‘I’m not alone.’ She turned away from him and he realised he’d offended her. He touched her head.
‘Sorry, I’m tactless.’
Ducking away from his touch she said sharply, ‘We have a friend in common.’ Glancing at him, she went on, ‘Bobby Harris.’
‘Bob?’ Astonished, he frowned at her. Just to make sure they were talking about the same person he said, ‘Flight Lieutenant Bobby Harris? Same age as me, slight, dark, skinny?’ It was an inadequate description, but his surprise robbed him of words. He remembered Bobby as a sixteen-year-old boy, the last time he’d seen him; even then he defied description. Mick, succinct for once, had called him unnaturally beautiful, making it sound like a flaw, but as far as Hugh had been concerned the only unnatural thing about Bobby was his self-possession. Even as a small child Bobby had seemed grown up.
Nina sat on the edge of the bed and drew the robe around her tightly. He could see the sharpness of her shoulder blades through the material, the bumps of her spine. It dawned on him that she would be just Bobby’s type: thin and chic, as far removed from run-of-the-mill women as he imagined Bob was from run-of-the-mill men. It would be impossible for Bobby not to know such a woman.
She had her back to him still. A rush of jealousy made him grasp her arm, forcing her to face him. She met his gaze defiantly, jerking herself free.
He expected her to say something. When she didn’t he made himself say, ‘How is he, our mutual friend?’
‘Didn’t you hear what happened to him?’
‘Dad told me.’ He exhaled sharply, knowing he sounded cold. Often he’d tried to picture Bobby’s disfigured face, only to find it impossible to imagine. More gently he said, ‘Is he coping?’
‘I don’t know.’ Responding to his tone, her expression became softer. ‘He’s gone home.’ She laughed painfully. ‘Hiding away. He’s pretending he’s the star of a fairy tale, I think.’
‘Sounds like Bobby.’
Bitterly she said, ‘It’s a stupid act. He should be here, among his friends.’
It was the second time she’d called Bobby a friend. Surprised by the fierceness of his jealousy, he tossed the bedcovers aside and got up.
Nina said, ‘You’re angry. When I telephoned him this morning he said you would be if I told you.’
He pulled on his trousers. Harshly he said, ‘So why tell me?’
She stood up and went to the sink, filling a glass with water and taking a long drink. She kept her back to him, her hand gripping the tap, her body taut. He imagined touching her, how she would jerk away from him, a feral cat that had allowed herself to be petted for just as long as it suited her. She was Bobby’s girl, all right. Bobby would find her endlessly entertaining.
Nina set the glass down. Her trip-wire tautness gave and she slumped a little. Wearily she said, ‘His grandfather died.’
She looked at him, seeming to gauge his reaction to this news, but he’d hardly known the old man.
Nina said, ‘I know you were good friends from the way he spoke about you.’
Hugh snorted. ‘I haven’t seen him for years. I’m surprised he even remembers me.’
‘Of course he does!’ She became animated. ‘He asked how you were, what you were doing now, what kind of war you had, everything! He seemed so sad that you’d lost touch.’ She hesitated, clutching the dressing gown together at her chest, as though now was the time to protect her modesty. After a moment she said cautiously, ‘It would be so nice if you wrote to him’.
He laughed.
‘Why is that funny?’ Her voice rose a little. ‘He needs friends. Nice, ordinary people around him …’ She had the grace to look embarrassed. Hugh gazed at her, smiling angrily.
‘Well, that’s me – nice and ordinary. Boring? I bet that word came up in your conversation.’ He shook his head. ‘Bob Harris doesn’t need people around him. He never gave a stuff about anyone.’
He’d finished dressing. Fetching his jacket from the chair in the corner of the bare little room, he shrugged it on. He turned to her. ‘I’ll say goodbye, I think.’
‘Please write to him.’
He patted his pockets for his wallet, putting on an act of ignoring her that even Bobby Harris would have been proud of. Glancing at her he said, ‘Listen, I’d rather you kept away from my father. He may seem worldly, but he’s a bloody poet, after all. Please don’t make an idiot of him, too.’
She paled, clutching the robe around her more tightly. She seemed more beautiful than ever, almost translucent, and anger mixed with the stirring of desire. If he stayed any longer he would take her again, roughly, making sure he hurt her, a fast, furious fucking that would banish Bobby from his head. Instead, he walked out, knowing he wouldn’t rid himself of Bobby’s disrupting ghost all day.
CHAPTER FOUR
BOBBY STOOD AT HIS bedroom window watching the steady trickle of worshippers walk along the road and into Thorp’s graveyard that surrounded St Anne’s church. They walked up the main path in groups of twos and threes, dressed almost identically in dark, sensible utility coats. Even the women’s hats were drab and colourless, their shoes clumpy, lace-up brogues, their ankles thick in lisle stockings. Thorp women lacked any sense of style – they had no flair. He smiled to himself; the men weren’t much better. Difficult to believe that Mick Morgan had been born and bred here.
He remembered the first time he’d met Morgan and how impressed he’d been by the poet’s raffish, easy-going charm, how his wheelchair somehow added to his charisma. Mick Morgan had even smelled delicious, a rich, warm expensive smell of cigar and sandalwood and something he couldn’t place, books, he’d supposed, the scent of an intellectual.
He sighed, closing his eyes against this memory, wishing Nina had not telephoned and stirred up so much of the past with her excitable talk of renewing friendships. He had tried to sound coolly interested, asking after Hugh as he would ask after any old friend. Except he had never had any friends like Hugh, no one he had loved so much. Nina didn’t understand that such friendships, once broken, couldn’t be mended.
He went downstairs. In the kitchen he lit the gas under the kettle, sliced the stale bread for toast, then went into the larder. He sniffed at the inch or so of milk left in the bottle. The cold weather had kept it from turning and at least there was a scraping of plum jam in the jar, although he had finished the last of his butter ration, allowing himself only the most miserly amount each day. Despite his frugality, he would have to shop soon.
Tea and toast made, he sat down in his grandfather’s armchair and lit his first cigarette – another small luxury that had to be rationed if he wasn’t to be forever walking out to Clark’s, the tobacconist’s, and running the gauntlet of stares and comments. Clark’s daughter blushed scarlet whenever she had to serve him, leaving his change on the counter rather than risk touching his damaged hands. Once, she had even dodged into the back of the shop when she’d noticed him in the queue, leaving him waiting when his turn came until, shame-faced, the old man himself had shuffled out to serve him. Clark avoided his eye, too, unable to bring himself to behave normally.
Since he’d left hospital, most people behaved like Clark; some even adopted a different tone of voice when they talked to him. Some became too jolly, pretending they really hadn’t noticed that he looked like a monster, and if they had were totally at ease with it and much too nice to react in any way. Others became off-hand: he was offensive and shouldn’t be out and about embarrassing them. He did his best to oblige these latter types, going out as little as possible and having as much as he could delivered to the house. The telephone in the hall had become his true ally, until today.
Nina’s voice on the phone had been excited, but there had also been a cautious edge to her tone so that straight away he’d guessed that she’d climbed into bed with Hugh within hours of their meeting. Jealous, he’d begun to speculate on the kind of man Hugh had grown into. He’d be tall, of course, he was always tall, and his shoulders would be broad, his body tapering t
o a slim waist. He would be tanned; he remembered how easily the sun took to him, lightening the fine hairs on his arms to gold.
He remembered the last summer they had spent together, when they’d swum naked in the sea, leaving their clothes on the tiny, deserted cove they’d found near Robin Hood’s Bay. In the freezing water he’d been content to stay in the shallows, watching Hugh swim further and further away with the strong, sure strokes of an athlete. He swam so far that fear knotted his guts and he’d swum out of his depth to search for him. Hugh had surfaced suddenly, so close their noses had almost brushed, his hair dark and sleek as sealskin as he’d grinned through his breathlessness. Bobby pretended not to be angry, trying not to show how scared he’d been. Later, on the beach, the salt had dried on Hugh’s golden skin, a delicate, white etching.
Bobby drew on his cigarette, trying not to think about Hugh. He concentrated on the cigarette, wishing they’d invent an endless smoke, one that never burnt down to his petrified fingers but went on and on. He’d never have the bother of fumbling with matches that leapt like crickets from his grasp or suffer the indignity of failing to spark a lighter. He would sit in this chair and smoke and smoke and he wouldn’t bother about food; he’d even ignore the nagging voice in his head that insisted he should do something. The voice was slowly becoming hysterical as days went by without him even bothering to dress. Dressing was as much of a chore as striking a bloody match; there were too many buttons, and laces, and ties. Too much bloody effort.
Before he’d left London even Nina had asked him what he would do. He’d forced his face into its best-practised smile.
‘I’ve got an interview to be a solicitors’ clerk.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Really?’
He couldn’t be bothered to go on teasing her. ‘Nina, of course I bloody haven’t. They’d be too afraid I’d scare their customers off.’
They’d been waiting for the Darlington train at King’s Cross. Close by a group of American airmen jostled each other good-naturedly. Each seemed too young to have seen wartime service, too fresh, somehow. One of them caught Nina’s eye and smiled broadly, only to notice him and look away, that generous American mouth turning down with a mixture of concern and revulsion. He’d felt that he should step away from her and pretend that they weren’t together. Nina always enjoyed a flirtation and his presence beside her was spoiling the fun. He saw the American lean close to a comrade and speak quietly. They both glanced at him, the others too, and at once their mood became sober.
On the train, he’d pulled down the window, leaning out to kiss her goodbye. Remembering Morgan’s launch party, which she seemed intent on crashing, he said, ‘Mick Morgan is very charming. Don’t let him sweep you off your feet.’
She laughed. ‘He won’t talk to me!’
Bobby gazed at her, amazed that she could still be so innocent. He’d wanted to ask her again not to go to the damn party, but he also wanted news of Morgan, to know for certain that he’d aged and had not stayed the glamorous, charming man he remembered. He knew he could rely on Nina to report back accurately, hoping she would inform him of someone old and pathetic, someone who’d grown into his lechery.
Instead, of course, she’d informed him of Hugh.
Bobby stubbed his cigarette out. He drank the lukewarm tea and ate the rubbery toast and forced himself to wash and dry and put away the plate and cup, knife and teaspoon. He concentrated on making his hands behave, promising himself another cigarette once he had swept the kitchen floor, once he had rinsed through the shirts and underwear he’d left soaking overnight in the scullery sink. He wouldn’t think about Hugh, that sleek head breaking the sea’s surface, that smile that was his alone for that one, perfect moment.
Irene said, ‘I never hit it off with sailors. I prefer the army, myself.’
Nina bowed her head to kiss Cathy’s hair. She had just bathed her, using a tiny amount of her own shampoo, and her dark curls had sprung to life. Clean and sweet smelling, she was a different baby from the screaming, red-faced child she’d taken from Irene’s arms an hour ago. Nina wrapped the thin towel around her more snugly, gently combing her fingers through her hair to dry it, while a nappy, vest and nightdress aired by Irene’s fire. Blue Bunny dangled by his ears from Cathy’s mouth, her gums working on him mercilessly, saliva darkening the threadbare plush. Nina squeezed the toy’s tired body but his squeak had long ago given up. ‘Bunnies don’t squeak, anyway,’ Bobby had said. ‘Only in their death throes.’
He’d been holding Joan, explaining dreadful, bunny facts in a smiling voice. Joan had smiled back at him, a star-shaped, podgy hand gently slapping at his mouth, and he’d kissed her, brushing his nose against hers. ‘Poor Blue Bunny.’ He’d smiled. ‘Silenced by love.’
‘She likes him.’ Irene stood over her, jerking her head at the stuffed toy.
Reaching for Cathy’s clothes, Nina lay the baby across her knee and dressed her. ‘Have you warmed her milk?’
‘I’ll take her. You can get home now.’
‘It’s all right, I’ll stay ’til she’s asleep.’
‘If you want. Looks like you won’t separate madam from the rabbit, anyway, not while she’s awake.’
Nina looked up at her. ‘It was Joan’s.’
Irene nodded. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
With Cathy finally asleep in her cot, Irene took a half bottle of rum from the curtained cupboard under the sink and poured a dash into Nina’s tea. She lit a cigarette and casually placed the open packet beside Nina’s cup, then sat down in the other worn-out easy chair so that they faced each other, legs stretched in front of the dying fire. Drawing deeply on the cigarette, Irene rested her head back against the yellowing antimacassar before exhaling a long, exhausted breath. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Is the sailor coming back?’
‘No.’
‘Gone back to his ship, has he?’
Quickly Nina said, ‘Joan used to like rusk when she was teething. Those really hard rusks you can thread a ribbon through and hang around their necks. I’ll buy some, if I see any.’
Irene sipped at her own rum-doctored tea. Pensively she said, ‘I thought he was a Yank coming up the stairs, he had their easy way about him.’ She smiled and began to sing Run Rabbit, Run under her breath. Glancing at Nina she said, ‘Never mind. Plenty more fish in the sea.’ She grinned. ‘On the sea. Sod them, anyway. Bastards.’
Nina looked across at the photograph on the mantelpiece of an army corporal, a jug-eared boy of about twenty, his cap tilted a little too far. Following the direction of her gaze Irene said, ‘He was all right. When I told him about Cathy he said, “It’s all right girl, I’ll marry you no matter what me old Ma says.”’ She laughed. After a while she added, ‘I get his widow’s pension, anyway.’
Nina had lived next door to Irene for over a year and sometimes felt ashamed to think they were friends only through Irene’s persistence. On the day she’d moved in Irene had watched from her own doorway as the landlord pocketed her first month’s rent and handed her the key. As soon as he’d gone, Irene had walked over, two bottles of stout dangling from her fingers, new-born Cathy curled against her shoulder. She’d grinned at her, lifting the bottles a little so that they clinked hospitably. ‘How about a housewarming?’
Nina had spent the rest of the day with Irene, wondering if she would have allowed her to stay if it hadn’t been for the baby and her own, masochistic, urges.
Wistfully, Irene said, ‘That sailor was very good looking.’
Nina snorted, remembering Hugh Morgan’s jealous anger when she’d mentioned Bobby. She wondered how she could have been bothered with such a predictable man. He had been a distraction, she supposed, a balm to take away the sting of Bobby’s leaving. Such unimaginative men usually helped in the wasteland Bobby left.
Nina said, ‘I telephoned Bobby. He sends his love.’
‘He doesn’t need a housekeeper, does he?’ Irene smiled. ‘Maybe we should both just show up on his doorstep. One look at Cathy
and he wouldn’t be able to turn us away.’
‘People used to think Joan was his, the way he was with her.’
Irene was silenced for a while. Eventually she said, ‘Why don’t you go and see him?’
‘He wants to be on his own.’
‘Do you want to be on your own? You must do, otherwise you wouldn’t have let sailor boy walk away.’
‘Don’t you think sailor boy has a will of his own?’
‘I won’t bother answering that.’ Irene reached beside her chair for the bottle of rum and held it out to her.
Nina shook her head. ‘He wasn’t my type, anyway.’ Remembering the last poem his father had read the evening she’d met him, Nina found herself smiling. ‘Do you know the poem Homecoming, by Michael Morgan?’
Irene yawned, covering her mouth only at the last moment. Dully she said, ‘I only know that one about the dead soldier. We had to learn it at school – I think it’ll be stuck in my head forever – Birds sing now in sapling woods …’
‘Homecoming is about Hugh. Wouldn’t that be marvellous – to have a poem written for you? A whole book of them dedicated to you?’ Nina sat forward in her chair, her cup grasped in both hands. Only when she caught Irene’s amused eye did she realise how animated she’d become. She sat back. ‘I’ll let you borrow the book, if you like.’
‘And when have I time to sit about reading poetry?’
Nina sipped her tea, tasting only the Christmas warmth of rum, wondering if sailors were still given a rum ration. For the whole of the war Hugh Morgan had served on destroyers, escorting the Atlantic convoys. He had told her so in a sentence, summing up his naval career. She’d asked him why he’d joined the navy when his father had been so famously connected to the army and he’d laughed. Looking up at her from lighting a cigarette, he’d suddenly cupped her cheek in his hand, sweeping his thumb beneath her eye, his own eyes passionate. ‘I love the sea,’ he said. After a moment he let his hand fall away. ‘Besides, I was scared of being stuck in a trench.’
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