Bad Prophecies (draft 1)

XIV

I stood on Effie's balcony, smoking, at four in the morning. Since meeting Effie, I'd gotten into the habit. It simply never appealed to me, especially in the eighteen-hundreds when it was all cigars and tobacco pipes when cigarettes hadn't come over from France yet. I was perfectly aware that I could go to France and try tobacco in the form of the invention dubbed 'cigarette' (the feminine form of the cigar, in its slim and papery parallel) but I never did.
Effie Morris, on the other hand, smoked a lot of the stuff.
She came out and leaned over the balcony arm rail on my right.
Snatching the cigarette from my hand she told me, "You look so sad, Pumpkin."
"Gee, thanks, sure means a lot."
"Oh, you know I'm only a bit worried. It's that husband of yours isn't it?"
She was right, thinking of Alex, had been bothering me relentlessly.
What he might be going through on the front line, and I wasn't there for him. While he had chronic trench foot and traumatic experiences, I was here, enjoying myself with my new girlfriend. What kind of a wife was I?
"You mustn't overthink it, Pumpkin. You told him that whatever he did, he shouldn't enlist, and he still did it. It's his own fault if anything happens to him." Effie must have seen the horrified expression on my face. "Oh, you know I'm right. That's why I dislike the company of men myself. Massive knobheads."
"My Alexander isn't a knobhead, though."
"Never met him, so speak for yourself."

/

We spent Christmas together. The whole Advent, Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day, all the way up to the twelfth night. We did go over to join my parents for Christmas Eve's Eve for dinner, and only because Effie insisted upon it.
So on December twenty-third, we set out on The Walk. It wasn't too far, only a few minutes.
My parents loved her. Of course, everyone loved Effie, she was as gentle and charming as a house cat.
On the walk home, she suggested we take a walk around London in general, as it was only early evening, about seven-ish, and so we ended up walking an entire eight-mile circle from Mr A. Z. Fell's Antique Books, home to The Petunia.
In the days leading up to Christmas, the only thing you could do was walk, and my Lord, we walked. Christmas Eve, we went out and separated to go on our separate journeys to find Christmas gifts for one another. We'd spent so much time in each other's company since we began courting, that we'd completely forgotten to buy presents earlier on.
I remember trekking around the City of London, breathing in the chilly, fresh air, cleaner now, not so polluted as when Alex and I first met. I remember the crunch of my boots on the pavement, imprinting the soles of my shoes on the purity of the snow.
I remember the hours it took me, going from shop to shop, trying to find a suitable Christmas present for Effie.
I eventually settled on a volume, the massive tome that is 'The Histories, Comedies and Tragedies of Mr William Shakespeare'. I enjoyed giving books to people I loved. It was the best way I knew to express my love for them.
Alex and I still had the running joke of 'A Study In Scarlett', even after a strange afternoon when we ran into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the theatre, circa nineteen-o-six.
Effie and I met up at a café owned by another one of her friends, late in the afternoon. We drank espresso shots and laughed about how we wouldn't have to sleep anyway.
We walked home together, I clutched her arm like I would drift away into the cosmos if I let go of her, as if she was the gravity holding me to this mortal plane of existence. And in a way, she was. At least temporarily.
On Christmas morning we took a stroll to marvel at the fresh snow falling, oh how I miss the snow! In these retched, modern times, if snow fell in London, it would be pronounced a bloody miracle!
We hadn't a care in the world.
Boxing day, a letter arrived. We sat on the sofa, and Effie rubbed my ankles, sore from days upon days of walking, while she read the letter.

My dearest, Kohl,
Christmas day! can you believe it? I certainly couldn't. We awoke today, early in the morning, and it was all quiet on the Western Front. I haven't heard such silence in so long. Usually, any notion of quiet is quickly put to nothing, by the faint sounds of our comrades crying. Or worse yet, screaming.
The snow fell on No Man's Land, between our trench and the Germans, and we crawled out of the muddy pits we'd called our home for the past four months, and the strangest thing happened. Somewhere, somehow, someone had sourced a ball of sorts, and there, for most of the day, we played football with the Germans. Satan would have it, we didn't understand a word of what the other side said, but finally, for the first time since joining up for this wretched war, we had a day without warfare, a day of peace.
I hope you are well, my beautiful wife. I hope you are filled to the brim with happiness, and I hope, I sincerely hope with my whole heart, that I will be able to see you again soon. I wish you the best going forward into the new year, I wish Effie well too. I'm so joyful I could cry, just knowing you are safe and happy at home.
All my love,
alexander.

Effie and I fell asleep on the couch, a day fulfilled, like many more we would have to fulfil. But that would have to be a problem for tomorrow.

/

"Rise and Shine, Pumpkin!"
I mumbled something along the lines of what or huh.
"It's December thirty-first!"
I sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.
"And this is relevant how?"
She looked at me as if I'd just told her humans don't need to breathe.
"It's the new year! Don't you and your little husband celebrate the new year?"
No, we didn't, I haven't celebrated a new year since I was a literal child by human standards, and with Alex, much less, as time seemed to pass by without us noticing.
"Not really, Effie. Why?"
"It's crucial! The modern age! Nineteen-fifteen!"
I maintained my blank state looking at her.
"Okay. Should I get dressed up?"
"Not yet, but we're going out tonight!"
"You are, hands-down, the most eccentric person I've ever met, matched only by Alex."

I put on the best dress I had in that era, which unfortunately was no longer my chemise, but a knee-length white cotton dress with patterns of fruit on it. I remember I was running my finger over the Jasper Conran tag when Effie came into our room.
"Hello, my Pumpkin. That's a lovely dress, how come I've never seen you wear it?"
"I used to wear it all the time when Alex was here. Then for a while, I didn't feel good enough to wear it. But I figured today, maybe it'll be the start of something new. "
I wore it with my old and worn Mary Janes, and some thigh-length, black stockings.
Effie, effervescent as always, wore a long black gown with white, silk gloves and her best pair of high heels. She was already taller than me by way, by nineteen-tens standards, she may well have been a giantess. By modern standards, five-eight is not actually all that tall for a woman.
So now with her height boost, she towered over me and my diminished stature.
We had a lovely night. I met so many of her friends, we danced to a very sped-up foxtrot and got absolutely black-out drunk on champagne. And really, it was fine. The world didn't end just because I celebrated the new year without my husband for the first time in twenty-six years. Reflecting, I think the change of routine was good for me. I met new people, learned to love more widely like was born to do, and I was proud of myself, something I hardly ever felt back then.
We settled down at four in the morning, a perfect end to the evening.

/

I stopped having the headaches for a long time, since getting married, but suddenly, on January third, a pain so vibrant struck me that I immediately collapsed while on duty as a barmaid at The Petunia. For days, I was completely consumed by the pain in my head. I was slipping in and out of consciousness for about a week before it stopped.
My memory from the incident is terrible but quite randomly, Effie decided to tell me the entire story.
I'd gotten up and out of bed, and down to the bar while still in my nightgown and stockings. Effie was on duty, I'd known, and apparently, I told her that I'd met Her in my dreams, before going back upstairs to bed.
As I've said, I have no recollection of such events, but she remembered them bright and clear.