The Memory Tree

by Linda Gillard

‘You’ve done all you could, Ann. You’ve tried to be a good daughter, but the fact is, Phoebe just didn’t want one.’

‘Good!’ said Phoebe, clearly delighted. ‘Now, while Ann is busy in the kitchen, you can make yourself useful with the drinks tray. Help yourself. Mine’s a large gin.’ ‘Is that with tonic?’ Connor asked, getting to his feet. ‘Just wave the bottle in the general vicinity of my glass.’

I suppose if I marry, Mother will have to tell me what multiplying entails. I once asked Arthur and Eddie, but they refused to tell me. They smirked and said I should find out soon enough.

I have no desire to be fruitful if it means inflicting brothers on a daughter of mine.

If I could not be a botanist or an explorer, I think I should have liked to be a gardener. When I mentioned this to Mother, she laughed. Sadly, I am a source of constant and unintentional amusement to my family. Mother explained that ladies paint flowers and wear them, they do not grow them.

I have been considering Walter’s proposal and have come to the conclusion that I wish I were a man. To be female is to be second-rate, or rather to be regarded as second-rate.

A man does at least have a choice. He can choose not to marry. He does not become a burden on his family in the way that I, if I do not marry, will become a burden to Arthur or Eddie.

My greatest inducement to marry is the thought that, if I do not, I will inevitably become nurse and companion to whichever of my parents survives longest, after which I shall have no choice but to cast myself on the mercy of my brothers, who will be obliged to house, feed and clothe me.

My parents have no interests in common, but have been married for nearly thirty years. Perhaps sharing a home and children are sufficient bond.

Whenever I demonstrate that I have more intelligence and initiative than a lap dog, Father looks shocked and accuses me of displaying ‘unfeminine tendencies’.

It has often struck me that if an activity is enjoyable, satisfying or lucrative, it will be the province of men. What have they left us to do other than supervise the people who supervise the servants? Bear children, of course, but nothing I have observed or heard about motherhood suggests it is enjoyable or satisfying work, nor is it lucrative.

Overwhelmed by fear and self-pity, I wept for the things I’d wanted and never had. A father. A child. And I cried for what I wanted now and didn’t have. A man. A man like Connor. Kind, intelligent, sensitive, with – as Phoebe had noted – broad shoulders and a nice arse.

If that is indeed the case, why are men so eager to fight? To die? Arthur and Eddie are as excited as schoolboys, full of plans to enlist immediately. To listen to them whoop, you would think they had received an invitation to join a particularly good shooting party.

I could weep with happiness to think that somewhere, someone is trying to grow something; that in the midst of unimaginable slaughter and destruction, something new will live!

One hears stories of the horrors our men experience and the casualty lists reveal how much death they see, but until I saw William’s face today, I had not the faintest notion what the war does to the men who survive. I had only considered what happened to the dead.

He stepped back, regarded his handiwork and murmured, ‘As these words grow, so may our love.’ Turning his head slowly, he looked about him, trying to fix the images in his tortured mind. He heaved a shuddering sigh and, as the air left his body, he began to shiver, though the day was mild.

Families were losing their menfolk and their livelihoods. The war was like a plague, except it didn’t carry off the weak and elderly. Those it left behind. This plague took the young and the strong, those who would be missed most.

‘Every child should be welcomed into the world, whatever its provenance. A new life is a very precious thing, especially these days.’

It requires energy to hope, energy and faith, both of which are in short supply these days.

Mending. That’s what you did when you looked after people. You mended things. Toys. Sweaters. Broken hearts. You made them whole again.

As I dried my eyes, it struck me forcibly that ladies’ handkerchiefs are quite inadequate nowadays. How can such small squares of lace absorb the outpourings of grief this war has occasioned? As I thrust the ridiculous scrap of cloth into my pocket, I recalled Violet standing in the kitchen of Garden Lodge after William had enlisted, mopping her face with her coarse linen apron.

Lifting her head, she regarded her hiding place and murmured, ‘May light perpetual shine upon you.’ His love consigned to perpetual darkness, she left the wood, her footsteps slow and heavy.

The child is forgotten now. Those who remembered are long dead. But we remember. While we stand, we shall not forget, nor shall we judge. Were we human, we should pity. Were we human, we should weep to see what we have seen.