Pat Barker - The Eye in the Door

Rivers was just thinking he really must make the effort to do something when there was a tap on the door, and the maid came in. ‘There’s a Mr Prior to see you,’ she said, sounding doubtful, for it was very late. ‘Shall I tell him—’

‘No, no. Ask him to come up.’

He felt very unfit to cope with this, whatever it was, but he buttoned his tunic and looked vaguely around for his boots. Prior seemed to be climbing the stairs very quickly, an easy, light tread quite unlike his usual step. His asthma had been very bad on his last visit. He had paused several times on the final flight of stairs and even then had entered the room almost too breathless to speak. The maid must have misheard the name, that or –

Prior came into the room, pausing just inside the door to look round.

‘Are you all right?’ Rivers asked.

‘Yes. Fine.’ He looked at the clock and seemed to become aware that the lateness of the hour required some explanation. ‘I had to see you.’

Rivers waved him to a chair and went to close the door.

‘Well,’ he said, when Prior was settled. ‘Your chest’s a lot better.’

Prior breathed in. Testing. He looked hard at Rivers, and nodded.

‘You were going to go to the prison last time we spoke,’ Rivers said. ‘To see Mrs Roper. Did you go?’

Prior was shaking his head, though not, Rivers thought, in answer to the question. At last he said, in a markedly sibilant voice, ‘I didn’t think you would have pretended .’

‘Pretended what?’ Rivers asked. He waited, then prompted gently, ‘What am I pretending?’

‘That we’ve met before.’

Momentarily, Rivers closed his eyes. When he opened them again Prior was grinning. ‘I thought of saying, “Dr Rivers, I presume?”’

‘If we haven’t met before, how did you know me?’

‘I sit in.’ Prior spread his hands. ‘ I sit in . Well, let’s face it, there’s not a lot of choice, is there? I don’t know how you put up with him. I couldn’t. Are you sure it’s a good idea to let him get away with it?’

‘With what?’

‘With being so cheeky.’

‘The sick have a certain licence,’ Rivers said dryly.

‘Oh, and he is sick, isn’t he?’ Prior said earnestly, leaning forward. ‘Do you know, I honestly believe he’s getting worse?

A long silence. Rivers clasped his hands under his chin. ‘Do you think you could manage to say “I”?’

‘’Fraid not. No.’

The antagonism was unmistakable. Rivers was aware of having seen Prior in this mood before, in the early weeks at Craiglockhart. Exactly this. The same incongruous mixture of effeminacy and menace.

‘You know, it’s really quite simple,’ Prior went on. ‘Either we can sit here and have a totally barren argument about which pronouns we’re going to use, or we can talk. I think it’s more important to talk.’

‘I agree.’

‘Good. Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘I never do mind, do I?’

Prior was patting his tunic pockets. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he said smiling. ‘Ah, no, it’s all right.’ He held up a packet of cigars. ‘I’ve got him trained. He used to throw them away.’

‘What would you like to talk about?’

A broad smile. ‘I thought you might have some ideas.’

‘You say you “sit in”. Does that mean you know everything he knows?’

‘Yes. But he doesn’t know anything I know. Only it’s… it’s not quite as neat as that. Sometimes I see things he can’t see, even when he’s there.’

‘Things he doesn’t notice?’

‘Doesn’t want to notice. Like for example he hates Spragge. I mean, he has perfectly good reasons for disliking him, but what he feels goes a long way beyond that. And he knows that, and he doesn’t know why, even though it’s staring him in the face. Literally. Spragge’s like his father.’

‘Like his own — like Spragge’s father?’

‘No. Well, he may be. How would I know? Like Billy’s father. I mean, it’s a really striking resemblance, and he just doesn’t see it.’ Prior paused, puzzled by some quality in Rivers’s silence. ‘You see what I mean?’

‘ His father?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you really saying he’s not your father?’

‘Of course he isn’t. How could he be?’

‘How could he not be? In the end one body begets another.’

Prior’s expression hardened. ‘I was born two years ago. In a shell-hole in France. I have no father.’

Rivers felt he needed time to think. A week would have been about right. He said, ‘I met Mr Prior at Craiglockhart.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘He mentioned hitting Billy. Was that a frequent occurrence?’

‘No. Oddly enough.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’ve told you. I know everything he knows.’

‘So you have access to his memories?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you also have your own memories.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why “oddly”?’

A blank look.

‘You said it was odd his father didn’t beat him.’

‘Just because when you look at the relationship you think there must have been something like that. But there wasn’t. Once his parents were having a row and he went downstairs and tried to get between them, and his father picked him up and threw him on the sofa. Only, being a bit the worse for wear, he missed the sofa and hit the wall.’ Prior laughed. ‘He never went down again.’

‘So he just used to lie in bed and listen.’

‘No, he used to get up and sit on the stairs.’

‘What was he feeling?’

‘I’m not good on feelings, Rivers. You’d better ask him.’

‘Does that mean you don’t know what he was feeling?’

‘Angry. He used to do this.’ Prior banged his clenched fist against the palm of the other hand. ‘PIG PIG PIG PIG. And then he’d get frightened, I suppose he was frightened that if he got too angry he’d go downstairs. So he fixed his eyes on the barometer and blotted everything out.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘Nothing. He wasn’t there.’

‘Who was there?’

Prior shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t know. Somebody who didn’t care.’

‘Not you?’

‘No, I told you —’

‘You were born in a shell-hole.’ A pause. ‘Can you tell me about it?’

An elaborate shrug. ‘There isn’t much to tell. He was wounded. Not badly, but it hurt. He knew he had to go on. And he couldn’t. So I came.’

Again that elusive impression of childishness. ‘Why were you able to go on when he couldn’t?’

‘I’m better at it.’

‘Better at…?’

‘Fighting.’

‘Why are you better?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake—’

‘No, it isn’t a stupid question. You’re not taller, you’re not stronger, you’re not faster… you’re not better trained. How could you be? So why are you better?’

‘I’m not frightened.’

‘Everybody’s frightened sometimes.’

‘I’m not. And I don’t feel pain.’

‘I see. So you didn’t feel the wound?’

‘No.’ Prior looked at Rivers, narrowing his eyes. ‘You don’t believe a bloody word of this, do you?’

Rivers couldn’t bring himself to reply.

‘ Look .’ Prior drew strongly on his cigar, until the tip glowed red, then, almost casually, stubbed it out in the palm of his left hand. He leant towards Rivers, smiling. ‘This isn’t acting, Rivers. Watch the pupils,’ he said, pulling down the lid of one eye.

The room filled with the smell of burning skin.

‘And now you can have your little blue-eyed boy back.’

A withdrawn, almost drugged look, like extreme shock or the beginning of orgasm. Then, abruptly, the features convulsed with pain, and Prior, teeth chattering uncontrollably, raised his shaking hand and rocked it against his chest.