As I Lay Dying

Thirty seven

1919

The small coach is crowded but the men in here are as interested in talking as I am, so despite our proximity to each other we spent most of the journey avoiding eye contact. I'd hazard a guess and say that many are soldiers, displaced and wandering like myself. They have that look, the tension in the shoulders and the way of maintaining an exhausted sleep while staying fully alert.

Jimmy's parents mourned my leaving as though I were once of their precious sons, although they have known me so little time. Both asked me repeatedly to stay and for a moment they almost persuaded me. Almost. My parting with Ellen was brief. There was to much to say and not any of it that I wanted to hear. But of course, leaving Jimmy was the hardest of all.

We spend the entire night talking. Laughing and crying through the dark hours before dawn. I don't know when, or if, I'll ever see him again. My life has been made up of partings from those I love. I should be used to the pain of it, but I'm not. The heart is a strange thing. You can tell it not to love, to learn from lessons past, but it never does.

America. Land of opportunity. The place to forget and start afresh. Jimmy's father knows a priest who moved there several years ago and he dictated a letter of introduction for me to write and an address to present myself for lodgings.

Jimmy and I spoke of me visiting, or him visiting me but we both know that people who cross the Atlantic rarely return. My fare has taken most of my money already and by the time I have the money to return I'll be working, in no position to take leave for months on end.

The man next to me shifts in his sleep and his case digs sharply into my ribs. I shuffle along to the open back of the coach and stare upwards at the darkening sky. The English sky, dove grey, freckled with dark clouds, despite the fact it's the height of summer. The first soft patters of rain begin to thrum on the coach roof and I can't help but extend my fingers out of the open back of the coach to feel them on my skin.

Grey old England, with her short weeks of summer and long months of rain. The land of my mother and hers. Green landscapes pass in a blur of rain, fertile fields protected in their greenery by the wet air. I will miss her greatly, it's natural for a heart to always love the country that raised it.

I think of my mothers grave, high up on the hill beside Ashbury manor and I find myself hoping that Evelyn still visits her. The thought of her forgotten and alone, deep in the earth suddenly aches me.

What would she make of what I have become?

Before I can linger on the unwanted thought, the coach jolts to a lurching stop outside of a small, depressing looking inn that resides in the middle of nowhere. The driver wraps his reins around the wooden bar and clambers down.

"Firs' stop for Manchester." He grunts, looking at me.

"I thought you said you'd take me directly to Manchester?" I frown, not caring that the other passengers are beginning to stir.

"Well that was a'fore this lot got on." He gestures his thumb to the other passengers. "You're the only one who wants to go there. I've already gone out my way to bring you this far. That road there will take you there in the morning." He points to a long, uninviting looking road.

"And what am I supposed to do until then?"

"That's why I brought you 'ere." He points at the inn.

We debate this heatedly for several moments before I realise that he is not going to back down. After another long debate, during which the rest of his passengers begin to complain, he grunts and gives me a small amount of my fare back before muttering to himself and climbing back up to the front of his coach.