Pat Barker - Noonday

The dog peered out, its sharp face and bright, amber eyes glinting in the light from Charlie’s torch.

“All right, but it’s your responsibility, mind.” He turned to Paul and Brian. “Come on, there’s nothing we can do here.”

As they closed the door behind them, Nick pointed a stern finger at the dog. “Piss on me, you little fucker, and you’re dead.”

—

THE ALL CLEAR sounded early that night; the raid had not been a particularly bad one. And yet, meeting at the wardens’ station at the end of the shift, everybody seemed subdued. Nick was slumped in an armchair, staring into space. Charlie came up carrying two steaming mugs of tea and put one on the table in front of him. “What about that dog, then?” He nudged Nick’s arm, trying to rouse him, but Nick turned on him a totally blank stare. “What dog?”

Charlie and Paul exchanged glances. Somebody shouted across to Paul: did he want a cup of tea? But he shook his head. More than on most mornings, he was glad to get away.

At the top of the steps, he paused for a moment, wondering what he should do. No Sandra now. She’d left two days ago, to his mingled sadness and relief. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep. He’d seen so many more horrific things than that old couple, but he knew they were going to haunt him, possibly for quite a long time. Do something — that was the thing. Keep busy. Perhaps he might have a walk round to the house, see what else he could find in the rubble. He was driving down to the cottage at the weekend and it was always nice to have something to give to Elinor.

Scrambling around among the broken bricks and charred timbers, he unearthed some knives and forks — apostle teaspoons, she was quite fond of those — but the real treasures were the paintings — and quite a few of them had survived. No time for that today though. Something was niggling at the back of his mind and he couldn’t think what it was. He thought about the old couple — but no, it wasn’t that. It was something more recent, something he’d noticed. He straightened up and looked down the street. An elderly man in an antiquated tweed overcoat had stopped in front of the noticeboard and was jotting down one of the addresses. That was it, something on the noticeboard. He threw down the brick he was holding and went to see.

And there it was. Elinor’s handwriting. An address in Gower Street. At first, he couldn’t take it in. He knew perfectly well she wanted to return to London — they’d argued about it only last weekend — but it had never occurred to him that she might move without consulting him. Or even telling him. It was — well, impossible. Unless…

There’s always some kind person’ll tell you. Won’t be long before somebody tells your wife about you.

Who could’ve told her? Well, almost anybody — he hadn’t been particularly discreet. Anybody, really, who was sufficiently malicious, or perhaps just incensed on her behalf. Neville knew. No, he wouldn’t.

It didn’t matter who. He had to think straight; he had to get this right. He didn’t know for a fact that Elinor was aware of his affair with Sandra, or that moving back to London was an expression of her anger. There were all kinds of reasons why she might have decided to return. His affair with Sandra had receded so rapidly into the past he felt it was hardly worth bothering about. The two days since their last meeting might have been years for all he cared. It was easy to think that, because it was over and had meant so little, it couldn’t have any impact on his life — or Elinor’s. No, it was equally likely she’d just grown tired of the constant arguments and had decided to present him with a fait accompli. That was entirely possible.

His first impulse was to rush round to Gower Street and ask her, but if she knew about the affair this would inevitably lead to a confrontation, and he didn’t feel ready to face that. No, perhaps he should wait, get rested — that was the most important thing — and then, this evening, he’d come back here and find something — ideally, not knives and forks — a painting or a drawing — and lay it at her feet. That would be the best, the wisest, thing to do.

21 October 1940

I’d forgotten what living in furnished rooms feels like — the smell of other people’s lives: transient lives, passing through. The way the silver plating’s always worn off the forks, the cracks in the bone handles on the knives. Oh, I can’t put my finger on it exactly, except here I’m a student again. Single. Oh, yes, single.

I’ve put my address on the board by the house. If Paul’s still trying to retrieve stuff he’s almost bound to see it and then he’ll realize I haven’t told him about the move. He’ll know I’ve found out about her.

I lived two doors down from here when I was a student at the Slade. Sometimes when I’m walking down the street I fancy I see her coming towards me, that girl. The girl who lived for days on end on packets of penny soup, made her own clothes, walked everywhere. She doesn’t seem so far away now. In fact, I walk through her ghost every time I cross the floor.

And this wallpaper. She’d have had that off the wall in no time. She’d have hated it, the dreary, dingy Victorian fussiness of it, the horrible yellow pattern — paisley, I suppose, a sort of cross between a flower and a praying mantis. No, she’d have been sloshing wallpaper stripper all over that, scraping away at it till her hands ached. How much energy I must have spent over the years, battling with Victorian wallpaper. Well, not anymore. Let it stay. You see wallpaper like this all over London where the sides have been ripped off houses. The Luftwaffe’s doing a much better demolition job than I ever could.

And I’d like to talk to Paul about it but, of course, there is no Paul.

I had to go to the shelter last night. While the house was still standing, I could use the hall, convince myself it was safe. Not here: it’s a death trap, so off to the shelter I must go.

The usual crowd, mainly women. There’s an old couple who play chess. Rather sweet, really. Oh, and there’s the major, a military gentleman with peppery blue eyes. No nonsense, no emotion, none of that. Only he has this absolutely marvelous mustache — a beautiful red-gold color. Titian. He takes tremendous care of it, not in public, of course, but you can imagine him, in private, combing and trimming it. In some strange way — in defiance of biology — all the major’s feminine qualities, his vulnerability, his gentleness, are distilled into that mustache. The rest of him is very properly hard, masculine, decisive. And of course he thinks he’s boss. Angela, the shelter warden, manages him very well. She always consults him, very deferentially, before going on to do exactly what she was planning to do anyway.

Angela’s tremendous. I wouldn’t like her job. The facilities are totally inadequate. We’re still using latrine buckets behind blanket screens — why didn’t they realize? Paul says they thought the raids would be quite short, though very destructive — thousands dead. Instead of which we have long raids — thousands homeless.

But it really is high time I stop referring to Paul as the great authority.

On the rare occasions when I’ve been here before — generally because Paul bullied me into it — there was an immensely fat woman with very beautiful blue eyes — harebell blue. You don’t see that very often. But she wasn’t there last night. She used to tell fortunes on top of a suitcase, ordinary cards, not tarot. Always good news: unexpected letters, legacies, tall, dark, handsome strangers.