Zennor in Darkness

by Helen Dunmore

  If I could hear him calling out in the street, and lift the window, and go down through the graves again. This time I wouldn’t be frightened. I would know what it all meant. Afterwards I would make him sit on the rock and I would draw him and talk to him and I would have him for ever.

  ‘For ever? A man who didn’t want you enough to spend more than an hour with you before he went?’

  ‘He did. It was the war. He had to get away from people.’

  ‘People? If you love someone, they’re not “people”.’

  ‘He needed to be on his own. He needed to walk it out of himself.’

  ‘Oh, yes? And the way he looked at Peggy? But he knew he wouldn’t get up Peggy’s skirt without marrying her, because Peggy’s a good girl. So, since it wasn’t worth wasting time on Peggy, he had a quick look round and there was Cousin Clare to hand.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘It never is, is it? But all the same, he’s just like any other man, your precious John William. As soon as he’s got what he wants, he’ll show you the back of his britches.’

  ‘You’re wrong. He didn’t turn his back on me. When we were at the station saying goodbye, he kissed me in front of all of the family.’

  ‘In front of all of them. Are you so sure about that? The way I remember it, Hannah was standing in front of you, blocking the sight of the pair of you. Anyway, he could afford to kiss you. He was going off to the war, wasn’t he? Anyone can kiss a girl then, especially if she’s his cousin. And any sensible girl would forget about it right away.’

  ‘No. You’ve got it all wrong. He was going off to the training camp. He was going to get his commission. He would have been safe for three months, at least. That’s what he told me. He’d have written to me. He might even have had leave again.’

  ‘But it wasn’t safe, was it. He’s dead.’

  ‘He didn’t know he was going to die! He didn’t know it when he did those things with me out on the rocks. He thought he was going to live. That’s why he felt so bad, because he was going to live and all his friends were dying. They’d picked him out to be an officer and a gentleman.’

  ‘Gentleman! Very much the gentleman he looked that night, to be sure. I wish the pair of you could have seen yourselves.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. You can’t tell what love feels like from the outside. And he would have come back to me, I know he would. He would have come back and married me. Cousins can marry.’

  ‘They can; yes, they can. If they want to. But it’s not going to happen, is it? He went and died, didn’t he?’

  ‘He didn’t know he was going to die.’

  ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. He didn’t. How could he? How can anybody know he’s going to die? That’s all rubbish and superstition and I’m not going to listen to another word of it.’

  ‘Ah. You’re not listening anyway, are you? You don’t want to, in case it spoils your pretty pictures. But you will. You’ll have to. You don’t believe it now, but you’ll want to.’

  Twenty

  The train creaks into Lelant Saltings, and lets off steam. Let it stay here, thinks Francis Coyne, looking out of the window at the wet spits of the saltings lying ready for the next tide. The window is open at the top, and a smell of salt and rain blows in. Let it stay here and never move again. It is grey today and the wind is blowing, so that when we come round to the sea there won’t be that shockingly beautiful vision of dark blue water and purple water and white sands. Porth Kidney Sands and Carbis Bay. Coming home. Susannah showed them to me first. Could I have loved them if they hadn’t belonged to her? She would not share them. She kept this landscape locked tight inside herself and never said whether she found it beautiful or not. It was just there – hers. No doubt she couldn’t have lived without it, after so many hungry years in London, but then she didn’t live long with it either. She fussed with plant-stands and lace mats on polished tables and frilled pinafores for Clare. Only once I came into the bedroom and saw her by the open window, with the cold air streaming over her, looking out at the sea. I heard the thud of waves hitting rock. She did not seem to hear it, or feel the wind. I told her to shut her window, for the cold would hurt her, and then she turned to me but she still said nothing. She put up her hand to her mouth to stifle the cough that was bubbling there. She had no shawl. Her face was white and red in patches, the skin stretched over her cheek-bones. She could not stop coughing. I took hold of her and felt her vibrate with the cough, as if there were something alive there tearing its way out of her. I held her while she coughed, and I closed the window, and drew the curtains across so that she might sleep in the darkened room.

  She’s left me nothing to love here, only my Clare. I can see the beauty everywhere, and it pierces me, but I am never at home. It is a beauty which disturbs me without ever offering the comfort of familiarity or possession. I live with my back turned to everything I know, and no matter how long I live here it will be the same. I would find it easier if the place were less beautiful.

  The glass in the train window rattles. Cold for June, they’ll say, just as they said before that it was hot for May. There is strangeness in the weather these days. It is as if the days have misplaced themselves. Sometimes the wind tastes as if it has blown here across a desert. Heat swells until it seems as if the spirits-of-wine will burst through the top of the thermometer. The sky is brassy and frighteningly indifferent. Why shouldn’t it roast us if it wants? We believe it will not do so, because it has never done so before. This is our world, and it will not turn on us and rend us. But it’s the same sun that glitters over the trenches on perfect June mornings before the obliteration of thousands in a couple of hours. Men who shave themselves in the morning, and put tissue-paper over a shaving cut are blown to rags by noon. Phoebus Apollo, flame-crowned. What are those lines?

  Stand in the trench, Achilles,

  flame-capped, and shout for me…

  Yes. It sounds glorious. It does not sound like a man trying to scrabble his way up the greased yellow walls of a flooded shell-hole. It does not sound like a man trying to force his wet, squirming, glistening bowels back into the hole in his stomach. Dying in a lather of blood and excrement, yapping like a puppy. No words, no tears, no prayers. You wouldn’t think the insides of a man would a been such a colour. We sat in our seats, and we listened as the women made the food in the kitchen. We could not relish our ham and gooseberry tart after that. John William broke the compact: soldiers are not supposed to tell us about such things.

  How does the poem begin? Now I have it:

  I saw a man this morning

  Who did not wish to die

  I ask but cannot answer

  If otherwise wish I…

  I see them. Young men like we were when we travelled through Europe. Young men in an estaminet, drunk on fear and cheap wine and exhaustion. Young men in orchards which won’t fruit this year, because they’ll be blown to bits before the blossom is off the branches. Rags of flesh the colour of cherries before they brown and harden.

  ... who did not wish to die…

  The train jerks forward. The fat guard hangs dreamily from the window, looking over the estuary to Hayle Towans. He lifts his hand – who can he be waving to? Francis Coyne can see no one. That’s where Clare bathes. Not too near the estuary, I hope. Dangerous water.

  ... who did not wish…

  And the wheels go rumptitump, rumptitump, wish to die, wish to die.

  They said he should not see John William’s body and he had not insisted. Coward. It would serve no purpose they said. There was no question of identification.

  The Colonel who had come in from somewhere was confidential in the smoky small room. From time to time a young man entered, saluted, took away a file.

  ‘If I am not disturbing you, sir.’

  Perfect manners. What were they – adjutants?

  ‘It’s the calibre of a man which matters to us now. Not his background. That’s all old hat,�
� said the Colonel.

  You mean you are desperate for new men, thought Francis Coyne, watching the young officer’s small, perfect salute as he withdrew.

  ‘John William Treveal. Terrible business. A moment’s carelessness,’ he told Francis Coyne. His fire bubbled in the corner. ‘Splendid report came with him from his platoon officer.’ He twitched another file over the desk. ‘Yes. Here.’ He read it through, but did not offer to show it across the desk.

  ‘You can be proud of him. Be sure of that. A terrible thing, but it’s happened before and it’ll happen again. The best man can get careless cleaning his rifle. Why, at home –’ But he broke off without relating his anecdote of a safe, domestic shooting accident.

  He got careless. No, there is no purpose to be served by your seeing the body. A drink? No? As you wish. The funeral arrangements. Yes.

  Francis Coyne walked through the camp on his way back to the world. He was offered an escort, but no, he preferred to be alone. They understood. Of course. The Colonel stood, and Francis stood, and there were handshakes. They trusted him to be stupid and to ask no questions. He was given a packet containing ten pounds in cash, which he signed for, and John William’s watch. The other effects would be sent on.

  He paused to watch a group of soldiers playing football. They were not officers yet – or were they? They leapt and yelled and there was a little mild horseplay of the kind that is only to be expected of young men filled with adrenalin and bully-beef. They had all been out there. Some of them would have known John William. The ball shot past him – he kicked at it too late, ineffectually civilian, but the man who pounded after it didn’t mind. His boots thumped the dry turf. He was big, muscled and tanned, panting with the exercise. He stopped by Francis Coyne.

  ‘Looking for someone?’ he asked.

  ‘No. No. I am here to see after something. Someone. My nephew. John William Treveal.’

  The man’s face changed. He turned and threw the ball back into the field and shouted, ‘Get Simcox in. I’m wanted here a minute.’

  The pair of them walked away from the field.

  ‘Who have you seen?’ asked the man.

  ‘Colonel Lacey.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘About the accident. He said John William was cleaning his rifle. But…’ He looked carefully into the soldier’s face. ‘Did you know my nephew? Did you know John William?’

  ‘Yes, I knew him. We were over from Boulogne on the same boat. Right away to Blighty! I still couldn’t believe it, and I don’t think he could either. I can’t yet. I had a twenty-franc note in my pocket and the sun was shining and we were out of the war. We were leaning on the rails, looking down on the men throwing the ropes off down on the quayside, making a lot of racket. Just like the French.’

  ‘Did you see him? Before the accident?’

  The man paused and glanced round. He was very close, so close that Francis Coyne could smell his sweat. He spoke quietly.

  ‘When he came back, he wasn’t the same.’

  ‘After his leave.’

  ‘Yes. Course it takes a man all ways, seeing his home again. I’d allow for that. But with John William it was different. He got into a wild rage the first night here. Something was said – I thought he should a killed a chap. But we all got hold of him, asked him did he want to get himself RTU.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Returned To Unit. That’s the penalty – worst thing that can happen.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  The man frowned. ‘Seemed like he didn’t care any more. The others thought he had drink taken, but I knew he hadn’t. He wasn’t one for making a beast of himself.’

  ‘So what was it?’

  ‘Later, when I was asleep, I woke up cos I heard him moving about. He was feeling for something under his bed, it looked like. Sort of groping. Somehow I didn’t care for it. I called to him, soft-like. I don’t know why but he didn’t look right to me. Not like a man should.’

  ‘I suppose you get used to spotting that, out in the trenches.’

  ‘You do. You have to. So I motion him to come outside the hut and he does, quite meek he was. Not like himself. And I said to him, “What’s up?” and then I saw he was trembling. Well, I felt it, really.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I put my arm around him.’ He flashed a look at Francis Coyne. ‘And he didn’t shake me off neither.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He was crying. I asked what was up with him, and he said he had done wrong.’

  ‘What was it? Did he say?’

  ‘I thought it might a been a girl, seeing as he had been home. I didn’t get it clear, sir, but it was that he thought he had left someone. He thought he had abandoned them. He ought to be out in France still, that’s what it was. He thought he had let the men down, coming here to be an officer when they were over there in Hell still. Course it was rubbish, and I told him so, and he must a known it. I was surprised at him. He struck me as level-headed enough most of the time, John William, for all there was a wild streak in him.’

  ‘And was he better?’

  ‘I thought he was. Then, as we were going in again, he freezes up and he says, “Hammond!” (that’s my name, sir) and then “Can’t you hear them?” and I say, what, there’s nothing to hear, trying to calm him down, like, and he says again just like this, “Can’t you hear them? Those 5.9s? Don’t tell me you can’t hear them?” ’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Well, I knew of other men it had taken that way. I thought I had better go along with it, to humour him. But it was a queer thing – I could feel gooseflesh creeping out all along my arms, though it wasn’t a cold night. And as I listened I was half thinking I would hear them too, and maybe voices singing out the way they do in the trenches. So I was humouring him, and not humouring him, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘Yes, I do. Go on.’

  ‘And so then I said, “Come on. Come along out of it and get some kip,” like I was relieving him from duty, and he came with me. He was stiff under my hands, and he still had a listening look on him. He wasn’t right. So I thought I would go and have a word with the medical orderly the next day, not naming his name, just to find out what might be helpful to him. For I know men who’ve been taken like that. I’ve seen it. It’s in any man, if he’s tired enough, or if he’s just seen his pal killed in front of him. But in the morning he was fine again, shaving hisself with a steady hand, for I took note of it, and eating his breakfast. One moment, he was laughing at something Simcox said. I can see him now – soap all over his face, laughing. So I wasn’t worried. When I got a quiet minute I said to him, “Everything all right now?” He looked at me as if he didn’t know what I was talking about. So I said no more, for it felt awkward. Strange things happen at night, and a man’ull say things he wouldn’t want remembered in cold daylight. And that was on the Saturday. We went on parade, then there was drill, and map-work, and then he wasn’t with us. I wondered for a minute, then it went out of my mind. The next we heard was Lucas howling out from the huts.’

  ‘Howling?’

  ‘Well, he’d seen dead men before; lived with them, you might say. But he didn’t expect to find one back in Blighty; not in the officers’ training camp.’

  ‘Hammond, I am going to ask you a question. You needn’t say a word if you prefer not: just signify to me, yes or no. Would it be in order for a man to clean his rifle where they say that John William was cleaning his when it went off?’

  ‘I can answer that,’ said Hammond readily. ‘It would not.’

  ‘Let me ask you something more. Did you or any of the other men see John William’s body – apart from Lucas?’

  Slowly, Hammond shook his head. ‘We did not. Our hut was put out of bounds to us, except for the detail which took away his body and cleaned the place.’

  ‘You didn’t happen – did you? – to speak to any of that detail?’

  ‘I did,’ said Hammond. His
eyes were pleading. ‘I made it my business to speak to them. I had to satisfy myself of what had happened to him.’

  ‘You did right. And that is why I am here too. What did they say?’

  ‘They said that he had shot hisself.’

  The two men had stopped, but now they walked on, close together, taking pace after pace, heads down. Francis Coyne said, ‘Thank you. Don’t be afraid – you are not telling me anything I hadn’t feared.’

  ‘It’s a mortal sin, they say,’ ventured Hammond, turning over the words.

  ‘Are you a Catholic?’

  ‘I was brought up to it. But out there – it changes you. If there is damnation, you don’t have to look far for it. And I can’t believe any God would damn a man for not being able to get those guns out of his head – can you?’

  ‘No. No, I can’t believe that.’

  ‘Or if He does, then I want none of Him,’ said Hammond.

  ‘I shall tell no one of what you have told me. Only my daughter. It’s best his family doesn’t know.’

  ‘They’d stop being so proud of him then, would they?’ said Hammond. How they must despise us, thought Francis Coyne, safe at home, judging their courage. He would like to give this man something. Would he take it?

  ‘They have given me John William’s watch. Will you have it?’ he asked. ‘As a friend?’