“The World Expects” By Linda Coulby

Standing in front of the hall mirror, her unseeing eyes stare into its depths. Her consciousness absent, her sight as impotent as her tortured mind in revealing the carefully concealed anguish behind the reflection. Some days a cool, self-assured woman steps forward, greeting daily challenges with confidence and flair; more often, it’s a fearful child, whose sudden appearance robs her of any ability to function.

Psyching herself for interaction with the world outside, she breathed slowly. Following her choreographed routine, she camouflaged signs of sleep deprivation beneath a precisely painted cosmetic mask and brushed her brunette hair in long, slow strokes, which today she secured into a French pleat with an onyx pin, beneath a black, veiled hat.

Stepping into black heels, she adjusted her coat over its matching black dress, collected her handbag from where it hung on the stair banister and picked up her keys from the hall table. A horn outside announced the taxi’s arrival and momentarily paused her steps towards the door. Her hand wavered over the handle. It seemed too big, too cold – like the world outside. Taking a deep breath, she grasped and turned it firmly, stepped purposefully through the door and locked it behind her.

Her breath misted in the cold morning air. Without emotion, she observed that even this late in the year, the early sunshine transformed the garden into an explosion of colour. Red and gold leaves lay beneath the hedging, which itself weighed heavy with jewel bright berries. Yellow chrysanthemums lined the path and a few remaining gypsophila blooms tumbled from the planter near the gate. She saluted a single magpie perched on the perimeter wall, acknowledging him as an appropriate visitor to begin this day in particular. “One for sorrow” she recited.

The taxi horn blared again, startling the magpie into flight. Her shoulders curved, chin dipping as the urge to shrink and fold inward rose without warning. Climbing into the taxi her fingers curved round the door handle, her knuckles paling as she fought for the composure. Today she must remain strong. Today the mask must stay in place.

Travelled quickly along the urban tarmac, they passed between tall office blocks reflecting images of sunlight and scattered clouds; the empty early Sunday morning streets echoed her inner void. They’d planned to send a car, but she’d refused. She needed to arrive unseen before the crowds and the press who’d observe her every move, scrutinise her face. Her role today prevented invisibility. Controlling each and every step was essential to finding the stillness and calm she needed to carry it out.

Alighting from the taxi she strode into the coffee shop, bypassing the outside seating and once inside, chose a table set back from the windows, but still close enough to watch the street and the memorial cross opposite. It stood proudly elevated on the sandstone steps, framed by a curve of deep green hedging behind it. Evenly spaced wreaths adorned the iron railings, edging a wide expanse of semicircular paving. In the foreground men in high-vis jackets were setting out seating on either side, separating the rows from the central area with chrome stands linked together with crimson, thick looped, ropes.

She placed her order for “just an espresso,” although the waiter still served this with a complimentary biscuit on the side of the saucer. Sipping slowly, she heard the café door open and her eyes followed an empty crisp packet, caught in a draft, scurrying across the floor before coming to rest in a corner beneath one of the tables.

Three hundred and sixty-four days, twenty-three hours ago, they had sat here together. She, proud beside her new husband, who looked resplendent in dress uniform. He, although he would never have admitted it, nervous about reading the address at the ceremony.

Afterwards, he went away. He didn’t return. He became another casualty of another war. She didn’t get to say goodbye. He was at peace. She was alone.

Her eyes stung and she’d had to swallow hard as the army therapist advised she needed to grieve and move on and that soon she’d be able to remember without pain. But there was pain! Hot, searing, screaming pain! Along with silent tears and anger against, what seemed to her, a pointless war so far away.

Finally, there’d been the desolate sobbing as grief’s weird symbiosis of both pain and numbness transformed the part of her which had been cleaved away. Memories brought both smiles and hurt, in ways she’d been ill equipped to deal with, so she automated her days to ensure she was never caught off guard. Because off guard means her throat closes and her eyes burn. Off guard means the tears spill. Blink hard. Hold them back. Not because crying is viewed as undignified or weak, although, by adults it often is, but because the world expects grief time to be finite.

She glanced at the clock above the counter. It was time.

Leaving the remains of her now, cold coffee and the untouched biscuit, she stepped outside. Grey clouds mingled in the earlier bright sky. Her eyes sought out the formal hat and black overcoat of the ceremony’s organiser. He recognised her as she crossed the road towards him. She accepted the hooped wreath of scarlet poppies as he pointed out the second step of the memorial and then directed her to where she needed to stand, tethering her to the spot as securely as any shackled prisoner. For a split second she felt eight years old, terrified of doing the wrong thing in front of watching adults. She locked her legs and faced the memorial, staring straight ahead, her mind screaming for escape.

Behind her she felt the crowds gathering. Watching. To the left, servicemen and women filed into ranks behind the crimson ropes and to the right, invited veterans and dignitaries mirrored their moves, whilst spectators and news reporters watched all. She refused to see. Imagining, instead, tomorrow’s headlines.

‘Weeping widow lays wreath.’

“No! She was strong!” She silently exclaimed.

‘Not a tear shed as widow stands proud!’

“Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” she imagined his voice whispering playfully.

With a half smile beneath her hat veil, she remembered his ability to find humour in the most commonplace of details and knew he’d be proud of her composure today. Their love had been wholehearted and her grief reflected that. Neither self-sacrificing, nor made worse by regrets or ‘what ifs,’ just a balancing levy to be paid for every precious moment they’d shared.

She observed the minister’s mouth moving, hearing only his intonation, not his words. She flinched as the first note of the Last Post cut into her consciousness. The nearby church clock struck 11:00. Voices silenced. Darkening clouds moved overhead and autumn leaves rustled noisily on the gusting breeze. Nature respects no human grief, nor ceremony. Nature moves on. Nature lives.

Feet shuffled in the crowd as the bugle’s Reveille signalled the end of quiet reflection. A phone lifted somewhere behind the barriers and someone murmured, “That’s her!” The nape of her neck prickled as she felt, rather than saw, the lens turn towards her. Her fingers tightened around the wreath, pressing the metal frame through her gloves into her palms. Fixing her gaze on the memorial cross she counted her breath in, then out. The moment passed. The mask held.

The organiser began directing nods towards each of the wreath layers in turn. His final nod found her. Her stomach tightened and hollowed. Her knees threatened to soften as she stepped forward. Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and slowly counting each step, she quietly laid the wreath on the earlier designated spot, then retreated backwards to her allocated position just as the first rain drops fell.

The closing addresses and handshakes were executed beneath a flurry of hastily erected umbrellas, the crowds and press dispersing even as the last words were being addressed. The memory of today’s event already fading into insignificance as they concentrated on staying dry and going their separate ways.

She nodded to the organiser as he approached to shake her hand, then lifting her face into the cool rain, she turned and walked towards a waiting taxi. Pausing at the door, she glanced back at the memorial. A rainbow arced above it, its colours vivid against the darkened sky. Her chest relaxed, then tightened again, as if relief had arrived too soon. She slid into the taxi and pulled the door closed. Removing her hat, she shook her hair loose and exhaled the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. “Goodbye,” she said quietly, not looking back.

grief grief fiction loss memorial military mourning poppies public ceremony Remembrance short fiction war widowhood