He burst in where the cries of pain were coming from – a room, a nice one, familiar. There were women in there – nurses – but the wounded soldier seemed to be a woman too, and yelling like he was still at the Casualty Clearing Station …
‘All under control here?’ he said, and one of the nurses – they weren’t in uniform either, what is this place? – said yes it was, but could he bring some hot water, as if they thought he was an orderly – ‘Not entirely my role, old girl,’ he said, but he went and got it anyway because needs must, though it did seem odd, and then he went back in and sat down, suddenly, on a small velvet chair, and lit another cigarette.
When the MO came up, he tried to steer Peter from the room – took his arm in a chummy manner, and tried to sort of lift him and move him towards the door. It was very embarrassing. They all seemed to think he should be somewhere else, whereas he knew for a fact that he needed to be right here. Though he wasn’t sure why. So he stood up, a head taller than the doc, and stepped up close to him and stared down at him, eye to eye, as if the doctor had committed treason. He said, ‘You do your bit, and I’ll do mine. How about that? Everything’s under control here.’ And he sat down again.
They didn’t bother him again after that. He just sat there, and smoked. He wasn’t going to leave the poor fellow alone. Is it Purefoy? Ainsworth? Who is it?
They were doing some kind of emergency surgery. Evidently it went well, though it seemed to take some time. After a while – a long time – hours? – the soldier’s crying out and gasping and weeping stopped. The women stepped away from the bed. The angle of the doctor’s shoulders changed – there was a kind of rolling back, an assumed uprightness. He turned, carrying something: It’ll be whatever they just amputated. It was wrapped in cloth, and looked like some kind of small limb – half an arm, perhaps. Lower leg. Poor bastard.
Within one moment he realised that it was crying, and that the doctor was trying to give it to him. Its voice was new and limp and high.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Peter said, standing and pushing past to where the soldier lay, grey-faced and silent on tangled sheets. She seemed to be asleep, or drugged. Just as well.
One of the nurses had taken the amputated limb, and was crooning to it.
What a bloody extraordinary—
‘Get this place cleaned up,’ he ordered. ‘And what is that thing?’
‘It’s your daughter, Peter,’ said a calm voice, a woman – and for a moment he was on a lawn in Paris with a beautiful black-haired girl, drinking, outside the Tuileries – and then he snapped back.
He let his head fall back, way way back. Raised it again, and found Nadine staring him in the eye.
‘Is everything all right?’ he said. The word seemed hollow.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You have a daughter.’
‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘I’m just going to …’ and he smiled politely, and left the room.
*
He went into the garden again, for the cold clear air to clear his head. He walked round again, a fearsome concentration on him. What the hell was that? What was it?
Every now and again, over the past year or so, he heard things which logic told him could not be there: snaky streams of cool saxophone jazz, late at night, in the Kent countryside; distant explosions in the office. His dreams had seeped a little into reality. He had accepted that. It didn’t seem too much. You wouldn’t tell anyone about those things anyway. They’d have you at Craiglockhart within the week, signed and certified as a lunatic.
But this?
He knew perfectly well that nothing as bad, as strong, as interesting, as terrible as the war would ever happen to him again. In effect, nothing would ever happen to him again. His entire life from now on would constitute nothing but getting over the fucking war.
*
He went back into the house – all the doors were double-locked, and he had to go round again to the front – and drank coffee, and smoked. Then the memory leapt out at him like something quite new, or something totally unreliable.
Baby!
Julia. Baby. Daughter!
He washed his face, washed his hands, and went back upstairs. There they all were. The baby was clean now, washed and pink, making damp little scrawling noises. Its face was rather purple. Julia lay back, exhausted, wrung out, smiling and gentle. Supported by cushions, she was able to hold the little girl, and she was trying to feed it, holding it to her beautiful white breast, blue-veined, marbled. ‘Don’t laugh,’ she was saying. ‘It’s the best way – honestly! I’ve been reading about it. It’s the best for the baby …’
Dr Tayle was saying that it would be better for her not to.
At that she sat bolt upright in bed, holding the baby close, and cried out to him that she would not be dictated to as to how to look after her child.
Peter stood in the doorway, a little crooked, smiling at her. She glanced up and smiled back. ‘Darling!’ she cried out. ‘Look!’
‘Well, well, all right,’ Dr Tayle was saying. ‘Good that you feel up to it. Jolly good. And as for you, young man,’ he said to Peter, ‘you need a proper night’s sleep, and you’re to come and see me. You look exhausted.’
Peter murmured something pacifying, along the lines that he would, of course, he’d take the dressing-room divan …
But he didn’t. He sat all day with Julia and the baby, talking, smiling, while Nadine and Mrs Joyce popped in and out, hurriedly seeing to the things they had thought they would have more time to see to. Harrington squares, towelling nappies, the crib. Burying the placenta. Someone had to call to see if the nursemaid could come sooner. Chicken broth and arrowroot biscuits for Julia. Cabbage leaves for when her milk came in properly. Lunch! They’d forgotten all about it. Mrs Joyce produced a lovely soup, and came up afterwards to congratulate Julia, standing in the doorway grinning like a fool, nodding and, ‘Well then. Well then. That’s good. Lovely little thing.’
Peter sat quietly and watched it all, accepting congratulations, being shaken by the hand and patted on the shoulder. Nadine telephoned Riley and Rose to tell them the news, and reminded Peter to ring Mrs Orris, which he did, aware of his healthy and normal disinclination to speak to her. But shouldn’t a moment like this be an opportunity to be flooded with love and forgiveness? He was not flooded with love and forgiveness. He was very aware of everything, as if drapes had been lifted, and windows washed. It hurt his eyes.
After lunch, Tom came up to the bedroom, and patted the tiny bundle.
‘Her name is Katherine,’ Julia said. ‘We’ll call her Kitty.’ And Tom said, ‘But she’s not a kitten, is she?’ and everybody laughed.
*
That night Peter climbed into the marital bed alongside Julia, gentle alongside her body.
‘Is this all right?’ he said, and she smiled, and said, ‘You can be nursemaid – wake up when she wakes!’ and he kissed her, very tenderly, wrapped in miracle.
*
In his dream, he was holding his wife, and they were very happy.
*
He was woken by blood, blood everywhere, flowing, warm blood.
The weight of her body was against him – German boy, oh, poor German boy …
Burdett Lovall Jones Atkins Wester Green … STOP IT!
He pushed back the blankets and scrambled from the bed. He didn’t want his bloody dreams to disturb her, to pollute this bed, even. He stood on the mat for a second in the dark, thinking, it’s so real. He could make out the glass jug of water on the nightstand, glinting a reflection of some scrap of light: he poured it over his hands. Sticky.
He tore off his pyjama top.
It is real. I’ve believed such things to be real before, in dreams, in confusion – but this is real.
Real blood is all over me.
He went back to her: he took her in his arms. She was all blood, and blood swept through his mind.
*
That was not where the others found her. Twelve hours after the last patrol
he had made around his garden, seeking out any dangers that might threaten his people, he carried the corpse of his beloved out from his tent and laid her like Patroclus before the walls of Troy, at the foot of the lawn.
Chapter Eighteen
Locke Hill, December 1919
They were out there, both of them. Julia was lying down; Peter sitting by her on the grass, in the dim wintry dawn. It looked for all the world as if she were reposing, having a picnic among the icy bones of the garden, the stiff twigs and frozen seed heads. It looked romantic.
What on earth are they doing?
Nadine saw them from her bedroom window, 6.30 or so in the morning. What she saw didn’t make sense. She went down the stairs, cold feet in slippers across the hall, through the drawing room where the French windows hung open, across the grey and green of the winter lawn. She saw the white nightdress clinging, streaked and drenched from waist to hem with scarlet. She saw Peter smoking. He was wearing his greatcoat, and Nadine thought, He could have taken that back and got the pound for it. Too late now, probably. His pale chest was bare inside the coat, and his face was smeared.
Nadine walked across, shivering, bent down, sat by him. She reached over and took Julia’s hand. It was not stiff, not yet quite cold. Nadine held on to it, and put two fingers across its pale wrist. Nothing was happening. No movement, no small throb, no warm blood.
‘Are you dead?’ Nadine whispered. ‘Julia?’ She couldn’t take her eyes from her face: the white skin, the closed eyes, their deep sockets, the fine skin of the lids. No movement. The veins seemed empty. Nothing but bone within the white skin.
‘Julia,’ she whispered, and with great and tender care she reached across and put the pad of her forefinger to Julia’s white eyelid. The gentlest movement slid it up, as delicate as skin on the surface of warm milk. The eye beneath was the emptiest thing Nadine had seen since … well, Nadine had seen empty eyes before. Nothing there but the very slightest cloudiness.
‘Julia,’ she called, softly.
Julia gazed at the grey sky, unmoved.
Nadine lifted her finger, and the eyelid drifted very slowly down over the clouded blue. It was so slow in its settling, drowsy almost – but inanimate. Passive. The skin, as thin as a mouse’s ear, seemed already to be drying out. Closed, it lay settled like a snowdrift at the end of a storm.
Nadine held Julia’s hand, and turned her head to look at Peter. He met her gaze, but dear God, his eyes are almost as empty as hers … She held her look steady, trying to hold him. He was grey-skinned and gaunt, and looked twenty years older.
‘What happened?’ she whispered.
He shook his head.
She reached over to him and took his hand: warm, alive, beautiful. ‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Oh, Peter. Oh my – Peter,’ she said, and she moved over and sat very close beside him; he was terribly thin. She huddled next to his coat, bringing his arm to put it round her narrow shoulder. ‘Dear Peter,’ she said. ‘Poor Julia. Oh dear. Oh, God. Oh dear.’
It was very quiet out there. Peaceful. The world seemed far away.
The baby! she thought suddenly. Tom—
She expected this thought to bring a flood of duty, fuss and horror down on her, but it didn’t, not yet. There was instead a calm estrangement. Is it because we are outside? Is it like the war? Are we reverting to war reactions? No children in the war. Not little ones. No newborns in the trenches. The observation floated off again.
‘Peter?’ she whispered. ‘Will you come in now?’ He shook his head again, a quick sudden jerk of fear and horror – so she kissed his forehead, bending over to him, and squeezed his hand, and whispered, ‘I’ll be back in a moment …’
Mrs Joyce, at the French windows, had been staring for a good five minutes. As Nadine came running in from the frost in her nightclothes, Mrs Joyce stood mute. There was blood on the carpet all across the sitting room. They saw it now, a trail across the carpet, extra red petals on the Aubusson.
Nadine said: ‘No, wait.’ She didn’t want even to close the French windows behind her. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I need to think …’
Mrs Joyce stood, muffled up in a pink quilted dressing gown. Her hands were up over her face.
‘She’s dead,’ said Nadine. ‘It’s all blood.’
Mrs Joyce gasped.
‘Major Locke doesn’t want to come in yet, so perhaps we should take him a cup of tea. It’s awfully cold,’ Nadine said. ‘You should have one too. And yes, me too.’
‘I’ll make tea, then,’ said Mrs Joyce.
‘Let’s just – yes,’ said Nadine. She thought, carefully, counting and remembering to breathe. ‘Tea.’ She looked up helplessly.
‘The children …?’ Mrs Joyce asked.
‘Mrs Joyce, don’t telephone the doctor yet. I’ll look at the children. You put the kettle on,’ said Nadine.
‘I’ll be in the kitchen,’ said Mrs Joyce. ‘Millie is still asleep.’
‘I’m going upstairs,’ Nadine said.
Everything needed placing.
It all seemed to be a terrible inversion of the day before.
Max was barking in the back hall. ‘I’ll feed him,’ said Mrs Joyce.
‘Thank you.’ said Nadine. She took the stairs very slowly. Her heart was too big in her chest to allow room for breath. Her legs weren’t working well.
Tom was asleep in the nursery; angelic.
In Julia’s room the velvet chair was on its side, the water carafe spilt, the sheets dark with blood, and tangled.
What had happened?
The baby, in her crib at the bottom of Julia’s bed, uttered the tiniest noise, like a creak, or a mouse, peaceful, scarcely human. Nadine went to her and picked her up, very gently. The baby didn’t wake, just made her tiny noises as Nadine wrapped the shawl around her, and tucked her into the crook of her arm. Tiny eyelids fluttered. Unfocused blue eyes beneath.
Unfocused blue eyes.
Nadine carried the baby down to the kitchen.
‘Could you ask Eliza to dress Tom,’ she said, ‘and then if you could take them all into town, please, Mrs Joyce. When he wakes.’ Her thoughts were in the wrong order. ‘Not now.’
‘I don’t want to leave you alone here, Mrs Purefoy,’ Mrs Joyce said.
Nadine said, ‘I won’t be alone. Peter’s here.’
Mrs Joyce put her head a little to one side, as if to say, ‘And?’
‘I’m going to telephone my husband now,’ Nadine said. She could barely speak.
‘Shall I take Kitty?’ Mrs Joyce said, but Nadine shook her head. She let Mrs Joyce come and look at her, though, gazing and clucking. Mrs Joyce said, after a long moment, ‘I’ll bring you your tea to the telephone.’
Nadine said, ‘Thank you,’ and in this infinitesimally careful way the two women proceeded. No surprises. Nothing fast or unexpected.
*
Riley didn’t usually pick up the phone. But it was so early. He’d know it was her. Answer – answer.
What came out was: ‘Julia’s dead.’
‘Did he kill her?’ Riley asked, straight off.
Her relief at his straightforwardness gave her voice: ‘No,’ she said, and her breath roared through her, followed so swiftly by the thought: How can I say that? I don’t know. That’s loyalty and affection talking, not an open mind. ‘I mean – no – her nightdress – the blood is all – um … There’s no reason to think that …’
‘Who have you rung? Who is there?’
‘Mrs Joyce and I,’ she said. Breathe. ‘I rang you first. She’s making tea.’ Breathe. ‘She’ll take Tom out. I am just here. I have the baby.’
‘And has he said anything?’
‘No. But Riley, darling – they’re in the garden! He’s smeared his face. With mud, I think. He’s been crying.’ Her voice was rising with imminent tears. ‘I don’t know why they’re in the garden!’
‘I’ll take your father’s car,’ Riley said. ‘Hold fast. Do nothing. Lock yourself in the house if you feel you should.�
��
It was still so early. Grey milk sky. Them, out there. Us, in here. What has happened?
*
She went upstairs again, carrying Kitty. Tom was sleeping sound. She stilled the urge to wake him and hug him, came down again and sat on the sofa. Kitty was tiny in her arms. She found she was rocking gently: something automatic in her was responding to the scrap of life in her arms.
When Julia wanted to feed the baby. When she smiled at Peter across the bed, so tired and a little sheepish, so sweet – and he smiled back. That moment.
The fireplace was cold and ashy. She wanted to make a fire but she found she physically could not put the baby down. But without a fire the whole house is dead. Julia is dead.
Where’s Millie? She’d need to tell Millie. She should go and do that. The girls shouldn’t see this.
She dozed off. Woke again, totally confused, thinking, He didn’t kill her. She was certain of that. But she had not been surprised when Riley asked, and Riley had not been surprised that she had not been surprised, and that said something, didn’t it?
I had thought people had stopped dying. Even when Mama died. And now …
After a while Mrs Joyce put her head around the drawing-room door.
‘Tom is up and dressed,’ she said. ‘He’s had some bread and milk, and we’re going into town now. Would you like me to take the baby?’
How are they meant to live through this? Peter? These children?
‘Too cold,’ said Nadine. ‘Too soon. Too new.’ She was not yet a day old. She had not even fed yet.
‘You’ve no fire!’ Mrs Joyce said. She made it up, swiftly and effectively. ‘I told Millie to stay in the kitchen. I’ll bring some goat’s milk,’ she said. ‘It’s best. Mrs Paine has a nanny goat. I won’t tell anyone what for.’
Nadine mouthed ‘thank you’ to her.
‘Tom likes the goat,’ Mrs Joyce said. And, ‘If I were you, I’d call Dr Tayle now.’
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