Kate Morton - The House at Riverton aka The Shifting Fog

One such rainy afternoon he fell asleep. She drank the rest of her wine, then for a time she lay next to him, listened to his breaths, tried to match her own to his, succeeded finally in catching his rhythm. But she couldn’t sleep, the novelty of lying next to him was too great. The novelty of him was too great. She knelt on the floor and watched his face. She’d never seen him sleeping before, in all the time they’d been meeting.

He was dreaming. She could see the muscles around his eyes tightening at whatever it was playing on his closed lids. The twitching grew fiercer as she watched. She thought she should wake him. She didn’t like to see him like this, his beautiful face contorted.

Then he started to call out and she was worried someone in one of the neighbouring flats might hear. Might realise there were people there who shouldn’t be. Might contact someone. The police, or worse.

She laid her hand on his forearm, ran her fingers lightly over the familiar scar. He continued to sleep, continued to call out. She shook him gently, said his name. ‘Robbie? You’re dreaming, my love.’

His eyes flashed open, round and dark, and before she knew what was happening she was on the floor, he on top of her, his hands around her neck. He was choking her, she could barely breath. She tried to say his name, tell him to stop, but she couldn’t. It only lasted a moment, then something in him clicked and he realised who she was. Realised what he was doing. He recoiled. Jumped off.

She sat up then, inched quickly backwards until her back hit the wall. She was looking at him, shocked, wondering what had come over him. Who he had thought she was.

He was standing against the far wall, hands pressed against his face, shoulders curved. ‘Are you all right?’ he said, without looking at her.

She nodded, wondered whether she was. ‘Yes,’ she said, finally.

He came to her then, knelt beside her. She must have flinched, for he held his hands up by his shoulders and said, ‘I won’t hurt you.’ He reached out, lifted her chin to see her throat. ‘Jesus,’ he said.

‘It’s all right,’ she said, more firmly this time. ‘Are you-?’

He held a finger to her lips. He was still breathing quickly. He shook his head absently, and she knew he wanted to explain. Couldn’t.

He cupped the side of her face with his hand. She leaned into his touch, eyes locked with his. Such dark eyes, full of secrets he wouldn’t share. She longed to know them all, determined to earn them from him. And when he kissed her throat, oh, so lightly, she swooned, as she always did.

She had to wear scarves for a week after that. But she didn’t mind. In some way it pleased her to have his mark. It made the times between more bearable. A secret reminder that he really did exist, that they existed. Their secret world. She would look at it sometimes, in the mirror, the way a new bride looks repeatedly at her wedding ring. Reminding herself. She knew he would have been horrified if she’d told him.

Love affairs, in the beginning, are all about the present, the moment. But there’s a point where the past and the future come back into focus. For Hannah, this was it. There were other sides to him. Things she hadn’t known before. She’d been too full of the wonderful surprise of him to look beyond immediate happiness. The more she thought about this aspect of him, of which she knew so little, the more frustrated she became. The more determined to know everything.

One cool afternoon in April, in a bedsit in Islington, they were sitting together on a bed beneath a window watching the street below. There were people walking this way and that, and they’d been giving them names and imagined lives. They’d been quiet for a while, had been content just to watch the passing procession from their secret position, when Robbie hopped out of bed.

She remained where she was, rolled over to watch him as he sat himself on the kitchen chair, one leg curled beneath him, head bent over his notebook. He was trying to write a poem. Had been trying all day. He’d been distracted while he was with her. Had been unable to play the game with any enthusiasm. She didn’t mind. In some way she couldn’t explain, his distraction made him more attractive.

She lay on the bed, watching his fingers clutching his pencil, directing it in flowing circles and loops in one direction across the page, only to stop, hesitate, then backtrack fiercely across its previous path. He tossed the notebook and pencil onto the table and rubbed his eyes with his hand.

She didn’t say anything. She knew better than that. This was not the first time she’d seen him like this. He was frustrated, she knew, by his own failure to find the right words. Worse, he was frightened. He hadn’t told her, but she knew. She’d watched him, and she had read about it: at the library and in newspapers and journals. It was a trait of what the doctors were calling shell shock. The increased unreliability of memory, the numbing of the brain by traumatic experiences.

She longed to make it better, to make him forget. Would give anything to make it stop; his relentless fear that he was losing his mind. He took his hand from across his eyes and reached once more for the pencil and paper. Started again to write, stopped, scratched it out.

She rolled over, onto her stomach and watched the people passing on the street below.

In the winter he managed to find them somewhere with a fire. It was little more than a sitting room, with a sofa and a sideboard. They were sitting on the floor while the fire flickered and hissed in the grate; their skin was warm and they were drowsy with red wine and warmth and each other.

Hannah was watching the fire when she said, ‘Why won’t you talk about the war?’

He didn’t answer; instead he lit a cigarette.

She’d been reading Freud on repression and had some idea that if she could get Robbie to speak about it, perhaps he would be cured. She held her breath, wondered if she dared to ask. ‘Is it because you killed somebody?’

He looked at her profile, took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled and shook his head. Then he started to laugh softly, without humour. He reached out to lay his hand gently along the side of her face.

‘Is that it?’ she whispered, still not looking at him.

He didn’t answer and she took another tack.

‘Who is it you dream about?’

He removed his hand. ‘You know the answer to that,’ he said. ‘I only ever dream of you.’

‘I hope not,’ said Hannah. ‘They’re not very nice dreams.’

He took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled. ‘Don’t ask me,’ he said.

‘It’s shell shock, isn’t it?’ she said, turning to him. ‘I’ve been reading about it.’

His eyes met hers. Such dark eyes. Like wet paint; full of secrets.

‘Shell shock,’ he said. ‘I’ve always wondered who came up with that. I suppose they needed a nice name to describe the unspeakable for the nice ladies back home.’

‘Nice ladies like me, you mean,’ said Hannah.

‘You’re not a nice lady,’ he said, teasing.

She was put out. Was not in the mood to be fobbed off. She sat up and slipped her petticoat over her head. Started to pull her stockings on.

He sighed. She knew he didn’t want her to leave like this. Angry with him.

‘You’ve read Darwin?’ he said.

‘Charles Darwin?’ she said, turning to him. ‘Of course.’

‘Ought to have known,’ he said. ‘Smart girl like you.’

‘But what does Charles Darwin have to do with-’

‘Adaptation. Survival is a matter of successful adaptation. Some of us are better at it than others.’

‘Adaptation to what?’

‘To war. To living by your wits. The new rules of the game.’

Hannah thought about this.