So Much Life Left Over

by Louis de Bernières

  Daniel was horrified. ‘That’s not how it works. In the first place bombers accidentally-on-purpose drop their load early because that’s how they avoid having to face the ack-ack over the target zone. In the second place the Huns really are just bombing civilians quite randomly because they think we’ll get downhearted, which is exactly what they did in the last war, and it didn’t work then either, and thirdly, bombers drop their spare bombs to lighten the aircraft and get home quicker. There was a one like that just recently in Bungay.’

  ‘Bungay?’

  ‘Little place in Suffolk. Someone got killed and someone else lost their legs. You really ought to go down to the shelter. Leave your mother if you have to.’

  ‘Daniel!’

  ‘Anyway, it certainly makes Zeppelins and Gothas look tame, eh? Oh, I’ve had an idea! About your mother.’

  ‘Oh yes?”

  ‘Why don’t you write to the King and ask him to send her an order that she has to take shelter during air raids?’

  ‘Write to the King? Daniel, whatever next?’

  ‘Lots of people do,’ said Daniel. ‘The King has dozens of people to write replies for him. It might be worth a shot. Oh, and it’s often been noticed that the safest place in a raid is in the cupboard under the stairs. When you look at the wrecks of houses, the staircases are usually still intact. If your mother won’t leave the house, why don’t you make her a bed in there and put all the clutter in the attic?’

  She nodded and sipped her tea. ‘What did you want to talk to me about?’

  Daniel asked his daughter to leave, and she held up both hands with the middle fingers crossed over the index. ‘Good luck,’ she said.

  After she had left he said, ‘I’m sorry, I really am, but I need to bring up the subject of divorce. Again.’

  ‘You know my views.’

  ‘But I can’t start again. Yet I have to start again, can’t you see? It’s not fair on the women I fall in love with. They want to marry, of course they do. And I can’t marry them because you won’t let me go. I want children I can actually live with. You have no idea how I suffered from being deprived of the children, absolutely no idea. My son still hates me. Why? Because you’ve been denigrating me for years.’

  ‘What do you mean “them”?’ asked Rosie.

  ‘I have loved and lost several times. Nice girls. Honest, affectionate women. Because of you. What am I supposed to do? I refuse to be a bigamist.’

  ‘No,’ said Rosie. ‘I made a vow when we married. ’Til death do us part. And I didn’t make the vows to you. I made them to God. Have you no thought of how disgraceful it is to break a promise that you made to God? I can’t do it. I won’t. Not even if it makes the whole world unhappy. Not even if it disappoints the little waifs and strays you’re going round with who want to be Mrs Daniel Pitt.’

  Daniel bridled. ‘You and your wretched principles! Do you really think you know what God wants?’

  ‘It’s all written,’ said Rosie. ‘It’s all in the Book.’

  ‘The Book where everyone looks for what they want to find, and everybody finds it!’ exclaimed Daniel. ‘Like every other Holy Book there’s ever been. There should be a bloody great bonfire.’

  ‘Do we have to have the same arguments over and over again, even when we’ve hardly talked for years? I’m not changing my mind. You made the promise too, so you’ve got to keep it.’

  ‘You broke your wedding vows anyway,’ said Daniel.

  ‘What? I never did!’

  ‘With my body I thee honour,’ quoted Daniel, ‘and it says in the preamble that marriage is for people who don’t have the gift of continence.’

  ‘It says that marriage isn’t to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites like brute beasts that have no understanding. And I did honour you with my body. We had two children, remember?’

  ‘Three,’ said Daniel. ‘You forget the poor little thing that didn’t live.’

  ‘How could I forget him? It still cuts me to the quick to think about it.’

  ‘You switched off the moment you had all the children you wanted, and then you pushed me away. You came up with all that rubbish about prevention being against God’s law. I don’t know if you noticed, but shortly afterwards the Church of England changed God’s law and made it perfectly all right.’

  ‘I did notice. I still don’t think it’s right. And the Roman Church hasn’t changed.’

  Daniel got to his feet and paced about, irritated and frustrated. ‘For God’s sake, give me a divorce! Please! I’m begging you!’

  ‘I certainly can’t do it for God’s sake,’ said Rosie primly.

  ‘Fuck God!’ shouted Daniel. ‘I hate Him! I hate what He’s turned you into! He’s a gorgon, He’s turned you to stone. He’s filled you with poison! He’s watched us get drenched in carnage twice in one century, and you still think He’s good? You’d kill your own child if God told you to!’

  ‘I’d know there was a good reason,’ said Rosie. ‘No one thinks badly of Abraham for agreeing to sacrifice Isaac. It’s admired.’

  ‘What? Are you mad? If God told me to kill one of my children, I’d tell Him to fuck off. I’d tell Him I’d rather be tortured in hell forever. What kind of depraved bastard tells you to kill your own child? And what kind of depraved bastard would agree to it?’

  ‘You’d better leave now,’ said Rosie stiffly, avoiding his furious gaze. ‘You can’t go insulting God and the patriarchs. Not in front of me.’

  At the door, Daniel turned and said, ‘I apologise for the profanity.’

  ‘I’ve heard worse during amputations,’ said Rosie. They looked at one another for a few moments, both wondering how and why it was that the love between them had never really gone, even after everything was beyond repair. Rosie said suddenly, ‘Can you explain why it is that Felicity and Felix both look like you, and why you go to Hexham so often?’

  Daniel felt a small surge of contempt. ‘No,’ he said, and turned on his heel.

  On the way out he kissed Esther on the cheeks and hugged her tightly to his chest, her head on his shoulder. ‘I should have listened to Fluke,’ he said mysteriously.

  ‘How did it go?’ asked Esther.

  ‘Perfectly snafu and fubar,’ he replied, patting her on the cheek.

  At that moment Mrs McCosh burst in, brandishing the very air rifle with which she had despatched so many copulating pigeons over the years. ‘Out!’ she cried. ‘Out! Traitor! Marry a foreign slut, would you? Out before I shoot!’

  ‘In the long run a slut might be infinitely preferable to a saint,’ said Daniel drily. He kissed Esther on the forehead, said, ‘Goodbye, Shompi sweetheart, let’s see each other soon.’

  ‘After the war, Daddy, let’s go on a long holiday somewhere. I’m dying to go to Canada. And South Africa. And Australia. I can protect you from all the ravening women, and you can protect me from men, and other wild beasts.’

  ‘After the war,’ repeated Daniel, remembering how that had been everybody’s mantra the last time round. ‘This one won’t be over by Christmas either,’ he said. He embraced her again, kissed her three times, and then he was gone.

  * * *

  —

  When he had gone, Rosie sat very still for a long time, feeling numb inside. She had almost always felt numb, apart from those happy months in Ceylon, but now she felt like a failure, and even suspected that Daniel might be in the right. She closed her mind quite deliberately again, because without God’s approval and support she would have no sanction for living. She went upstairs and took her Virgin and child from under the bed. She realised that she had no one to hide it from any more, and set it on the mantelpiece. She rummaged again and took out the parcel of Ash’s uniform. For the same reason she put it in the bottom drawer of her chest. She looked briefly at her charred bundle of letters, and then inspected her hands. Y
ou’d never know they’d been burned. She wondered what had happened to Dr Scott. He must be dead by now.

  Rosie decided to go back into nursing. It had been impossibly gruelling and difficult work in the last war, but it had been the one time when she had been able to forget herself completely. She had loved the men, and they had loved her in return. She went to her desk and wrote to the commandant of the hospital at Netley, explaining that she had recently been operated on for cancer and had no idea how long she had to live, but that she wanted to do her bit during whatever time was left.

  If she had to leave her mother, then so be it. Cookie would still be here.

  43

  Two Letters

  7 November 1940

  From My Secret Address

  But your mother knows what it is

  My dear Bertie,

  Shompi told me that you have become a fire warden and that you were instrumental in putting out the fire at the palace. She told me about the bomb in the crater, too.

  I just wanted you to know that I am most wonderfully proud of you for bravely doing your bit before you even have to. Remember that you are a quarter French and half Scottish, so you have three countries to fight for!

  I would like it very much if you would come to the aerodrome sometime to see what I am up to, and to meet some genuine heroes. They are as fine a bunch of men as I ever served with in the last bagarre. I could take you up in a trainer and we could buzz the house as we did in the old days. It isn’t far.

  Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

  Your loving father,

  Monsieur DP

  5 December 1940

  Dear Father,

  Thank you for your letter.

  Unfortunately I am tied up just about every day in the holidays with my duties on the fire watch, and the rest of the time I am back in school.

  I did have to go up on the roof of the palace to put the fire out. I think that in future I shall never want to go quite so high again. The bomb in the middle of the road was quite big, and it just sat in the hole with its tailfins sticking out. I had to stand guard and tell people to keep away.

  I am learning to shoot with Grandma’s old air rifle that she shoots pigeons with.

  I hope you are very well.

  Bertie

  44

  Two Letters from Sandringham

  24 January 1941

  Sandringham Norfolk

  Dear Mrs Pitt,

  Your letter about your mother has caused me some considerable entertainment in these very dark times. His Majesty saw it himself when he came into the office yesterday, and it certainly did raise his spirits. He remembers his father, the late King, mentioning a persistent correspondent named Mrs McCosh, who even wrote to him about dog mess on the Esplanade at Ryde. She must be your mother. He has therefore authorised me to compose the letter which will go directly to your mother under separate cover, and which, I trust, will arrive in the same post as this. Obviously the order cannot have any official signs of validity, but I shall seal it and make sure that it displays the best possible flourishes.

  Yours truly,

  J. J. Wilberforce

  Senior secretary

  Sandringham

  Norfolk

  His Majesty King George the Sixth by the Grace of God King of England Scotland and Ireland Emperor of India and of the Dominions of Canada and Australia and of his other domains Defender of the Faith etc etc by these presents ordains requires and commands that his beloved servant Mrs Hamilton McCosh of Court Road Eltham shall without fail let or hindrance and invariably obey her daughter Mrs Daniel Pitt when required by the said Mrs Daniel Pitt to take shelter on the occasions of enemy attack so that the said Mrs Hamilton McCosh may continue safely in the service of His Majesty to the end of her natural life.

  Le Roi le veult.

  45

  The Bombers Will Always Get Through

  On 7 September 1940, Operation Loge began. Fortunately the phoney war had given people time to make shelters, although the Underground would not be opened at night for a further two weeks.

  Some say that the Blitz was Hitler’s hyperbolic revenge for an RAF raid on Munich, but it was a hyperbole very much diminished in its effects by the fact that the British had already built dozens of fake airfields and industrial sites. Germany’s bombers were too small, and methods to confuse their navigation beams had been discovered and put in place. Above a childless London there floated hundreds of barrage balloons, and almost no lights twinkled below, on account of the elaborate and strongly resented blackout procedures.

  Perhaps the oddest thing about the Blitz is that, just like the Zeppelin raids of the previous war, it had the opposite effect on the British that Hitler and Goering had confidently expected.

  One night in January of 1941 at The Grampians, only Cookie and Mrs McCosh were in residence, and hitherto the latter had, very much against her inclinations, obeyed the apparently direct command of the King to take shelter during raids. She was now a very old lady, suffering from bouts of immense passion and confusion, who had, as her long life had unrolled, become more and more herself until she resembled her own caricature. Like the late Queen she dressed entirely in black and made a cult of her deceased husband. Her own patriotism and royalism had, if anything, become more fanatical, and her stated reason for hating the Germans was that the Kaiser had declared war against his own family in the previous conflict, and thereby vitiated his entire nation forever, rather as the original sin of Adam and Eve had corrupted humankind.

  As the bombers thundered over The Grampians and the bombs crumped in the distance, Cookie and Mrs McCosh sat together in the Anderson shelter with only one candle between them, and sipped on cocoa that they had made on a Primus. The air was heavy with the fumes of methylated spirit and candlewax, but on this day Mrs McCosh’s mind was unusually clear. They were dressed in overcoats and hats, and would have looked very like each other had Cookie not been wearing a scarf, whereas Mrs McCosh wore a fox-fur stole with its glass eyes glinting in the yellow light. The candle flame cast heavy shadows, and the flesh of their ancient faces glowed golden yellow. Sitting on the edge of the narrow truckle bed, Mrs McCosh calmed her trembling fingers and played the violin to her cook, who, over the years, had become completely familiar with her employer’s repertoire. Mrs McCosh played ‘The Swan’, the ‘Meditation’ from Thaïs, and three pieces of Kreisler’s, concluding with ‘Schön Rosmarin’. The old lady swayed and made the strings sing quietly and intimately, on account of the confined space, and Cookie listened raptly with sentimental tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Afterwards, there was nothing for the two old women to do but talk.

  ‘I probably shouldn’t play Kreisler,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘I strongly suspect him of having been German.’

  ‘And how is Miss Rosie, madam? Back at Netley?’

  ‘Yes, so I hear. A letter came this morning. It seems to be a more comfortable place than it was in the last war. Very much less crowded, apparently.’

  ‘Wasn’t they fun, the old days, madam, when Miss Rosie and the others were all little, and Master Daniel and Archie used to come over the wall, and the Pendennis boys came in and out of the blue door, and the littl’uns were like a tribe of savages?’

  ‘And Bouncer was still alive. And the master. Those were our salad days, Cookie.’

  ‘It’s cold, isn’t it, madam?’ said Cookie. ‘Do you think it’ll be fine tomorrow?’

  ‘I dare say it may be, Cookie, but personally I have always loved this time of year, whatever the weather.’

  ‘Me too, madam. It’s so nice when the russets ripen up, and there’s the blackberries, and the first fogs, and the little shrews come out to die, and you find their little corpses on the paths, and the rosehips are turning red, and suddenly all the flies have gone from the larder.’

&n
bsp; ‘I have written to the King, Cookie, to advise him on some strategies for winning the war.’

  ‘You should have sent it to Mr Churchill,’ said Cookie. ‘The King will only pass it on to him, won’t he? I mean, it’s Mr Churchill in charge of winning. You could have saved His Majesty some bother.’

  ‘I understand that Mr Churchill is half American,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘I am not entirely sure that I approve of him. And the Dardanelles were hardly a triumph. And Mr Churchill sees His Majesty every week, you know. I am certain that his best ideas actually come from that quarter.’

  ‘I expect so, madam.’

  ‘Cookie?’

  ‘Yes, madam?’

  ‘You have been very good, you know.’

  ‘Very good?’

  ‘Yes, Cookie. You have been very staunch. A faithful servant for a very long time. I hardly think of you as one.’

  ‘Me neither, madam.’

  ‘You have seen us through thick and thin.’

  ‘Well, you could see it just as easy the other way round. I’ve had a sort of family, haven’t I?’

  Mrs McCosh patted Cookie’s hand. ‘How good of you to say so.’

  ‘Not at all, madam.’

  ‘I am leaving you money in my will, you know.’

  ‘I know, madam, you have often told me, practically every day, but it would be quite all right with me if I were to pop me clogs first. Perhaps you could send my effects to my sister in Shropshire.’

  ‘It’s “my” not “me”, Cookie. “My clogs”, not “me clogs”.’

  ‘Quite so, madam.’

  ‘Precision in speech is important, Cookie.’

  ‘I’m sure it is, madam.’

  ‘The bombers are returning,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘I can hear the engines getting louder again.’ She reached out for her Britannia air rifle that had brought about the demise of so many dozens of indecently copulating pigeons over the years, and which had first seen action against the Kaiser’s Zeppelins.