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Thomas is very young. That’s what’s so hard. He should still be moving with the unthinking fluidity of youth, shouldn’t have to pause to rest an aching back, sore hips, knees that will never be right again.
Thomas is so young, and to look at him hurts, because he is – God, down to the exhausted tread of feet when weary – he is so like Richard Clarkson was at that age. He glanced through the wards the same way, had the same balance of attentive care and arrogance and insecurity and contempt, was (perhaps this is his vanity) quite good looking, in that sharp and starving way.
A country doctor’s salary has put paid to the way Richard’s cheekbones used to cast attractive shadows. But Thomas is working here on low pay and eating the same army slop as the rest. He doesn’t get time to sleep. Richard knows exactly how that feels.
And then there are the things to which he cannot relate. Richard, at Thomas’ age, had not conceived of anything like trench warfare and its attendant medical battles. He had not seen the Somme. He had not dashed out under enemy fire to retrieve corpses, corpses, and living men soon to be corpses. The way Thomas thinks before moving – that reminds Richard of patients in the village, much older men, weary and poor.
Life, to be cliché, leaves its scars. But it usually takes longer to make them so visible.
So Thomas, and the patients in this hospital (all moved on too soon; the army’s standard of care is far less than Richard’s is) startle like rabbits, move sparingly.
These boys they treat would have been their community’s shining lights, on the sports field or at Cambridge, or both. Rich and young, and because of that, attractive. Now look. Old men taught cruelty, taught engineering by their part in the slaughter machine, with young men’s faces. Young men’s hands.
Clarkson looks at Thomas and he feels so old.
Edward doesn’t know what Thomas looks like. He has an attractive voice, and interesting things to say with it. That’s more than most of the men their age, and definitely more than any boy had at Eton.
It would be nice, he thinks, to get ten minutes alone with him, and see what other interesting things Thomas has to offer. Unfortunately he’s aware that that’s a possibility in the same way that regaining the use of his eyes is a possibility. Odds are not favourable. So instead, learn to adapt – what Nurse Crawley says, constantly, every time she catches him with without a grin on his face and a positive attitude in his demeanour – learn to adapt, change, persevere…
He’s not very good at perseverance. He has never been patient.
He is fed up of Thomas’ little hints (they leave him so stupid, those throwaway lines, they’re very beautifully phrased in that gorgeous accent and how could anyone throw something back as witty? He’s not Wilde. He did not do very well at school.)
So; the next time heavy footsteps tread the boards of the army hospital floor- Edward is sure it must be oak or some other fine British hardwood, given where they are – he decides that when Thomas stops next to his bed to check bandages or – his chart, or his sleep, or how his day was – he’ll reach out, and try and explain. Or something.
But his words fail him – again, what a surprise – and so he sits up slightly, and reaches out his hand. It’s a pretty unmistakable gesture, he thinks.
“Thomas?” He whispers.
“Ah!” Dr Clarkson says.
Edward has a brief moment where he wants to be borne away from the planet Earth, preferably immediately.
“Not Thomas, unfortunately,” Dr Clarkson continues, evidently unaware of the disaster that has befallen his patient.
Or perhaps not. His voice turns, now, shrewd and warm.
“I shall inform him that you requested his assistance tomorrow morning,” he says. “He will be very happy to hear it.”
Hm. Perhaps all is not lost, after all.
Good to know.