Pat Barker - Toby's Room

She knelt beside the bed and pressed her face against the tunic, feeling the rough cloth scrape her cheek: the slight shock of it, like the roughness of his chin in life. Close to, like this, she caught the faint smell of his body underneath all the other smells. A giant hand got hold of her heart and squeezed. She stroked the cloth, the skin of her fingertips clicking on the threads, and then heard, or felt, something else: a crackle of paper from the lower-left pocket. She delved into it as deep as she could and found a hole in the lining, big enough to get two fingers through. There was a piece of paper there. Grasping it in a scissor movement, she manoeuvred it up into the light.

Some sort of list — medical supplies. She could have wept with disappointment, but then she turned the page over and saw her own name.

Elinor — I’ve had two goes at this already, so this is it, has to be, because we’re moving forward soon and there’ll be no time for writing after that. There’s no way of saying this without sounding melodramatic, and I really don’t think I am. In fact, I feel rather down-to-earth and matter-of-fact about it all. I don’t think I would even mind very much, except I know it’s going to be a shock to you — and I can’t think of any way of softening the blow.

I won’t be coming back this time. This isn’t a premonition or anything like that. I can’t even explain why. I used to think officers’ letters weren’t censored, but they are sometimes, not by the people here, but back at base. They do random checks or something, and I can’t afford to risk that. I hate not being able to tell you. If you ever want to know more, I suggest you ask your friend Kit Neville — assuming he survives, and I’m sure he will. He’s been no friend to me. I know you’ll take care of Mother as best you can. Father’ll be all right, I think — he’s got his work. And Rachel’s got Tim and the boys. I don’t know what to say to you. Remember

Nothing else. One word: ‘Remember’, and then nothing else. She knew at once it was impossible to go on living without knowing what had happened to him, but beyond writing to Kit again … She would write, though she knew it was useless. What else could she do? All the years she’d pushed the war out of her mind, refusing to admit it had any significance, and now her ignorance was an impassable barrier between her and what she needed to know. She had no useful contacts; her friends were almost all pacifists. When she tried to think of somebody who might be able to help, the only person she could come up with was Paul. He had contacts in the army, and might know how to set about getting more information. And he and Kit were friends — rather prickly, competitive friends, it was true, but friends nevertheless. Only, after the grudging ten minutes she’d spent at his bedside in hospital, how could she possibly ask him for help?

But Paul was Paul: he wouldn’t hold that against her. And however little was left of love between them she knew she could rely on his kindness. Paul, then, it must be.

Paul landed heavily on the platform and had to stand still for a moment, clenching his teeth against the pain. His fellow passengers stared down at him until, with a cough and wheeze, the train pulled away and their pale faces were replaced by reflections of sky. He drew a deep breath, waiting for the pain to subside, and then looked around him. The station was deserted. The blue paint on the waiting-room door was cracked and blistered; grass grew between the flagstones in the small yard. The last time he’d been here was with Kit Neville, August Bank Holiday weekend, 1914, the last few days and hours of peace. They’d been met, then, by a pony and trap. Not much hope of that now. He shouldered his kitbag and set off to walk.

As he pushed open the gate, the first thin blowing of rain met him and, before he’d gone a hundred yards, it was pelting down. On either side of the lane, the ploughed fields had become a waste of mud; black, leafless trees were stencilled on to a white sky. Everything he saw, everything he felt, seemed to be filtered through his memories of the front line, as if a thin wash had been laid over his perceptions of this scene. Columns of sleety rain marched across the fields while, in the distance, grey clouds massed for another attack. Somehow or other, he had to connect with the present, but he found it almost impossible. Turning to look back down the lane, he saw the pony and trap of that pre-war visit turn the corner and come towards him, the fat, chestnut pony twitching its skin against the flies. And there, on the left-hand side of the trap, was his younger self, staring up into the green canopy above his head. There’d been a smell of hot tar, of warm dust on nettles. A bluebottle had zoomed drunkenly about, trying to settle on his upper lip. He remembered it all so vividly, and yet he couldn’t get back inside the mind of that young man. Boy, really, though he would not have said so. He’d been recovering from a love affair with one of the models at the Slade; no doubt he’d thought his heart was broken, though actually he’d been more than ready to fall in love again. And there in the farmhouse, waiting for them, was Elinor; and beside him, in the trap, was Kit Neville, who also loved her.

Three years and many lifetimes later, Paul watched the trap carrying two raw, hopeful young men reach the crest of the hill and dip into the hollow beyond it, and then, forcing his stiffening leg to move, he turned and limped after it.

It had become a preoccupation of his — almost an obsession — working out how the war had changed him; other people too, of course. He never managed to talk openly about it, not even to men he’d served with, perhaps because, for him, the changes had been mainly sexual. The young man in the trap had been a romantic: deferential, almost timid, in his approach to women. Three years later, he’d become coarser, less scrupulous, his behaviour verged, at times, on the predatory. For two years, his relationship with Elinor had protected him, but then her letters had become shorter, colder, until eventually she’d stopped writing altogether; after that, he’d regarded himself as free to take what he wanted.

Ahead of him, the farmhouse appeared and disappeared behind waves of rain, like an outcrop of rocks at low tide. The last hundred yards was up a steep hill. When, at last, he reached the gate he paused, not wanting to arrive breathless and in pain from the cramping of his leg. It was a full five minutes before he was ready to go on, and then he was aware, as he trudged up the drive, of a face looking down at him from an upstairs window. Elinor. A girl’s face at an upstairs window, framed by ivy leaves. It seemed like the beginning of a story, though after her silence of the last few months their story must surely be drawing to a close. One visit to the hospital. One . People he hardly knew had visited more often than that. And then, during his stay in a convalescent home in Dorset, when he’d been bored almost to distraction: no letters, no card, nothing. Right, he’d thought. That was that. Over.

And then, out of the blue, this invitation to spend a weekend at the farmhouse. Not with her parents either; the note had made it clear they’d be alone. But no warmth in the note, no expression of love or longing, no hint that she continued to feel for him what he still felt for her. He’d found the tone chilling — and yet it hadn’t occurred to him not to accept.

Outside the door, he paused again. He was just raising his hand to knock when the door opened and there stood a tall, thin girl dressed in black. It took him a second to recognize her. ‘Elinor.’

‘Paul.’

A moment’s uncertainty, then she raised her face for him to kiss. Her lips were as dry and cracked as baked mud and she pulled away from him immediately.