Уильям Николсон - Motherland

‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘I understand.’

‘Then in the camps – did you ever hear of something called the Commando Order?’

‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘A lot of our best men were shot in captivity.’

‘Well, I wasn’t shot.’ Ed laughs as if it’s all a joke. ‘They just pretended to shoot me. But it’s not as different as you might think. When a German reads out an order and then puts a gun to your head, you think that’s pretty much it.’

‘Is that what they did to you?’

‘Three times. Just their little game.’

‘Jesus!’

‘You know how you survive? You stop caring. You want to die. Anything to escape the long slow horror of life.’

‘But you didn’t die, Ed. You came home.’

‘Home, yes. I come home and they give me a medal, and I’m supposed to be proud. These arrogant halfwits who play their war games with other men’s lives think they can honour me ? I don’t want them anywhere near me. Let them go crawling up the beach at Dieppe and try to wash away the blood.’

‘It was a terrible, terrible mistake,’ says Larry.

‘The world is a terrible mistake,’ says Ed. ‘Life is a terrible mistake.’

‘But you’re in it.’

‘I wish to God I wasn’t.’

‘And you have a wife and child.’

Ed turns away abruptly, as if stung.

‘Why do you think I go on? Don’t you think I’d have got out before this if it wasn’t for Kitty?’

‘Just going on isn’t enough, Ed.’

‘Don’t tell me that!’ He’s shouting suddenly, the tension breaking through. ‘I’m doing all I can! What more do you want of me?’

‘You know as well as I do.’

‘You want me to pretend? You want me to smile and say I’m happy and isn’t the world a beautiful place?’

‘No,’ says Larry. ‘Just let her near you.’

‘You want me to drag her down to the hell I live in?’

‘She loves you, Ed. She can take it.’

‘That’s what you said to me before.’ He points an accusing finger at Larry. ‘You and me in that hayfield. It’s not your private darkness, you said. That’s why I went to her, Larry. Because of you.’

‘You went to her because you loved her.’

‘Yes. Yes, God knows I do love her.’

‘Then why do you hide yourself away from her?’

‘Because I must.’

Now he’s pacing again. Away down the mosaic-floored aisle and back.

‘You ask me to let her near me,’ he says. ‘You have no idea how much I long to do just that. To me, Kitty is the only pure good thing in a bad world. And Pammy, too. Those two are all that’s precious and holy to me. You can keep your Jesus and your Virgin Mary. The only gods I worship are my wife and child. I don’t want the rottenness of the world to touch them. But here’s the devil of it. I’m part of that rottenness. Of course I want to let her near me. Of course I want to touch her. I’m a man, aren’t I?’

Larry begins to understand.

‘Kitty says you sleep in your own room.’

‘For her sake.’

‘You leave her alone, letting her think you can’t really love her, for her sake?’

‘God damn it! What am I supposed to do? What do you want me to tell you, Larry? I’m not a good man, do you hear? Think of me as sick. Tell yourself poor old Ed’s got leprosy or something. Kitty doesn’t need my attentions, I can promise you that.’

‘But she does.’

Ed shouts out of the darkness.

‘You think she’d like it if I raped her?’

Larry is silent.

‘Yes, she’s my wife. A man can’t rape his wife, can he? But what if he’s a bad man? What if something happens inside him that makes him want to hurt and crush and destroy? Sex is a monster, Larry! I don’t want Kitty to meet that monster.’

He swings away from him, all the way up to the altar.

‘How long has it been like this?’ says Larry.

‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s what the war’s done to me. Maybe I was always this way.’

‘You could at least talk to Kitty about it.’

‘How would she ever understand? You’re a man, you know how it is.’

‘Yes,’ says Larry.

‘Kitty’s a girl. Girls have no idea at all. For them it’s all a part of loving. How can I talk to her the way I talk to you?’

‘I think you have to tell her something.’

‘I know, I know.’ The old despairing tone returns. ‘Every day I think, I’ll talk to her today. But the moment comes, and I let it pass. I don’t want to lose her, you see. She’s all I’ve got.’

‘You think if she knew the truth about you she’d stop loving you?’

‘Oh, yes! Without a doubt! Look at me!’

‘I can’t see a thing,’ says Larry with a laugh.

‘Just as well. Thank God for darkness. I wouldn’t have been able to say any of this in daylight.’

Footsteps sound, approaching the chapel across the bridge.

‘Time’s up,’ says Ed.

‘Please talk to her,’ says Larry.

‘Oh, we’ll muddle along somehow,’ says Ed.

Louisa enters the chapel.

‘Heavens, it’s all dark! Are you in here, you bad-mannered men?’

‘We’re here,’ says Ed.

‘Everyone’s on their way to bed. Are you proposing an all-night vigil?’

‘No, we’re coming too,’ says Ed.

Kitty is in the library with George, helping him put away the cards. She looks up first at Ed as they enter, then at Larry.

‘Had a good talk?’ she says.

‘Larry’s been giving me a good wigging,’ says Ed. ‘I’m to stop being so bloody antisocial.’

Larry has changed into his pyjamas and washed and is ready for bed when there comes a tap on his bedroom door. It’s Kitty, in her nightgown.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I just know I won’t sleep.’

She comes in and closes the door behind her.

‘Please tell me.’

She sits herself down in the single armchair and fixes him with her eyes.

‘It’s not easy to explain,’ Larry says.

‘But you’ll try.’

He tells her about Ed’s anger and how he wanted to die on the beach at Dieppe, and again in the camps. She nods as he speaks, doing her best to understand.

‘What did he say about me?’

‘He said he loves you more than anyone or anything.’

‘So why does he keep away from me?’

Larry hesitates.

‘It’s still all very recent, Kitty. This nightmare he’s been through.’

She shakes her head impatiently.

‘Tell me, Larry.’

‘The thing is, he almost worships you. He sees you as the only good there is in the world.’

‘He worships me? He said that?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why … why he won’t touch me?’

Larry doesn’t answer.

‘Don’t protect me, please,’ she says. ‘I have to understand this or I shall go mad.’

Larry sits himself down on the side of the bed and fixes his gaze on the rug on the floor between them.

‘I think,’ he says slowly, ‘Ed feels there’s a part of him that’s bad, and he doesn’t want that to … to hurt you.’

‘Because I’m good.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re talking about sex, aren’t you?’

Larry keeps his eyes on the rug.

‘Yes,’ he says.

‘Sorry, Larry, but I don’t know any other way to get to the truth of this. You mustn’t be afraid of upsetting me. Up to now I’ve been thinking he no longer finds me … he’s stopped being attracted to me. Almost anything’s better than that.’

‘No, it’s not that.’

‘He feels that sex is bad, and I’m good.’

‘Something like that.’

‘But it’s so silly, isn’t it?’

Larry looks up and finds her attempting a smile. But she’s trembling at the same time.

‘Yes, it is.’