Pat Barker - Life Class

Nobody’s doing anything. I mean nobody’s doing any work. My teaching’s dried up, the young ladies of Kensington are all learning first aid instead. And I can’t paint. Everything you think of seems so trivial in comparison with the war — but I don’t accept that. I just don’t seem to have the energy to act on what I believe. Only Neville keeps going, but then he’s painting the war, the regiments, the searchlights, the guns on Hampstead Heath — he can hear them from his studio he says. I bump into him from time to time in the Café Royal and he always speaks, though on the personal level we haven’t been seeing much of each other recently. He has to do a first-aid course and some kind of vehicle-repair course before he goes out, but that only takes up the mornings and he paints like mad the rest of the time.

It’s worse for Catherine than it is for me. Do you remember her? Catherine Stein. Tall and fair with goggly eyes? Before the war nobody ever thought of her as German, though we all knew she was, now suddenly it’s the only thing that matters. And there’s talk of interning German men which makes her worry about her father who’s not in very good health.

I suppose there is a sense of being caught up in history, but in Catherine’s case she’s caught up like a mouse in a trap. I wish you were here — God, now I sound like a seaside postcard — it would be lovely to talk to you. Catherine’s got her own problems and Ruthie’s all very well but she knows what she thinks about everything and I never do which makes her exhausting company. Please, please, Paul, come back to London soon.

What an extremely forward letter! Mother and Rachel would certainly not approve.

Paul to Elinor

I’m surprised you find the women in the Café Royal have gone quiet. The women in Beryl’s bandaging class certainly haven’t, I can hear them behind me as I write. Not entirely pleasant either. Women whose sons haven’t enlisted are given quite a hard time by the other ladies. Beryl tucks the rug around me with great assiduity whenever they’re here.

When I’m better I’ll have to enlist. I thought at first I’d be able to stay out of it, but now I don’t think I can, and I don’t want to. I’m not sophisticated like Neville. To me it all seems simple. If your mother’s attacked, you defend her. You don’t waste time weighing up the rights and wrongs of the matter or wondering if a confrontation could have been avoided if only the batty old dear had been a bit more sensible. Only I can’t, honestly can’t, see what untrained volunteers are going to do. The last two wars in Europe have been fought by professional armies and they only lasted a few months. What I don’t want is to spend a wet, cold winter in a tent on Salisbury Plain while proper, professional soldiers get on and finish the job.

Paul to Elinor

Today I tried to enlist. It wasn’t anything like I expected. No open arms and welcome to the army my boy well done. Quite the contrary in fact.

You spend an awfully long time sitting around with no clothes on waiting to have some part of your anatomy poked, prodded and assessed. We kept glancing along the bench, sizing each other up. Prime-quality male horseflesh; medium-quality ditto; skinny, knock-kneed, wheezy old nag fit only for the knacker’s yard — me. Actually I did all right till they got to my chest, by, I must say, a somewhat circuitous route. (Details not fit for your maiden ears.) I was asked to cough — that wasn’t a problem, I do a lot of that — only I couldn’t stop. The MOs conferred, waited for me to stop coughing, and then asked me to cough again. I kept trying to explain I’d been ill, but by the time I got my breath back they had stethoscopes in their ears and couldn’t hear a word I said. Then the chief MO, who looked rather like a cynical sheep, shook his head. He was quite decent really, though he couldn’t resist his little joke. He said the best thing I could do to serve my country was join the German army and cough a lot.

As I was getting dressed I managed to catch a glimpse of what he’d written on the form. A whole paragraph of stuff, and then at the bottom: Query TB.

The thing is I know it’s not true. I’m coughing a lot, I do have night sweats, and yes there is family history, but I also know it’s the aftermath of pneumonia. A few weeks’ fresh air (admittedly in short supply round here), plenty of good food and all this coughing and wheezing will clear away.

I don’t know what to do. I have tried. I know I have — but that’s no use, you see. I walk into town and there are newly enlisted men going to the railway station, men I went to school with, some of them, and I can’t help thinking everybody’s looking at me, wondering why I haven’t volunteered. Perhaps I’m being oversensitive, but I seem to see that question now on every face.

Meanwhile, I’m attending a first-aid class, a six-week course, and frankly a bit of a waste of time because I covered all this ground and more while I worked in the hospital, but at least it makes me feel I’m doing something. Or do I mean, makes me look as if I’m doing something? It’s something for Beryl to tell her bandaging class at any rate.

I’ve written to Neville, to ask who he contacted to get into the Belgian Red Cross. It’s not what I wanted to do but it’s better than nothing and I do have experience of working in a hospital. Fingers crossed.

I haven’t asked if you’re getting any painting done? I’d started drawing, in a rather pathetic, tentative way, but being turned down seems to have driven it out of my head.

Elinor to Paul

I’m sorry to hear you were turned down, since it’s what you wanted, though selfishly of course I’m pleased. Father and Toby are rowing all the time about Toby enlisting. I’ve never seen Father so angry. Last night after dinner I heard them shouting. I keep out of it. Father thinks he should go on with his medical training, says he’ll be far more use to his country as a doctor than he ever would be as a half-trained, cack-handed soldier, but of course Toby doesn’t want to miss the fun, he’s got the rest of his life to be a doctor.

We have first-aid classes in the town too. Mother tries to drag me off to them, but so far I’ve managed to resist. I do sympathize with your sense of being stared at and questioned all the time. I feel it too — though in a milder way, there isn’t the same pressure on girls, but it’s still made perfectly clear that painting’s a trivial occupation and ought to be set aside in favour of bandaging Mrs Dalton-Smith’s fat ankles — though what doing that contributes to the war effort God only knows.

I am painting again, though not with much conviction, it’s more a feeling of defiance. I won’t let Mrs Dalton-Smith’s ankles win.

Paul To Elinor

I was sorry to hear of Toby’s battle with your father. Of course, your father’s right. It would be more sensible to stay at medical school, but Toby wants the adventure. So do I, to be honest — or part of me does. Another part knows perfectly well I’d hate every minute of it. I’m not in the least militaristic, I’ve no desire to kill or injure anybody, but if I could wave a magic wand and be out there now, I wouldn’t hesitate.

I’m glad you’re painting again. It’s more than I’ve managed to do. I can’t keep still. Twice a day sometimes I walk into town to buy newspapers or look at the mobilization order on the Town Hall door — in case it says something different from what it said last time. But I see the doctor again tomorrow, and I think he’ll say I’m fit enough to come to London. If not I think I might come anyway. I’ve applied to the Belgian Red Cross and Neville seems to think I stand a good chance. So perhaps I’ll see you again soon.