Paper Moon

by Marion Husband

  ‘Most mornings.’ He turned away and busied himself pouring the tea. ‘Do you want to take this out to him?’

  Mark had made toast, too, and she carried it out on a tray, the tea spilling a little into the saucers. She sat down with the tray between them. ‘Breakfast is served, m’lud.’

  He looked towards the kitchen window. ‘Is Mark being tactful?’

  ‘I think so.’ She followed his gaze. ‘He’s sweet.’

  Still looking at the house, Bobby said, ‘Hugh seems more settled, I think.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘How do you like my garden?’

  She looked around. The garden was very much as he’d described it: as though the trees had been planted to protect the house from prying. The chestnut tree they sat beneath was in the centre of a large lawn; other trees screened the house from the road. She imagined that whoever had planted them had no idea for the future other than this need for privacy, no thought given to how tall the trees would grow or how they would shade the house so that its rooms would be cold and gloomy even in the summer. The house itself seemed cowed by the trees, an impression heightened by its neglect. Guttering and a drainpipe had come away from the wall beside the kitchen window and a green stain was spreading where rainwater ran down unchecked. Following her gaze Bobby laughed despairingly.

  ‘The place is crumbling. I keep expecting to come across Miss Haversham holed up in one of the bedrooms. Perhaps I should sell it.’

  ‘And go back to London?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think so.’ He lit a cigarette as Mark walked towards them. Tossing the match down he said, ‘Are you going, Mark? I don’t want you late for school because of me.’

  Nina said, ‘I hear you’re the star of your school play.’

  He blushed.

  She looked at Bobby. ‘You are going to help Mark with the part, aren’t you?’

  Mark asked. ‘Will you, Bob?’

  ‘Of course he will!’

  Mark grinned. ‘I’ll let Mrs Mason know.’

  Bobby sighed. ‘Go on. Get off to school.’

  Watching his brother walk away he said, ‘You shouldn’t have told him I’d do it. He doesn’t need me interfering.’

  ‘It’s just a school play, Bobby, that’s all.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll go and check on Hugh.’

  Hugh lay in bed watching the shadows the trees made on the wall and ceiling. Every part of him ached as though he’d been tossed about in a dinghy on rough seas. Too weak to move, his head felt thick and full of the dreams that had troubled him all night. He thought of Bob sitting patiently at his bedside, how sometimes he thought he was merely part of his dreams only to wake fully and know that he was truly there, accepting the strangeness of it only to incorporate him into his dreams again. Sometimes Bobby was a child, at other times a grown man, his face as it should be. In other dreams his scars were worse than they really were and he became afraid of this silent, watchful man at his bedside. Hugh closed his eyes, worrying about what he may have called out from his sleep.

  When he’d met Bob on Thorp Station he had found himself overcome with emotion. He wondered now if it was the start of this illness that had made him feel so susceptible to pity. He had felt it on the train when Nina had told him about her child’s death: it was as though he’d been stripped of a layer of skin that had once insulated him from the grief and suffering of others. He had felt raw and emotional but also fervent, like one of his father’s Catholic saints that had just been shown Christ’s wounds. And so, as soon as he saw Bob on the platform, he had pulled him into his arms and hugged him. He had felt him stiffen with embarrassment until his damaged hands gently patted his shoulder and he stepped back. ‘Hugh,’ Bobby had said. ‘How are you?’ His voice was coolly polite. Worse, beneath the coolness was a note of contempt so that he’d felt large and foolish and loathed his own clumsiness.

  The bedroom window was open a crack, enough to allow in a breeze scented with horse-chestnut blossom. The tree’s shadow made different patterns on the ceiling. He rested his hands flat on the eiderdown and felt the spine of a feather through the satiny material. He worked at it until gradually it broke through and the feather curled into his fist.

  Hugh remembered the first time he had visited this house, ordered by his father to call for the silent little boy who sat next to him in Miss Gray’s infant class. He had stood outside the house he knew Bobby went to after school, intimidated by its size and forbidding grandeur. He’d expected it to be grand inside, too, nothing like the boxy, dull little bungalow built to accommodate his father’s wheelchair. Plucking up his courage, he’d rung the doorbell, believing a butler would answer. Instead, Bobby had opened the door and looked at him with a surprise he quickly covered up. He didn’t remember him speaking, only that he turned away at once and led him through the untidy, cold and damp hall of his grandfather’s house. His cheeks were striped with war paint and he wore a Red Indian’s headdress made of card and braid and feathers. The gold and red feathers bobbed and shimmered as he walked ahead of him, their colours bright and intense in the brown varnish décor. As he followed him Hugh noticed a smell he couldn’t place. Later, he recognised the smell as that of a house left to its own devices.

  Bobby had built a wigwam in the overgrown garden. He led him inside and sat cross-legged on the ground. ‘We should be blood brothers,’ he’d said. Hugh had only nodded, mesmerised by the war paint and the feathers and the complicated construction of branches and canvas and blankets that made up their hiding place. He suspected that Bobby was allowed to do exactly as he pleased, as free from adults as Peter Pan, so he wasn’t surprised when Bobby took a pin from his headdress and grasped his wrist. ‘Hold out your finger. Are you scared?’

  He’d shaken his head and with a quick sharp jab Bobby pricked his fingertip. A bright jewel of blood appeared. Bobby raised his eyes to look at him. Still grasping his wrist he said, ‘Now you.’ He held out the pin stained with his own blood. Hugh’s hands shook as he took it and Bobby watched him intensely as though afraid he would fail the test. He remembered squeezing his eyes shut as he stabbed the soft pad of Bobby’s finger and the feel of their blood mixing as Bobby pressed their wounds together. When he opened his eyes Bobby had said, ‘There. We’re brothers. You can come here whenever you like.’

  In his hot hand the feather from the eiderdown had become ragged. Hugh let it drift to the floor, remembering how later that afternoon Bobby had taken a feather from his headdress and handed it to him as he’d left. All at once Bobby had become the shy little boy he was at school rather than the confident Indian brave he’d been all day. ‘Will you come back?’

  Hugh remembered being surprised that he thought there could be any doubt. The world Bobby created was far more exciting than anything he had ever experienced. He touched his face where Bobby had smeared two broad, red lines: the war paint he would have to scrub away before his mother saw him. Suddenly the thought of returning to his neat and tidy home and his neat and tidy mother was more than he could bear. Fiercely he’d said, ‘Of course I’ll come back! We’re brothers, aren’t we?’

  From the bedroom door Nina said, ‘How are you feeling?’

  He turned to look at her. The floral print dress she wore was shapelessly demure, its collar fastened with a pearl button, its skirt modestly covering her knees. Most curiously of all she wore flat, sensible shoes and her hair was pulled back into a severe bun so that it seemed to him she was trying to transform herself into the kind of girl his mother would approve of. He held his hand out to her and she came to stand at the foot of his bed.

  He let his hand fall to the bed redundantly. ‘Aren’t you going to come any closer?’

  ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘Aspirin?’

  ‘Yes, of course. I’ll go and see if Bobby has any. Anything else?’

  ‘Some company would be nice.’

  ‘You should rest.’

  ‘I am resting.’ He began to cough and struggled to sit u
p. She watched as though trying to decide whether to make a move to help him.

  When he stopped coughing she said, ‘Do you think you need the doctor again?’

  ‘Again?’ He wiped cold sweat from his face and fell back on the hot, crumpled pillows. Frowning at her he croaked, ‘Did a doctor come here last night?’

  ‘Yes. He didn’t stay very long – he was annoyed with Bobby for calling him out. Only ’flu, he said. Bobby told him that people die of only ’flu.’

  ‘Very cheering.’ He gazed at her. ‘I’m sorry I spoilt your evening.’

  ‘You couldn’t help it. I’ll go and fetch you that aspirin.’

  As she was about to go he said, ‘Will you sit with me when you come back?’

  She hesitated in the doorway. ‘We’ll see.’

  Bobby had come in from the garden and was washing the breakfast dishes.

  ‘How’s the patient? I’ve just remembered Maynard left a prescription for him.’ He began to dry his hands. ‘I’ll go to the chemist now.’

  ‘I’ll go.’ She smiled too brightly. ‘I’d like a walk out and I don’t suppose it’s far, is it?’

  Bobby frowned at her. ‘No, it’s not far.’ After a moment he said, ‘What’s wrong, Nina?’

  She laughed. ‘Nothing! I just want some fresh air, that’s all!’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. You shouldn’t have to run around after him when it’s my fault he’s here.’

  ‘It’s no one’s fault.’

  Sighing she said, ‘He wants some company. You know how hopeless I am around a sick bed …’

  ‘He’s not so ill, you know.’

  ‘I know.’ She glanced away, embarrassed by his concern. Making an effort to sound cheerful she said, ‘Now – give me the directions to this chemist’s.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  IN THE SCHOOL HALL Jane climbed up on to the stage. She stood with her hands on her hips looking down at the group of boys sitting hunched around the cardboard brazier.

  ‘You lot! You’re supposed to be hungry, cold, terrified. You’re in a trench and you’re being shelled – you’re not at a tea party! Try and look worried, at least!’ She sighed, realising she couldn’t get what she wanted from them today. ‘All right. Let’s stop for this afternoon.’

  As the boys scrambled to their feet, she felt a presence at the back of the hall and glanced up. Adam smiled his encouraging headmaster’s smile. He began to walk towards the stage and she smiled back at him, professionally.

  ‘Headmaster. Come to check up on us?’

  ‘I have.’ His smiled broadened, his attention focusing on Mark. ‘Redpath! That was an excellent speech you made just now. Every word clear as a bell!’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’ The boy blushed and once again Jane wondered how someone who was so forceful on stage could be so shy off it.

  Gently she said, ‘Off you go, all of you. See you tomorrow afternoon.’

  Mark stepped towards her. Flustered he said, ‘Miss, about my brother, is it still all right?’

  ‘Have you asked him, then?’

  ‘Yes, he’ll do it.’

  ‘Well fine, he can come tomorrow, if he wishes.’

  When the boys had gone Adam stepped up on to the stage and wordlessly helped her to rearrange it for the morning. He glanced at her as he straightened a row of chairs for the teachers who sat on the stage during assembly. ‘Redpath is excellent. I had no idea. I thought he was rather a mousy child, in manner, at least.’

  Jane kept her eyes on the chair she was moving. ‘He’s very handsome though. Just as Captain Palmer should be. Do you think the play was intended to be homoerotic?’

  She sensed him stiffen. He took off his glasses and polished them briskly on the corner of his handkerchief. Hooking the metal frames over his ears he said, ‘I always thought the character of Palmer was completely wrong, totally over-written. The men I knew who fought in the Great War were nothing like him. They were much more …’ He frowned, as though trying to think of the right word. At last he said, ‘Much more silent, I suppose.’

  ‘Silence doesn’t go down well in plays.’ Moving a chair she said, ‘Redpath wants his brother to sit in on a rehearsal. Apparently he played Palmer in front of Michael Morgan.’

  ‘Did he indeed? God help him – Morgan is a nasty piece of work.’

  Astonished she said, ‘I didn’t know you knew him.’

  He stepped back, examining the rows of chairs for straightness, infuriating her with his familiar, deliberate pauses. At last he turned to her almost as if he’d forgotten she was there. Absently he said, ‘We’re the same age, Morgan and I. We lived in the same town for years. I knew him, of course I did.’ He moved a chair a fraction to his right. ‘I knew Morgan’s brother, too.’ Looking at the chairs again he said, ‘His brother was the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on.’ He turned to her, holding her gaze, acknowledging the taboo she had broken so that she felt like a child who had pretended to be too knowing.

  Awkwardly she asked, ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘He moved away. Abroad.’ He exhaled sharply. ‘Right. All ship-shape again, ready for tomorrow. It’s a shame we don’t have a drama room big enough for rehearsals, but there we are – never enough money, never enough space.’ Turning to her he said, ‘Shall we walk home together?’

  She nodded and he smiled briefly. ‘I’d forgotten what a good teacher you are, Jane. I was impressed with what I saw today.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She sounded so grudging that he laughed.

  ‘Let’s go home. I’ll even cook supper.’

  She remembered taking Adam home to meet her mother for the first time, how nervous she had been. She had bought a new outfit for the occasion, the kind of girlish, impractical clothes her mother liked to see her in. Her pale, summery frock, still stinking of dress-shop newness, stuck to her back in the stuffy train carriage as they travelled from Thorp to Durham, and the silly, jaunty little hat she’d bought to match seemed to wilt on her head like a just-picked dandelion. She had even worn white lace gloves. Used to seeing her in sensible, schoolmarm suits, when Adam called for her at her bed-sit he’d masked his astonishment with a smile. ‘You look very nice,’ he said, only to frown. ‘Your mother’s not expecting other guests, is she?’ Adam didn’t have much idea about mothers, especially not hers.

  Because it was July and hot, her mother had set out a table on the scrubby piece of lawn in the back garden. On the uneven, not quite dried out ground, their chairs tilted and sank a little, making her feel even less sure than she normally did of what could and could not be trusted. Almost holding her breath she had watched her mother’s reaction to Adam, wanting her to see what she saw in him, his steadiness and kindness, the fact that he was, at heart, a nice man. She didn’t want her to notice how much older than her he was. She didn’t want her to notice the way he fussed over small things, or that he could be cutting, accurately poking holes in the pretensions of others. In this, at least, her mother would have been an easy target. In her mother’s parlour, surrounded by knick-knacks made of WhitleyBay shells and watched over by a picture of the king and queen and the little princesses, she had caught Adam looking around with a straight-faced interest that hadn’t deceived her. Luckily the weather had been too warm to stay inside the house for long.

  They had left Adam sitting alone in the garden while in the dark little kitchen she helped her mother arrange a tray with fruit cake and ham sandwiches. Her mother had paused, lifting the net curtain to look out of the window at Adam. Smiling in approval she said, ‘Such lovely manners! And his hands are so clean! Your father never could get his hands as clean as that.’

  Cautiously she’d asked, ‘You like him, then?’

  ‘Of course! I couldn’t be happier.’ She managed to drag her gaze away from Adam to look at her. ‘I’d given you up as an old maid.’

  Adam had seen her as an old maid, a spinster to be rescued from the shelf. She knew that before they met he had made a
calculated decision to marry, weighing up the pros and cons. But he had to find the right girl, one who would be so grateful to be saved from spinsterhood that the conformity of being a Mrs would be enough. As soon as they met he seemed to recognise that she wasn’t a woman who took a fierce pride in being alone; she wasn’t the type who was undaunted by men and scornful of women who seemed to need them so badly. He guessed that she was a woman who took to being single as though it was a debilitating illness, that she would become frailer and more frightened with each year alone.

  Eating the supper of spam and boiled potatoes Adam had prepared, Jane glanced at her husband surreptitiously. His book was propped up against the teapot as he ate, its pages held back by the salt cellar. He frowned as he turned the page quickly; even this necessary interruption was an irritation.

  ‘Good book?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘But you can’t put it down?’

  Closing the pages on a bookmark he said, ‘I’m being rude, sorry.’

  ‘It’s just something you do. I don’t mind.’

  ‘All the same.’ He touched the book’s cover as though he couldn’t bear to be kept from it and she expected him to start reading again when he’d judged a decent interval had passed. Instead he surprised her by pushing it further away. Placing his knife and fork down on his cleared plate he said, ‘Redpath’s brother – I heard he was badly injured during the war, burnt …?’

  ‘Yes, I heard that, too. Lots of gossip doing the rounds.’ She looked at him, challenging him to deny he didn’t know as much as she did. He only nodded, impervious as ever.

  ‘I knew his family – his father’s family. Long time ago now – they’re all dead. Just the boy left.’ He cleared his throat, shifting slightly as though embarrassed he had brought the subject up. He smiled a little. ‘Most of my generation is dead, the men, at least. I feel like a freak, sometimes, not only not dead but also unscathed. I suppose the men who were left out of this last war will feel the same, once it sinks in a bit.’ After a moment he said, ‘That play you’re rehearsing – I never could stand its preaching. The first time I saw it – made myself see it – I wanted to smash Morgan’s teeth in. I couldn’t believe he could write such rubbish! Captain Palmer, for example …’ Taking off his glasses he pinched the bridge of his nose, something she only saw him do when he was particularly upset. Eventually he said, ‘I don’t know. Perhaps Palmers did exist. Maybe Morgan based him on himself – arrogant, stupid and cruel.’