Free Fallen by Lia Mills Page A

things I might have said that would reflect back on him – whatever happened, I wanted a chance to see them first, to sift through them and decide what to show and what to hide. It was all wrong, that death had left him so exposed. It wasn’t only Isabel I was defending when I said, ‘I’ll take them.’
    ‘No, give them to me.’ Mother’s eyes were red. There was a queer little pause, while Dad looked from one of us to the other.
    ‘Don’t, Dad. Please. It’s not fair.’ I held out my hand.
    I felt the heat of Mother’s glare, but kept my eyes fixed on Dad, willing him to listen. ‘People wrote things for his eyes only.’ I had to swallow the lump in my throat. ‘We all did. You wouldn’t read them if he were still alive. You know you wouldn’t. Give them here, to me, and I’ll get them back to the people who wrote them.’ I reached for the bundle of letters. He let them go. I moved away, in case he changed his mind.
    ‘It’s none of it Liam. It’s a travesty!’ Tears stood in Mother’s eyes. She dashed them away with the heels of her hands. ‘I want rid of it. All of it.’ A piece of wood spat a shower of sparks into the grate. She swept something unseen from her lap and got to her feet. ‘You may as well burn it.’
    ‘But,’ Dad said, looking down into the trunk, ‘there are photographs.’
    ‘Does nothing I say matter any more?’ She stamped her foot. Everything glass in the room shivered – windows, picture-frames, ornaments, siphons, crystal. ‘I said, burn it.’ A fierce glance dared me to argue. She rushed out.
    ‘You’d better go after her,’ I said.
    ‘But –’
    ‘Go on. I’ll deal with this.’
    I stretched my arms across the cold breadth of the trunk and tried to lift it, but it was too big, too heavy. My knees knocked off the edges. I took hold of one of the handles and dragged it to the basement stairs. I went down first and pulled it carefully after me, steadying its weight with my body. I’d a sudden flash of Liam, that horrible autumn he went away to school. He bumped his school trunk down the stairs just exactly this way, mimed being knocked from step to step, exaggerated his surprise to make me laugh.
    The door to the kitchen was closed. When I opened it, a smell of stock made my stomach even more uneasy. Lockie looked around from the pot she was stirring. ‘What is it? You’re green as mould.’ She looked past me, at the trunk. ‘Ah.’ She moved the stockpot off the heat and came to help, wiping her hands on a rag. ‘Bring it through to the scullery.’ She bent to one of the tin handles. I took the other. Between us, the trunk was easy enough to carry through to the workbench.
    She made no comment about the row she must have heard, even with the door closed. She said nothing about sacrifice or duty, none of the platitudes I was so sick of hearing. Instead she got to work, quick and efficient. I took the letters and photographs from where they lay on top of the clothes that were so alien, set them aside on a shelf. Then I followed Lockie’s lead.
    There was muck caked into underclothes, a bloodstained shirt, a pair of stiffened, encrusted socks. Underneath, we found a pile of poorly laundered shirts, a dress-uniform jacket that looked brand new, a stiff leather belt. Lockie brought over a scissors and cut away the badges, the single star from the shoulder and the buttons, the shiny and the tarnished. ‘Ye might want mementoes,’ she said.
    I fingered the shirt. A button was missing, the button hole enlarged and frayed. It told me nothing. Mother was right, none of it felt like Liam. The army could have sent any man’s things, one khaki uniform was the same as another. Apart from the letters and the two photographs, we wouldn’t know the difference.
    He and Isabel had met a commercial photographer one day in the mountains, and had their portrait made as gifts to each other. Liam’s slightly prominent teeth were showing, his eyes shadowed by his cap.