by Kate Morton
She nodded, wondered whether she was. ‘Yes,’ she said, finally.
He came to her then, knelt beside her. She must have flinched, for he held his hands up by his shoulders and said, ‘I won’t hurt you.’ He reached out, lifted her chin to see her throat. ‘Jesus,’ he said.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, more firmly this time. ‘Are you—?’
He held a finger to her lips. He was still breathing quickly. He shook his head absently, and she knew he wanted to explain. Couldn’t.
He cupped the side of her face with his hand. She leaned into his touch, eyes locked with his. Such dark eyes, full of secrets he wouldn’t share. She longed to know them all, determined to earn them from him. And when he kissed her throat, oh, so lightly, she swooned, as she always did.
She had to wear scarves for a week after that. But she didn’t mind. In some way it pleased her to have his mark. It made the times between more bearable. A secret reminder that he really did exist, that they existed. Their secret world. She would look at it sometimes, in the mirror, the way a new bride looks repeatedly at her wedding ring. Reminding herself. She knew he would have been horrified if she’d told him.
Love affairs, in their beginnings, are all about the present. But there is a point in each—an event, an exchange, some other unseen trigger—which forces the past and the future back into focus. For Hannah, this was it. There were other sides to him. Things she hadn’t known before. She’d been too full of the wonderful surprise of him to look beyond immediate happiness. The more she thought about this aspect of him, of which she knew so little, the more frustrated she became. The more determined to know everything.
One cool afternoon in September, they were sitting together on the bed watching the embankment through the window. There were people walking this way and that, and they’d been giving them names and imagined lives. They’d been quiet for a while, had been content just to watch the passing procession from their secret position, when Robbie hopped out of bed.
She remained where she was, rolled over to watch him as he sat himself on the kitchen chair, one leg curled beneath him, head bent over his notebook. He was trying to write a poem. Had been trying all day. He’d been distracted while he was with her. Had been unable to play their game with any enthusiasm. She didn’t mind. In some way she couldn’t explain, his distraction made him more attractive.
She lay on the bed, watching his fingers clutching his pencil, directing it in flowing circles and loops across the page, only to stop, hesitate, then backtrack fiercely across its previous path. He tossed the notebook and pencil onto the table and rubbed his eyes with his hand.
She didn’t say anything. She knew better than that. This was not the first time she’d seen him like this. He was frustrated, she knew, by his own failure to find the right words. Worse, he was frightened. He hadn’t told her, but she knew. She’d watched him, and she had read about it: at the library and in newspapers and journals. It was a trait of what the doctors were calling shell shock. The increased unreliability of memory, the numbing of the brain by traumatic experiences.
She longed to make it better, to make him forget. Would give anything to make it stop; his relentless fear that he was losing his mind. He took his hand from across his eyes and reached once more for the pencil and paper. Started again to write, stopped, scratched it out.
She rolled over onto her stomach and watched the people passing outside.
And then it was winter again. He set the boat’s little firebox against the wall by the kitchen. They sat on the floor, watching the flames flicker and hiss in the grate. Their skin was warm and they were drowsy with red wine and warmth and each other.
Hannah took a sip of wine and said, ‘Why won’t you talk about the war?’
He didn’t answer; instead he lit a cigarette.
She’d been reading Freud on repression and had some idea that if she could get Robbie to speak about it, perhaps he would be cured. She held her breath, wondered if she dared to ask. ‘Is it because you killed somebody?’
He looked at her profile, took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled and shook his head. Then he started to laugh softly, without humour. He reached out to lay his hand gently along the side of her face.
‘Is that it?’ she whispered, still not looking at him.
He didn’t answer and she took another tack.
‘Who is it you dream about?’
He removed his hand. ‘You know the answer to that,’ he said. ‘I only ever dream of you.’
‘I hope not,’ said Hannah. ‘They’re not very nice dreams.’
He took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled. ‘Don’t ask me,’ he said.
‘It’s shell shock, isn’t it?’ she said, turning to him. ‘I’ve been reading about it.’
His eyes met hers. Such dark eyes. Like wet paint; full of secrets.
‘Shell shock,’ he said. ‘I’ve always wondered who came up with that. I suppose they needed a nice name to describe the unspeakable for the nice ladies back home.’
‘Nice ladies like me, you mean,’ said Hannah. She was put out. Was not in the mood to be fobbed off. She sat up and slipped her petticoat over her head. Started to pull her stockings on.
He sighed. She knew he didn’t want her to leave like this. Angry with him.
‘You’ve read Darwin?’ he said.
‘Charles Darwin?’ she said, turning to him. ‘Of course. But what does Charles Darwin have to do with—’
‘Adaptation. Survival is a matter of successful adaptation. Some of us are better at it than others.’
‘Adaptation to what?’
‘To war. To living by your wits. The new rules of the game.’
Hannah thought about this. A large boat went by, setting the barge to rocking.
‘I’m alive,’ Robbie said plainly, fire light flickering on his face, ‘because some other bugger isn’t. Plenty of others.’
So now she knew.
She wondered how she felt about it. ‘I’m glad you’re alive,’ she said, but she felt a shiver from deep down inside. And when his fingers stroked her wrist she withdrew it despite herself.
‘That’s why nobody talks about it,’ he said. ‘They know that if they do, people will see them for what they really are. Members of the devil’s party moving amid the regular people as though they still belong. As if they’re not monsters returned from a murderous rampage.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said Hannah sharply. ‘You’re not a murderer.’
‘I’m a killer.’
‘It’s different. It was war. It was self-defence. Defence of others.’
He shrugged. ‘Still a bullet through some fellow’s brain.’
‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t like it when you talk like that.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have asked.’
She didn’t like it. She didn’t like to think of him that way, and yet she found she couldn’t stop. That someone she knew, someone she knew intimately, whose hands had run gently, lightly, over her body, whom she trusted implicitly, should have killed . . . Well, it changed things. It changed him. Not for the worse. She didn’t love him any less. But she looked at him differently. He had killed a man. Men. Countless, nameless men.
She was thinking that one afternoon, watching him as he prowled about the barge. He had his pants on, but his shirt was still draped across a chair. She was watching his lean muscled arms, his bare shoulders, his beautiful, brutal hands, when it happened.
Footsteps on the deck above.
They both froze, stared at each other; Robbie lifted his shoulders.
There was a knock. Then a voice, ‘Hello, Robbie? Open up. It’s just me.’
Emmeline’s voice.
Hannah slid off the side of the bed and quickly gathered her clothing.
Robbie held his finger to his lips and tiptoed to the door.
‘I know you’re in there,’ said Emmeline. ‘There’s a lovely old man on the towpath who said he saw you come in and t
hat you haven’t been out all afternoon. Let me in, it’s bloody freezing out here.’
Robbie signalled Hannah to hide in the water closet.
Hannah nodded, tiptoed across the cabin, snibbed the door quickly behind her. Her heart was pounding against her rib cage. She fumbled with her dress, pulled it over her head and knelt to peer through the keyhole.
Robbie opened the door. ‘How’d you know where to find me?’
‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ said Emmeline, ducking her head and sauntering into the centre of the cabin. Hannah noticed she was wearing her new yellow dress. ‘Desmond told Freddy, Freddy told Jane. You know how those kids are.’ She paused and ran her wide-eyed gaze over everything. ‘How utterly divine, Robbie darling! What a wonderful hidey-hole. You must have a party . . . A very cosy party.’ She raised her brows when she saw the tangle of sheets on the bed and turned back to Robbie, smiling as she assessed his state of undress. ‘I haven’t interrupted anything?’
Hannah inhaled.
‘I was sleeping,’ said Robbie.
‘At quarter to four?’
He shrugged, found his shirt and put it on.
‘I wondered what you did all day. Here was I thinking you’d be busy writing poetry.’
‘I was. I do.’ He rubbed his neck, exhaled angrily. ‘What do you want?’
Hannah winced at the harshness of his voice. It was Emmeline’s mention of poetry: Robbie hadn’t written in weeks. Emmeline didn’t seem to notice any unkindness. ‘I wanted to know if you were coming tonight. To Desmond’s place.’
‘I told you I wasn’t.’
‘I know that’s what you said but I thought you might have changed your mind.’
‘I haven’t.’
There was a silence as Robbie glanced back toward the door and Emmeline looked longingly around the cabin. ‘Perhaps I could—’
‘You have to go,’ said Robbie quickly. ‘I’m working.’
‘But I could help out,’ she used her purse to lift the edge of a dirty plate, ‘tidy up or—’
‘I said no.’ Robbie opened the door.
Hannah watched as Emmeline forced her lips into a breezy smile. ‘I was joking, darling. You didn’t really think I’d have nothing better to do on a lovely afternoon than clean house?’
Robbie didn’t say anything.
Emmeline strolled toward the door. Straightened his collar. ‘You’re still coming to Freddy’s tomorrow?’
He nodded.
‘Pick me up at six?’
‘Yeah,’ said Robbie, and he closed the door behind her.
Hannah came out of the bathroom then. She felt dirty. Like a rat slinking out of its hole.
‘Perhaps we should leave it a while?’ she said. ‘A week or so?’
‘No,’ said Robbie. ‘I’ve told Emmeline not to drop around. I’ll tell her again. I’ll make sure she understands.’
Hannah nodded, wondered why she felt so guilty. She reminded herself, as she always did, that it had to be this way. That Emmeline wasn’t being harmed. Robbie had long ago explained that his feelings were not romantic. He said she’d laughed and wondered why on earth he ever imagined she thought otherwise. And yet. Something in Emmeline’s voice, a strain beneath the practised flippancy. And the yellow dress. Emmeline’s favourite . . .
Hannah looked at the wall clock. There was still half an hour before she had to leave. ‘I might go,’ she said.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Stay.’
‘I really—’ ‘At least a few minutes. Give Emmeline time to find her way.’
Hannah nodded as Robbie came toward her. He ran a hand over each side of her face to grip the back of her neck, then pulled her lips to his.
A sudden, jagged kiss that caught her off balance and silenced, utterly, the niggling voices of misgiving.
A wet afternoon in December, they were sitting in the wheelhouse. The boat was moored near Battersea Bridge, where the willows wept into the Thames.
Hannah exhaled slowly. She had been waiting for the right moment to tell him. ‘I won’t be able to meet for two weeks,’ she said. ‘It’s Teddy. He has guests from America for the next fortnight and I’m expected to play the good wife. Take them places, entertain them.’
‘I hate to think of you like that,’ he said. ‘Fawning all over him.’
‘I certainly don’t fawn all over him. Teddy wouldn’t know what was happening if I did.’
‘You know what I mean,’ said Robbie.
She nodded. Of course she knew what he meant. ‘I hate it too. I’d do anything so that I never had to leave you.’
‘Anything?’
‘Almost anything.’ She shivered as a scud of rain blew into the wheelhouse. ‘Arrange to see Emmeline sometime next week; let me know when and where we can meet, after New Year?’
Robbie reached across the wheel to pull closed the window. ‘I want to break it off with Emmeline.’
‘No,’ said Hannah suddenly. ‘Not yet. How will we see each other? How will I know where to find you?’
‘Wouldn’t be a problem if you lived with me. We’d always be able to find one another. Wouldn’t be able to lose each other.’
‘I know, I know,’ she reached for his hand. ‘But until then . . . How can you think of breaking it off?’
He pulled away, the window was stuck, wouldn’t budge. ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘She’s becoming too attached.’
‘Leave that,’ said Hannah, ‘you’re getting wet.’
Finally it gave way, slammed closed. Robbie sat down again, hair dripping. ‘Far too attached.’
‘Emmeline’s ebullient,’ said Hannah, taking a towel from the cupboard behind her, reaching out to dry his face. ‘It’s just her way. Why? What makes you say that?’
Robbie shook his head impatiently.
‘What is it?’ said Hannah.
‘Nothing,’ said Robbie. ‘You’re right. It’s probably nothing.’
‘I know it’s nothing,’ said Hannah firmly. And in that moment she believed it. Would have said it even if she didn’t. Love is like that: insistent, sure, persuasive. It silences easily all whispers of misgiving.
The rain was heavy now. ‘You’re cold,’ said Hannah, wrapping the towel around his shoulders. She knelt before him, rubbing his bare arms dry. ‘You’ll catch a chill.’ She didn’t meet his eyes when she said, ‘Teddy wants us to move back to Riverton.’
‘When?’
‘March. He’s going to have it restored, build a new summer house. It’s all he’s thought about for weeks.’ She spoke dryly. ‘He imagines himself quite the country squire.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’
‘I didn’t want to think of it,’ she said helplessly. ‘I kept hoping he’d change his mind.’ She threw her arms around him with sudden fierceness. ‘You have to keep contact with Emmeline. I can’t invite you to stay, but she can. She’s bound to have friends up for weekends, country parties.’
He nodded, wouldn’t meet her eyes.
‘Please,’ said Hannah. ‘For me. I have to know you’re coming.’
‘And we’ll become one of those country-house couples?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘We’ll play the same games as countless couples before us. Sneak around in the night, pretend to be distantly acquainted in the day?’
‘Yes,’ she said quietly.
‘That’s not our game.’
‘I know.’
‘It’s not enough,’ he said.
‘I know,’ she said again.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But only for you.’
Nineteen twenty-three became 1924, and one evening, with Teddy away on business and Deborah and Emmeline engaged with various friends, they arranged to meet. The boat was moored in a part of London Hannah had never entered. As the taxi wended its way deeper into the tangled East End, she watched out the windows. Night had fallen and for the most part there was little to see: grey buildings; horse-drawn carts with lanterns suspended over their
top; occasional red-cheeked children in woollen jumpers, tossing jacks, rolling marbles, pointing at the taxi. Then, down one street, the shock of coloured lights, people thronging, music.
Hannah leaned forward, said to the driver. ‘What is this? What’s happening here?’
‘New Year festival,’ he said in a heavy cockney accent. ‘Bloody barmy, the lot of ’em. Middle o’ winter; should be inside.’
Hannah watched, fascinated, as the taxi crawled down the street toward the river. Lights had been strung between buildings so that they zigzagged right the way along. A band of men playing fiddles and a piano accordion had gathered quite a crowd, clapping and laughing. Children wove between adults, dragging streamers and blowing whistles; men and women mingled around great metal drums, roasting chestnuts, drinking ale from mugs. The taxi driver had to hit his horn and call out at them to clear the way. ‘Mad, the lot of ’em,’ he said as the taxi emerged at the other end of the street and turned the corner into a darkened road. ‘Stark raving.’
Hannah felt as if she’d passed through a sort of fairyland. When the driver pulled up finally at the docks, she ran breathlessly to find Robbie who had been waiting for her.
Robbie was resistant but Hannah pleaded, convinced him finally to accompany her back to the festival. They got out so little, she said, and when might they have opportunity again to visit a party together? No one would know them here. It was safe.
She led the way from memory, half convinced she’d be unable to find it again. Half convinced the festival would have disappeared like a fairy ring in a children’s tale. But soon enough, the frenetic strains of the violin band, children’s whistles, jovial shouts, and she knew it lay ahead.
Moments later they turned the corner into wonderland, began to wander down the street. The cool breeze brought with it mingling wafts of roasting nuts, sweat and good cheer. People hung out of windows, calling to those below, singing, toasting the new year, farewelling the old. Hannah watched wide-eyed, held tightly to Robbie’s arm, pointing this way and that, laughing with delight at the people who’d started dancing on a makeshift floor.
They stopped to watch, joined the growing crowd, found seats together on a plank of wood stretched across timber boxes. A large woman with red cheeks and masses of dark curling hair perched on a stool by the fiddlers, singing and slapping a tambourine against her padded thigh. Whoops from the audience, shouts of encouragement, flowing skirts whipping past.