Missing by Judy Mitchell

 

(Memorial to Commonwealth servicemen killed during the Battles of the Aisne and Marne in 1918 who have no known grave. Soissons, France).

She would have known. She was his mother. She would have felt his pain. Her mind held on to an image she had conjured of him. Dazed, lost, left by someone in a cottage or a farmhouse away from the guns. Foreign voices whispering questions he didn’t understand, unable to remember his name or where he was.

Armed with the weapon of denial, she fought off despair and the lure of mourning. Weeks later, she saw him.

Standing at the sink, she looked towards the gently rising Pennine hills and fields crossed by snaking stonewalls. He was there, at the bottom of the garden by the wall, his back towards her. When the sunlight caught the tips of his ears, she cried out and lifted her hand to knock at the window but the sun faltered and his image dissolved, extinguished by the late summer light.

She turned to see if he had come into the kitchen. Wiping her hands, she moved to the cellar head and shouted his name into the musky darkness. Silence rose to taunt her. Then she heard him.

‘Ma, is the kettle on?’

There was that teasing love in his voice and she imagined the smile playing around his lips. Maybe he had gone upstairs.

For a moment she paused on the landing, listening for any movement. The door to his room opened slowly. The air was flushed with the smell of his soap and she watched as he bent his long, straight legs to look into the mirror to comb his hair. A low ray of light crept across the bedroom window but when it found no shadows to play with, it slipped past, out of the room, leaving her alone.

The stillness grew thin and cold as she opened the wardrobe door as if to give herself an excuse for being in his space. Two empty coat hangers rattled against the wood as she closed the doors on the neat shirts and trousers.

Later, she persuaded her husband to place an advert in the newspapers. Number, name, platoon, regiment.

…missing in France since 27 May last. He is known to have been wounded and taken prisoner. Any news concerning him would be gratefully received by his parents….      

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