Pat Barker - Toby's Room

The bored-looking waiter arrived with two plates of game pie and they spent the next few minutes stoically picking shotgun pellets out of lumps of strong-tasting and unidentifiable meat. They smiled at each other’s efforts, but didn’t bother to comment.

‘Have you seen Elinor recently?’ she asked.

‘Yes, the weekend before last.’

‘How is she?’

‘Tired. Working too hard.’

‘Well, at least she can work. I couldn’t. I mean, after Father died. I couldn’t concentrate.’

‘She told me once if Toby was killed she’d go back home and paint, you know, paint the places they’d grown up in together. And that’s exactly what she’s done — only I think she’s worn herself out in the process. I’m actually quite worried about her. I wish she’d come to London.’

‘She’d be very welcome to stay with me, but I’ve told her that already.’

‘She’s obsessed with finding out how Toby died.’

Catherine went very still. ‘Yes, I know.’

‘She wrote to Kit Neville, twice in fact, and he didn’t reply. Did you know they were serving together?’

‘I believe Kit mentioned it once.’

‘So you do still hear from him?’

‘Well, yes, now and then.’

‘It seems so out of character … I mean, not replying.’

‘I don’t know. Kit can be very awkward.’

‘Oh, yes, but surely … I’ve been in this position and whatever you thought about the man you cobble something together for the sake of the relatives. It’s just not acceptable.’

She shrugged. ‘Kit was so kind to me when my father was interned, I find it very hard to think badly of him.’

He watched her add another pellet to the heap on the side of her plate, letting the silence pile up around them, forcing her to go on.

‘You know, we were walking down Oxford Street once and it was the night of that very big raid. Do you remember?’

‘I was in France.’

‘I don’t know how many people died in the raid — too many — and there was this Zeppelin just hanging there, and that awful throbbing sound they make … Oxford Street was crowded, people just looking up, open-mouthed, staring. And suddenly it caught fire, a great whoosh of flame all over it, and everybody cheered. All the people in shop doorways, cheering, cheering … And not just in Oxford Street either. There were people cheering all over London. And I just stood there and watched it burn, and I thought what a terrible death. It could’ve been my cousins in there, I haven’t heard from them since the war started, I don’t know if they’re still alive …’ She pushed her plate away. ‘That was the moment I stopped being British.’

‘What did Kit do?’

‘Put his arm round me, took me home.’ She laughed. ‘Asked me to marry him.’

Did he ask every girl he knew to marry him? This was the second proposal Paul had heard about in the last ten days. ‘What did you say?’

‘Ask me again when the war’s over. I mean, it was kind of him, but … Kindness isn’t enough, is it?’

Kind? Well, yes, but there’d have been another force at work: Neville’s strange need to be an outsider. There he was: quite possibly the most famous artist of his generation — the toast of London, no less — only, being Neville, he’d have felt compelled to engineer his own rejection, and what better way of doing that than marriage to a German?

Paul realized the silence had gone on too long. ‘No, it’s not enough.’

They contemplated pudding, but decided not to risk it and ordered coffee instead. The owner didn’t mind how little they ate; he was resigned to the collapse of his business and far too drunk to care. The waiter went back to leaning against the wall and picking at his spots. Paul looked at him: too young for conscription. With any luck he might miss it altogether and spend the rest of his life wondering how he would have measured up.

‘Sixteen,’ she said.

He looked at her.

‘The waiter. Sixteen.’

‘Yes, about that.’

He felt very comfortable with her. Always before, there’d been a slight tension between them, the unspoken knowledge that in different circumstances they might have been lovers. Now the awkwardness was gone. She was leaning towards him over the table, her hand almost touching his. A faint, musky scent clung to her dress, not the usual roses or violets, something much darker, at odds with her delicate features and fair hair. He was intensely aware of her body under the plain dress, of the breasts he’d seen, and not seen.

She was restless under his scrutiny. ‘Perhaps we’d better be going,’ she said.

As he helped her on with her coat, his mouth was only inches away from the nape of her neck, that secret groove she never saw. Careful . They said goodnight to the owner, who managed to raise his drooping eyelids long enough to acknowledge their departure. Paul opened the door and the bell chimed as they stepped out into the night.

The cold air restored a certain formality, though after a few yards of walking along the uneven pavements in virtually total darkness Catherine’s hand came up and nestled in the crook of his arm. He liked that. It was a good feeling to be strolling along beside her, adjusting his stride to hers.

‘Do you mind if we walk for a bit?’ she asked.

‘No, I’d love to.’

It was getting late. The houses in the moonlight seemed insubstantial. Only the moon was real, pouring white acid on to the streets, dissolving cabs, trams, motor cars, offices and shops in its cold stream. Its light seemed to form a brittle crust over the city, like the clear fluid that oozes from a wound. He suggested they should go for a walk on the Heath and she nodded without speaking. Once they’d left the shelter of the buildings behind, the moon emerged in its full murderous magnificence. They stood with their heads back and their mouths slightly open, drinking it in.

‘Makes you wonder about the blackout, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘I mean, if you were up there now in a Zeppelin you’d be able to see absolutely everything.’

Something in her voice made him shiver. He wondered if her father’s death and the prolonged isolation of her life had made her change sides: she’d said she no longer felt British. So perhaps he was walking with the enemy? Oh, what nonsense. Catherine, whom he’d known since she was, what — seventeen, eighteen? The enemy?

They stopped on top of the hill. He’d often visited this spot before the war, looking down on a city laid out before him in all its brilliance. He’d been so full of hope then, of vague, cloudy ambitions: the life he was going to lead, the pictures he was going to paint. He didn’t despise that boy. Of course, he should’ve been at the Slade, hard at work, exposing himself, day by day, to the brutal gap that opens up between aspiration and reality the moment you put brush on canvas; but the dreams are necessary too.

Catherine was silent. She’d taken her hand from his arm and left a small, lonely space there. Trying to pull her back, he said, ‘You know, I used to love coming here, before the war. You could see all the little villages lit up like fireflies.’

Somewhere in the distance whistles began to blow.

‘I hate that noise,’ she said.

‘Me too.’ In the trenches, whistles blowing signalled the start of an attack. ‘Do you remember when the raids first started, there used to be boy scouts with trumpets cycling round the streets?’

‘God, yes, they were funny.’

But her smile faded quickly. Looking up, he saw that a second moon had appeared. So beautiful, so ethereal, it seemed that awful drumming sound must be coming from somewhere else. A second later came the flash and roar of guns. The ground shook. He’d have liked to play the battle-hardened veteran, but couldn’t stop himself flinching. Quickly bringing himself under control, he put an arm round her shoulder. ‘It’s all right,’ he kept saying. ‘It’s all right.’