Goodbye for Now Read online

  Table of Contents

  About M. J. Hollows

  Goodbye for Now

  M.J. HOLLOWS

  1923

  1914

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  1915

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  1916

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  1917

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  1923

  Acknowledgements

  About the Publisher

  About M. J. Hollows

  M.J. H OLLOWS was born in London in 1986, and moved to Liverpool in 2010 to lecture in Audio Engineering. With a keen interest in history, music, and science, he has told stories since he was little. Goodbye for Now is his first novel, which he started as part of his MA in Writing from Liverpool John Moores University, graduating in 2015. He is now researching towards a PhD in Creative Writing, and working on his next novel. Find out more about Michael at his website: www.michaelhollows.com.

  They all stood in silence, with hats and caps doffed under arms, focusing their vision on their shoes. Meanwhile the bishop droned on in his fashion, extolling the virtues of sacrifice.

  He stared with them, trying not to dredge up the memories of the past. I have lived through hell, but in that I am not alone , he thought. Bile stuck in his throat and he desperately tried to swallow it away. No one noticed, or if they did they attributed it to his grief.

  Everyone had suffered and sacrificed, not just the soldiers. He wondered how his brother might be now. How much he would have been changed by the war. They had both endured their own private hells, and as the dead would keep their solace, so would the living. No one would ever truly understand their plight and those that had experienced it didn’t need the others to remind them. That was what the nightmares were for.

  So he stood there, in silence, with their neighbours and people from the nearby streets, waiting for the bishop to finish his sermon, for the memorial to be revealed.

  Somewhere in the distance a baby cried. No one reacted, empathising with the child, who was probably too young to know what was going on but was joining in nonetheless.

  The bishop stopped and was replaced by a Major young enough to have been a junior Lieutenant at the outbreak of war. His voice broke as he began reading out the names of the lost, Morgan, Norris, Oliver, the endless torrent of the dead. They were just names now. Their legacy, the brass plaque that was being unveiled.

  He patted his coat pocket, remembering the bundle of letters that he kept there. That’s where they would stay, sealed, but not forgotten.

  The Major continued reading out the names of the fallen, some of whom he knew, others he had never met.

  When he could bear to think of him, he had spent most of the war angry with his brother. Not angry, that wasn’t strictly the right emotion. They had never really understood each other. They were very different people, with different stories. He had had high hopes for his brother, they all had, yet he threw it all away. He chose his path. When he should have turned to his family he turned away. It was hard now to remember him as they were when they were children. Too much had happened. His name had not been spoken aloud since. They all missed him, but it was too painful a memory.

  The Major had finished now and had disappeared. There was a cough from someone amongst the crowd. The only sound apart from that was the occasional sniffle of a nose or the sound of stifled weeping. Heads were still bowed and would remain that way for some time, some years perhaps.

  At first he hadn’t understood his brother’s decision; they stood on opposite sides. But as the war dragged on and on, past its first Christmas and into a new year, year after year, he had started to understand his brother a lot more. He begun to understand the need to fight for something, to believe in something and to not give up. No matter what life would throw at you. That was a sentiment he could agree on, and he guessed it was something their father had managed to instil in them both, despite their differing opinions. It had been a clear dividing line at first, but things were less clear now. The world had changed for all of them. The horror of the war had left no family unaffected. They couldn’t change their decisions, but they could make sure that they counted for something. That things hadn’t just changed for the worst but would be allowed to change for the better too.

  He just wished his brother was still around to say this to, but he would never have the chance now. Their paths drifted apart, on what was to be a fateful day for millions of people…

  They all stood in silence, with hats and caps doffed under arms, focusing their vision on their shoes. Meanwhile the bishop droned on in his fashion, extolling the virtues of sacrifice.

  He stared with them, trying not to dredge up the memories of the past. I have lived through hell, but in that I am not alone , he thought. Bile stuck in his throat and he desperately tried to swallow it away. No one noticed, or if they did they attributed it to his grief.

  Everyone had suffered and sacrificed, not just the soldiers. He wondered how his brother might be now. How much he would have been changed by the war. They had both endured their own private hells, and as the dead would keep their solace, so would the living. No one would ever truly understand their plight and those that had experienced it didn’t need the others to remind them. That was what the nightmares were for.

  So he stood there, in silence, with their neighbours and people from the nearby streets, waiting for the bishop to finish his sermon, for the memorial to be revealed.

  Somewhere in the distance a baby cried. No one reacted, empathising with the child, who was probably too young to know what was going on, but was joining in nonetheless.

  The bishop stopped and was replaced by a Major young enough to have been a junior Lieutenant at the outbreak of war. His voice broke as he began reading out the names of the lost, Morgan, Norris, Oliver, the endless torrent of the dead. They were just names now. Their legacy the brass plaque that was being unveiled.

  He patted his coat pocket, remembering the bundle of letters that he kept there. That’s where they would stay, sealed, but not forgotten.

  The Major continued reading out the names of the fallen, some of whom he knew, others he had never met.

  When he could bear to think of him, he had spent most of the war angry with his brother. Not angry, that wasn’t strictly the right emotion. They had never really understood each other. They were very different people, with different stories. He had had high hopes for his brother, they all had, yet he threw it all away. He chose his path. When he should have turned to his family he turned away. It was hard now to remember him as they were when they were children. Too much had happened. His name had not been spoken aloud since. They all missed him, but it was too painful a memory.

  The Major had finished now, and had disappeared. There was a cough from someone amongst the crowd. The only sound apart from that was the occ
asional sniffle of a nose, or the sound of stifled weeping. Heads were still bowed and would remain that way for some time, some years perhaps.

  At first he hadn’t understood his brother’s decision; they stood on opposite sides. But as the war dragged on and on, past its first Christmas and into a new year, year after year, he had started to understand his brother a lot more. He began to understand the need to fight for something, to believe in something and to not give up. No matter what life would throw at you. That was a sentiment he could agree on, and he guessed it was something their father had managed to instil in them both, despite their differing opinions. It had been a clear dividing line at first, but things were less clear now. The world had changed for all of them. The horror of the war had left no family unaffected. They couldn’t change their decisions, but they could make sure that they counted for something. That things hadn’t just changed for the worst, but would be allowed to change for the better too.

  He just wished his brother was still around to say this to, but he would never have the chance now. Their paths drifted apart, on what was to be a fateful day for millions of people.

  There was a moment of silence.

  Somewhere amongst the reverent crowd the baby continued to cry, with thick sorrowful wails, the sound reverberating off the surrounding buildings, eerily loud in the gathering silence. He could well imagine the child was crying over some lost father. Many had lost their fathers, but the infant was probably too young to even know that fact yet.

  He turned to walk away once the ceremony had finished. Most of the crowd had disappeared now, standing at the edges as they watched and making a quick getaway. He didn’t want to make a quick getaway. Where would he go? It was so unusual, having the freedom of Liverpool again, that he was completely lost.

  Really, he just wanted to stand for a while longer and think about what had come to be. He had always found time for inner reflection, and no matter how much the thoughts and memories hurt, his mind always wandered back to the pain. He could see the faces of those they had lost during the war. Lots of faces.

  He thought it better that he left now, otherwise his family would begin to worry. They, like the others, had already gone. What did they have to stay for? There was nothing left here for them but haunted memories. But all he had were the memories. There was nothing left in Liverpool for him.

  He limped away, feeling the old pain in his right leg. His bones clicked together with every stride, but at least it reminded him that he was still alive. Some of the crowd in front of him were walking very slowly, and he mentally willed them forward, wishing they would go faster so that his leg would hurt less. He had to walk at a certain speed, otherwise the pain would be overwhelming. A slow walk was excruciating, like a cold night when every old joint ached with frost. It was still too recent an injury. The doctors told him it would wear off, and would heal eventually, but he didn’t believe them. In some sadistic way, he also liked the pain. It reminded him of those that had died, and that he had been the lucky one that was left. He felt that it was only fair. They had suffered the ultimate injury, what was this pain to them?

  Finally, the crowd parted, and he eased into a faster pace, feeling more comfortable with each passing step. He almost bumped into someone as he passed, not noticing them as the crowd passed. He stopped and said sorry, looking up into the face of a young woman. She had clearly been crying, her blue eyes were bloodshot, and tears still ran down her pronounced cheeks. She looked at him for a long moment, shocked, then pushed a long strand of black hair back under hood and nodded at him saying that it was okay, it was her fault anyway for standing in the way.

  He had the odd feeling that he recognised her, but to his knowledge he had never met her before in his life. Then it hit him. It had been years since he had seen that face, but he remembered her clearly now. She had been at the station on that fateful day when he had shipped out to… where was it, Redhill, Canterbury? It was so long ago now that he barely remembered, even though it had actually only been a few years. It seemed like he had lived an entire lifetime in those short years. How odd that he should remember that face on that day amongst everything.

  After she walked away he sat on a bench nearby, waiting for the crowd to dissipate. There was no point trying to force the issue and causing himself more pain. The pain of easing himself down on the seat would do for now, that would be enough pain. He looked up at the giant edifice of St George’s Hall, and he smiled, remembering the time before they had set off to war fondly. Everything had been so different then, happier. They were young and full of vim and vigour. Setting off to a new world. It certainly was a new world, and the one he had come back to was even more different. Not far from here he had played as a child in the Gardens with his father and brother. But that was now lost to him.

  At the end of the war he had woken up in severe pain, disorientated and not knowing where he was. He didn’t remember falling asleep and for some reason that confused him. He didn’t know it was the end of the war then, of course, he knew only pain. He body was entirely numb with it, and it had taken some time of waking nightmares for his mind to realise he had awoken in a hospital.

  Once a nurse had noticed that he was awake, a doctor had come to him, dressed in his pristine white coat. It was the only thing he could remember about the doctor at the time.

  ‘Private Abbott,’ he had said. ‘Everything is going to be okay. You were blown up in the trench, but you’re here now and in hospital. You’ve been asleep for some time, recovering.’

  He had spoken as if George couldn’t hear, but he could hear him well enough.

  ‘You’ll feel some pain, but I expect you to make a full recovery in time. And you’ll have plenty of time. But for you the war is over.’

  George’s only response at the time had been to break down crying. Tears had fallen down his cheeks and dripped onto the bedspread. Nothing in his body could make him reach up and wipe away the tears. He couldn’t control it. He had just wept. No one could console him. He had spent the rest of the war, with the medical staff, learning how to walk again.

  Ever since getting back he had been distant from his family. He had found living in the same house to be completely unbearable, as it held so many memories for him from a lifetime ago. He had found himself a small house on the outskirts of the city and had tried to make it his home. Every now and then he would forgo his bed and curl up in the corner wrapped in his greatcoat, rocking silently while nodding off to sleep.

  The rare occasions he spent with his family, either in their house or elsewhere, they wanted to know what it had been like for him ‘out there’. Only his father had sensed that George couldn’t and wouldn’t talk about it. He couldn’t allow his fragile psyche to relive what had happened to him out in France. His father would nod at him, and usher the girls out of the room, distracting them with something else, and for that he would always love his father.

  George wasn’t the same boy that had gone to war. It might have been a cliché, but he had become a man. He had also lost everything he held dear, and his family only served to remind him of that. He had had to distance himself from them for his own sanity.

  As he sat on the bench now, he thought of all those that had not been as lucky as he, and nothing in him could stop the tears from coming again. He felt his brother’s letters in his jacket pocket, including his final ones from prison, and thought about all the others that were gone.

  Despite his objection, once again, he wept.

  Goodbye for Now

  M.J. HOLLOWS

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2018

  Copyright © Michael Hollows 2018

  Michael Hollows asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is
entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  E-book Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008287962

  Version: 2018-09-13

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  About M. J. Hollows

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1923

  1914

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  1915

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20