Pat Barker: The Eye in the Door

Prior went in. A double bed with a brass bedstead almost filled the tiny room. He sat on the edge and bounced up and down. It was quite possibly the noisiest bed he’d ever encountered. Thank God the house was empty. Apart from the bed there was a washstand with a jug and bowl, a table with a looking-glass, and a small closet curtained off. He got up and pulled the curtain back. Two housemaids’ uniforms hung there, looking almost like the maids themselves, the sleeves and caps had been so neatly arranged. A smell came from the closet: lavender and sweat, a sad smell. Prior’s mother had started her life in service in just such a house as this. He looked round the room, the freezing little box of a room, with its view of roofs, and, on a sudden impulse, got one of the uniforms out and buried his face in the armpit, inhaling the smell of sweat. This impulse had nothing to do with sex, though it came from a layer of personality every bit as deep. Manning came back into the room just as Prior raised his head. Seeing Prior with the uniform held against him, Manning looked, it had to be said, daunted. Prior smiled, and put the uniform back on the peg.

Manning set a small jar down on the table by the bed. The click of glass on wood brought them into a closer, tenser relationship than anything they’d so far managed to achieve. Prior finished undressing and lay down on the bed. Manning’s leg was bad. Very bad. Prior leant forward to examine the knee, and for a moment they might have been boys in the playground again, examining each other’s scabs.

‘It looks as if you’re out of it.’

‘Probably. The tendons’ve shortened, you see. They think I’ve got about as much movement as I’m going to get. But then who knows? The way things are going, is anybody out of it?’

Prior straightened up, and, since he was in the neighbourhood, began to rub his face across the hair in Manning’s groin. Manning’s cock stirred and rose and Prior took it into his mouth, but even then, for a long time, he simply played, flicking his tongue round and round the glistening dome. Manning’s thighs tautened. After a while his hand came up and caressed Prior’s cropped hair, his thumb massaging the nape of his neck. Prior raised his head and saw that Manning looked nervous, rightly, since in this situation it was a gesture of tenderness that would precipitate violence, if anything did. And Manning was in no state to cope with that. He went back to his sucking, clasping Manning’s buttocks in his two hands and moving his mouth rapidly up and down the shaft. Manning pushed him gently away and got into bed. They lay stretched out for a moment side by side. Prior rolled on to his elbow and started to stroke Manning’s chest, belly and thighs. He was thinking how impossible it is to sum up sex in terms of who stuffs what into where. This movement of his hand had in it lust; resentment, of Manning’s use of the room among other things; sympathy, for the wound; envy, because Manning was honourably out of it… And a growing awareness that while he had been looking at Manning, Manning had also been looking at him. Prior’s expression hardened. He thought, Well, at least I don’t twitch as much as you do. The stroking hand stopped at Manning’s waist, and he tried to turn him over, but Manning resisted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Like this.’

Athletic sod. Prior unscrewed the jar, greased his cock with a mixture of vaseline and spit, and wiped the residue on Manning’s arse. He guided Manning’s legs up his chest, being exceedingly careful not to jerk the knee. He was too eager, and the position was hopeless for control, he was fighting himself before he’d got an inch in, and then Manning yelped and tried to pull away. Prior started to withdraw, then suddenly realized that Manning needed to be hurt. ‘Keep still,’ he said, and went on fucking. It was a dangerous game. Prior was capable of real sadism, and knew it, and the knee was only a inch or so away from his hand. He came quickly, with deep shuddering groans, a feeling of being pulled out of himself that started in his throat. Carefully, he lowered Manning’s legs and sucked him off. He was so primed he was clutching Prior’s head and gasping almost before he’d started. ‘I needed that,’ he said, when it was over. ‘I needed a good fucking.’

You all do , Prior thought. Manning went to the bathroom. Prior reached out and turned the looking-glass towards him. Into this glass they had looked, half past five every morning, winter and summer, yawning, bleary-eyed, checking to see their caps were on straight and their hair tucked away. He remembered his mother telling him that, in the house where she’d worked, if a maid met a member of the family in the corridor she had to stand with her face turned to the wall.

Manning came back carrying the whisky bottle and glasses. He was limping badly. Despite Prior’s efforts the position couldn’t have done the knee any good.

‘Where d’you get it?’ Prior asked, nodding at the wound.

‘Passchendaele.’

‘Oh, yes. Your lot were in the assault on the ridge?’

‘That’s right.’ Manning poured the whisky and sat at the end of the bed, propping himself up against the bedstead, and stretching his left leg out in front of him. ‘Great fun.’

Prior said, ‘I’ve just had a Board.’ He didn’t want to talk about his condition, but he was incapable of leaving the subject alone. Manning’s silence on the subject, when a question would have been so much more natural, had begun to irritate him.

‘What did they say?’ Manning asked.

‘They haven’t said anything yet. I’m supposed to be Permanent Home Service, but with things the way they are…’

Manning hesitated, then asked, ‘It is neurasthenia, isn’t it?’

No, Prior wanted to say, it’s raging homicidal mania, with a particular predilection for dismembering toffee-nosed gits with wonky knees. ‘No, it’s asthma,’ he said. ‘I was neurasthenic, but then I had two asthmatic attacks in the hospital, so that confused things a bit.’

‘Which hospital were you in?’

‘Craiglockhart. It’s up in —’

‘Ah, then you know Rivers.’

Prior stared. ‘He was my doctor. Still is. He’s… he’s in London now.’

‘Yes, I know.’

It was Prior’s turn not to ask the obvious question.

‘Are you still on sick leave?’ Manning asked, after a pause.

‘No, I’m at the Ministry of Munitions. In the…’ He looked at Manning. ‘And that’s where I’ve seen you. I knew I had.’

Manning smiled, but he was very obviously not pleased. ‘Just as well I didn’t call myself “Smith”. I thought about it.’

‘If you’re going to do that I’d remove the letters from the hall table first. They aren’t addressed to “Smith”.’ Prior looked down into his glass, and gave up the struggle. ‘How do you know Rivers?’

Manning smiled. ‘He’s my doctor, too.’

‘Shell-shock?’

‘No. Not exactly. I… er… I was picked up by the police. About two months ago. Not quite caught in the act, but… The young man disappeared as soon as we got to the police station. Anyway.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, we all sat around. Nobody did anything unpleasant. I sent for my solicitor, and eventually he arrived, and they let me go. Wound helped. Medal helped.’ He looked directly at Prior. ‘Connections helped. You mustn’t despise me too easily, you know. I’m not a fool. And then I went home and waited. My solicitor seemed to think if it went to court I’d get two years, but they probably wouldn’t give me hard labour because of the leg.’

‘That’s big of them.’

‘Yes. Isn’t it? Then somebody said the thing to do was to go to a psychologist and get treatment and and… and that would help. So I went to Dr Head, who has quite a reputation in this field — I was actually told in so many words “Henry Head can cure sodomites” — and he said he couldn’t do me, he was snowed under, and he recommended Rivers. So I went to him, and he said he’d take me on.’