Savage

Mercy, Camden Town, December 1918 - Part 1 - Alfie

It’s a Wednesday and I have been here every day for the last week. Twisting my fingers together, I mill through the dense crowd swarming Camden Town Train Station. It’s easy to blend in. The train runs three times a day now between here and London, so I have been here before dawn, shuffling my numb feet around, trying to keep warm as my eyes skitter from face to face. This is the last train of the day and I feel the desperation acutely. The old wool coat swallows my frame but I refuse to stop wearing it. It’s one of the precious few things I have left of him.

When they exit the train, the soldiers look like one single heaving beast of khaki wool. I had despaired the first day I came to wait. In my mind I had envisioned him exiting the train alone. He would see me and straight away we’d rush into each other’s arms and kiss. It would be romantic and I would cherish the memory for the rest of my life. In my fantasy there had been plenty of room, a desolate platform and a dark rolling train. The reality is quite different.

Nevermind that he had only ever kissed me once before. Nevermind that despite years and years and years of letters between us, he’s never said that he wants me like that.

He had told me that he loves me— signed all his letters with it. In my heart, I know he means it. He would never say something that he didn’t mean. But you can love someone and not be in love with them.

The crush of bodies around me is relentless. Hundreds of other people are waiting to see if a loved one arrives today, and without word as to which train he’ll be on, or when he will arrive, it leaves me with only one option: to come every day and wait at each time.

I know it’s irresponsible, but something about him always makes me lose my wits. Saul is understanding about my missed days at work. He’s missed him just as much as I have.

But it won’t matter soon anyhow, because he is coming home and he had said in his letters that I wouldn’t be working at Saul’s bakery much longer. When he gets here, things are going to be different. He has a plan.

I bounce on my feet as the shrieking whistle blows, the slow chug, chug, chug, of the train coming into the station. My breaths come in short puffs now as the crowd surges toward the platform, pulling me toward it with them like a great human wave.

The cacophony grows tenfold, voices crying out, shouts and whoops of joy.

Then, just as the crowd had pushed forward, it pushes back as that khaki mass begins to bleed into the dark sea of woolen coats and scarves.

Three crowns on the shoulder. My eyes had tried to look at faces the first few days but people moved too fast and so instead I looked for the captain’s insignia stitched on the shoulder. Three crowns and then I’d look at their faces. It helped me narrow my search field.

I do my best to push between gaps, my breath coming in sharp pants now. I can’t see. I can’t hear anything but a flurry of voices.

Suddenly, as if Fate had reached down to brush her hand through the throng, the bodies clear away all at once, and there he stands. He’s here. The sight of him has paralyzed me. I am rooted to the spot. Four years of war and he’s here.

Older and harder, I feel he’s grown taller– larger– when in reality I know that can’t be. He was nineteen when he left, already a giant. But it is him. I’d know him anywhere. When he left he’d been gangly, muscled and hard, but more slender– boyish. Now, he is a man. Broad shoulders that strain his woolen coat, thick arms that easily shoulder the burden of a tightly packed sack over his back. He’s grown a short cropped beard that’s a shade darker than his honeyed blonde hair. A scar runs through it, another through his brow. My heart clenches thinking of the injury that he didn’t write about.

My mouth opens to call out his name but before I can, the multitudes close around me again. A searing desperation fills my lungs as I push and push through the bodies. When I stand in the spot he’d been in, it’s empty.

Panic slices through me and I spin around, body shaking from the cold and terror.

No, no, he had been right here.

In a moment of frustration I pull my fists up to my chest and belt out, “ALFIE!”

Dozens of people around me stop, whirling to look at the small girl screaming through the crowd but I ignore them, enjoying the way they take shuffling steps away from me.

I draw in another deep breath, intent on calling out again when arms are surrounding me, spinning me, making the world a whirl of colors and noise.

When my vision stops spinning, I stare up into icy blue-green eyes full of mirth and worry.

“Dove,” he breathes.

And he is here, my Alfie. Finally.