by Barrie Shore
The Captain divested himself of his cap and swagger stick and handed them to his Orderly. He made a slow tour of his victims, like a butcher inspecting lambs to the slaughter, before proceeding to the business in hand. He took the men’s blood pressure and counted their pulses; he tested the muscles of their biceps and calves; he inspected their mouths, teeth and tongues; examined their eyes, ears, hands and feet; listened to their chests and ordered them to cough, making six sets of testicles bounce.
The Captain combed the men’s hair in search of nits and pubic lice; he prodded at buttocks and poked at genitals, demanded information concerning the daily function of bladder and bowels.
The Captain’s Orderly made notes.
The men endured.
It was over at last.
Five men were given permission to dress. Five men departed the gymnasium at quick march. Jack was ordered to stay behind.
‘Sit down,’ said the Captain.
Jack sat on the pile of his clothes on the undersized chair.
‘Feet.’
Jack lifted his feet for further inspection. The Captain examined them with a sneer.
‘Get up.’
The Captain ordered him to run on the spot and then to march.
Jack obeyed. Marched the length of the gymnasium and back, stopped smartly in front of his undersized chair. Waited.
The Captain conferred with his Orderly. The Captain’s Orderly made an obedient note. The Captain scribbled his signature and took repossession of his cap and swagger stick. The Captain and his Orderly saluted each other. The Orderly turned smartly and marched away, out of Jack’s life, his going seeming like the departure of an only friend.
Captain Daley-Robertson paced the gymnasium in a slow circle, drizzled his swagger stick the length of the wall bars. Jack stood to attention, guarding his clothes on the undersized chair.
‘So you want to be a soldier.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Serve your King and Country.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Beat the buggery out of the Boche.’
‘Sir.’
The Captain gazed at Jack with his gimlet glare, swinging his swagger stick from side to side as if he were conducting an army band.
‘Pes planus. Know what that means, soldier?’
‘Sir?’
‘It means you’re an aberration. It means your feet aren’t fit for marching. It means they’re too big for their bleeding boots. Your feet disgust me. I’ve never seen feet that disgust me more. They make me want to vomit, soldier. All over your stinking feet.’
‘But, sir, I…’
‘Shut up.
If Jack thought he was already in hell, he was wrong.
Hell started now.
Hell was in Captain Daley-Robertson’s drawling step and the length of his outstretched arm. Hell was the tip of his stick tickling into a nest of hair, stirring innocent sleep into bewildered life. Hell was an unstoppable flood of blood and heat. Hell was a man in a school gymnasium standing naked and erect in front of an undersized chair. Hell was wanting to die and being condemned to live. Hell was the curl of a lip and a glittering eye turning opaque with pleasure. It was the gathering of saliva in a sadistic mouth and a globule of spit on the floor at a naked man’s feet. Hell was the heaven of final release.
‘Get out of here, you filthy sod.’
Sunday, 3rd December, 2006
‘Daley-Robertson… I know that name.’ The Great Man is admiring a stained-glass window in the north transept. ‘I met his father once, some literary function or other, at the Athenaeum, if memory serves. Or was it his grandfather? Army chap, colonel or some such, subtlety wasn’t his strong suit.’
The Great Man wanders along the north aisle, stops at the end of Jack’s pew and looks at him with a bonhomous lift of his eyebrows. ‘Pes planus.’ He puffs the words pleasurably between his lips. ‘Pes planus, so grand a name for so risible a condition, although I believe it can cause a great deal of discomfort. Was that your experience?’
Jack thumps the back of the pew with rage. ‘Once and for all,’ he roars, ‘I do not have, nor ever have had, flat feet.’
‘My dear fellow, please accept my heartfelt apology. Your feet, I am sure, are no flatter than mine. And yet…’ The Great Man studies a stone tablet at his feet with an interrogative frown. ‘And yet you didn’t question the result of your medical examination, you didn’t ask for a second opinion, demand an interview with the captain’s commanding officer. You didn’t insist on going to war. You didn’t even confide in Bob. If you had, he might have confessed what he’d done and righted his wrong. But you didn’t. You did nothing.’
‘How could I talk to Bob about feet? The subject was utterly taboo.’
‘Ah, yes, of course, the club foot. Poor fellow, I’d forgotten how touchy he was on the subject.’ The Great Man rejoins Jack in his pew. ‘And it didn’t occur to you, I suppose, that Bob knew your mind and did you a favour?’
‘What the hell do you mean?’
‘I’m suggesting that you were relieved at bottom not to be called for active service.’
‘Are you calling me a coward?’
‘Oh, say not so. “Say I am not a coward and a contemptible humbug – I can’t bear it!”’ The Great Man takes a handkerchief from his pocket and dusts the seat of the pew. ‘My dear boy, I mean no offence, I only point out that you are not a natural killer. I’ve seen you rescuing woodlice, guiding trapped wasps out of the window, feeding drops of water to desiccated snails.’ He whisks a dead fly from the seat. ‘Why, you can’t even swat a fly without apology.’
Jack looks at him coldly. ‘You are absolutely and completely wrong. I wanted to serve my country. And Bob denied me.’
The Great Man tucks the handkerchief into his pocket, hitches the knees to his trousers and sits gingerly down. ‘Poor Bob, he didn’t have much of a life, stuck in a backwater, selling dusty old books that nobody wanted. He was worth so much more than that. “He is my sun and moon.”’
Jack covers his ears with his hands. ‘Don’t… don’t…’
‘“My beloved. My only Jack,”’ the Great Man continues with relish. ‘How beautiful that is. He might have been a poet if he’d only tried, if he had loved the world a little better, not to mention himself. But he was consumed with self-loathing, the unhappiest man I ever knew.’
‘Don’t try to make me sorry for him. I thought that Bob loved me, like a father his son, but he didn’t, he lusted. And then he betrayed me, God knows why. Because I didn’t return his feelings? To punish me? And that’s not the worst of it. He… he…’
‘Yes, yes, I know what happened,’ says the Great Man. ‘The George Inn, second floor, room three. A pleasant apartment, double aspect, splendid view of the river I recall. I stayed there once or twice with my wife (the first, that is) while the new house was under construction. Ah, youth… “Above the youth’s inspired and flashing eyes, I see the motley, mocking fool’s-cap rise.”’
Jack feels an almost irresistible desire to strike the Great Man, a disturbing sensation that forces him to wrap his arms about himself to prevent them turning thought into action. ‘Bob went to that room. He…’ He can hardly bring himself to say the words, so great is his disgust. ‘He serviced the captain.’
‘To buy his silence. If he hadn’t paid for the favour he asked, the captain would have had him arrested. And you too, very likely.’
‘But it was a lie!’ Jack’s shout echoes to the roof. ‘Don’t you understand? It was all lies. It’s revolting.’
‘I dare say Bob found it revolting too, particularly when he was required to remove his surgical boot and allow the captain to… to fulfil himself, as it were, in his own particular, warped sort of way. But he did it. And, however misguided, he did it for love. I should have been proud to inspire such love.’
‘Rather blame the sad old man who took such trouble to give you the letters. What was his name?’
‘Brande. Oliver Brande.’
‘Poor fellow, balked of his inheritance. No wonder he found revenge so sweet.’
‘I don’t care what his motive was. In fact, you could say he did me a favour. If I’d only read the letters at once, my life would have been completely different.’
‘I don’t see how. The war was over, Bob was dead.’
‘I would have been vindicated, I’d have found some peace.’
‘Oh, do you think so? What would you have done? Published the letters? Placed an advertisement in the personal columns of the Gazette? “In re Pedes Plani, John Carter wishes it to be known that his arches to his feet are higher than any man’s in Castlebridge and that his lack of service during World War Two was not of his own doing but a dastardly plot perpetrated by one Robert Emmanuel Pride, RIP.”’
The Great Man is sitting so close that if Jack turns his head he can see the whiskers growing out of his ear, the ponderous lobe, the purple veins spidering across his cheek, and he is repelled, not just by proximity, but by the stale, peppery smell of the man. He grasps the back of the pew in front, feeling sick with the need to escape, but the Great Man restrains him with an unexpectedly forceful grip.
‘My dear fellow, I can’t let you go in this shocking state of confusion and anger. Please stop for a moment and consider your life. Taking the long view, you haven’t made such a bad fist of it. You didn’t, after all, have the best of starts: conceived in the midst of conflict, your parents’ ill-considered marriage, your mother’s religious fervour, your father’s death at so early an age. How old were you? Nine, ten?’
‘Seven.’
‘Only seven, how profoundly sad. Just the age when one is most in need of a father’s guiding hand. An age when the uncomfortable truth begins to dawn that the world is a larger place than one had ever imagined, that other people’s desires don’t necessarily march with one’s own, that nobody will ever hold one in the high regard one has for oneself, that even one’s mother is not necessarily on one’s side. No wonder we’re all of us so disappointed.’
Jack shakes himself free of the Great Man and gets to his feet, shuffles to the end of the pew into the centre aisle, where he stops for a moment to rub his knee, looks up in alarm as the west door rattles open, as if he fears that Bob himself might reappear from the dead.
A woman wearing an academic gown, with a sheaf of music tucked under her arm, hurries in. She nods abstractedly as she passes, makes a perfunctory bow to the altar, then disappears into the vestry.
Jack finds himself following her with a vague notion of confiding his troubles to a kindlier ear than the Great Man’s, receiving a blessing, perhaps. He is about to tap on the vestry door and walk in, when he becomes aware of activity in the organ loft above: a door opening and closing, a light switched on, the scrape of a chair, the squeak of a pedal, the woman’s head bobbing up and down above the loft screen. She catches sight of him watching her and peers down with a suspicious frown; and it comes to him that she isn’t a priest, she’s the organist, who would be embarrassed, possibly shocked, by his confessions. He turns away, ashamed of his foolishness. And stops again.
The Roll of Honour to the Glorious Dead is set on the wall to the left of the vestry door. The names of the men who fell during the First War have faded, as their memories have; those from the Second are stark and accusatory. Andrews, Baker, Barnes, Chant, Fairchild, Hinxman, Maidment, Moxon…
‘Mullins, J.E.’ The Great Man appears at his side. ‘I was at school with a fellow called Mullins. Blatant cheat, cribbed my notes in geography lessons.’
‘My name should be there. Carter, J.W. Better dead than to live without honour.’
The organist starts her practice as he speaks, timid notes at the top of the scale that sound like a lament.
‘Ah, yes, survivor’s guilt, most problematical. I dare say Herr Jung would have something to say on the subject. But at least you’re alive to tell the tale.’
Jack looks at the Great Man by his side and realises with a wrench of triumph mixed with disappointment how small he is, how inconsiderable, how narrow his shoulders, how unkempt his hair. This is the man whom he has loved and admired all his life, whose work has inspired him more than any other’s, whose friendship he has valued and good opinion sought; the man to whom he has confided his innermost secrets and fears; the only man that he trusts. And yet now, when he needs him most, he persists in trivialising Jack’s torment.
The organist plays a snatch of notes, the same phrase over and over. Jack turns away and heads for the north door, and then stops at the Lady chapel where a nativity scene is set in a corner by the entrance. It’s a simple representation created, so a small notice tucked into a shepherd’s crook proclaims, by the Sunday School children. The figures are roughly constructed from lengths of kindling fashioned into crosses, draped with patchwork robes, their heads made of papier mâché, the faces crudely painted into expressions of wonder. Mary sits by the crib with a broad grin on her face. Joseph stands behind her looking down at the child with a startled expression. The kings are lofty, the shepherds lowly. The Infant Jesus is portrayed by a doll who slumbers peaceably in a nest of straw under a halo of tinsel and wire that’s hanging askew: an anachronistic plastic doll with improbable eyelashes that remind him of… a market… a toy stall… a tumble of golden curls… and distant voices…
‘She’s revolting…’
‘So you’ve done your duty at last, young man…’
‘And in any case, we’re having a boy…’
‘First time gravid at her age, there’s bound to be trouble.’
‘Tricky business, the getting of children,’ says the Great Man. ‘I never quite got the hang of it, I’m sorry to say, a sad disappointment to both my wives. So many hazards involved, divesting oneself of one’s clothes, for a start. So many buttons to undo, so many layers to remove, especially in the winter months, woollen combinations and so forth. Whether to cast them insouciantly to the floor in a fit of abandon, only to be faced the following morning with their unseemly scatterings, or whether to fold them neatly over the back of a chair. And such decisions to be made: which underpants, for example, are fit to be worn the following morning, which to be consigned to the laundry basket, and is there a clean pair in the top right-hand drawer of the chest of drawers? And what the devil, one wonders, has happened to one’s pyjamas? By the time such problems are solved all passion is spent, and the object of one’s desire may well, perhaps mercifully, have fallen asleep.’ The Great Man bends to the crib and sets a fallen sheep to its feet. ‘I imagine that you have encountered similar difficulties.’ He twitches the shepherds into line. ‘After all, you too are childless.’
‘No, you’re quite wrong.’ Jack, having demoted the Great Man to an inferior role, adopts now a superior, almost bullying, tone. ‘My son was born in nineteen sixty-one. The first of April, nineteen sixty-one.’
‘Oh, you have a son?’ The Great Man’s eyebrows rise in astonishment. ‘Well, well, I never knew that.’
‘Of course you knew. Will, William. William, my son.’
‘I do beg your pardon, I seem to have got my facts wrong.’ The Great Man bends to straighten the Christ Child’s halo. ‘I thought the boy was fathered by someone quite other.’
The organ stops.
Jack makes his pronouncement for the third time, his voice ringing out in the silence. ‘He was my son. Mine.’
A thundering crash shivers the church and vaults to the roof where it hangs, trembling, like heaven’s wrath. Jack staggers back with a tearing cry that echoes the organ, melding into its guttural roar. He trips, falls, cr
awls to the chancel steps, kneels up and spreads his arms in appeal.
‘Oh, God, am I not punished enough? Can I not have even this? My child, my boy, my beloved son.’
It isn’t the Son of God who gazes down from the crucifix with his blind, compassionate eyes. It’s the gargoyle, hanging upside down, ugly with glee, waving inimical arms as if to summon the furies from hell.
Jack bows his head and starts to pray, the words coming back without stumble or fault. ‘Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…’
The organs starts playing again, Sheep May Safely Graze. Sweet, ethereal notes, washed with melancholy. The Great Man approves of the choice, moves to a front pew where he beats gentle time, waiting for Jack to finish his prayer.
But Jack never reaches his final amen. ‘Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them…’ he gazes up at the cross with a beseeching air, ‘as we forgive them that trespass against us…’ and sees, not the figure of Christ, nor the gargoyle, but Bob with his head hanging as if he’s begging for mercy. Oh, no. No. He cannot forgive, will never forgive. Never, never, never, never, never! He struggles to his feet, stands for a moment with his head bowed, then turns his back and limps away towards the west door.
‘I say,’ says the Great Man, as he passes, ‘won’t you join me for Evensong? Such a consoling service I always think, whether one is a believer or not.’