Small Island

Bernard is sentenced to two weeks of prison. He’s the only Englishman left in the local prison, since most have been sent home or moved elsewhere. He’s disgusted to share a cell with four Indians, whom he believes are thieves or murderers. During the long, hot days, Bernard tries many times to begin a letter to Queenie, but he can never think what to say.

Bernard also thinks about his own father, Arthur, who enlisted to fight in the Great War when he was barely nineteen and Bernard had just been born. While he wrote cheerful letters home, he eventually returned in an ambulance, having gone insane from shell-shock. In his first months at home, he was frightened at every loud noise and screamed at night.

With her invalid husband unable to work, Bernard’s mother had to provide for the family. She sold family heirlooms and her own jewelry, and rented rooms in the large house. The stress caused her to age prematurely, and she died at the age of forty-two.

When he got married, Bernard marveled at his father’s adoration of Queenie—Arthur got along with his wife far better than Bernard. Bernard and Queenie spent the days before his deployment fighting, because she wanted to know where he was going and didn’t believe that he himself didn’t even know. The night before he left, they had passionless sex; she wouldn’t even let him kiss her on the mouth before he left.