Pat Barker - Regeneration

‘She was smiling at the memorial service.’ She looked at the photograph. ‘I love her, you know.’

‘Of cou…’ He stopped. Why ‘of course’? He didn’t love his father.

‘I’m glad you’re not going back.’

Without warning, Prior saw again the shovel, the sack, the scattered lime. The eyeball lay in the palm of his hand. ‘Yes,’ he said.

She would never know, because he would never tell her. Somehow if she’d known the worst parts, she couldn’t have gone on being a haven for him. He was groping for an idea that he couldn’t quite grasp. Men said they didn’t tell their women about France because they didn’t want to worry them. But it was more than that. He needed her ignorance to hide in. Yet, at the same time, he wanted to know and be known as deeply as possible. And the two desires were irreconcilable.

‘Do you think your mam’ll like me?’

They’d arranged to spend part of his leave together.

‘Not as much as she would if you were going back.’

‘Tell her about me lungs. That’ll cheer her up.’ He felt he knew Ada already.

Sarah rolled over and started to undress him. He pretended to struggle, but she pushed him back on to the bed, and he lay there, shaking with laughter, as she got into a tangle over his puttees. At last she gave up, rested her head on his knees, giggling. ‘They’re like stays. ’

‘Don’t tell the War Office. You’ll have a lot of worried men.’

They stopped laughing and looked at each other.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘Oh, there’s no need to say that. ’

‘Yes, there is. It’s true.’

She took her time thinking about it. At last she said on an indrawn breath, ‘ Good. I love you too.’

∗

Owen and Sassoon sat in a corner of the lounge at the Conservative Club. They had the room to themselves, except for one other member, and he was half hidden behind the Scotsman. After the waiter had served the brandies and departed, Sassoon produced a book from his pocket. ‘I’d like to read you something. Do you mind?’

‘No, go ahead. Anybody I know?’

‘Alymer Strong. Given to me by the author. He brought me a copy of Lady Margaret’s book and — er — happened to mention he wrote himself. Like a fool, I made encouraging noises.’

‘Not always disastrous. Why am I being read it?’

‘You’ll see. There’s a sort of dedication. In one of the poems.’

Siegfried, thy fathers warr’d

With many a kestrel, mimicking the dove.

Owen looked blank. ‘What does it mean?’

‘What a philistine question. I hope this isn’t the future pig-keeper speaking. I believe it to be a reference to the persecution of the Jews.’

‘But you’re not a Jew.’

‘I am, actually. Or rather my “fathers” were.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ Owen contemplated the fact through a haze of burgundy. ‘That’s why you’re called Siegfried?’

‘No-o, I’m called Siegfried because my mother liked Wagner. And the only thing I have in common with orthodox Jews is that I do profoundly thank God I was born a man and not a woman. If I were a woman, I’d be called Brünnhilde.’

‘This is our last evening and I feel as if I’ve just met you.’

‘You know all the important things.’

They looked at each other. Then a rustling of the Scotsman’s pages returned their attention to the book. Sassoon began reading extracts, and Owen, who was drunk and afraid of becoming too serious, laughed till he choked. Sassoon had begun by declaiming the verse solemnly, but when he came to:

Can it be I have become

This gourd, this gothic vaccu-um?

he burst out laughing. ‘Oh, I love that. You might like this better.’

What cassock’d misanthrope,

Hawking peace-canticles for glory-gain,

Hymns from his rostrum’d height th’ epopt of Hate?

‘The what of hate?’

‘ Epopt. ’

‘No such word.’

‘There is, you know. It’s the heroic form of epogee.’

‘Can I see?’ Owen read the poem. ‘This man’s against the war.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Sassoon’s lips twitched. ‘And particularly devastated by the role the Christian Church is playing in it. The parallels are worrying, Owen.’

‘I’m worried.’ He made to hand the book back. ‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’

‘No, look inside.’

Owen looked at the flyleaf and read: Owen. From S.S. Edinburgh. Oct. 26th 1917. Underneath Sassoon had written:

When Captain Cook first sniffed the wattle,

And Love columbus’d Aristotle.

‘That’s absolutely typical,’ Owen said.

‘It does rather encapsulate his style, doesn’t it?’

‘You know what I mean. The only slightly demonstrative thing you’ve ever done and you do it in a way which makes it impossible to take seriously.’

‘Do you think it’s a good idea to be serious tonight?’

‘For God’s sake, I’m only going to Scarborough. You’ll be in France before I will.’

‘I hope so.’

‘No news from the War Office?’

‘No. And Rivers dropped a bombshell this morning. He’s leaving.’

‘Is he?’

‘I don’t look forward to Craiglockhart without either of you. I did mention you to Rivers, you know.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That you were an extremely gallant and conscientious young officer…’

‘ “ Ooob ”. Who needed no one to teach him his duty. Unlike dot dot dot. And there were no grounds at all that he could see for keeping you at the hospital a moment longer. I think he was a bit put out about being asked to overrule Brock.’

‘I’m not surprised. You shouldn’t have done it. Look, I could do a lot with another month. I bate leaving. But the fact is I’d be taking up a bed some other poor blighter needs far more than I do.’

‘As I shall be doing.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘No, but it’s true.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better be off. Under the new regime I believe the penalty for staying out late is public crucifixion.’

In the hall Sassoon produced an envelope from his breast pocket. ‘This is a letter of introduction to Robert Ross. It’s sealed because there’s something else inside, but that doesn’t mean you can’t read it.’

Owen tried to think of something to say and failed.

‘Take care.’

‘And you.’

Sassoon patted him on the shoulder, and was gone. Nothing else, not even ‘goodbye’. Perhaps it was better that way, Owen thought, going back to the lounge. Better for Siegfried, anyway. Their empty brandy glasses stood together on the table, in the pool of light cast by the standard lamp, but the unseen listener had gone. The Scotsman , neatly folded, lay on a table by the door.

Owen sat down, got out the letter of introduction, but didn’t immediately open it. The ticking of the clock was very loud in the empty room. He lay back in the chair and closed his eyes. He was afraid to measure his sense of loss.

Rivers was due to leave Craiglockhart on 14 November, having fulfilled his promise to Bryce to see the new CO in. He was leaving in what he considered a totally undeserved blaze of glory. Willard was walking at last. Rivers could understand the VADs, the orderlies, the secretaries and the kitchen staff regarding this ‘cure’ as a great medical feat, but it was a little dismaying to find that even some of the senior nursing staff seemed to agree.

Willard himself was exasperating. All Rivers’s efforts to inculcate insight into his condition, to enable him to understand why he’d been in the wheelchair and how the same outcome might be avoided in future, were met with a stare of glassy-eyed, quivering respect. Whenever Rivers came anywhere near him, Willard positively leapt to the salute. He knew his spinal cord had been broken. He knew Rivers had reconnected the severed ends. Needless to say the other MOs were unimpressed. Indeed, after observing Rivers acknowledge one particularly sizzling salute, Brock was heard to murmur: ‘ And for my next trick I shall walk on water .’