Paper Moon

by Marion Husband

  Carefully she asked, ‘Are you all right?’

  He nodded. Drawing on his cigarette he said, ‘Will you apologise to the boys for me? I think I should go home.’

  She sat down beside him. Across the school drive boys played tennis and from time to time their shouts rang out as a point was disputed. Jane concentrated on their game, wanting to give Mark’s brother time to compose himself.

  As the ball was hit into the net, he said, ‘I get into a state, sometimes.’ He tapped cigarette ash on to the ground between his feet. ‘I should have known better but I didn’t want to let Mark down.’

  ‘He’ll understand.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Suddenly he said, ‘He’s very good, isn’t he? I don’t think he needs any advice from me.’

  She watched the tennis players resume their game. In a moment, when his cigarette was finished, she knew he would go and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would make him stay. She would probably never see him again. Her disappointment felt silly; she wondered what high expectations she must have had to suddenly be so miserable. Deciding she had nothing to lose she said, ‘Mark may not need your advice but perhaps I do.’ She glanced at him. ‘Do you have any photographs of your school’s production? Perhaps I could steal some ideas.’

  She thought he hadn’t heard her. Her heart began to beat faster; all her oblique, ill-formed hopes relied on his answer. Her mouth felt dry as she prepared to speak, but his look silenced her.

  ‘I don’t have any photographs.’ He stood up, crushing his cigarette stub out beneath his foot. She was still seated and for a moment he stood over her. He looked as though he couldn’t understand why he was here, talking to a spinsterish teacher on a flight of stone steps. Feeling foolish, she scrambled to her feet, stumbling as she caught her heel in her skirt. He grasped her elbow and for a moment his face was close enough to kiss. She stepped away from him quickly.

  ‘I should get back to the boys.’

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more use, Mrs Mason.’

  She nodded. Afraid of giving her disappointment away she hurried inside the school.

  In Parkwood Bobby stood in the attic room where trunks and tea chests were stored. Cobwebs stretched across the window and there was a scattering of desiccated flies on the sill; the dry smell of dust made him sneeze and he reached into his pocket for his handkerchief. He thought of Jane Mason and the way her eyes had met his as she stumbled on the school steps. Beneath his grasp her arm had felt fragile, she seemed weightless as a bird. Mark had told him that they called her Stony Mason, naming her as cruelly and inaccurately as only adolescent boys could.

  When she had asked him about photographs of his school’s production of Theory of Angels his first thought was that of course he had none, although other boys’ parents had come to the first night and taken pictures. They had been proud and enthusiastic as they herded their sons into stagey groups for their cameras. He had been in several of these group photos, standing between Andrew Hill and Stuart Johnson, his sergeant and corporal in the play. He had smiled dutifully when asked to say cheese, all the while thinking that Palmer should not smile; there was, and should not be, any record of the captain looking anything but deadly serious. Saying cheese was beneath his dignity, but he did it all the same. The mothers smiled back at him, aware as mothers usually were, that his own mother was absent, that there was no representative from his family to embarrass him as the others were embarrassed. Johnson had said how he envied him as he wiped a smudge of maternal lipstick from his cheek. Johnson’s father, laughing, had slapped his son on his back and said, ‘Shall we send you a picture, Harris?’ His camera hung round his neck and he tapped it with his finger. ‘A memento of tonight.’

  The photographs had arrived just before the end of term. By then his plan to run away to London was already fully formed, detailed and precise. He believed the plans made him strong, that he had taken back control of his life after Vickers and that Mr Johnson’s snaps would hardly affect him at all. He couldn’t risk it, though. Unopened, he put the envelope they had arrived in inside another envelope and addressed it to his grandfather.

  Bobby knelt in front of the chest, afraid to open it. The photos were of a boy that had died on the last night of the play, just as Palmer had died, cut off suddenly from any number of lives he might have lived. Looking at his picture would be like exhuming a corpse: there was a terrible fascination to it. Realising he couldn’t stop himself he lifted the chest’s lid.

  The envelope, addressed in his cramped, slanting handwriting, was beneath a folder full of his school reports. He lifted it out and ran his finger over his grandfather’s name. He remembered that he had almost wept as he wrote it, making him realise that he had only imagined himself to be strong and that his control was as breakable as the fake barbed wire Palmer sacrificed himself on. But he hadn’t cried. He had bit down hard on his lip so that it bled and forced himself to feel nothing but the sting of the wound. He would make himself immune to the pain and humiliation of what had happened, even if it killed him.

  From downstairs he heard Hugh call, ‘Bob? Bob, are you up there?’ He heard Hugh’s surprisingly light tread on the stairs, imagined him bounding up two steps at a time, impatient as ever. Bobby stood up, holding the envelope casually so that Hugh might not notice it. The chest gaped open, breathing out the smell of camphor; he wasn’t quick enough to close it before Hugh was standing in the attic door way.

  Hugh said, ‘What are you doing up here?’

  ‘Nothing.’ His voice had an edge to it, angry and defensive at once, a tone he recognised as typical of the man he had become.

  Hugh glanced at the envelope and the open chest. He seemed to consider and decide against any more questions. ‘I was wondering if you fancied going for a drink.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Bob! I’m bored out of my head.’

  ‘I’m not stopping you going.’

  ‘Look, you miserable bastard, I want to buy you a drink, all right? A goodbye-thanks-for-having-me-drink.’

  That morning Hugh had sheepishly told him he was going to London the following day. He had said, ‘Bob – do you think I’m making a fool of myself over her?’ He hadn’t been able to bring himself to answer and Hugh had laughed awkwardly. ‘OK, so I’m a fool. So what?’

  Slipping the envelope into his jacket pocket Bobby said, ‘Where would we go for a drink?’

  ‘Somewhere quiet?’

  ‘Dark?’ Bobby smiled at him. ‘The Red Lion? It’s pretty dim in there.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE RED LION WAS dim. It smelt of coal fires and was warm as a Sunday morning bed. The barmaid was peroxide blonde with a dark, tiger-stripe of roots showing along her parting. Her neckline was low, her skin creamy; when she smiled at him Hugh imagined propositioning her. Since meeting Nina he wanted to fuck any half-decent looking woman he saw. He was a sex god, horny as the devil. He had never felt like this in life before. He glanced at Bob who had seated himself in the gloomiest corner of the pub, and wondered if he too had felt like this when he’d met her.

  He carried their pints to the table where Bob was unwinding his scarf and taking off his gloves. Hugh thought of this process as Bobby shedding his skin, leaving himself vulnerable for the time it took for others to be shocked and then pretend not to be.

  Immediately Hugh set his drink on the table Bobby took a long drink. He put the glass down and fumbled in his pockets for cigarettes. Unable to bear seeing him struggling with matches Hugh took out a lighter in preparation. As Bob put the cigarette between his lips he flicked the lighter open.

  Accepting the light Bobby said, ‘Will you come back to Thorp?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘I’ll miss you.’

  Surprised, Hugh said, ‘Will you?’

  Bobby rolled his cigarette around the edge of the tin ashtray in the centre of the table and Hugh sensed that he was about to give something of himself away. But h
e remained silent, his cigarette forming a pointed head of ash as he rolled it back and forth. At last he said, ‘I should start looking for a job – does that bank you mentioned need a filing clerk?’

  ‘Why don’t you come back to London with me? Don’t you have friends there? What did you do before the war?’

  Bobby laughed oddly. Finishing his drink in one long swallow he looked towards the bar. ‘Do you want another?’

  ‘Should I get them?’

  Bobby looked up from patting his pockets for his wallet. ‘You bought the last round.’

  ‘I know, but –’

  ‘Do you want to make eyes at that barmaid again?’ He stood up, touching his shoulder lightly as he edged past him. ‘It’s all right, Hugh. I can screw up enough courage to buy you a drink.’

  When he returned with their drinks they drank in silence and Bobby seemed to retreat into himself as though he had become shy of him suddenly. Hugh found himself considering topics for small talk, until he realised they had nothing in common that would be easy and safe to talk about. All conversations would lead to a minefield of memories and ultimately to Nina because all he could think about was her. He pictured her in her room, undressing for bed, unclipping her suspenders and rolling her stocking down past her knee as her hair fell across her face; he thought about her breasts, how her nipples hardened beneath the stroke of his thumb. He sighed and Bobby looked at him piercingly as though he read his thoughts.

  Feeling as if he’d been caught masturbating, Hugh tried to make his voice light. He said, ‘What were you doing in the attic?’

  For a while he thought Bobby wasn’t going to answer and he shifted uncomfortably, wishing that he could be alone with his dirty thoughts. At last Bobby took an envelope from his pocket and placed it on the table between them.

  ‘I was looking for this.’

  Hugh picked the envelope up, glancing at Bobby questioningly.

  ‘Open it. It’s only photos.’

  The photos were of a group of boys in army uniform, looking as though they’d just stepped out of the trenches. Hugh frowned at the first picture, puzzled by it. He held it up to the light and squinted at the image of the boy in the centre of the picture. It was Bobby, his cap shading his eyes, his smile forced and self-conscious. The others seemed to be laughing so that Bobby looked like the outsider, reminding Hugh of Bobby as a child, always a step away from the group. He shuffled through the other photos; in each picture the eye was drawn to Bob.

  ‘Your school play?’

  ‘Theory of Angels.’

  Hugh snorted. ‘What else?’ He remembered his own school’s production and the excruciating embarrassment of being deferred to by the young drama teacher who seemed infatuated with his father and his works. He looked down at the photos again.

  ‘You were the star, eh?’ He frowned, remembering suddenly. ‘Didn’t my father go and see you in the play? It was just before you ran away to London, wasn’t it? Without a word to anyone.’

  Remembering how bitter he’d felt then, Hugh shoved the photos back inside the envelope and pushed them across the table. He lit a cigarette, glancing towards the bar and watching the barmaid pull a pint. She smiled at him; all he would have to do was ask. She might have a room somewhere. From the corner of his eye he saw Bobby slip the envelope into his pocket and reach out for his drink only to put it down again and trail his finger down its side. Bobby cleared his throat as if to speak, and smiled as shyly as the six-year-old boy Hugh had sat next to in Miss Grey’s infant class.

  Awkwardly Bobby said, ‘Hugh, I’m sorry about what happened – about how we lost touch. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I suppose your running away to London was inevitable; you didn’t really fit in anywhere else, did you?’ He could hear how angry he sounded, a hangover from the hurt he had felt at the time. Less sharply he said, ‘Maybe I would have done the same in your shoes.’

  Bobby looked down, turning his packet of cigarettes over and over on the table until Hugh’s irritation got the better of him and he snatched the packet away.

  Clearing his throat Bobby said, ‘Mark’s about to play Palmer. It’s why I dug the photos out. His drama teacher was interested in seeing them. Although I don’t think they’ll be much use.’

  ‘It’s not Mr Rogers, is it? He used to teach drama when I was there – he adored Dad’s work. Had a crush on him, I think.’

  ‘No. Her name’s Mason. Jane –’

  ‘Pretty?’

  ‘She’s nice. I liked her.’

  ‘Oh? So maybe you could use the photographs as an excuse – go and see her after school, take her an apple as well.’

  ‘She’s married.’

  Thoughtfully Hugh said, ‘Jane Mason. A Mr Mason taught me at that school. English Master. Sadistic bastard. Everyone hated his guts. She’s not married to him, is she?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘We were convinced he was queer.’

  Sharply Bobby said, ‘Then she probably isn’t married to him.’

  Hugh laughed, regarding him carefully. ‘You do like her, don’t you? Is she game, do you think?’

  ‘For God’s sake!’

  ‘Come on, Bob! Married women are usually the most obliging – you know that.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘You fly boys were fighting the women off.’

  ‘Aren’t you confusing us with the Americans?’ After a while he said, ‘I think those photos were an excuse to see her again. A bit pathetic, really.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  After a moment Bobby said, ‘I almost got engaged to a girl during the war. She was in the WRAF. Kate Hammond. She used to sing at dances – the first time I saw her she was singing. Singing right at me.’ He smiled, trailing his finger down the side of his glass again. ‘She was lovely. Jolly – you know? She came from a great big family of jolly people, terribly posh, terribly nice. Spending the weekend at her family’s house was like sinking into a feather bed and being fed cream cakes whilst everyone told you how wonderful you were.’

  ‘Sounds too good to be true. What happened?’

  ‘Nick was killed.’ Bobby looked at him. Hugh deliberately kept his face blank, deciding that trying to be impassive was the best way of keeping his jealousy in check. After a moment Bobby said, ‘Nina didn’t have anyone else. Kate said I should choose between them and that was the end of that. I heard she married an army chaplain.’

  Dryly Hugh said, ‘Quite a sacrifice, giving up all those cakes and feather beds.’

  ‘Well, maybe we weren’t all that suited when it came down to it. And Nina was pregnant, I couldn’t let her cope alone.’

  Hugh looked down at his drink. He hated that Bobby and Nina had been together, brought up her little girl together; he hated that she had returned to London, to a place that was full of memories she shared with Harris. On top of that he missed her; he missed her as much as he missed the sea.

  All day, when he hadn’t been thinking about Nina, he’d been thinking about the sea. All day the ground beneath his feet had felt too solid and too still, as through he’d become rooted to it. He felt weary and hoped that it was only the after-effects of his illness rather than the dismay he felt at leaving the Navy growing more unbearable. He looked at Bob and wondered if he missed the fury of flying just as he missed the ocean. Bobby caught his eye and smiled shyly. At once Hugh felt sorry for him and his jealousy seemed petty and childish.

  Bobby said, ‘Those married women you mentioned …?’

  Hugh sighed. ‘You know adultery is wrong, don’t you?’ He stood up. ‘I’ll buy you another drink.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FRANCIS LAW SAID, ‘BOBBY may not want to see me. I would understand if he didn’t.’

  She was standing beside him at Jason’s grave. The other mourners were walking back towards the funeral cars, one of them supporting Davey who was weeping noisily. A single yellow rose lay on the coffin, a splatter of dry earth partly obscuring the brass
plaque bearing Jason’s name and dates. Nina fixed her gaze on the rose, imagining its rapid decay beneath the heavy London clay. She couldn’t look at Law. She had told him too much. She felt panicky with betrayal. In her mind’s eye she saw Bobby’s Spitfire plummeting from the sky trailing the fire no one could save him from. Law rested his hand lightly on her arm.

  ‘Nina?’

  She shrugged him off, her flesh creeping where he’d touched her. ‘I don’t want him to know we met.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  She turned away, hurrying to catch up with the others. She felt her heels sink into the cemetery’s soft earth and stumbled. Looking back she saw Law still standing at the graveside, his head bowed as though he was praying.

  In her flat Nina took off her funeral dress and lay down on the bed. She placed her hands over her concave stomach, felt her hip bones jutting sharp as a dress shop mannequin’s. Jason insisted on her thinness; he needed her to be only straight lines and hollows; there should be no comfortable flesh to soften his compositions. She became used to hunger and stopped menstruating, breaking the rule that women must be in thrall to their bodies. She felt hard and powerful as an outlaw; she began to believe that women with breasts and bellies and thighs were indolent and weak. As she became thinner Bobby made love to her less often and took her out to dinner instead. She would catch him watching her as she ate her morsels of steak and string beans, but she would watch him, too, note with satisfaction his concern for her. During those meals he looked less like Jason’s creation. In his RAF uniform tie and collar he looked like a boy who had behaved well all his life.

  Once, just before he’d introduced her to Nick, she had asked Bobby if his mother would approve of her. She’d stood naked in front of the mirror on her wardrobe door, angling it so that he could see her reflection from the bed and she could see his. His cock nestled against his thigh, vulnerable and exhausted, the ellin he was always so careful to use flaccid on the floor. He’d pressed both his hands to his face like an appalled child and she’d looked away, ashamed for him. Inside the wardrobe they’d once shared, his clothes still hung: expensive, beautiful clothes Jason had chosen, and then there was his uniform, surprisingly exotic beside his civilian suits. She’d picked a thread of cotton from the blue sleeve and wrapped it around her wedding ring finger. Even then she’d wondered if she loved him and if lust could be so badly confused. There were times when he seemed strange enough to be repellent. All the same she’d asked him, ‘Would you marry me?’