Impressions

Yes, that would be the perfect place, Alberta Scrubb thought with no small satisfaction, setting the imitation of Guernica against the wall. It was perfect there, the pride of the sitting room, embodying so many of the family's values, the wonderfully inexplicable piece of art.

It was a little shame about Kandinsky's Composition VI, but that was a little old school now, and she was sure that Marjorie would not complain about its absence. After all, it had taken pride of place on the sitting room wall for a good four months, and that was the length of an exhibition in many museums. She would just have to place it in the spare room, instead- and oh, but that would give a marvellous excuse to finally dispense of that wretched painting that her brother had given them. Oh, that wretched painting. It was so vulgar, so obvious; the ship and the journey might have been original when Turner used it as a reaction against modernisation (and how foolish he had been, then, really)- but in this day and age? The only reason she hadn't been able to get rid of it had been Harold.

"It's not right, Alberta, it was our wedding gift. Besides, Victor is a nice enough fellow- and for all his oddities, he is a professor. We ought to keep it, even if it's somewhere neither of us go very often."

"Morning Alberta," a cheery voice called, and Alberta knew without even turning around that it was her son, Eustace Clarence. He would be casually leaning against the doorframe (a habit she loathed, and she was ever so certain he had learned it from his cousin Peter), and smiling in a way that was all to relaxed and impish. Perhaps he would have a book in his hand- which in itself would not be too bad, but she just knew it would be something inappropriate. Why, last week she had caught him reading fairy tales by some Scotsman, George MacDonald!

"But Alberta," he had said in consternation, after she had snatched the book and demanded why it was in the house, "it's an intellectual and spiritual answer to the Congregational values and doctrine- and besides, it's excellently written. Fairy tales aren't just for children, after all- they're for the childlike, and you can be fifty-five and still keen to read them!"

"Good morning, Eustace Clarence," she said instead, hoping that the sigh in her heart had not entered her voice. She might not be sure that there was any god up anywhere, but if there was, then he would know she loved her son. It was a fierce, aching love and a disappointed pride that often left her rubbed raw- but the pride was there, and she hoped wildly (even though the notion of doing anything 'wildly' was somewhat against her liking) that Eustace Clarence would never suspect or misconstrue her resentment against the Pevensies as a disappointment in him.

He strolled over to the painting and simply stood in silence for a moment.

"All those faces," he said, presently, a slight tremor in his voice. "Humans are helpless against the evil that other humans are capable of. Human life is so fragile. Life is so precious."

And Alberta knew, because she knew her son that he was thinking of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombs that had finally ended the war. He had sat, huddled at the table over breakfast, staring at the newspaper image.

"Is victory worth this?" he had asked, half tired and half angry. Harold had sighed gravely, put the paper down, and looked carefully at their son.

"You know what happened at Okinawa, Eustace Clarence," Harold had said, angrily. "There's no way a ceasefire would have fixed things. Damn it, there should never have been any war! War is violence, there are no two ways about it, and it's wrong. And the cost! No victory is ever worth it because no war is ever worth the cost."

Alberta had felt compelled to step in then, a mantra her own parents had told her many times. "Violence breeds violence, Eustace Clarence."

It was the sort of statement with which they often closed passionate family discussions, and a sign that breakfast should continue smoothly. Perhaps a rational conversation would follow- regarding, for instance, the morally corrupt reasons behind war, and the heinous way that governments would try to position wars as "just" wars when clearly, no such thing existed. But at any rate, peace- peace and order.

Yet Eustace Clarence- Eustace Clarence! What would she do with her son?

"Don't people need to actually act for violence to occur?" he asked, and Alberta nearly dropped her teacup. "And if people need to act- then isn't that a human problem, not just violence?"

Alberta and Harold glanced furtively at each other. He was treading dangerous ground, now, and next thing-

"Besides," he added, raising his head defiantly, "some wars are worth it." In his low voice Alberta could hear the steel, the resolve that would never meld and flow. It was a quiet but still resolve, the sort that would stand against the rags and tatters of a storm and not disintegrate. "Sometimes you have to fight against atrocities, sometimes you have to fight against evil."

"Eustace Clarence," she had gasped, and even now she remembered how her heart had seemed to lunge at her throat and grasp, unevenly, at her windpipe. "How-"

"But it's true," he had insisted steadily, raising his head. "When a person's doing evil things and no one stands against them, effectively we're jolly well saying, "Keep on, chap! Good job". But sometimes what that person is doing is just evil. And- and I do believe that this war, at least the war against Hitler and Germany- that was necessary. We would have been guilty if we hadn't stood up and fought then."

"Eustace Clarence!"

But he had only continued staring at them defiantly. "All I'm saying is-" he had drawn a breath, "all I'm saying is- oh, blast it, what I'm saying- life is- I wish that life weren't the price that had to be paid in a war."

And with that he had slumped into his chair, and not spoken for the rest of the meal.

Now, he stood at the painting, that same slump visible in his shoulders.

"Stand up straighter, Eustace Clarence," Alberta said gently, walking up to him and placing a hand on his shoulder. "There now."

Do you really believe that a war can be justified? – but she didn't say it.

Presently, Eustace turned to her, a small smile on his face.

"Thank you, Alberta," he said quietly, and she nodded, knew what he meant. They might think differently. She might be saddened and shocked by these changes (though really, none of them were his fault, thirteen was such an impressionable age)- and he might stare defiantly over toast and tea, but beneath it all- oh, beneath it all, he was her son, and she was his mother. And they knew.

And the unspoken words hung like a palpable thread between them, filling the air with an invisible glow.