Pat Barker: Toby's Room

That morning, despite her broken night, she achieved more in the way of packing and sorting out than she’d managed in the whole of the previous weekend. As she worked, she thought about her dream. She had to call it a dream, because there was no other available word, but she knew that, unlike any other dream that she’d ever had, it had been an event in the real world with the power to effect change.

Paul would be here soon. With her suitcases lined up in the hall, Elinor went upstairs to Toby’s room. She stripped the bed, folded the sheets, and left them on the landing for Mrs Robinson to find. In the process, she uncovered a small stain on the mattress, a crescent shape, like a foetus curled up in the womb, or a dolphin leaping. She pulled the blanket up to hide it, and then went across to the window.

Looking down, she saw the narrow ledge that ran the length of the house between the first and second floors. Once, when they’d been particularly naughty, she and Toby had been locked in their rooms and that night he’d crawled along the ledge to get to her. She couldn’t have been more than five or six years old at the time, and yet, the following morning, looking down at the terrace below, she’d thought, with a flash of adult perception: Yes, but you could’ve been killed .

She raised her eyes, and there was Paul, bobbing along the lane, his head just visible above the hedge. At the gate, he stopped, flexing his injured leg, his face twisted by the pain he would never let her see. She was half ashamed of witnessing it and pulled back into the room so he wouldn’t notice her standing there.

She waited for his knock, and then, briefly aware that she was leaving Toby’s room for the last time, ran downstairs to let him in.

Readers who would like to see the Tonks portraits can find them online at http//www.gilliesarchives.org.uk together with photographs and case histories of many of the same patients. The original portraits are with The Royal College of Surgeons of England, 35–43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London.

Henry Tonks: Art and Surgery by Emma Chambers, published by The College Art Collections (University College London, 2002), contains a thought-provoking examination of the aesthetic and ethical questions raised by the portraits. Chavasse, Double VC by Ann Clayton, published by Leo Cooper, and Doctors in the Great War by Ian R. Whitehead, also published by Leo Cooper, give a vivid and detailed picture of the work of medical officers in the front line. Dr Andrew Bamji’s unpublished notes on Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, contain much fascinating information about the facial reconstruction carried out there.

Thanks are due to Emma Chambers; John Aiken, Slade Professor; and Dr Andrew Bamji, Consultant Rheumatologist and Curator of the Gillies Archive, for their help during my research for the writing of this book. I would also like to thank my agent, Gillon Aitken, for his shrewd advice and unfailing support and kindness over many years.

He just wanted a decent book to read …

Not too much to ask, is it? It was in 1935 when Allen Lane, Managing Director of Bodley Head Publishers, stood on a platform at Exeter railway station looking for something good to read on his journey back to London. His choice was limited to popular magazines and poor-quality paperbacks — the same choice faced every day by the vast majority of readers, few of whom could afford hardbacks. Lane’s disappointment and subsequent anger at the range of books generally available led him to found a company — and change the world.

We believed in the existence in this country of a vast reading public for intelligent books at a low price, and staked everything on it’

Sir Allen Lane, 1902–1970, founder of Penguin Books

The quality paperback had arrived — and not just in bookshops. Lane was adamant that his Penguins should appear in chain stores and tobacconists, and should cost no more than a packet of cigarettes.

Reading habits (and cigarette prices) have changed since 1935, but Penguin still believes in publishing the best books for everybody to enjoy.We still believe that good design costs no more than bad design, and we still believe that quality books published passionately and responsibly make the world a better place.

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