In The Dark

by Deborah Moggach

  ‘Our friend Sigmund would no doubt trace it back to my mother,’ he said. ‘She doted on me, you see. My brother had died and I was her darling, we adored each other.’ One day, however, his father had sent him away to boarding school. Alwyne called it the Expulsion from Eden. He said he could never forgive them, as long as he lived.

  That Alwyne came from a wealthy background was something of a surprise. He also admitted to being bullied at school. ‘I looked different, you understand – swarthy complexion, something of the johnny foreigner about me. They used to taunt me – Dago, Jew-boy – witless little nincompoops.’

  ‘I’ve been nice to you,’ said Ralph. ‘I’ve even kept mum. So has Lettie.’

  ‘That extortioness. Sixpence a week, my foot.’

  ‘But you’ll have to agree she’s been playing fair.’

  ‘So have you, old chap. Don’t think I’m not grateful.’

  ‘Do something, then,’ said Ralph.

  Alwyne shrugged. He seemed to have lost interest. Ralph was exasperated. The fellow was sitting on a bombshell. All he had to do was light the fuse and stand back. It wasn’t a lot to ask. He was just a snivelling little coward.

  And in two months’ time this life would be over. Nobody had bothered to ask Ralph’s opinion, of course. It had been presented to him as a decision already made; he had no choice in the matter. He, his mother and stepfather were going to move into rented rooms while the building works took place. Mr Turk would then start his progress towards world domination. There was nobody for Ralph to talk to; no Winnie to tut-tut and give him a hug. It was beneath his dignity to confide in Alwyne; he was too angry with the man. Angry and disappointed. Chaps had laid down their lives! Their futures had been rubbed out; nothing remained of their hopes and dreams. Not for them, any thought of the consequences.

  Foggy days passed into foggy nights. Ralph walked the dog through the sulphurous streets. Hoofs echoed on the cobblestones. He brooded and seethed. If he had a bomb he would blow Mr Turk to smithereens. The man was worse than any German. He had invaded a place more precious than some unknown country called France. And Ralph, with no allies to support him, was powerless.

  Chapter Thirteen

  We were still fighting hard and losing men. We knew nothing of the proposed Armistice, we didn’t know until a quarter to ten on that day. As we advanced on the village of Guiry a runner came up and told us that the Armistice would be signed at 11 o’clock that day, the 11th of November. That was the first we knew of it.

  We were lined up on a railway bank nearby, the same railway bank that the Manchesters had lined up on in 1914. They had fought at the battle of Mons in August that year. Some of us went down to a wood in a little valley and found the skeletons of some of the Manchesters still lying there. Lying there with their boots on, very still, no helmets, no rusty rifles or equipment, just their boots.

  Marine Hubert Trotman, Royal Marine Light Infantry

  And lo, there was much drunkenness and rejoicing. And in the streets, from John o’Groats to Land’s End, the bunting went up and the maidens dressed themselves in their best frocks and tied ribbons in their hair, and the children waved flags to welcome their daddies home, and laughter rang through the air and church bells pealed and joy was unconfined.

  ‘Cheer up,’ said Alwyne. ‘You’re a gloomy little bugger, aren’t you? How about packing up your troubles in that old kitbag and looking on the bright side for once?’

  Ralph ignored this. ‘So what are you going to do now? Suddenly get your sight back?’

  ‘I don’t think that would be advisable.’

  ‘The war’s over. They can’t put you in prison for avoiding it now.’

  ‘Oh yes they can. I shall go abroad.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Where I’m needed by the comrades,’ said Alwyne. ‘Now peace has been declared, the real war begins.’

  ‘You’d know about war, wouldn’t you?’

  Alwyne looked at him. ‘I like this burgeoning cynicism. You’re developing well.’

  ‘You might as well go,’ said Ralph. ‘Fat lot of use you’ve been here.’

  ‘My dear boy, Mr Turk will be the architect of his own destruction. He doesn’t need me to do it for him.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because a man who’s got where he has, using the methods he’s used, makes a lot of enemies.’

  ‘Seems to have a lot of friends, to me. All those Masons and whatnots, with their handshakes.’

  Alwyne shook his head. ‘Don’t trust any of them. They’ve all got their noses in the trough. Bunch of hyenas. Give them the chance and they’ll tear each other to pieces.’

  Ralph considered this. It was an attractive image. ‘And if not,’ Ralph said, ‘maybe he’ll catch the flu and die.’ The epidemic had been sweeping through London. In the last month alone, two thousand people had died. ‘If that happened,’ said Ralph, ‘I’d start believing in God again.’

  Alwyne raised his eyebrows. ‘Steady on, old chap.’

  He passed Ralph a Player’s, and lit them. Smoking seemed to be doing the trick, so far. Mr Spooner was doing his bit, too, upstairs. The rest of the household should be grateful to them, for waging the battle on their behalf.

  Ralph had to admit that Alwyne was generous with his cigarettes. He knew that Ralph, now an enthusiastic smoker, had no money to buy them himself. In some ways Ralph would miss him when he was gone. Oh the man was weak, and unpleasant and a thoroughgoing cowardy-custard, but at least he talked to him.

  Ralph got to his feet. ‘It’s twelve o’clock,’ he said. ‘I’ll lead you to the pub.’

  *

  A celebration was taking place in the King’s Head, Swaffley. Tom Spinks, the road-mender, had returned from the Front. The man sat, as bashful as a bridegroom, as people plied him with drink. It was the end of November. Men had been returning to the village in dribs and drabs – five so far. Demobilisation wasn’t happening as swiftly as people had expected. Families had presumed that their boys would be home within the week but it wasn’t turning out that way; letters had arrived saying that they might be delayed for months. It was a cruel disappointment. For many families, no letter had been received except an official one of condolence, and there would be nobody coming home. The war had taken a terrible toll on the village: fifteen dead, four of them brothers. Twelve children had lost their fathers.

  Winnie’s father needed no excuse for ordering another glass of beer. He was singing along to the piano. ‘Shirley, Shirley, why’s your hair so curly?’ Winnie sat beside him, waiting to take him home. Her arm rested casually across her lap. Nobody could tell, by her expression, what her forearm was feeling as it lay pressed against her belly. A nudge. The baby was kicking, there was no doubt about it. A nudge to remind her, as if she needed reminding, that it was growing bigger and would soon emerge into the world. When had its life begun – that May evening, the evening of the wedding? That day the man shot himself with his revolver? When did a baby begin to kick? There was nobody she could ask.

  Nor had anybody noticed that she had become fatter. She knew everybody in the village, she had grown up with them. A mild surprise had greeted her return but then people had carried on as before; she was just one of the fixtures and fittings, as they were to her. Swaffley folk were not noted for their curiosity. And nobody ever looked at her anyway, they never had. It was a blessing, really.

  Winnie had no plans. She lived in the present. She’d had no intention of getting rid of it and now it was too late. The funny thing was that her shame seemed to have disappeared. What had happened, had happened. At some point a baby would be born. Her baby. She pictured herself lying in the straw in Dulcie’s stable and giving birth like the Virgin Mary. See the vicar’s face then!

  She knew she was a sinner but she didn’t feel it, not any more. She had been brought up to fear the wrath of God but He had other things on His mind. The world was all at sixes and sevens. Mrs Powers’s son, Timmy, had returned home with both his
arms blown off. God must be busy working out how Timmy was going to pick the apple harvest next year. How could He have time to worry about a little baby? A child born out of wedlock, to be sure, but then how many children were fatherless now? And what had God done to stop that happening?

  Maybe Alwyne’s words were turning her into an atheist. Winnie hadn’t listened at the time but perhaps his ideas had soaked through, like stewed fruit dripping through muslin. For all his treachery he was a clever man, and events seemed to be proving him right.

  The voices rose around her. ‘If you were the only girl in the world, and I were the only boy …’ Winnie sat there, thinking about Alwyne. Though she was still upset, her anger had long since subsided. It was a terrible thing, to trick her, but then he had tricked everybody else too. Perhaps he had been suffering from some sort of mental disorder; the gas had poisoned his brain.

  And sometimes, just sometimes, when she realised that Alwyne had been able to see her all the time, she thought: I can’t be that ugly after all.

  Winnie felt herself reddening. She put the glass to her lips, so nobody could see. How confusing it all was! For sometimes she even felt grateful to Alwyne, for taking the trouble to talk to her, for telling her things that had gone into her head and stuck there and changed the way she looked at the world. Nobody else had ever bothered to do that. And sometimes, she even felt pity. For she was going to have a baby, and he had nothing.

  ‘They hadn’t been married but a month or more when under her thumb goes he …’

  Everyone was joining in, even the publican, one of Swaffley’s more morose inhabitants. So loud were the voices that Winnie didn’t hear the sound of horses clopping past, down South Street.

  ‘Isn’t it a pity that the likes of her should put upon the likes of him …’

  Her father always sang with his eyes shut. Above him, in its case, hung Swaffley’s champion trout, fished out of the river in 1893. Its glass eye was the only one that gazed directly at Winnie, and she could rely on the fish to keep quiet. This couldn’t last for ever, of course. Sooner or later she would have to tell Dr Allender. Sooner or later, her father would find out the truth. She couldn’t bear to think about this, not yet. Maybe a bomb would blow them all to bits before it happened. This was how they thought, during the war. Live for the moment, because they might all be dead tomorrow. No wonder people gallivanted about. Even people like her.

  At half-past two Winnie led her father home. It was bitterly cold, the ground frozen. He stumbled over the ruts as they crossed the field.

  ‘Look,’ she said. They were nearing the big house. ‘There’s more tiles blown off. The rain’ll be getting in.’ They walked round the back, towards the stable yard. ‘And the pigeons.’

  Her father stopped dead.

  He had heard something. So had Winnie. At first they thought they had imagined it.

  The two of them stood rooted to the spot, their breath pumping into the frosty air. Then they heard it again. It was a horse, neighing.

  Her father was the first to move. He pulled away from Winnie’s arm and stumbled towards the stable yard. Winnie followed.

  The housekeeper, Mrs Maitland, stood in the yard, bundled up against the cold.

  ‘There you are, Crooke,’ she said, to Winnie’s father. ‘The fellows were looking for you but they’ve gone now. I’ve signed the papers but goodness knows what we’re going to do with them. Lady Elbourne’s been informed, of course.’

  Neither Winnie nor her father heard her. They were heading for the stables.

  Winnie could almost sense them before she saw them – the warmth of their bodies, the smell of them. She went inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  Two of the horses had come home.

  Dulcie was back in her stall. The old grey mare turned her head and gazed at Winnie. Her ears pricked up in recognition; she made a soft, whickering sound in her nostrils.

  ‘She walked in there all by herself.’

  Winnie turned round. Joe, the housekeeper’s son, was sitting on a bale of straw.

  ‘Bertie’s back too.’ He pointed to the big bay gelding, standing in a stall further down the row. Bertie was one of the hunters. ‘They walked back in like they’d never been away. They knew their stalls and everything.’ He turned to Winnie’s father who stood there, unable to move. ‘I gave them some oats.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Cover him, cover him soon!

  And with thick-set

  Masses of memoried flowers –

  Hide that red wet

  Thing I must somehow forget.

  Ivor Gurney

  At first Neville didn’t recognise the boy. The butcher was wrapping up half a pound of kidneys for Mrs Phelps. There were several other customers in the shop but the boy stood a little apart. He wore a greatcoat that was too big for him and carried a bag. There was a growth of stubble on his chin.

  ‘Clear off,’ said Neville. ‘You can beg in the street.’

  ‘It’s Archie,’ said the boy. ‘D-d-don’t you remember me?’

  Neville lifted up the counter-flap and led the boy through to his office. Archie sat down.

  ‘Well well,’ said Neville. ‘Turned up like a bad penny, eh?’

  Archie didn’t smile. Neville looked at him with curiosity. It was hard to believe that two years earlier this had been the little monkey who had worked for him, who had whistled at the ladies and kicked his football through a plate-glass window. The fellow seemed to have aged twenty years.

  ‘I’ve c-c-c-c …’ said Archie.

  ‘Spit it out, boy.’

  ‘I’ve c-c-come back,’ said Archie.

  ‘I can see that.’ The chap seemed to have developed a stammer.

  ‘W-when shall I start?’

  Neville lit a cheroot. He had forgotten all about his young delivery boy. In fact, now he remembered it, Archie had just started his apprenticeship before he went to the war.

  ‘You want your job back?’ he asked.

  Archie nodded.

  Neville blew out a cloud of smoke. In truth he was short-staffed at present – three counter assistants, one trainee and an unreliable delivery-man of fifty-five, with so-called gas damage to his lungs. Neville had his suspicions about the fellow. Nor had Ralph taken up the position offered him, due to the burden of housework at home. Though his stepson’s qualities left a great deal to be desired – not least, his vegetarianism – at least the boy could have made himself useful in one way or another.

  Neville looked at Archie. The chap’s carroty stubble made him look seedy. He’d made an attempt to grow a moustache but it was a pathetic affair. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  ‘You’ll have to smarten yourself up,’ he said. ‘Get yourself a shave, for a start. I run a top-class establishment, if you recollect.’

  Archie stayed sitting there, like an idiot. Didn’t he realise that the interview was over? The fellow seemed to be affected by some sort of tic. His leg jiggled up and down and his hand trembled. Perhaps he was nervous about throwing himself on Neville’s mercy. How lucky for him, then, that the butcher had a soft heart.

  *

  Eithne replaced the telephone receiver. She had been speaking to the receptionist at the Ship Hotel. Clarence hadn’t yet returned to claim his photograph.

  Of course, the young American could still turn up. Soldiers weren’t returning in a rush; it was more like a trickle. He could still be alive. He could, of course, have simply returned to America. She felt a strong attachment to the boy, who had been bathed in her honeymoon glow, who could have been her son.

  It could have been Ralph out there in the trenches. The thought of her darling boy cowering under enemy fire didn’t bear thinking about. How could mothers so blithely let their sons disappear, perhaps for ever? Victory had not had the desired effect. Strangely enough, it was only now the war had ended that the enormity of it hit her. She felt like a horse that had been trudging along, step by step, only seein
g its little patch of road, and now the blinkers had been removed.

  That patriotic frenzy, four years earlier, seemed idiotic to Eithne now. She had sent her own husband packing. Your Country Needs You. That her country had won seemed strangely irrelevant. She joined in the rejoicing, but with a heavy heart. Paul would never return, to pick snail shells off the South Downs. She hadn’t even bothered to accompany him and share his Thermos. He had become frozen in time, knapsack on his back, and this image tormented her. She should have loved him more. She should have known how fragile life was, how her husband’s was soon to be extinguished, with all his modest hopes and dreams. Instead of putting her arms around him she had run downstairs to check on her mutton bones.

  And what had she done? Slapped Ralph’s face when he had reminded her of the fact.

  Eithne leaned against the wall. The dog padded past. She heard him walk into the drawing room and settle down. Brutus seemed quite happy with his new life but what did dogs know?

  Something had happened that night when Neville tugged her hair. We’re sitting on a bloody gold mine! Neville didn’t care. He didn’t give a fig what had been happening to other people, that Mr Fawcett, the draper, had lost both his sons and was closing up his shop. Eithne had a horrible suspicion that the war, for her husband, was a means to an end. She would never dare ask him, because she couldn’t bear to hear the answer. Anyway, he would lie. She had lied, to herself. She was guilty too.

  Eithne realised she was still standing in the hall. She rallied. Enough of this gloom! After all, it was Neville’s bullish energy that had attracted her in the first place. And he might not have fought in the trenches but he had behaved decently to her own little household. He had his plans, he was trying to survive in difficult times, trying to do her best for the two of them. The three of them. She was simply filled with dread at the upheaval that lay ahead. Packing up was a huge undertaking. Ten years of her life had been spent in this house; they had arrived, from their lodgings in Bow, when Ralph was barely seven. How full of hope they had been! Paul was going to get on in life. A world war, with millions dead, was unimaginable. Those particular dreams were gone; new ones lay ahead of her.