Simon Tolkien - No Man’s Land

Adam ran to his father’s side, calling out his name. But Daniel didn’t seem to hear him – he’d turned away and was bent down over the man he’d rescued, alternately holding Sir John’s long aquiline nose clipped between his fingers as he blew air down into his mouth and then releasing his head to frantically massage the unconscious man’s chest. Over and over again until everyone around had given up hope and Sir John faintly shook and then spluttered heavily back into life.

Daniel got to his feet, swaying slightly, allowing the Hall butler to take over from him supporting Sir John’s back. Adam recognized the butler from the church where he had often seen him, sitting straight-backed at the end of one of the pews reserved for the Hall servants, singing out the hymns in an excellent baritone. Now he was dressed in immaculate evening dress and Adam noticed how alone among the servants he had made no attempt to loosen his white bow tie and high collar, even though he was obviously finding it as hard to breathe as everyone else.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you for saving my master’s life.’ Looking over his father’s shoulder, Adam could see that the butler’s gratitude was heartfelt: there were tears in the man’s eyes. But Daniel didn’t respond – it was as if he hadn’t registered the butler’s words just as he remained unaware of his son standing beside him. Instead his eyes were looking up, darting this way and that as he peered back at the east wing through the swirling smoke.

‘There! There’s someone up there,’ he shouted, pointing at the window of the room above the study. ‘Who is it?’

At first Adam could see nothing. But then the smoke cleared for a moment and he saw that his father was right. There was an old woman looking out, a mass of unkempt grey hair framing her small pinched face. She was clearly terrified – her mouth opened and closed like a fish pulled out of water, but they couldn’t hear her. The window was closed and she seemed unable to open it. Perhaps the handles were too hot – in front of her, flames were licking the sill as the fire reached up to the second storey.

‘It’s the dowager – Sir John’s mother. She’s an invalid and she doesn’t walk very well,’ said the butler. But Daniel was no longer listening – he’d turned away, making for the front door. At the last moment Adam reached out his hand and caught hold of his father’s shirt, pulling him back.

‘You can’t,’ he said. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘Adam,’ said Daniel, aware of his son’s presence for the first time. He looked at him, staring into his face as if memorizing his features, and then reached out and stroked his son’s cheek with the tips of his fingers.

‘I have to,’ he said softly. ‘You know that.’ And then without warning he pulled violently away.

‘No,’ Adam cried as his father’s shirt tore away at the shoulder and he was left helplessly holding the sleeve in his trembling hands. And looking down, the white material seemed to Adam just like a flag of surrender.

Adam sat wide-eyed and sleepless beside the lake as the sun rose up from behind the gently rustling elm trees and began to sparkle on the pearl-grey surface of the water, which was lapping gently against the sloping banks of the grassy island in the centre to which generations of Scarsdales had rowed out on summer days, just like this one, to eat picnics under the flat dark green boughs of a cedar of Lebanon tree that was just now reaching the full glory of its maturity.

It was dawn at its most beautiful but Adam didn’t see it, just as he didn’t feel the wet dew that was soaking through his clothes.

Behind his staring eyes, his mind was repeatedly replaying the events of the night in an endless loop of tortured recollection. Once again he saw his father running up the steps to the front door while he stood there helplessly watching. Once again he saw the crazed old woman screaming soundlessly at her window and his father coming up behind her, fighting to control her arms as she lashed out in terror, before he lifted her up and put her over his shoulder as he turned away. And then once more, a moment later, he heard the thunderous explosion reverberating in his inner ear as the fire finished eating through the timber joists and the floor collapsed, crashing down into the inferno below, swallowing up the old woman and her would-be saviour in the flames.

Adam had known they were dead in that instant; he hadn’t needed to stay and watch the men with the hose fight to bring the fire under control and carry out the charred bodies under a pair of white sheets while the remains of the east wing smoked and smouldered behind them.

And so he’d gone down to the lake to be alone with his grief and a succession of questions to which his dead father could provide no answers. Why hadn’t he followed him into the house? Why hadn’t he tried again to pull him back and save him from himself? Was it because he knew that it was hopeless; that his father wouldn’t listen to reason because he was determined to atone for his wife’s death? And that only the highest price would provide the redemption he so desperately craved? Was that the difference between them – that his father wanted to die, and he wanted to live? Life was terrible, never more terrible than now, but Adam knew that he didn’t want it to end.

‘Adam, I’m so glad I found you.’ Parson Vale’s voice cut into his thoughts, jolting him back into consciousness of his surroundings. He looked up into his friend’s kind, compassionate face, ravaged like his own by trauma and lack of sleep, and immediately turned away. He didn’t want sympathy, however well intentioned. All he wanted was to be left alone.

‘How long have you been here?’ the parson asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Adam muttered. ‘I’m sorry about your bicycle. I had to leave it …’ He stopped, unable to finish the sentence. Talking meant cutting through the numbness which was enveloping him like a protective skin, and he willed his mind not to think. He knew that grief was waiting for him around the next corner, ready to take him unawares if he relaxed even for a moment, and he was determined to keep it at bay for as long as he could.

‘Don’t worry about that. It doesn’t matter,’ said the parson. ‘Do you know what happened – to your father?’ he asked, steeling himself to ask the question.

Adam nodded without looking up. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he said fiercely. ‘I can’t …’

‘I understand,’ said the parson. He fell silent, looking out over Adam’s head towards the trees on the other side of the lake, and when he spoke again, it was as if the words had been torn from him, forced from his lips. ‘Oh, God, how can you allow your children to suffer such pain?’ He looked up into the empty cloudless sky as if expecting an answer to his question but there was none, just a flurry of cawing blackbirds flying up over the water, disturbed perhaps by his distant cry.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wiping the clammy sweat from his brow. ‘It’s been a long night, one of the longest I can remember.’

Adam nodded, remembering the candlelit morgue at the pithead and the bodies laid out in rows on the cheap trestle tables. Edgar so alive and yet so dead.

‘How’s Ernest?’ he asked, looking up. ‘Has he been told?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the parson, shaking his head. ‘I assume his mother has, or his brother. I don’t envy them: it’s a terrible thing to have to tell a boy. I’m glad that you already knew.’

‘Yes,’ said Adam, flushing. He’d felt better for a moment thinking of Ernest sharing his pain, but now he was ashamed of himself, realizing he’d been trying to derive comfort from Edgar’s death.