Chapter 2

Matthew stepped away from the cart with a piece of bread and a chunk of what looked like decent cheese. His hands were sore from the shoveling, though the mostly younger men on the work crew had set him to the less taxing tasks when they could. He knew from experience he'd have to eat in small bits as it had been several days since he'd had anything and he closed his eyes for a moment before he started to pull the bread apart. A lad with a lot of dark wavy hair sat down next to him. Matthew glanced at him as he put most of the cheese and some of the bread into a jacket pocket.

"It's hard to eat without water, isn't it?"

"It's fine," Matthew replied.

"Ah, yes. Well, it's always bread and something like cheese until Thursday and then usually a bit of something else that day."

"I don't think you should be talking to me," Matthew said quietly, looking away.

"It's all right now," said the other glancing at a man in a uniform Matthew couldn't place. "That one doesn't care if we keep it quiet and brief."

The younger man looked at Matthew.

"My name is Peter Mills, Colonel Crawley."

"Not really using the Colonel I suppose. But it's nice to meet you. What is that uniform?" Matthew asked as he gestured his head at the man monitoring the crew.

"Ah, we call 'em bouncers. They are the new version of home guards, not armed, keeping order. For the boche."

Matthew looked past the man they had been talking about and realized there were others dressed much the same looking at the work crew and otherwise about but only a few in regular German uniform.

"Bouncers?"

"Dunno really."

Matthew ducked his head. "So it's back to boche. It's been a while, but I don't think I know you."

The bouncer called them back into line and Peter Mills stepped away with a shake of his head. Matthew noticed that others had looked away. He needed to be more mindful. He wasn't allowed unnecessary contact with other residents, which had turned out to be pretty much any contact. His encounter with Robert had been on a Saturday and he'd had to wait through the weekend before getting going with the work crew. He had tried to ask a few people if there was any church line or perhaps a veteran's group in the village but no one had answered, quite literally. A man who looked familiar had walked alongside him for a bit and told "Colonel Crawley" that there were no support groups this time. He said it with regret while looking Matthew in the eye. Matthew thought a nod was the best way of showing his thanks, confirmed as the man scuttled off and a woman on a doorstep greeted the fellow with a scowl. Everything about the village looked strained and the garbage bins he looked in when alone along a lane had no food. So he had waited. And now, on Monday afternoon, he felt the heavy bread settle in his stomach and tasted the sheen of mold he apparently hadn't noticed on the cheese. He wondered why he was back.

A few days later Peter Mills sat next to him again during a break.

"The thing is, sir, do you know about your daughter, about Isobel?"

Matthew looked at the youngster again and nodded his head.

"Well," the young man looked down as he spoke quietly, "I was with Isobel. We had been seeing each other the during the summer of '40 and when they shut down the universities we both came back here."

Matthew looked the other man who glanced quickly back and then down again. Matthew realized that the fellow was in his early twenties at most.

"We were just walking out as they used to say, nothing more. I thought a very great deal of her, though, and I think she cared for me. She said she did. We both thought we should do something, try to come together with others and resist or something. At least to know who we all were. We met in Ripon, we didn't intend to fight then but just got caught up in things. A home guard unit set up some barriers and tried to stop a tank for a bit. I don't know why. There was shelling from a lot of tanks and most of us near the home guard got caught up in it. Izzy was brave, told us we could only stay together and take what came. She was right, too, a bunch who tried to run in a scatter were cut down by machine guns. Most of us around her made it through"

"Thank you for telling me. I didn't know much of what happened."

"She died, well, it came quickly, if I can say that."

Matthew looked into the distance. Yes, with all he'd seen and done, knowing his daughter had not suffered long meant something. He looked at the lad and nodded. They both stood up and got back into the work line.

The Thursday ration did include a bag of dried beans and some hard crackers along with the usual bread and cheese. After he signed the register at the station Friday morning, he poked around the yard and garage again, and found a can that wasn't too dirty and held water. He set half the beans to soak in his room and wondered if he'd be allowed to walk around. He looked again at the papers but couldn't make out much, supposed that wouldn't change. After a while, he set out walking and in a few minutes was out of the village in the country. The work crew had been in the country some of the time, but walking alone felt better. People ignored him until a bouncer approached him roughly as he moved along a road that he belatedly realized led to the Abbey. The man seemed to believe his claim that he didn't know where he could go. With a display of importance, the bouncer told him that of course the Abbey grounds were off limits to all, and that as a parolee he was allowed otherwise to wander but couldn't enter any other villages or towns and had to observe his curfew. Matthew decided not to stretch things by asking when his curfew was. He walked near the tracks and picked up some bits of coal and along a woods picking up some fallen branches.

The walk tired him, but it felt fine. Walking along what he thought was a road that ran back towards the village, he saw his shadow in profile against a wall. It seemed stooped and he wondered for the first time in ages how he looked. He found a length of thick string and wrapped the branches once round, which made the bunch a little easier to carry.

As he approached the back lane towards the garage, he looked again at the house across the yard. It looked empty from the back with broken out windows. He dumped the branches and coal in the garage bay and walked through the lane and around the front street. There people did not ignore him as the few he'd seen in the county had. They looked at him sideways and from under dropped heads. He wasn't sure if a few looked angry. The house to the front of the garage's yard was deeper than he'd realized and as he passed he saw it did appear occupied, with the front doorstep swept clear and what looked like old sheets hanging on the lower part of the street level windows. The rooms at the back could be quite far from the front, really. He went to the end and back down through the lane. Back in the garage bay, he looked at the sticks and coal and decided to take them upstairs. The garage wasn't his, he supposed. He wondered about the chair but planned to keep it. He ate the hard crackers and the last of yesterday's cheese and watched the sun get low.

With a bit of light still in the sky he washed up with the cold water in the sink after coming back from the outhouse. He used the bit of soap from the Red Cross packet. Even though it didn't do much for his smell, he took off his jacket and shirts and quickly splashed and washed. He wished he could have a shave. He'd been shaved every so often in the prisons in an efficient manner and his hair clipped short once in a while.

After considering the touch of cold in the evening air, he got his undershirt wet, spread a bit of the hand soap on and wrung the shirt around a bit, carrying it soaking to the top of the steps before hanging it over the railing. The houses around had mostly weak light coming from within and he thought he saw some coming from the front of the house. Down the way, Crawley House gave off a robust warm glow, fully lit and, unlike the other places giving off the sounds of occupation. He lay down as darkness came and felt a calmness that surprised him.

Turning away from the tap in the morning, he started at the sight of a boy, eight or nine, standing at the side of the garage opening.

"We wondered if you knew about the food queue on Saturdays."

"Hello," said Matthew. "I don't know you should be talking with me."

The boy shifted on his feet and looked back to the house but didn't move away.

"No I don't know about the queue."

"It's behind the green warehouse by the station. Starts at noon."

The boy ran towards the front house before Matthew could say anything else.

There was indeed a queue behind the green warehouse at noon. Thirty or so people stood quietly on line, a few watching children who sat or ran about. No one talked. Matthew recognized a few of the men from his work crew, though not Peter Mills. He walked to a bouncer watching the group and asked if he could join the queue. The man asked for his papers and at the sight of the grey sleeve waved him into the line. Matthew stood at the back and looked around. The line started to move and Matthew realized everyone else had sacks or boxes. He saw people walking away with a few items each, most with some onions, a potato or two and what looked like sacks of something and a few other things he couldn't see. The people with children seemed to have jars filled with milk. He heard the woman at the table in front saying some quickly to each person and a few mumbled responses.

He realized with a start that Anna Bates was handing out the food. A German sergeant stood behind her along with a bouncer. The bouncer stepped to her side as Matthew got to the table and asked for his papers. Matthew handed over the packet and watched as the German looked it over. Matthew hadn't figured out the system yet and would have looked at the German trying to see what the sergeant looked at except Anna Bates's wide smile drew his gaze. The German marked something on the outside sleeve and nodded at the bouncer who turned to Anna and gestured at Matthew saying it would be all right for a first time.

"Do you need a sack?" she asked first.

"If it's all right, thank you."

"Yes, we are allowed to give people newly assigned to the village a few extra items. Do you have any matches?"

"No, I haven't," said Matthew.

"I'll put some in, and a bit of cutlery perhaps," she said as the bouncer nodded yes. "The one on your identification packet means you are eligible to join us once a month if you wish. This is the beginning of March so you'd have to wait to April now. We can't guarantee anything, though." The bouncer started to frown so she put the matches and a spoon and table knife into a sack with a few onions and other things he didn't really see, a heavy packet, and an apple. "There you are."

"Thank you," said Matthew with a little bow of his head. Anna Bates smiled and nodded back.

Matthew walked away, annoyed with himself that he felt a sense of humiliation for the first time. It didn't matter if Mrs. Bates had been his wife's maid. His ex-wife's maid. She had looked at him kindly.

He wondered again why he was back.