Adultery for Beginners

by Sarah Duncan

  'Do you want a potted history?' Lu nodded, with a shamefaced smile. Nick took a deep breath. 'Right. The war started in 1914, and at the beginning there was a lot of direct fighting, actual battles, but neither side could establish victory. So there was a stalemate. By 1916 the enemy had been stuck in their trenches for a year, and it was becoming clear that something extra was going to be needed to get them out. So the British and French came up with a plan. They decided to focus all their attention on a section of the Western Front and throw everything at it. If they could break through the enemy defences, there was a good chance the whole line would collapse and the war would be won.'

  Something stirred at the back of Lu's brain. 'Is that the Big Push?'

  Nick nodded. 'They shelled the Western Front for five days in the area around the River Somme, then on the first of July they sent wave after wave of soldiers over the top into no-man's-land to attack the enemy trenches. That first day...'

  'Was it bad?'

  'It was the worst single day of the whole war. Sixty thousand casualties, of whom a third died. I'd guess your man was one of them. He probably died fairly early on in the morning.'

  Sixty thousand. Lu couldn't begin to imagine that many. That was like nearly the whole population of Bath being gathered together and wounded or killed on one single day. Impossible to imagine. 'How do you know he'd have died in the morning?'

  'That's when they went over the top.' Nick examined his hands, fingers spread out. 'Did you notice on the entry that it gave his cemetery as Thiepval? That's where the Lutyens memorial is. On it are carved the names of seventy-two thousand soldiers who have no known grave. They could only bury men who they could retrieve from the trenches or from no-man's-land, and they could only do that if the fighting had stopped. So at the Somme, they were only able to start burying the dead in early 1917, six months after the worst day. There's not much left of a man by that point.'

  Lu couldn't take it in. Yes, she'd known that lots of men had died, but the numbers seemed so vast, so impersonal. But now she had a stake in it: the man who was her great-grandfather. She touched his face. It was so young-looking, the steady eyes, the serious expression. 'How can I find out more about what he did in the war? Or where he was from and what he did. I want to know everything about him.'

  Nick shifted in his seat as if coming back from somewhere far away. 'The war I can help with. You now know his regiment, the Somerset Light Infantry, so you can order his war record and find out where the regiment went, what they were involved with and so on. It's not really my area, but I'm sure I can help you - I can certainly put you in touch with people who are experts.'

  'You sound pretty expert to me.'

  Nick shook his head, and Lu thought he'd got a very appealing smile. 'Not at all. Since I started this job, I've been reading up on it. There's a lot of interesting material out there; you can see why it becomes a bit of an obsession.'

  'What exactly are you doing? You said you'd got a project.'

  'We want to raise awareness, so hopefully we're going to plant a line of poppies along the line of the Western Front as it was on the first of July. Four hundred and fifty miles or thereabouts. It's a mad idea.'

  'Was it yours?'

  "Fraid so.'

  Four hundred and fifty miles of scarlet poppies. Lu could see them now, bobbing in the breeze. Perhaps you'd be able to see them from outer space, like the Great Wall of China, a ribbon of scarlet like a scar across the earth. 'Wow. It'll be like a great landscape installation; it'll make Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy look tiny in comparison.' She looked at Nick with fresh eyes. He must have an incredible imagination to come up with such an original idea. The scarlet line of poppies would really bring home the scale of the war. 'Was the front really four hundred and fifty miles long?'

  'From the sea coast of northern France right down to the border in Alsace.'

  'I'd no idea it was so long. Four hundred and fifty miles.' And made out of poppies. That would be something unforgettable. 'That's going to be amazing.'

  'If it happens,' Nick said cheerfully. 'There's so much politics behind the scenes. That whole area of France was devastated, villages destroyed, the countryside turned into a wasteland. A lot of people in France would rather forget, and move on. And perhaps they're right.'

  'But you don't think so.'

  Nick looked at his hands again. 'So many men died,' he said simply. 'They need remembering, both for themselves and for the future. Perhaps if more politicians remembered, they wouldn't be so quick to go to war.'

  'I hope you succeed.'

  'Thanks. I hope you find your soldier.'

  It felt like time to go. Lu stood up and held out her hand. 'Thank you so much for all your help.'

  'No problem.' He stood too, shaking her hand. 'Let me know how you get on. I'd be interested.'

  'Okay. I'll do that. Good luck with your poppy project. It sounds fascinating.'

  'Thanks.' He let her hand go. 'Would you like me to do a bit of research on your soldier? Making no promises, but I could probably find out some more about him.'

  Lu smiled broadly. 'That would be great.' It wasn't so much that she wanted someone else to do all the work, but she could see that finding out about one soldier among so many would be like searching for the proverbial needle - let alone finding Anne Morgan, her great-grandmother. It would be much easier if someone else was looking alongside her, particularly someone who had specialist knowledge. 'You've been so helpful I don't like to ask, but do you know how you'd go about tracking down a woman who lived around that time? I've got hardly any information on her, just a name.'

  Nick dug around in his pockets. 'I can suggest a couple of websites to look at...' Lu handed him a piece of paper from her sketchpad and a pen. He wrinkled his brow as if thinking, then wrote down a couple of web addresses and handed the paper back. 'There's quite a lot of detective work involved in these searches.'

  'Just call me Sherlock,' Lu said.

  Nick gave her a considered look. 'Perhaps I will.' To her surprise, he bent and kissed her cheek. 'Good to meet you again. I was rather annoyed with Jerry for whisking me away, to be honest.'

  'He took you off to look at your wife's work, I think.' She emphasised the word 'wife' slightly. She didn't want him getting any ideas.

  'My ex-wife.'

  Ex-wife? Perhaps she did want him getting ideas. 'Briony didn't say

  'She probably doesn't know. Morwenna doesn't like to mix professional and personal, and we tried to keep our dirty linen as private as possible. Neither of us wanted to slag the other off in public.' He looked across the pub as if in embarrassment at talking about something personal, then turned back to Lu. 'Nor in private, to be honest. We're still friends, as much as it's possible to be in the circumstances.'

  Lu didn't know what to say. She could see the hurt in his eyes. 'I'm sorry. I'm always blundering in.'

  'Not your fault. I should have said something to Jerry, but it didn't seem the right place or time. Besides, he was busy being the successful artist and trying to get me to buy one of his paintings.'

  Lu liked the slightly caustic edge to his voice. 'And did you?'

  'Heavens, no. I can't afford his stuff,' Nick said, before lowering his voice. 'To be honest, I don't like his work very much. It's a bit flashy for my taste. But don't tell him I said that.'

  'I won't.' She leaned closer to him. 'I don't like his work much either.'

  'A secret we share.'

  They smiled and said goodbye, and Lu watched Nick as he left the pub. At the door he turned and raised his hand, a fleeting gesture of farewell. Lu raised her hand too. What a nice man he was. She hoped she would meet him again.

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