‘What on earth for?’ she said, flushed hot. But he’d already clicked the shutter and was removing the film holder from the side and sliding a new one in.
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
She frowned at him. It was odd that he was a photographer. Why hadn’t he said it back at the house when he’d picked up her mother’s camera? Then again, she remembered that he’d held it as if it was precious.
‘You didn’t mention you took photographs,’ she said, like an accusation.
He clicked the shutter again and took out the film holder before answering.
‘It’s just something I’ve been doing for a while,’ he said. ‘I got this one from work, but I’ve been taking shots of wherever I am for years. I’ve got to go to the city to get the plates developed, though. I’m going to take your brother to Norwich with me. Christmas shopping.’ He was holding the camera in front of his face and adjusting the dials. Peter had already told her this, hardly able to contain his pleasure. What would he think if he knew she was here with Jack now? ‘It’s kinda like your painting.’ One bright eye appeared around the side of the camera. ‘I think we both want to interpret the world somehow, to put it down on paper. Sometimes it’s easier to express ourselves that way. I get the impression that your mother would have understood that about you.’ He reached forward and pushed the falling line of her hair behind her ear.
She didn’t know how to respond. Once again, he seemed to be looking directly inside her brain and opening up parts of it that had always been there but she’d never noticed before. It was dizzying, disconcerting. Uncomfortable.
‘Don’t forget these,’ he said. He stood, holding out her gloves, and when she reached to take them he kissed her lightly on the cheek. She was so flustered they dropped to the floor.
Immobilised by his nearness she stood still, looking down at the shapes on the floor. As she hesitated, he bent down and picked them up.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and it came out prickly, not thankful at all.
He didn’t say anything, he just continued to look at her in his appraising way, as if he knew why she had come, as if he knew her more than she did herself.
‘I really have to go now.’
‘You’ll come back?’
‘I can’t,’ she said, and strode out of the cabin before she said anything else. As she walked down the lane, trying to keep upright on the pockmarked track, she turned back and there he was. He waved to her from the door, looking like he belonged out there. As if the world belonged to him.
4.
Muriel saw the glow of the Howe Farm bonfire from all the way over by the East Fleet marshes and she thought, why shouldn’t she have a bonfire too? She made one on the half-frozen marsh just to see the flames rise over the sea and watch the reflection of the fire, like goldfish flickering in the muddy creeks.
‘Hey, is that safe?’
She whipped round, hearing the foreign accent. A man was standing on the quayside peering down at her. He was in darkness but from his voice she knew he was American.
‘Why not?’ she laughed. ‘There’s plenty of water round here.’
‘Can I come down?’ he said.
‘If you want,’ she said.
She watched him make his way across the gangway out to where she was. By the light of the fire she recognised him: the American with the scar, the one who’d danced with her at the Midsummer party. The bonfire cast a devilish glow, highlighting the thin jagged line across his face and she sensed a challenge in him, a dare.
‘Jack,’ he said, reaching out a hand. ‘Have we met before?’
‘No idea,’ she lied. ‘My name’s Muriel. It means bright sea.’ She shook his hand firmly.
‘Hello, Muriel Bright Sea,’ he said, ‘would you like some fries?’ He held out a bag of steaming chips he must have got from French’s.
‘Chips,’ she corrected him. ‘Yeah, if you don’t mind.’ She was empty with hunger, as usual, but she only took one.
‘Go on,’ he said, and she took a few more.
They sat on an upturned boat abandoned on the marsh and ate the chips and drank the pop he told her he could get at the base. He said he’d come from the Howe Farm bonfire and was heading to the pub for a nightcap. Did she want to come? But she couldn’t go in the pub with an American. It was full of fishermen, including her own father.
‘Was Arthur there?’ she asked.
‘Arthur Silver? Oh yeah,’ he said, ‘he’s always there.’ And it reminded her of the Midsummer dance and the crash the two of them had. She saw how it was, how they both were about Verity Frost. Dogs on heat, circling her.
‘What do you say to a drink then, Miss Bright Sea?’
‘I can’t do that,’ she said, but their faces were hot from the fire and close up.
He leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek, his lips greasy from the chips.
‘I’m not like that,’ she said, just so he didn’t get ideas, but he told her he knew that and that she was pretty. And could she sit, like that. Yes, perfect. He positioned her sitting on the edge of the upturned boat and she turned to him in what she thought was quite a jaunty way, and pouted a bit like the girls on the front of Life magazine did. He smiled and she returned it and he held up his hands in the shape of a rectangle. It was nice to have the attention. She’d have to watch this one, though. He was a sly one.
‘I’ll bring my camera for real next time,’ he said.
5.
Much as he wanted a day trip to Norwich with Jack on his own, Peter knew Arthur wouldn’t forgive him if they went without him. He was his oldest and most loyal friend. He’d stood by him when all that bother at the school happened and after his mother died. Jack wanted to take photographs of the city and he had to get some developed. He turned up at the station with a chunky camera round his neck that made him look like a Hollywood press man. The day was overcast and bitterly cold, but as they chugged through the empty fields, Peter was certain it would somehow be different in the city. It was a boys’ outing, a jaunt, each of them somehow with a sheen of glamour, in the anonymity of the train carriage. Jack, geed up at the idea of going to the city, was impossibly appealing with his scarred face and bright hair. Peter thought they probably made a funny-looking threesome – he with his tweed suit, Arthur wrapped up in his service greatcoat, looking rather like a throwback from the war, and Jack, altogether more modern, in his leather jacket. They drank steadily from hip flasks which they shared with Arthur, each of them matching the others shot for shot.
‘To adventures in the city!’ Jack raised his flask in a toast.
As the journey neared its end, Peter’s body leaned closer to Jack’s and he wished now that he hadn’t asked Arthur along after all.
They arrived in a cloud of steam and the three of them stood in the middle of the station as the flow of people eddied around them. Peter was confused momentarily by the dimness of the light, the hoots of the trains, the scuffle of feet and the continual movement. His head hurt and his mouth was dry.
‘Where on earth have we ended up?’ said Jack. ‘The goddamn underworld? Can we get out of here and get some air?’
But it was no better outside. In fact, it was worse. The steam of the trains mixed with the fog and was rising up the steps of the station and oozing over the whole of the city. It swirled and sucked around them, obscuring road signs and buildings and people. Only the eerie yellow headlights of the buses shone through the fog, eye holes in an empty face. Peter led them across the road, towards where he thought they could catch a bus to the city centre, but they couldn’t find the bus stop. Each step felt as though they were heading into a labyrinth, each corner leading only to another and no sign of where they were. As they stumbled on, he could hear his companions’ footsteps, muffled, and their breathing, rasping and hard. Eventually, a bus stop appeared like a lighthouse in a storm.
He turned to grab Jack and said, ‘At last!’ but his hand fell through the fog. There was nothing there.
&
nbsp; ‘Pete?’ It was Arthur’s voice nearby. For a panicked moment he thought that Jack had disappeared.
‘Hey guys.’ Jack’s face loomed up close and Peter’s heart leapt.
Finally, when a bus came they sailed through the fog-shrouded city to where Jack said he had heard there were ‘pubs and girls’. A sickness rose in Peter’s throat. So that was the purpose of the day. He had hoped, foolishly, that it was just for them to be together, that it was Jack’s way of creating a bond between them. A platonic bond, maybe more. He tried to think that this was just the sort of thing men did. Men talked of girls even if they didn’t truly want them, didn’t they? Hadn’t Jack been his companion for all these months?
‘Yes, let’s,’ he said, as if another man was speaking through his mouth.
In the little streets, Jack took photographs of people appearing through the misty air, but they were soon ensconced in a dingy pub on Lower Goat Lane drinking pints and eating pork scratchings. To Peter, each mouthful of the beer tasted sour. When they emerged, the cobbled street was still shrouded in fog. Arthur would be all right. He’d done National Service and Peter suspected he had done this before. Peter was exempt because of the farm but he sometimes wondered if it might have done him some good – helped him work out what kind of chap he really was. It might even have brought him an opportunity to meet someone like him. He’d sensed the tang of experience in Arthur when he came back to Norfolk, but Arthur hadn’t said anything.
‘Peter,’ Arthur said, at his elbow, ‘I don’t really want to do this.’
Nor me, thought Peter, but Jack had stopped and was looking at both of them.
‘What’s up? You not keen on this plan, Art? You got a better idea?’
‘You two do what you like, I’ll find my own entertainment.’
‘You got a special lady hidden somewhere?’ Jack was baiting him.
‘Arty,’ Peter said, and he willed his friend back at the same time as he wished him gone. ‘What will you do?’
But Arthur was hunched in his greatcoat. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
For a moment, he and Jack were alone, the fog swirling about them. Jack was close enough for Peter to see his copper hair, his pale eyelashes flickering. Peter reached out a hand and touched his arm. Perhaps they didn’t need the cover of the girls now Arthur was gone. Jack didn’t move but he gave Peter a look like he was working something out.
‘You ever been with a girl, Pete?’
He couldn’t answer; his throat was completely dry.
‘Why don’t you try it? You might like it.’
‘Jack, I—’
‘Hey, buddy,’ he said kindly. ‘We might as well try since we’ve come all this way, what do you say?’
Perhaps it was what they did in America – they used brothels as a cover for men being together. Or perhaps it was an initiation rite he had to undergo so Jack could accept him for what he was. The unsatisfactory, snatched encounters he’d had with other boys up to then meant he had little clue as to what men like him did beyond school.
Without waiting for an answer, Jack took his arm and walked him to a door along the street. There was no sign; he had no idea how Jack knew what it was.
It was dark inside, just a low, yellow lamp on a side table and a tatty velvet sofa. On it sat a deeply wrinkled woman with dyed red hair and legs that stuck out from under a voluminous skirt.
‘Don’t have no papers in here,’ she said, eyeing Jack’s camera, but he laughed and assured her he wasn’t from the press. ‘Just a little hobby,’ he said, winking at her, and she shrugged.
‘What can I get you boys then?’
‘What have you got?’
She laughed a deep, gravelly laugh. ‘Girls. That’s what I got.’
Coughing, she heaved herself up from the chair. Peter almost went forward to offer her a hand but he was paralysed.
‘Give us your best, ma’am.’
‘Whatever you say, GI Joe,’ she said, revealing missing teeth. ‘What about him? Don’t he talk?’
‘Sure, he’s just a bit nervous, that’s all.’
‘Jack—’ he tried again, pleading with his eyes, but Jack was passing him a treacle-coloured liquid in a small smudged glass.
She waddled off through a curtain.
‘Jack,’ he said, with great effort. ‘I don’t want—’
‘Just relax.’ He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. If only they could stay like this. The drink was sherry, strong and sweet.
The woman came back with two girls. It was hard to tell their ages. They both had bags under their eyes and bad teeth but one was definitely younger and slighter and he knew, in an academic kind of way, that she was pretty, or had been once.
Before he had a chance to do or say anything, Jack had disappeared with the older one, and not knowing what else to do, Peter followed the girl, his head thick with the drink.
She sat on the edge of the bed and patted it. ‘Come and sit here then.’ But he stayed by the door.
‘Can I please have a drink?’
‘Course we can,’ she said, and with a little sigh that made her seem much older, she got up and filled a glass with more of the same treacly liquid from a bottle on a sideboard. He gulped it down and got himself another one.
He slumped on the bed. The room was decked in pathetic bits of red and gold cloth, to make it seem exotic.
‘Nice, ain’t it?’
He regarded her blankly.
‘You seem nice,’ she said, more out of a sense of duty than truth. ‘Come on, it’s all right.’
From another part of the building came laughter. He thought of Jack. His wide mouth and long throat and the freckles on his nose. Jack’s impossibly white, naked body. Something touched his leg and he flinched.
He didn’t look at her. ‘I can’t,’ he said. He felt her bristle next to him and waited for the mockery.
‘You’re one of them, ain’t you? It’s all right. I knew right off when I saw you.’
God, how did she know?
‘I won’t tell anyone,’ she said, and, mutely, he accepted a cigarette from her. ‘You want another drink?’
He nodded, drank one down and another. He had no idea what time it was. The room dimmed into a duller, darker red.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said, staggering to his feet.
A hand snatched at his shirt sleeve, but he shook it off. He was aware that the girl had fallen back on the bed but he couldn’t connect it with himself. He needed to find Jack. Out in the hallway it was dark. He stumbled down it towards where he thought Jack had gone. In one doorway, two girls leered at him with cold eyes. In another, an empty bed. The young girl’s voice came calling, ‘He went that way.’
Then a door opened. Jack appeared in shadow. He wanted to throw himself at him. He took hold of Jack’s shoulders. ‘Where were you?’
‘Right here, Pete, right here.’
‘Did you – did you—’ He had an urge to know. Jack’s face was a pale blur. He made himself focus on the silver scar cutting across the freckles.
‘Pete,’ said Jack’s voice, ‘Pete. I could be dead tomorrow. This is life.’
He wanted to tell him the truth. He leaned forward but couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t stay upright. He leaned against Jack’s shoulder and closed his eyes. Jack’s hands touched his back and Peter couldn’t bear the feel of them. The touch ran through him and he lifted his head and pressed his mouth against Jack’s blissful lips. And Jack kissed him back, he was sure of it. Then it was over and Jack pushed him gently away.
‘You’re blitzed, Pete. You don’t mean it.’
I do, he wanted to say. It’s the only thing I mean.
*
It was still daytime, though you wouldn’t have known it. It was a day that felt more like one long, raddled nightmare.
Starving and half-cut after drinking all morning and missing lunch, the three of them ordered eggs, toast and sweet buns in the station café. The steam from the tea urn mixed with the m
ists from the trains and obscured them from enquiring eyes. Arthur was waiting for something but he didn’t know what it was. When he’d returned to the brothel, Peter had been stumbling and leaning against Jack. His heart jumped in horror. How had Jack got poor Peter in such a state? He’d known this would happen – Jack’s competitive drinking, his egging Peter on. Poor, dear Peter would do anything for that bastard, he could see that now.
Jack drained his tea. ‘I have to run an errand.’
‘So I’m expected to babysit?’ Arthur indicated towards Peter who was slumped, piece of toast in hand, in a booth.
Jack shrugged and slapped him on the back. ‘Christmas shopping,’ he said.
Arthur watched Jack exit through the café door, and mentally followed him. His toast was dripping egg yolk onto his trousers and Peter’s head was nodding and in danger of falling into the tea cake Arthur had bought for him. He was sick of this. Jumping up, he rubbed his trousers and left a shilling on the table. He had to find out what Jack was doing. In front of the station, he saw the American’s distinctive figure with copper-coloured hair, disappearing into the fog down the Prince of Wales Road. He began to follow him.
The fog both helped and hindered. He kept losing him or his eyes would catch on a glimpse of orange which turned out to be someone’s headscarf. But he found him each time. They wound through dingy little back streets, the spire of the cathedral sticking out of the fog on their right. Jack’s boots clopped on the cobblestones ahead of him as they emerged into Cathedral Close. Past the statue of Nelson, Jack exited through the vast gate opposite the cathedral. Arthur watched him cross Tombland and he thought he might have ducked into the pub on the corner, but there he was again, walking west down Princes Street towards the centre of the city. The fog here was lifting. Little wisps still curled around the guttering and the edges of the roofs but Jack’s retreating back was now clearly in sight. Where on earth was he going?
He had his answer almost immediately, as Jack ducked into a shop on the left of the street. Arthur slowed his pace. Above the shopfront it said J. Wilson Esq. Art Dealer. Why Jack of all people would be interested in an art dealer’s, he had no idea. Arthur slipped into a tobacconist’s across the road and, in the guise of deciding what pipe to buy, watched Jack take something in a small paper bag from the shopkeeper and put it into his top left-hand pocket. Arthur turned his back as Jack left the shop and went into the next one, a toy shop. This was even more mystifying.
The Night of the Flood Page 11