by Pat Barker
‘Can I see you again?’
‘You know where I live. Or you will do.’
‘I don’t know your times off.’
‘Sunday.’
‘I’ll come over on Sunday, then, shall I? If I come mid morning, we could have a bit to eat in Edinburgh and then go somewhere on the tram.’
She looked doubtful, but the thought of being collected from her lodgings by an officer was too much for her. ‘All right.’
They walked on. She stopped outside the door and raised her face. Oh, no, he thought. No fumbling on doorsteps. He lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. ‘Goodnight, Sarah Lumb.’
‘Goodnight, Billy Prior.’
After a few paces he turned and looked back. She was standing on the step, watching him walk away. He raised his hand, and she waved slightly. Then he turned and walked briskly on, looking at his watch and thinking, Christ. Even if he found a taxi immediately he still couldn’t be back at Craiglockhart before the main doors were locked. Oh well, he thought, I’ll just have to face it.
9
__________
‘Aren’t you going to start?’
‘I imagine Major Bryce has dealt with the matter?’
‘You could say. He’s confined me to the hospital for a fortnight.’
Rivets made no comment.
‘Don’t you think that’s rather severe?’
‘It wasn’t a simple matter of being late back, was it? Matron says she saw you in town, and you were not wearing your hospital badge.’
‘I wasn’t wearing the badge because I was looking for a girl. Which – as you may or may not know – is not made easier by going around with a badge stuck on your chest saying I AM A LOONY.’
‘I gather you also made some rather disrespectful remarks about Matron. Everything from the size of her bosom to the state of her hymen. If you make remarks like that to the CO, what do you think is going to happen?’
Prior didn’t reply, though a muscle throbbed in his jaw. Rivers looked at the pale, proud, wintry face and thought oh God, it’s going to be another one of those.
Prior said, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I got one?’
‘One what?’
‘Girl. Woman.’ When Rivers didn’t immediately reply, Prior added, ‘Wo-man?’
‘No, I wasn’t going to ask.’
‘You amaze me. I should’ve thought that was par for the course.’
Rivers waited.
‘Questions. On and on and bloody on.’
‘Would you like to leave it for today?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘All right. We’d got to the time immediately following the April 23rd attack. Have you made any progress beyond that?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing at all?’
‘No.’ Prior’s hands were gripping the arms of his chair. ‘I don’t want to talk about this.’
Rivers decided to humour him. ‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘Something you said earlier on. It’s been bothering me ever since. You said officers don’t suffer from mutism.’
‘It’s rare.’
‘How many cases?’
‘At Craiglockhart? You, and one other. At Maghull, where I was treating private soldiers, it was by far the commonest symptom.’
‘Why?’
‘I imagine… Mutism seems to spring from a conflict between wanting to say something, and knowing that if you do say it the consequences will be disastrous. So you resolve it by making it physically impossible for yourself to speak. And for the private soldier the consequences of speaking his mind are always going to be far worse than they would be for an officer. What you tend to get in officers is stammering. And it’s not just mutism. All the physical symptoms: paralysis, blindness, deafness. They’re all common in private soldiers and rare in officers. It’s almost as if for the… the labouring classes illness has to be physical. They can’t take their condition seriously unless there’s a physical symptom. And there are other differences as well. Officers’ dreams tend to be more elaborate. The men’s dreams are much more a matter of simple wish fulfilment. You know, they dream they’ve been sent back to France, but on the day they arrive peace is declared. That sort of thing.’
‘I think I’d rather have their dreams than mine.’
‘How do you know?’ Rivers said. ‘You don’t remember your dreams.’
‘You still haven’t said why.’
‘I suppose it’s just a matter of officers having a more complex mental life.’
Prior reacted as if he’d been stung. ‘Are you serious? You honestly believe that that gaggle of noodle-brained half-wits down there has a complex mental life? Oh, Rivers.’
‘I’m not saying it’s universally true, only that it’s generally true. Simply as a result of officers receiving a different and, for the most part, more prolonged education.’
‘The public schools.’
‘Yes. The public schools.’
Prior raised his head. ‘How do I fit into that?’
‘We-ell, it’s interesting that you were mute and that you’re one of the very few people in the hospital who doesn’t stammer.’
‘It’s even more interesting that you do.’
Rivers was taken aback. ‘That’s d-different.’
‘How is it different? Other than that you’re on that side of the desk?’ He saw Rivers hesitate. ‘No, I’m not being awkward. I’m genuinely interested.’
‘It’s usually thought that neurasthenic stammers arise from the same kind of conflict as mutism, a conflict between wanting to speak and knowing that w-what you’ve got to say is not acceptable. Lifelong stammerers? Well. Nobody really knows. It may even be genetic.’
Prior smiled. ‘Now that is lucky, isn’t it? Lucky for you, I mean. Because if your stammer was the same as theirs – you might actually have to sit down and work out what it is you’ve spent fifty years trying not to say.’
‘Is that the end of my appointment for the day, Mr Prior?’
Prior smiled.
‘You know one day you’re going to have to accept the fact that you’re in this hospital because you’re ill. Not me. Not the CO. Not the kitchen porter. You.’
After Prior had gone, Rivers sat for a while, half amused, half irritated. Now that his attention had been drawn to his stammer, it would plague him at intervals throughout the day. Bugger Prior, he thought. To be absolutely accurate, b-b-b-bugger Prior.
Prior had left slightly early, so Rivers had a few minutes before his next appointment. He decided to take a turn in the grounds. The grass was silvery with dew – his footsteps showed up dark along the path he’d come – but here and there the ground was beginning to steam. He sat on a bench under the trees, and watched two patients carrying scythes come round the corner of the building and run down the grassy slope that divided the gravel drive from the tennis courts. They looked, Rivers thought, almost comically symbolic: Time and Death invading the Arcadian scene. Nothing symbolic about the scythes, though. The blades over their shoulders glinted a wicked blue-grey. You could only wonder at an administration that confiscated cut-throat razors and then issued the patients with these. They set to work cutting the long grass by the hedges. There was a great deal of laughter and clumsiness at first, and a not a few false starts, before their bodies bent into the rhythm of the task. Moths, disturbed from their daytime sleep, flickered all around them.
One took off his Sam Browne belt and then tunic, shirt and tie, casting them carelessly aside, and then went back to his scything, his dangling braces describing wide arcs around him as he swung the blade. His body was very pale, with a line round the neck, dividing white from reddish brown. The tunic had landed on the hedge, one sleeve raised as if beckoning. The other flung down his scythe and did the same. Work went more quickly now. Soon there was a gratifyingly large area of mown grass for them to look back on. They stood leaning on t
he scythes, admiring their work, and then one of them dived into the cut grass, winnowing his way through it, obviously excited by it in the way dogs sometimes are. He lay on his back, panting. The other man came across, said, ‘Silly bugger,’ and started kicking the grass all over him.
Rivers turned and saw Patterson—the Head of Office Administration – making his way at a steady pace down the slope to deliver the inevitable reprimand. King’s regulations. No officer must appear in public with any garment missing. Patterson spoke to them, then turned away. Slowly, they reached for their uniforms, pulled khaki shirts and tunics on to sweating bodies, buckled belts. It had to be done, though it seemed to Rivers that the scything went more slowly after that, and there was less laughter, which seemed a pity.
That night Rivers worked late, compiling lists of men to be boarded at the end of August. This was the most difficult task of any month, since it involved deciding which patients were fit to return to duty. In theory, the decision to return a man to service was taken by the Board, but since his recommendations were rarely, if ever, questioned, in practice his report determined the outcome. He was beginning to work on the first of these reports when there was a tap on the door. He called, ‘Come in!’
Prior came into the room.
‘Good evening,’ Rivers said.
‘Good evening. I came to say I’m sorry about this morning.’
The day had been so horrific in so many ways – culminating in a three-hour meeting of the hospital management committee – that Rivers had to grope for the memory. He said. ‘That’s all right.’
‘It was stupid. Going on like that.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. We just caught each other at a bad moment.’
Prior lingered a few feet away from the desk. ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ Rivers said.
‘You must be tired.’
‘Tired of paperwork.’
Prior’s glance took in the list of names. ‘The Boards.’
‘The Boards.’ He glanced at Prior. ‘Not you this time.’
‘Not enough progress.’
Rivers didn’t immediately reply. He was watching Prior, noticing the pallor, the circles round the eyes. He had shadows under the shadows now. ‘You have made progress. You’ve recovered almost all your memory and you no longer lose your voice.’
‘You must wish I did.’
Rivers smiled. ‘Don’t exaggerate, Mr Prior. We both know if you really wanted to be offensive, you could do a hundred times better than you did this morning.’ He waited for a reply. ‘Couldn’t you?’
Prior produced a curious rippling motion – half shrug, half flounce – and turned away. After a moment he looked sideways at Rivers. ‘I did once think of asking you if you ever fucked any of your headhunters.’
‘What stopped you?’
‘I thought it was your business.’
Rivers pretended to consider the matter. ‘That’s true.’
‘There’s no point trying to be offensive, is there, if that’s the only response you get?’
‘You don’t really want to be. You’ve always made a lot of noise about stepping over the line, but you’ve never actually done it.’ Rivers smiled. ‘Except just now, of course. And that was incredibly indirect.’
A short silence. Prior said, ‘I wish I could go out. No, it’s all right, I’m not asking. I’m just saying I wish I could. The nightmares get worse when I’m stuck indoors.’ He waited. ‘This is where you ask about the nightmares and I say I don’t remember.’
‘I know.’
Prior smiled. ‘You never believed me, did you?’
‘Should I have done?’
‘No.’
‘Do you want to talk about them now?’
‘I can’t. Look, they’re just…’ He laughed. ‘“Standard issue battle nightmares. Potty officers for the use of.” Nothing you won’t have heard a hundred times before.’
‘Except?’
‘Except nothing.’
A long silence.
‘Except that sometimes they get muddled up with sex. So I wake up, and…’ He risked a glance at Rivers. When he spoke again, his voice was casual. ‘It makes it really quite impossible to like oneself. I’ve actually woken up once or twice and wondered whether there was any point going on.’
And you might well do it, Rivers thought.
‘That’s why I was so furious when they got you up in the middle of the night.’
Easy to hand out the usual reassurances about the effects on young men of a celibate life, but not particularly helpful. Prior was becoming unmistakably depressed. It was doing him no good to wait for his CO’s letter, which might anyway turn out to contain nothing of any great moment. ‘We could try hypnosis now, if you liked.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, why not? It’s the time we’re least likely to be interrupted.’
Prior’s eyes flickered round the room. He licked his lips. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it? When you said most people were frightened, I didn’t believe you.’
‘What frightens them,’ Rivers said carefully, ‘is the belief that they’re putting themselves completely in the therapist’s power. That he can make them do anything, even things they’d normally consider ridiculous or even immoral. But that isn’t true, you remain yourself throughout. Not that I shall be trying to make you do anything ridiculous or immoral.’ He smiled. ‘In spite of being the terror of the South Seas.’
Prior laughed, but his face tightened again immediately.
‘We can leave it, if you like,’ Rivers said gently.
Deep breath. ‘No. I can’t pester you for it and then turn it down.’
‘If it turns out to be…’ Rivers groped for a sufficiently bland word. ‘Distressing, I’ll give you something to make you sleep. I mean, you won’t have to face up to the full implications tonight.’
‘All right. What do we do?’
‘You relax. Sit back in the chair. That’s right. Shoulders. Come on, like this. Now your hands. Let the wrists go. Comfortable? I want you to look at this pen. No, don’t raise your head. Raise your eyes. That’s right. Keep your eyes fixed on the pen. I’m going to count down from ten. By the time I get to zero, you’ll be in a light sleep. All right?’
Prior nodded. He looked profoundly sceptical. Like most bloody-minded people he assumed he would be a poor subject for hypnosis. Rivers thought he’d be very easy. ‘Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven… Your eyelids are heavy now. Don’t fight it, let them close. Six… Five… Four… Three… Two…’
He woke to a dugout smell of wet sandbags and stale farts. He curled his toes inside his wet boots and felt the creak and sag of chicken wire as he turned towards the table. The usual jumble: paper, bottles, mugs, the black-boxed field telephone, a couple of revolvers – all lit by a single candle stuck to the wood in a pool of its own grease. A barely perceptible thinning of the darkness around the gas curtain told him it must be nearly dawn. And sure enough, a few minutes later Sanderson lifted the curtain and shouted, ‘Stand-to!’ The bulky forms on the other bunks stirred, groaned, groped for revolvers. Soon they were all trying to climb out of the dugout, difficult because rain and recent near-hits had turned the steps into a muddy slide. All along the trench men were crawling out of funk holes. He clumped along the duckboards to his position, smelling the green, ratty, decomposing smell, stretching the muscles of his face into a smile whenever the men looked up. Then an hour of standing, stiff and shivery, watching dawn grow.
He had first trench watch. He gulped a mug of chlorine-tasting tea, and then started walking along to the outermost position on their left. A smell of bacon frying. In the third fire bay he found Sawdon and Towers crouched over a small fire made out of shredded sandbags and candle ends, coaxing the flames. He stopped to chat for a few minutes, and Towers, blinking under the green mushroom helmet, looked up and offered him tea. A quiet day, he thought, walking on. Not like the last few days, when the bombardment had gone on for seventy hours, and they’d stood-to five times e
xpecting a German counter-attack. Damage from that bombardment was everywhere: crumbling parapets, flooded saps, dugouts with gagged mouths.
He’d gone, perhaps, three fire bays along when he heard the whoop of a shell, and, spinning round, saw the scrawl of dusty brown smoke already drifting away. He thought it’d gone clear over, but then he heard a cry and, feeling sick in his stomach, he ran back. Logan was there already. It must have been Logan’s cry he heard, for nothing in that devastation could have had a voice. A conical black hole, still smoking, had been driven into the side of the trench. Of the kettle, the frying-pan, the carefully tended fire, there was no sign, and not much of Sawdon and Towers either, or not much that was recognizable.
There was a pile of sandbags and shovels close by, stacked against the parapet by a returning work party. He reached for a shovel. Logan picked up a sandbag and held it open, and he began shovelling soil, flesh and splinters of blackened bone into the bag. As he shovelled, he retched. He felt something jar against his teeth and saw that Logan was offering him a rum bottle. He forced down bile and rum together. Logan kept his face averted as the shovelling went on. He was swearing under his breath, steadily, blasphemously, obscenely, inventively. Somebody came running. ‘Don’t stand there gawping, man,’ Logan said. ‘Go and get some lime.’
They’d almost finished when Prior shifted his position on the duckboards, glanced down, and found himself staring into an eye. Delicately, like somebody selecting a particularly choice morsel from a plate, he put his thumb and forefinger down through the duckboards. His fingers touched the smooth surface and slid before they managed to get a hold. He got it out, transferred it to the palm of his hand, and held it out towards Logan. He could see his hand was shaking, but the shaking didn’t seem to be anything to do with him. ‘What am I supposed to do with this gob-stopper?’ He saw Logan blink and knew he was afraid. At last Logan reached out, grasped his shaking wrist, and tipped the eye into the bag. ‘Williams and me’ll do the rest, sir. You go on back now.’