Pat Barker - Toby's Room

‘I’ll see about the tea. Have a seat.’

He went out; she could hear his voice in the room across the corridor requesting a pot of tea and two slices of that rather nice fruit cake, do you think we could manage that? A woman’s voice replied; and then a man’s voice — not Tonks — and, finally, a rumble of conversation. Clearly, Tonks had got embroiled in hospital business.

Elinor went across to the table and looked at a pen-and-ink drawing of a patient with a gaping hole in his cheek. Presumably, Tonks’s medical drawings would be done in pen and ink — ironic, really, since he’d never made any secret of how much he hated that medium. In fact, he’d described it to her once as the least forgiving medium an artist could work in, calculated to expose every flaw in draughtsmanship. Yet she’d have recognized this as Tonks’s work from the purity of the line alone.

She wondered what lay behind the screen; probably a washbasin, something like that. But when she looked behind it she saw, instead, a whole wall full of portraits of men with hideously disfigured faces. One of them, the man with no jaw, she recognized from the corridor. Individually, each portrait would have been remarkable; displayed together like this, row upon row, they were overwhelming. She took her time, pausing in front of first one portrait, then another. Were they portraits, or were they medical illustrations? Portraits celebrate the identity of the sitter. Everything — the clothes they’ve chosen to wear, the background, the objects on a table by the chair — leads the eye back to the face. And the face is the person. Here, in these portraits, the wound was central. She found her gaze shifting continuously between torn flesh and splintered bone and the eyes of the man who had to suffer it. There was no point of rest; no pleasure in the exploration of a unique individual. Instead you were left with a question: How can any human being endure this?

Tonks came back into the room. ‘Ah, I see you’ve found my Rogues’ Gallery.’

She thought she detected reserve, even disapproval, in his voice. ‘I’m sorry, I–I realize they’re not on display.’

‘No, don’t worry, you’d be amazed how many people see them. Though I like to think they’re mainly surgeons.’ A pause. ‘I’d be quite interested to hear what you think.’

Tonks wanted her opinion of his work? That was bad enough, but the awful truth was she didn’t have one. She didn’t know how to react to images which seemed to call for several different kinds of response. In the end she just said, simply: ‘I don’t know how to look at them.’

‘Well, they are —’

‘No, I don’t mean I can’t bear to look at them; I mean, I don’t know how . I don’t know what I’m looking at — a man or a wound.’

‘Both, I hope. You know, even when I was a very young doctor going round the wards I always saw them like that. On the one hand there’s a patient with a problem you have to solve, or at least try to solve, but there’s also the person.’ He stood back, looking along the row of faces. ‘I can’t not see both.’

Somebody knocked on the door.

‘That’ll be tea, I expect. You do look rather pale. Is there anything else I can get you?’

‘No, I’m all right, thank you.’ She pointed to one of the portraits. ‘How on earth do you repair that?’

‘Actually, that’s not too difficult because basically it’s a flesh wound. This one. Well, I’m not sure even Gillies can do much for him.’ He touched her shoulder. ‘Come on, tea.’

‘How do you find the time to do all this?’ she said, when they were settled in chairs on opposite sides of his desk.

‘Not easily. I do one day a week, two if I can manage it, but it’s not nearly enough. You have to do drawings when they first arrive, then you’re in theatre during the operations, and then there are the post-op drawings. And the portraits.’ He reached for a file. ‘Of course we take photographs as well. Look at this, this is a really good result. There’s a little bit of puckering, but Gillies thinks he can get rid of that. And when you think what the poor devil came in with …’ He handed her another photograph.

‘My God. That’s amazing.’

‘He’d been very badly stitched up at another hospital. I’m afraid that’s what happened to Mr Neville.’ He offered her a slice of cake. ‘Probably stale, I’m afraid. How did you find him?’

‘Same old Kit. You know, he served in France with my brother. Kit was one of his stretcher-bearers. I was hoping he’d be able to give me some more information. You see, Toby was posted “Missing, Believed Killed” and that’s really hard. I mean, I look at one of the men there, that one … He couldn’t tell anybody who he was.’

‘He could write —’

‘It makes me wonder if it’s possible for a man to just disappear into the system, never be able to identify himself.’

‘That’s what identity discs are for.’

‘I know, I’m being silly.’

‘You’ve also got to ask yourself if you’d want your brother to be alive in that state. A lot of these men are real heroes — but I look at some of them, the worst cases, and I know if it was me I’d rather be dead.’

‘Yes, you’re right, of course. I’d only want him back if he could be the person he used to be before it all started.’

‘I’m not sure any of us can manage that.’

‘I used to think I could.’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, for a long time. I was determined I was going to ignore the whole thing.’

‘Was?’

She shook her head. ‘It gets you in the end.’

‘Have you ever thought about using your skills to … Well, do what I’m doing, I suppose?’

She almost laughed.

‘I mean, here. With these men.’

‘I’d be completely useless.’

‘You did anatomy before the war. Dissection.’

‘You’re a surgeon.’

‘Most of the artists here have no medical training. Though I suppose you might find the operations distressing …’

‘No, I don’t think I would. Actually, I know I wouldn’t, I’d be absolutely fascinated.’

‘So then, why not?’

Unconsciously, Elinor sighed. This was the usual question everybody asked her but it was coming now from the one person she felt she had to answer. ‘I’m trying not to have anything to do with the war.’

Tonks waited for the silence to thicken. ‘Because …?’

‘Because it’s evil. Total destruction. Of everything. Not just lives, even. It’s like one of those combine harvester things, you know? Only it’s not cutting wheat …’

‘I doubt if you hate it more than I do.’

‘It’s like the pacifists. You know, some of them, the majority, take on work of “national importance” — bit of a joke sometimes, but never mind — and they go and work on a farm or in a hospital. But the others — the absolutists — won’t do that. They’d rather go to prison than contribute anything, anything at all, to the war. And I just think that’s a stronger position, it’s more logical, because the others are just pouring their little bits of oil on to the combine harvester and telling themselves there’s no blood on their hands because they’re not actually driving the wretched thing. And I know none of this applies to women but actually I think some of it does. So anyway that’s why I don’t contribute and … and I don’t paint anything to do with it. Because the war sucks that in too. And I don’t think it should be about that, I think painting should be about … celebration. Praise.’

She came to an abrupt halt, realizing that she was lecturing Tonks — Tonks — on the subject of art.

He was smiling at her, rather kindly she thought. ‘I wouldn’t disagree with you, I think a very large part of art is about celebration, but then you also have to paint what’s in front of you, don’t you? And your generation hasn’t been very lucky in that respect.’