Pat Barker - Toby's Room

‘Well, no, nor yours either. What could be worse than losing adult children?’

‘Mercifully I’m not at any personal risk there. One thing it might help you to think about … The men here, the process of rebuilding their faces takes so long, I don’t think many of them are going back to the front. If any. What we’re doing here is simply trying to get them back into civilian life with some hope of … being happy. That’s all. So you wouldn’t be pouring oil on to the combine harvester.’

Reluctantly, she started to smile. ‘Yes, I know, sorry, it’s ridiculous. I’m just not good at explaining things.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Do you mind if I think about it?’

‘No, take as long as you like. Well, not quite. Why don’t you come in on Thursday and I’ll show you round? See what you think.’

‘All right.’

‘Early start, I’m afraid. Eight o’clock?’

‘Yes, of course, I’m up anyway. And now I think I’d better be getting back to Paul, he’ll wonder what’s happened to me.’

At the door, Tonks held out his hand. ‘Sure you can find the way back? Just turn left at the end of the corridor and then it’s straight down till you get to the main entrance.’

So where had that sense of a labyrinth come from? The waking nightmare, where now there was only sunshine slanting into a perfectly ordinary corridor. People in white coats came and went, and yes, once or twice she passed patients with terrible disfigurements, but not the Brueghel-like horde she’d seen advancing on her an hour or so ago. On her left, an imposing door led to what might once, she supposed, have been the library, or perhaps even a ballroom. A roar of laughter reached her, followed by a ripple of titters. Somebody was thumping away on a piano, while a trio of wobbly falsetto voices sang ‘Three Little Maids from School’. The song came to an end with another burst of laughter and applause.

Paul was waiting for her in the garden, pacing angrily up and down. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

‘Sorry, I got talking. Where’s Kit?’

‘Back on the ward. Long since.’

‘Did you get anything out of him?’

‘No, and I’m not sure there’s anything to get.’

‘Yes there is. And you know it.’

‘This isn’t helping you, you know. It just stops you —’

‘Go on. Stops me what?’

He shook his head.

‘No, go on. I’m interested.’

‘Moving on with your life.’

‘I am. Moving on.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Well, if you really want to know I just spent the last half-hour talking to Tonks and he’s offered me a job.’

‘What sort of job?’

‘Medical illustration.’

‘Here?’

‘Ye-es?’

‘I wasn’t … I mean, I think you’d be very good at it.’ He waited. ‘Will you take it?’

‘I’m coming in on Thursday, I’ll know more then.’

They set off down the drive. Up till now Elinor hadn’t seriously considered taking the job. In fact, she’d been trying to work out ways of refusing it without appearing to Tonks — whose opinion she valued more than anybody else’s — as egotistical, silly, uncaring and trivial. She thought she was quite possibly all these things, but she didn’t want Tonks thinking so. But then, Paul’s advice to ‘move on with her life’ had been incredibly irritating — not to mention trite — and, almost simultaneously, she’d realized that working at the hospital would give her unfettered access to Kit.

‘I probably will take it.’

‘Good.’

They walked the rest of the way in silence.

The following morning, after a sleepless night, Neville underwent his first operation.

He came round to find himself alone in a small cubicle, not on the main ward as he’d been last night. Couldn’t move his hands . He pulled against the restraints and, when that didn’t work, let out a great bellow of rage.

A face appeared above him.

‘Now, now, we mustn’t get ourselves upset, must we?’

‘Good God, woman, I’ve lost half my fucking face, why wouldn’t I be upset?’

‘Lang- widge !’

He wanted to ask for water, but she went away and he was left crying big, fat baby tears of anguish and despair.

He squinted down, trying to see if he had one of those tube things attached to the stump of his nose, and sure enough, there it was. Couldn’t remember what it was for, what it was supposed to do. He wanted to demand that they come back, explain, answer questions, give him a drink of water. There was water, in a jug on the bedside table, but he had no way of reaching it. He groaned with frustration.

‘They’ll give you some more morphine soon.’

Knew that voice. Looking up, he saw an unfeasibly tall man preparing to jackknife himself into a chair. Tonks. My God, Henry Tonks.

‘Now I know I’m in hell.’

Tonks laughed — which at least established he was real. All sorts of shadowy figures crowded the suburbs of Neville’s mind, or crept out of the darkness and pressed in on him. He coughed to scatter them.

‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘I’m going to draw you.’

‘Oh, please, God, let me wake up.’

Through the miasma of morphine, Neville was aware of the cadaverous figure leaning in close to get a better view.

‘Somebody,’ he said, as clearly and distinctly as he could manage, ‘has given me a trunk.’

Tonks looked puzzled. ‘Oh, the pedicle.’

‘The what?’

‘The pedicle.’

‘That’s a chair leg, you idiot.’

‘I don’t think it is.’

He flicked his swollen tongue across his lips. ‘How long do I have to be like this?’

‘Three weeks? Something like that.’

‘Fucking Elephant Man.’

‘I knew him,’ Tonks said, unexpectedly.

‘Who?’

‘Joseph Merrick. The Elephant Man. I was working at the London Hospital when he was living there. He didn’t look anything like that — and unfortunately, poor man, the flesh was rotting on him so there was the most appalling smell.’ He looked from Neville to his drawing pad and back again. ‘In spite of which, he was a great favourite with the ladies.’

‘Hope for me, then.’

For a few minutes Tonks went on drawing in silence. Neville endured his gaze, hunched up, brooding bitterly over the fate that had brought him here.

‘All we need you to do is stay cheerful,’ Tonks said. ‘It’s a different sort of courage from what you need out there …’

‘I was never very brave out there.’

‘We-ell, you must’ve been facing the enemy when you got that.’

‘Pity, really, I could’ve spared a chunk of arse.’

‘There, that’s it, I’m done.’

Neville was aware of the long frame unfolding itself. In a minute he’d be gone, and though he couldn’t bear to ask Tonks for help, he knew he must.

‘Would you mind giving me some water, please?’

Tonks poured a glass and held it to his lips. Neville slurped it in, cringing with shame. He hated himself for being weak, though not nearly as much as he hated Tonks for witnessing it.

‘More?’

Gulped, swallowed, gulped again. Blessed water dribbling down his chin, running into the creases on his neck.

‘Now try to sleep,’ Tonks said.

His lids flickered shut, as if the word ‘sleep’ had been a hypnotist’s command. When he opened them again, Tonks was gone.

‘Do you know,’ he said to the nurse who came to wash him down, ‘I keep having these really weird dreams. I dreamt my old drawing teacher was here.’

Not long after, the morphine began to wear off and for the next hour or so he could think of nothing but pain: pain in his chest, pain in his face, pain in the bloody tube where there wasn’t supposed to be pain. The injection went in just as he felt he might start to scream. Tube, trunk. Elephant. Darkness.