He saw then, quite coolly, how men were driven to kill. He felt her neck in his hands, as though he were wringing it like a hen’s. He said, ‘What is it that you want?’
Miss Brigstocke’s tone was light and brisk. ‘What do any of us want? I wish to be secure, I wish to be content, to be allowed to descend into old age with what dignity I can muster, with four walls around me of my own and no threat of the bailiffs. But I cannot see my way to it.
‘I wish I could settle somewhere far from here. There is a cottage in Scotland which I have very much admired. But alas, my state does not admit the buying of property. And my cousin, who as I said lives close by, has offered me lodging with her, and so I think I will come to live near Far Deeping after all …’
He obeyed her cue like a man in a dream. ‘I believe,’ he said, ‘that I can see my way to such a charitable enterprise as to … assist you to purchase that cottage. I have by me a draft on my bank …’ With the logic of a nightmare, he realised it was true. He saw his hand remove it from his pocket. ‘For I was on my way to pay the accounts.’
‘I thought,’ said Miss Brigstocke, ‘it being a quarter day, that that might be the case. How fortuitous.’
The pen scratched on paper. She did not watch him write but turned her gaze to the window – when he offered her the draft she took it with a little sniff, as if he had done something improper. Reverend Comer watched as all his capital, everything he had in the bank (bar thirty pounds) disappeared into a fold in the ragged grey mantle. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I will not see you again, Miss Brigstocke.’
‘It is most unlikely,’ she replied.
He felt an ache deep in his belly, as though he had been pierced there. ‘How long did you watch me,’ he said, ‘and wait your filthy chance? No. No matter. I will say adieu.’ He heard her stand, the damp fall of her cloak. But she did not go. She stood beside him. Her scent was heavy in his nostrils.
‘He stank of richness and bloody, buried deeds,’ Miss Brigstocke said. ‘I thought he was to kill her. When I saw her end, I was sure it would be he who did it.’ A sound came from her, a growl. Reverend Comer was put in mind of the sound of tearing flesh; he knew her heavy stench then for what it was. It was the lion cage, which he had seen in Padua. Hungry lions, beset with sores, pacing with their mad yellow eyes.
‘They buried her at the roadside,’ said Miss Brigstocke. ‘Like a pauper. I went to see. And there must have been some who loved her because the mound was covered in flowers.’
‘It is too late to weep,’ the reverend said. He felt the tinny bite of anger within. ‘You have everything. Your tears are not needed here – the goose is plucked.’
Miss Brigstocke whimpered and cried out. ‘Would you believe,’ she said, ‘that my heart is broken? I have had to shift, all my life. I have been forced to it. But Mary … Would you believe that I loved her, in spite of all?’
The reverend regarded her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I do not believe it.’
Her entire being drooped. She pulled her terrible coat around her. She swiped at her wet black eyes. ‘Goodbye,’ Miss Brigstocke said, turned her old creased face from him and went. The door of the teashop creaked and the bell rang a silver chime.
When Reverend Comer emerged some minutes later, having settled his considerable tea bill, she was gone. The street was deserted save for a few souls hurrying through the rain, late for luncheon.
The Unknown Soldier
1919
I’m all right so far. All I must do is avoid notice. Keep it simple.
At Reading there are shouts, a hold up. But they don’t concern me. Outside a grey day and everyone has loathing carved deep on their countenances. Rain shatters on the glass. The empty compartment smells of old dog.
Two girls come in; I stiffen up a bit. They’ll have things to say. They fuss in the seat opposite, turning like cats and settling their things. Sure enough the yellow-haired one asks me what time we get to Paignton. All nice girls love a soldier, and all that. Or is it sailor?
I fold my arms, close my eyes. Sleeping people are not compelling.
There is a shade of red which is urgently debated. Won’t do for a skirt, which would be fast. Line an opera jacket with it. Smart. They speak slightly too loudly, as though there is some effect being strained at which they are just failing to achieve. Their voices scatter through the darkness behind my eyelids, knit themselves through the rhythm of the wheels on the narrow gauge. Four hours of this. Avoid notice, then home. I don’t know what I’ll find. I don’t know what’s left. And the other question, which wears at me, painfully. Is he alive? The letter is dated a year ago. I touch it where it sits in my pocket. It’s almost coming apart at the folds.
As I understand it, it’s unlikely he’s alive. As I understand it, almost no one who was alive five years ago is alive now. Could go and see. It’s on the way … Something stirs, painful, in the depths. No. Keep it simple. Get to Rawblood.
The uniform’s awkward on me. Too big. My wounded shoulder sings. The man’s face after I hit him. Pale, innocent. Gentle, closed eyes. Limbs heavy as sandbags as I stripped him. Exhausting, being in my head. Thoughts run off like rabbits. I’m sure I could think, once.
In pretending to sleep, one lays oneself wide open to the real thing. So I am suspended on the edge of a crevasse where all things are about to be known and my whole being is formed of meaning … when the world shudders and jars like a blow to the head. Some broad unknown thing whistles past, slaps something else. We rattle, we are dice shaken in a cup. There are shrieks and cracks. My heart tittups, a startled colt. Unseen machinery squeals ha ha ha like nasty laughter. The illusion that we’re on solid ground is rudely, terribly, interrupted; the carriage is a wooden box designed to stave in and crush our flesh. The ragged ends of timber and shards of glass will pierce us, burning metal will twist into evil curves and pen us in as we burn.
Abruptly everything stills, sound is neatly sliced off. A light scent of burnt oil. In the silence the carriage glides to a halt.
We have left the rain and come out into the light. The compartment is drenched in sunshine. The air is animated with shining spirals of dust. The chips and scratches on the wood panel are as raw as scars. Each shiny patch on the yellow and red moquette is thrown into relief.
My jacket is on the floor. Delicately the girls withdraw their legs from it, as if it were dirty. I put it back on the rack. Actually it is quite dirty. Again I check that the letter’s in my pocket. His writing. So strange to see it, after all these years. I could see it all rippling in the wind. I could see the long dark nothing which lies behind. And then of course: Anyhow this is goodbye. I had never thought of such a thing as a goodbye, between us.
The girls shield their eyes and murmur. They’re stilled, gentled by the light. Their lips are dry, skin pale and fragile in the glare. Each thought moves through their faces; they’re transparent in the sun. Dangerous clarity. I put my hat on.
We have stopped by the sea. Behind the glass tall grass waves, golden, dead. It almost tickles the dirty panes. Through stiff sedge and nodding mare’s tail can be seen a thin rim of beach like a broken biscuit. I swallow, sea grit mingling uneasily with sweet crumbs in the imagination of my tongue; everything is in disorder. The sharp dun crescent gives way to wet olive sand beyond, a blinding sheen, a net of glassy pools. The sun falls upon the bay, is hurled back in serried points of light. The sea is cast across the skyline, beaten steel. A gull bawls, high, distant. The world is dangerous. But it is also beautiful. I had forgotten.
We wait. I practise a normal face. I can tell it’s not very good. The girls look at me over their hands. Peeps and chirps of laughter. One wears a dress of dark blue, the colour the sea should be, the colour it is in pictures: but isn’t, at least not out there. She’s all shades of fawn and cream like an old photograph. The yellow-haired one has the face of a lascivious Roman emperor. Her wide blue eyes sit in her face like two miniatures painted on ivory.
Their heads be
nd together, brown ringlets meeting a shining cap of tortured marcel wave. Their hands discuss; pointing, fluttering.
The girl in blue is whispering. ‘And he takes her up to his lodgings and nurses her better, and dresses her up, in these silks, see, in foreign dress, she’s quite smart and nice for the first time ever. And she says, why are you so nice to me, chinky? It’s the first time anyone’s been nice to her.’
A curlew walks across the narrow bar of sand, raising each slow leg like an ancient thing. It does not deign to notice the train, silent and stopped. Through the walls come other voices from other compartments, occasionally intelligible. Is he still! a woman calls hilariously through a low conversation, and then there’s laughter. Everyone seems all right.
‘Ohhh, she’s fifteen, I daresay,’ says the girl in blue.
‘You oughtn’t go to these smutty things,’ says the yellow helmet.
‘Smutty yourself. So she stays with him and they get keen on each other all right, but when he goes out one day her dad comes and finds her in his lodgings and murders her because she’s been with a yellow man.’
The curlew halts in the middle of the landscape, gazes sternly at the sea.
‘The chinky comes back and sees her dead. So he dresses himself up in silky clothes too—’
‘Lordy.’
‘—and murders himself with a knife. It was ever so good.’
‘Waste of nice Chinese silk.’
‘You’ve no soul.’
‘Have a fag. Calm you down.’
‘Cheek. Well, I will. Ta.’
The girls smoke. The one in blue is just beginning to show: a soft curve to her below the sash of her dress. She touches the curve now and again, not knowing she does it.
She sees me looking. She nudges her friend, they retreat primly into silence, hands concertinaed together in their laps.
I wish they would go on talking. Such relief not to think. I lean my face against the glass, which is burning with cold. The curlew is gone. The sea dazzles. My shoulder aches.
The train lurches forward with a grunt and a clatter. My nose gets a pretty good bang on the window. The girls make small sounds of appreciation. As we gain speed the track turns inland, and the sea leaves us, shuffling and then staggering past the dirty glass panes and out of sight. The sudden twilight of the carriage is shot with arcs and bolts of pink and yellow and grey, endless waves breaking. My heavy eyes. Burn it, whispers someone in my ear. Burn it.
*
I am myself, but not myself. I am unbounded, limitless. This is how the dreams go.
I’m at Rawblood, in my old room. I’ve wished myself here so many times. But it’s immediately clear that things are not as they should be. The wood panelling is draped with dark red velvet. An old shaving set stands at the basin. A comical nightdress of antique design lies across the unmade bed. The folds of the sheets still hold warmth. The scent of someone else’s sleep lies heavy in the air. The ghost of a big musty body.
I go to the window and pull at the catches to bring the fresh breeze in, to take the tainted air away. They won’t give. My fingers slip on them like mercury.
My face is hot. I press it against the mired glass. The green morning falls into the room.
A man walks into view across the hill. He walks as though he owns the land, the sky. Officious little movements. His hat brim covers his eyes in shadow.
I put on my own hat in amazement. I twist it firmly round my skull. I look as though looks could reach him there, through glass, through air. His suit is brown, quaint, worn. His hat is a dented, but serviceable homburg. His boots shine. The cold gleam of a watch chain as it swings from his pocket. He’s clean-shaven, except for his moustache; his face is open and serious. Strange eyes. Green.
He should not be here.
He strokes his moustache gently. He kicks at a stone. It bounds from him, exuberant. He dallies with it, passes it from foot to foot, strolling to and fro on the sward. He stands, breathes, smiles as if there’s sunlight, turns his face upwards, questing, removes his hat.
As he sees me, I stop breathing. We are suspended, arrested, caught each in the other’s eye. I hiss, my lips nearly kiss the glass. He shakes his fist as if in answer, comes down the slope towards me, towards the house.
I go fast down the stairs. Hands are damp and squeaking on banisters, handles, wood, as I run.
A small resolute shape speeds high above in the empty hall. The swallow circles, swoops. Wings like daggers describe arabesques and curlicues, telling the shape of air. I regard it for a dumbstruck moment. It carves the hall into discrete areas, soft rushes of sound.
I go to the window; white rowan blossom is pasted in translucent teardrops to the glass. In the far blue, white clouds hang still. No one is there. The sunlit rise is empty, a long green curve. He’s gone, which is not possible. My hands itch for action.
The catch yields stiffly, the window swings outwards, slow and graceful. The swallow dives past, its passage on my cheek like a detonation. Gone into the blue, vanished. I stare at the place in the sky where it was. I breathe. The air is full of warmth.
He’s gone. I’ll find him in the night. I’ll go into him like sickness.
I’m awake, shaking. Nausea rises. The first time it happened I woke screaming. She’s sending me her dreams.
The girls are gone. Things have happened while I’ve been out. Through the window it’s a cold dusk. There’s a little boy with bloody green knees in the corner opposite, bouncing on the seat and singing, and a woman with cherries in her hat. She regards me with disapproval. Beside her a thin woman in black eats peppermints. The lamps throw out buzzing amber light. On the seat next to me is a newspaper, left by some stealthy unseen traveller. Smell of acrid wet print.
The disapproving woman puts her hand on the boy’s back and shushes. Her teeth are large and brown, her legs planted wide in stout shoes. She sits encased in swathes of worn grey serge. Two of her buttons are broken. The boy bounces. She closes her heavy-lidded eyes. The hand stays on the boy’s back like a passenger.
‘I had a little bird,’ he singsongs, ‘its name was Enza, I opened the window, and in flew Enza!’
‘Stop that.’ A large, maroon voice.
‘In flew Enza!’ He widens his eyes at her, full of joy.
I slept awkwardly. My shoulder aches like memory. I pick up the paper with my good arm and read about tobacco … women and girls, having put on men’s clothes, are adopting men’s habits in the matter of smoking. Quite.
The boy takes four marbles from his pocket and shakes them, lips pursed. The gunfire of the marbles goes click, click, click.
‘If you put ’em away,’ says the woman, opening her eyes, ‘you shall have an apple.’
‘Psssshhhhsss,’ he says. ‘We are exploded.’ He rattles the marbles at me. ‘You’re dead.’
‘You’ll have to eat the core and the pips, mind,’ says the woman. ‘Can’t be wandering all over finding you bins.’ He gnaws the apple like a squirrel, clenching it to his face with dirty hands, peering over it with profound concern.
We’re in a maze of little tracks and tiny stations now, and tired people shuffle on and off. The darkened window shows us back ourselves, yellow and monstrous against infinite space.
There’s a sudden give in my shoulder, a feeling of dangerous looseness. A slick brown patch has appeared on the sleeve of my shirt. Blood.
In the lav there’s varnished pine boards on the wall (Betty Tasker is a hore), some pink soap, an overhead lamp hanging a little too low, casting a surgical light over the whole affair. What there isn’t is anything to tie this up with. I am stumped. The loose feeling becomes a pulse, and it’s no good, I’m covered in blood. It stinks.
I take the shirt off. In the dirty cracked mirror which hangs over the basin, someone regards me. Shorn head, pale skin.
I twist to see the wound. Looking at one’s own shoulder is nigh-on impossible. A broad smudge of tacky gore. Blood runs down the arm in little rivulets, pool
ing in the creased places round the elbow. New wet threads busily cover the drying rusty patches as I watch. I am mapped with blood.
The light stutters. There’s a tick tick sound, the one bulbs make before they blow. Oh, please. Not now. But I am flickering; the mirror shows me blood, arm, gooseflesh, gaunt face, slippery skin, delivers them weird and partial in spasms as if I am electrified. The light is gone. Black.
The dark is hot. This should be respite – I have been bone-cold all day, but no. It’s hot like breath. I stand. Often, I have found, being motionless will bring one out of crisis. The blood tickles on, down my arm. It feels like a finger. In fact it feels so much, so very much like a finger … I recoil, hit the wall. I’m swallowed in pain, but all the while the fingertips which should not be there stroke up and down and cold breath, very light, on my face. Blood but there’s another scent which I know, by God I know all too well. I open my mouth to call out and – here’s the thing – a finger reaches into my mouth and strokes it, lightly. It’s a pretty ordinary finger. The snag of a hangnail. There’s a callus on the inside of the knuckle like a writing callus. At certain points the smoothness of metal brushes me; a ring. The finger strokes the insides of my cheeks and my tongue and the backs of my teeth. Someone breathes, breathes gently in my ear and more fingers stroke themselves slowly across my soft palate, brushing the back of my tongue, moving towards the uvula and into my throat, and when I can’t breathe any more I go down.
Light, muttering to itself and flickering. I’m on the floor which is gritty, stained. I’m splayed across the whole tiny room. One of my feet lies, sort of debonair, in the sink. The rest of me is lying in a pool of blood. The wound’s properly burst. Like a little mouth.
By very slow degrees I stand. The light steadies. There I am in the mirror, wet, bloody and really unappealing. Now what? I don’t want to think about how long I lay there, with the wound pressed against that floor. Can almost feel contamination climbing gaily into the cut like a day out. It hurts, really. That’s the main thing. Could think straight if it didn’t hurt so.
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