O Caledonia

Grandpa and Janet would sit by the fire and he would tell her stories of the Seven Champions of Christendom, and the Angel of Mons. On his wall were huge steel engravings of soldiers dying on far battlefields among charging, rearing horses and smoking cannon, consoled by the visionary cross which hung in the sky, or the benediction of a brooding angel. Grandpa’s God, like Nanny’s, was all-seeing, all-powerful, but, unlike Nanny’s, He was protective and compassionate, not vengeful. In His dealings was great glory and nobility. Janet tried to imagine one of His angels visiting the war-wounded in their desolate concrete dwellings, softening their hard, hurt faces, wrapping them in loving warmth, bestowing that nobility on their mutilated limbs and lives, so that they, too, shone in glory. It was impossible. She wanted to ask Grandpa about this, but she could not find the words. She was left with a sense of agonised pity, a powerless pity which made her cry sometimes when she was alone and looking out of the nursery window at the unforgiving sea and the seagulls, who lived nowhere but on air and water, floating free and comfortless above it.

But within the warmth of Grandpa’s study such thoughts could be banished as she twirled around and around, faster and faster on his magic revolving chair, reaching giddy heights where the angels in the pictures and the parrot’s beady eye and the shine of firelight on Grandpa’s spectacles all swam in dizzy, whirling confusion, then the abrupt jolt of stop and around the other way, down, down, down to the safe plateau of ordinary life, her feet planted firm on the faded hearthrug with its two worn patches, one on each side of the fire, where generations of men had stood, partaking of their evening dram. In this room was a genial liberality absent from the outer household with its routine, its timetable of rests and walks and meals, its grim insistence on self-control and cleanliness, scratchy vests and liberty bodices, tweed coats buttoned tight around the neck, hair brushed until the scalp stung, then dragged back into pigtails.

Chapter Two

That summer the war ended and suddenly there were men everywhere in the village and the children’s father, Hector, was home for good. There were flags strung across the village street and a great procession with bagpipes and drums and all the children following in fancy dress. Janet was in a dream of happiness for she was dressed as Snow White, the person she most wanted to be, in a tight-waisted blue-and-yellow gown which almost came down to her laced-up shoes. Her hair was released from its pigtails and sprang, in a wild and electric fuzz, about her shoulders; it stuck out in stiff points like a Christmas tree. Francis went as a gypsy with a scarlet waistcoat and bandanna, and to their mutual pleasure Rhona went as Rhona, being too young for it to matter. Best of all, Janet and Francis rode in the greengrocer’s pony trap and took turns in holding the long slippery reins. From her station above the pony Sheila’s gaunt hip bones, Janet mused on the new word which everyone kept saying, “Victory, victory,” and she felt a great personal triumph as they passed through the flag-waving, cheering crowds. But when they reached the war memorial there was sudden silence and stillness.

Grandpa stood facing them in his purple vestment and the men gathered before him, with the wounded at the front. He spoke a prayer for the dead, the hurt, the bereaved, and the sun squinted through Janet’s tight-shut eyes, making dazzles of orange and blue. For a moment she opened them and through the blur of brightness saw two old men standing stiff and straight, with tears shining on their faces. Then the sound of the pipes spiralled upwards in inconsolable lament and the great drums beat in their midst and she saw the sombre clouds piled like monuments over chasms of sunlight, with the phalanxes of the dead gazing down. Somewhere among them must be Ningning. She felt cold and longed with a yearning as strong and tearing as the plangent music for that time when they stood together in the greenhouse, lapped in warm, sub-aqueous light, a time before needs and sorrows of men and beasts, when the world held only two people, Janet and Ningning, whom she loved, who loved her.