Pat Barker - Noonday

“I loved you the minute I saw you.”

“You can’t just turn the clock back like that, nobody can. The fact is, we’re two middle-aged people who ought to know better.”

“What about Paul knowing better? He could be living here with you now — if he wanted to — he chooses not to.”

“No, he doesn’t choose not to — he hasn’t been invited.”

“I’m sorry, I…”

“No, it’s all right.”

She looked so downcast he had to touch her again, but this time he simply placed the palm of his hand along the side of her face, more than half expecting her to pull away. Instead she let his hand lie there and covered it with her own. He lowered his head and kissed her again, a long, deep kiss. He was afraid of the moment when it would end. When, finally, they separated, he saw that she was working her tongue against her teeth to get rid of a piece of grit.

“Sorry,” he said. “It gets everywhere.”

She looked amused. “Oh, I hope not every where.”

He’d never expected, or even hoped, to see that expression on her face. Heart thudding against his ribs, he let himself be led through the door into her bedroom. She pulled the covers back and, for some reason, plumped up the pillows to get rid of the hollow her sleeping head had left.

They were nervous now, both of them, gabbling, postponing the longed-for and feared moment. She went across to the window and pulled the blackout curtain across. A wind had got up and was blowing in gusts so the curtain, now sucked against the frame and now released, seemed to be gasping for breath. The bed seemed huge. She kicked off her shoes, then sat on the side, shuffling along to make room for him. He unlaced his cumbersome boots. Something about this nightly routine: undoing laces, setting the boots down, side by side — clump, and then another clump — peeling off his socks to reveal moist, white feet — all these actions, by their very domestic ordinariness, emphasized the enormity of his transgression. Elinor was married. Paul was his friend.

But then, her exploring hand found a space between his shirt buttons — her fingertips small, hot points on his cold skin — and then he was fumbling with her jumper, trying to tug it out of her slacks, and suddenly none of that mattered. “Elinor—”

A hand on his mouth. “Ssh, don’t talk.” She swung her legs onto the bed and pulled him down beside her.

—

LATER, HE POURED them both glasses of whisky, hers well diluted in deference to the hour. She lay on the pillow, looking up at him, her eyes in this half-light unreadable tunnels of darkness. He reached for his cigarettes and offered to light one for her, but she waved it away.

“Did you know this was going to happen?” She sounded faintly accusing.

“No, I just thought we deserved a drink after last night. That poor child.”

They were silent a moment, thinking back. But that was yesterday and the pressure of their lives, the exhaustion, the nightly raids, meant they’d already started to move on. An apparent callousness very familiar to him from the last war, but he thought it would be new to her, and disturbing.

“Did you know about Paul?” he asked.

“And that girl? No. I think I was probably the last person to know.”

“I wouldn’t have told you.”

“No, I know. Men stick together, don’t they? The Boys’ Brigade.”

“That isn’t why.”

“Nobody told me; I saw them leaving his studio, having obviously both spent the night there. I just wish somebody had told me; it wouldn’t have been so much of a shock. It’s one of the worst things, knowing everybody knew except me.” She pulled herself up until she was leaning against the headboard. “I think I will have that cigarette.”

He lit it for her and handed it across. Her eyes closed as she inhaled. “You know what Paul said? He said it didn’t matter. She wasn’t important.” A snort of derision. “Why do men think that makes it better? It doesn’t; it makes it worse.”

“Has it happened before? I mean, him—?”

“Once. We-ell, once that I know about. One of his students. He was going through a bad patch with his painting, and of course she thought everything he did was absolutely wonderful. Well, I think a lot of what Paul does is wonderful, but you see, I know. And he knows I know.” She pulled a face. “Not the same, is it? Her admiration was — Oh, I don’t know…reassuringly automatic.”

“But you took him back?”

“He never left — she didn’t matter either. The minute I found out, he dropped her. You know, the first time he asked me to marry him, I said no—”

“Yes, well, you were good at that.”

“He said it was probably just as well because he wouldn’t have been faithful.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I believed him. I don’t think I did; I can’t remember.”

Neville was wondering what the last hour in bed had meant to her — if anything. A chance to get back at Paul? They seemed to have been talking about him ever since. “So, do you think you’ll get back together again?”

“No.” She looked steadily at him. “No.”

He drew on his cigarette, creating a small red planet that hovered in the gloom. “Everybody’s doing it, Elinor.” He couldn’t think why he’d said that. Why would he want to excuse Paul’s behavior when her hurt and anger had been so delightfully convenient for him?

“Oh, don’t worry, I know. It’s like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, isn’t it, everybody getting mixed up, swapping partners?” She laughed. “Goering as Puck — now there’s a thought. In tights.”

“Only they woke up, didn’t they?” He waited. “Is that what’s going to happen, do you think? We wake up?”

“Who knows what’s going to happen?”

She swung her legs to the side of the bed, leaned forward to reach for her wrap, and he thought — the artist’s eye unexpectedly reasserting itself — that the human spine was one of the most remarkable sights on earth.

“When can I see you again?”

“I don’t know. I’m going to the cottage this weekend, I might stay a few days — I really do need to get some work done.”

“When you get back, then?”

A barely perceptible hesitation, then she nodded. He felt she was waiting for him to go. He’d just got to his feet and was reaching for his trousers when the doorbell rang, and rang again. She crossed to the window and pulled the blackout curtain to one side. “Oh my God, it’s Paul.”

His heart thumped. “You don’t have to let him in.”

“I’m afraid the nurses already have. They’re on the ground floor, they let everybody in. I keep telling them.” She turned to face him. “Look, you stay in here, I’ll get rid of him.”

“Can’t you pretend you’re not in?”

“I think he just saw me.”

A minute later, he heard Paul’s voice at the door of the flat. He started to get dressed, pulling on his trousers, snapping his braces into place, fumbling with socks and the laces of his boots, feeling all the time like a character in a farce. Elinor, who seemed to be talking to Paul in the living room now, sounded cool, confident, amused — not like anybody he’d ever met. Dressed, he sat on the side of the bed, his hands loosely clasped between his knees, feeling humiliated and resentful. Why was he being made to feel like a stage adulterer? It wasn’t meant to be like this. The voices went on and on at a low murmur; he couldn’t hear the words. Would Paul ever go? But he was beginning to feel slightly less alarmed. After all, there was no reason for Paul to come in here; all he had to do was keep quiet and wait. He tiptoed across and listened at the door: something about the house, photographs, a package Paul had rescued. But the voices were still very low, hardly more than whispers. They must be sitting side by side on the sofa. Well, why not? They were married, after all. He felt sad, old, fat, disillusioned — and very much alone.