Pat Barker: The Eye in the Door

Drill was going on in the yard outside. Familiar shouts, the slurrying and stamping of boots, lines of regimented bodies moving as one. In the front rank a conchie was being ‘persuaded’ to take part. That is, he was being manhandled first into one position, then another. ‘Marking time’ consisted of being kicked on the ankles by the guards on either side. No attempt was made to hide what was happening. Presumably it was taken for granted that an officer would approve.

Prior watched for a while, then turned away.

A freshening breeze, blowing across the Serpentine, fumbled the roses, loosening red and yellow petals that lay on the dry soil or drifted across the paths. Rivers and Sassoon had been wandering along beside the lake for no more than fifteen minutes, but already Sassoon looked tired.

‘I’ve been very good,’ he said. ‘The last few days. Out of bed and dressed before breakfast.’

‘ Good .’

Glutinous yellow sunlight, slanting between the trees, cast their shadows across the water.

‘Do you remember me telling you about Richard Dadd?’ Siegfried asked suddenly. ‘Drowning his father in the Serpentine?’

‘Yes,’ Rivers said, and waited for more. When Siegfried didn’t speak, he asked, ‘Should I be hanging on to a tree?’

Siegfried smiled. ‘No, not you.’

The deck-chairs beside the lake were empty, bellying in the wind, but on a sunny sheltered bank soldiers home on leave sat or lay entwined with their girls, the girls’ summer dresses bright splashes against the khaki of their uniforms. A woman in a black uniform appeared on the ridge and began to make her way diagonally down the slope. As she advanced, a black beetle toiling across the grass, the lovers drew apart, and a girl close to the path tugged anxiously at the hem of her skirt.

‘I’ve even been to the common room,’ Siegfried said. ‘You know what the topic of conversation was? The changes you notice when you’re home on leave and whether any of them are for the better. And somebody said, yes, every time you came home women’s skirts were shorter. I’m afraid it’s not much consolation to me .’

Rivers caught a sigh. Depression and bitterness had become Siegfried’s settled state. If he seemed better than he had when he first arrived, it was mainly because depression — provided it hasn’t reached the point of stupor — is more easily disguised than elation. He was actually very ill indeed.

‘I must say I’ll be glad to be out of London,’ Siegfried went on. ‘Have you heard any more about this convalescent home?’

‘Oh, yes. They can take you.’

‘It’s… I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten where you said it was.’

‘Coldstream. Near Berwick-on-Tweed.’

‘Is that anywhere near Scarborough? It’s just Owen’s stationed in Scarborough.’

‘Well, it’s not near , but you could probably get there and back in a day.’ Rivers hesitated. ‘There is one thing I think you… might not like. There has to be a Medical Board first.’

‘Yes.’

Siegfried sounded puzzled. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in hospital: riding accident during training, trench fever, wounded, ‘shell-shocked’ at Craiglockhart, wounded again. He knew the routine backwards.

‘At Craiglockhart,’ Rivers said.

A stunned silence. ‘No. Why Craiglockhart?’

‘Because you’re my patient. Because I want to be on the Board.’

Siegfried couldn’t take it in. ‘I can’t go back there.’

‘I’m afraid you’ve got to. It’s only for a few days, Siegfried.’

Siegfried shook his head. ‘I can’t. You don’t know what you’re asking.’

There was an empty bench a few yards further on. Rivers sat down and indicated that Siegfried should join him. ‘Tell me, then.’

A silence during which Sassoon struggled visibly with himself.

‘Why can’t you?’ Rivers prompted gently.

‘Because it would mean admitting I’m one of them.’

Rivers felt a flare of anger, but brought it quickly under control. ‘One of whom?’

Siegfried was silent. At last he said, ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid I do. One of the degenerates, the loonies, the lead-swingers, the cowards.’ He waited for a response, but Siegfried had turned his head away. ‘You know, Siegfried, sometimes I… reproach myself with having exercised too great an influence on you. At a time when you were vulnerable and… perhaps needed to be left alone to come to your own decision in your way.’ Rivers shook his head. ‘Well, I shan’t be doing that again. If you still think like that I haven’t influenced you at all. I haven’t managed to convey a single bloody thing. Not a bloody thing.’ He looked out over the lake. The wind blew a dark ripple across the surface like goose pimples spreading across skin. ‘Perhaps we’d better be getting back.’

‘Not yet.’

‘You have to go back to Craiglockhart. I’m sorry, I’ll make it as short as I can, but you have to go.’

Siegfried nodded. He was sitting with his big hands clasped between his knees. ‘All right. But you do see what I’m trying to say? I know you find it offensive, but… It’s not just admitting I’m one of them now , it’s admitting I always was. Don’t you see?’

‘Yes, and it’s nonsense. One day I’m going to give you a copy of your admission report. “No physical or mental signs of any nervous disorder.” If you’re tormenting yourself with the idea that your protest was some kind of symptom, well, for God’s sake, stop. It wasn’t. It was an entirely valid, sane response to the situation we’re all in.’ He paused. ‘ Wrong , of course.’

‘When I was in France I used to think of it as breakdown. It was easier than —’

‘Than remembering what you believed?’

‘Yes.’ Siegfried looked down at his hands. ‘Now I just feel as if a trap’s been sprung.’ A slight laugh. ‘Not by you, I don’t mean by you. But it has, hasn’t it? It’s absolutely full circle. Literally back to the beginning. Only worse, because now I belong there.’

‘Three days. I promise.’

Siegfried got up. ‘All right.’

Rivers remained seated for a moment. He wanted to say, if there is a trap, I’m in it too, but he couldn’t. ‘Come on,’ he said, standing up. ‘Let’s go back.’

The bomb site had been tidied up, Prior saw. Rubble cleared away, the pavements swept clean of white dust, the houses on either side of the gap shored up. A cold wind whistled through the gap, disturbing the trees, whipping up litter into whirlpools that ran along the gutters. The sun blazed in the windows of the houses opposite the gap, turning the far side of the square into a wall of fire.

Prior was early for his appointment and dawdled along, noticing what on his previous visit, walking with Charles Manning through the spring dark, he had not noticed: that many of the elegant houses had dingy basements, like white teeth yellow round the gums.

He pressed the bell of Manning’s house and turned slightly away, expecting to have to wait, but the door was opened almost immediately and by Manning himself, so quickly indeed that he must have been hovering in the hall. He might have appeared anxious, but his smile, his whole bearing, gave the impression of impulsive informality.

‘It’s all right, I’ve got it,’ he said to somebody over his shoulder, and stood aside to let Prior in. ‘I’m glad you could come. I thought of waiting till we were both back at work, but —’

‘I’m not going back,’ Prior said quickly.

‘Ah.’

The living-room door stood open. No dust-sheets now.