So Much Life Left Over

by Louis de Bernières

  Daniel sighed and looked out towards France. Above him, at barely more than a hundred feet, three of the new Spitfires from his own airfield roared by, performing a victory roll to the cheers of the gunners. ‘They must have got a Junkers or something,’ thought Daniel, and that thought made him step back from the edge. He suddenly wondered why he had not simply waited for a scramble and gone up in his obsolete Hurricane. That would have been an airman’s death.

  ‘Unfinished business,’ said the voice. ‘France isn’t free yet.’

  Daniel turned, and found himself facing the tallest man he had ever seen, in the late prime of life, with his forage cap tucked under his arm so that his straw-coloured hair shone in the sunlight. He was slender, almost epicene, and his eyes were golden brown. He looked as though he had probably never had to shave. He smiled and held out his hand, saying, ‘You don’t have to mention how tall I am.’

  ‘I imagine that everyone does,’ replied Daniel.

  ‘People like to enquire about the weather up here.’

  ‘And call you “Titch”?’

  The man nodded. ‘I’m Captain Raphael. Chaplaincy. Attached to the Medical Corps.’

  ‘A sky pilot,’ said Daniel. ‘In the RFC we called them sky pilots.’

  ‘I spotted you out here and knew straight away what you were thinking of doing. I’m sorry to interfere, but I felt I had no choice. I suggest we go to the pub. There are one or two nice ones in Eastbourne. I’d just about fit in your sidecar, with my knees tucked under my chin.’

  Twenty minutes later they were sitting face-to-face across two pints of beer in a smoky pub that was full of Home Guardsmen and fire wardens. Captain Raphael said, ‘You’d better tell me about it. I don’t mean to intrude. What I mean is, you can tell me about it if you’d like to.’

  ‘As long as you don’t bring God into it,’ said Daniel. ‘He and I avoid each other’s eyes when we pass in the street.’

  ‘I won’t bring up God,’ said the Chaplain. ‘God brings Himself up, in His own good time.’ He paused, then said, ‘I suppose you must have lost someone, someone very dear to you. When I saw you standing at the edge I thought I’d never seen anyone radiate so much anguish. I’m very sorry if I spoiled your plan for a beautiful, quick and easy exit, but when I was watching you I felt, um, compassion. I thought, “There is a man who has more to do. Who has life left over.” As I say, I felt I had no choice.’

  ‘Compassion?’

  ‘Yes. I had to intervene. I felt the pain, and I wanted to end the pain in myself as much as in you. I’m very sorry. I’ve been a busybody, rather a self-regarding one.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me that suicide is a sin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You remind me of my brother-in-law,’ said Daniel. ‘He was an army chaplain, and he doesn’t seem to believe in any of it.’

  ‘Theology is the feeble wisdom of those who are terrified of mystery and want to build castles in the air in all the empty spaces, just for the sake of filling them up.’

  ‘That’s the sort of thing Fairhead says. This is all very strange,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Who have you lost?’

  ‘How do you know I’ve lost someone?’

  ‘Well, you have, haven’t you?’

  Daniel nodded slowly, and with great difficulty said, ‘Esther. My daughter. She was a Wren.’

  ‘You must have loved her very greatly, if you can’t imagine life without her.’

  ‘I can imagine life without her…But it’s not a life I want.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Torpedoed.’

  ‘Oh, in the Aguila?’

  ‘How do you know about the Aguila?’

  ‘I can’t tell you how I know. I just do. Contacts in high places. One hundred and fifty-three dead, of whom twenty-one were Wrens. It went down in ninety seconds, apparently. On the way to Gibraltar. Am I right?’

  ‘I don’t know. You seem to know a lot more about it than I do. All I have is a telegram.’

  Captain Raphael sat back and sipped on his beer thoughtfully. ‘All those lovely young women,’ he said at last. ‘So full of life. What a terrible waste. All the children that won’t be born. I am so very sorry. Now I understand why you were up at the cliff. There’s no love greater than one’s love for a child, is there?’

  ‘You have children?’

  ‘I seem to have a great many. They’re not all equally easy to love, I have to say. Do you have any other children? A wife?’

  ‘I have a son, Bertie, but my wife has turned him against me. He treats me as if I were a stain. A smudge on his existence. He’s at Sandhurst, training for the Armoured Corps. It’s impossible to love someone who treats you with contempt. My wife is not well, in my opinion. Like her mother. We’ve lived separately for years. I don’t know if she knows about Esther yet. I assume that she must have been sent a telegram too.’

  ‘You have no other children?’

  ‘No,’ said Daniel, before suddenly remembering, with an evanescent burst of happiness, that of course he had Felix and Felicity.

  ‘Would you show me the telegram?’

  Daniel reached into the breast pocket of his tunic and handed it over, folded in four. Captain Raphael looked at it and made a wry face. He put his hand into his own pocket and brought out a cigarette lighter. He flicked it alight and showed Daniel the flame, which was ochre flecked with green. ‘I want your permission to burn the telegram,’ he said.

  ‘Burn it?’

  ‘Yes. It’s always the best thing to do. Otherwise you will keep looking at it for year after year, and everything will keep coming back over you with renewed force, and you will wish you could get rid of it but you won’t be able to bring yourself to, and it will hang on to you like a succubus, so it’s best if you let me destroy it. Esther has gone, so let this be gone too.’

  ‘Burn it,’ said Daniel.

  The Captain flicked the lighter again, and Daniel heard the distinct scrape of the carbide wheel on the flint. He watched as the flame enveloped the paper, turning black at the edges and glowing orange. Captain Raphael inverted it so the flame would not touch his fingers, and then, when it was almost down to nothing, he dropped the remainder in the ashtray. He stood, picked up the ashtray and carried it out of the door, where he checked the direction of the breeze, raised it to his lips, and blew the ashes into the air.

  ‘You were watching the flame very intently,’ he said, when he had reseated himself. ‘Did you see anything?’

  ‘See anything? No.’

  ‘I’ve always found that if you watch a flame like that, you begin to see things. It’s a kind of scrying. Do you have brothers and sisters? A mother? A father?’

  ‘My father is dead, two of my brothers died in South Africa, and my remaining brother is an alcoholic, but he’s got himself into the ARP in Brighton, and my mother…’

  ‘Yes? Your mother? You don’t want to say anything about her?’

  Daniel pictured his ancient mother, out in her garden, a trug basket over her arm, wearing her shabbiest clothes and a broad-brimmed hat. He wanted to go and see her. It was obviously what he had to do next, because somebody had to tell her the news about Esther. ‘My mother, well…I don’t know…’

  ‘I do,’ said Captain Raphael. ‘You have just realised that your mother is one good reason that you cannot commit suicide. She’s already lost too much. At her age, it would be a devastating blow. Am I right?’

  Daniel was dumbfounded.

  ‘I have a suggestion. Because of this war, there will be hundreds more Esthers killed. The sooner we end it, the fewer Esthers will have to die. Do you follow me?’

  Daniel nodded and the priest continued. ‘Well, just grit your teeth and put your head down, and get on with the war. And on the day of victory, then you will be free to decide whether o
r not to go over the cliff. Does that make sense? There’s too much necessary work to do for you to indulge in the luxury of killing yourself now.’

  ‘I do see your point.’

  ‘You must sacrifice your own preferences, as, I imagine, you always have. Is it agreed?’

  Daniel nodded again, and then suddenly got to his feet. ‘Please excuse me,’ he said, and, accidentally knocking over his chair, he fled to the lavatory, where he sat on the closed lid and buried his head in his hands. The room was tiny and malodorous, with water dripping from a rusted pipe, and a rank puddle on the floor, but it was good enough to grieve in. The disappointment of having been deprived of his death overcame him, and his temples ached dully. His shoulders began to shake, and when he finally surrendered and gave himself permission to cry, he wept until he was so exhausted that he felt purged.

  He had no idea how long he was in there, but when he came out, feeling lighter, he saw that Captain Raphael had gone, leaving behind him a small heap of coins on top of a piece of notepaper, upon which he had written in the most beautiful italic script: ‘Cheerio and good luck. The beer’s on me.’

  Daniel went outside and put his flying gear back on. He adjusted the choke and the advance/retard lever, and tickled the carburettor until petrol began to whelm out of it, finding solace and purpose in this routine little ritual that he performed so well, so thoughtlessly and so often. He kicked the Brough into life and set off for Partridge Green, taking the back roads to avoid having to pass along the cliff. On a fast straight he tipped the sidecar so that its wheel left the ground, and remembered how Esther had loved him doing that when she had been the passenger as a tiny girl, clinging on to the sides of the cockpit, screaming with delight.

  48

  Necessary Work

  Daniel spent a quiet and melancholy week with his mother. She knew that something terrible had happened the moment he took off his flying helmet and goggles, and reached out his arms to her, saying ‘Chère maman’. She had been weeding amongst the roses in the beds at the front of the house, and was wearing her tattiest old gardening clothes, including a hat that had been magnificently glamorous back in 1912, but now had its lid flapping and was tied beneath her chin with a strip of tulle. Over her shoes she wore the rubber galoshes that made her feet look comically large. She was an old woman beyond the reach of vanity, or rather, to whom vanity has become an amusing and very occasional distraction.

  She had heard the sound of the motorcycle as it came through the village, and had lifted her head like a deer that senses one’s presence in a forest. The engine had the sound of her son about it and her heart leapt a little at the thought. She put down her trug basket and reached for her walking stick, which she had propped against a standard rose. She stepped gingerly over the little wall, only two courses high, that Daniel had once built for her to retain the soil, and was at the gate, ready to open it, when he turned in.

  Daniel embraced her tenderly, and said ‘Come inside, maman. I’ve something to tell you.’

  Mme Pitt was already trembling by the time that she sat down in her armchair. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked, looking up at her son. ‘Is it Archie?’

  Daniel knelt down before her and put his hands on her knees. ‘No, maman,’ he said. ‘It’s Esther. She’s been lost at sea. Torpedoed. On the way to the Med.’

  She raised a shaking hand to stroke his cheek, and said, ‘Oh, my poor son. She’s been too cruel for you, this life. Tu ne sauras jamais comment je suis désolée.’

  ‘I’ve just come back from Beachy Head,’ said Daniel, ‘but then I was reminded of you.’

  The old woman looked at him with a puzzled expression, until his meaning suddenly dawned on her. ‘I am too old to live for, mon fils,’ she said, ‘c’est pas la peine.’

  ‘Non, maman, you’re not too old to live for.’

  That week, Mme Pitt spent long hours sitting silently in her rocking chair, with tears coursing down her cheeks, repeating, ‘C’est trop dur, c’est trop dur,’ whilst Daniel wrote long letters to Sophie and Fairhead, Christabel and Gaskell, Ottilie and Frederick, to Archie, and, finally, to Rosie. In his letter to Rosie he said:

  Our daughter embodied all that I most love to remember, all that I most cherished, and all that for which I most loved to hope. Now that she has gone, for me the world has emptied out almost completely. You still have Bertie, for that you can be thankful, although God knows if he’ll get through once he’s finished with OCTU. It seems most likely to me that he’ll be going to Italy, because that’s where the Royal Armoured Corps is likeliest to be busy for the time being.

  Incidentally, it was remiss of both you and him not to tell me about his passing-out parade at Sandhurst. The manner in which you have succeeded in excluding him from my life is cruel both to him and to me. Perhaps I cannot speak for other men. I know there are many who apparently don’t give a damn, but in my case, paternity has been the most precious thing of my life, and your attempts to sabotage it are and always will be unacceptable and unforgivable. I heard about the parade from Esther, and wrote to the Commandant, explaining that I was estranged to you both, and he very generously allowed me to watch from a window in Old College. I was extremely proud when he received the Sam Browne, but I left forlorn because of being unable to speak either to him or to you. I shall always do my bit for him, despite his long-standing and deeply hurtful indifference, amounting to hostility.

  I thought you looked very fine in that blue dress, and more than once thought how preposterous it is to have to observe one’s own wife and son through binoculars.

  If I get through this war intact, there may perhaps come a time when all I feel is gratitude for Esther’s life amongst us. For the time being I am in utter darkness. Perhaps you are there too, although your faith no doubt bears you up. I embrace you for old times’ sake, remembering when we were happy and hopeful enough together to create such a lovely girl and bring her into the world.

  In the last war I was ready to die because it seemed an absolute certainty that I would do so. In the Flying Corps there was almost no chance of making it through. It gave us a kind of mad gaiety that I still remember with pleasure. To tell the truth, we had more fun than our minds and bodies could take. In this war I am sorry that the prospect of death is a little more remote. I go up in my battered old Hurricane, but I have a parachute this time, the Battle of Britain is over, and the skies are very much safer than they ever were on the Western Front. Even so, I no longer care whether I live or die. If there is the slightest chance that our little daughter will be waiting for me on the other side, then I’ll be glad enough to go.

  When Daniel’s leave was over he returned to Tangmere, having decided not to go and see Archie in Brighton. His brother lived in such appalling squalor that it seemed unkind to arrive without notice. At least Archie should be given the chance to line up the whisky bottles against the wall, empty the ashtrays, and sweep the mouse droppings from the floor.

  Archie was still a roadsweeper, but these days he was also on the Fire Watch, and perhaps that would have the effect of pulling his life back together. There is nothing more soul-destroying for a valiant old soldier than to live inside a crippling sense of uselessness.

  49

  Oily Wragge (4)

  Well, I did get back in, in a manner of speaking The Norfolks ended up with about seventeen battalions, and I stayed in Norwich and got hooked into setting up the local LDV, that turned into the Home Guard, and we had a little book called the Home Guard Manual, and it had information about how to turn a shotgun into a musket by taking the shot out and putting a ball there instead, and you could get moulds for making the ball, and it was accurate to about eighty yards, which was just about perfect for nobbling deer. Put it this way, during all those times in Thetford Forest, my platoon didn’t go short of venison.

  When they wound us up because Adolf was losing, I went up to Hexham because
Miss Gaskell and Miss Christabel had a flipping great estate with no workers, but dozens of evacuee tiddlers, and Miss Sophie and Fairhead were there too, and it was a right jungle, so we had plenty of venison there too, and enough bunnies to make you sick, and I was out on a tractor a lot of the time, and we even planted a couple of acres of taters. I got just about as brown as I was in Mespot, and I got whopping great muscles in my forearms.

  It was just as well I didn’t get back in the 2nd Battalion. In 1940 they got captured by the 1st Battalion, 2nd SS Totenkopf Regiment, and marched into a field in column of threes, where there were two heavy machine guns, and not one single Holy Boy marched out again, but there were two men who crawled out, and it was thanks to them that the news got known, and that Kraut officer who did it was hanged after the war. It was a place called Le Paradis. Well, that’s a funny one.

  Still, the Norfolks got more VCs in that war than any other regiment. Those are my boys.

  I was in Norwich when the Huns bombed it, and it brought tears to my eyes to see what they did. It was about thirty raids in all. On the first one they got five girls from Colman’s Mustard, wheeling their bikes up a hill, including Gladys Sampson who I happened to know, and was a sweetheart. After that, the attacks were regular. We set up shelters and feeding centres, and went round telling people how to pour sand on incendiaries, and we arranged a swapping system so that you had a house to go to if yours was wrecked. Then there were the two Baedeker raids in 1942, when Caley’s chocolate factory went up in flames, and after that we dug a lot of spare graves in Earlham Road Cemetery, just in case. On the second raid they got the synagogue, and I bet Adolf would have been proud of that. Some people reckoned that Norwich had it almost as bad as Coventry, and we had trekkers, who were people who left the town in the evening, and came back in the morning, and quite a lot of them were camping in tents in fields or kipping in barns and whatnot. You could hear the raids going on in faraway parts. It was like the distant rolling of drums all night.