Grandad's Eye: And Other Stories

By Al James

Chance encounters and life changing events are at the heart of these 19 stories. Paul believes he will never recover from the death of his wife until he meets one of her former friends. Despite his daughters’ anxieties, a relationship begins to develop. The grandfather in the title story reluctantly tells his grandson how he lost an eye in the battle of the Somme. A soldier involved in the D. Day landings makes a promise to his friend. Grace, living in a residential home, struggles to separate present from past experience. All the stories in this collection draw you into the lives and emotions of those involved and make you want to keep reading.

“That eye, boy . . . it tells a story.”

“It’s staring up at me from the bottom of the glass. Through the water. I look up at him, at the empty socket the eye occupies every day. Like part of the right hand side of his head has been scooped out. t doesn’t scare me. I’ve never known him any different.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 5, 2015
• ISBN: 9781326383763

Book preview

Grandad's Eye: And Other Stories

GRANDAD’S EYE

And Other Stories

AL JAMES

Copyright

Copyright © Al James 2015

eBook Design by Rossendale Books: www.rossendalebooks.co.uk

eBook ISBN:  978-1-326-38376-3

All rights reserved, Copyright under the Berne Copyright Convention and Pan American Convention. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organisations, events or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

Acknowledgements

These stories are essentially fiction. However, my grandfather Tom Thorn is the grandad in the title story and he really did lose an eye at The Somme in 1916. My mother Dolly Cooper is not Grace in the story of that name, but she did provide some of the inspiration for it. Franz Schubert’s wonderful song cycle Winterreise is the starting point of Winter Journey (which translates Schubert’s title into English). The Passing is my own fictional reconstruction of how the poet John Keats died. My good friend John Harborne gave me the germ of the idea which eventually emerged as Nightmare in Purple. Pond Life has previously appeared in ASCL Associates’ Magazine.

My publisher Vincent Walsh of Rossendale Books has as always helped me considerably in the process of publication. My wonderful wife Jan has read all of these stories as they have appeared and been her supportively critical self. Every story in this book has benefitted from her insight. My thanks are also due to fellow novelist Sandie Zand for her help in designing the cover to this book.

For Jan with love

REAWAKENING

Rachel died, and Paul knew he would never recover. Without religious belief, there was no comfort in a life to come, no spiritual redemption to offer hope that he would meet with her again. She was dead, and her body would be burnt, sending ash out into the atmosphere, and the particles would land where the wind took them. She would simply be no more. Music, his comfort through the months of illness, suddenly deserted him. He couldn’t bring himself to listen to any of it. He couldn’t bring himself to play any CDs. He stopped going to choir. The piano lid stayed firmly down.

You have to do something dad, said Stephanie, you can’t just stay at home.

I go to work.

With children. You need adult company.

She didn’t understand. Children were a relief. They didn’t ask how he was coping. There were no comments about happy release and thoughts and prayers being with him. They were just themselves. It was enough. But he knew he wouldn’t convince her. Or her sister. If he tried to tell them there was no point, that his life was over, that he just continued for the children, they just denied the truth as it was for him. Maybe it was ‘what mum would have wanted’. She wasn’t here now to tell him anything anymore.

His life stretched out ahead of him as a deep purple bruise. It was April. A dry April after a dry winter. It was dusty and the wind still spread the last of the dead leaves everywhere making it more like autumn than the beginning of spring. Easter came and went. Christ rose once more for Christians while he sat wrapped in his overcoat on a park bench looking across the river, lower than usual for the time of year. Was it three years ago he’d sat there with Rachel?

If it rises much higher it will flood, she’d said.

Dramatic as always. He just grinned.

You might laugh. It happens.

Lower downstream, much lower. Not here.

But she’d been right. The rain continued through that April and two days after they’d sat there, the park bench was standing in a foot of water.

See! she said when they went down again, you didn’t believe me.

Once in a lifetime, you just struck lucky.

Not lucky if your house is flooded, she said.

That was like her. Thinking about consequences. And the following year it flooded again. But they didn’t go down to see it. She was already suffering the effects of the illness with the hospital appointment imminent.

A young boy, maybe three or four, is suddenly between him and the river, jumping and dancing and making loud noises that seem to echo around in the wind. A few seconds later a young couple arrive. He is hatless and bald, his red face looking windswept and alive. She has a multi-coloured woollen hat, pixie like, under which her hair is gathered. Seeing him, she smiles, a warm bright impulsive effervescence without words. The man nods his head towards him, curt, but friendly enough, and unexpectedly the young boy whoops loudly, startling all three of them.

Nathan! his mother says. Then turning towards him says Sorry!

The words feel genuine, but in her face there’s a parental indulgence too. As if in a corrective action, the boy’s father is kneeling down to him, one hand holding his arm gently as he speaks quietly.

Paul can’t catch any of the words, but there is obvious gentleness in the admonition, which is followed by a brief hug. The boy calms. It feels very familiar. Stephanie, aged three, was a boisterous tomboy. How often did his own restraining hand calm her with, he hoped, the same kind of gentleness. The father, catching his eye, grins.

Kids! he shouts good naturedly over the wind, and he smiles back. Then, lifting the boy above his head and lowering him onto his shoulders, he begins walking forward once more. The family move on and the ice inside solidifies again.

The first day of the new term is a relief. The clatter and chatter of little children filling the school after the mortuary of a PD day brings the sunshine with it, forcing its way through the windows like an insistent bully who won’t take no for an answer. The head’s smile makes a determined effort to compete with the sun as she welcomes everyone through the entrance, finger rising proprietorially to her lips when someone’s voice is too loud. And in no time he has his thirty nine and ten year olds inside the classroom. 5H they’re called, five Hawkins, after his name.

She was Rachel Hawkins, wife of twenty five years. They didn’t celebrate it. By that time desperately ill, an exchange of cards and a brief gathering with Stefanie and Eleanor was all she could manage. There was no sun that day. Too ashamed to show its face he decided. They opened the cards and drank a small amount of champagne the girls had brought round. The taste was bitter. Sitting forward in the chair, Rachel had something she wanted to say.

You will look after your father won’t you? she said.

Eleanor was crying.

Of course, mum, you know we will, Stefanie said, and Eleanor, drying her eyes was nodding.

When I’m gone.

Don’t mum, please!

Eleanor really struggled. He remembered saying nothing. There wasn’t anything to say. All he could do was put his arm round her to try and comfort her.

The little faces are sitting quietly looking up at him, straight backs and arms folded. Some are smiling. It’s what he likes.

Good morning 5H! he announces.

Good morning Mr Hawkins, they chime back, more or less together, and little round Ryan in the front row, the sun glinting on the edge of his glasses, says it again to himself.

So, a new term, with lots of exciting learning to do, he says.

Their faces are the sun. They stir the edges of the cold within him, but he knows they can’t thaw him completely.

A game of golf?

He can’t think of an excuse. Bernard is insistent. There’s no energy to face his challenges. It’s easier to agree. And when he tells Stefanie he’d turned the offer down once before, she complains.

Dad, you need adult company, she says, and Bernard’s good to you. Glad you’ve seen sense at last.

I know, he says. But he doesn’t believe it.

So Saturday morning he blows the dust from his golf bag and puts it into the back of the car. At least it means he hasn’t wasted his membership fees for the year. They’re meeting at the car park of the course. When he arrives Bernard’s ostentatious Audi is already there. He parks his Saab alongside.

How are things old chap?

I’m not too bad. It’s the easiest answer.

Good. That’s what I like to hear.

He knew absolutely it was.

No point in dwelling on things.

No, he says.

They tee off. He watches Bernard’s ball sail into the air and land on the edge of the green. His own first swing misses the ball completely. It takes three swings to make contact and the ball swings wildly sideways, coming to land in the rough grass to the left of the course.

Bad luck. Better next shot.

But it sets the pattern for what follows. By the end of the fifth hole he’s dropped ten shots and Bernard just three. Keeping going feels meaningless. What’s the point of trying to win? He doesn’t. By the time they’ve finished, the difference between them is twenty four shots.

They sit in the bar afterwards. He buys them a pint of real ale each; losers responsibility. But it’s a good bar.

Not quite yourself today then?

No.

Still thinking of Rachel?

Perhaps.

A nod of acceptance and a swig from the glass in front of him, draining a quarter in one long gulp. He does the same, without downing quite so much. Then it’s the match next Saturday. A relief to enter meaningless territory.

The children are busy. Maths to start the new term. Ryan on the front table looks lost and Justin next to him can’t help. The hand goes up.

I’ll be with you in a moment, Ryan.

Emily on the top table has grasped the challenging new task he’s given her and is keen to get on with it, so he paces across to Ryan and sits beside him. He really hasn’t grasped it. The chasm between Emily and him is wide. He begins from the beginning. It isn’t too long before the attention wanders and he’s fidgeting in his seat.

You’ll need to concentrate, Ryan.

Sir . . .

Yes Ryan?

The question when it comes is a rapier eased into his flesh.

Mrs Simons said your wife is in heaven.

Mrs Simons?

He could see his reflection in the round glasses.

When you were away. In assembly.

I see.

The room moves around him. The children opposite hover for a moment before settling. Ryan is looking at him, waiting.

Yes, he says, colluding, Mrs Simons is right.

Did you tell the children about me?

I’m sorry?

In assembly.

I thought it best . . .

Lies about heaven?

I don’t understand. . .

You told the children Rachel was in heaven!

His heart is pounding inside him.

Sit down Paul . . .

I don’t bloody want to sit down!

Please . . .

Get out. He has to get out of her office. He turns quickly, stubs his toe on the open door in his haste and hurries out. The voices from the playground resound like an anonymous sanctuary. It’s where he knows he has to be. He paces his way to the far side and stands there amongst a group of girls taking turns in some jumping game. Once there he feels safe. But he’s breathless and his heart is still beating so fast he wonders if he’ll have to sit down. A girl from another class catches his eye and waves to him. He manages to smile back. Two other girls come close. He catches a snippet of their conversation.

She did. I saw her.

Really?

Really.

They carry on walking, but their words echo inside him. ‘She did. She really did’. He’s seen her die.

Those last days she was hardly conscious. They’d given her morphine for the pain. He was glad; it eased her suffering, but it took her away from him. He sat beside her while all around the ceaseless activity of the hospice surrounded them. Sometimes he held her hand. Other times he stroked her forehead, or wiped it when beads of sweat formed. She didn’t notice, but he was glad to do it. Stefanie came, Eleanor came, and then went to continue their lives. He had no other life but there by the bedside clinging on to the end he knew he couldn’t prevent however he tried.

In his chair beside the bed he drifted into sleep. Conscious of fidgeting, he found himself slipping into an uneasy dream. There was a cave. He was climbing out of it with someone beside him. A woman he thought. The way ahead was treacherous. Extreme care was essential, but his companion kept complaining of a pain.

We have to keep going, he said.

Paul, I can’t.

Her grip was too slack. He could see it so clearly. It was all he could focus on.

Hold on tight! he shouted.

At that moment, one hand, then the other slipped from her grip on the rock, and agonisingly slowly she began to fall. He tried to call out, tried to grab her, but it was no good, her body was disappearing beneath him. He tried to shout out and woke himself.

He was sweating all over. His hands were clammy, his eyes twitched trying to refocus himself in the ward.

Are you alright, Mr Hawkins?

One of the nurses, caring, thoughtful.

Just a dream, he managed to say, must have dozed off.

Orpheus, he said to himself, it’s an Orpheus dream. He looked back, broke the rules, didn’t keep going. I have to be strong and I’ll bring her back he decided. The vigil continued. Eleanor called in. Sat with him.

Go for a break, dad. I’ll stay here.

But he couldn’t. Too much like Orpheus. When she woke up, he needed to be there. Nothing must be left to chance. Rachel, still breathing heavily, slept on beside him.

Outside the window a bright moon slunk into view, ashamed to show all of its face. It wasn’t quite full. One side dipped in, spoiling the roundness. He stared at it for a while. Shadows were visible on its surface. Craters, big craters the scientists believed. In fact they knew. Men had been up there, seen it. He’d told his ten year olds about it. Rapt attention when he showed the photographs and told them about the Apollo missions. The Apollo 8 photo of the earth, taken even before he was born stunned them still more. How was that possible? Such distance from where we lived; and died.

That was when he made the promise. He’d keep believing, right through till the moon was full. Then maybe she’d wake; be well again. ‘Where there’s life, there’s hope’ his mum used to say. He’d thought it silly, a meaningless expression. Now he understood. She was right. He’d got till full moon. They’d got till full moon. He leant over the bed. She smelt of illness. It wasn’t her. When she was better, the smell would be gone.

Rachel, he whispered.

She didn’t move. ‘She’ll hear you’ the nurses all said, "even if she seems unconscious, she’ll hear you.’ It was comforting.

Rachel, he said again, It’s me, Paul. I’ve been here, waiting for you to wake.

For a moment he lifted his head to breathe.

Rachel, I’ve made a promise.

He waited for any reaction. Did her arm twitch? He watched to see if it happened again, but it didn’t. He leant towards her and spoke directly into her ear.

I’ve made a promise, Rachel. We’ve got . . . maybe three days. Then you’ll start to recover, and I’ll be here.

He sat straight again and took her hand into his, hoping it might move again. But it didn’t.

Stefanie came. She sat in the seat the other side of the bed.

She’s not going to get better, dad.

You don’t know that!

His voice came out louder than he’d intended. A woman across the