by William Boyd
Chapter 16
25 June 1916,
Stackpole Manor, Kent
Charis wrote to Gabriel every month. They were chatty, inconsequential letters about life at Stackpole and the family, but they now suddenly became almost unbearably hard to write. She had no idea if he ever received them because she never got a reply. All they knew was that he was wounded and a prisoner. She had asked Henry Hyams about letters and he had told her to send them care of Divisional Headquarters, Indian Expeditionary Force ‘B’, Nairobi. He said that supplies and provisions for the care of British POW s were passed on to the Germans, which they were trusted to distribute, along with any personal letters. “That’s the general idea,” Henry Hyams had said. “Not that you can necessarily trust the huns to comply. But have a go, Charis my dear, have a go.”
So she wrote every month with an increasing sense of unreality, staring at Gabriel’s photograph, trying to summon up an image of him and their brief life together. It wasn’t very successful, and she had to keep stopping as, all too often, she ended up thinking of Felix.
But she hadn’t written for over six weeks now. For some reason she became suddenly convinced that all her letters had got through, that over the almost two years they had been separated they had come to represent—for Gabriel—his sole contact with the world he’d left in 1914. And as the days passed and the terrifying prospects of the future closed in, it was this personal failure that manifested itself as the most shameful sign of her guilt, the one thing that would ultimately condemn her and, even worse, lead Gabriel to guess that there was something terribly wrong.
But equally appalling in its way was the fact that there was nobody in the world to whom she could turn or confess. Not even Felix. He had written from Oxford saying that, as usual, he had booked them into the hotel in Aylesbury. She had invented a cousin in London and a visit there that would coincide neatly with the end of the summer term in Oxford. But everything had changed. She had written to Felix saying that she wasn’t well and wouldn’t be able to meet him. It was no lie.
But he wouldn’t leave her alone. Because she’d missed Aylesbury, he had started coming to the cottage in the middle of the night. And for the first time they had sex at Stackpole. This too had been enormously upsetting. She couldn’t use the bedroom—its associations with Gabriel were too intense—and so they made do with the sofa in the front room. But there was none of the conjugal intimacy of their hotel encounters. They couldn’t lie in each other’s arms and talk. When they finished they got dressed again, and Felix would sneak back to his room.
This improvisation—with its echoes of clandestine suburban adultery—proved doubly depressing. One night she’d broken down, crying into her hands. When Felix asked what was wrong she blamed it on the shabbiness of the way they were now forced to carry on. It was his total inability to console her, to say anything beyond a feeble. “Don’t worry,” or “It doesn’t matter,” that finally showed her Felix wouldn’t be—couldn’t be—any help. It wasn’t his fault. There was nothing he could do. It was simply the dreadful, final nature of her predicament.
Yet a solution did suggest itself with a kind of quiet, childlike logic one afternoon as she sat by the fishpond. She wasted no time. That evening she wrote to Gabriel. What she imagined would be the hardest letter of her life turned out to be simple and straight-forward. She told him everything, only leaving out the name and identity of her lover, and begged his under-standing and forgiveness.
She had sealed the letter and kept it in a drawer for several days, running through the futile options once more for form’s sake. Then the previous afternoon she had walked briskly into Stackpole village past the church where she’d been married, bought sufficient stamps at the post office and, without any pause, had placed it in the pillar box.
This done, a sort of cheerful calm had descended on her which was punctuated by brief moments of dreadful panic. These were quelled swiftly by an invocation to consider the future, which brought in its train such a sense of misery and guilt that the absolute rightness and inevitability of the course of action she planned to initiate established the comforting indifference again.
By such methods she had managed to get through the day. She had gone for a walk up the river and stood and gazed at the slowly flowing water for a long time. In the evening she had prepared a meal as usual, set it out, and eaten it down heartily. Half an hour later she found she was hungry again. She had banked up the fire and sat in front of it on a low stool, hugging her knees to her, watching the dance of the flames and the collapse of the coals in a benign mesmerized trance.
Shortly after midnight Felix tapped on the window. She fixed a smile on her face and let him in. They kissed.
“Is everything all right, Charis?” he asked. “I missed you at luncheon.”
“I went for a walk. I’m fine. I lost track of the time.”
Satisfied, Felix launched into details of his latest plan. Oxford was so terrible that he and Holland couldn’t face the prospect of another year there. Holland felt that it was perfectly acceptable for them to volunteer as ambulance drivers, as long as they were posted to France together.
“I say, Charis, are you listening?”
“Sorry. I was dreaming. You were saying?”
“I might be going to France as an ambulance driver. At the end of the summer.”
“Oh.”
“What do you think? Don’t you mind?”
“I shall miss you.” The deeper truth that this statement contained caused tears to brim on her eyelids. Felix was touched and put his arm around her.
“Don’t worry about me Carrie,” he said. “I shall be miles from the front.”
Their embrace led to a kiss and thence to a partial undressing and an uncomfortable union on the small sofa. They had become more adept and assured in making the necessary manoeuvres. Charis saw this confidence make itself daily more evident in Felix. He was twenty now; he seemed finally to be leaving the last traces of his boyishness behind.
He didn’t stay for long. Shortly after one o’clock he started yawning and said he’d better get off to bed. Charis saw him to the door, remembering to switch off the light in the hall so he wouldn’t be seen leaving. His complete obliviousness to everything she was suffering was, paradoxically, her greatest support. If he had sensed anything badly amiss, if he had questioned and probed, she doubted if she could have sustained the minimal poise and control she possessed. As it was it required very little effort on her part to convince him that everything was normal.
“See you tomorrow,” he said, kissed her on the nose and was gone.
Charis sat for an hour running through her plan in her mind. She couldn’t avoid causing grief and pain, she knew. But it would be nothing to the consequences that would fall on all their heads if the truth came out.
Eventually she sat down at the writing desk and wrote briefly to Felix.
My darling Felix,
I have been thinking things over and have decided to go away. Under the circumstances it seems the only possible thing to do. Any sort of compromise would be intolerable. I have written to Gabriel and told him everything.
It seemed a bit terse and ambiguous, but that gave her a vague satisfaction. She thought of adding some phrase like ‘I am sorry’ or ‘Don’t have any regrets’, but decided against it, signing only her name.
She sealed the letter in an envelope and addressed it. She felt determined and businesslike, she gladly noted, not morose or self-pitying. She was going to get rid of all her doubts and dilemmas, shames and disappointments, all the pains and grief that stood ranked in the future waiting for her. An interminable hellish gauntlet that she would no longer have to run. Her skilful evasion seemed suddenly profoundly satisfying. The choice she made now was, she thought, as bold and intelligent as any stoical decision to endure.
She picked up Felix’s letter and put on her heaviest tweed coat. It was a golfing coat with an attached cape and big buttoned skirt that came dow
n to her ankles. She put her hand on the doorknob, she had everything she needed.
Outside it was a dark cool night, cloud-free, with the stars shining up above. She walked briskly up the drive to the big house. It was just cold enough for her breath to condense for a second or two. She slipped Felix’s letter into the letter box in the front door. A faint wind moved through the rhododendrons, causing the thick shiny leaves to clatter drily. She took a deep breath. All the worries and fears were dwindling into insubstantiality as swiftly as her condensed breath was hurried away by the breeze. It seemed to her that she faced only an avenue of bright tomorrows. She turned on her heel and set off down the path she had chosen.
Chapter 17
26 June 1916,
Stackpole Manor, Kent
“Job,” cried Major Cobb. “Chapter twenty-eight, verse twelve.”
“Oh dear, no,” breathed Mrs Cobb, standing beside Felix. “Not again.” She pressed her fingers into her cheeks as if her teeth were aching. “Not again.”
Felix stared at the map of Africa, then squinted slightly so that the reds and greens went hazy and elided. The holiday before he had deliberately missed family prayers one morning, thinking he was old enough to absent himself without having to ask permission. His father had gone, in Felix’s opinion, raving mad. He had exploded with wrath at the breakfast table when Felix eventually appeared, accusing him of being a worthless atheist, a snivelling coward, a disgrace to the family name and, moreover, exhibiting a callous disregard of his brother’s noble sacrifice. It was the last insult that had stirred his conscience and so now he thought it worth it—for the quiet life that everyone was after—to comply with his father’s whims.
“But where shall wisdom be found?” the major intoned. “And where is the place of understanding?” His fat features had slackened, the puffy cheeks sagged, the double chins now bristly dewlaps which were never properly shaved. But he was as obsessive as ever, and Felix could see him shaking slightly as he loudly repeated the words of the daily lesson.
“Where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.” He prodded the open bible in front of him with a stubby forefinger. “Neither is it found. In. The land. Of. The living.”
His mother stopped Felix, with a gentle pressure on his arm, as he was filing out of the library to go to breakfast.
“Darling,” Mrs Cobb said, a worried look on her face. “I’m a little concerned about your father.”
“I’m not surprised,” Felix said. “Shouldn’t he be in hospital?”
“Really! Felix. He’s just so upset.”
“We’re all upset, Mother. That doesn’t mean we have to behave like…”—he indicated the map—“Like that.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs Cobb said, taking her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. “Oh dear. What is happening with this dreadful war? It’s most unfair.”
Felix went into the dining room. His father was sitting at the end of the table reading a newspaper. Beside him was Cressida, trying to ignore his constant mutters and exclamations. Felix’s empty place was next to hers. Opposite them sat Eustacia and Nigel Bathe. Nigel Bathe wore a tweed jacket, the two empty sleeves of which were pinned up just below his elbows. Beside him Eustacia cut up a plate of bacon and eggs, loaded up a forkful and popped it in his mouth.
“Morning,” Felix said. “Nigel, Eustacia, Cressida…Father.”
Felix felt as he always did these mornings a surge of pity for Nigel Bathe, whom he’d never liked. Nigel still grumbled and complained as of old—about the size of his disability pension, the inefficacy of the artificial limbs he was learning to use—but Felix didn’t grudge him it now. The rest of the family seemed quite accustomed to his presence at meals, his being spoon-fed by Eustacia, but Felix found it a most unsettling start to each day.
“Ah-ha!” shouted the major, causing everyone to look up sharply, and a section of fried egg to jerk off Eustacia’s extended fork and splat on the shiny table top.
“Here we are, here we are.” The major cleared his throat. “‘On June the nineteenth British forces in German East Africa occupied the important town of Handeni.’ Where’s my map?” He sprang up from the table and marched out of the room.
Everyone pretended nothing had happened. Felix opened the chafing dishes on the sideboard and helped himself to a large plate of kidneys, scrambled eggs, fried bread, bacon and sausage. He found that keeping his head down while he shovelled in food was the best way of avoiding the pathetic sight of Nigel Bathe across the table.
He sat down. “Well,” he said vacuously, “looks like it’s going to be a pleasant day.” He turned round in his seat and craned his head to see out of the window. His guess seemed accurate enough. The lawn was bright with sun, the fishponds were blue, only a few small indolent clouds occupied the sky above.
There were three letters by his place. A catalogue from a bookseller, confirmation of an appointment with his optician and one, unstamped, in a plain white envelope. He recognized Charis’s writing at once, and with a frown of curiosity tore it open. Nobody paid any attention.
He read the letter.
“Oh God. Jesus Christ,” he said in a shocked voice, getting up from his place.
“Felix!” Cressida and Eustacia said in unison.
He ran out of the room, stuffing the letter in his pocket. He rushed outside, sprinting across the sunlit lawn, the heels of his shoes biting deeply into the dew-damp turf. He vaulted over the eve-gate, skidding on a patch of mud beyond and falling over. He picked himself up and pounded through the wood towards the cottage. The back door was locked. He ran round to the front and let himself in. He knew at once the cottage was empty. He stood in the little parlour, looking at the grate of the fire, the ashes of the night before still there. His eyes passed uneasily over the sofa and he saw that the lid of the writing desk was folded down.
He went upstairs. The bed was unslept in. He opened the wardrobe. It was filled with hanging clothes. On the chest of drawers he saw Gabriel’s photograph. The strong square face, the simple smile. He felt an awful turmoil in his body, a sudden sickening awareness of just what he and Charis had done. He recalled the words of the letter: “I have written to Gabriel and told him everything.”
He sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. His brain was refusing to work. He realized one trouser leg was thick with mud, also the sleeve of his jacket and his left hand. He stood up. The bedspread was smeared and dirty.
He walked shakily down the stairs. Think, he told himself, think. She seemed to have walked out of the house without taking anything. No clothes, no suitcase…He tried to ignore one explanation which was shouting persistently in his head.
Not Charis, he said to himself. She wouldn’t. The sense of his own responsibility, so successfully evaded for so many months, hit him with full force. He sat down again, on the bottom stair, trembling all over. He patted his pockets for a cigarette, then realized he’d left them in his bedroom.
He got to his feet. The police would have to be informed. Perhaps she’d gone to Aunt Bedelia’s, just fled in a panic for whatever reason? It sounded plausible. But what was wrong? he asked himself. Why should she do it? Why now? She said she hadn’t been feeling well lately, perhaps that could have been a contributing factor. He turned a few more thoughts over in his head. But her note? He took it out of his pocket and spread it on his knee. It was so terse and final. Almost hostile. But why should she write to Gabriel too? This new factor made his head reel. He felt the blood thumping at his temples, he found it difficult to swallow. His stomach heaved and he gagged. He put the back of his hand to his mouth and leant against the wall for support. His mouth was full of fresh saliva, like thick water.
At once he pushed himself off the wall and rushed out of the house. Back through the wood, over the eve-gate, across the bottom of the lawn towards the fishponds. He saw his mother and Cressida standing agitatedly on the terrace. They called his name as he ran i
nto view, but he ignored them.
He leapt down the steps to the seat by the middle pond. His first feeling was one of immense relief as he saw its vacant, glassy surface. The lilies, the reeds, the ornamental bulrushes, all as it always was, sunlit and undisturbed. He stood panting at the edge trying to peer beneath the reflections and the glare of the sun. He could see nothing. But the carp, prompted by his shadow on the water and expecting a feed, began to rise up from the depths. The water swirled, fish bodies coiled and swerved, thick lips and blunt snouts tested the surface.
“Blasted bloody fish!” he swore. He turned round to find a stone to throw—to make them scatter.
Then he saw the pedestal. The marble bust of the Emperor Vitellius was missing.
Felix kicked off his shoes and struggled out of his jacket. His mother and Cressida had reached the upper pond and were awkwardly descending the wide steps, their skirts held up in their hands.
“Felix!” his mother wailed in evident distress. “What’s happening, my darling? What’s wrong?”
He ignored them.
He jumped into the pool. It was deep, eight feet or more, and very cold. He allowed his momentum to take him down to the bottom, feeling the pressure in his ears, and the faint sound of his mother screaming. He opened his eyes, paddling furiously with his hands to keep himself down. Through the murk, all about him, he sensed the carp darting away into their hiding places.
Then one of his beating hands struck something soft. He spun round. Charis’s body was close in to the side. He’d been looking too far out. She was in the attitude of a dive or plummeting fall, her feet trailing up behind her, her head held down, tied in grotesque familiar proximity to the Emperor Vitellius.