But returning to Rushburn for term breaks, he sensed Maggie drawing away, even if he was still her favourite cousin. By her mid-teens she had recognised male admirers. He didn’t feel wholly replaced. She remained easy in his presence, habitually looping her arm in his, often kissing his cheek and sometimes, when unobserved, the back of his neck. He guessed she might be practising for other boys, but he was nonetheless grateful, and celebrated the memory of these little explosions of pleasure during the dreary months of school. He resisted telling anyone about his beautiful cousin, until he was sixteen and wished to impress Martin Tolmey, who had a reputation for serious adult debauchery. Martin expressed a desire to stay with him during the Christmas holidays, to meet this cousin. Would she take her pants down for him, he wanted to know? Harry put him off throughout fifth and sixth form, and by the time Martin did eventually visit Rushburn Maggie had become a confident young woman courted by older men, and was certainly not interested in a swaggering boy, whether he came from Melbourne or the moon.
A crack of thunder brings Harry back to France. He wonders at the backward-looking scope of his thoughts. It strikes him that it’s a long time since he thought about Maggie in this way. Or any woman.
Towards morning he dreams again. He climbs an enormous tree, thinking it to be the great eucalypt that grew behind George’s Albion. And certainly there are familiar footholds and convenient forks that allow him to push up higher and higher into the canopy. Then after a certain point the branches are suddenly smooth and pink and wreathed with looping foliage quite unlike that of George’s old applejack. He hears the hum of insects and peers about in search of the whiskery flowers he remembers. Instead there are sprays of blond roses, each small bloom perfectly bell-shaped, the outer petals tinged with pink. Beautiful as they are, they have a peculiar scent. He can’t place it, not until they have spilled a dirty grey nectar into his hand. A viscous substance: machine oil.
nine
In the pre-dawn dark he feels vibrations. Then there are sounds: her feet in the hallway. Hastily he sits up in bed, the steel mesh stretching noisily under his weight. He waits for her knock but it doesn’t come. Instead he hears the click of the key, then her departing steps. Uncertain, he wraps himself in a blanket and tries the door. It opens. But far from taking advantage of his unexpected freedom, he returns to bed. Doubtless she would like him to move on. Burden someone else. But where would he go?
A quarter of an hour later, as his window begins to lighten, he hears the thud of a door. He reasons she’s off to work, rather than to alert the authorities. If the latter had been her intention, she would have acted during the night when he was securely locked away. No, she is begging him to leave, having done everything that he could reasonably expect of a stranger. But Harry demands more. Having glimpsed her kindness, he assumes it can be stretched. How much more can she be persuaded to give?
Feeling the need to urinate, he searches under the bed for a chamber pot. There isn’t one. Dressing to go downstairs, he flinches as his damp shirt touches his chest. In a wardrobe he finds another – small but relatively dry. Only after he has put it on and is tugging at the sleeves to bring them down over his thick forearms does it occur to him it’s a dress shirt, the kind Uncle George wore to lodge meetings and shire functions. And sure enough, in the further reaches of the wardrobe, there is also a starched dickie and a silk-lined vest. The vest is useful, another layer against the cold, and under his tunic and coat it won’t be seen. There are also several pairs of trousers, all unsuitable, six inches too short, and too narrow around the waist. So he makes do with his own, though he doesn’t bother with the rigmarole of puttees.
By daylight the house is less complicated. Both levels have a central passage, the lower one dog-legging between the servants’ rooms and ending at the kitchen, and ultimately the back door. He notices her bed, now carefully made. The fire is out. In passing he makes a cursory search for food. Nothing on the table. Potatoes in a bag, a rotting pumpkin on the floor. Not very promising. He emerges into the yard, and unable to recall or find an outhouse, goes to the back fence to piddle on the grass. Turning his face from the steam, he looks out over the roses at the seeping fog and the sun-flecked islands of pasture. That it is beautiful, that he can recognise it as such, surprises him, especially as his stomach is complaining again. At the well, a concrete dome with an iron pump, he finds a bucket part-filled with the previous night’s rain. He washes his face and hands, douses his eyes. The cold makes him shudder.
He’s convinced she has a stash of food. She certainly doesn’t look underfed. She has work, a wage; presumably she can buy what she likes. In his imagination – and he’s aware of the absurdity – there’s a great hamper. He can almost taste his mother’s devilled eggs, which increases his feeling of outrage and deprivation. The downstairs bedrooms yield little of interest. Stored furniture. Bad air. Several are quite bare and uniform, containing the same make of rusty iron bed. But on his fourth or fifth pass through the salon he discovers she has thought of him after all. On the three-legged table is what looks like a small block of wood or a wad of pressed tobacco. Civilian bread, stale and hard and probably without goodness. He gnaws at the crust and finding it harder than his teeth, is forced to soften it with saliva before it will begin to break up. It has no flavour, only a texture, coarse and chafflike. Despite years of experience, he can’t identify the ingredients, but is quite sure there is no trace of wheaten flour. For all that, it fills a hole. He can feel it blowing up in his stomach almost immediately, and realises that at Base Depot, stuffing himself daily on meat and hot white bread, he was fortunate. Yet he wonders whether the mademoiselle has been stingy or generous, whether she has a store of more palatable bread or has shared her last crust. The latter interpretation appeals most: the generosity of strangers, of women in particular.
Of the large upper rooms, he discovers he has the best. The others have been stripped of anything useful. All the doors are warped and stick in their frames, but one in particular holds firm against his weight. Then all at once he tumbles in. The room is bright with sunshine pouring in through a rift in the ceiling, and riotous with birds – swallows that sweep and hover or scratch vainly at the smooth plaster walls to gain a claw hold. Then one flits up through the hole and the others follow. Motionless, he watches a single grey feather eddy in the light. He observes the beginnings of mud nests on the beams, and piles of bird droppings on the floor and on the brass end of a bed much larger and more matrimonial-looking than his own. At last he moves, brushing the straw and muck from the quilt. He assumes this is the old monsieur’s bed. He sees him as a widower, mean and crotchety, even something of a tyrant. He sees Mademoiselle Elise forsaking sweethearts to look after him. (She doesn’t wear a ring, he’s noticed.)
As the hours pass and still no one comes to arrest him he is forced to subdue a premature gratitude. Her bread sits in his stomach like a brick, undigested yet warding off hunger into the afternoon. He reflects that it’s his instinct to trust – a peace-time instinct – and that he expects to be trusted in return. If he is wrong, so be it. He has nowhere else to go.
From his trouser pocket he removes his wallet and lays his money on her kitchen table. Everything he has: 200 francs. She will regard this as quite a windfall. But how to make her see it as a contribution and not a bribe? He smooths the notes under his palm. Whatever colour they might have been when they left the printer, they are now a dirty grey. Men in his unit blame French money for transmitting disease. It’s not this that makes him doubt his impulse. There’s something upsetting about money, something coarse and contractual, which isn’t what he wants at all. And to leave it sitting on the table! She will have her pride, naturally. At a loss to see how it might be done more discreetly, he stuffs the notes back where they came from.
In the barn the geese become restless, noisy for the first time all day. Which is why he doesn’t need to consult his watch to know she’s due
home. Rather than let her find him in her room he goes to wait in the salon. He listens for a key in the front door, but she enters via the back, calling to him tentatively, trying to discover whether he’s still there.
‘In here!’ he answers in English.
And when she stands before him, limp-looking in the muddy light, the shifting of his eyes is quick and involuntary. He sees first her frown, accentuated by her steely hair pulled tight and knotted behind her head, then her low-slung breasts filling out the fabric above her belt, and finally her ludicrous boots. Belatedly he realises he’s been observed in turn, and squirms to think how his behaviour must seem. He rises abruptly, at the same time trying to make himself small and apologetic. She pushes something at him, nudging his chest, and for an instant he imagines she’s assaulting him. But no, it’s a newspaper, a rolled newspaper, and because he’s too flustered to remember even the word for thank you, he shuffles and grins like a ham actor. Her frown grows more severe and she turns on her heels, and of course the instant she’s gone he recalls whole textbook dialogues swotted on the voyage out.
He tucks the newspaper, a low-brow British daily, under his arm and retreats to his room. After dragging a rickety balloon-backed chair over to the window he pulls open the curtain. Then he settles down to read. The paper is a fortnight old, and incomplete. He imagines her rescuing it from the factory latrines despite the middle pages having gone the way of bum-wipe. Not that he’s missing anything important. The same cheery propaganda, multiplied over and over. Though he’s never been a soldier at heart, he supposes he’s absorbed a footslogger’s contempt for the pronouncements of politicians and interpolators. All guff. The preparedness of the Allies for the coming German push. A British lord’s certainty that the Hun will exhaust himself with the effort. The fine mettle of recent drafts (a bare-faced lie, if you take the Americans out of the equation). But nothing current, no news. He’s not anxious. He only has to look out the window to take in the haze of peacefulness, the green checkerboard of pasture and grain crops, and the mademoiselle swinging her scythe beyond the dam. From the opposite window he has a view of the road. There are no vehicles, no contingents of troops moving urgently one way or the other. Clearly the fighting has run a distance then dried up again, just as in previous years. He’s curious to know how Bunter and the men of his unit are faring, but the bigger outcomes, provided the enemy doesn’t swarm before his eyes, are somebody else’s concern. Still, it’s pleasant to read English, to hear the words in his head, and considerate of her to think of him. As much as he would appreciate a current edition, he understands her reluctance to be seen buying a publication she can’t read. Very sensible. And in any case what she’s brought him amounts to an implicit welcome, and is a world less clumsy than his 200 francs. Returning to the first window, he notices she’s changed out of the drab sack of a factory worker. The hem of her navy skirt swings outward, forming a plump bell as she transfers her weight. In his eyes she becomes an abstraction, the beautiful after-image of his youth – the female shape.
Perhaps too soon, perhaps unwisely, he finds himself nestling into a comfortable optimism. He weighs up the favourable circumstances, his good fortune, and begins to feel secure. If the mademoiselle isn’t inclined to turn him over to the police, where are the dangers? He ran away on a bleak night, amid confusion and wider concerns. Beyond the city he saw no one, and no one – touch wood – saw him. The provosts will make their inquiries back at Base Depot, keeping to the people and language they know. They may or may not send someone to catch up with Bunter. Far from worrying, he imagines the interview in some detail:
‘Oh yes, Sir, good mates. Trained together at home. Came out in the same draft . . .
‘No, Sir, just up and went. Didn’t say a word . . .
‘Completely out of character, Sir. An older chap, very sober-minded and decent. And no slouch in the bakery either. Section Leader. Conscientious to a fault . . . ’
There is an element of relish in this exchange: the idea of Bunter running rings round the plods:
‘No, Sir, I don’t know of anyone who might be inclined to harbour him. He doesn’t know a soul outside camp. Can’t speak the language, Sir. I’m surprised he’s lasted this long. What’s it been, two days? I’d say that’s about the limit. He’ll be back any tick of the clock. You might think I’m being funny, but there’s a fair chance he’s lost. He’s got no sense of direction. Whenever we went on leave I’d have to lead him around by the nose . . .
‘Where’d we go? Just the usual, Sir. We did the rounds of the cafes, wandered by the river . . .
‘No, Sir, no women. As I said he’s very sober-minded. When the boys start skiting about brothels and whores he stays right out of it . . .
‘You mean a proper sweetheart? Good God, no. Old Harry wouldn’t know where to start! Like I said, Sir, he couldn’t ask the way to the lavatory, let alone get amorous. I’d say some little thing has put the wind up him and he’s shot off without considering. He’ll be back by now. He’ll have wandered into camp contrite and miserable and asking to be sent on to us . . . ’
He watches Mademoiselle Elise make her bundle of freshly cut grass and haul it to the barn for her geese. When she’s out of sight he goes down to wait in the salon. It’s nearly dark by the time she comes in. He hears her clattering in her part of the house. Eventually she brings him a candle and a bowl of her unvaried stew. Once again they eat separately, Harry by sputtering candlelight in the salon, she in her kitchen. But afterwards she comes to him with a pack of playing cards and a half-bottle of wine. She pulls up a chair opposite. She rests the bottle on the floor between her feet then clears the table, pushing his empty bowl aside and flicking his breadcrumbs carelessly on the carpet. The cards flutter between her hands and she slaps one down, face up. ‘Un,’ she says, and with an upward jerk of her head, charges him to repeat her. ‘Un,’ he says, somewhat put out by her estimation of his ignorance. In a short time he demonstrates his mastery of the faceless cards. She offers no pat on the back and doesn’t smile. A job of work is what she’s doing, educating a foreigner. Next comes the jack. ‘Le valet,’ she says. ‘Le valet,’ he repeats. Child’s play. Likewise the others: le roi, la dame . . . The suits are trickier. ‘C’est quelle carte?’ she demands, revealing a new card. ‘Neuf carreau!’ he trumpets. Then hesitation. Could he have it wrong? And is he seeing things or is that a quiver of amusement in her eyes?
Abruptly she rises and goes to the sideboard for wine glasses. Settling again, she twists the cork from the bottle and, before attending to his glass, flips another card. Jack of spades. ‘Valet pique,’ he says before she can ask. She dribbles a little in his glass. A greasy film adheres to the sides but the smell is appetising, like church sherry. And down it goes warm and sweet. He’s curious to inspect the label. But there’s no chance of that, as she flips another card. He guesses correctly and she rewards him with another drop. Then, while the warmth radiates from his stomach, she teaches him the words for a collection of cards of the same suit, for a running flush and for three or four of a kind. He learns quickly, knowing she has a game in mind. He suggests vingt-et-un. She grimaces: an unworthy game. Or maybe she’s tired or it’s simply that the wine is gone. In any event the lessons are over. She sweeps up the cards and forms them into a deck. Rising, she removes the candle so he must follow or be left in the dark. Up the creaking stairs she takes him, escorting him to his room. In keeping with the previous evening she hands him his candle but doesn’t enter. And after the door is shut he listens for, and soon hears, the click of the lock. His understanding is she’s afraid of being molested in the night.
ten
You are mistaken if you think I was looking below his belly. I was in no state for that. The first time I didn’t even notice him. The young one did the talking. They wanted roses. Well, couldn’t they see the roses were all forgotten? Who worries about roses when the world is eating itself up? But I must hav
e noticed him a little, because I recognised him the second time. He’s no Adonis. Know what I thought? A plough horse. An English plough horse. I saw one at a fair in Caen when I was a girl, a great big monster standing twenty-seven hands at the shoulder, big teeth and a head that made you feel like a dwarf. There’s your handsome guest for you. A plough horse. And one who’d seen better days. I tell you he was ready for the butcher, so slow and broken down. He was scared dumb and you could see it was just a matter of time before someone saw him and told the police. I should have put him in the barn. But I thought of my son. I was thinking of Joseph. If Joseph had taken a different turn, if he’d happened on someone decent, he might be alive today. So I thought: Enough, no more cowardice, no more throwing innocent boys away like rubbish. Yes, I know, my Australian is no boy, but you understand what I’m saying. I couldn’t send him away. It’s the principle. You can laugh and be crude but the truth is old Boche could have come knocking and I would have taken him in. That’s what I said to the investigator. A stupid thing to say. I was angry. I was full of unspent rage for my son’s death. A little restraint at the beginning and I’d have been out of here long ago. I might have had the run of their world. They wanted me to howl and look sorry. They wanted me to say, ‘Yes, your honour, I’m a disgrace and I pray to Jesus for His pardon.’ I refused. I told them they were cruel butchers. They knew they were guilty. You could see it in their eyes: guilt and shame. They dress a boy up in blue and call him a soldier. They never knew him. They didn’t nurse him through sickness. They didn’t hold him as a frightened child.
His officer sent a letter. He said it was quick. Quick! The truth is Joseph died slowly in a slimy hole. He screamed half the day. That’s how it was. I bullied the truth from his friend. My son died because no one would risk going out for him. By the afternoon he’d stopped shouting. By night he was dead. Now that’s a hero’s death. I don’t blame the other boys. No one can help being scared. I blame the men who sent him.
Silent Parts Page 8