'The man in the myth doomed to push a boulder up a hil for ever?'
Laurence nodded.
She paused. 'Yes, there was a Sisyphus. I'd have forgotten except that, much later, John showed me a couple of his and asked what I thought of them. They were realy, realy good. But I've no idea who Sisyphus was in real life.'
'So, how did you come to know that John had other troubles? Neurasthenia?'
'Wel, I saw him a second time. The last winter of the war. He was admitted in a state of colapse: congested lungs, a fever, but more than that. He was a broken man, much worse than before. He scarcely spoke. He couldn't sleep. He had nightmares if he did. He had black moods. Just right at the end he started to improve a little. He came out for walks despite the cold.' A ghost of a smile flickered and was gone. 'But it didn't last. I suppose, looking back on it, the strange business of his paralysed arm was part of it.'
'Paralysed arm?' Laurence was puzzled.
'Yes. Towards the end of this second stay, he began to lose the power of his right arm. He said he'd had pins and needles and weakness since the earlier trench accident and then, suddenly, he couldn't use it at al. He couldn't write properly, do up buttons, cut with a knife: al those kinds of things. Major Fortune tried the usual tests: skin pricks, offering him a glass of water and so on, seeing which hand he used if he was caught by surprise, but he was consistent; his hand hung useless at his side. They decided it didn't matter as he was going home anyway. It was going to be someone else's problem.'
She stopped quite suddenly and then looked at her watch.
'So,' she went on, 'we could use some of that for your fictitious patient. You could say to the Holmwood people that your brother is presenting with hysterical conversion—that's the proper name for John's arm problem—plus insomnia, sudden alteration in mood and feelings of guilt after this head injury; they're classic symptoms.'
Laurence stopped her. 'Would you mind if I wrote this down?' he said. As he scrawled on another piece of paper, he looked up at her; she looked much more cheerful and seemed almost to be enjoying the fiction.
'Say it seems obvious that he'l always be an invalid. They'l like that if they're dishonest: the thought that they might keep him and his pension for ever.' She attempted a scowl. 'You could say he has mostly refused medical help until now. That might help explain the lack of a medical report, and emphasise that he generaly had a bad war. You men like those sort of euphemisms. And you can say that poor Dr Fortune—the MO at our field hospital—died last year.'
Laurence raised his eyebrows.
'Heart attack at work,' she said. 'Unjust after al he'd been through. Though you could make up a few horror stories from your own experience, no doubt.'
'I was quite lucky actualy,' said Laurence, quickly. 'Nothing realy terrible ever happened to me. Nothing especialy bad. Not to me personaly.'
Eleanor looked at him for a long time. He felt uneasy under her gaze.
'Didn't it?' she said finaly.
They sat over the table for another half an hour or so while he scribbled notes. She even suggested that he give her name to Dr Chilvers. She had at least been John's nurse and she was prepared to blur the time and place where she had looked after her patient.
'Anything to make life a bit more difficult for these charlatans,' she said. 'They should be struck off. If they're real doctors to start with,' she added portentously.
Laurence thought that Eleanor made an impressive enemy but he didn't want her to see that he was amused.
At four, just as she had warned she must, Eleanor rose to leave. As she was pushing her chair back, he suddenly thought of something else.
'Do you know whereabouts in Bavaria Minna came from?' he asked. 'Does Coburg ring a bel?'
'Sorry,' she said, shaking her head. 'I don't think I ever knew.'
'Did you know her ful name?'
'No. He didn't talk much about her. Not to me. Though I think her first name was realy Wilhelmina. She had an older brother; I do remember that.'
'Did you see John again?' Laurence asked as he helped her on with her coat. 'After the war?'
'No,' she said. 'No. I married not so long after the war ended. But we kept in touch by letter from time to time. I liked him. He was special. And very alone.'
'I suppose John had a pen-name too?' he said, just as they reached the door. Why the hel hadn't he got his ideas together until she was on the point of leaving?
She thought for a while. 'It was Charon,' she said rather sadly. 'The bearer of the dead.'
Chapter Eleven
There were two letters waiting for him when he returned home. He tore open the one from Mary as he walked upstairs. Out fel two photographs. One was a cheerful portrait of John in a rowing vest, taken at Oxford, he guessed. The other was of the group of soldiers; the picture he'd seen that day in Cambridge. Even alowing for the fact it was of poor quality, there was something grim and defeated about the men. He picked up the letter.
Dear Laurence,
It goes without saying that the happy photograph is precious to me. John never looked so carefree after he returned from France.
I am sorry I've been slow to write—I've been quite busy and my mother has been unwel. It occurred to me that I know so little about you, although talking to you helped me. You have a skil for understanding—maybe because you are a writer.
Perhaps we could meet once you have been to Holmwood? The set-up there is not quite what it seems, I think. But I don't want to influence you.
Yours,
Mary
Laurence was stil sufficiently objective to recognise that she was being disingenuous in the last sentence. Nor was research into Norman architecture likely to fit anyone for insights into the human condition. Stil, he wondered whether he might bring Mary back to his rooms one day. What would she think of it? The rooms were wel proportioned, and she would like the views over London. He opened the piano lid and pressed a key; it reverberated endlessly. God knows when it had last been tuned. It had been Louise's pride and joy; in the end it was the only thing of hers he could not face putting in a sale. The piano stool was covered with a worn tapestry of a horn of plenty, embroidered by his mother.
The bedroom, on the north-east corner of the building, was always colder than the other rooms and tonight the wind was wailing round the corner of the building. He felt suddenly despondent; his reactions were those of a boy, not of a man, a former soldier and a widower. Underneath his romantic fantasies he recognised a much darker physical desire for her. It had first swept over him when Charles had implied that she was not the innocent girl he had taken her to be. Surprised by the knowledge of her passionate affair, he had also been aroused by it, as wel as the fact that, unknown to her, he possessed this piece of her secret self. He lay there in his chily bed, remembering what it felt like to have a woman beside him, her naked legs against his where her nightgown had ridden up, her back curved into him and his arms around her warmth.
He woke feeling sick and shivery. His eiderdown had slipped off and the sheets had bunched down the bed, leaving the rough blankets irritating his skin. His ears were hot and ringing. The usual formless horrors slipped away from him once he switched on the light and straightened his sheets. He lay back. How could he ever explain al this to Mary or to any woman, he wondered, and despaired.
He knew it was useless to stay in bed; sleep would not return. As he walked into the other room he remembered that he had forgotten to open the second letter. There was the large, even handwriting: perfectly straight across the page as if Charles had internalised the ruled lines of the nursery. It took him three sides to communicate that he had been away for the weekend, that the Alvis was a marvel, that a group of friends Laurence had never heard of were on particularly good form, and that he had something quite rum to tel Laurence. It ended firmly: 'We need dinner, old man. Not the Club. Fancy a bit of a change. How about the Café Royal? At seven on Thursday?'
Although he woke up tired, the folowing day was clear. He decided
to go over to the Bolithos and show Wiliam the photograph. It crossed his mind that the implicit bargain in exchange for Eleanor's help with Holmwood, was that he didn't bother her husband, but he promised himself that he would not linger.
Eleanor was out when he arrived. Their charwoman opened the door. He felt a degree of relief. Wiliam seemed genuinely pleased to see him. Despite the chil from half-opened windows and a strong smel of paint, the main room had taken on a feel of spring since his last visit.
'Chinese yelow,' Wiliam said, 'Eleanor's work.' He looked down ruefuly at the floor where a couple of yelow drips had hardened. 'She's a rather impulsive handywoman. But sit down. Ethel wil make some tea.'
'Look, I can't stay,' Laurence said, 'and I am awfuly sorry to pester you again but I wondered if I might show you a picture? I'm simply trying to identify the men in it.'
Wiliam seemed perfectly calm when he took the photograph. Though Eleanor had said he needed to move forward, he showed no sign of distress. If he hadn't known otherwise, Laurence would have thought he was a man glad of company and eager for something to do.
Wiliam turned slightly so that natural light fel on the picture. 'Wel, that's John, you may have realised that?'
Laurence nodded; it confirmed his guess.
'And the others, wel, that's odd—it's the MO, Major Fortune. Good man. A volunteer who never even had to be there. Must have been fifty if he was a day: a perfectly good career as a surgeon at St Thomas' Hospital. And, oh, there's Sergeant Tucker—the man I told you about, looking pleased with himself.'
He held the photograph out to Laurence and pointed at the figure leaning back against a log pile. Tucker was a sinewy, almost feral man. The others looked pretty miserable as they puled on cigarettes or gazed down at their feet, but Tucker just looked calm.
'I don't know any of the others; at least—no, the one on the end there, I don't know what he's doing here, but he's the man who helped pul John out of the tunnel colapse. The sapper major's servant. I was thinking about him after we spoke last time and I remembered that he could do the most astonishing tricks with numbers. Give him fifty numbers and he could add them, subtract them, whatever you liked, in seconds, or work out sequences: you know, one—three—five and so on, only much harder ones. The lads used to try to catch him out. He was there while Major Whoever-it-was was bileted with us. He was a prodigy, though he and his officer reminded me a bit of a circus ringmaster and a performing elephant. Wonder what happened to him?'
From the hal, they heard someone come in. The front door closed. Laurence could hear Eleanor talking and the voice of a smal child. The door to the room opened. A smal boy with dark-auburn curls rushed in and climbed on to Wiliam's lap. When he saw Laurence, he buried his face in his father's chest. Eleanor folowed her son, her expression drawn and irritated.
'Mr Bartram,' she said, tightly, as if she'd caught him out in some peccadilo.
'I'm sorry,' he began.
' What a surprise,' she said. 'I'm sorry I wasn't here, although perhaps you'd anticipated that, but as you can see we're quite busy this afternoon. Perhaps you could come back another time? If you let us know beforehand we might arrange an easier day?'
'Eleanor...' Wiliam began, while the boy turned to look shyly at Laurence, but his wife ignored his attempt to head her off.
'I'd like to give Nicky his tea now and Wiliam is tired.'
She looked fixedly at Laurence and under the intensity of her gaze he finaly said 'I'm realy very sorry. I shouldn't have come without warning.'
'But he needed me to identify a photograph,' Wiliam interrupted firmly. 'I wasn't much help, but I got a couple of the men, though I've no idea where it was taken.'
Eleanor put her hand out and he gave it to her. She looked at it briefly. 'John Emmett,' she said. 'Of course. He must be getting more attention dead than he ever did alive.' She handed the picture back.
'Eleanor...' Wiliam began.
'Wel, it's true,' she said, 'when he was alive he was an embarrassment. His moods, his obsessions, his unpredictability: al too difficult. Not a modest hero adding lustre to a county drawing room, but a man who couldn't cope, shut away in some rotten asylum. Now he's dead we can al think about how we wish we could have helped him, or, if we couldn't, how it would have been better if he'd been blown to smithereens with his reputation intact.'
Wiliam said less mildly, 'I don't think that's entirely fair.'
Laurence thought again how wel she knew John Emmett and wondered whether Wiliam noticed or minded her evident loyalty to the dead man. He decided now was not the time to defend Mary.
'No, I'm sorry,' she said. 'Whatever my feelings, I'm being rude. But I realy must go and get Nicholas's tea now.'
She hung back and Laurence realised she was expecting him to go first. He tucked the picture in his walet, said a hasty goodbye to Wiliam, who seemed diplomaticaly unaware of the degree of tension in the room, and he smiled at Nicholas, stil on his father's knee. The little boy smiled back. Eleanor led him out and closed the door behind him.
By the front door she stopped, looked up at him and spoke quietly but fiercely. 'Just because Wiliam's stuck here and can't get out doesn't mean you can just come and go as if he had no life except to assist you. I helped you as much as I could. Wiliam did too but we want to move on. John's dead. We're not. We're very grateful for the money but it doesn't buy you or Miss Emmett a right to our lives.'
***
He got to the Café Royal first that evening. Charles arrived, slightly late, ful of apologies and long technical explanations about the Alvis. He seemed quite good-humoured as if having it break down was al part of the fun. When finaly they were settled, Laurence regaled Charles with his brief and difficult visit to the Bolithos.
Charles seemed hugely amused.
'Oh Mrs Bolitho, that Bolshevik firebrand. She's famous for it. Not a girl to cross. Joly clever. Good person to have on your side, though.' He picked up his glass and held it up to a candle so that its garnet-like depths glowed. 'Ask Mr Lenin.'
'Is she realy?' Laurence asked. 'A Bolshevik, I mean?'
'Wel, she's certainly a fighter. Damn good nurse, I hear, but my mama wouldn't have had her in the house before the war. Suffragette, Fabian, bluestocking: that kind of thing. Not that my mama knew her not to have her, of course. Didn't have her sort in Warwickshire, but Mama read about them in her paper and always said she wouldn't receive anybody who thought females should have the vote.' He sighed. 'Poor Mama. She must be turning in her grave. Stil bending Father's ear in paradise and al that. Not paradise for him realy. Stil, I should think Mrs Bolitho's politics would make even Ramsay MacDonald's hair stand on end.'
'Good Lord.' Laurence found he was ful of admiration rather than shocked. 'And Wiliam?'
'Heaven knows. Never met him. Not likely to now, realy. Suppose he must go along with it if only for a quiet life. But he's probably counting his blessings: Mrs Bolitho was always a bit sought after. Healing hands, that kind of thing. Pretty too. General surprise when she married old Bolitho but then nurses do that: marry their patients and so on, even without legs. There's a child, isn't there? So his wounds haven't stopped him enjoying the benefits.'
He beamed at Laurence. In anyone else such a statement of the obvious would seem prurient but Charles simply seemed happy for his felow officer.
'Lucky man,' he added.
Laurence was just about to ask him more about the circumstances of the Bolithos' marriage when Charles dropped his own thunderbolt.
'Motored down to Lewes last week and guess who I met there?'
He left a pause for Laurence to go through the motions of guessing.
'Surprise me,' Laurence said, slicing into his turbot.
'Wel, I was staying at Frant, you know, Toly Pitt's house. Third cousin. He married a lovely girl—not realy a girl, she must be twenty-eight if she's a day. She was engaged to some cavalry man who got it right at the start, but then she meets Toly, love at second sight, a year or so back and then
she inherits Frant off one of those useful aunts these girls have, and it turns out Toly loves her too. We had a spot of dinner and a joly good walk along the coast. You know how these weekends go.'
Charles was momentarily diverted by his pheasant, but after another mouthful he went on.
'Anyway, this Octavia is a lot of fun but keen on church, that kind of thing. So we were off for luncheon in Tunbridge Wels with someone Toly knew from the regiment when Octavia decided we should al go to church there rather than in the vilage. To cut a long story short, halfway through the service Octavia obviously sees someone she knows across the way: lots of looks, little smiles, fingertip wiggling—delight, surprise: that thing they do—and she whispers to me during the interminable sermon that it was a girl she'd known from driving some sort of canteen lorry for returning soldiers at Victoria Station in the war. Steaming tea, fragrant English girls—
welcome back warrior—you know. When we're al peeling out, rather relieved to be swapping the chily sea of faith for a good roast, she's chatting away to her, obviously trying to persuade her to join us or come over the next day.
'"I'm afraid I can't," says our new chum, just as we come within earshot, "I'm staying with a friend. He's not wel enough to travel." Then Octavia sees me and Toly's sister coming over together and introduces us: "This is Mary Emmett. Charles, I think you must have been at Marlborough with her brother, John?"'
Laurence had been folowing his own train of thought while Charles's story slowly circled its way to a conclusion, but Charles's words jerked him back into the conversation.
'Aha,' said Charles triumphantly, spearing a parsnip, 'thought that'd make you sit up. So I said, of course I did and I was sorry to hear the news, terrible thing, etcetera etcetera, and I can see why you're so keen to scout about for her—nice-looking girl, though a bit of fresh air needed to put a blush in those cheeks—and I said al the things you'd expect. So then I said, "And I think you know my great friend Laurence Bartram," and she was completely thrown. The look that crossed her face was not of fondness and grateful admiration at your very name, but nearer to horror, to be honest. Anyway, after that, I regret to say, old chap, she couldn't get away fast enough. Though Octavia had extracted a promise from her to come round—hard person to refuse, Octavia—the next time she was in the area, and got her address in Cambridge, she didn't even stay to meet Toly and nobody could be intimidated by old Toly. But then later I thought Miss Emmett didn't want my friend Laurence to know she was in Tunbridge. But why on earth shouldn't she be? And why should he care?'
The Return of Captain John Emmett Page 9