spun on its usual axis beneath their feet for a while now. The sky outside had begun to grow bluer with each passing moment, and Martin knew right then and there that her words were not the desperate disbelief of a mother whose son had just been doomed to slaughter – but rather the harsh relief of one who had finally been freed.
“Yes.” Martin heard himself choke out through the lump in his throat. His hands, cold and shaking, were tight fists at his sides, knuckles white in a desperate attempt to stifle a rising sob. The first notes of a scream hid themselves behind the jail of his teeth, squirming on his tongue like rotten secrets.
But Martin Blackwood had always been told he was coward, like his father was a coward before him – and so he swallowed his terror, and bound himself to follow the first order this war imposed on him, given by its most cruel general.
The following days had brought the good weather along with them, stretching out through time a clear blue sky and a warm reassuring sun. Not a single drop of rain touched the ground, nor did they need to – for Martin, hidden away from the world in the small hours of the night, had cried enough to water the earth in God’s stead. So it had not been a surprise, when the day he stepped out of the door with the weight of his belongings on his arm and the burden of a uniform on his shoulders, the weather was still beautiful. He had expected rain, almost wished for it to be stormy and grey and as dreadful as he felt– but the sun shone warm on his face, mockingly and invitingly.
That same morning, his mother had come in and informed him that they were to take a walk together. It had not come as a suggestion nor as an invitation, but as an already fully formed plan that she knew he had not the strength to retort on. Besides, moments in which she seemed to want his companionship were rare, impossible even – but even if Martin knew the particular kind of selfish his mother was, optimism was still his biggest flaw.
And so they walked, like it was nothing more than a task to be finished, the beauty of one last summer’s day purposefully ignored in favour of an unforgivable silence.
Not long passed before they were standing in front of a pillar he was quite familiar with, surrounded by lush trees whose leaves had yet to fall and turn the streets into an orange sea. It was one of the many memorials for the Great War that the city of London had built, and it resided in one of the quietest places of their lonely neighbourhood.
He was aware of how his mother would take the long way round every Sunday before church ever since it had been built, purposefully walking in front of it as an act of masochist self-flagellation he never really understood.
She was wearing a colourful shawl, the kind he remembered her wearing in a past so far away now it almost doesn’t feel his. It looked old, almost as old as he was, and it was in harsh contrast with the dullness of the rest of her apparel, all muddy browns and faded greys. She wore her delight around her neck, and all he could taste was bile.
“You better not run away from this.” His mother said to him, as they stood in front of the lovingly etched stone of the memorial. A seemingly endless list of good men, honourable men, looked back at him in stony silence. He knew all their names by memory now, for he had read it thoroughly time and time and time again all throughout his life in search for something he knew he would not find. His father’s name was nowhere to be seen, nor would it ever be.
He looked down at his mother through a sheen layer of tears, but her scowl did not soften. “Your father did. And look where that got him”.
One would expect a mournful silence at the train station before the departure of war – sombre people saying goodbye in hushed words and whispered promises, crying mothers and wives and children holding onto their men for dear life, the shrill of the train as a terrible reminder of exactly where they were going and where they might not get back from. But Martin remembered it backwards; it was the coming back that was silent, eyes heavy with the burden of terrors lived, of friends lost, of people killed.
When the Great War had ended, his mother had brought him to the station despite it all, the first sparks of a cruelty that would only spread its rotten tendrils if given space, and they had sat on a bench right on the first platform. It had been bustling with people, packed even – yet silence stretched inwards, so thick he could almost taste it.
He remembers seeing Oscar, a boy his own age that he had made mud pies with at the park when they had been six, leap from his mother’s side and almost disappear inside his father’s coat as they embraced. There were no screams of excitement nor loud cries of joy, just silent tears and the heavy relief of a family made whole again.
Martin had sat there on that cold metal bench, slowly swinging his feet that did not quite touch the ground, his heart too young and too heavy. His mother had been crying beside him, a clear river running down her reddened cheeks in stubbornly mute grief, and he had scuttled his hand close to her skirt in search for comfort, palm up and fingers unfurled. She had not taken it.
But departure was a whole other thing, it seemed. Hundreds of men, pristine in their uniforms and arms loaded with bags were packed in every wagon, torsos sticking out of the windows to blow one last kiss to their families, who would in turn wave their hands and smile teary smiles. There was laughter, coming from where he couldn't really say, for every voice he heard seemed to want to raise itself higher than the rest. People seemed excited, almost — the excitement of young men ready to prove themselves to their families and their King, ready to fight and fall for a country they believed in with the outmost loyalty. He did not feel quite so ready to join them in their jolly patriotism, but he did find himself trying to muster a smile, though it did come as more of a grimace, to the hundreds of waving hands. His mother was not amongst them, and maybe that was for the best.
“What’s the long face for?” Martin heard someone say in his peripheral, and he raised his head towards the sound. It was a tall man that spoke, with a charming white smile and a mess of brown curls atop his head. He had his bag slung over his shoulder in a way that looked almost staged, and a quick look around assured that he did seem to be talking to him.
“I’m sorry?”
“I said: what’s the long face for?” The man repeated, adjusting the grip on his bag with one hand and gesturing vaguely towards him with the other, as the corners of his mouth rose further up “It’s not like we’re going to war!”
Martin just sat there perplexed for a second, his hat in his hands and his brows furrowed – but before he could muster a reply, or even fake a laugh for humour’s sake, a hand came from behind the man and slapped him square in the back of the head, making him cry out an offended Oi! and quickly spin around.
The owner of said hand appeared to be another tall man, though not as tall as the first one – but by the same rich colour of his eyes and the same elegant curve of his nose, the fact that they were related was instantly apparent.
“Danny, for the love of God, sit down.” The man scolded him, though it had no bite to it. It came paired with the fond expression of someone who had said so hundreds of times before, and who would not get tired of doing so.
When he looked back at Martin, it was with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry about him, he’s been waiting all morning to pull that joke to someone, you just happened to be the victim.”
The man set his bag in front of the only available seat, for the other one – Danny, so he had been called – had already slumped in the other, chuckling and rubbing at the sore spot on his head. He held out his hand towards Martin, who snapped himself out of whatever daze he had found himself in just enough to rise halfway up and shake it firmly.
“I’m Timothy Stoker – Tim. So very pleased to meet you, wretched to do so under these circumstances” Tim said, returning the handshake just as strongly. “And this is my brother Danny, but you’ve already been exposed to his winning sense of humour, which is basically all there is”
The train beneath them had started to shift as its wheels shrieked and turned, picking up speed painstakingly slowly and still terrifyingly fast – and despite the gravity of the destination, Martin let out a huff of laughter at the unexpected levity of it all.
“I’m Martin, Martin Blackwood. Pleasure’s all mine” he said, readjusting himself back in his seat as Tim sat down in his own. Martin was not the one to make jokes, never had been and was not even good at them by a long shot– still, something giddy and childish possessed him to clear his throat, and ask: “What brings you two here, then?”
For a moment, it was Danny’s turn to stare confusedly at him, with his lips parted as if ready to reply to a genuine question – just before his eyes shone alight with mischief and a wide smile split his face, as Tim’s booming laugh filled the packed train car with sunlight.
The city had started to disappear from view, leaving behind grey smoke and familiar streets and overpowering judgement. Martin could already picture it, fields of green at the cusp of autumn rolling past too far for his eyes to focus, the promise of a striking sunset over soft slopes like a healing balm over the open wound of his frightened heart. They were all moving faster and faster towards a future that was nothing if uncertain, and a mix of premature nostalgia and horrifying dread once again started creeping up, up, up.
But the sun was still high and marvellous in the sky, and Tim was slapping a hand on his knee with tears of delight still wetting the corners of his eyes – and for that single, brief second, Martin could just let himself enjoy the train ride.