Many Weeks Later - Elena's Dorm room

Winifred is walking to breakfast, when she notices a figure slumped in an archway. It's Elena, the books she was carrying scattered on the ground before her. She's just passed out. Winifred hurries over, kneels next to her. Elena is out of it, panting, barely aware of her surroundings. Winifred sees her anguish. Winifred panics "Elena? Goodness, are you alright?". Elena doesn't respond she's trembling all over she slips again, falling but Winifred tries to catch her, she hears Winifred yell "Somebody give me a hand here?". The running footsteps of other women coming towards her.

Elena is lying on her side, in bed. The crisis is over, but her expression is blank, pale, without hope. Behind her stands Winifred, holding books and some grapes. Winifred walks past "I brought some more books for you".Elena remains with her back turned, saying nothing. Winifred decides to open the curtains, letting in a flood of sunlight. Then comes back and sits down.Winifred places them down "Did you manage to read the last ones?" Winifred sees a pile of books on the floor, they look untouched. She sits down. Elena feels her patient, calm presence. After a moment Elena turns to face her. "I've lost my brother and my man I've ever loved over there, you know. In France, but the War still got to them". Winifred sits on the bed "It made us all feel powerless".

Elena questions "Were you there too?". Winifred clears her throat "For the last few months. I volunteered at a signals station near Abbeville". Elena's eyes just look at her but Winifred kept talking "We're surrounded by ghosts. Our job now is to try and give a voice to them".Her words resonate deeply with Elena, "but you need to start at the beginning. Get up, get dressed.Eat. I'm going to help you, whether you like it or not". She smiles her warm smile at Elena.

The Next Day - Church Near by

Elena is walking though the corridors and overhears a loud yells of different voices and as she enters she sees people, men, women and children arguing about war. Elena stands and listens to many people's opinions but has the thought of standing up and speaking, her hands are shaking and sweating. Elena clears her throat and takes her first steps up the stairs to the stage "I have something to say!" and all of a sudden everybody stares as she reaches the middle of the stage.

"As you were speaking, I was remembering one of them. I never knew his name, but he was a brave man, and somebody's son. I held his hand as he lay dying" she hears murmurs as people don't like this. Some get up and walk out.Elena continues "I lost a brother, Sam, in the war, and my fiance! There was no final message for them, no hand to hold; just pain and a dirty,undignified death! I can't make sense of it either, except when I held the hand of that German, it was Stefan's hand too that I was holding, and Sam's, their pain was the same pain, their blood the same blood. Our grief is the grief of hundreds and thousands of German women and men!".

People now start to BOO loudly, the mother walks out, more follow her, until only a few are left. Elena yells "All of you! But especially those of us who were left behind! The mothers, sisters, women we send our men to war! I fought my father to let my brother go because we think it's the right thing, the honourable thing, but all I can do is stand here and ask you, is it?Was I right? Or can I find the courage to accept there might be another way? Perhaps their deaths have meaning only if west and together now, and say no! No to killing, no to war! No to the endless cycle of revenge. I say no more of it!" The few remaining people are silent, as her words resonate.

The Next Day- Spring

A beautiful spring day. Elena stands on the garden path,gazing at Melrose. The house is shut down, the curtains closed, it has a neglected feel to it.She starts walking towards the front door. Elena unlocks the creaky door, swings it open, and steps into the silent hallway. So many memories... However minutes later Elena stands in the living room. The large pieces of furniture are covered in dust sheets.She sees her piano, with dusty sheaf music lying on top of it.She goes over, lifts the lid. Tinkles a few notes. Then shuffles through the music, until she finds Sam's piece.She sits down and starts to play, hesitantly...the notes ringing out in the empty house.

The Long White Road

Elena walks down the long white road, towards the lake. She sees it glittering through spindly trees.Elena hears Stefan's Voice "The sunshine on the long white road That ribboned down the hill,The velvet clematis that clung Around your window sill Are waiting for you still...". Elena stands gazing out at the peaceful water, by the old jetty. It's still there, intact.Stefan's voice continues to be heard "Again the shadowed pool shall break In dimples at your feet...And when the thrush sings in your wood Unknowing, you may meet Another stranger, sweet".Elena starts to shed her clothes, one by one, until she's down to her petticoat.Then she walks into the water.

Elena swims through the water, feeling the strength in her limbs. Stefan's voice "And if he is not quite so old As the boy you used to know,And less proud, too, and worthier,You may not let him go". Stefan, Sam, and Victor's voices as they once were, laughing and chatting, carefree. Stefan's voice "For daisies are truer than passionflowers,It will be better so.And it's quiet again" The water ripples out around her She moves through it, surrounded by the beauty of nature,immersed in it, at one.

The Lake

Elena walks out of the water, lifting her face to the warm sun... Something in her transformed by this experience... Up ahead, she sees something, by a tree trunk. Goes over, and picks up an aqua-blue bird's egg. Fragile. Perfect. But for a single crack.

The Train

Elena sits in a train compartment, pen in hand, a notebook on her lap, making hasty notes. It's as though a dam has burst her hand can't move quickly enough across the page.She stops, as a memory of Stefan's voice suddenly fills her head "I kept quiet because I was moved by it, I found it beautiful...and you seem an impossible person to say that to".Elena gazes out of the window, as the past floods back... Elena gazes at her page of writing, overwhelmed by the memory...

The Next Day

Elena is mopping the corridor floor when the loud boom of cannon fire sounds from outside. She doesn't even flinch. There's a sound of shouting, peals of laughter, running footsteps. Elena looks up to see two young nurses, faces flushed, running towards her. "It's over! The armistice is signed! It's finally over!" Elena just watches with no reaction. There's the sound of celebrations already kicking off in the street outside.One of them turns back, looks directly at her. "WE WON!" they scream but Elena's face as she takes this in. Then she returns to her tray, an automaton.

Elena, in civilian clothes now, is pushed along by the jostling crowd. People shout, cheer, wave rattles, but the sound cuts in and out, Elena can't connect with it. To muffled sound, Elena is being whirled round and round by the jubilant soldier she breaks free. Elena sees steps ahead of her, stumbles and pushes her way through the crowd towards them. Elena stumbles inside, her footsteps echoing on marble.Above her, the high-vaulted dome, ahead of her, row upon row of pews. It's another world in here, silent and dark.Elena walks down a side aisle. She hears a faint,rhythmic whispering, Francis Danby's painting of a shipwreck in storm-ripped seas LOOMS ahead of her now.

Elena puts her hands over her ears to block the sound then sinks into a pew. After a moment, she clasps her hands together, as though in prayer. Elena speaks out loud while facing the picture "They'll want to forget you, they'll want me to forget. But I can't - I won't...". The Brilliant sunshine was shimming though the doors. An Oxford quad.Muffled sound. Students walk past, smiling, chatting,laughing. As though nothing has changed.Elena steps into frame, holding a small suitcase.

"...I promise you, all of you".

The End