Pat Barker - Life Class

‘Well,’ said Neville.

After greeting each other like long-lost brothers, there was an immediate awkwardness of not finding anything to say.

‘How are you?’ Paul asked.

‘Oh, pretty well. The old rheumatiz is playing up a bit.’ He probed his left shoulder as if for confirmation. ‘And you?’

‘All right. Have you been doing any painting?’

‘Not much. I’ve got masses of drawings, though. I’ve got to get back home and do some serious work.’

‘Are you still at the same hospital?’

‘No, they’ve put me in charge of the German wounded at another hospital. Like a fool, I admitted to speaking German.’

‘What’s that like?’

‘Not bad. Some of the younger ones come in fighting mad, but I generally manage to get them on my side. I help them to write home. Oh, and I met one who used to be a waiter at the Russell Square Hotel. He was working there when I used to drink there so he must have poured me many a glass of whisky, though I can’t say I remember him. But he speaks good English so I’ve more or less recruited him on to the staff. It’ll be a blow when he has to leave.’

‘I thought you were going into ambulance driving?’

‘Bloody shoulder put paid to that. I only lasted a week. The steering’s so heavy you wouldn’t believe. When you come off shift you don’t feel you’ve been driving. Feels like you’ve gone fifteen rounds with an all-in wrestler. By the way, that’s strictly between the two of us, you understand?’

Paul was puzzled until he realized that nursing enemy soldiers, however necessary, and even admirable, the work might be, didn’t fit in very well with Neville’s desire to present himself as a daring war artist risking his life daily on the front line.

‘You won’t tell anybody?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘You see, the thing is, I was a rotten ambulance driver, but I seem to be pretty good with the wounded, only …’

‘I won’t say anything.’

How strange to find that Neville possessed the qualities needed in a good orderly, and how typical of him to be ashamed of them. He seemed to be under enormous pressure. Even in this short exchange it was possible to tell that he was drunk. Oh, not incapable, far from it, he had an immense capacity, but his speech was just beginning to be slurred. Certainly, his inhibitions were gone. He belched several times loudly and made no attempt to apologize or cover his mouth. Since the carafe in front of him was still almost full, it was evidently not the first. He was staring at Paul, almost aggressively. Pale fish-eyes, caught in a net of red veins.

Neville raised his glass in a toast.

‘What are we drinking to?’ Paul asked.

‘Elinor.’

Immediately, Paul felt a strong sense of her presence sitting in the empty chair between them.

‘Do you hear from her at all?’

‘Yes, now and then. Do you?’

He knew Neville didn’t. Elinor had said they’d lost touch.

‘Now and then. And Catherine keeps me in touch with what’s going on.’

‘How is Catherine?’

‘Bloody awful, I should think. How would you feel if your father was locked up?

‘I thought you and she were…?’

‘No point, old chap. Can’t decide anything like that while this bloody war’s dragging on. So, you hear from Elinor, do you?’

Did he know she’d been here? He couldn’t know, unless she’d told him and she wouldn’t do that. Though she might have confided in Catherine and Catherine might well have mentioned it to Kit. The more he thought about it, the more probable it seemed. But then Elinor had said she’d told nobody except Ruthie. She’d also said she didn’t write to Kit. God, what a muddle, and he was being dragged into it. Even not mentioning her visit was a lie. Well, stop that.

‘Yes, I do. She writes quite frequently.’

They stared at each other, the earlier effusion of friendship forgotten. Paul knew there was something in this situation he was failing to grasp, and that made him uneasy. It didn’t help that his head was full of cotton wool. He couldn’t think.

Suddenly Kit laughed, a great wheezing belly laugh that turned into a cough and came embarrassingly close to tears. God, he was drunk.

‘Shall I tell you something?’ Neville said.

‘About Elinor? I think I’d rather you didn’t. If it’s something she wants me to know I expect she’ll tell me herself.’

He was afraid of being told she’d slept with Neville. Neville was just about drunk enough to say it.

‘For Elinor men come in twos. Always did. Right back when I first knew her at St Martin’s, it was two brothers then, can’t for the life of me remember their names, anyway, doesn’t matter. Point is, she wouldn’t fancy either of us if it wasn’t for the other.’

‘I don’t think that’s true.

‘I know it is. Those brothers she ran around with, playing one off against the other, she didn’t give a damn for either of them. That’s it, you see.’ He was leaning forward, blinking those muculent eyes of his, ‘I don’t think Elinor actually loves anybody. Her brother, of course, but that’s different. And Catherine.’

Paul made a sudden jerky movement, scraping his glass across the table.

‘Yes, Catherine,’ Neville said.

Leaning across the table like that, he looked like something Breughel might have painted. He was enjoying his little feast of drunken malice, but how much pain there was underneath. Clown he might be, but he was a talented clown, and his love for Elinor was real. Now, with an enormous effort, he raised his glass to the empty chair. ‘Elinor. Our Lady of Triangles.’

Paul thoughts were scattered across the table like spilled pins, every one of them sharp enough to hurt. He needed to get away from Neville as fast as possible and since Neville was sinking rapidly into a morose stupor it wasn’t difficult to disengage. Paul left him sitting there, scarcely capable of raising a hand to wave farewell.

Outside a sleety rain was falling. He raised his face to it, enjoying the cold splashes on his skin. The town was in almost total darkness. The streets were chasms where nothing moved but a car slinking along the gutter. He was feeling so ill now he wondered if he should return to the hospital, but the room was so much closer and he wanted to lie down. The thought of walking all that way in the cold wet night was more than he could bear. He turned his coat collar up, thrust his hands deep into his pockets and strode on through the dark. His footsteps ringing out across the cobbles proclaimed his loneliness. If only Elinor was there waiting for him, but she was miles and miles away, never further than tonight. Triangles, what nonsense, Neville was jealous, that was all.

A light still burned in Madame Drouet’s living room, but it was too late to put his head round the door and say goodnight. He trudged upstairs until he reached the room where his draped painting waited on the easel. He mustn’t look at it. Not now, not tonight. He was too afraid of finding out that it was rubbish, that he’d been deluding himself in thinking there was something there. Meeting Neville had done him no good. Quite apart from his slur on Elinor, Neville had thrust him back to those evenings in the Café Royal, where Neville was famous and he was an unknown art student, and an unsuccessful one at that.

Sitting on the bed, he took off his shoes and socks. He meant to undress completely, but he was feeling weaker by the minute and ended by crawling under the eiderdown still half dressed. With an effort he turned off the light. The easel immediately took a step closer. He turned over on to his right side to avoid seeing it, but that made him feel even more uneasy. It was ridiculous of course, but he felt the need to keep an eye on it. In some mysterious way it become menacing. Like the faces he’d seen in the wallpaper when he was a small boy confined to bed with pneumonia. He shivered, thinking of deep, cold, dirty water, but then gradually his eyes closed. For a long time he hovered on the edge of sleep, dimly aware that the shrouded mummy in his painting had stepped out of the frame and was standing by his bed.