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Rated: E · Book · Drama · #1856433
The events which strike a young British officer in the face of war with life's alterations
    Austin paced around the fringes of the room and tugged at the eyepatch that covered where his right eye had been; the coal-oil lamps created tall shadows in the corners and a warming glow in the middle of the room. Gran’s desk sat at the rear of the room where it had been for years, her address book and stationery stowed in their proper slots. In the center of the floor lay a well-used Oriental rug. His brow furrowed in concentration as he moved about the room, storing mental pictures to carry with him.

    “Austin, I think ‘tis time you sat down with me and told me why you came home.”

“Gran, I thought it was obvious. I came home for Christmas. Those gift-wrapped presents and the tree, all those Yule-tide traditions, weren’t they Christmas? It wasn’t one of your little conspiracies to fool me, was it, Gran?”

    Laughing warmly, Margaret MacKenzie gazed at her adored grandson, the only grandchild she and Andrew would ever have. If Austin’s mother, Deborah, could only have lived to see what a fine man he had become, she’d be so proud. She remembered the “little conspiracies” he referred to, the many times when she had planned and schemed with the mothers of the village girls to expose him to a little socialising.

    “No, Son, it was’na and you can cease your attempts to evade the subject.”

She lapsed into Yorkshire as she said. “Does tha think tha can pretend about thy heavy heart and I would not be able to feel thy pain? When it has been thy heart beating in my breast since the day thee were born.”

    “I’m so lucky to have you. You’re not only a wonderful grandmother but the best mother I could have ever wanted.”

He stepped up to her enfolding her in his muscular arms, resting his chin on the top of her head, white, silken hair drooped across her brow. As he leaned back he looked down into a pair of eyes which were the mirror of his, a blue-grey so changeable they acted like a weather barometer, marking their different moods. Her smooth skin finely drawn with wrinkles around her mouth and eyes from laughing, and a few worry lines across her forehead.

    “Gran, constancy is thy name. Reliable as the changes in the seasons, tha has forever been the one who knew, almost before I knew it myself, when something preyed on my mind.

    A touch of the Yorkshire had slipped out as it frequently did when he spent time with his Gran. It had helped having Ewings as his orderly, hearing the familiar dialect regularly had been comforting. And he’d needed that comforting in the last few months with what he’d been through.

    “Yes, son..., we are part of the same person. How could I not know you as well as I know myself? Now, sit down here beside me and tell me what’s troubling you.”

    She moved over to the settee close by the fire, she picked up her embroidery before she painfully lowered herself onto the cushions. A lap quilt lay next to her, she spread it evenly over her legs, then repositioned a small square pillow behind her back. Having made herself as comfortable as was possible, she turned to him.

    “Austin, you know ‘twill be better after you have shared your burden with me. Sit down and while we talk, we’ll ring for Jocelyn and have her make us some tea, or perhaps, you would prefer chocolate? And there may be a sticky bun left, you haven’t eaten quite all of them yet, have you?”

Austin terrible sweet tooth, he must have inherited it from his grandfather. Andrew had been called away to a parishioners sickbed out on the moors. If he hadn’t been away these few days the sweets wouldn’t have lasted this long. She reached over for a bone china bell resting on the table close by, it’s clear, high sound summoning the “girl”, Jocelyn, who had been the servant at the vicarage since Austin’s boyhood days. She’d come as a helper when she was young and now stayed on mainly as Gran’s companion and nurse.

    “Tea will be fine, Gran. I’m not a young lad any longer with bumps or bruises which require a cuppa chocolate to soothe them.”

When he’d been a boy, his injuries had required not just his grandmother wiping away the tears but frequently a cuppa chocolate carefully prepared by Jocelyn. No one could match the thick, creamy mixture poured into a big cup with a dollop of clotted cream on top, not even Gran.

    Opposite Gran’s couch sat a throne-like chair, his grandfather’s, it’s green leather surface lined with the cracks of age. His overstuffed ottoman, looking like a squatting toad, sat in front of it, the corners lined up precisely. Pointing at the chair, she appealed to her grandson.

    “Come and sit. You will give me a cramp in my neck if you continue to stand or walk about.”

He seated himself on the bulky ottoman facing his grandmother. His long legs, encased in tight, black trousers, bent awkwardly beneath him. The, fuzzy wool of his jumper scratched his neck as he turned his head, the faint odour of his Gran’s cologne still lingered in the yarn. Contemplating what to say to the woman before him, he watched as she calmly sewed, patiently waiting for him to decide what to say. He glanced down to the floor, his eye nearly closed as he told her.

    “There’s very little I can say, Gran. My orders are private, they don’t allow me to take even you into my confidence.”

    “Don’t you think I’m aware of that, my boy? But, unless I’m mistaken, ‘tis something more than orders on your mind. Or per’aps I should say, someone? Is there someone special you want to tell me about?”

    Surprised, his eye snapped open and he looked at her smiling face, her eyes dancing with mischief. She’d done it again! Damnation, the men at MI-6 could use her intuitive powers in the war effort.

    “How in the bloody hell do you do that, Gran? It’s absolutely amazing and a little frightening, as well.”

    Her laughter, deep and throaty, demonstrated her understanding of his question. The humour of the situation reached her eyes, flecks of silver shining in their blue depths.

    “Have I not told you many times, the mind can know what the heart and the eyes tell it if it will only listen?”

    “All right, tell me about the girl since you can’t tell me about your assignment.”

Observing the fire needed tending, he rose from the stool to add coal to it. The brass of the andirons, freshly polished, brightly reflected the flames. On the mantle above were assorted pieces of statuary, one of them seemed quite familiar. Ah, yes, it looked like the Dancing Faun, the figurine he’d seen on the table at that meeting with the LCS.

    He hesitated, his mind needed to be clear, able to concentrate on the task that lay ahead of him. He couldn’t be distracted by his concern for Gran, or anyone else. He returned to his seat and took a sip of the strong, black tea, no namby-pamby brew in this household. Reaching for a biscuit, he started talking. For the quite some time, he sat on the ottoman pouring out his feelings for Katya, pausing only to take a sup of tea or to put more coal on the hob. He described her angelic appearance and her heavenly dancing. He recounted the heart-stopping touch of her hand, the breathy quality of her voice, the scent he got when standing next to her. Finally he mentioned her reaction to him each time she’d seen him. He breathed raggedly, as though he’d run a great distance, then taking a last sip of cold tea, fell silent. He stood, rubbing the small of his back, his muscles knotted from sitting on that blasted stool for so long and reached up once more to rub around the eyepatch he wore.

Margaret knew she would recognise Katya in a crowd just from Austin’s portrait of her. She knew, also, that he was earthshakingly in love, though he didn’t know it yet himself. He’d been so caught up in the telling, he didn’t realise what he had revealed about the girl...or himself.
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