by Sadie Jones
He turned from the crowd, from her.
‘Hal – stop it. Look at me.’ He couldn’t. ‘Darling…’
The rain, which had been thin, began in earnest, quite suddenly. Thick cold drops, impossible to ignore. ‘Oh, Christ,’ he said, ‘you’ll catch cold. Here.’
He pointed over the road to the cinema, where the crowds, even at that time, were quite thick around the door. They crossed the road, half running, and got under the canopy, lit by bulbs, and glancing around them. He took hold of the tops of her arms and held her, looking into her face. ‘I went for a job.’
‘Did you?’ she said faintly.
‘You should be sitting down. You look – this is no good.’
There was a queue at the kiosk.
‘Just until the rain –’
‘Yes, all right –’
He bought tickets, and immediately afterwards the woman pulled down the shutter.
‘Sold out,’ she said.
‘What’s the film?’ asked Clara.
‘I don’t know.’
They pushed inside to the warmth and cigarette smoke, the felted darkness.
The white screen flashed brightly past the heads of the people jostling at the entrance. The dark silhouettes of strangers in rows, the smell of their scent and hair cream and moving bodies as the usherette passed the beam of her torch over them to find seats. The speakers blared loudly in the opening chords of Pathé News, sharp sounds and sharper picture, the plumed cockerel, all heads lifted and turning. This was the reason for the crowd; this was the urgency in the feeling of the place; this was the need that had dragged them there.
Hal let his hand drop from Clara’s arm. He was pressed against the wall by people, not noticing them, or anything, just watching.
‘Yesterday. The Canal Zone. Egypt. British and French troops began the invasion of Port Said…’
The big screen, huge pictures of the invasion, filled his sight. The parachutes, floating under triumphant music, the vast troop carriers…
‘Twenty thousand troops began their dawn invasion,’ said the commentator, his clipped, portentous tone sealing the jolt from image to image, and then Anthony Eden.
‘Today in Whitehall, the Prime Minister spoke…’ His magnified face, staring down into the crowd, it seemed, his voice resolute and passionate. ‘Britain and France have joined in this action that will safeguard the world…’
Clara, shielded by Hal’s body, looked up at him. He didn’t see her.
All around him people, sitting and standing in couples, groups, fidgeting in their soft civilian suits, watching with their vague, ill-tutored civilian eyes, and he, forced amongst them in the thick city air of England…
‘Hal.’
He felt her press close to him, her arms around him in the dark. Her hand was on his cheek, forcing his eyes from the screen, and he, looking down, saw nothing and felt only her lips against his mouth.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘Don’t –’
There were boos in the crowd, the people, watching, shifted their attention. Some fell silent, looking for the noise, and others joined in with it, a low sound, almost too deep to hear.
‘And we can bring peace and stability…’ Eden went on, to boos and hisses. Somebody threw something at the screen, a whistle, laughter, catcalls.
‘Let’s go,’ said Clara.
‘Yes, all right. Come on.’
They turned away.
Behind them, scenes of protest, crowds, banners in Trafalgar Square, the voice followed them out: ‘…as meanwhile, in London today, a large crowd of protesters made their feelings known…’
He took her hand and led her out, using the suitcase to push people aside, apologising, until they came out into the deserted foyer.
Rain poured thickly down. It beat on the pavements, bouncing up, and ran in trickles and drips about the doors and glass panes, splashing onto the carpeted step, puddling. Hal looked down at Clara, who was white-faced, and when she looked back her eyes were almost black, the pupils dilating into the blue irises.
He couldn’t imagine her walking, not through the rain. ‘Here. It’s not far.’
He picked her up easily, and the case with her. She tucked her face into him, putting her arms around his neck. He crossed the wide road where cars, blinded by rain, rolled slowly.
Hal, carrying Clara, walked fast up the pavement through the rain. In a minute or two they were at the door to his lodgings, drenched, him out of breath, her face wet, his hair dripping cold wet drops onto her face. Her skirt was wet, his trousers splashed and heavy. He set her down. ‘All right?’ He took his key and let her into the dark hall. ‘Up on the left. At the front.’
The bedroom door was loose and light on its hinges. Hal had lit the gas and hung her skirt nearby to dry. They lay on the thin bed together, with no space, touching all down their bodies. He stroked her hair from her face, pulling the pink cover over her. It wasn’t clean. They didn’t look at it.
‘You shouldn’t have come all this way,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you were thinking.’
Her feet were wet in her stockings, darker where her shoes had been. The white skin of her thighs was very smooth. He lifted her blouse, lightly, from her stomach and Clara shut her eyes. She had a nylon belt for a sanitary towel, too, the fragile practicality of her femininity. He slipped his finger under the elastic of her silk knickers, it wasn’t tight, he lifted the band away from her. The long cut was raised, slightly, the points where the stitches had been still red. She put her hand over his. ‘Don’t touch it,’ she said.
‘I won’t,’ he said, but stroked with two fingers the skin that was unmarred, in small strokes, where it was soft and wouldn’t tickle her or hurt. ‘Tell me about the girls,’ he said. ‘Anything.’
‘They’re so well, Hal. Much happier now. Meg says, “Don’t do that,” all the time. Lottie has been gardening with my mother…’
As she spoke, he tucked her things and the cover around her again.
‘They’re both finding it jolly cold, and woke in the night twice last night. They need proper flannel nighties. It will be a horrible shock for them.’
‘Hot-water bottles,’ he said.
‘Yes, but we’ve only the one.’
The gas fire popped and hissed. The dark rain fell outside, the constant sound, far faint drops and closer drums and taps, too. They held hands.
The silence lengthened.
‘Meg says “lub” for “love”…’ she said, slowly.
He waited until she closed her eyes. He shifted his arm uncomfortably. After a while, Clara, sleeping now, settled into him, and Hal, his eyes open, listened to the falling rain.
Chapter Eight
The next morning there was a row with the landlady about Clara, whom she had seen leaving the bathroom. Clara hid under the bedspread while Hal assured the woman, at the narrowly open door, that they were married, and apologised for using a single room for double occupancy. He hadn’t been trying to pull the wool over her eyes, he said. It had been an honest mistake. He closed the door. ‘Completely ridiculous woman,’ he said.
‘Come back with me today,’ said Clara, so he did, keeping the room for the appointments he would have to travel up for.
They closed and locked the loose door on the pink bedspread and Hal’s interview suit, hanging motionless in the cupboard, and went down the stairs, out onto the damp pavement, washed clean from the night before, to catch their train.
At Marylebone, Hal bought the paper. Clara looked out of the window of the train while he read it, and the extra section that went with it, devoted entirely to what was happening in the Canal Zone. He studied the blurry photographs closely. The other passengers were reading about it too, and passing remarks, but Clara, taking hold of Hal’s hand, kept her face resolutely turned to the landscape going by.
‘It doesn’t help you to look,’ she said.
There were two men, one in a hat and suit, holding an empty pipe, the other in plus fours, wh
o kept up a conversation about Eden, bringing in everything from Communism to nuclear war. Hal focused on the luggage rack above their heads, paying close attention. It was an odd sensation, listening to them, a little like spying; he had always heard about this mysterious thing, public opinion, but had never really been a member of the public.
‘Eden is stuck in the 1930s, dragging this country into another colonial war,’ said the man with the hat, stuffing soft tobacco into the bowl of his pipe.
‘I suppose you’d have the reds in charge?’ said the plus-fours man, happily.
They were very talkative, scattering opinions lazily. They had that luxury, Hal thought, out of habit, and then – briefly – so do I, now, too.
In the Buckinghamshire village, the taxi left them at the door. Hal took longer about paying the driver than he might have done, putting off the moment. Moira, with George behind her, opened the door to their daughter and their errant son-in-law. The girls, next to her, bounced up and down.
‘Mummy!’
Hal squared up to greet them.
‘Here, Hal, what a miserable day,’ said Moira, coming down the path towards them. ‘Come inside.’ She took his arm. ‘How was London?’
‘Busy.’
‘Good journey?’ asked George.
‘Yes, thank you, sir.’
Inside the house, Clara went up to rest, Moira took the girls into the kitchen with her, to see about the lunch, and George, on his way into the drawing room, turned to Hal. ‘There’s no need to call me “sir”, Hal. You ought to know this family by now,’ he said, and left him, shutting the door behind him.
Hal, alone, stood looking at the closed door for a moment. Then, as one who does a thing because he must, because he doesn’t often turn away, he opened it.
George turned, surprised at being followed. He was at the fireplace facing his son-in-law – the patriarch despite himself.
‘All right,’ said Hal, coming into the room and closing the door firmly again. ‘I thought you might want to know my plans.’
George, tight-lipped: ‘If you like. Go on.’
‘I’m sorry about everything that’s happened, and I’m – I’ll – do my best to –’
‘You’ll do your best?’
‘Yes.’
‘Jolly good.’
‘Sir?’ It came naturally, he couldn’t help it.
‘I said jolly good, you’ll do your best, while my daughter nearly died, and my son is out in Egypt somewhere, and you’ve…whatever they call deserted these days – you’ll do your best? I see.’
Hal persisted: ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry? You’re –’ He turned away quickly, shaking his head, as if arguing with himself, said, ‘No, no, I’m –’ and stopped talking.
There was silence, Hal resolutely facing George but George having walked off a few paces towards the window. Half turning back, but not enough to meet Hal’s eye, he said, ‘I’m sure you know, Hal, I got in at the end of the First War, 1918. I got the end of it. It got the beginning of me.’ He paused. ‘In my opinion there are very few wars that are really worth the fighting, and none that I know of at this present time. Nevertheless when one didn’t…’ he felt for the words ‘…decide not to take part oneself, however tempting it may have been, it’s extremely difficult to see another man do it and not resent him. Do you understand that?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘And I’m sorry for that. I truly am. I should thank you. I wanted my daughter home, and now she is – home. I wish it were you who was still out there, and not James.’
He hadn’t said it viciously: it was a confession.
‘Yes.’
There didn’t seem any more to be said, or any further degradation to be faced. Hal nodded to his father-in-law, and started to leave the room.
‘Hal, you know I’ll help you, if I can.’
‘Thank you.’
And then, almost as an afterthought, George said, ‘It would be easier if you had taken some sort of a stand.’
At the door Hal turned. ‘Easier?’ He narrowed his eyes in close scrutiny of the idea, and then smiled slightly. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it would have been.’
Clara hadn’t closed the curtains, and grey light came in at the window onto the faded flowers of her bed. Hal closed the door behind him. He didn’t know if she was asleep or not.
He went to the window and looked out, his hands in his pockets.
Below, in the garden, Meg and Lottie were walking up the grass with Moira. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but there was some earnest burbled chatter going on, and he could see from Moira’s bowed head that she was listening intently. They were going to get vegetables for lunch. Meg was carrying a basket. The children walked very slowly, but Moira was patient.
She stopped to point something out to them in the grass, and all three bent over to look.
He heard Clara move behind him, and get up.
She came over to him, stood by him and they both looked down into the garden. She was warm from the bed, wearing her slip over her underwear, but no stockings, her dressing gown in her hands, held loosely.
He nodded towards the children in the garden, trying to smile, or say something about it, but with nothing to say.
‘Our lovely girls,’ said Clara.
Still, he could not speak. Clara reached up and pulled the curtain across the window. The heavy lined material tugged its wooden rings along the pole. It was dark now. She dropped her dressing gown, put her arms around his waist and her head against him. ‘Here,’ she said.
The silk was soft against him, against his clothes, her warm body underneath, giving; her cheek was by his heart. He put his head down to her; he didn’t put his arms around her – he couldn’t – but his fingers touched the material of her slip, and held it. He closed his fingers tightly on the thin silk.
‘Ssh,’ she said.
So close to him, she lifted her face.
She put her arms up, her fingers on the back of his neck, then above his ear, stroking his brow. His lips were against her skin.
‘I love you,’ he said, twisting the silk between his fingers, and he started to cry.
Chapter Nine
It was Sunday, 11 November. The Wards, who did not attend church every Sunday, nevertheless went often, and always at Christmas, Easter, the Harvest Festival and this day, Remembrance Sunday. Whatever their opinion of specific conflicts, they showed their respect to the war dead.
‘You needn’t come,’ said Clara, to Hal, but she was wrong.
The twins were dressed in matching black coats, with velvet collars, that Moira had made a special trip up to town for, without Clara, the week before. They had red ribbons in their hair, at the side, attached to their hairclips, and patent leather shoes with woollen tights. All of them had poppies on their lapels, bought from one of the churchwardens at the door the day before. They walked through the village, joining others as they went.
In the centre of the village, opposite the church, was the war memorial, like any war memorial, in any village, passed unthinkingly most of the time, but now laid with wreaths, some still being carried, still being placed. It took some time for everybody to come from their houses. The sky was grey and thick above them, and they were all in black, with poppies, and just the sudden colour of a skirt as it showed beneath a coat or the bright gloves of a child to break the blackness. People talked as they approached the memorial, but fell quiet – except for children’s voices – once they stood grouped around it. The rain was very fine and made no noise on the umbrellas men held over their wives.
The church was behind him. Hal looked over his shoulder at it.
The door was open and he could see the flowers inside; their colours glowed under the electric lights that had been put on because the day was so dark and wet. He thought of the little church in Cyprus that hot day, and the heat and glare outside. He had not been inside a church since.
The Wards stood towards the back of the crowd, th
ough not apart. Clara was in front of Hal next to Moira and George. At the front, near the vicar, stood the old men, with their chests thrown out, and medals pinned to their civilian overcoats. The Scout troop was beside them, and cadets nearby. It was a crowd of perhaps three hundred, joined in silent communication; those who normally passed one another without greeting now nodded and smiled.
The vicar looked around the people, who settled themselves, and began.
‘Let us remember with gratitude
Those who, in the cause of peace
And the service of their fellow men,
Died for their country, in time of war.’
He unfolded a piece of paper.
‘I will now read a list: the names of the fallen of this parish,’ he said. ‘Abbot, Tom. Antony, Wilbur. Brown, Edward. Bryant, Daniel. Bryant, John. Bryant, Michael…’
There was absolute quiet as he read. Even the children and babies who had been fidgeting grew still.
‘Diller, Andrew…’
Hal stood rigidly, eyes front. He could see, over the shoulders and heads of the others, the corner of the fluttering page that the vicar was holding and behind that the stone edge of the memorial. In his heart, as he always had, he bowed down to the names of the dead, and honoured them. He tried to feel pride in them cleanly but, after a moment, he could not, and looked down at the ground. The list went on, the dead were still the dead, with or without his feeling their companionship.
Clara leaned closer and he felt her warmth come into the air around him. She took off her glove and her hand wrapped around his cold fingers but he did not look up.
‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning