Pat Barker - Another World

A long silence. When he starts to speak again it’s in a more reflective tone.

GEORDIE: One thing they drilled into you: you don’t stop for the wounded, never stop for them, doesn’t matter who it is, you don’t stop. You don’t go back for them, you don’t risk your life for them, you don’t risk anybody else’s life. And of course they’d got to drill it in, because the natural thing is to look after them. You’ve been living together, training together. But at this stage, you know, we were still innocent. In lots of ways, I think we were. And there was a feeling that with brothers, it was different. You were almost expected to do it. And so when I said I wanted to go out, nobody stopped me. I’m scooping up mud, it’s cold, I’m rubbing it on me face and the backs of me hands, and then I’m off. It’s like being naked. Out there, I mean. It’s like the trench walls are part of your body and when they’re not there any more you feel… skinned. Harry shouts — I’m virtually sure this is true — ‘Don’t come out.’ But of course I keep going. Just as I’m crawling the last few feet a flare goes up, he’s screaming, all I can see is the mouth, little blue slitty eyes, and his guts are hanging out. I touch his leg. He knows I’m there because he goes still. I suppose he might have thought I’d come to take him back. And then he starts screaming again and that’s easier because I know I’ve got to stop him making that noise. I’m crawling up his side, all I can see is the open mouth, and my fingers are digging into his chest, finding the right place and then I ram the knife in and the screaming stops.

Silence. Nick looks at Helen, and sees from her face now how she floundered and groped for words then.

HELEN: It must be terrible to kill somebody you love.GEORDIE: Yes, it must be.

Helen was closer to the microphone than Geordie. Nick hears the intake of breath.

HELEN: You didn’t hate him.GEORDIE: Didn’t I?HELEN: You said yourself you were proud of him.GEORDIE: I was proud of him when I was a kid, some of the time. The rest of the time I hated him.HELEN: But that’s a child’s hatred, Geordie. Kids are always saying they hate people, they wish they were dead, but they don’t mean it. They don’t act on it.GEORDIE: They don’t get the chance, do they, most of the time? But — HELEN: Yes?GEORDIE: It’s not that. You see, when I’m remembering all this, it’s like falling through a trapdoor into another room, and it’s still going on. I don’t remember the mud on my face, I feel it, it’s cold, gritty. And I see everything like that, until I get to Harry’s wounds. And then what I see in my mind’s eye is something like fatty meat coming out of a mincing machine. And you know I’ve seen lots of men disembowelled, and it’s not like that. It’s… I know that what I remember seeing is false. It can’t have been like that, and so the one thing I need to remember clearly, I can’t. Nothing vague about it, you understand. It’s as clear as this hand… only it’s wrong. So how do I know I couldn’t have got him back?HELEN: How do you know it wasn’t murder?GEORDIE: Yes, that’s it. Exactly that.

Helen presses stop and ejects the tape. Nick says, ‘ “I am in hell.”’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you think that’s survivor’s guilt?’

‘No.’ She ignores the spurt of aggression. ‘I think it’s pretty much what happened.’

‘And he was alone with that. There was never anybody to say, “You did the right thing.”’

‘No, all he had to go on was his own memory. And it let him down.’

‘You know that bit about the mud, actually still feeling it? I think I finally understand something, because I don’t remember him saying: “I am in hell.” I hear him say it. Quite loud, almost shouting. I was pulling out at the top roundabout, and…’ He makes as if to hit himself in the eye. It’s easy to tell her about the voice. What he can’t tell her about is the scent of Antaeus, though it’s been in the room since he arrived, and it’s growing stronger by the minute.

She comes closer, and stands looking down at him, clinking the ice cubes round her glass, groping for something to say that will carry some comfort. ‘You can’t sum up a person’s life in their last words. I mean, think of all the people who must have said, “I need the bedpan.” Think of George V. “Bugger Bognor.”’

They manage a laugh. He looks up at her. Slowly, she puts the glass down. Nick feels a moment of self-doubt. He doesn’t know whether it’s the proximity of death that’s caused this overwhelming lust, or if that’s just an excuse. The scent’s overpowering now. She places her hands gently on either side of his head, muffling all sounds, all voices, even his own, and then, leaning forward, very gently, her legs between his spread thighs, she presses his head to her breasts.

Nick spends the last few hours before Geordie’s funeral tackling the house rose, cutting branches and tearing away handfuls of dead twigs and leaves. It’s a wonderful, addictive job, like eating peanuts, and it’s not possible to think of anything else at all. He’s wrestling with a particularly intractable knot when: ‘Careful,’ Miranda says, steadying the ladder, and her concern brings him back to himself. ‘Fran says it’s time to get ready.’ ‘All right, love. Tell her I won’t be long.’

He goes upstairs, changes into his funeral suit, and then goes down to greet the relatives who’re coming in the cars to church. They’d decided to leave the coffin lid open, and now he’s glad of it, for most of the mourners are old enough to want to observe the custom of saying goodbye to the dead face to face. Nick’s reluctant to go into the room himself. He’s not sure he can bring himself to search for further changes of expression, but in the end he does. Miranda stands by the coffin stoically lifting the face cloth for each one as they come and go. ‘Doesn’t he look peaceful?’ they all say, because it’s what you do say, as conventional a response as wishing a bride happiness. Nick looks at Geordie’s face and hears his voice again: ‘I am in hell.’

It’s accompanied him throughout the five days since Geordie’s death, like a cerebral parasite. He wakes in the morning knowing he’s heard it in his sleep. He stands by the coffin, resting his hand on the polished wood, and prays for silence.

They all retreat into the kitchen while the undertakers’ men take the coffin out, then troop down the drive and into the cars. Driving with Frieda in the first car Nick fixes his eyes on the hearse in front with the pale wooden coffin and its white wreaths on top. Barbara’s sent flowers, which is good of her, she needn’t have bothered, and there are bouquets of spring flowers from the great-grandchildren.

Walking into church behind the coffin, shuffling slowly along, he’s aware of faces. No more than three rows full in the front of the church, but then, leaving a respectful gap between themselves and the family, come the packed rows of neighbours, and friends from the British Legion: the seventy- and eighty-year-olds for whom he’d been a kind of mascot, presiding, ramrod straight, over their increasingly stooped and bowed gatherings.

I know that my redeemer liveth and that he shall stand in the last day upon the earth .

Following the coffin down the aisle, Nick wonders whether Geordie had believed anything so grand. Somehow the subject of religion never came up. He’d not been able to answer any of the Vicar’s questions about Geordie’s beliefs. They file into the pew. Nick’s relieved when the intoning of these certainties is over, and the hymn begins. In the choice of hymns they’d been on firmer ground. Geordie was a great singer of hymns in the bath, and the more sonorous and resounding they were the better.Oh God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home.