The Lie

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘I should think this was a nice place once,’ said Frederick, looking about.

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ I said. ‘It’d have been full of the Frogs, selling one another watered-down vin blanc and offering their sisters for jig-a-jig tray bong.’

  ‘They’re only doing that for the duration, my dear BB.’

  ‘Roll on, duration.’

  The wind was from the east. Frederick listened, out of habit, as the firing became sporadic. It was a quiet day, or at least it seemed so from here. And we were here, where the loudest thing was the noise of rain on the few dead leaves that had clung on through winter. You couldn’t join up the two things, there and here: they were so absolutely different. If one was real, then the other couldn’t be.

  Frederick looked around the orchard with disfavour. That muscle in his cheek was jumping again. ‘You’re right, BB,’ he said. ‘It’s a damned dismal spot.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ I said. Suddenly, it was important that Frederick thought that. He seemed far away and sunk in gloom. We couldn’t have him leading the raid in that state of mind. As if he caught my thoughts, he came to himself. Briskly, he said, ‘You ought to get into a sniper section.’

  ‘I’m better off as I am.’

  ‘Are you? Perhaps you are. You know that poem you were telling me in the garden? The one about the sea? Do you remember any more of it?’

  ‘It’s long,’ I said, although I knew every line.

  ‘Is it? Tell me some of it, then. You don’t know how lucky you are, you old blowviator, carrying a library around in your head the way you do.’

  ‘You never went near your father’s library, if you could help it.’

  ‘Yes, but out here— You want different things, I suppose that’s what it is. Can you believe that the harbour still looks the same? I try to picture it, but I can’t get the colour of the water right. It goes as murky as the slop under the duckboards.’

  ‘I don’t think about it.’

  ‘That’s the best way, I suppose. But I can’t help thinking of things.’ He pulls restlessly at a branch and a shower of drops comes down on us. I duck, and he laughs, but it’s not a real laugh. His eyes don’t change, and they are fixed on me. ‘Can you tell me those lines again?’ he asks.

  I know which one he means, and I don’t pretend not to understand him.

  ‘Ah, love,’ I say, and I have to stop because the lines are so strong in me. I look down at the wet grass, and then up at Frederick again.

  ‘Ah, love, let us be true

  To one another! for the world, which seems

  To lie before us like a land of dreams,

  So various, so beautiful, so new,

  Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

  Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

  And we are here as on a darkling plain

  Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

  Where ignorant armies clash by night.’

  When I’ve finished, we are both silent for a while. Then:

  ‘That’s us,’ says Frederick.

  I wait. My heart thuds heavily.

  ‘Ignorant armies clash by night.’

  My whole body goes slack with disappointment. ‘Yes,’ I say.

  Frederick looks around the orchard. Daylight is seeping away. Another raw dusk, another night. The raid. I need to be with the others. Sometimes it’s lonelier just being with one other person than being alone. I’m tired of poems. Suddenly I’m sick of the whole crew of them: Matthew Arnold, Tennyson, Coleridge, Lord Byron, Christina Rossetti, the lot. The trenches of my mind are crammed with poets, squatting in their dugouts, not to be moved. I want Christina Rossetti up on the fire-step. And then I hear Frederick laughing, real laughter this time, warm and amused.

  ‘What are you muttering about now, you old blowviator?’

  ‘Christina Rossetti.’

  ‘You looked as if you wanted to shoot somebody. Who the hell’s she? Sounds like a spy. Beats me, how you carry them all in your head.’

  ‘They were never in France.’

  ‘So much the better for them.’ He looks down at his watch. ‘I’ve got to get on. Shall we see each other? Of course we shall.’

  ‘We better bleddy well had, seeing as how you’re leading this raid. Sir.’ As soon as I’ve said it, I wish I hadn’t. He takes half a step backwards. I reach out, and get hold of his arm. ‘You picked the wrong line,’ I say. ‘You’ve got a terrible memory.’

  He’s quite still, his eyes on me. In me, I want to say. I don’t think anybody has ever looked into me like that. ‘You’re the one who’s got it wrong,’ he says. ‘I remember everything.’

  ‘Sir! Message from Captain Ferryman!’

  We didn’t see him coming. A runner all sopped with rain, panting as he crashes through the orchard gate. Young lad. Green.

  ‘I’d best be off,’ I say. ‘The boys are in the Cat Fur.’

  ‘Have one for me.’

  I don’t like leaving him. It’s because of the rain, the dankness of the orchard, the gunfire that never knows when to stop. I half wish that he could come to the Cat Fur with me, but of course it’s impossible. As if he knows what I was thinking, and doesn’t want me to pity him, he says quickly, ‘More bumf come up from Battalion HQ. Think yourself lucky you don’t have to read it.’

  I light the fire, mix oatmeal into water and add salt, then cook it carefully so it won’t catch. The saucepan is thin, almost worn out. There’s no change in the darkness yet, but I can tell that the dawn’s coming. Out of habit, I glance down at my wrist to register the exact time. Maybe Felicia’s awake. She doesn’t sleep well, she said. It’s because of waking in the night for Jeannie. And for Frederick too, I know that. You don’t get as thin as Felicia’s got because of a child. And then all of a sudden I realise that the loneliness in Felicia is the same as the loneliness I saw that day in Frederick. You’d think that the baby would have anchored her, but she’s adrift, just as he was. She wants to be with Harry and Frederick, even though she knows it’s wrong and she ought not to want it. That’s why the baby goes so often to Dolly Quick’s.

  I come to, and find myself standing stock-still, with Mary Pascoe’s wooden spoon in my hand and porridge dropping off it into the fire. The smell is awful. I want to go to Felicia. I want to hold her. Frederick said, ‘I remember everything.’ I went away. The runner came but I could have waited. I hear my own voice saying: The boys are in the Cat Fur, as if that was what mattered. Then I’m outside the Cat Fur. The windows are steamy with the rain and I can’t see in, but I open the door and the fug of heat grease boots smoke vin blanc and voices roaring Mop it down swallows me.

  Only three minutes have passed. I’ll eat my porridge and then scrub out the pot. Empty the latrine bucket, milk the goat, let the hens out into the run. I won’t go up to Venton Awen, in case Felicia comes while I’m not here. We can walk up to the farm together, and take the pony.

  Move the goat’s tether-post, oil the spade that I should have oiled yesterday before I put it away. Sweep out the cottage. By then surely she’ll be here.

  18

  And the coming wind did roar more loud,

  And the sails did sigh like sedge,

  And the rain poured down from one black cloud;

  The Moon was at its edge.

  AS SOON AS we go into the yard at Venton Awen, the collie bitch runs to me and buffets her head into my leg. Felicia shrinks back, and I remember how dogs scare her, in spite of her talk about wanting to get one. The Dennises never kept any.

  ‘She’s all right. You’re a soft old thing, aren’t you?’ I give the collie my hand to fondle with her tongue.

  ‘Do you know her, then?’

  ‘She was out on the coast path the other day, and she followed me home. She’s a wanderer, not a guard dog. Here, give her your hand. She won’t hurt you.’ Reluctantly, Felicia yields. I steady her hand, as the collie bitch sniffs but doesn’t lick it. ‘Now she knows you,�
� I say.

  There are a couple of other dogs barking at us from the yard, chained up I should say, for they don’t run out. The back door opens, and out bounces a red-faced girl in a blue apron. She has a scrubbing brush in her hand and it looks as if she’s scrubbed her own face with it before she started on the floors. I don’t know her. She looks at me and then at Felicia, and says something in a high, strange voice. I can’t make out the words, but Felicia understands.

  ‘She’s asking if we want to see Mrs Paddick.’

  ‘Ask her if Geoff Paddick’s at home.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her,’ says Felicia sharply, but the girl isn’t looking at me. She’s watching Felicia’s face intently, and now I understand. She’s trying to read her lips.

  ‘Mr Paddick,’ says Felicia slowly, distinctly. ‘Is he at home?’ The girl nods several times, very fast, and bounces back into the house. ‘She’s deaf,’ says Felicia.

  ‘I know.’

  We glance at each other. Felicia’s wearing a shabby dark green riding habit which looks as if it came out of the Ark. Her hair is brushed smooth, and there are no red sparks in it today.

  I hope it’ll be Geoff who comes out, and not old Mrs Paddick or one of his sisters. They’ll be bound to talk of my mother. The girl takes her time, and we look about us, at the well-kept yard, the rowan, the fine square shape of the farmhouse. I think of my mother scrubbing here, as this girl is scrubbing now. I kneel down by the collie, to hide my face in talking to her.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Fearne,’ says Geoff Paddick, crossing the yard from the dairy. I straighten myself.

  ‘Felicia,’ she says, putting out her hand to him, and she smiles.

  ‘How’s Jeannie?’

  The collie slinks behind me, pressing herself against the back of my knees.

  ‘She’s well, thank you.’

  ‘My mother wants you to bring her up here again one day, for tea. We’ve some new kittens.’

  Felicia smiles again, with a quick downward look. ‘She’d like that,’ she murmurs.

  ‘That’s settled, then.’

  He’d like it settled, I don’t doubt it. All those Paddicks’d be pleased as Punch. Albert House and ten thousand pounds, maybe more besides. Harry Fearne might have had Felicia first, but that would be a small price to pay. What does Geoff Paddick know? He stayed on the farm, eating bacon and lording it over his sisters. Now he thinks he can put out his hand and pluck what he wants.

  ‘Have you a pony we could hire for the day, Geoff?’ I ask him. ‘For Felicia.’ He looks at me sharply. He doesn’t like the thought of us going together, but equally he’d like to please Felicia.

  ‘You could borrow my sister Judith’s mare,’ he says, directly to Felicia. ‘You’re about the same height. I’ll get her saddled up for you.’

  And about half the weight. The Paddick girls are as square-built as their house. He doesn’t want to take my money. That’s something, from Geoff Paddick, who hasn’t let a brass farthing slip past him since he was old enough to grasp it. He turns and hollers back into the house: ‘Judith!’

  When Judith emerges from the dark innards of the house, she’s big and raw-faced, her body hidden in a baggy tweed skirt and jacket. Grown into a woman since last I saw her. No, she tells us, the side-saddle’s gone. They gave it to the church sale.

  ‘We’d no more use for it. I’ll lend you a pair of Anne’s breeches, Felicia. You’re smaller than her, but with a belt, they’ll do.’ Her eyes size up Felicia quickly, as if she were livestock.

  ‘I can’t borrow your clothes,’ says Felicia.

  ‘Anne won’t care.’ She and Anne were always like twins; they did everything together. ‘You’d better come inside.’ Judith’s high colour flares, and I see that she is shy of Felicia, while wanting to please her brother.

  ‘We can put her up on Susan,’ says Geoff, and his sister nods, too quickly and emphatically, so that I guess she doesn’t really want Felicia on the mare. And yet she does want to like Felicia. Geoff dominates here, with the heavy Paddick looks that have come out well in him, but not in the girls.

  ‘Judith and Anne wanted to volunteer for a Remount Depot upcountry,’ says Geoff, with a bit of a laugh, once his sister and Felicia have gone.

  ‘And did they?’

  Geoff whistles softly through his teeth, shaking his head. ‘They’re dead nuts on little Jeannie. Want to get a Shetland pony for her to ride.’

  ‘And shall you allow it?’

  He looks at me, as if surprised. ‘They do as they like.’

  We keep on in silence. Dead nuts on little Jeannie. The child will be for all of them, until the others come, Geoff’s children. His sisters won’t marry. I can think all this, and stand apart from it, as if it has nothing to do with me, and yet as soon as Felicia comes back, awkward in Anne’s breeches, my heart is hot for her. I could knock Geoff down for even thinking of her.

  ‘Judith’s awfully nice,’ says Felicia, once the brother and sister have gone off to saddle the mare.

  ‘Is she? He’s got her well trained, that’s for sure.’

  Geoff Paddick’s dad was a hard bugger, too. Felicia doesn’t see it. It’d be all soft, until the ring was on her finger. And what’s worse is that there’d be plenty who would reckon she’d done well for herself if she got Geoff Paddick, now there are so many girls without men to marry them.

  I am glad when we are out of the yard. The morning is bright and sharp, and when we come off the farm track on to the high road the mare’s hooves dance a little, as if she too is glad to stretch her legs. The high road unrolls, pale and quiet, although there are men working in the fields. On our right hand the land falls away westward, to the sea. I carry the canvas bag of food and drink that Felicia brought. Felicia reins the mare back to a walk, and I go at her side, like a groom, breathing in the smell of the mare, the open land, the catch of salt. There are violets and primroses along the stone hedges, and campion coming up among them. The mare slows to drop her dung, and Felicia peeps at me. That would have made us laugh, when we were little. I think how harmless the beast is, walking on the white road. A horse will walk anywhere you ask of it, or nearly. But when they smell death they can dig in their hooves.

  There’s Felicia’s left leg, in the clumsy breeches. She rides easily, without thinking about it. Her thin hands gather the reins just as they should. I watch her muscles flex, and then relax. Her knee is just right, against the mare’s flank, and her foot sits lightly in the stirrup. She told me once that she was put up on a pony before she was two years old, with the gardener holding the leading rein and taking her round and round.

  We walk on as if in a dream, almost without speaking. If a cart passes, we rouse ourselves to call a greeting. The sky is still blue, but it is skeining over with mares’ tails, and the sea has a dark, clear rim at its horizon.

  ‘I used to think I could see the rain before it fell,’ says Felicia.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I’d screw up my eyes – like this – and I’d see it thickening in the air, sometimes hours before. At least, I thought I could. And we had that piece of seaweed hung up, do you remember? If it turned limp then there was sure to be rain coming.’

  All rain meant then was the hiss of it on roof and windows; the battering of a gale; the shine of the cobbles early next morning. It meant a heavy canvas sack over my shoulders at work. It meant, if we were lucky, an hour in the potting shed while the gutter chuckled with overflow. If we had mud on our boots we scraped them clean on the door-scraper at the back door, before going into the kitchen for our dinners. On bad days, we took off our boots and went to the table in our stockinged feet.

  ‘I hate the noise of rain,’ I say.

  ‘It won’t fall before tonight,’ says Felicia. ‘We’ll be back home safe.’

  We clip on. I’ve almost forgotten where we’re going, and why. I went to Bass Head with Frederick. The day was so beautiful, but it’s just as lovely now. Nothing cares a bit that he’
s dead. He doesn’t take up an inch of soil. They ought to have put the graveyards of all the dead over here. They ought to have covered the farms and dug up the furze and foxgloves and had nothing but crosses as far as you could see. Miles and miles of them, going from town to town. Hasty wooden crosses like the ones we made, all leaning different ways from shell-blast. Bodies blown out of their graves.

  I lean my head in, against Felicia’s leg. The mare doesn’t like it: she snorts and tries to dance aside, but Felicia holds her still.

  ‘What are you doing, Daniel?’

  But the landscape dances too. Men are rising lazily out of their beds. They stretch their limbs, and the soil falls off them. The uniforms are unmarked. Their faces are round, and tanned with living in the open air. They stare about them. I am afraid that one of them will catch my eye and so I lean my face right into Felicia and the flank of the mare, and I shut my eyes, but they are still there. Puzzled, looking about them. They don’t know this place. I want them to go back. I want the earth to cover them. I want them to be blown to bits again if it only stops them coming on.

  ‘Daniel,’ says Felicia. ‘Daniel!’

  The mare has stopped. I pull myself away from her, and open my eyes. Everything is steady, and empty. There’s only a distant cart, pulling slowly uphill.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say to her. ‘I came over a bit queer, that’s all.’

  ‘We can go back if you’re not well. It doesn’t matter about going to Bass Head.’

  Of course we can’t go back. Felicia doesn’t understand.

  We leave the mare in a field at Bass Farm, then walk down the track until it narrows to a footpath. I carry the canvas bag, and a rolled-up blanket for us to sit on. It’s easy to miss the turn in high summer because then the bracken grows up over it, but now, in March, it’s obvious. Once it was a broad way, trodden by dozens of boots every morning and evening, before the mine closed. The tunnels ran out under the seabed. They say the men would stop for their croust and listen to the surge and drag of the tide far above them, but I don’t know that it’s true. Even with the pumps working day and night, the mine often flooded.