The Shell House

by Linda Newbery

  Alex had Died of Wounds.

  Alex was buried in a shallow grave near mine-workings.

  Alex was nowhere.

  Alex had gone, and God had not kept his bargain.

  God, if he had listened at all, had shown Edmund that he would not be bargained with. He had taken revenge on Alex—not just by letting him die, but by making him suffer a protracted, agonized death. Reducing him, at the end, to something less than human: a tormented animal, twisted and distorted with pain. Surviving the first night against all expectations, Alex had lasted two more, merely to give Edmund false hope and to endure two days and nights of torture from his internal injuries. Unable to bear it, Edmund had begged the nurse for morphine until at last Alex, never once recognizing him, had slipped away to wherever he was now.

  ‘His suffering’s over now,’ the nurse had said, soft-voiced, drawing the sheet over Alex’s face.

  Somehow, in that squalid front-line hospital that reeked of pus and excrement and disinfectant, she managed to keep herself neat, her apron and cuffs shining white. Edmund looked at her through a dazzle of tears. She might as well have been speaking Chinese for all the sense her words made to him.

  At the burial service he stood rigid and cold, unable to let himself think or feel. Six others were buried at the same time: two officers, three privates and a sergeant. A brief, impersonal prayer did for all. When it was finished Edmund was overcome by a fit of shuddering, feverish and violent. Back in the dug-out, Faulkner brought him hot coffee laced with whisky. Afterwards he drank the best part of a bottle of whisky, seeking oblivion, and found it temporarily in a drunken sleep.

  For the next interminable days he was half-mad with grief. People spoke to him and he did not hear. He felt his eyes rolling in their sockets like marbles, his brain was a scrambled mess of disconnected wires. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. He courted death: he took risks, stuck his head above the parapet, waiting for a German sniper to despatch him, sending him after Alex. No rifle-crack obliged. He was sentenced to live, if this could be called life. He must continue to fight a war whose outcome meant nothing to him. He would gladly have welcomed the chance to accompany his unit into some hopeless, doomed attack that would obliterate the lot of them. A futile death would be the fitting end to his futile life.

  After a few days of this, Captain Greenaway called Edmund into his dug-out and told him to remember his responsibilities. ‘I know you’ve taken Culworth’s death very hard, as indeed we all have. He was one of our best officers, and I liked him immensely. But you can’t let yourself dwell on it. You’ve become slack in your duties—you’re letting your men down. They need leadership, not this mawkish lingering on something that can’t be changed.’

  Put this behind you. Be a man. Smarten up. Easy commands; impossible to obey. The stark fact of Alex’s death was constantly before him; there was nothing else. After Alex, an empty void, an airless vacuum. What was the point of going on breathing? Yet he must, because his body stubbornly insisted on taking in oxygen, circulating blood, repairing damaged cells. Was it possible simply to will yourself to die, tell your body to stop functioning? On the front line he had seen how vulnerable human flesh was: how blood, brains, intestines could be spilled and scattered, how fit young bodies could quickly become festering flyblown gobbets for rats to feed on. A shell-blast, a bullet, a bayonet wound could do that. How could his own body remain healthy, oblivious to his reeling brain?

  Since God had let him down, Edmund would believe in Alex. Cling to him. Remember every word he had said, every look, every touch. God had not agreed to the bargain and Edmund was freed from his part in it. If God had obliged, he would be faced with the impossibility of keeping his promise. He now had no choice to make, and permission to love Alex for ever. He felt ashamed of how easily he had been tricked into betrayal in a moment of blind repentance. It was another instance of God’s cruelty.

  Here at Graveney it was as painful to remember Alex alive as it was to think of his miserable death. The greening fields and trees reminded Edmund of the week they had spent at the farmhouse in Picardy, talking of their future. He wandered along to the Pan statue. Pan, on his pedestal, raised his pipes to his lips; around him cavorted three naked infants carrying a garland of leaves. As a child Edmund had liked Pan, with his dancing goat legs and the two small horns sticking out of his hair. He had pretended to hear Pan’s flutey music, had looked out of his bedroom window in summer dusks, imagining he might see the god and his cherubic attendants leap off their pedestal to cavort round the fountains and flower-beds. Pan had been more interesting than God; he had more fun, and made no demands. Now he was frozen in a dance of pointless merriment, mocking Edmund and his sorrow, as everything seemed to.

  His parents, inevitably, had decided to add to his torment by arranging a dinner party for this evening. He closed his eyes, thinking of the ordeal awaiting him. The Fitches, of course, were the principal guests. Philippa would be coiffed and simpering, her parents watching avidly for any symptom of concealed passion on Edmund’s part. His own mother had already hinted that this leave, coming unexpectedly, would be the ideal time to put things on a proper footing, as she expressed it. She meant that he should propose to Philippa, engage himself to her. It would give everyone something nice to look forward to as a change from this horrid war, she said. Not that the horrid war made much impression that Edmund could see on Graveney Hall. Dinner parties were a little less frequent, the range of dishes less extensive, and the table-talk was likely to refer to the latest Times headlines, with deferential nods towards Edmund, representative of England’s brave soldiers; but otherwise daily life went on as normal, fixed in its routines. Other big houses had been transformed into convalescent hospitals, but Graveney Hall kept itself aloof, isolated on the edge of the forest like a remnant of a past age. The century was moving on, the war taking place out of Graveney’s sphere.

  Edmund would not marry Philippa, would not sire an heir for Graveney. He had been released from his duty, and Alex had been the price. But only he and God knew that.

  Slowly, reluctantly, he walked across the garden and up the steps, indoors and upstairs, though he could hear the voices of guests in the drawing room, where they had gathered to drink sherry. In his room he looked at himself in the cheval mirror, straightened his tie, gazed into the frightening blanks of his own eyes. Then he lay on his bed and took out his pocket-book, unwrapping it from the scrap of oilskin he used to protect it from dampness. Tucked inside the notebook he kept the letters Alex had written him. There were not many, as for most of their time they had been together with no need to write letters, though sometimes in the front line, cramped and constrained by the presence of others, they had written notes and slipped them into each other’s hands or pockets. Alex’s crumpled notes, too, were in the notebook. It had occurred to Edmund that if he were killed, these letters and notes, plainly love-letters, would be sent home along with his other belongings, and his secret would be known; but he could not bear to part with them, and that meant always carrying them on his person, since there was nowhere safe to hide them. Now they were his most precious possessions.

  He knew their contents almost by heart. Alex was there in the sweep of black ink, in the splaying of fountain-pen nib, in the characteristic letter gs, in the swoop-tailed capital A with which he signed himself. Among the letters there was a poem, closely-written on a sheet of lined paper, which Alex had copied out and given him last Christmas Eve.

  ‘I read this in The Times last year, before I knew you,’ Alex had told him. ‘I think you will like it.’

  The poem was entitled The Oxen, and was by the novelist Mr Thomas Hardy:

  Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.

  ‘Now they are all on their knees,’

  An elder said as we sat in a flock

  By the embers at hearthside ease.

  We pictured the meek mild creatures where

  They dwelt in their strawy pen,

  Nor did it oc
cur to one of us there

  To doubt they were kneeling then.

  So fair a fancy few would weave

  In these years! Yet, I feel,

  If someone said, on Christmas Eve,

  ‘Come; see the oxen kneel

  In the lonely barton in yonder coomb

  Our childhood used to know,’

  I should go with him into the gloom,

  Hoping it might be so.

  When he had first unfolded it, conscious of Alex’s eyes on him, waiting for a response, Edmund read the poem three times: for himself, for Alex, for Alex wanting to share it with him. He tried not to notice a small twinge of resentment: Alex was giving him Mr Hardy’s poem to show him the work of a real poet, to point out the inadequacies of his own verses.

  ‘Yes, it’s very fine,’ he agreed. ‘Why do you like it so much?’

  They were in the reserve trench, leaning against the parapet in the chilly grey dawn. Somewhere bacon was frying.

  ‘Because Thomas Hardy obviously thinks as I used to about God.’ Alex was banging his arms against his sides to keep warm. ‘He can’t really believe in him, but would willingly accept proof if it were offered. Do you know, the first time I read those last lines they sent a shiver down my spine.’

  Edmund looked at him. ‘Of fear?’

  ‘No. Of wanting.’

  ‘You want to believe, like he does? What does Karl Marx have to say about that?’

  ‘I did at the time I first read the poem. Not now. So fair a fancy few would weave, in these years . . . Thomas Hardy must have meant all this —’ Alex waved a gloved hand in the direction of No-Man’s-Land’— as well as advances in scientific knowledge. The war makes it impossible to believe, even for those who did before. There’s no God. There’s only humans and what they do to each other.’

  ‘Unless you come across oxen kneeling at midnight. Perhaps we could go and look for some tonight. Would that convince you?’

  ‘Front-line duties don’t stop for Christmas, unfortunately.’

  ‘But if—?’

  ‘If we trooped off to some cowshed and found oxen kneeling in the straw? No. It wouldn’t convince me. I’d just think they were chewing the cud. It’s a fairy-tale, as Hardy implies. A nice one, but still a fairy-tale. I’d need better proof than that.’

  Alone in his bedroom Edmund closed his eyes, hearing Alex’s voice, seeing the warmth of his smile, the dazzle of his glance, then opened them to the renewed shock of his absence. Every time the same punch of loss, the same return to emptiness. He refolded the paper, then looked at his own Caryatid poem, which Alex would never see. He spent a few moments frowning at the troublesome third line, then gave up with a gesture of frustration. What did it matter?

  What did anything matter?

  He had asked for proof and none had been given. Had Mr Hardy made a similar bargain with God—show me kneeling oxen on Christmas Eve and I’ll believe? And had God obliged, though he had failed to oblige now? It made a better poem with the question unanswered, but now Edmund could only remember what Alex had said: There’s no God. No proof. No reason. No logic. No justice. No love. God was a fairy-tale: father-figure, guardian, all-potent giant, watcher, creator, delusion, fictional character in an age-old story, filler of a gap. Imagined answerer of questions that had no answers. All man’s needs rolled into one. But no more real than Pan, or Venus, or Apollo. Edmund thought: I tried to bargain with a non-entity. Alex died. Oxen do not kneel except for reasons of their own.

  He felt oddly detached from himself. He watched himself, neatly dressed, hair combed, going down for dinner: down to the panelled drawing room, where drinks were set out on a polished table. He watched himself submit to being greeted, admired and fussed over. It was better this way, too painful to be properly in his body.

  ‘And of course Philippa’s been so looking forward to seeing you,’ Mrs Fitch gushed.

  Philippa came forward, smiling shyly. She had on a green dress with a V-neck that showed a lot of creamy skin, and wore an apricot-coloured hothouse flower in her hair. She held out a hand to Edmund; he took it, gave a curt bow, made the briefest of enquiries about her health and turned away to join his father and hers, who were standing by the large east window discussing the uprising in Russia earlier in the spring and whether it would lead to a ceasefire between Russia and Germany. He sensed his mother’s reproachful look and Philippa’s disappointment. A few moments later he heard Philippa chatting to Mrs Winthrop, with false brightness, about her voluntary work at a Red Cross canteen.

  His mother came over to the window, bringing him a glass of sherry. ‘You’ll take Philippa in to dinner, of course,’ she instructed him in an undertone.

  All this ridiculous formality! Each woman had to be escorted the few yards to the dinner table by a previously allocated male, as if she might lose her way unaided. He drank his sherry in one gulp and thumped down his glass. Whisky was what he needed, a good double tot of it, not this sweet stuff. His mother fixed him with a warning look.

  He performed his duty of settling Philippa in her chair and sat gloomily in his adjacent place. Food appeared in front of him, and wine in a cut crystal glass. God, how tedious! He toyed with his dinner, barely speaking. He was aware of Philippa to his right, pale-faced, clearly upset but doing her best not to show it, and of his mother’s frequent glances from the end of the table. On Edmund’s left sat Mrs Winthrop, who was twittering on about some nephew of her sister-in-law’s who was an officer in the Epping Foresters and just might have come across Edmund at the training camp in Étaples. As she was one of those speakers who rarely gave pause for an answer, Edmund let her ramble without paying much attention. Finding his wine glass empty, he nodded to the manservant, who came over and refilled it. A snatch of Mr Fitch’s conversation with his father at the head of the table reached his ears: ‘. . . might be over by this Christmas, God willing, now the Americans are joining us.’

  Edmund leaned across Mrs Winthrop. ‘So fair a fancy few would weave in these years . . .’

  ‘What was that, my boy?’

  ‘I said, So fair a fancy few would weave in these years.’ It was a tongue-twister.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t catch your meaning.’ Mr Fitch’s big, good-natured face was creased up in puzzlement. How red his nose was, Edmund noticed; studded with large pores like a strawberry with its pips.

  ‘I mean that God is not willing. God takes no interest. I think you must believe in fairy-tales, sir—the American army swooping to our rescue like the genie of Aladdin’s lamp. Has it not occurred to you that the Americans will take many months to train, let alone to arrive in France, by which time hundreds of thousands more will have been thrown into the slaughter?’ Edmund paused, aware of the startled silence that hung over the table; everyone was looking at him. He swallowed. ‘God has nothing to do with it, since there isn’t a God. We’ll just fight it out till there’s no-one left alive to fight, and then the politicians can pick over the remains.’

  ‘Isn’t that rather defeatist?’ Mr Fitch said.

  Oh, observant! Edmund broke a few grapes from the bunch on a silver platter. He saw his father’s outraged expression, but his mother was first to speak.

  ‘I’m afraid Edmund’s been under a lot of strain,’ she announced, with a brittle smile. ‘I do wish we could keep him here at home for another week. It’s such a short leave.’ She turned brightly to Mrs Winthrop. ‘Have you heard from Lady Cumnor at all?’

  Philippa plucked at Edmund’s sleeve. He turned, saw her pale anxious face, her eyes shining. ‘I’m so sorry, Edmund,’ she whispered.

  He swallowed. ‘For what?’

  ‘That you’re so . . . upset. Bitter. I wish I could help.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘My letters.’ She spoke so quietly that he almost had to lip-read. He saw Mrs Fitch looking at them, her flabby, double-chinned face softening into an indulgent smile. That’s better, she was clearly thinking. God! All these useless, ugly, over-fed people�
�what gave them a right to live when Alex had died? Why did he have to exhaust himself being polite to them?

  ‘My letters,’ Philippa repeated in a whisper. ‘I wondered if you’d received them.’

  ‘Oh, I received them.’ Her tedious letters, week after week. Elegantly written on high-quality paper, discreetly perfumed. Solicitous, understated, clearly waiting for the merest hint of encouragement from him to become more intimate.

  ‘You never answered.’ She had a way of looking at him from under her eyelashes, doe-eyed. Presumably she thought it was appealing.

  Edmund fiddled with a grape-stalk. ‘No. I never answered for the very good reason that I’ve nothing whatever to say to you.’

  Philippa’s hand flew to her lips; she gazed at him, stricken. Edmund’s words had unfortunately dropped into a pause in several conversations; he had spoken more loudly and certainly more harshly than he had intended. Everyone was looking at him. He saw his mother’s mouth open slightly; for once, the smoothing-over, perfect-hostess remark eluded her.

  His father spoke first. ‘Edmund! Have you taken leave of your senses? I insist you apologize.’

  ‘Apologize for what? For speaking the truth?’ The pressure in his head was unbearable. ‘Can’t any of you tell the truth? Why don’t you come out with it, instead of manipulating me? Why must you keep pushing, nudging, insinuating? Can’t you leave me to myself?’

  Abruptly he stood up, knocking his plate and fruit-knife to the floor and his chair tipping; Philippa’s glass of dessert wine poured its contents into her lap. She moved her chair back from the table with a cry of alarm, colliding with Edmund, who pushed her roughly back into her place. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, recollecting himself, giving a mocking little bow to the table at large, ‘but I must go outside and get some air. Please excuse me.’

  He blundered out, seeing his mother rise to follow him, and his father restraining her. He heard her start to speak, her voice unsteady: ‘I’m so very sorry. Edmund’s really not quite himself . . .’