IT MUSTN'T HAPPEN AGAIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 285, 8 December 1944, Page 18

IT MUSTN'T HAPPEN AGAIN

A SHORT STORY |Written for "The Listenér’

by

AUDREY B.

KING

-_ HE day was fine. The house was clean. The children were behaving themselves very well. She walked up and down the room, moving vases, flicking invisible dust from polished surfaces, rearranging flowers. Of course it was silly to be feeling like this. Of course it was silly.... She pulled aside the frilled curtain and peered into the garden. It was all so tidy, so clipped looking, as though it had just been through the barber’s hands, Perhaps she’d overdone this perfection and he would hate it all. Perhaps he’d have liked it untidy with a lived‘in look and she was all wrong in her new frock and the smart hair-do, If only she knew what he would be like. She made herself sit down in a chair. Slowly and deliberately she lit a cigarette, them with a glance at her watch she settled back and tried-to collect the racing fragmentary thoughts. Mark was coming back after four years of war. He’d been through most of it, and had said so little in his letters. They were disjointed and badly written, but then he’d warned her and she’d known he’ couldn’t express himself. There had come a time in the four-year period when she’d been writing to a’ stranger who sent her letters that told her nothing. She’d protested. Can’t you, put something of yourself down for me? Can’t you tell me about YOU. But he hadn’t answered that letter for ages, and then he’d said rather lamely there isn’t anything to tell about me. I’m just the same. % * * HE looked at her watch. Only a minute had passed. There had been Crete. Wonderful that he’d come through that. Elspeth had had letters from Tom, It just rained hell. and brimstone. Wherever you looked those fiends were falling, pouring death from their guns before their feet touched the ground. It was like a bloody nightmare. So few of us got through, but some of us did. Mark had been through that. He had said it was pretty awful, but thank God it’s behind us.,He couldn’t dramatise. Not that Crete needed dramatising. Another minute had crawled past. He hadn’t seen their youngest child, who was nearly four. Great little beggar he looks in the snaps. And when Paula went to school he hoped she’d behave herself. There was nothing, nothing to gtip. Nothing in those scribbled sheets to tell her that Mark had written, the man whom she’d married seven years ago, the man who was the father of her children, who, so the belief went, was flesh of her flesh. There was just a man writing dull little notes, sending parcels occasionally, thanking her for the cake or the toothbrush or the ear Another minute. His photograph was on the table beside her. She picked it up and looked

searchingly into the steady eyes. They were grey. Humorous eyes with little lines fanning out from the corners. His mouth was firm and attractive. He wasn’t good-looking in the accepted per-fect-profile way, but he had a sort of rough good look that appealed to most women. He was, popular with women, but he didn’t care much about that, He was simple. , Intelligent enough, goodness knows, but his beliefs, his expectation of life was simple. Three feeds a day and a roof over my head and you and the kids healthy. Why had she married him? They played tennis together, went tramping together, swam together. They were very young and thinking didn’t matter very much. You just went from day to day having what fun you could, then one day you got married and went on having fun till the first baby came. Then you became domesticated and fussy and insufferably, proud of your achievement. Mark had been quite a good father. He brought home ridiculous toys that the poor baby couldn’t see, and was hurt when they were left lying about. Pegs. were so much more interesting to a child of eight months. She had nearly filled in five minutes. Once she’d said to him what do you think the world will be like after the war and he’d said just the same. But why? It can’t go on being the same, she’d cried, impatient with his apathy. Well, how aré you going to change things? The same old crowd aré in charge. What are rats and mice like us going to do about it? What?. Perhaps after four years’ war he’d have an ‘answer for her. When she told him of the struggle she’d had with sickness, with bills that had to be met and the cost of things rising. Ordinary things like socks and singlets and stuff for boy’s trousers. Perhaps when she explained about the time she was ill and couldn’t get a soul to help her, when they’d gone a whole day with only milk in the house and no means of getting anything else. Perhaps he’d begin to think. But he’d been through Crete. . . All this somehow was impersonal. All this didn’t touch him or tell her what ‘he was like. He read travel books, He

disliked detective novels. He didn’t like meat cooked twice, and he was very fond of gingerbread. How silly. And when they did the dishes he always washed. I like washing. Yes and so do I. I'm sick of walking backwards and forwards from the bench to the cup-. boards with a damp towel. I want to get into the hot water too. Yes, but I like washing. * * * T was time for her to dress the children. She called them in from the garden, washed their red excited faces, controlled her temper when they persisted in slopping water over the bathroom floor and answered interminable questions about Daddy. It wouldn’t be so hard with these two overflowing with conversation. Perhaps that would be the best way to tackle the thing. Just sit back and smile whenever he looked at her and for the rest let the kiddies take care of it. She thought he’d like that. She got the car out of the garage, put the two children in the back, took one last look at her reflection in the mirror and started off. Would he be pleased she’d kept the car? It’d been foolish but she’d wanted something hard like that to strive for. To show him how she’d tried. ... any She must stop thinking, stop listening to the pounding of her heart, stop wondering whether she’d aged, whether she looked her best, whether he still liked her... .. * * th RE were so many people, and tears and laughter. It was all sad. It was terrible and exciting. There were bronzed men kissing old ladies and giggling girls and teary wives, Clamouring children and crying children and shy children clinging to their mother’s skirts. There was the usual Wellington wind and women clutching their absurd hats and hair blowing into tear-filled eyes and newspapers floating, then sweeping up with a gust to the telegraph wires overhead. And there was Mark. Hullo sweetheart he said and kissed her a little shyly. That’s ‘how it would be with Mark with all those people around him. Then he picked up the boy and said hullo son, and kissed the girl (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) and she said, in a high excited voice, did you bring back a German helmet and people round them laughed. They went to the car and he said you drive. She was pleased but footishly nervous as she let in the clutch. He was here. He hadn’t changed as far as she could see. The children liked him. She had been a little afraid they mightn’t. What kind of a trip did you have? Good. It’s lovely to have you back. It’s good to be back. Is it for © paca I hope did you kill any Germans? Lots son. Did it hurt them? You bet. Everything all right he said to her when they reached their home. Oh yes. Much the same. They went up the neat path. She could feel the neighbours watching from behind their curtains. That Mrs. Purcell’s got her husband back. Yes, he’s back, she wanted to shout. Back, but I don’t know him.-He’s just a man like Mark, but we can’t talk to one another. I’m scared to think what we’ll say when the children’ve gone to bed? Well it all looks good to me. Tl make some tea. We've got a special party. ‘Asparagus sandwiches and Mummy got a tin of salmon from Mrs. Worth. What’s salmon? Fish in tins. Pink fish:.Hasn’t he ever seen salmon? No. There’s lots of things he hasn’t séen but there’s plenty of time. me ae bo HEY had the party. It was all very nice and they kept up the polite conversation. Suddenly she wanted to cry. It was so silly to feel like this, but she found herself biting her lips to keep them from trembling. She got up and went into the kitchen. There was a mirror over the sink and she stood staring into this, watching her eyes, deep with tears which slowly brimmed over and trickled down her cheeks. What a fool. What an absolute fool. Why had she expected so much of him? He was like that, inarticulate,shy, and he would never change. She had never wanted him to change. But now she felt .that the four years had passed him over, but had not left her untouched. When the men come home you must be understanding. They will have changed. They have gone through so much, you cannot expect them to be the same men who left you. But he hadn’t changed. He was the kind who went through anything and came out the other side apparently the . same person. He seemed to have a faith in humanity that didn’t falter. He would come back to those three feeds and a toof over his head and be satisfied. But she? She’d done too much in the four years. Father and mother. Provider, comforter, everything. She couldn't sit back now and accept things. She couldn’t give him the reins and say go ahead, I'll be the woman of the family now. I'll sit at home and darn socks. She couldn’t let the men of the world bring disaster on her again. ... He came into the room. Not crying? Just a little. Wh: Oh... things 4 But it’s all Fight now. I’m back. I’ve been damned lucky but we can start again where we left off.

She looked at him. Can we? Why not? She wanted to say because I’ve moved on. Because I’m not there where you left me. I’m way ahead. But she couldn’t say the words. When they come back, humour them. Help them to forget what they’ve been through. It’s your job to bring back normal living to them. So back she went, down the years. Yes. We’re where we left off. We're terribly lucky when you think of those others... He looked at her, We won’t think of them. She started to say something, All those dead. They've got to mean something to us. They died so we’d remember them. We can’t just wipe them out... But she smiled a little sadly. No. We won't think of them. When the children were in bed, they settled down in the same old way with the evening paper, each silent behind the flimsy rampart in the manner of four years ago, but to her the words were meaningless and futile. Tt still went on, this ceaseless massacre, this endless sacrifice of human flesh, this searing of the people’s soul. How could he sit, quietly absorbing the printed word when in his mind there must still lie the record of the fiendish action? Mark, she said. Yes, Can’t you, isn’f there sbmething you could tell me about it all? He glanced up from the paper. What do you want to know? There's so little I can tell you really. I mean you’ve read it all. It’s here. He tapped the page before him. But that’s impersonal. And that’s what war’s got to be. Impersonal. If you think of it any other way. ... He stopped. _ There was a breathless silence, Yes, she said. It mustn’t happen again. That’s all. It mustn’t happen again. He picked up the paper and began to read. k ® * = T was growing too dark to see, so slie turned on the light. Here it all. was. The same room, the table covered with dirty dishes, the little pot of flowers, the chairs pushed back, and a crumpled serviette on the floor. The same. And Mark. He was a man sitting there, A man whom she dimly knew,,who had been through terrible things, and who sat quietly saying it mustn’t happen again. He was a man to whom she must relinquish the governing of her life and the lives of her children. From now on, her hands were woman’s hands and her mind. must be a woman’s mind. But he was unknown to her. There was nothing about him that she knew. You can’t go round remembering slaughter, he-said. You can’t live your life with the dead hanging like carcases round your neck. You've got to find normality and memories of atrocities won’t help. I don’t mean wipe it all off. Just get on with the job of living as decently as you can. Three feeds’ and a roof over your head. Well, she said, we’d better do the dishes. He folded the paper carefully, stood up, and went out into the kitchen. Of course. This was Mark, He liked to wash. ‘