Paper Moon

by Marion Husband

  Remembering, Nina touched her face where he’d touched her. His fingers had been hard and dry, his gentleness belying their strength. He’d held her gaze, frowning as though puzzled by her. She’d known he wouldn’t allow himself to puzzle very long, he’d already convinced himself of the kind of girl she was. But just for a moment she’d felt herself soften towards him and wished that she hadn’t taken him straight to bed, but had behaved herself. She’d even imagined their courtship, conventionally chaste before their walk down the aisle. Bobby would give her away, he always said he would.

  Nina set her cup down on the floor and stood up. About to lift Blue Bunny from Cathy’s cot she paused to tuck the blanket more securely around the sleeping child. She remembered that the hard rusks Joan liked were called Toothy Pegs and she turned to Irene to tell her. Irene was asleep, snoring softly. After a moment’s hesitation she left Blue Bunny snug beside Cathy and tiptoed from the room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  HUGH SAID, 'I'VE DECIDED to go home.’

  Mick frowned up at him from The Times editorial. ‘Home? So where’s home, these days?’ His frown intensified. ‘Not Thorp, surely?’

  ‘For a little while, yes.’

  ‘Thorp? Seriously? You’d really go back there?’ Mick snorted. He folded the newspaper, tossed it down to the floor, and took off his glasses. Hugh felt himself under scrutiny, just as he had as a child when his school reports failed to meet his father’s expectations. Brazening it out for as long as he could, at last he got up and went to the window.

  Looking out on to the quiet street he said, ‘I’ve been in touch with an old school friend. He can get me a job in his bank.’

  ‘A bank?’ Mick managed to sound amused and angry at the same time and Hugh spun round to face him.

  ‘Yes. A bank. Right up my street, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I say you’ll be bored out of your head within a week! Tell me again why you left the Navy, Hugh. So you could clock-watch your life away counting shop-keepers’ pennies?’

  Hugh turned back to the window, clenching his fingers into fists so that his nails dug into his palms. Beyond his father’s neat square of garden a young woman pushed a baby in a shiny-bodied pram. The child sat upright, harnessed by leather reins that at once reminded him of parachute straps. He thought of Bobby Harris, wondering if he’d been shot down over land or sea, trying to get an idea of how scared he might have been. It was hard to imagine Bobby scared, almost impossible. Frowning, he turned to Mick, ‘That girl, Nina, did she tell you she knows Bobby Harris?’

  ‘No, she didn’t, but I can’t say I’m surprised. I’d say she was trouble from the little I saw of her and like attracts like. Harris was bound to go to the bad.’

  ‘You liked him well enough once.’

  ‘I tolerated him because he was your friend. I always had my reservations.’

  Hugh couldn’t be bothered to argue, although he knew that Mick had loved Bobby almost as much as Bobby had worshipped Mick. He had been jealous of their relationship, suspecting that Bobby was the son Mick had wished for. Inevitably Bobby had done or said something that had hurt Mick badly enough for his father to never want to see him again. Bitterly he wondered if he’d ever be allowed to know what that something was.

  Mick said, ‘That girl – I hope you were careful.’ When Hugh didn’t answer, Mick sighed. ‘Perhaps you should see a clap doctor.’

  ‘Why? Because she knows Harris? Why do you have to talk like that? Honestly, I try to have a sensible conversation –’

  ‘A sensible conversation?’ Mick laughed as though astonished. ‘You come here, wittering on about wasting your life in some bloody bank and you call that sensible? For God’s sake, boy! You’re a fit, able-bodied man! Why you left the Navy beats me. Do you think I’d have left the army if I hadn’t been wounded? Jesus Christ – I wouldn’t have gone near a civilian outfit if it hadn’t been for this bloody thing!’ He banged the arms of his wheelchair, gazing at him angrily. ‘You should stop looking so sorry for yourself. You’re still in one bloody piece, after all!’

  Mick manoeuvred his chair to his desk and opened a drawer. Taking out his chequebook he wrote out a cheque and thrust it at him. ‘Here. Take yourself off somewhere for a few weeks, away from me, away from everyone. Take some time to think about what you want to do with the rest of your life.’

  ‘I don’t need your money.’

  ‘Yes, you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be talking about taking on some dead end job.’ Mick went on holding out the cheque. Calmer, he said, ‘Take the money. Go to Cornwall, you always loved it there. Hire a boat, do whatever you sailors do.’ He smiled slightly. ‘You were always better at sea than on land.’

  ‘I’m going home, Dad. I just want to go home.’

  Mick looked down at the cheque. After a moment he folded it and tossed it down on to the desk where it stood out amongst the neat piles of paper and sharpened pencils he used to write with. At last he said, ‘Sometimes home is the worst place.’ He looked up at him. ‘After I was wounded I longed to go home, and when finally I got there it felt like a prison.’

  Stubbornly Hugh said, ‘It was different for you.’ He sat down on the couch, the only piece of furniture, other than the desk and a small dining table, in the room. His father had always lived with the minimum of things – furniture got in the way of the wheelchair – and the leather couch was pushed hard against the wall, bought as a concession to the few visitors Mick allowed inside his home. The flat was the ground floor of a Georgian house, its tall windows casting oblongs of sunlight on to the polished wood floor. There were no carpets to slow the chair’s progress and Hugh winced at the noise he made whenever he took a step. Even when he tried to tread softly his shoes squeaked and squealed on floorboards grown used to the glide of wheels.

  The couch was dusty and Hugh traced patterns on its arm, avoiding his father’s eye. He knew Mick was watching him. He lit a cigarette and after a while Mick took an ashtray from his desk. Wheeling himself toward him, he held it out. ‘I don’t want ash on my floor. Henry will tell me off.’

  Hugh took the ashtray. ‘I thought he’d be here. He told me he was visiting you this afternoon.’

  ‘Is that why you came, because you thought Henry would stop me making too much fuss about your news?’ Mick was smiling in an attempt to make the peace that only made Hugh feel as though he was being patronised. When he remained silent, his father sighed. ‘I am expecting Henry. Why don’t you stay and have supper with us? I’ll go and make a start in the kitchen.’

  When Mick had gone, Hugh gazed at the pattern of figure eights he’d drawn on the leather, almost as appalled at the thought of working in a bank as his father was, afraid that leaving the Navy was the worst decision he’d ever made. At the time he’d thought he’d had enough of the sea, of his bleakly dangerous and comfortless life. For months at the end of the war he could think only of the luxuries of land, dreaming of safety, of warmth and stillness, hating the treacherous blackness of the North Atlantic. Now though, sleeping in Henry’s spare room and wandering the blitzed city like an awe-struck tourist, he felt as if he was nearing the end of a too-long leave. As though his body clock was set to some natural span ashore, he felt himself mentally preparing to go back to his ship. Even meeting Nina had added to this feeling. After all, she was the kind of girl shore leave could be frittered away with, a good time, dinner-and-dancing girl, one you could leave sleeping in a rumpled bed and give only a fleeting, smiling thought to on the way back to base.

  Hugh stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray. He tried to ignore the hopeless, empty feeling he had whenever he thought about Nina. As soon as he’d found himself on the street outside her wretched bedsit he’d realised he didn’t care if she’d slept with Bobby Harris a thousand times or never. All that mattered was having her to himself from that moment on.

  He thought about her slim, supple body beneath his, her practised, patient responses to his own, too-urgent needs, and tried to ease h
is sense of loss by telling himself that this was only a sexual attraction, one that would have spent itself as quickly as sugar on a fire. She wouldn’t have made a wife. Hugh covered his face with his hands and groaned softly. Who needed a wife, anyway?

  There was a gentle tap on the sitting room door and Hugh looked up to see Henry. ‘May I come in?’

  Before Hugh could speak, Mick called from the kitchen, ‘Henry – help yourself to a Scotch. And pour one for my son – see if we can’t put a smile on his face.’

  Crossing the room towards the dining table and the bottles and glasses arranged on it, Henry glanced at him. ‘Would you like a drink, Hugh?’

  ‘Yes. Thanks.’

  ‘What have you been up to today?’

  ‘Nothing much.’

  Henry handed him his drink and sat down on the other end of the couch, setting his own drink on the floor as he searched his jacket pockets, finally producing his cigarette case. He held it out and Hugh took one, knowing that Henry’s cigarettes were the best he’d ever tasted. Turkish, his father once told him – as if he didn’t know – then laughed one of his rare, dirty laughs. Accepting Henry’s light, Hugh noticed that the other man’s hands trembled slightly and that tobacco had stained his fingers sulphurous yellow. He smelt of some subtle, spicy cologne and Hugh found himself inhaling deeply to catch his scent. At once he sat back, appalled at himself. Unintentionally he caught Henry’s eye.

  Dryly Henry said, ‘It’s all right, Hugh. You’re not my type.’

  Hugh felt himself blush. He sipped his drink, the sweet cigarette burning ntested between his fingers. After a while he managed to glance at him. Henry was gazing straight ahead towards the window and the darkening street, a thoughtful, serious man, wiry and strong enough to heave Mick’s chair up and down and around all the various obstacles London could put in their way. Though a few years younger than his father, he’d fought for three years during the Great War. Mick’s poetry had helped Henry come to terms with his own experiences, or so he’d written in the foreword of Dawn Song.

  In an effort to make the atmosphere less frosty, Hugh said awkwardly, ‘I was telling Dad – I’ll be leaving for home in a couple of days.’

  ‘P…p…perhaps that’s for the best.’ Henry looked at him. ‘You’re rather at a loss here, aren’t you?’

  Hugh drew on his cigarette. Exhaling, he said, ‘Thanks for putting up with me.’

  ‘Any time.’ Henry turned towards the door as Mick came in. At once his expression softened. ‘Mick, I think we should take Hugh out this evening if he’s not going to be st..staying much longer.’

  ‘Would you like that, Hugh?’

  Hugh shrugged. He felt all of sixteen, just as sullen as he’d ever been. He thought of Bobby Harris, who never let the grown-ups see him behave so badly, and surprised himself by deciding he would visit him.

  CHAPTER SIX

  STANDING IN FRONT OF the hall mirror, Bobby wrapped a scarf around his throat, pulling it up a little so that the soft wool covered the lower half of his face. Satisfied, he put on his coat, his fingers struggling with the buttons. He turned its collar up, hiding a little more of his injuries. Finally, he forced his hands into leather gloves and stood back from the mirror. If he wore a hat he would look like the illustration of H G Wells’s invisible man. But he didn’t own a hat, had no intention of ever buying one. Hats made him look like a spiv.

  He went into the kitchen and checked once again that the back door to the garden was locked. In the drawing room he checked the French doors, and then, as an afterthought, dragged an armchair in front of them. Lately, boys from the terraces beyond the park had begun climbing over the wall and throwing stones at his windows. The first time they ventured into the garden he’d gone to the front door, intending to chase them away, but his nerve had failed at the last minute. As he stepped back inside, one of them spotted him and their mocking shouts and laughter had followed him into the house. A stone hit the door, causing his heart to race. For what seemed like an age he’d stood in the hallway, hardly daring to breathe until the silence convinced him they had gone. Since then they returned most days and he hid himself away behind closed curtains, despising himself for his cowardice as his heart leapt at every sudden noise.

  He locked the door behind him, nervousness making his fingers clumsier, and walked past the cemetery and along

  Oxhill Avenue

  towards Thorp High Street. If he had to go out, he would go out properly and not restrict himself to the corner shop. He would go to Robinson’s, Thorp’s only department store, and browse around the menswear department, perhaps even choose a new tie or some shirts. He needed socks and underwear and handkerchiefs; he would like some bath salts, the kind his grandfather bought that filled the bathroom with the green fragrance of pine. Most of all, he had a craving for chocolate, something dark and so sweet it would smother the metallic taste of anxiety that was constantly with him and that cigarettes could only subdue for a while. A cold wind stung his face. His eyes watered, rheumy as an old man’s, and he wiped them impatiently. In the cemetery men were cutting the grass between the graves and he thought about his overgrown garden. If it didn’t look quite so neglected perhaps those boys wouldn’t think to trespass: he was sure they didn’t bother his respectable, industriously tidy neighbours. Or perhaps it was just his presence in the house that drew them, the little bastards deliberately setting out to bait the beast.

  On the corner of the High Street the matinee crowd streamed out of the Odeon Cinema. Bobby stopped, bowing his head and pretending to search his pockets for the cigarettes he didn’t have, rather than become caught up in the scrum. The cinema displayed posters for forthcoming films on its walls and he studied the face of Laurence Olivier, determined and aloof beneath his Henry V helmet. He’d liked him better in Wuthering Heights, a film he’d watched with Nina, her head light on his shoulder, her arm hugging his as the actor glowered from the screen. As the film ended she’d turned to him, her eyes bright as a Hollywood starlet’s in the darkness. ‘You’re more handsome than he is.’ Remembering, Bobby smiled to himself and touched the glass protecting Olivier’s image.

  At Robinson’s, breathless from his long walk, Bobby took the lift to the menswear department on the third floor. There seemed to be no other customers but him; a bored-looking assistant lounged against one of the mahogany and glass display cabinets. The smell of wood polish and new cloth hung heavy in air that seemed unchanged in years. Too warm, he began to sweat in his muffling scarf and coat.

  Reluctantly, he unwound the scarf from his face and removed his gloves, shoving them into his coat pocket. At once he realised that in his anxiety he’d left his wallet at home, along with his coupons and ration book, picturing them exactly where he’d left them – safe behind the clock on the kitchen mantelpiece. He’d had a pointless journey, all his effort wasted. He almost wept in despair.

  The shop assistant walked towards him, stopping a few feet short. ‘May I help you, sir?’

  Bobby looked away at once, fixing his gaze on a display of silk ties in dull, schoolmaster colours. ‘Not at the moment, thank you.’

  ‘Then please, feel free to look around. But may I remind sir that the shop will be closing in around five minutes.’

  Forcing himself to look at the assistant Bobby said, ‘You’re open until seven.’

  ‘No, sir. We close at five-thirty.’

  ‘But this shop has always stayed open until seven!’

  ‘Perhaps in your day, sir.’

  ‘In my day?’ Bobby stared at him. He looked about fifteen, weedy and anaemic, as though this subdued electric light was all he was ever exposed to. Stepping towards him Bobby said, ‘How old do you think I am?’

  The assistant shifted uncomfortably. Bobby repeated the question. Sullenly the boy said, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m twenty-five.’ He stepped closer. ‘Twenty-five.’

  ‘We’re still closing in a minute, sir.’

  ‘You said f
ive minutes.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘So what can I buy in five minutes.’

  ‘Sir …?

  ‘What?’ Bobby heard his voice rising. Unable to stop himself he went on more loudly, ‘What can I buy? One of those ties, perhaps?’ He walked over to the display. Picking one up he let it slither through his fingers to the floor. He picked up another and another, dropping each one so that they coiled in pools at his feet.

  Behind him a voice said, ‘Bobby, stop that now.’

  He swung round. His mother gazed at him, the calmness in her voice betrayed by the panic in her eyes. His two half-sisters stood beside her, stiff with embarrassment. Stepping forward she crouched down beside the boy and helped him gather up the ties. ‘There,’ she smiled. ‘It’s just as well you keep your floor so clean. No harm done. All the same, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Bobby’s voice was shrill with anger. ‘What are you apologising for? Has this anything to do with you?’

  The boy’s pale face flushed. To Bobby’s mother he said, ‘The shop’s about to close, madam.’

  ‘Is that all you can say – the shop’s closing? For Christ’s sake – I thought the customer came first! Have you never heard of service?’

  A bell sounded and the boy looked towards the clock above the lifts. Rather desperately he said, ‘There’s the closing bell now.’

  ‘Fuck the bloody bell!’

  ‘Bobby, please!’ His mother took his arm. More softly she said, ‘Let’s go home, eh?’

  He shook her off. ‘You go home. This is none of your business.’

  ‘Of course it is.’ Beneath her pinkish face powder her cheeks were dark with embarrassment. She smiled at the assistant. ‘I’m so sorry. My son hasn’t been himself lately.’

  Bobby stared at her, wanting to scream with rage at this fantastic lie. Almost in tears he shouted, ‘What the hell would you know about it?’

  ‘Mummy, let’s just go …’ Kate, the older of his sisters, pulled at her mother’s arm. ‘Please let’s go.’