William Boyd - An Ice-Cream War

He could see she was about to go sad again. “Of course,” he said quickly. “About half four?”

Charis’s spirits picked up and she prattled on in what Felix recognized as her usual bright but fairly mindless way for the rest of the drive back to Stackpole. Felix dropped her at the cottage and drove on up to the house. The bare trees and the untended lawns and borders amplified the familiar depressing effect the sight of his home had on him. His mother had heard the car and came running to the front door and folded him in a powerful two-minute embrace.

They went into the hall where he greeted Cressida. A boy whose face seemed vaguely familiar took his cases up to his room. They were walking down the passageway to the inner hall when a squat figure in a dressing-gown came hurrying towards them.

“Hello, Father,” Felix said, offering his hand. “Good to see you. You’re looking well.” It wasn’t true. His father’s face was as sallow as ever, but the flesh seemed to have lost its firm rotundity and now hung from the bones. His side whiskers were long and untrimmed, his dressing-gown carelessly tied. He looked like some demented Victorian cleric, Felix thought.

His father stared at him, ignoring his proffered hand. “I know your type,” he said malevolently, “I suppose you think this is…this is some kind of health spa! ” he shouted, and hurried on his way.

“What on earth is he on about?” Felix said, astonished, as his mother ushered him into the inner hall. “Is he all right?”

“He’s been terribly upset, my darling. About poor Gabriel. I think it’s to do with the nature of the wounds…you know. The bayonets seem to bother him awfully. Says he dreams about it — can’t get it out of his mind. Anyway, here we are, home again.” There was a huge fire roaring in the hearth. “Sit down, darling. Now, tell me. Are you well? What’s that dreadful sore? Don’t you think he looks a bit pale, Cressida? Darling, promise me you’re eating properly.”

♦

Felix stepped over the eve-gate, crossed the bridge above the stream that led to the fishponds and set off through the beech wood towards the cottage. He carried a torch with him for the walk back. There was a gloomy, metallic quality to the late afternoon light and a cold wind had sprung up that made the heavy branches sway and thrash above his head.

Charis opened the door and showed him in. The small sitting room had been nicely and neatly furnished, though there were rather too many bits of brass and pewter around for Felix’s taste. There was a photograph of Gabriel in his uniform on the window ledge. Laid out along the settee as if for kit inspection were bundies of clothing, a pillow, a thermos flask, a collapsible canvas sink and other items that Felix recognized as belonging to Gabriel. The sight of these brought an unfamiliar pressure to his throat. The thought of Gabriel without these bits and pieces of his made whatever ordeal he was currently undergoing seem poignantly immediate.

“He left all this on board his troopship,” Charis said. “I’ve not, I’ve not got anything that he actually had with him.”

“I see,” Felix said.

“Do sit down,” Charis invited. Felix smiled at her. She was wearing an apple green dress with a darker green cardigan over it. She had a long string of pearls around her neck with a knot tied at the end. Her dark hair was held up loosely by a finely worked tortoiseshell comb. Felix sat down at the table on which the tea service was already laid out. Charis took a kettle from in front of the fire and set about making a pot of tea in a large silver tea pot. She held it up.

“Wedding present,” she said and gave a rueful smile.

Felix noticed a pile of letters beside her place. Presently Charis sat down and they drank their tea. Felix toasted some buns in front of the fire, which they then ate with some thick strawberry jam. They chatted inconsequentially about this and that. Felix told her he’d failed Pass Moderations in History. Charis provided details of her work with Belgian refugees. Eventually she picked up the letters.

“Have a look at these, Felix,” she said. “I don’t mind. One of them is addressed to you. They were all loose sheets. None had been posted.” She handed him the first sheet.

Felix took it. A pale blue leaf of writing paper. The letterhead said SS Homayun . The date was the twenty-first of October 1914. He read:

Dear Felix,

We are on our way! Do you remember our talks about the European war? I never thought I would be fighting on the ‘dark continent’. I’ve been at sea for weeks. We had to sit sixteen days in harbour before the convoy sailed. Life on a troopship is extremely boring but I have become quite an expert at deck quoits!

I was sorry to hear that your eyesight let you down with the OTC. Never mind! Keep trying. As the war in Europe progresses we are sure to need every ‘man jack’. I hope to see you soon. We should sort everything out here by Xmas.

Love to all at Stackpole Your affec. bro.

Gabriel Cobb.

Felix felt unaccountably moved by this bland letter. He remembered Gabriel the day before his wedding, swimming in the willow pool. Felix kept his eye off the photograph. He forced a chuckle.

“Old Gabe wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest letter writer, was he?”

Charis didn’t reply. She handed him the other sheets. Felix accepted them with sudden misgivings. He had always made a point of not thinking of Gabriel and Charis as man and wife, had never speculated on the nature of their relationship. He wasn’t sure if this invitation to share their privacy was something to be welcomed. There were a dozen sheets of paper all from the Homayun , all undated.

My darling Charis,

Our ship is still in Bombay harbour. Sorry not to have written before but if

That was all. Felix turned to the next.

Darling,

How I miss you! This war

And the next,

My darling darling Charissimus,

I do hope

Felix quickly riffled through the others. They were all the same. The greeting, the beginnings of a line and then blank. On one sheet the ‘g’ of darling’ had been slashed down the length of the page.

“What do you think it means?” Charis asked quickly. “I wrote to him every day. I never had a single letter in reply.”

Felix felt himself stiff with embarrassment. This was exactly what he wanted to avoid. He tried to be light-hearted.

“You know Gabriel. He…he probably couldn’t express himself. He may have been terribly busy. You just can’t tell.”

“But he wrote to you. Your father had a letter. Sammy Hinshelwood got a postcard from Bombay. Why couldn’t he write to me?”

“He wanted to, clearly,” Felix said. “At least he started to write. He probably wasn’t sure of—” To his alarm he saw Charis had covered her face with her hands. Her shoulders began to shake. Felix made a grimace. The stupid girl; she should have spoken to his mother about this, or Cressida. He had no idea what the proper procedure was on this sort of occasion. He rose from his seat. Hesitantly he placed his hands on Charis’s shoulders. He felt them trembling and shivering beneath his palms, felt the hard line of her collar-bone on his finger-tips. Now he was close to her he smelt the same odour of rosewater that he’d noticed at the wedding.

“There, there,” he said, feeling foolish, wishing she’d stop sniffing. He noticed, almost absentmindedly, the nacreous inlay on her hair slide, the small mole in front of her right ear, the shininess of her fingernails.

“Gabriel wasn’t the most articulate of people,” he improvised. “He’d probably never given thought as to how to express his feelings — in written form,” he added. “If you’re going into battle and you’re not used to organizing your, your innermost thoughts on paper, that sort of letter can be, well…” He left the sentence unfinished. It was the best he could do at short notice.