Pat Barker - Noonday

He wondered about Elinor, how she was managing to cope with it. And then he thought: Why not go and see her? After all, she was single now. And even if she hadn’t been, they worked together; there was no reason he shouldn’t go to see her in exactly the same way he might have arranged to meet one of the men for a drink. Yes, it was a good idea. He’d tidy himself up a bit and go.

—

AN HOUR LATER, he was standing outside Elinor’s house. A shaft of sunlight, breaking through a gap in the terrace opposite, twinkled on the doorknocker. Across the road, an old man was setting off to walk his dog, a busy, bright-eyed terrier that stopped to sniff at every lamppost. Unexpectedly, Neville felt a spurt of exhilaration. At one point the previous night, while he was working on the scree, clawing at the bricks with his bare hands, a landslip had started. A lump of flying brick had struck him on the forehead. Nothing much, hardly worth bothering about, but it could have been. And now here was sunlight streaming through a gap in the terrace, a gap where no gap should have been. All over London, now, were little patches of illicit gold. Plants long stunted by deep shade sprouted new leaves, grew and changed shape in the unexpected light. Something lawless about all this: as there was about the interiors of houses, where a bomb ripped off the front or side of a building, leaving bedrooms, toilets, bathrooms recklessly exposed.

He rang the doorbell, wondering, now he was on the brink of seeing her, whether he was doing the right thing. She’d be asleep, almost certainly asleep, and not thank him for waking her, but then he heard her voice. Backing off a few paces, he looked up at the top of the house and there was Elinor, her head and bare shoulders framed in an open window.

“Kit.” Her voice was blurry with sleep.

“I hope I didn’t wake you?”

“No, don’t worry, I should’ve been up long since. Is anything the matter?”

“No, I just thought we deserved some of this.” He held up a bottle of whisky.

“What, at this hour?”

“It’s nearly one o’clock.”

“Good Lord, is it really?” She looked across the road where the old man with the dog was showing an interest. “Look, I’ll come down.”

She came to the door wearing a navy-blue silk wrap, her hair slightly damp and brushed straight back. “Come in. Mind the glass.”

“When did this happen?”

“Last night. It’s only the landing window. The landlady’s supposed to be finding somebody to board it up. I’m just glad it’s her problem, not mine.”

“You must be freezing.”

“No, not really. It’s only cold at night and I’m not here then. Anyway, I think I’d rather be cold than live behind boarded-up windows.”

He knew what she meant. Many of the rooms in his house — those he didn’t use every day — had blackout curtains permanently drawn, and the darkness seemed to soak into the walls. He followed her upstairs, past the broken window that had a scurf of dead flies on the sill. The wrap glided over her skin as she moved, the silk a touch of prewar luxury incongruous among the splinters of broken glass that had been swept hastily to either side of the stairs.

Outside her door, she turned to face him. “Is Paul all right?”

“Yes; well, as far as I know.” He was surprised she asked. How would he know? “I haven’t seen him around for a while.”

“I just thought you—”

She’d thought he was bringing bad news. “No, the last time I saw him he was with Sandra Jobling.” No harm in reminding her of that. Do you still love him? he wanted to ask, as he followed her into the living room.

She turned to face him, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I’d better get dressed.”

“No, don’t—” He meant: Don’t bother; or at least he thought he did. But almost immediately, he realized the words were open to misinterpretation, and blushed. He was behaving like a schoolboy.

“No, it’s time I was up.”

He heard her moving around the bedroom, edged closer to the half-open door and caught, briefly, a glimpse of nakedness in the dressing-table mirror. Ashamed, he turned away.

A few minutes later she came back into the room, wearing slacks and a jumper. The plum-colored wool picked up the shadows underneath her eyes and emphasized them. She looked absolutely shattered.

“Well, can I get you a cup—? I suppose there’s not much point offering you tea?”

“Not really,” he said. “I’ve had tea. How did you sleep?”

“I got off all right, but then the traffic woke me and it took me a while to get back. And then of course I went deep.”

“Yes, you do, don’t you? If I let myself go back, I sleep through the alarm and everything.”

He saw her noticing the cut on his forehead. “That looks nasty,” she said.

“No, it’s all right.”

She leaned in closer. “You should probably have had that stitched.”

“No, really, it’s nothing.” In comparison with the rest, he wanted to say, but it would’ve sounded self-pitying, not light, as he meant it to be. “It’s just a bit of broken brick. I think they got most of it out.”

She put a finger gently on the edge of the cut. “I don’t think they did. Hang on, I’ll get my tweezers.”

She went into what he supposed was the bathroom. While she was out of the room, he prowled around restlessly, picking things up and putting them down. Being treated as an invalid was the last thing he needed…

She came back carrying a bowl of warm water, a wad of cotton wool and the tweezers. “Come across to the window.”

Resigned, he sat on the arm of a chair. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the street three floors below, cars and people going past. This must be the window she’d looked out of a few minutes earlier, and he’d have been standing just there at the bottom of the steps. Looking down, he saw himself through her eyes. Methinks I see thee, now thou art below, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb …He shivered.

“Keep still.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Morbid nonsense. They were a long way from Verona and both of them too old for balcony scenes. And yet that sudden reversal of perspective, the foreshadowing of his own death, sharpened his desire — and his determination. As she bent over him, he felt the warmth of her body through the fine wool of her sweater, her breath on his face. She was frowning with concentration as she dabbed and tweaked, her upper teeth biting her bottom lip. It was incredibly erotic and yet, at the same time, impersonal, almost clinical. And there was something of childhood in it too. Children look at grazes on each other’s knees with just that same intent, sexless curiosity. His cousin Blanche, on that holiday in Devon when he was five or six years old: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Laughter bubbled in his throat.

“Kit.”

“Sorry.”

Her leg between his thighs, her breasts level with his eyes. And then she straightened up. “There.”

Brisk, bossy. Very much the nanny, the nurse, the mother. He wasn’t having any of it. In one fluid, unconscious motion he stood up, grasped her thin shoulders and kissed her. She stiffened and tried to pull away, and of course he let her go at once, but for the merest sliver of a second her lips had softened under the pressure of his own.

“What was that about?” She sounded curious rather than affronted.

“You know…”

“No, I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. I’ve always loved you.”

She was shaking her head. “Kit, we’ve hardly been in touch for twenty years. And during that time— No. ” She held up a hand to stop him speaking. “ During that time you married my best friend and had a child with her. For God’s sake. ”