Maybe the plane hadn’t been shot down, but that was how it looked to me. It was in a frighteningly steep downward spiral, and the painting was dated from 1916, when young men from the Royal Flying Corps and Die Fliegertruppen had begun shooting each other out of the sky above the western front. It created a sense of doom, a moment of heroism or futile sacrifice … or even both. I stared at it for a while and, inevitably given the subject, recalled the story about my great grandfather.
Edgar had been one of those young men, obliterated ten days after he had been sent into combat, three weeks after he had married my great grandmother, six months before their daughter had been born. Family history had conveyed it as one of those romantic tragedies that occurred during the war, with my great grandfather having acted quickly enough to redeem his young bride’s honour before he died. The story had been passed on to my mother, her children, our children and now theirs, creating a legacy in which I’m sure we’ve all felt a little gratification. Occasionally I would think of Edgar, wondering what he must have felt in his final moments, hoping the fear was eased by love, then taking some pride in knowing that I was one of his descendants. I valued the legacy.
A couple of days later I visited my mother in the care home. She still had a clear mind but was becoming less talkative as she got older. The conversation was sporadic, including some family news, the TV programmes she had been watching, my plans to retire from work. Then there was a pause, and I decided to mention having seen the painting.
“It reminded me of the story about your grandad, shot down days after he was sent to the front. The painting doesn’t even show the pilot, but it touched me, thinking it could have been him in the plane.”
She didn’t look at me, but I saw her smile. I thought it was a nice memory of her mother’s stories, then noticed a faint twist of her lips.
“He wasn’t my grandfather.”
I paused, thinking she had become a little confused, then reminded her.
“You know, you’ve always told us how they found out your mum was on the way and got married quickly, but then he had to go to the war.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“What do you mean?”
“My nan married him, the one who got killed, but he wasn’t my grandad.”
I sat there bemused. She looked at me, and the smile broadened.
“My aunt Ellie told me the truth years later, after she and my mum had one of their rows. My nan got pregnant by another man.”
“You’re having me on!”
“No. My mum admitted it to me soon afterwards. Obviously, she had wanted to keep it a secret, but once Ellie told me she didn’t want to carry on the lie.”
I did a quick calculation. Great aunt Ellie had been dead for forty years, so Mum had kept it a secret for even longer than that.
“My nan had known Edgar for some time, thought he was a very nice young man and knew that was sweet on her, but didn’t know if she wanted to marry him. The way she told it to my mum was that he almost too nice, and she thought there might be someone else. Then another man started flirting with her, an Army officer, and he got a lot further a lot more quickly than Edgar. Then when your nan found that she was in the family way he claimed it had nothing to do with him and she never saw him again. She went to the barracks where he had been and was told he had been transferred …. and that he already had a wife, one kid and another on the way. That was it; she never saw or heard from him again.
“So what about Edgar? Did he know all this.”
“Well he would have known he wasn’t the father – my nan always swore that he didn’t touch her until the wedding night – but he must have loved her. He offered to marry her and be a father to the baby. She jumped at the offer.”
“Does that mean everyone thought he was the father?
“Near enough. Of course, her parents knew, and your Aunt Ellie. But Edgar even let his parents and brothers think that it had been him, and they weren’t happy with it.”
I had to let it sink in. It must have been a minute before I spoke again.
“And you haven’t told of any of us.”
“No, my mum didn’t tell me, so I thought I shouldn’t tell you. But recently I’ve wondered if that was right.”
“What about the other man, the one who got her pregnant? Do you know his name?”
She shook her head.
“My nan wouldn’t tell anyone. She might have been worried that her brother would want to kill the bloke, and her mum and dad were angry that he had disappeared and wasn’t giving her penny to help support my nan, but nan kept it to herself until the day she died. There was another thing; Edgars’ family used to give her money for the baby. That would have disappeared if they had known the truth.”
Then Mum didn’t want to talk about it any more. I let it go but went home feeling upset. It took me a while to realise it was a sense of loss, that now the great grandfather who had left the family with a poignant sense of pride wasn’t my great grandfather. In his place was an unknown sleazebag. I went home and told Monica. She told me not to get wound up over it.
“You never knew him, the one who died. He wasn’t even a memory.”
“I know, but he’s been part of the family history.”
“People are always rewriting history.”
“Yes, but the version I used to have was better.”
She was sympathetic, but reminded me that there were more important things, like the big shop for the week and where we were going to go on holiday. I didn’t argue, but the feeling hung over me for the next few days, to the point where Monica told me to stop being a miserable bugger.
That pushed me back to the gallery. I went straight to the painting, stared at it for half an hour, went off for a coffee, then back to stare again. I imagined what the young man in the plane was thinking as it spun towards the ground, whether he had a dying moment of joy from thoughts of his wife and child, that there would be generations who honoured his memory and one would stand in front of this painting. Then I remembered that it wasn’t my great grandfather, and I felt bad all over again. I walked away and didn’t tell Monica I had been back there.
The feeling persisted, and took a fresh stir when I received a text message from my cousin Alice.
I’ll be in town next weekend. Planning to visit your mum in the morning. Meet up?
I had always liked her and we both made the effort to stay in touch since she had moved away, so I suggested we go for a lunchtime pizza. We had a nice time, chatting about our remaining parents, kids, jobs, how soon we could manage to retire. After the pizzas and cappucinos we walked around the park and came to the art gallery.
“What’s it like now?” she asked. “I always got bored in there.”
My next words just slipped out.
“There’s a painting in temporary exhibition that made me think of our great grandmother’s husband. It’s a World War One airplane falling out of the sky.”
Alice halted.
“Why did you say it like that? Our great grandmother’s husband.”
I didn’t know how to answer. She spoke again.
“Do you know the truth about him?”
We looked at each other, suddenly aware that we were both in on a secret.
“I have heard something recently.”
“That he wasn’t really your grandmother’s dad?”
“Who told you?”
“Old aunt Ellie.”
The one who had spoiled the story for my mum, then me.
That led to us standing in the street and picking over what we knew of the story, until Alice said she was curious to see the painting.
“Are you sure?”
I didn’t want to admit that I might get upset again. She insisted, we bought tickets for the exhibition and went straight to the painting. As we stared at it I felt numb, but she seemed impressed.
“Dramatic, isn’t it.”
“Yes, but …. I don’t know. I don’t feel the same now.”
“Why?”
“Because he …..”
Something stopped me from saying it out loud. Alice looked at me with a hint of exasperation.
“Are you going to say he wasn’t your great grandfather?”
“I suppose so.”
“Well he was. Aunt Ellie said so.”
“But she told you he wasn’t.”
“Look, I spent a lot more time around her than you, and I know she could be a cow. But she had a kinder side to her, and she could be perceptive and generous. She said our great grandmother’s husband, Edgar, he did something really … I suppose it was noble. He gave your great grandmother a respectable name, and that was a time when it made a big difference. It mattered a lot to your nan as well. Back in those days there were plenty of people who would have shunned a kid whose parents hadn’t been married. And he was ready to be the baby’s father, even it had been another man who had knocked up his wife. So if he had lived he would have been your mum’s grandfather, and our great grandfather, and we shouldn’t get wobbly about that because of biology.”
She flashed a smile. What she had said made sense. I looked back at the painting and something inside me flipped. Now I could imagine again that the man inside the spiralling aircraft was my great grandfather. Even more, that there was a great grandfather on my mum’s side, and he had lived and died with honour.
We were silent for a couple of minutes, staring at the painting, sharing an understanding that we were grateful for what Edgar had done. I thought that maybe I should talk to my mum about it again, maybe tell the true story to my kids. Alice broke the silence.
“That’s enough. Let’s look at some other pictures.”
Image: Spiral Descent by CRW Nevinson, public domain