We That Are Left

by Clare Clark

  ‘Come back here,’ he murmured, but she shook her head, her nose brushing his skin as she moved down to kiss his stomach, her hand sliding into the vent of his pyjamas, and suddenly all the words were blown away in an explosion of sensation, his nerves like branches bursting into flower as she took him in her mouth and he cried out, raising himself from the pillow to gape at her as she looked up at him, his cock in her mouth, her mouth full of his cock, and he could not stop it, could not stop the rush that gathered in his stomach and roared through his pelvis, the glorious irresistible surge of it as it swept through him, the hot white blast of pure pleasure. He jerked, electrified, and was still. She smiled up at him. Her chin was smeared with his semen. She touched it, smoothing it away with her fingers, then raised them to her mouth and suddenly the nausea engulfed him, the spike pushing up into his throat, choking him, and he twisted away, his knees curling up towards his chest as he vomited yellow bile in a splattering stream onto the bedside rug.

  He told her it was the whisky. Perhaps it was. She was kind. She wiped up the worst of it and brought him more water and told him to stay in bed.

  ‘You can’t just walk out of here in your nightgown,’ he said. ‘What if someone sees you?’

  ‘I’m not as stupid as I look.’ She gestured at a pile of clothes on the tapestry chair by the door. ‘I thought ahead.’

  ‘You knew I’d let you stay.’

  ‘I hoped.’ She smiled, then wrinkled her nose wryly. ‘Of course, if I’d known about the whisky . . .’

  When she was dressed she sat down next to him on the side of the bed and stroked his shoulder. ‘Sleep. I’ll have Doris bring you an aspirin.’

  He caught her hand. ‘I’m sorry. I never meant . . .’

  ‘I know.’ She kissed him lightly on the cheek. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  ‘Wait.’ Pushing back the blankets he got out of bed and went to the chest of drawers. He took out the silk pouch. ‘We can’t wear them, I know, but I wanted you to have this.’ He shook out the rings and held the smaller one out to Phyllis. ‘One each.’

  She hesitated. Then she took it, turning it in her fingers. ‘They belonged to my parents,’ he said.

  ‘What does it say inside?’

  ‘Du allein. You alone.’

  ‘You alone.’ She looked at the ring and then at him. He smiled and, taking the ring from her, he slid it onto the third finger of her left hand. She looked at it and picked up the other ring.

  ‘Here,’ she said and he held out his hand so that she could put it on. The ring was too big. She smiled, entwining her fingers with his. He squeezed, then pressed her hand to his lips. Her skin smelled of him. He closed his eyes.

  He had chosen. There was no going back now.

  39

  Jessica wished Phyllis did not make Oscar so uncomfortable. Almost as soon as she had arrived he had withdrawn, retreating snail-like into his boyhood silence. At dinner Jessica had tried to bring him into the conversation, had asked lots of encouraging questions about his life at the University, but Oscar had answered in monosyllables. As for Phyllis she had been no help at all. Not for the first time Jessica had wondered if she had got it all wrong, if despite everything he was still the same infuriating weirdo he had always been, but she pushed the thought away. That kind of thinking could drive a person round the bend.

  On her way to breakfast she put her head around her father’s dressing-room door. When she saw Jessica the nurse smiled. Sir Aubrey, she said, had had a good night. The delirium had passed and his temperature was almost normal. Once the doctor had been, she hoped that he might be well enough to receive visitors.

  Stupid with relief Jessica went to the Chinese room to tell Phyllis. There was no answer when she knocked so she nudged open the door. The curtains were still drawn but the bed was empty, the covers thrown back. Jessica went downstairs to the breakfast room.

  ‘Is my sister up?’ she asked Doris but Doris only shook her head.

  ‘I’ve not seen her, miss.’

  ‘And Mr Greenwood?’

  ‘No, miss.’

  She ate her breakfast alone. She wished the others would come down. It was not right, to have good news and no one to tell. She wondered if she should cable her mother. If Father was better there would be no need for her to come. To her surprise, that too felt like a relief.

  Some time later the doctor came. Jessica waited while he went upstairs. Afterwards he kept an affronted distance, his hand clasped piously over his stomach as he reprised the nurse’s diagnosis. Jessica nodded and wondered for the tenth time that morning where Phyllis was and why on earth she had bothered to come home.

  ‘So it wasn’t pneumonia after all?’ she asked.

  The doctor stiffened. ‘But of course it was pneumonia. The excretions from the lungs were unmistakable. Your father has been very fortunate. He has recovered well. It is safe to say that the immediate danger is behind us.’

  ‘So I can see him?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I could stop you if I tried.’

  She laughed. ‘No, I don’t suppose you could.’

  When she pushed open the door her father was sitting up against a bank of pillows, his chin rimed with grey stubble. His good eye slid towards her. ‘Jes’ca,’ he whispered. Her heart lifted.

  ‘Good morning, Father.’ She smiled as she kissed his rough cheek. He smelled of laundry starch and old age. ‘The doctor says you’re much better.’

  He made a clumsy attempt at a nod.

  ‘Phyllis is here. She got back yesterday.’ His eye swivelled sideways. Jessica shook her head. ‘Not here in this room. She’ll come later. We’re not allowed to wear you out. Doctor’s orders.’

  ‘Osk. Wha’ Osk?’

  ‘Oscar’s here too. He came just as you asked. He’s been here all the time.’

  His good eye blinked. He said something she could not understand. She leaned closer as he tried again. It sounded like good boy. She wished he would rest. It was painful to see the effort it cost him to speak. In his scrawny neck the tendons stretched tight and white scum formed on the corners of his mouth.

  ‘I’m glad you asked him,’ she said. ‘He says you’ve been writing to each other, that you’ve been playing the game with him, the photograph game. He’s much better at it than me, it’s shaming. He knows so much about the house. So many stories, you wouldn’t believe. He’s almost as dreary about it as you.’ She smiled at her father. Tremblingly he raised his good hand towards her.

  ‘Jes’ca,’ he said.

  ‘I’m right here, Father.’

  ‘Lisn me.’ His hand fluttered. She took it. ‘I wan. Osk.’

  ‘You want to see him now? I’m not sure he’s up yet.’

  Her father tried to shake his head. ‘Gu boy. Alls gu boy.’ Always a good boy. The words were raw, clumsily shaped, each one pushed laboriously from his tongue. She had to strain to make sense of them. She took a handkerchief from the bedside table and tried to wipe his lips but he turned his head away, his good hand batting the air. ‘Jus lisn.’

  ‘I’m listening. I’m sorry.’

  Her father jerked forward, his hand reaching for hers. His grip was startlingly fierce and his bad eye gaped. ‘Gu husbn,’ he said. ‘Gu f’ you. F’ Melv.’

  Jessica did not answer. She stared down at his hand on hers. Good husband. She felt winded, numb with shock. She did not know why. It was not as though she had not thought the same thing herself. He squeezed her hand again. She stared at him stupidly.

  ‘Hap,’ he said. She shook her head. ‘Hap,’ he said again.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  His mouth worked, his tongue pushing up against the roof of his mouth. ‘Happy,’ he pushed out. ‘Osk.’

  ‘You want Oscar to be happy?’

  He frowned, frustration tugging at his forehead. ‘You,’ he said and perhaps it was an easier word to say because he said it very clearly. He closed his eyes. His breathing was laboured.

  ‘Father?’
/>   At the door the nurse cleared her throat politely. ‘Miss Melville? I don’t mean to impose but the Patient is still very weak. If we might let him rest?’

  ‘Father?’ She patted his hand but he did not open his eyes. Reluctantly Jessica nodded at the nurse.

  She went back downstairs. In the Great Hall a fire was blazing. She went into the dining room but there was no one there and on the table the breakfast china was untouched. Jessica felt a stab of resentment. Phyllis had no right to vanish so blithely when for all she knew Father had died in the night. Last night’s show of conscience in the bathroom had been just that, a show. Phyllis was good at that. She managed it so that everyone always thought of her as the good one, the considerate one, but the truth was she never considered anyone but herself. She was just clever enough to do it quietly and with a concerned expression. Even her nursing had been an excuse to run away from Ellinghurst and Eleanor. She had been running ever since. As for Oscar it was the first time since his arrival he had not been up before Jessica. She thought of the window seat behind the shutters in the library where he used to hide and wondered how long Phyllis meant to stay.

  There was a bowl of winter camellias on the table in the middle of the Great Hall, their white heads beginning to droop. Jessica fingered a bloom and several petals dropped onto the polished wood, their waxy tongues tipped with brown. She held them in her cupped hand. Will you, Jessica Margaret Crompton Melville, take this man to be your awfully wedded husband?

  ‘Good morning.’

  Phyllis stood in the doorway to the servants’ corridor. Jessica dropped the petals. ‘Is it? Still morning, I mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’

  ‘Actually I was talking to Dr Wilcox. He says Father is much better.’

  ‘Better? You think paralysed for life is better?’

  ‘According to Dr Wilcox his temperature is almost normal. That’s something to be grateful for, surely?’

  ‘He can’t move and he can barely get a word out. Just how grateful do you expect him to be?’ Phyllis’s bewildered expression only angered Jessica more. ‘You know what, Phyllis, everything’s fine. I’m sorry it was a wasted journey but you’re off the hook. You can go back to your tombs with a clear conscience.’

  ‘Why are you being like this?’

  ‘Like what, exactly?’

  ‘Like this. So angry with me.’

  ‘I’m not angry with you. Why would I be angry with you?’

  ‘I don’t know. Because I wasn’t here. Because you think you had to do this all by yourself.’

  ‘Because I think I had to? I did have to do it all by myself, Phyllis, just like I’ve been doing for years. You left, remember? You left and never came back.’

  ‘Nobody made you stay.’

  Jessica was silent. She crossed her arms. ‘Have you seen Oscar this morning?’

  ‘I don’t think he’s up. Doris said something about him having been sick in the night.’

  ‘Sick?’

  ‘That’s what she said. She said she took him an aspirin.’

  Jessica frowned. ‘Do you think I should telephone Dr Wilcox? I mean, what if it’s the flu or something? We can’t risk exposing Father to infection, not when he’s already so weak.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry. It’s probably just a hangover or something.’

  ‘From one glass of wine?’

  ‘Some people have no head for alcohol.’

  Jessica fiddled with the camellias, pretending to arrange them. More petals fell onto the table. She did not pick them up. ‘He loves this house, you know.’

  ‘Oscar or Dr Wilcox?’

  ‘When I told him it might have to be sold I thought he might cry.’

  ‘Perhaps there was something in his eye.’

  Jessica told her about the photograph game. ‘He knew them all. Many more than I did.’

  ‘Yes, well. He’s that kind of person, isn’t he? He notices things.’

  ‘He notices the things he cares about. Otherwise he’s completely oblivious.’

  There was a silence. ‘Have you had breakfast?’ Jessica asked.

  Phyllis shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You should let Doris know. Especially if Oscar’s not coming down. She’s left everything out.’ She drew a shape around the petals on the table with her fingertip. ‘He’s changed, you know. Oscar. He’s different.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘He used to be such a fearful drip.’

  ‘Was he? I don’t remember.’

  ‘That’s because you were a drip too.’ She laughed, ducking away from Phyllis’s mock swipe. ‘Actually, that’s not quite true. You were mostly just a swot. Oscar was a drip and a swot.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now, I don’t know, he’s . . . interesting. Funny even. Funny ha-ha, not funny peculiar the way he used to be. Father thinks the world of him.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘The thing is, Father . . .’ She shook her head. She longed to confide in someone but there was no point in trying to explain it to Phyllis. She would only tell Jessica that it was ignoble and shallow and selfish to choose a husband to safeguard a house when Jessica knew it was exactly the opposite. Phyllis claimed to be so principled but she would never understand that it was possible to love someone not exactly for themselves but for the good they could help you to do, that a large part of loving someone came from knowing that by loving them you were doing the right thing.

  ‘He might be awake,’ she said instead, picking a camellia petal and shredding it with her thumbnail. ‘You should go up.’

  Phyllis nodded but she did not go. She pressed her lips together, looking at Jessica as though she meant to say something.

  ‘What?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘Nothing. I’m just glad . . . never mind. You might want to ask Mrs Johns to check on Oscar. Just in case it is the flu after all.’

  Oscar came downstairs a little after midday. Phyllis was not yet back from her walk.

  ‘I’ve never known anyone go for so many walks,’ Jessica said. ‘It’s as though she’s afraid of being indoors.’

  Oscar smiled vaguely. Mrs Johns had said briskly that there was nothing wrong with him that fresh air and aspirin could not cure but his face was the colour of candle wax. It had a candle’s waxy sheen.

  ‘Are you sure you shouldn’t be in bed?’ she said but Oscar only shook his head and fiddled with something in his pocket. He seemed stupefied, only half there, but his face twitched and his leg jiggled ferociously up and down. The restlessness leaked from his skin, making the air prickle. It was as if he had snorted cocaine, Jessica thought, and pushed the thought away. The last person she wanted to think about was Gerald.

  ‘Father wants to see you,’ she said. The words seemed to startle him. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry. Of course.’

  Sir Aubrey’s room was warm and stuffy. It made Oscar’s head ache.

  ‘I’m very glad to hear you’re feeling better, sir,’ he said and Sir Aubrey made a jerking motion with his head.

  ‘Jes’ca,’ he said and Jessica came closer. Shakily Sir Aubrey reached out and took Oscar’s hand. He jerked his head again. Smiling awkwardly at Oscar Jessica put her hand on both of theirs, like the Pat-A-Cake games Oscar had played with his mother as a child.

  ‘Look after her,’ Sir Aubrey said or at least that was what Oscar thought he said. He nodded and tried to smile. The muscles beneath his ears ached. He rubbed at them surreptitiously with his spare hand. He supposed he must have clenched his jaw in his sleep. Sir Aubrey said something else but Oscar could not make it out. The only word he was sure of was Melville. He leaned forward. His head pounded.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir?’ he said but Sir Aubrey did not answer. He leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes.

  The air on the landing was cool, sweet with burning apple wood, but
it was not any easier to breathe.

  40

  He was improving. Dr Wilcox said so. Talking tired him and the tiredness made him confused, but he ate, mashed-up baby foods fed with a spoon, and his head no longer seemed too heavy for his neck. He slept a good deal of the time. Jessica cabled her mother and told her there was no longer any need for her to come home. She wrote too to Mrs Maxwell Brooke who sent a breezy letter by return saying how glad she was and how relieved dear Eleanor must be and murmuring vaguely about a visit some time in the New Year. It was nearly Christmas. Jessica spoke to Mrs Johns about bringing the boxes of decorations down from the attic. She asked Phyllis and Oscar if they thought they should have a tree but Phyllis only shrugged and said it was not for her to decide. It was too late for her to rejoin the dig in Malta but there was work she needed to do. She would leave for London the next day.

  Jessica lost her temper. She shouted at Phyllis. She told her she was selfish and heartless and that it might be their father’s last Christmas and what the hell was wrong with her anyway?

  ‘What’s wrong with working here?’ she raged. ‘If you need books have them sent. You have to stay, don’t you see that? For once in your life you have to bloody stay.’

  ‘The library won’t send books.’

  ‘Then fetch them. Fetch them and come back. Be here. Eleanor may never be coming back but you . . . you’re going to bloody stay, do you hear me? This could be our last ever Christmas in this house. Doesn’t that mean anything to you at all?’

  ‘All right, all right. Fine. One night in London, then I’ll come straight back.’

  Later in bed Oscar held her against him. ‘I could come to London with you,’ he said but Phyllis shook her head, her nose rubbing his cheek.

  ‘You should stay.’ He could see the gleam of her eyes in the darkness. ‘Jessica’s not a fool. We can’t risk her putting two and two together.’

  She kissed him and he kissed her back, shutting his eyes. He did not want to see anything. It was him who insisted on turning off the lights, he said it was safer, that they would be less likely to be discovered, but the truth was that it was only in the dark that he could bear it. In the dark when he touched her, there were no thoughts, only sensations. His body led and, for a time, drowned out by the white noise of sensation, the voices in his head were quieted. They came back. In the porridgy grey dawns they came back, redoubled by their brief reverse. Outside his window, as night ended, a robin sang. Robins were aggressively territorial, quick to attack intruders. They killed their own kind.