Pat Barker - Life Class

Elinor to Paul

Ruthie forwarded your letter. I’m staying in this tiny cottage with Catherine. I’m so tired of the war, Paul. Rows at home and then you go to London and there’s no escaping it there either. At least here you can forget it some of the time.

It was quite a last-minute decision. We just packed our bags and walked out on it all and here we are. Free. In a tiny cottage down a long narrow lane which starts off by the church. You can see the spire over the trees. In fact, the Vicar’s our landlord. I don’t know how long we’ll stay but it’s very cheap and quite tucked away. One bedroom, with two little dormer windows. As you look up at the cottage from the front they peer out under the eaves like the eyes of a Shetland pony. Do you agree that houses have expressions? Some houses look quite mad, this one looks interested and friendly and a bit wild.

Downstairs there’s one big room flooded with light because it’s got windows on both sides. Hollyhocks and sunflowers in the garden. As sunflowers die they look more and more like old men, the stalks develop a hunched back and the seeds fold in on themselves the way old people’s mouths do when they haven’t any teeth. Look at one, you’ll see what I mean. I’ve got two on the kitchen table where I’m writing and I draw them all the time.

I want to try to give you a flavour of our lives here because I’m happier than I’ve ever been before. On the other side of the garden fence there’s lovely countryside and everything’s fresh, not like London. Every possible shade of green and blue and gold and in the afternoons when the birds stop singing there’s total silence. Just the hum of bees in the foxgloves, they start at the top and tumble down from flower to flower. Last night we had a picnic, cheese and bread and apples and a big bottle of cider and when it was dark we went out on to the lawn in our nightdresses and danced. I can still turn cartwheels, Paul, so you see I’m not an old woman yet, though sometimes I feel like one. On the other side of the wall there’s a cornfield with cornflowers and poppies. We walked all the way round the edge in the moonlight and the poppies looked black and the corn was silver. It made me shiver to look at it. We keep the cider cool by putting it in a bucket of water under the sink. I’m full of cider now and my lips are swollen, I think I must look like a fish. I am so happy, but Catherine keeps yawning and saying it’s time for bed, so I must close.

The atmosphere at home is terrible, Toby said father can’t stop him serving his country in any way he damn well chooses, but the fact is he does want and need Father’s approval, and so far Dad simply won’t budge. He says war should be left to professional soldiers and all these half-trained boys running about all over the place are more trouble than they’re worth. I don’t know. I side with Toby because he’s my brother and we’ve always stuck together, but the fact is, I don’t want him to go either. More than anything I resent the way the war takes over all our lives. It’s like a single bullying voice shouting all the other voices down.

I wish you could come here, Paul. It would be lovely to see you, I do miss you, but now I’m just about to start writing real nonsense so it’s high time I went to bed.

Love, Elinor.

Elinor to Paul

Yes, I know, two letters in one day! I expect they’ll arrive in the same post, but I simply have to write again because something really awful has happend. We’ve been thrown out! The Vicar turned up, walking across the fields in his long black hassock (cassock?) — don’t know, doesn’t matter — his black gown, binding with briars my joys and desires. He said the Parish Council had brought it to his attention, etc. Oh, he was squirming, he didn’t know where to look. But the upshot of it is, they want us out. Can’t rent the cottage to a German. Catherine signed the rental agreement. Stein, of course. I nearly suggested she call herself Stone, but I didn’t dare, it seems such an insult to ask somebody to change their name. Apparently I’m welcome to stay to the end of the month, but Catherine must go. Of course I’m going with her ! And so here we are, suitcases packed, waiting for the cart to take us to the station.

Catherine’s gone very quiet. I rant and rave and stomp up and down, but I know it’s no use, really. I’m still quite shocked. It seems so … I don’t know, un-English.

Anyway, there it is. We’re coming back to London so we shall be able to see each other after all.

I’m sending this to your home address though I suppose you may have already have left by now. Oh dear, what a muddle it all is. I can’t wait to see you, now more than ever. Elinor.

The last thing Paul had expected to feel was nostalgia, but as he stood in the entrance to the Domino Room, taking in the crimson velvet, the gilt, the flickering candles, the caryatids, the cupids, the whole grandiose, but cosy, feel of the place, he did feel a ripple of affection. So many evenings spent here, most of them with Teresa. He waited for the pang of regret, but it didn’t come. If anything he felt relived.

Finding an empty table, he sat down, looking around, trying to work out what had changed. There was an edginess about the place now: excitement, and fear. Not fear of disfigurement or death — most of the people in this room were at no risk of either — no, fear of being irrelevant. He looked from table to table, recognizing famous and not-so-famous faces, and what he sensed was a toxic mixture of excitement and paralysis. Though he only recognized it here because to a certain extent he’d felt exactly that himself, before he’d made himself start working again.

Neville was the first person to speak to him. ‘Hello,’ he said, coming over and shaking hands warmly, laying his free hand on Paul’s shoulder in that domineering way of his. ‘Elinor says you’ve been ill. You all right now?’

‘Fine. You?’

‘Oh you know, toddling on.’

He was looking round the room as he spoke. Paul suspected he was searching for more important people to talk to, but he showed no inclination to move on.

‘What’ll you have?’

‘Whisky please.’

Neville gave the order. ‘I suppose you’re up for the Red Cross interview?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘You’ll be all right.’

‘When do you leave?’

‘Two, three weeks.’ He seized his whisky from the waiter’s tray. ‘Did you try to enlist?’

‘They wouldn’t have me. What about you?’

‘Went to see my own medical man. He told me not to waste my time. Anyway, the sooner I get started the better.’

‘Driving an ambulance?’

‘Painting, you fool.’

‘Will you be close to the fighting?’

‘As close as I can get.’ He was not so much drinking as throwing it back. ‘My father’s been out there twice already. He went to one hospital where there were five hundred men lying on straw, covered in piss and shit — some of them hadn’t had their wounds dressed in a fortnight. No anaesthetics, no disinfectant, nothing. Whole place stank of gangrene. As far as I can make out the medical services have been completely overwhelmed.’

‘And that’s what you’re going to paint?’

‘I’ll paint whatever’s there.’

‘You really do see it as a painting opportunity, don’t you?’

‘Too bloody right I do.’

Paul caught a movement by the door. Elinor had come in, and, just behind her, Catherine. The girls hesitated, gazing nervously round the room. Elinor smiled when she saw Paul waving and came over at once, with none of the pauses to greet people that he remembered from the past. He leaned forward to embrace her. Her cheek was cool, even in this heat, and her scent reminded him of fresh linen sheets.