Pat Barker - Toby's Room

Suddenly Neville put on a burst of speed and pulled ahead. ‘Come on, Tarrant,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘It’s bloody freezing out here, and I could do with a drink.’

They climbed the last ledge on to the path, every step dislodging pebbles that peppered in their wake. The terrace facing the sea had gaps in it, missing teeth in an old man’s mouth. Many of the houses had their windows boarded up, and there were sandbags piled up against the doors.

‘Like the sandbags,’ Paul said.

‘Thought you might. Lends a homely touch.’

‘Do you know the Department of Information want to send me back to Ypres? They think I might need to refresh my memory.’

They laughed, the secretive, inward laughter of veterans, but Neville stopped laughing first. ‘Will you go?’

‘I’m not sure there’s a choice.’

After that they walked in silence, the moon accompanying them on the water. After the first fifty yards Paul stopped and looked back along the row of houses. ‘Does anybody actually live here?’

‘Not really. It’s Hampstead-on-Sea. You don’t get many people coming down this time of year.’ A few paces further on he stopped outside a double-fronted white house. ‘Here we are.’

It took Neville a while to persuade the key to turn in the lock. The woodwork was swollen and cracked and bloated and blistered from constant exposure to damp air, blown spume and quite possibly the sea itself, if the sandbags were anything to go by. At last, with a thump of Neville’s shoulder, the door fell open on to darkness and a smell of burning logs.

‘Can you manage to climb over?’ Neville said.

He held out his hand, but Paul insisted on scrambling over the sandbags unaided, only to stumble and have to accept Neville’s assistance after all. Neville followed, closing the door behind him. Total darkness, everywhere. Of course here on the coast blackout regulations would be particularly strict. After a few seconds Neville’s groping hand found the switch. The bulb cast a dingy light on to a hall that was scarcely more than a passage between two rooms. Striped deckchairs and parasols stood against the wall near the stairs. Rather more realistically, perhaps, four big umbrellas hung from a hatstand near the door. Everything was faded, but the effect was pleasant nevertheless. The house didn’t have the mildewed smell so many holiday homes have in the winter months.

Neville led him into the living room, which looked surprisingly well-furnished after the shabbiness of the hall. A fire blazed in the grate, a rush basket full of logs had been pulled up close to the hearth. Fat upholstered armchairs and sofas echoed the blues and reds of a Turkey carpet and on several low tables ranged round the room lamps cast a warm glow over books and scattered papers.

‘This is lovely,’ Paul said.

‘Not bad, is it? My mother loves this place. Would you like to unpack straight away or shall we have a drink first?’

‘Oh, a drink first, I think.’

Paul took his greatcoat into the hall. When he came back Neville had thrown his coat and hat on to a chair and, with his back turned to Paul, was unwinding the scarf. Paul had seen head wounds that left the brain exposed, missing jaws, eyes dangling on to cheeks — the lot. And yet, when Neville finally turned to face him, his heart thumped.

Neville joked about the Elephant Man, but he didn’t look anything like an elephant. He looked like a man with a penis where his nose should be: obscene, grotesque, ridiculous. Paul swallowed, trying to work out exactly what he was looking at. The lamplight cast a shadow across Neville’s face, making it difficult to see where the excrescence began and ended.

‘I know,’ Neville said. ‘Here, have a whisky. Dad knocks back a fair few these days — even Mother risks a tipple now and then.’

He sounded tired, rather than angry or bitter.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a tube pedicle. They — no, look, I’ll show you.’ He unbuttoned his shirt. ‘They cut a strip of skin off the chest, here, and then they roll the edges over so it’s a tube — that’s to stop it getting infected — and then they stick the other end … Well, wherever it has to go. Nose, in my case. If they need any bone they take it from the breastbone. And because it’s all coming from you, your body doesn’t reject it. Well, that’s the theory, anyway. Only it all went belly-up in my case because I got a cold, would you believe. A cold in the non-existent nose.’ He smiled. ‘Sorry about the conducted tour. I’m afraid you get a bit obsessed.’

‘No, no, it’s interesting.’

Neville raised his glass. ‘Well. Your good health.’

‘I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that.’

‘All right, then. My good looks.’

They chinked glasses and the small, familiar sound restored a kind of normality.

‘Sit down,’ Neville said.

Paul sank on to the sofa. Neville took one of the armchairs, moving the lamp a little to his right, either because the light hurt his eyes or because he wished to spare Paul the sight of his face. Instantly, Paul was reproaching himself for not having handled the situation better, though he didn’t know what else he could have done or said. His perception of Neville’s injuries changed constantly. A moment ago the tube had looked ludicrous: he’d been ashamed of seeing it, but that had been his first reaction. Now Neville was sitting down, it became clear that the pedicle was pulling his head down towards his chest, restricting his movement. That had to be painful. And it added to the impression of top-heaviness Paul had noticed on the beach. Suddenly, he knew what it reminded him of: Neville had become a Minotaur, a creature that was both more and less than a man.

‘I’m surprised they let you out.’

‘Without a mask, you mean?’ He waved Paul’s denial away. ‘I threw myself on Tonks’s mercy, I told him I’d go mad if I didn’t paint.’

‘So how long have you been out?’

‘Three days in London, a week here.’ He was swishing whisky round his glass. ‘What did you do the first day you got out of hospital?’

Paul tried to remember. ‘Had dinner with Michael Corder, I think. Do you know him? He —’

‘Bor-ing!’

‘What did you do?’

‘Went to a brothel. I thought at first the stupid little cow was going to refuse. I soon put a stop to that.’

Paul had an unpleasantly vivid image of Neville’s vast bulk pounding away at some half-starved little whore, his tube of harvested flesh an inch away from her face. ‘Are your parents coming down for the weekend?’

Neville gaped at him, then burst out laughing. ‘My God, Tarrant, what a dried-up little prude you are. No, of course my parents bloody well aren’t coming, I’m here to paint.’

‘And have you managed to start?’

‘Yes, bit of a relief really, I wasn’t sure I could. It’s been a long time.’

Paul drained his glass and stood up.

‘I’d better get the unpacking done, I think.’

‘I’ll show you your room. Right at the top, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s all right.’

It wasn’t: he found stairs extremely difficult. He hoped Neville would go first, but he hung back so every stage of Paul’s struggle was observed from behind. He reached the third floor hot, sweaty and embarrassed. Neville led him into a room on the left and he collapsed on to the bed, in too much pain even to pretend to be all right. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit slow these days.’

‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’

Paul shrugged. He wasn’t going to complain about his leg to a man with a penis for a nose.

‘I’m next door,’ Neville said. ‘Bathroom’s across the landing.’ He continued to hover. ‘I suppose I could always put you in Mother’s room …’