Trench Rat - 5. Chapter 5

That night, I stayed awake past midnight, waiting for Alfie. As strange as it seemed, I felt more anxious that he might not return. I knew I would be heavily disappointed because I had enjoyed our short conversation and wanted to know more about him. But I also felt the need to do so gently and not alarm him. To pass the time, I pulled one of the hardback books from my rucksack and sat cross-legged on the bed, flicking through the pages. An hour later, as the words on the pages had begun to become blurred, a gentle waft of mud reached me.

"Qui êtes-vous—?" came the now familiar voice.

"Hello, Alfie." I looked up brightly, gently putting my book face down on the covers and smiling. Unconcerned this time, I felt true happiness at seeing him. "I'm sorry, Patrick's not going to be here tonight. But you're more than welcome to stay a while if you wish?"

Alfie scanned the room with his previous endearing confusion but soon brought his attention back to me.

"Do I know thee?"

"I’m Robert Farrell. We have met before, but I'm not sure you'd remember. I'm on my way down to Switzerland. Do you want to come and have a seat? Take the weight off your feet? It would be nice to chat with another Englishman. I do my best out here, but my spoken French is terrible."

I felt a frisson of pleasure at Alfie’s crooked smile and when he took a seat at the foot of the bed again.

"So’s mine. I only know a few words."

"Me too. You don't mind me calling you an Englishman, do you?"

"Why would I?"

"Because you're clearly from Yorkshire. My uncle used to have a friend from Bradford who had a motto he often used. First a Yorkshireman, second an Englishman, third a Briton."

Alfie barked out a laugh, and the sound made me smile. My statement seemed to relax him even more, and he looked at the book lying face-down on the bed.

"You sound just like me Pa. He had a pocketful of those sayings. Once a Yorkshireman, always a Yorkshireman, he’d say. And a favourite of his was a Shackleton’s promise can never be broken. What's that you're reading."

I smiled when I studied the cover of the book I had picked out—one I had read a dozen times—and had only been leafing through, not really reading the words. I tended towards more contemporary writers, but tonight, I had pulled out an old favourite.

"The Mayor of Casterbridge. Thomas Hardy. Have you read it?"

"No. Don't get no time to read. Thomas Hardy. Bit fancy, isn't it?"

"Not really. It's a simple story about simple people."

"Oh, aye. What's it about, then?"

"Uh, well, it begins with a man travelling with his wife, looking for employment. Along the way, they stop to eat, and the man gets drunk and sells his wife and their baby daughter to a sailor for five guineas."

"Go on with you? Are you pulling me leg, Robert?"

I laughed aloud then and scratched my head.

"I'm not, actually. But now that I come to explain the story, maybe it's not so simple."

"You don't say?"

We both laughed at his remark.

"Don’t you read books? Not even back home?"

"Not much. Not saying I can't read, mind," said Alfie, his shoulders straightening. "I just don't have time out here. Sometimes I read the paper they send from back home. I do write now and then, though. Letters, and the like. I know it might sound a bit soft, but I try to keep a journal of what’s happening and some of me thinking. Me diary’s in a tobacco tin in't wall of the bathroom under the sink. Don't say owt to Mrs Latouche, though, will ya? I’ll pick it up once we’re finally finished out here."

"You have my word."

"Good. 'Cause it helps to get these thoughts out of me head. Do you keep a diary?"

"No, I don't. But I should. I’m told it’s a good discipline."

I wasn’t just agreeing to be polite. My therapist had told me repeatedly about the benefits of keeping track of my good and bad days, especially since depriving me of my anti-depressants.

"Aye, it is that."

I circled back to the questions I wanted to ask him, the list I had come up with while sitting outside the cafe in Ripont. I decided to start gently.

"Tell me about Patrick. In case I run into him. Is he your friend from back home?"

"Private Patrick George Flintoff. A year younger than me. Persuaded him to enlist with me, I did, after what them Hun bastards did in Scarborough and Whitby. I promised to look out for him 'cause he’s soft as anything. Always been that way, has Paddy. We're neighbours and best friends. Growing up in a house with four brothers and two sisters, I learnt to get along with folk well enough. But not him. I'm his only pal. We go everywhere and do everything together. Even back then, I knew Paddy were different. He’s an only child, see? His pa's a prison warden. Hard as nails. Paddy got taught cast-iron discipline from birth, poor sod. Learnt to keep his mouth shut and do as he was told, you know?"

"Yes, I think I do."

"But when we’re together, messing around, working on our bikes or building stuff, he’s kind of unburdened, gay and carefree. That’s when I get to see the real Paddy."

His traditional use of the word 'gay' wasn’t lost on me. "Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play."

"Something like that. Did you just make that up?"

"No. Those are the words of Heraclitus. A Greek philosopher," I said before noticing him peering at me strangely. I have always had a habit of quoting from books I’d studied at university. "What I meant was that people tend to be more themselves when they’re working on things they enjoy, especially with people they like being around. What does your dad do?"

"He owns the bakery on the high street in Pickering. That's where we're from. Pickering. Shackleton Bakery, it's called. That's me name, Alfred P. Shackleton."

"Yes, you told me."

"I did?" Alfie looked adorably confused again. "I don’t remember."

"But you never told me what the P stood for. Your middle name," I asked, noticing a smile return to his face as he registered my question.

"Percival. Percy. No jokes, please."

Dudley had given me the correct information. I grinned at Alfie.

"Well, if it’s any consolation, mine's Algernon. Robert Algernon Farrell. My parents have a lot to answer for. So don’t feel bad—hey!"

Alfie had started laughing aloud before I’d finished speaking. I noticed he’d leaned back against the wall and crossed his legs on the bed, similar to me.

"Do you miss home?" I asked.

"Every day. Every flaming day. We thought this’d be an adventure. Some adventure it turned out to be. The only thing that has kept us going is the solidarity of the men and the marching songs we sing. And we don’t do much of that anymore. I wish I knew where he were, Paddy. He’s not usually this late."

"What’s life like in Pickering? Is there anything for you and Paddy to do? I’m ashamed to say I haven’t travelled north much."

The distraction worked. Alfie grinned, lost in reflection, staring across the bedroom as though seeing something there that made him happy.

"In summer, on a fine day, we'd cycle to Scarborough beach. But if Mam were in a good mood, she'd give us train fare. She knew it were me favourite. Forge Valley Line. And the station master would let us put our bikes up front so's we could cycle from Scarborough Central down to the ocean. And when we got there, I'd be the one egging him on. Soon as I saw the sea, I'd be off, running into them waves as though they were the best thing since the first loaf out of the oven. Not Paddy, though. He’s one of them as dips a foot in then complains and runs back out, hugging hisself as though snow'd come early, the daft ha'peth."

I chuckled along with him. He clearly cared deeply about Paddy, and I had begun to wonder if their connection was more than just simple friendship.

"I wonder what’s keeping him?" Once again, the furrow appeared between his eyebrows, and his gaze wandered to the door.

"Do you have a girlfriend back home?"

"Not really. There’s Mary, who lives down the road. Her mam takes in washing. I think she’s sweet on me but—I don’t know. Mam says I shouldn’t be so fussy, that I’m gonna have to settle one day. But Paddy and me talked about travelling when all this is over."

"Does Paddy have a girlfriend?"

"What’s with all the questions?" said Alfie, bringing his gaze back to me and folding his arms. "What about you, Robert Algernon Farrell? Do you have a wife or a sweetheart back home?"

Alfie gave me his crooked smile and peered at me playfully.

"There used to be somebody I thought I loved. A while back. But not anymore. And now, I struggle to meet and talk to people. I’m always worried I won’t live up to their expectations. So I find it’s best to say nothing."

"You seem to be doing alright tonight."

"I’ve probably said more this evening than I’ve spoken to anyone in the past year."

"That’s a bit sad, isn’t it? Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet."

"Maybe I haven’t."

Alfie nodded and stared into space again.

"No, is the answer to your question," he said. "Paddy isn’t interested in girls. Said he has me, and that were enough. But I think eventually we’ll both settle down with someone. Have a family and all that. Like me mam says, you have to, don’t you?"

"You love him?"

"Course I love him. He’s me best mate."

Conscious of the time in which he lived, I decided not to push too hard. Asking if there was anything intimate between them might offend him or make him clam up—or, worst still, scare him away.

"He’s lucky to have you."

"We’re lucky to have each other."

We both fell silent again. Maybe now was the time.

"Alfie, do you trust me?"

"I’ve only just met you."

"But from what we’ve talked about, do you feel you can trust me?"

"Well, you told me your middle name, so that has to amount to something."

He was half-joking, but I took that as a sign to take a step forward. I unlocked my phone and showed him the photograph Dudley had sent me.

"Where did you get that?" he said, reaching for the phone. I snatched my hand back just in time to stop him from making contact with my hand.

"Tell me about the photo."

"That were taken the day me brother Mark enlisted. That’s him in the middle. Our neighbour liked to show off his new Box Brownie and took the photo of us all. That’s Mary standing next to me. Paddy were supposed to be there, said he’d try, but his dad had him running errands."

I flicked the screen to the other photograph Dudley had sent me late yesterday afternoon, an official picture of two young men in military dress, one of them Alfie and the other wearing a uniform a few sizes too big. Only the hat fit perfectly over his close-cropped blond hair with ears that stuck out like seashells. Alfie looked all of his eighteen years, but I would honestly have placed Paddy, with his cherubic complexion, at no more than fourteen or fifteen—barely a teenager. While Alfie posed stiffly with a straight-faced and official-looking expression, Paddy had a faint grin as though trying hard not to laugh.

"Is this Paddy?"

This time, Alfie’s eyes softened, and his smile returned.

"Yeah, that’s him. We were told to be serious. Look all official, like. Got the photographer all mardy, did Paddy. Where did you find that, Robert? I thought me mam had the only copy."

"You’re very dashing. In the photo. Your mum must have been very proud."

"Thanks for saying so."

"Here," I said, holding out the phone. "Take a closer look."

I had no idea what would happen if we tried to make physical contact. But Alfie didn’t hesitate. As our skin connected, a shimmer of amber light shone around our hands as they passed through each other, and I felt my skin tingle, raising goosebumps along my forearm.

Alfie snatched his hand back and jumped up from the bed, looking at me horrified.

"What are you doing? Are you one of them spirits?"

"I’m not the ghost, Alfie. You are."

Alfie backed up towards the door, shaking his head.

"Why are you doing this, Robert? I thought we were becoming friends."

"We are. I’m trying to help you."

"You’re trying to scare me, more like."

My heart sank at the fear and disappointment etched on his face, but before I had a chance to explain anything further, he had faded into the woodwork.