Chapter 3

Matthew made it through a few more weeks. He dug a hole for a fire pit and made a little cooking area near the bottom of the stairs to his room and cooked some of the food. He was getting more ragged, but he warmed up some water for cleaning himself once or twice and at least felt a little better. The food seemed to be enough to help him get some strength and the work crew shifts became somewhat less difficult. He didn't see Peter Mills again.

Walking about on free days he began to get a renewed sense of the village, realizing how strange it was he remembered so little. He learned to stay away from the actual village as much as possible. People seemed uncomfortable at the sight of him. He wasn't sure if it was his current state or just him. He found he had no desire to know. Anna Bates smiled at him and said hello quietly the one time he saw her. He nodded to her and kept walking.

He had started to dream, or remember his dreams at any rate. The years-old enemy returned in force. The dreams were almost always of the first war, sometimes with people from the other wars, the prisons, or from his other life, but set in the first war. The feel of its earth was fresh and horrifying and unique despite all that had come since. A fog held him in most mornings after dreams, sometimes lasting through the day. He forgot to eat often on those days, and the other men on the work crew sometimes had to place the shovel or bucket in his hands. Walking alone cleared him, as did, eventually, just going through what he could see of the day.

At a Friday sign in, he noticed he was the only man looking quite so rough. Some of the others seemed to be always in the same clothes and one or two of the other men had the same unfocused stare as he thought he probably had at times, but only he had a messy beard and sticky hair. The next week, a soldier stepped up to the counter as he inked his thumb to sign in with his print.

"Why do you not go to the shower room?" Matthew saw the soldier was a private, quite young, and seemed to be working on the English words.

"I don't know what you mean."

The German gestured to the grey packet Matthew handed to the police officer as he placed his print.

"You may use the room on the first and third Fridays."

"I'm sorry, I can't read the packet."

The private scowled without anger.

"You must maintain basic clean-ness. The shower room has water and soap and shaving if you need them."

"I didn't know. Where is it?"

The German gestured to an old stables complex behind the station. Matthew walked to the building after they gave him back his packet and it appeared other parolees were walking in from the station. He realized it was towards the end of May so he went in. The bouncer looked at his packet and let him into a whitewashed room. Another looked at him with a degree of distaste and gestured to a bench in front of some pegs. A couple of men were undressed and heading to what sounded like showers and another man walked back from a door further along the wall, wet with a towel. A bouncer told him he got four pulls of the water. Matthew stepped into the room for a shower that was icy, but with a real bar of soap. As he walked away from the shower, the bouncer handed him a safety razor and then after a look a small scissors. It took him a while, but he trimmed off the thickness of his beard and shaved at a sink with soap and cold water and a number of nicks. The bouncer called for the scissors and razor as soon as he was done but let him rinse again in the sink. In the mirror, he looked lopsided somehow. His hair was mostly grey and even old scars seemed bright. He rinsed again and stepped away.

Peter Mills reappeared on a work crew for a week but didn't talk with him. The boy looked at him occasionally, he could tell, but didn't approach. Matthew hadn't worked out which bouncers were looser than others and thought perhaps that was why.

As the days lengthened, he had hours to sit in the room above the garage after the work crew. He wished he could read, but beyond not being able to make out anything, he didn't have any books or other materials. He began sitting on the top step after he'd finished his food and what had become his chores, watching down at the yard and the lane. The boy from the house came into the yard, staying away from the garage. He chopped some wood but took a long time and couldn't manage the logs. Sometimes he came out with two younger children and led them in some playing. Once a worn looking woman came around the corner and called them in with a gesture and a glance to him up on the wooden steps. After that he went inside when the children came into the yard and they stayed longer in the summer evenings. The boy never quite got the chopping down, but Matthew saw a pile with a small amount of logs and wondered if she did it during the days. A pile of coal made a mess of a patch of dirt near the wall.

On a Friday at the station he felt a sort of panic rising at the small line of people that seemed a crowd and worried that someone would touch him. The work crew somehow was all right, perhaps because he was moving most of the time and he was just in the group, never singled out. Standing on line waiting for someone to talk to him was almost unbearable though. That made it all the more surprising when he heard himself asking if he was allowed to trade work for some food. The bouncer frowned and consulted a sheet of paper.

"There is no man there in the house on that lot," the bouncer told the soldier, "only one woman with four children."

"Yes," said Matthew. "I haven't spoken to her, and she may not want the help. It's just it seems she or someone else might trade."

"No," said the German standing behind. "No contact with other residents.

Matthew wondered at this emphasis on no contact with him. Feeling the panic lift a bit, he was relieved. He supposed he should be glad for the restrictions.

That next week Matthew dreamed every night and started to have complete lapses during the day. He would feel himself drop over an edge and be in the same indescribable universe, always with that earth, entirely surrounding him at times. During the day they didn't seem to last too long, but it was enough to keep him on edge.

In his calm moments, he wondered why he was getting worse. During a stretch in the final months in the last prison, he'd been completely alone after the interrogations had stopped. Food came in through a hole in the door and he passed out his latrine bucket. He couldn't hear anything outside the cell, saw little in the day from the light that seeped in from the door edges and the grate in the top of one wall, and saw almost nothing during what he presumed was night. The earth from the first war came around him and in spurts he knew he would go mad soon. Here, though he was alone in many ways, he had the chance to take care of some of his needs, to walk about with a degree of choice. The earth should just be earth, not his prison. Still he knew he was getting worse.

He felt rather than remembered those moments before his last attack in the first war. Mason had fussed longer than necessary straightening something, waiting. Matthew had known he was almost done and there had been a few beats where Mason seemed to know too, wonder if he would straighten himself and walk out. Matthew couldn't remember what either of them had said but Mason had helped, and in the end they went over one more time. For a long while if he remembered it at all he put the haziness down to his injury, Mason's death, the weight of the end of it. Later, he had wondered what would have happened if he hadn't been hit by that blast, whether he would have just broken down or whether he would have done something that cost his men. Now though, it was all a shapeless mass again, no timelines, no clear memories, just the feel of the bloody earth.

On the Saturday, Matthew walked out of town up a small hill. The view from the top was clear. The Abbey stood in the far distance. From his angle it was so huge that full grown trees seemed a little spray of foliage that hid a part of the building from view. He sat down a bit behind a bush, hiding himself from view, as if it mattered. He thought over the week of nightmares and surprisingly terrible blanks. He wondered if it was as simple as not having her to touch his arm. Being around people the other times he'd returned had been painful then as well, especially in '38 when he'd been sick, not injured. She would touch his arm and he'd been able to manage that much, gradually opening to a sort of life. It was the first time he had thought of her with him.

He started as he heard someone come up the edge and sit near a patch of larger grasses.

"You get along pretty quick for all that you know."

Peter Mills approached.

"Here is where I remind you not to talk to me."

"I am quite sure no one has followed and I will only be a few minutes. I just wanted...wondered how you are. You haven't been to the work crew the last couple of days."

"I have spells, don't know if it's an old shellshock or what, but I can't quite function," Matthew said in a matter of fact tone. "I made it to the station yesterday to sign in, but otherwise this is the first time I've been away from my room."

"You all right for food though?"

"I suppose. Yes, I have enough to get me to next week."

Peter Mills handed him a good size piece of cake and a small handful of walnuts.

"There isn't much fresh this time of year. Seems like there should be more but nothing's in yet. I never noticed that until the surrender came."

"Thank you."

Matthew held the cake in one hand while he worked on the walnuts. He felt the filmly crunch on his teeth. The cake was poppy seed, with some lemon flavoring perhaps.

"I haven't had anything like this in years," said Matthew. "Quite literally. Really, thank you."

"You're welcome. Do me a favor and eat them now, though."

"Why?"

"Well, you might hold your food for later but there shouldn't be anywhere you could get such things, if you were stopped. The cake is fresh enough they'd ask where it came from. And I guess I'd like to see you eat it."

The younger man took a much smaller piece of cake and nibbled on it. Matthew finished the walnuts and then started on the cake. He started to smell it about half way through and turned to meet Mills's eyes as he finished. He nodded and looked back to the view of the Abbey.

"Do you ever want to go there?"

"No, not really."

"But it was your home."

Matthew thought about home, not letting the memories really take shape.

"I don't know it ever really was. I did live there. Crawley House was a home for me before that anyhow. I was almost glad when they told me to go there when I returned."

"A lot of people don't like what has happened with you."

"I wonder people know."

"You are in that little room alone, on the crew, shunned really. The rest of them are living in the big house, almost like before. You went to fight and they get to go back to the grand style."

Matthew felt his eyes lose focus. The smell of the cake on his tongue kept him from slipping away into whatever his blurry vision held.

"I would like to see them, though, know they are well."

"They are well enough," the younger man said bitterly.

"Do you know where Isobel is buried? My daughter? I should be able to walk around and see if it's in the village but I haven't been able to manage it."

Mills's cheeks reddened and he looked down.

"I'm sorry," said Matthew. "You cared very much for her, perhaps."

"I did. I wish I had walked into the hills with her instead of going to Ripon that day."

"But you didn't. And you did not cause her to die."

The young man had let his head drop.

"She is buried in the church graveyard. Her grave is near the family plot, off towards the far gate. I think even restricted persons are allowed there, though the church itself counts as a building."

"A building?"

"You have to have a pass to enter every building except your quarters, the station, and the shower house."

"Because I am a restricted person?"

"Didn't they give you your papers?"

"I can't really read them, my eyes have gone bad."

"God. Well, yes, you are a restricted person. That means that except for authorities no one may speak to you unless necessary and you may not enter buildings without passes."

"Are you restricted?"

"Yes."

"Do you live alone then?"

"No, I live at my mother's, where I lived before I was arrested after Ripon."

"So that is allowed?"

"Yes, since I lived there before. I was not convicted so it creates fewer problems for her. I was just detained for a while and cautioned. I wouldn't want to live there if it was a problem, but she is my mum and I could see her making more trouble if I tried to stay away."

"Being convicted is worse?"

"Yes, I don't get how it all works exactly but a family may take in a near relative who's been convicted, and then they become responsible for him. At least once it's resulted in the whole family losing their home when the parolee got into some trouble. A family who wishes to stay away from that may sign a declaration of separation. Then the convict has no rights to the home and the family has no jeopardy so long as they stay away."

Matthew looked at the Abbey, his focus slowly returning. Mills got up and walked towards him.

"I'm sorry, but I should go. I'll go down the east side if you'd go the other."

"Of course. Despite what you said, I am slow today so you should be fine. You shouldn't talk to me again."

"No, it's all right like this."

"No, I mean it. I thank you for talking to me today, and for the cake, but I am not safe."

"They try to do this to us…"

"They have done it to me. It's done. Please."

Mills nodded his head with a resigned half-smile and walked away.

The next day, Matthew found Isobel's grave. He walked past the other headstones and markers of people he'd known: Violet, Cora, William Mason, Clarkson, Carson, off to a side, Lavinia. He saw his mother's and then his daughter's. Isobel Margaret Crawley, 1923 - 1940. He wondered who was at the funeral, if her body had actually been put there. That night, he didn't even bother lying down and just sat instead in the hard chair in the middle of his room.