Pat Barker - Noonday

Watching him, Paul felt something akin to hate: an intimate hatred, as physical as desire. Neville was at the other end of the gallery, much too far away for Paul to see the smear of shaving soap in the crease of his left ear, but see it he did. And he could smell him too: soap, shaving cream, cologne, whisky, tobacco; and under it all, the musky odor of his body.

Paul knew he was overreacting, wildly overreacting, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself. Gradually, he began to work his way towards Neville, but he was always edging away, confirming what Paul had already begun to suspect: that Neville had seen him and was actively avoiding him. People were still arriving. It was becoming difficult to move around, let alone see the paintings, unless of course you were Neville and your reputation created its own space. As gently as possible, Paul threaded his way between the groups. He needed to confront Neville, to see his eyes as they came face-to-face, but then, just when he was almost within reach, a whole crowd of newcomers obscured his view, and, when he could see clearly again, Neville was gone.

Craning his neck, Paul checked to see if Neville was anywhere in the room, then caught sight of him standing in the hall. He was being detained, obviously against his will, by an angular young man, Clive Somebody-or-other, with a thrusting jaw and a reputation to make, not battle-scarred yet, not yet understanding what reason he had to be afraid. Keep him talking, Paul pleaded silently, pushing his way to the door, but by the time he’d got there Neville had disappeared.

He went outside and looked around. People were coming up the steps towards him and there was a queue of taxis at the curb. No Neville, though. But it was raining, and Paul couldn’t remember if Neville had been wearing a coat, so he went inside to check the cloakroom. Not there either, but suddenly he saw him, saw somebody, a bulky figure slipping through the doors on the far side of the hall into the darkness of an empty gallery.

Paul followed him. No lights: probably the bulbs had been removed. No paintings either. They’d been shared out to stately homes across the country or, some people said, stored at the bottom of mine shafts in Wales. He stood just inside the door, listening, and thought he caught the sound of footsteps in the next gallery, but the absence of paintings changed the acoustics and it was hard to locate the sound.

He began to walk across the unlit gallery, directing the thin beam of his blackout torch at the walls, where dust squares and rectangles delineated the shapes of vanished masterpieces. He felt the absence of the paintings as a positive force. A strange sensation — he couldn’t put his finger on it. His footsteps echoed round the hall, but the echo was weirdly mismatched so that when he stopped — as he did frequently, to listen — there was always another step. Always one more step than there should have been, so he no longer knew whether he was pursuing or being pursued. The sound of his breathing slithered all over the gallery, little worms of sound chasing each other round the walls. And, abruptly, it was back: the vertigo that had plagued him, on and off, for most of the year. The darkness spun. He groped his way to the nearest wall and let himself slide down it.

At least, now, sitting with his back to the wall, he felt safe from falling. He directed his torch at a particular point on the floor and tried to focus on that, but the beam quivered with the beating of his heart. He trained the light onto his left hand, where there was a minute scar, a half-moon of whiter flesh, on the ball of his thumb, the memento of some childish scrape. He stared unblinkingly at it, and gradually the spinning stopped. After a while, he was able to stand and retrace his steps, the pencil beam wavering over the floor ahead of him.

He should have left it there, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t gone to the gallery searching for Neville, but the pursuit, once started, acquired a momentum of its own, beyond reason. He had no idea what he would say, or do, when they met, but he knew the meeting had to happen. It was — an odd word came to mind—“obligatory.” The meeting had become obligatory.

Leaving the gallery, he took a taxi straight to Neville’s house. The sirens sounded just as he was walking up the path, but he had no inclination to seek shelter. The bell clanged loud and deep, but brought no sound of footsteps coming to the door. He banged with his clenched fists, put his ear to the letter box and listened, but he had no sense of Neville, or anyone else, hearing the ringing or knocking and deciding not to answer. No, wherever Neville was, he hadn’t come home. On duty? Well, yes, it was possible. In which case he’d be out all night. But he could be anywhere. He could be with Elinor now. In her flat.

That sent all the floaters into a manic dance: dented pillows, stained sheets, Neville’s arse bobbing up and down between Elinor’s spread thighs…For a moment, he thought he’d have to go there, but he managed to talk himself out of it. He’d no real reason to suppose Neville was there. Whereas, sooner or later, he would have to come home.

And so he settled down to wait. Total darkness, no moon, no stars, just searchlights on the heath and the roar of ack-ack guns. Perhaps it was a long time he waited, perhaps short, he had no sense of time passing. He might even have dropped off to sleep. Like everybody else, he was permanently exhausted; he could sleep anywhere. He probably had dropped off because he didn’t hear the taxi draw up, or Neville’s voice as he paid the driver; he didn’t hear his footsteps coming up the drive, or his key turning in the lock. He heard his breathing, though.

Paul made no sound, didn’t move or speak, but somehow Neville became aware of his presence.

“Tarrant?” Peering into the shadows. “What are you doing here?” He sounded nervous, even alarmed, but he disguised it well. “Come in.”

Paul followed him inside. Neville slammed the door shut and then, for a moment, they simply stood together, in the darkness of the hall, Paul listening to Neville’s labored breaths. Then Neville switched the light on. Chairs, table, hatstand, door, walls bristled into life.

“Come through.”

Very much the jolly, welcoming host. Once in the drawing room, he took off his coat and threw it over the back of a chair. Underneath, he was wearing a dinner jacket.

“Good night?” Paul asked.

“Not bad. Well, you know, the Savoy…” Vaguely, he looked around. “Would you like a drink?”

“Whisky, if you’ve got it.”

If he’d got it. Like asking Dracula if he had blood. Paul unbuttoned his coat and sat down, still feeling slightly dazed with sleep.

Neville had obviously been drinking, but he handed Paul a generous glass before pouring at least the equivalent for himself. “I must say, I can’t stand the Savoy. All that standing on the balcony, watching the raids. It’s ghoulish.”

He was attempting to treat Paul’s arrival on his doorstep as a normal social call, though it was past midnight and they’d never been in the habit of dropping in on each other unannounced. And yet it seemed, for a time, that the pretense would be maintained. Neither of them could think of anything else to do. So they talked about the Savoy. Paul was thinking how typical of Neville to say he hated the place, while spending, Paul suspected, quite a lot of time there. He’d had exactly the same love-hate relationship with the Café Royal in the last war.

At last the conversation dribbled into silence. Neville said: “Is anything the matter?”

“You tell me.”

The clock ticked. Neville cleared his throat.

“Do you know,” Paul said. “Just now, in the garden, I couldn’t see a thing, but I knew it was you. Because I heard you breathing. You see, Neville, I’d know your breathing anywhere.”