by Alice Miller
“It’s hardly summer.”
“Not really, no.”
“It’s very—big.”
“Shall we walk?”
Georgie led the way out the back gate and wandered down the path towards the trees. She was walking behind him and found herself admiring his functioning legs. The miracle. The hospital seemed so long ago.
Neither of them said anything. The afternoon sky was white, with the sun streaming through, as if it were wincing.
Only now she realised what his uniform meant.
“You’ve been back?”
“And I’m going again. On Wednesday.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what to say. She remembered what she’d told Iseult at the party, and blushed. He was so young and handsome, moving around so easily. She couldn’t imagine being engaged to such a man. His expression had loosened somehow, freed up, since she had last seen him. Even though uniforms these days seemed like death sentences, they still held something hopeful about them in their stiffness, their correctness, their suggestion that there was some order to the world.
“I suppose we did too good a job then. Looking after you.”
“It seems so.” He smiled.
“You don’t want to hide in the basement?” she said. “Till the war’s over?”
He fiddled with the edge of the pocket on his uniform. “No. But—there’s something I need to tell you.”
“Oh?”
“That is—did you ever get any telegrams? Strange ones?”
Georgie stared back at him.
“Well, it’s a very odd thing. I don’t know—if you remember there was a girl who came to visit me. Emma Wetherford is her name, or it was, although I don’t know if you ever knew it.”
“I remember. The one that hung around.”
“Exactly. It turns out she was quite unhinged. Her husband says sometime after the wedding, she started saying strange things, acting oddly. She had a kind of a collapse. I think the death of her brother, and the decision to marry, broke her, somehow. And the thing is”—he looked up now, into the trees, and squinted—“she told me she wrote to you. She had decided that you were in love with me.”
Georgie gave a little snort of surprise. “Really?”
“A little unlikely, I know.”
She smiled and he went on, “Although, I mean, you lock animals in a cage, and eventually they mate.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.” He was looking at his hands.
“I wasn’t in any cage.”
“You sort of were. And we definitely were.” He paused. “Forget it.”
“She is all right, then?”
“Not really, no. They sent her to an institution. They don’t think she’ll ever recover.”
So it had been nothing to do with the Order or Willy after all. Georgie remembered that last day at the hospital, moved to say something, and stopped. She was trying to think of an excuse, a defence of the lie she had told about her brother, but couldn’t. They walked in silence. The sun was slipping behind the white layers of cloud, and pricks of rain were beginning to fall.
“Oh, come on.” Pike was looking up at the sky. “Give me a bit more time.” He turned back to Georgie and smiled. “Your ghosts are not co-operating.”
It occurred to her that he had not only come to her about Miss Wetherford’s strange telegram or to speak about the hospital. He was here for something else.
“They’re not mine,” she said, turning back towards the house.
“Let’s get under those trees. It’s not so bad.”
“We can talk back at the house.”
“Wait—” He took her hand gently and pulled her towards him. Puzzled, she focused on the scruffy soft hair above his lip. She could smell him, human and used, and although she was now half aware of his intentions, she was still surprised when after a moment of hesitation, he put his arms around her. His uniform was awfully rough. He pulled back slightly and tipped his face towards hers as if inviting her to kiss him.
“Really?” she said, trying not to laugh.
“Why not?”
She had not properly kissed anyone before. It was awkward, but all right. Afterwards he leaned his face into her hair. “You were very good to me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You didn’t pretend anything.”
“I never do,” Georgie said, remembering herself. “Let’s go inside.” She wasn’t sure what he meant to do next. As they walked back, he swung her hand back and forth in his, as if he were a child.
They sat for a while inside, looking out at the rain coming down over the woods.
“Look what you’ve done,” she said. Somehow, since just a few minutes before, the situation between them had changed. She found that when she looked at him, she had to look away, but soon afterwards she had to look at him again.
“What?” he said, watching her and smiling, and starting the process over again. “You didn’t think it was like this before?”
“It wasn’t.” It was like they were playing with magnets. She kept shaking her head. “You need to get your car.”
“Georgie—” he began, but she interrupted him.
“Just try not to get yourself killed.” She stood up, to stop him from saying anything more. He stood up, too, and backed away, still waiting for her to say something, but she wouldn’t.
“Georgie—” he said again.
“Goodbye, Second Lieutenant.” He rushed forward and kissed her one more time, and she kissed him back, before they both pulled away and he turned to go.
The door clunked behind him. She sat back down and waited. Her body was like an open fire, crackling and spitting.
A few minutes later, she heard the rattle of the door again, and she jumped up and rushed into the hall. But it was only Nelly.
“What’s happened?” she said. She walked in and put her hand up to her daughter’s forehead. “Do you have a fever?” She looked concerned. Georgie shook her head and, on a whim, embraced her mother.
FORTY-FIVE
Over the following days, Georgie wondered where Second Lieutenant Pike was, what he was doing. In France somewhere, fighting in some field-turned-mud. She wished she had asked him what it was like, so she could imagine it better; she wished she had asked where he was going, even though he wouldn’t have been allowed to tell her. She shouldn’t have rushed him to the car, although she couldn’t think what else she would have spoken to him about. She didn’t think she wanted to marry him, and still, there was something tingling about the whole thing, something prickling, not entirely unlike when she saw something out of the corner of her eye. She was reading less about magic these days, and more about other wars, and the ways in which they had ended. This one would end too.
She often went out into the woods. The trees were spindly and brittle, rather like coded messages, curled into a language she couldn’t read. Tonight they seemed like warnings, except that she remembered her brain was interfering, trying to make them legible, trying to make them into messages. They meant nothing, she reminded herself, as she returned to the house.
Back in her bedroom, she poured herself a brandy. Nelly had talked about returning to London, so Georgie decided she may as well help the servants and start to pack up a box of books. Spine after spine. She took her time placing the books beside one another, ordering them from thinnest to thickest. Downstairs, someone was knocking at the door. She heard Lucy open it, heard some muffled voices, and the thump of the maid’s footsteps on the stairs.
Lucy stood in front of her, out of breath. “Mr. Yeats is here.”
Georgie looked up. “I’m sorry?”
“Mr. Yeats is at the door.”
Georgie frowned. She drained the brandy glass, pulled the scarf from her hair, and ran her sleeve across her face.
“I’ll come down,” she said.
FORTY-SIX
Willy lowered his head to get through the door. He had never been the person of his poems, not really, had
too much pride, which sat so much more awkwardly in his body than in his stanzas (not that his poems were free of bravado, but they could attain a fluidity that the man never quite managed). Nelly had followed him into the living room, and Georgie stood up as they came in. He greeted her.
“You can leave us,” Georgie said to her mother, and Nelly, looking at Willy, did as she was asked, although as she left the room she glanced back twice. Willy was about to take Georgie’s hand, but she pulled it back. For a moment he hovered, troubled, but she gestured for him to sit down.
“Tea?”
He shook his head and sat down. “I’m sorry it took me so long to come.”
“It was the long route. Bloomsbury to Coleman’s Hatch via France and Ireland.”
He laughed, but didn’t seem able to properly smile. “Is it too late? I thought—when you didn’t reply to my letters—”
Georgie frowned. She hadn’t got any letters; Nelly must have taken them. But she didn’t say anything to him. She watched as he nervously raked his mass of greying black hair through his fingers.
“I really don’t think I’ve known my own mind. I am a Sinbad—who after all my misadventures—has finally gained sight of port. Here. With you.”
Georgie looked out the window, at a sky that was still a crumble of greys, light shuffling into darkness. She felt too much towards him: frustration, anger, a kind of fierceness. What had happened with Iseult? she wondered. Had she turned him down? She remembered the hawk and butterfly ring, which she had taken from her purse and wedged in the bottom of a box of books where she had hoped to forget it.
She spoke levelly. “You’re very late.”
“Oh, Georgie.” He stopped a moment, not certain whether this was to be taken as encouragement. “You are in my blood, really; I always seem to return to you. We have a life of study ahead, don’t we? I—I brought you something.” He produced a satchel, which he opened with much ceremony, and pulled out a small white bag marked with soil. He pulled out of this bag, and placed before her on the table, what looked like a handful of dried grass, some twigs, a pebble, and two tarnished coins. He looked down at them as if they were enchanted.
“It’s the seisin,” he said. She waited for an explanation, while he stroked the small stone. “The symbols of possession. For the tower. Perhaps you know I’ve bought a tower? At Ballylee, only six miles north of Coole. This is,” and he pointed to the items on the table, “two florins from the sale of a fallen tree; a handful of thatch from the cottage; some strands of grass from the field; and a stone from the tower wall. Has anyone ever suggested you might live in a medieval tower! A little damp, perhaps, and still in need of some renovations—a roof, for instance—but I have a man working on it now. I’ve always said it is really no use unless I have a wife, and I want so very much for that to be you.”
She glanced behind him, through the window into the woods. Dorothy had written to her about this tower. Apparently it is so damp it has a river on the first floor. Water pouring off the walls. He calls it Ballylee. We call it Ballyphallus.
“They were just going to lock it up, let it go to ruin. I’m certain it dates back to the Normans. The Normans had form, don’t you think? You are not saying much.”
She swallowed. “I am just—what should I say? Recalibrating?”
“There’s a winding stair. And on one wall, the head of a gargoyle. You will fall in love with it.” He pulled his hand through his thick hair again. He stopped and met her eyes. “You will come and see it, won’t you? Wouldn’t you like to?”
She would, wouldn’t she? She’d been waiting for this moment for so long that it didn’t really feel as if it had arrived. It felt too casual, too improvised, and her body was accordingly unworried, did not seem to remember what the stakes were. She remembered Second Lieutenant Pike’s scratchy uniform in her fingers.
“Are you still chasing that machine?”
“No. It was nonsense.”
Georgie smiled.
“You knew that already, of course. That’s why I need you. Part of why.”
She nodded, feeling herself coming around. He shifted his chair closer to hers.
“Before we get carried away,” he said, “there is one other thing I must ask you. That is, you remember Iseult?”
Georgie stiffened, nodded.
“I must take her on as my ward—because she is vulnerable. Her stepfather was violent, her constitution is poor. Her mother won’t have it any other way. How does that sit with you?” His knee was almost touching hers. Georgie was still for a moment, and Willy pushed his knee until it was against her leg.
Georgie dragged her eyes up to his. “What does that mean? She would live with us?”
“Not necessarily. Just that I would be responsible for her, in a sense.”
Responsible was not the kind of word she readily associated with Willy Yeats. But she supposed she needed to trust him. It still felt very unreal.
“Fine,” Georgie heard herself say. “I like her.”
“Good.” He laughed, his face bright. “I received a note from Nora Radcliffe—she has stopped giving sessions, but she sent me a letter, saying I should let the evening star rule. There was a sketch, of a cat on a rug by the fire, and I knew it meant—I should come to you. That you would still be here.”
She wished he hadn’t shared this image of her as the domesticated house cat, a world away from the wild hare. Still, Georgie thought, dear Nora. Still trying to help in her own way after all that had happened. She looked back down at his long legs next to hers, the boxy structure of his trousers’ creases.
They sat there a little longer, looking at each other uncertainly. Georgie looked away, focusing on the bits of grass on the table.
Willy said, “Did you hear how Harkin lost the leadership?”
Georgie shook her head.
“Vote of no confidence. For the moment, the leader is Miss Stoddart. Of course Harkin insists she’s corrupt.”
Georgie flushed her hand through the air as if to say she didn’t care for any of that.
“Let’s leave that for now.”
He nodded. His bulk was solid and his outline clear. “Shall we go and ask your mother?” he said.
She nodded, and he jumped up. But he stopped, as if he’d forgotten something. He sat back down, and pulling the chair closer to hers, he leaned forward and kissed her wrist, moving to the inside of her elbow, and raised his head to her cheek, and now—glancing at her as if for permission—he kissed her mouth. It was strange to have a different mouth on hers. His lips were thinner, his mouth drier, and he tasted of soil, of vast, closed-up rooms blowing open.
FORTY-SEVEN
As soon as he’d left, Nelly sat down opposite her daughter.
“You can’t be sure.”
“I am.”
“He seemed—almost strained, when I spoke to him.”
“I think he wants to get the marriage part over. It’s not really his style. I think he just wants to get on with being married.”
“That’s not normal, Georgie. This should be the best part.”
She cast her eyes around the stray boxes, one stack of books, a ball of thick string. “I wouldn’t accuse Willy of normality.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t, actually.”
“How will you have time for your own work?”
“It’s our work. We have the same work.”
“But if you marry him, it will be his work. You will be a glorified secretary.”
“What is this ‘if’? I am marrying him. We are as good as married.”
“I don’t think you understand.”
“Why did you take those letters? That he sent to me? They were mine.”
Nelly winced. “I was trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need protecting from myself.”
Two days later she went to London to meet him at Woburn Buildings. When Mrs. Olds let her in, she walked through the rooms on her own. If they kept th
e flat, she would replace almost all the furniture; she would put one of those potted aspidistras by the desk. She saw the old chair in the corner—unchanged, spitting its stuffing—and laughed. She would keep it, she decided. She couldn’t quite believe this was her life, yet.
“Is that you?” Willy said, and he came out, took her hand, and led her through to the bedroom. It was breezy outside; the curtains were shuffling in the breeze.
He came and pressed his hand to his own chest. “My dear girl,” he said, and she wondered when she might ask him not to call her girl or child. He kept his hand to his chest and came forward and started kissing her. It was pleasant. She supposed soon she would forget the soft fuzz above Pike’s lip.
Willy was directing her towards the bed, and she walked over and sat on the edge of it. She found herself wondering: Was there something perfunctory about this? Was there something missing? He hovered above her, still kissing her, and she unbuttoned the top button of his shirt, the second button, and ran her hand across the skin of his chest, loose like a rhino’s; she lay back on the bed, and as he kissed her she thought for a moment of his other women, of Olivia, of Maud, even Iseult. Had they all lain here? She gazed up at the cracked ceiling and thought of them all, on their backs, gazing up at it too, these beautiful, clever women who’d shared this bed.
“We will get a new bed,” Willy said, as if reading her mind. He fell on the bed beside her and propped himself up on one elbow like a much younger man.
She laughed. “I don’t mind,” she said, because she really didn’t. She was wondering if she would need to remove her long dress, if they were going to do this now. “I like it.” Her dress was hitched up above her knee, but she left it. She was trying not to seem nervous.
“You are too good,” he said, and he put a hand on her shoulder. “What do you think of your name?”
“Pardon?”
“Georgie, I mean. If you could change it, would you?”
She stared back at him. “I haven’t really thought about it.”
He waited.
“Are you trying to change me already?” She extended her leg and looked down at it, her shoes still on. “We’re not married yet.” He looked at the length of her leg as if studying it, as if there were something he was trying to interpret. He disentangled himself, stood up, and went to the window. After a moment he turned back to her.