Exposure

by Helen Dunmore

  She sleeps. It’s the night before Paul’s birth. Lily walks and walks around the hospital’s central corridor. She has discovered that she can do a circuit. The ugly linoleum gleams under the lights. Sometimes a nurse goes by, but no one stops Lily. Her bed in the antenatal ward will be growing cold.

  A muscle surge comes from deep inside her, lifting her stomach up. It tightens and then it lets go. This has been happening for hours now. Lily looks at her wrist-watch and finds it is ten to three. She has been walking like this since just after midnight. At first she lay in bed, shifting position, trying to make herself comfortable. It was impossible. Her back hurt too much. She clambered out of bed, stuck her feet into her slippers and put on her dressing gown although she was too hot. The nurse at her desk looked up. Lily smiled and pointed.

  ‘I can’t sleep,’ she whispered. ‘I’m going to sit in the dayroom.’

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine. I’ll read for a while.’

  She didn’t want to tell the nurse anything. She’d had a show that afternoon, and some contractions. They’d told her to come in, and then nothing more had happened. It was as if everything inside her froze as soon as she got to the hospital. The nurses were brisk. Doctor would examine her, but it didn’t look as if anything was happening. Simon had visited her at half past six, and sat by her bed for an awkward hour before the bell rang and he had to go home. They would send Lily home too, in the morning. She wasn’t going to make a fool of herself again, imagining she was in labour when the nurses knew it was a false alarm.

  It was all right as long as she kept moving. The surges were now so strong that she had to stop and lean against the wall until they passed. But it can’t be labour, she thought. In labour, women writhed on beds and screamed. She would keep quiet. She would keep on walking.

  Outside the windows, it was still dark. Simon would be at home, asleep. Her side of the bed would be cold. She gasped, and held on to the wall, and then she moved on again. She must walk. No one must know. It was better to be alone.

  Later, a midwife saw her holding on to a window-ledge. Lily couldn’t speak when the woman questioned her.

  ‘My goodness, dear,’ said the midwife when she had got Lily back into bed and was examining her, ‘you’re halfway there. Whatever were you thinking of, wandering about like that?’

  Lily wakes. It’s still dark but she thinks it’s close to morning. She’s stiff all over from sleeping in the chair. She stumbles to the light-switch, turns it on and looks at her watch. It’s quarter to six. The night is over.

  27

  Monsieur Nuage

  The crust on Mr Austin’s rabbit pie glistens gold. Rabbit pie, potatoes, cabbage, the gravy boat. Lily carries everything into the dining room, where Mr Austin is already unrolling his napkin.

  ‘My word, that looks good!’

  ‘I hope so. Be careful, the plate is hot.’

  She cuts into the pastry. Savoury steam gushes out. He will take five potatoes, or even six, and yet he is so thin. But he won’t enjoy them. So much politeness: he is so grateful, always. She puts the gravy boat at his right hand.

  ‘Smells delicious,’ he says, and then, ‘You know, Mrs Callington, I’d very much like you to stay and have lunch with me. You’d be doing me a favour. This rabbit pie could feed a regiment.’

  ‘I thought you might have it cold, for supper tomorrow,’ she says. ‘I’d like to stay for lunch, but I’ve got the cleaning to do this afternoon, before the children come home from school. They go down to the beach, you know, but they need something to eat first. It’s very kind of you.’

  ‘I know how busy you are. Keeping those Young Turks fed and watered is pretty much a full-time job in itself. And this barn of a place on top of it. Not kind of me at all, you know, about lunch. Selfish, in fact. Well, one of these days.’ He pauses, and then adds more briskly, ‘Might be worth telling them to be careful with Bridget on the jetty. There are underwater obstructions farther out, from the war. You can get a tidal race.’

  ‘I’ve told them not to go out on it. Paul and Sally are very sensible.’

  ‘Of course they are.’

  ‘I enjoy coming here,’ she says, because it’s true and also because of his thin face and the shyness in it when he said one of these days.

  ‘That’s awfully nice of you,’ he says.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘I look forward to it.’

  He is lonely. Very likely he thinks she is lonely too. He’s an educated man. He reads his Times every day. Will he have recognised her name? Callington is not such an unusual name, but there were photographs in the papers, and an article underneath about ‘the suburban house where Simon Callington lived with his wife and three children. A quiet house in a quiet street, like thousands of others all over England …’ But not like them, the papers insinuated. Without ever quite saying it, they told their readers that this particular quiet house was different, because it contained a traitor who had hidden himself in plain view, in these calm, orderly streets where a cat stretched itself in the sun and children made their way home from school with satchels on their backs. These were Englishmen’s streets.

  In the photograph their house looked so bland that it was almost sinister. The newsprint smeared on her fingers as she bundled the paper out of the way. Mr Austin wouldn’t read those rags. There was no photograph in The Times.

  Lily hurries through the village, and out on to the coast road. Mrs Woolley has said she can paint the bedrooms, if she likes. Lily has ordered white emulsion from the village hardware store, and it is to be delivered at two o’clock. She hopes to start work later in the afternoon, when she’s finished cleaning. Paul and Sally will help when they come home. They are both careful.

  She wraps herself in a print overall. Sunlight pours in and bounces off the walls as she dusts, sweeps, mops and polishes. There is no vacuum cleaner here. Never mind. The place is small and easily cleaned now she has put most of Mrs Woolley’s clutter into the cupboard under the stairs. Lily’s spirits rise. There’s a clump of early daffodils in bud on the south-facing bank behind the cottage. She’ll bring a few indoors and they’ll flower on the windowsill. The paint should be here soon – Mr Harding said that he’d drop it round—

  There, that’s the door. Lily runs downstairs, wiping her hands on her wrapper. She’s excited at the thought of laying clean white paint over the shabby walls. It was an extravagance, but worth it—

  She pulls the door open wide.

  And there he is. She knows him at once, as if some part of her has always known he’ll come. Monsieur Nuage. He cuts a smart figure on the cracked path. His hair is like corrugated iron, but white. He has taken off his hat and holds it in front of him, as if he’s attending a funeral. A dark overcoat and a dandyish yellow scarf at his neck. She sizes him up rapidly. He’s five feet ten perhaps. She remembers the cut of him from the parties she attended with Simon. That coat flatters him. He’s not so well made. How strong is he?

  Her hair is tied up in a scarf. With that and the wrapper, she must look like Mrs Mopp.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve caught you at a bad moment,’ he says.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘May I come in?’

  There’s the sound of a car engine. Something coming along the lane from the village. It’ll be Harding’s van, and she doesn’t want anyone to see Julian Clowde on her doorstep.

  ‘Come in,’ she says. ‘This will be a delivery for me.’ He steps inside so swiftly that she realises he doesn’t want to be seen either. ‘Do sit down,’ she says, pointing at a chair by the cold fireplace. A grey van rattles to the gate and stops. A lad jumps out.

  ‘Paint delivery for you, Mrs Callington,’ he sings out, and opens the double doors at the back of the van with a flourish. He swings two large tins of paint to the ground. ‘Shall I bring these in for you? Heavy, they are.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, leave them here on the doorstep. I’m cleaning and th
e floor’s wet. Have you got the brushes?’

  He whistles. ‘Lucky you said. They’re in the back.’ He dives down, and brings up a brown-paper parcel. ‘Here you are. You got a big job on then, cleaning up this place.’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiles at him. How nice he is, with the low sun gilding his quick face. A decent boy. She’d like to give him a cup of tea, but – ‘I’d better get on,’ she says. ‘Everything’s upside down.’

  ‘No rest for the workers, eh?’

  He executes a dashing three-point turn, and rattles off again. Lily steps back into the dark cottage, carrying the brushes. There is no one in the room.

  ‘Mr Clowde,’ she calls sharply, thinking of him upstairs, prying in her bedroom, but he emerges from the kitchen at once. ‘It was only the delivery boy from Harding’s,’ she says. ‘No need to hide.’

  ‘My dear Mrs Callington, I was thinking of your reputation. This is a small place.’

  She lifts her shoulders. ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything. I’m in the middle of decorating.’

  ‘I shouldn’t dream of giving you any trouble.’

  Then why are you here? thinks Lily. You could have sent someone, but you’ve come yourself, all the way to East Knigge …

  ‘Did you get a taxi from the station?’

  ‘Do you know, I walked. It was such a beautiful day,’ he says, as if the day is over, or has stopped being beautiful.

  You didn’t want anyone to know you were coming here, thinks Lily. But just imagine how conspicuous you must have been, walking through the village in your yellow scarf. Food for hours of gossip.

  ‘It’s a pretty village, isn’t it?’ she asks satirically.

  ‘I’ve no idea. I took a footpath from the station, over the fields.’

  She looks at his feet, disbelievingly, but sure enough he is wearing thick brogues, and there is mud on them. Damn him. Mud on her clean floors. He hasn’t even bothered to wipe them. That’s how much he thinks of her. Well, better to know that. Her heart is beating quickly. She feels alive twice over, and her mind shuttles from thought to thought so quickly that she has woven them into cloth almost before she’s conscious of them.

  Simon warned her about Julian Clowde. Now he’s here. Did Simon know or suspect that he would come, or was it someone else whom Simon feared, someone Julian Clowde might send? And for what purpose? To warn her, to silence her, to make her talk about the briefcase?

  They don’t know where it is. She’s sure of that.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she says calmly, off-handedly she hopes. ‘No one from the department has even been to see me.’

  ‘Very remiss of us. But you can understand why, I hope, with so much going on. It has been rather a time.’ He looks at her, his eyebrows raised. ‘Do you fancy a spot of fresh air?’

  She tenses. Is someone else out there, waiting? He’s uneasy. He doesn’t like being in here – why not? He flicks a glance around the room. He doesn’t want to talk here.

  Oh, for heaven’s sake, she almost says aloud. You can’t think there is a hidden microphone. Where would I get such a thing? What world do you think I live in?

  But there’s the briefcase. That other world has already touched her. Perhaps he thinks she went to talk to someone about the briefcase. But how could she do that, without him hearing of it? Julian Clowde’s desk is where everything stops. So who else could he be worried about?

  ‘Of course, we can go out if you like,’ she says. ‘The track only goes down to the beach. It’ll be quiet there now. People come at low tide to pick sea coal but it’s high tide now.’

  ‘It sounds positively Dickensian.’

  ‘Coal is expensive.’ They are outside the front door when suddenly she looks down at herself. She is still wearing her print overall. ‘Excuse me a moment, I must just fetch my coat.’

  They walk side by side down the rutted track. She has the strange sense that the longer she keeps Julian Clowde here, the better for Simon. The sun is low now, and behind them, throwing down shadow. The children will be coming out of school soon. Ahead is the white intensity of sky over water. High tide. The beach will be deserted.

  ‘Yes,’ muses Julian Clowde, ‘it’s been a tricky time for everyone. Confusing. Or perhaps less so, from your point of view. Women usually know what their husbands are up to, even though it’s sometimes expedient to pretend ignorance.’

  How contemptuously he said that.

  ‘Let’s not beat about the bush,’ said Lily, and even after all these years she can’t rid herself of pleasure at finding occasion to use such a typically English idiom. ‘You’re saying that Simon has been photographing confidential documents and passing them on – to Russians, is that it? – quite regularly. Like those Portland people. You are insinuating that I knew about it. Is that the case?’

  ‘You mean, is it the case that I think that?’

  ‘Let’s not split hairs. That’s what you’re saying. That’s what you’re all saying. That’s why Simon was arrested, and it’s what the trial will be about.’

  ‘Because of what we said, do you mean, rather than because of what he did?’ A faint, insulting emphasis on the pronouns. ‘Oh come on, Mrs Callington, I’m not having that. Injured innocence won’t wash at this stage of the game.’

  ‘None of it is a game, as far as I’m concerned.’

  He leans forward as they crest the small slope which runs down in a shingle bank to the water. ‘Desolate place, isn’t it? I suppose that jetty must have been in use once. Your husband has had every chance. He’s a small fish – any jury will see that, if they get the right direction. He was made use of. The Soviets are frightfully clever at spotting the weakest link. I doubt if he’ll get more than seven years. Your job, my dear Mrs Callington, will be to keep the home fires burning. We shan’t abandon you. You shouldn’t have taken it personally. No one from the department came to see you – well, of course not. Not immediately. What did you expect? If you’d only been a little more patient … Whatever possessed you to drop everything and come rushing down here? We’ll make sure that you and the children are taken care of.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Who is this “we” you keep talking about? I’m not sure I understand.’

  ‘Mrs Callington, I don’t think you are listening. I’ve come here to tell you that you have nothing to worry about. You must reassure your husband. He has nothing to fear.’

  ‘Apart from seven years in prison, you mean?’

  For a moment she sees something move in his eyes, like the click of a camera shutter. ‘There are worse things than that,’ he says lightly, evenly. Their feet crunch over the pebbles. It’s just as Lily knew: the beach is deserted at this time. She drops her shoulders and breathes out slowly.

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell me what those worse things might be,’ she says. Again that flick. Surprise, or calculation. She isn’t quite what he expected? Or is she flattering herself? He has the air of a man who holds himself ready to expect everything, and can adapt himself so quickly you won’t even see the change.

  ‘Utter disgrace,’ he says.

  ‘Utter disgrace? You keep saying things that haven’t got any meaning.’

  ‘Not for you, perhaps. Let me put it another way: Eine wahre Schande. Is that clearer?’

  ‘I don’t speak German.’

  ‘But you are aware that physical relationships between men are illegal in this country. Sexual relationships, to be more precise.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She has stopped, and is facing him. Behind her is the sea, and his face is exposed by its light. He’s implacable, like a machine that will keep on coming at her. How could she ever have dismissed him as a typically buttoned-up English public-school gentleman? That was what she’d called him, to Simon. Stupid, ignorant complacency. Now she’s frightened of him. He mustn’t see that she’s frightened.

  ‘Let me show you something,’ he says. He unbuttons the top bu
tton of his coat, and takes an envelope from his inside pocket. He turns it so that the address faces her. ‘Look at the postmark,’ he says, but she’s looking at the handwriting. Simon’s handwriting. The letter is addressed to Giles Holloway. ‘Take it. Open it.’

  ‘I don’t want to. It’s not addressed to me.’

  ‘I can read it to you, if you prefer.’

  She takes the letter. The hatred in him makes her quail. It’s not so much that he hates her personally. She’s not significant enough for that, but she’s in his way and has to be got out of it.

  She opens the envelope, torn open carelessly years ago. She takes out the folded letter. There are several sheets. She lowers her head, and turns slightly away from Julian Clowde as she reads.

  You think I’m writing my essay, but I’m not. I’m writing to you. ‘Bloody freezing out there,’ you said when you took off your coat. ‘And not much better in here.’ You shook out your handkerchief and blew your nose like a trumpet. Your shoes creaked as you walked across the room to my bed, and then you sat down heavily, your knees apart, and said, ‘Well? Aren’t you going to give me a drink?’ I love the shoes you wear. You told me where you’d had them made. I could pick your shoes out from a thousand pairs. You think I don’t know much about you, but I do. I know how heavy you are and how your breath stinks when you’ve been sleeping after too much whisky. Whatever too much whisky is. That’s one of your sayings. You lie on your back and snore with your mouth open. It doesn’t make any difference to me. It should do, shouldn’t it? You don’t like the way you look. I shouldn’t think anyone else guesses that.

  ‘Don’t grow old, Simon,’ you say, and I say, ‘For Christ’s sake, Giles, you’re still in your thirties.’