Pat Barker - Toby's Room

‘Protein,’ she said, drily. ‘Don’t waste it.’

‘I’ll stick to the rabbit, if you don’t mind.’

After they’d finished eating, they returned to sit by the fire. She was drinking quickly, always an encouraging sign, and as she drank some colour returned to her cheeks and her cheekbones looked a little less sharp, but she was much too thin. Her breasts hardly lifted the cotton blouse, though he caught the shadows of her nipples as she leaned forward to refill his glass.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘I was trying to remember the first time I saw you.’

‘It would’ve been in the Antiques Room, surely?’

‘No, I mean, really saw you. Saw you , saw you. You were running down Gower Street with the girls —’

Her lips curved. ‘Oh, the wild girls —’

‘And you must’ve got a stone in your shoe or something because you suddenly stopped and took it off, and you had these black stockings on, and there was a great big hole in the heel and all this pink skin peeping out. I thought it was the most erotic thing I’d ever seen.’

She burst out laughing. ‘Paul, that is pathetic .’

‘No, it’s not —’

‘You were drawing naked women every day.’

‘Nudity’s not all that interesting. Your heel — that was the thing.’

Self-consciously, she tucked her feet under the chair. She sipped her wine, not looking at him, but she was aware of him now, and, more importantly, she was aware of herself, of her nipples rubbing against the rough cotton of her blouse, of the tops of her thighs pressed moistly together under the thick woollen skirt. Feeling his gaze on her, she put a hand up to the nape of her neck.

‘You’re growing it again.’

‘Not really, I just can’t be bothered to get it cut.’

He began deliberately to talk about the past. The weekend war broke out they’d all been together in this house: Elinor, Toby, Kit and himself. Blazing hot, he remembered it, and as the dusty, late-summer days passed, the news from London had become grimmer.

‘I remember,’ she said. ‘I looked out of the window and you and Dad were on the terrace talking about it.’

‘Oh, and Toby’s friend was staying too — what was his name?’

‘Andrew? He was killed in 1915. It changed Toby, there was always a kind of sadness about him after that.’

‘They were revising, weren’t they? And the rest of us all went off to see a church. The Doom. And on the way back Kit fell off his bike. Do you remember?’

‘Yes — he asked me to marry him.’

‘Then?’

‘Lying on the ground like a wounded hero.’

‘I didn’t know that. The slithy tove.’

‘Did you ever see him out there?’

‘Once, in Ypres. That was back in — oh, I don’t know. December, ’14? He was incredibly drunk, and we spent the entire evening talking about you.’

‘Hmm, did you? I’m glad I wasn’t a fly on that wall.’

‘All very flattering.’ Though it hadn’t been. Our Lady of Triangles, Neville had called her, and he certainly hadn’t meant it as a compliment. Well, no triangles now: just a strange, solitary woman obsessively painting her dead brother. ‘This is good,’ he said, taking another sip of the wine.

She’d eaten well, and the food seemed to have lightened her mood. She sat more easily, smiled more naturally. He wasn’t absolutely sure, but he thought she might have run a comb through her hair.

After coffee, they spent a few minutes walking in the garden. A full moon threw their linked shadows across the lawn, but the temperature was falling rapidly and he was glad when she suggested they should go back inside. In the doorway, he paused, looking at the room they were about to enter: shadows flickering on the walls, pools of golden light around the lamps, two wine glasses side by side on the table. Whatever else happened tonight, he would remember this.

And what was going to happen was agonizingly difficult to predict. They took their glasses through to the drawing room. She sat at the piano, he joined her there, their hips and thighs almost, but not quite, touching. He could hardly play at all and she was by no means the accomplished young lady her mother had no doubt wished to produce, but together they managed to cobble together a medley of music-hall favourites, improvised, talked, laughed, sang, drank, before finally sinking into two armchairs. Suddenly, neither of them could think of anything to say. In the silence, he heard the clock ticking towards midnight.

He reached out and took her hand, feeling her finger bones crunch as he tightened his grip. ‘How long have you been here on your own?’

‘I don’t know, I’ve lost track. Mother’s staying with Rachel.’

‘How is she?’

‘Not good. To begin with she just seemed … dazed. Lay on the sofa all day, didn’t get dressed … They all thought I ought to stay and look after her, but …’ She shook her head. ‘We’d have killed each other in a week.’

That hardness in her. It was growing, he thought.

‘Anyway, she’s happier there. She’s got the grandchildren. Children help because they don’t understand, they live in the present. Animals too. He ’s been wonderful.’ She nodded at Hobbes, who raised his head, then lowered it again with a groan, keeping his bloodshot eyes fixed on her. ‘Never says the wrong thing because he never says anything.’

‘Doesn’t it help to talk?’

‘Well, you know. You must’ve lost people …?’

‘It’s not the same out there.’

She was waiting for him to go on, and that was new. For the first time ever she’d asked him a question about the war.

‘Chap out there — Barnes, he was called, Titus Barnes. God knows why his parents thought they had the right to inflict that on him. Anyway, he got hit in the head, one side blown off. It was a couple of days before we could get to see him. And of course we all sat round and listened to him snore, it was pretty grim, we knew he wouldn’t live — the puzzle was why he was still alive — and we’d all liked him. But then we had to go, and by the time we’d gone a hundred yards we were laughing and joking as if nothing had happened.’ He looked at her averted face. ‘Sorry, I know it sounds harsh, but there’s not a lot of point grieving when you know you’re going to be next.’

He couldn’t tell what she thought. She was looking down at the dregs of wine in her glass, swishing them from side to side. ‘Can I get you another?’

She came to stand beside him while he poured. As he handed her the glass his hand touched hers and he felt her shiver. Gently, he ran his forefinger up her arm, tracking the groove between radius and ulna, pressing hard enough to produce a wave-like motion in her flesh. She didn’t pull away. He took the glass from her, set it down on the table and, cradling her face between his hands, began to kiss her, gently at first, barely brushing his lips against hers, letting their breaths mingle, afraid that any sudden movement would send her scurrying away. But then, she began to kiss him back. Soon their arms were twined around each other and he could feel the edge of her ribcage pressing into his chest; he was more aware of that than of her breasts. Her dry skin rubbed against his, as thirsty as sand. His hands slid down to her hips, tilting her pelvis towards him, his mouth found the hollow at the base of her throat …

Instantly, she pushed him away. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t. Don’t ask me, I just can’t.’

‘All right.’ He had to force the words out, producing in the process a hard, scratchy little laugh that shaded uncertainly into tenderness. ‘But at least let’s sit together, you seem terribly far away over there.’