by Anna Hope
“And was it? Constructive?”
He shakes his head. “I was already older than most of the other men. Only by three years or so, but I felt ancient. The only thing that I wanted was to get back out into the world again. So the minute war broke out I hassled for a commission. I wanted to get to Jerusalem. Thought there was a good chance a third front would open up there. And so I pushed for that.” He grimaces suddenly. “Does that sound terribly cynical?”
She shakes her head. “Did you get there?”
“No. Strings were pulled, but the wrong ones, and I ended up on the Western Front.”
“Unlucky.”
“Perhaps.”
“Where were you?”
“Messines first. That’s where I got the gas. They sent me home for a few months after that. The leg happened in ’16.”
“And—how?” She doesn’t quite know how to ask.
He looks down at the cigarette in his hand, as though surprised to see it still there. He takes a swift, shallow drag. “I remember nothing at all of the shell. When I woke in the hospital and they told me the leg had gone I didn’t believe them at first. I could still feel it. I can still feel it now, sometimes. It’s—strange. And then”—a line appears in his brow—“all I could think of was those men. Standing at street corners with a crutch, and a tin. The fact of never climbing again. Perhaps not being able to walk. And I think I wanted to die.”
He says it matter-of-factly. She likes him the more for it.
“Then—that changed, too, and I felt … I’m not proud of it, but I felt relief.”
“Yes.” She leans forward.
“And then, when the relief had faded, I was overwhelmed with—”
“With guilt.”
He looks up at her.
“I’m sorry,” she says, drawing back, coloring. “Putting words into your mouth.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “You’re right.”
But it is as if some delicate membrane has broken, and sound floods her ears. The pub is busy, the air thick with smoke, men talking loudly on the tables on either side.
“I should be going,” says Robin, draining the last of his drink.
She has a fleeting vision of him, at home. Living alone? What is his home like? Suddenly she doesn’t want him to go. “Where do you live?” she says.
He looks surprised. “Hampstead,” he says with a smile. “The cheaper bit. Further from the Heath.”
She nods, unable to think of anything more to say.
They pull on their coats. He stands back to let her pass, and they walk side by side toward the door. Night has fallen properly now on the street outside. The air carries the scent of leaves and evening fires.
“Well,” he says, smiling and putting on his hat. “Thank you for the drink.”
“It was a pleasure.” As she buttons her coat to her chin, she feels again that same hollow, racing panic that she had in the office. Is it a terror of being alone? How did it begin—this fear? It is her brother’s fault, she thinks; it is the things he said this afternoon. “Robin?”
“Yes?” He turns to her.
“That—Dixie band that you mentioned. Thursday, wasn’t it? Are you still going to hear them play?” She can’t believe she’s saying it. She can’t believe the words are actually coming out of her mouth. “Or have you—found someone to go with you yet?”
“Yes, I am.” He looks surprised, pleased. “And no. I haven’t, no.”
“Well, would you—I wonder? Perhaps I could come, after all?”
. . . . . . . . . . .
Ada weaves in and out through the scrubby stand of plane trees in the park. She skirts the cricket pitch, the grass roped off for the winter now, and when she reaches the crumbling brick of the far north wall, turns around and makes her way back again, in and out, in and out, her thoughts thrumming with her footsteps.
Ivy is selfish, selfish. There with her pieces of paper, with her maps of graveyards. These are the things of riches; Ivy is rich. It may well cost pounds to visit France, but if she knew that there was a patch of land that held the body of her son, she wouldn’t complain about money. She would save everything she had until she could go and visit it. Sit by that piece of grass. Put her hands to it.
It is the lack of a body.
If she had had that, at least.
When her father died, Ada was eight. She stood at the entrance to the downstairs room into which they’d moved him, staring in at where he lay on his back. He was a large man but looked small on the table, as though death had taken more than his life from him. Her mother asked Ada to boil a pail of water, fetch a washcloth and bring it to the room. “You can go now,” she said, touching her gently on the top of her head and closing the door. But Ada stayed and listened, her ear pressed up against the wood. She could hear the dipping of the cloth in water, the small sounds of washing, and her mother, sobbing quietly. When she came back out, her mother’s face was calm, as though it, too, had been washed clean. Even then, Ada could see there was sense in that.
Not like this, though; not this … absence. No body and no grave.
A gust threatens to take her hat, and she clamps it down on to her head, as damp, sticky leaves whirl and eddy in the air. There are odd figures scattered in the dusk: dog walkers, people coming home from work. Jack may be among them. She turns back, heading for the north end of the grass where there are only the trees.
If she had had Michael’s body at home, then she would have washed it. However injured, however broken, she would have washed him, gently, as she did for him when he was a baby, when he was a boy. And if not that—if that last rite is to be denied to her, and to all of them, all the mothers, wives, sisters, lovers—then to know where the body lies in the ground at least.
It is the least that they are due.
The wind whips her hair across her face.
Why did Ivy’s daughters not get her a ticket to France instead of those stupid, ill-fitting teeth? Why will they not go with her to the burial on Thursday, if that is what she wants? Those silly, preening girls.
She is being unfair. She knows she is. She knows she should leave it. That Ivy is right. That Jack is right, that she should stop picking, stop scratching at this wound that she cannot let heal. But he will not let her. Her son will not let her. It is as though he is pulling at her, tugging at her sleeve, as he used to when he was a little boy.
She comes to a stop, the only figure on this patch of grass, where the trees are purple against the sky. The first lights are coming on in the houses alongside the park. Shapes are moving at the windows, the women at work in their kitchens, preparing the evening meal for their families, for their children, for their men. It is odd, standing here, looking from the outside, at the rhythms and routines of life. It seems suddenly so clear. Some contract has been broken. Something has been ruptured. How have they all agreed to carry on?
She should go inside. She should make some food for their dinner, or there will be nothing to eat for the second night in a row. But at the thought of it, of her and Jack facing each other, silent across the kitchen table, she could scream.
Why doesn’t one of them do something about it? Just stand up and shout into the silence, “That’s it! I’m not doing it anymore. Say the unsayable, release the charges, let the explosions blast it all away.
But then what? Where would she go? Nowhere. There is nowhere else to go at all.
She makes her way out of the darkened park, turning left down her road, feeling life claim her with each step. In the kitchen she wipes her face with her sleeve, takes a couple of dirty potatoes from the pantry and begins scrubbing them, hard. There’s a knock at the front door. She ignores it. Whoever it is knocks again, louder this time, and she is forced to give up and go out into the hall.
It is Ivy, wind-blustered, standing on the step. “Can I come in?”<
br />
“Why?”
“I’m sorry, Ada.”
“All right. You don’t need to come in to tell me that.” She goes to close the door.
Ivy puts a hand out to stop her. “She lived up in Walthamstow. An ordinary house. Ordinary street. Can I come in, Ada? Please?”
They go into the kitchen. Ada crosses her arms over her chest.
“Go on, then. What did she do? How did she do it?”
“I’m not sure.” Ivy hovers, nervous. “She—just—asked me to take something along: a photograph of Joe and then … something that had meant something to him. I didn’t know what to take. I scratched about for ages trying to think. In the end I took an old bit of cloth he’d had when he was little. He used to drag it around with him for years.”
“I remember that.”
“You remember?” Ivy’s face softens. “If I ever washed it he would cry and cry. I didn’t have the heart to take it off him. Anyway, I’d kept a bit of it all this time. Had it in the Bible for years.” She gives a rueful laugh. “Never took it down to read it, so that was all right. I felt a bit daft, I can tell you, sitting there in her parlor, bringing it out of the bag.”
“And what did she do with it?”
“I think she just—sat with it there in her hands. Held it for a bit. And then … she started to say things.”
“What sort of things?”
But it is as though whatever energy Ivy has mustered for this has gone, and she is sagged, finished now. “Oh, goodness, Ada. I don’t know. I can hardly remember, honestly. Here.” She steps forward, handing over a piece of paper.
Ada takes it; there’s an address written on it in a small, careful hand.
At the door, Ivy turns back. “I will say one thing, though,” she says. “After I went, I got a letter the next week, telling me they’d found Joe’s body. Telling me where he was.”
Ada looks up, her pulse racing.
“They’d identified him from the chains round his neck.”
She nods. “Thank you.”
“Here.” Ivy crosses the room and pulls Ada toward her, pressing her against her chest in an awkward hug. Ada can smell the wet wool of her cardigan, the soft cleanness of her friend’s skin. Ivy steps back, gripping her hands. “Come with me on Thursday. It’ll be good for you. For all of us. Might put a few things to rest.”
“I’m sorry, Ivy.” She pulls away. “I’m just—not sure I can.”
“Well.” Ivy nods. “You take care of yourself, won’t you?”
“Yes.” Ada fingers the thin piece of paper in her hands. “I will.”
. . . . . . . . . . .
Even with her old tam-o’-shanter on, Hettie’s head feels different: the skin more alive, as though her nerve ends are exposed. And under her coat she can feel the dress, the weight of it somehow reassuring and terrifying all at the same time. She can’t quite believe she is here, could almost imagine it were a different street altogether, were it not for that strange blue bulb and the bronze plaque above the door.
She hopes she has timed it right.
She didn’t go home after her visit to the barber’s but went straight to Di’s instead, who squealed and flung open the curtains and made her turn around and show herself from every angle and finally pronounced her hair utterly killing, then helped her bandage her breasts so they looked as flat as they ever have in her life. Di had to go to work then, and Hettie sat and waited in her flat, smoking too many of Di’s cigarettes, her hand constantly straying to the newly shaved V at the nape of her neck, stroking it one way and then the other, standing up every five minutes to check her reflection in the mirror, to adjust the dress, until nine o’clock came, and she slipped her old coat on and pulled her old hat over her hair, and went to the tube.
When she emerged at Leicester Square it was a quarter to ten—way too early, since she and Di had agreed she had to be late: You don’t want to wait in the club on your own do you? You know what people will think of that!
So she walked a few steps down from the tube, self-conscious in the crowds of chattering people coming out of theaters, milling on the pavements, and eventually ducked into a small café, where she sat nursing a cup of tea while the sad-eyed waiter wiped smeared fingerprints from the glass shelves and stacked cake stands in the sink. At twenty past ten he turned to her. “Sorry, love,” he said, folding his cloth with a weary motion of his hands. “Now I really have to get home.”
She carried her empty cup and saucer to him and caught sight of herself in the glass counter. She looked terrified.
“Are you all right? You look ever so pale.”
She swallowed. “I’m fine.”
But she felt anything but fine leaving the lights of the Charing Cross Road behind and coming down this street alone. Even though it was earlier than last time, the street was still deserted, the only sign of life that eerie blue bulb above the door.
And now here she is.
She takes a breath, lifts her hand, and knocks. The hatch is opened; the same oblong of light appears. “Yes?”
She clears her throat, trying to steady her voice. “I’m here to meet Ed.”
A pause, and then, “Ed who?”
Oh, God. She hasn’t thought of this. Why hasn’t she thought of this?
But the door opens nonetheless and she edges around it to stand in front of a different doorman this time, older, suspicious, with a thin, ratty face. “How old are you, then?” he looks her up and down.
“I’m—twenty-two.”
The man snorts. “If you’re twenty-two, I’m forty, love.”
Hettie thinks longingly of Graham, smiling from his soft-lit cubbyhole. She’d even eat one of his meat lozenges to see him now.
“You can’t go in there unless you’re with a member. We get a lot of girls …” he leans forward. “Trying their luck.”
She tightens her belt, knowing what he might think she is. She had thought to guard against this—that’s why she’s here so late. But it looks as though she’s gone and mistimed it after all, and the night is over before it has even begun.
Then she has an idea. “Can I see?” she asks. “In the book?”
He looks unconvinced, but slides it in front of her.
She can feel him watching her as she traces the line of signatures with her fingertip. No Ed, or Edward, or any other name that might fit. Damp springs into her palms. Was that even his real name? She looks back up at him. “I’m sorry. Do you mind telling me the time?”
He looks at his wristwatch. “It’s half past ten.” He turns the book back around to face him. “Sorry, love, looks like you’re out of luck.”
The door opens behind her, and she turns, her heart in her throat—but it is just a couple, the woman wrapped in fur and laughing, red lips wide as a cat’s. The man leans down to sign them in, and then they are gone again, disappearing with a clatter of heels down the stairs.
“You still here?” The doorman shakes his head. “Listen, love. Do yourself a favor. Go home.”
She steps forward, hands in fists. “Is there any chance he could have come in here earlier?” She’s not quite sure what is making her so bold.
The man straightens out his mustache with his fingers. “Well, you’re nothing if not determined, I’ll give you that. What’s so special about this Ed, then?”
She doesn’t answer, but he searches her face, and whatever he sees there softens his own.
“All right,” he sighs. “Let’s have a look.” He licks his finger, turning back the pages of the book. “Right, then. This is for this afternoon. But don’t tell anyone I’ve let you or I’ll lose my bleeding job.”
She leans forward, following the list of names, and halfway down the page she sees it—Edward Montfort. Time In: Two p.m.,—and underneath the column where the Time Out is marked: nothing. “That must be him.” She p
ushes the book back toward him, her heart battering against her ribs.
The man peers at the signature. “Well, looks like he’s been in here all day.” He straightens up, concerned. “You sure it’s wise to go and meet him, Miss?”
She can’t go home. Not now. Not after all this.
“Go on,” he says, jerking his head behind him. “You can send him up to tell me you’re all right. That’s if he can make it out on his own two feet.”
There’s the same dank smell on the stairs she remembers from before, but what was exciting on Saturday with Di is threatening now, seedy. What on earth was she so sure of earlier? She could be at home, resting, on her only night off this week, instead of here, walking down these stairs … toward—
Crackpot
Limehouse.
White slave trader.
You
silly,
silly,
girl.
No roar greets her when she opens the door. No heat and sound and fug. The club is half-empty. A different band is going through the motions on the stage; there’s no Negro singer this time, only a pasty white man with an unconvincing drawl, and a few desultory couples marking time on the floor. There’s no sign of Ed on any of the sparsely populated tables, and suddenly, with a fist of fear around her heart, she cannot even remember his face. Hettie stands at the door, hands still thrust in her pockets, and is ready to turn around and leave when a clutch of people between her and the bar shift and disperse, and suddenly there he is, sitting alone at a table in the corner, not far from the band, slightly slumped, his left hand wrapped around a glass, almost as though it were holding him up.
She steps toward him, then hesitates, caught in the middle of the floor.
He looks so sad.
Just then he looks up and sees her, and his face changes in an instant, as he lifts his hand and pushes himself to his feet. “My anarchist!” he says, stepping out from behind his table. “You came!”