Home is the Hunter

Lester buggered of and went in search of his mother. He found her still queuing at the fishmongers and coming to stand beside her the miracle worked again, although this time there was a charge for the two herrings.

The woman serving them grinned and said, "Hubby 'ome on leave love? Wish they'd give mine some leave, the 'e could scratch me where I'm itchin'"

Outside the shop Caroline laughed and said, "If you can work that one every time you'd better do all the shopping."

The butcher's and grocer's shops had only short queues because they dealt mostly with on ration food. Coupons were clipped and Lester was somewhat taken aback when he saw the pathetic amount of meat that served as a week's ration. It purported to be beef, but rumour had it that it was horse meat.

The grizzled old man who served winked and said, "Put a couple of kidneys in fer yer."

In the grocers shop the pretty young girl who served twinkled at him and whispered, "Got some coffee, would yer like some?"

Lester nodded and she produced a small brown paper bag from under the counter and thrust it into his hand.

Outside Caroline said, "Do you realise you're getting the royal treatment? I haven't seen coffee since...oh I don't know, it's so long ago I can't remember."

They finished up at the green grocers. The fruit on show consisted of some withered apples and pears that derived from underground storage areas where the summer crop was kept and doled out. Vegetables consisted of some unhappy looking potatoes and carrots, and cabbages that were obviously in a state of deep depression.

By the time they were ready to return home Lester was very aware that he had been away for a long time, and things had changed rather drastically.

* * * * * * * *

At home Lester took his shower and instead of putting on his uniform he put on some of his civilian clothes. Meanwhile, his mother, still hardly able to believe this gift of God, made some coffee, almost doling it out grain by grain.

She also prepared some sandwiches for lunch filled with what at first glance looked like a cross between ham and corned beef.

After one bite Lester said, "What the hell is this?"

"Spam," Caroline replied, "the Americans send it across; it's pretty awful I know, but it's better than nothing and it doesn't taste too bad if you fry it."

Lester thought it better not to ask what it was made of.

They retired to the lounge with their precious cups of coffee, and for the first time were at leisure to talk.

Lester had one subject he was burning to raise, and so he said, "Do you mind talking about father?"

Caroline sighed and said, "No, of course not, I knew you'd want to talk about him, and its two years now and I think I'm over the worst. It was difficult to write about it; I wanted to wait until you came home." She did not add, "If you ever did."

"What made him join the merchant marine?"

"That's what I wondered at the time," Caroline replied. "I furious with him; he didn't need to go and they weren't even calling up his age group at the time, and probably never would. But you know what he was like; for all his shyness once he'd made up his mind about something nothing would stop him."

"He said that antique trading was a dead horse in wartime, and old Jenkins could deal with any trade there might be, and so many ships were getting sunk and that there was a desperate need for crews to man the ships, it had got so that he felt impelled to go."

She gave a hollow laugh and went on, "He was wrong about antiques being a dead horse. Once the Americans started to arrive the business has never been prosperous. They'll buy anything and I'm afraid Mr. Jenkins is rather imprecise about the date of some things.

"So he chose just about the most dangerous wartime job he could find," Lester said.

"Yes, that's what everyone told him, but he would go. If he felt he had to make a contribution he could have been a fireman or gone to work in a factory or something like that."

"Like you," Lester said.

"Yes, when Charles left I felt as if I'd got to make a contribution too. There were several choices, but they'd just built a new factory near here -- they were spreading them round so that if the big plants got bombed production wouldn't come to a complete stop."

Lester laughed and said, "You wrote and told me you're working a capstan lathe."

"Yes, do you think that's funny?"

"No...no...not at all," Lester said hastily "What do you make?"

"I'm not really sure," Caroline replied, "they said it was part of an aircraft, but which part for what aircraft I don't know, I just keep churning them out."

"You know Lester, I was very glad to be doing that job when I heard your father had been killed. They gave me three days off, but I was glad to get back. I felt I was doing something that...that somehow made up for his being killed. I know it sounds silly, but for quite a while I felt as if he was standing beside me urging me on. It was as if my work making those parts were a sort of pay back for his death."

"It's not silly, mother," Lester said softly. "People who lose someone they love very much often feel that person is still with them for a long time."

"Yes, we were in love," Caroline said thoughtfully. "Don't you think it's amazing that we were still in love right up until he...have you ever been in love, Lester?"

During his time in North Africa and Italy Lester had avoided the brothels that were so popular with many of the troops. Only once when on leave in Cairo had he had a brief affair with an army nurse. It had been the first and only time he'd had sex.

It had lasted until his leave came to an end and he had never seen her again. He had not been in love with her; in fact they had never spoken of love and unlike many placed in that position there had been no talk about meeting again "when it's all over."

Nevertheless Lester replied, "Yes, I've been in love; I still am, but it can never come to anything."

There was a long pause before Caroline said, "That's very sad Lester; do you want to talk about it?"

"No," he replied, "it was always going to be over before it began, so there's no point talking about it."

Respecting his wish not to talk about it Caroline said, "So you'll have some idea how I felt when I got the news about your father."

Yes," he said, and then with an obvious attempt to change the subject he asked, "Are we going to have the rabbit this evening?"

Taken a bit by surprise at this sudden change Caroline took a few moments to reply.

"Yes...yes...we'll have it."

"Roasted?" Lester asked.

Having been brought back to life's immediacies she said thoughtfully, "No darling, I'll make a rabbit stew, it'll stretch further that way."

* * * * * * * *

That evening, the rabbit stew having been eaten with some left over for lunch the next day, they sat again in the lounge. It was very cold and so they drew up their chairs close to what, given the Tudor context, should have been a roaring log fire, but was in fact a wall mounted gas heater.

They remained silent for a while until Lester said, "Mum, would you ever think of getting married again?"

Caroline seemed to be a little agitated by his question, and took some time to reply.

"What I think right now is that I'll never get married again."

She managed a pale shadow of a laugh and said, "Would it surprise you to know I've had three offers of marriage since your father died?"

"No," he said solemnly, "it wouldn't surprise me."

"How would you feel if I did get married again?"

Lester shrugged and said, "If it made you happy and he really cared for you like father did, then fine."

"That's just the point, Lester. What I fear is that if I remarried I'd always be comparing the poor man with Charles, and that wouldn't be fair."

Lester seemed to chew this over, and so Carline went on, "Of course we can't always know what the future might bring. I don't suppose back in nineteen thirty nine we had any idea how we'd be in nineteen forty four."

"No."

"But Lester, you've said that my remarrying is up to me, but you must have some feelings about it."

Lester seemed to suddenly snap; "Mother, I'm not a child anymore, I've been where men are blown to pieces in a second, or they're; mutilated; I've heard them screaming in agony, do you really think I could give a fuck about whether you give me a stepfather or not?"

"For God's sake mother, there's going to be some almighty big show soon and thousands of men will be killed or wounded beyond repair. Is it so important what I think or feel about you marrying or shacking up with some guy?"

"And talking about shacking up, how many men do you think are going to come home to find there's a kid or two that couldn't possibly be theirs?"

Lester, suddenly hearing him self speaking, fell silent. Caroline reached out and touched his arm.

"Darling, I'm sorry I didn't mean to..."

"No mother," Lester said quietly, "it's me who should be sorry. It's just that I think about these things...how it's going to be when its all over and as they say, 'The boys come marching home again.'"

"Will there be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover, and a house on a hill top high for you and I, and all that shit?"

"I think about these things, but there's no one I can talk to about what I'm thinking. I'm an officer and I have to keep the boys' morale up, tell them they're fighting for freedom and democracy and getting thirty bob a week for the privilege of doing so, while bastards back here are raking in millions war profiteering."

He paused and then said, "And so you see, I burden you with it."

Caroline smiled and said, "When you were a little boy you could always come to me with your little troubles, so why not your big troubles now? Isn't that part of love, to listen to what troubles the loved one?"

"I think you're right about some things and wrong about others," Caroline said, "but when this mess is all over I hope you'll find someone you can love and who loves you, and then..."

"No, I won't be like that," Lester protested.

"Why darling...why won't it be like that?"

"It just can't be; please, lets just change the subject."

An air raid siren wailed in the distance to be followed by others picking up its theme until the local siren screamed its warning.

An ominous silence followed, and then the jagged drone of aircraft and the fury of the guns.

"They'll pass over," Caroline said.

* * * * * * * *

They did pass over and Lester lay in bed listening to their passing. The dark secret that had always been there, but over the past few years had remained in the background, had now leapt to the foreground.

The talk of his mother remarrying had touched the dark secret. He had been a fool to ask her about remarrying for it only rubbed salt into a wound that had been close to healing. True it had been replaced by other, newer wounds, the ones that had arisen out of his recent experiences, but now the deeper wound of his dark secret had begun to bleed again.

As so often before the war, when he first became aware that he was in love with his own mother, her image rose up in his mind as a fantasy of his ideal woman. And as in times past he was masturbating, striving to release himself from a hunger that only she could assuage.

He had avoided the brothels of Cairo; he had sought solace in the pretty little nurse; but he knew that neither the brothels nor the nurse could ever free him from his dark secret.

As the semen spurted out of his urethra he groaned, "Mother...oh mother..."

With a handkerchief he wiped up the copious amount of sperm he had ejaculated, and then relaxed at least for a while. He lay back listening; it was for her he was listening.

She had not retired to bed when he had, and he had left her sitting staring into the weak incandescent glow of the gas fire seemingly deep in thought.

His window looked east towards the city and he could see target marker flares in the air, slowly descending.

There was the hiss of the shower, and although he strove to suppress it a picture of her naked body rose up in his mind, and with that vision his penis began to harden again.

A new sound intervened, a sound that he had often heard in the desert. An aircraft approaching at low level. Somewhere nearby a bofars gun began its womp-womp- womp.

The aircraft passed over the house seeming almost to touch the roof. For a few seconds it came into view in his window. There was one of it two engines on fire. It passed on. A few more seconds and then there was an earsplitting roar as it hit the ground with a full bomb load.

Lester expected the window to dissolve into shards of glass, but it remained intact. He rose and went to the window to try and see where the aircraft had crashed, but it was just out of sight over a slight rise in the ground, and all he could see was the glow of a fire.

"Mother," he thought, and hurried from the bedroom to find her. He found her naked, huddled in a corner of the shower, trembling, the water still running from the shower rose.

He turned the water off and knelt beside her.

"Mother, it's all right," he said reassuringly, touching her cheek with his hand.

"What...was a it?" she asked huskily.

"An enemy aircraft, they brought it down, it crashed over the other side of the hill."

They heard the clangor of a bell.

"Fire brigade," Caroline murmured.

Other bells added their noise to the first one.

"Yes, I could see the glow of the fire," Lester said.

The noise of the bells ceased.

"Come on," Lester said, "lets get you dried and into bed."

He helped her rise and taking a towel gently began to dry her.

He thought it strange that although he had so often longed to see her naked, had imagined touching her body, now she was naked and he was touching her body, his only thought was for her well being.

Even drying her breasts and that sweet cleft at the top of her thighs did not sexually arouse him.

Taking another towel he wrapped it round her and led her still trembling to her bedroom. He moved back the covers of her bed and helped her get in, and then pulling the covers over her he said, "You'll be all right now?"

"No...no...don't go yet darling, stay with me, we must talk."

"Mother, you'll be all right now," he said again, "it's unlikely there'll be any more dramas."

"I know...I know, but it isn't that. I have to say something to you and if don't say it now I might never say it."

"What is it mother?"

* * * * * * * *

She extended her hand to him and when he took it she said, "Sit beside me on the bed darling."

He sat still holding her hand, and waited patiently for her to begin.

She began hesitantly, "When I heard that plane so low and the explosion, I thought, suppose it had hit our house and we'd been killed and I'd never said it to you?"

"Said what mother?"

"While your father was alive I would never have said it, but now..."

She stopped speaking for a moment and seemed to be gathering her thoughts, and then went on.

"When you were little I always felt you were so much part of me."

"I suppose a lot of mothers feel that way about their children," Lester said.

"Yes...yes...but I...perhaps I was being fanciful, but it was special as if...oh I don't know how to explain it, but when you went away to school I felt as if a great lump had been torn from me; I'd lost part of myself."

Lester remained silent, waiting for her to go on.

"Then when you came home for the holidays I started to realise why it was different. It...it was the way you looked at me. You weren't a child any more, you were becoming a man. It was the way I felt about you, hating it when you had to go back to school, wanting you near me, wanting to..."

She stopped in mid sentence looking deep into his eyes. "You felt it to, didn't you?"

Lester knew now what she was talking about, and her honesty drew the words from him.

"Yes, I felt it too. I think I'd felt it even as a child without knowing what it was."

"Yes," Caroline whispered, and then speaking quickly she said, "Believe me, I adored Charles...your father, he was so gentle and a wonderful lover and I'd never have spoken like this with you if he was still alive, but I wanted both of you...I mean...as lovers. Do you understand, darling?"

"Yes, I understand," Lester said, gently pressing her hand.

"And when Charles was killed I knew I still had you and you were part of him and I wanted you more than ever, I was so afraid that you'd be killed, and if you had been killed and I'd never said this too you I know I'd have regretted it for the rest of my life."

"Our talk this evening and then that plane crash; it made me realise that I had to say it to you now."

* * * * * * * *

Caroline had brought out into the open the dark secret that had hung between them for so long. Lester even felt ashamed that it was she and not he who had spoken.

Caroline spoke again.

"Darling, I must know, do you still feel that same way about me as you did before you went away?"

Lester took a deep breath and then resolutely said, "Yes, I still feel the same way. All through those years when I was away at school and university, all the time I've been away from you in the army, it has always been you...only you. For a very short time there was someone else, but all it did was to teach me that it had to be you or no one."

They sat in silence and gradually they became aware of the rumble war raging over the city. People were being killed; young airmen were being blown apart in the sky, over London, over Berlin and many other German cities.

Out there, outside the house, there was hatred and violence, but in that bedroom was only love and the desire that love brings with it.

"Stay with me tonight," Caroline said faintly, "make love with me."

Without a further word being spoken Lester took off his pajamas and got into bed beside her.

The blackout curtains were pulled and the bed light shed its dim glow over them. They lay facing each other looking into each other's eyes to see there the brighter light of their love.

As Caroline moved her leg over Lester's thigh they kissed and his hand caressed one of her breasts. He felt the head of his penis touch the entrance to her vagina; he groaned as his length sank into her and he rolled her over onto her back.

Once deep inside her he remained still, feeling the hot wet walls of her tunnel convulsively gripping and releasing him.

How long they stayed like that they afterwards never knew. It was a time of all embracing love, the silence only broke when Caroline said, "Come into me now darling, I want to feel it in me."

Together they moved in harmony, gradually speeding up as their orgasms drew near.

Caroline was the first to feel her orgasm approaching and she began gentle whimpering cries.

"Oh darling, it's coming...it's coming...I want it...I want to feel it...let it...oh darling...darling it's...it's...come...come with me...oh...oh...oh my love..."

Lester released his sperm deep into her as she cried, "Deeper darling...deeper..."

His hands were under her buttocks as he dragged her onto him and her legs were round his waist as they struggled to get his sperm ever deeper into her.

Lester finished but he stayed with her as she continued to work herself over his length, making low moaning sounds, "Mmm...mmm...oh...ah...mmm...ow...oh..." until she too was still.

His penis still in her vagina, his hand still fondling her breasts, he kissed her tenderly and thought, "The light now shines on our dark secret."

A London Suburb. 23rd January. 1944.

It was towards dawn and after a night of love making they heard the all clear siren. After that they slept and it was well into the morning when Lester awoke to find his mother looking at him.