PM_E_441 - Cold Snap

by Francis King

  Clumsily she made a pile of her books, put them under her arm, and stumbled through the echoing hall of the Ashmolean and out into the street. As she turned right, the front of the Worcester looked like a badly executed daub – smeared, indistinct and covered in greasy, yellowish patches … Oh, God! And of course it would happen at the weekend, when she was expecting Thomas.

  Somehow she found her way back to Wellington Square, the landscape jerking and shredding as on an ancient film, dragged herself upstairs and pushed open Margaret’s door.

  Margaret lumbered up from the mat before the gas fire, where she had been squatting to read an ancient issue of Country Life abandoned in a refuse bin by another of the tenants. She put an arm round Christine. ‘Straight to bed!’ she commanded. No one more enjoyed such crises; no one was more effective at dealing with them. ‘Come along, dear!’ She half led and half dragged Christine into her bedroom, laid her on the bed, and began to tug at the curtains.

  ‘Oh, let me have a little light!’ Christine moaned.

  ‘You know Dr Watson said that complete darkness was the best thing. But if you like, I’ll put a scarf over the reading lamp and then you can have it on. How about that?’ Having extracted a silk scarf from a drawer, she padded across the room with it trailing from a hand. ‘Feeling sick?’ She adjusted the scarf over the lamp.

  ‘Hm.’

  ‘Well, let me get the pills. Here we are!’ She crossed to the washbasin and ran some water into a tooth mug. ‘ Swallow these and then have a good zizz.’ Coaxingly she put an arm under Christine’s shoulders and, breathing heavily, raised her until her lips met the rim of the glass. ‘Swallow! Swallow!’

  ‘It’s such a bloody nuisance. It’s an age since I last had one as foul as this.’

  ‘I wonder what brought it on. It can’t be the sun, as that goofy neurologist at the Radcliffe seemed to think. We haven’t had any sun for the last week.’

  ‘Stress.’

  ‘Stress? What stress?’

  ‘Oh, never mind!’

  ‘Come on! Spill the beans.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘Well, in that case …’ Margaret gave a sigh. ‘If madam doesn’t want to tell me, I’ll make myself scarce.’

  ‘Oh, don’t get huffy. I’ll tell you another time, when I feel better.’

  ‘Very well. I’ll just have to wait till then. Won’t I?’ Margaret was not placated. ‘Anyway, just give me a shout if you need anything. I’ll be next door, mending that curtain. No hope of Mrs A. doing anything about it, I’m afraid.’

  Yes, of course it was stress, Christine told herself, as Margaret closed the door.

  Ever since Michael had told her about Horst’s visit, her mind, afflicted with a kind of agonising cramp, had refused to let go of it. She had decided to write – telephoning was, of course, impossible – to Thomas to ask him what it all meant but had then decided to wait until she next saw him; and, yes, all that Saturday morning, even at the second when the small, jagged piece of glass had first appeared in the centre of her book, she had been rehearsing how she must speak of it. It was a matter so trivial and yet one that nagged at her, like a medical diagnosis awaited with unrelenting apprehension. Repeatedly she told herself that, if indeed Thomas had pretended to Horst that he was visiting Michael, rather than her, then there must be some perfectly ordinary explanation. But nonetheless … She remembered now how she had once asked Thomas, ‘Have you told Horst yet?’ and he had replied with unexpected irritability, ‘Told him? Told him what?’

  ‘About us, silly.’

  He had nodded and muttered, face grim: ‘ Yes, yes, he knows.’

  ‘What does he think?’ she had persisted – foolishly, she was now convinced.

  His answer was perfunctory and dismissive: ‘Oh, you know Horst!’ He had then begun to talk about something else.

  She clawed at her left temple as though to trap and then squeeze to extinction the nerve that thump, thump, thump, was battering it like a bird trapped in a closed room. No use. Oh, she must take into consideration that, like most good conversationalists, Michael always carried around with him the invisible paintbox of his imagination to make humdrum reality more vivid and startling. Much of what he had told her about Horst’s visit must certainly have been touched up; some of it might even have been pure invention. Horst had probably come in to ask for Thomas merely because he had forgotten that that afternoon he would be, not with Michael, but with her. That had then at once caused Michael to recreate the whole trivial event into something far more dramatic and lurid.

  Margaret was back. ‘Would you like a cold flannel?’

  ‘Oh, no. Thank you.’

  ‘You know that sometimes it helps.’

  Christine closed her eyes, making no response.

  ‘Well, just an idea. No matter. Just try to have a snooze.’

  ‘What about Thomas?’

  Margaret squinted down at the watch that, like a hospital sister, she wore pinned to her bosom. ‘Well, he won’t be here for another three hours – if he comes at the usual time. We can see what you feel like. If the worse comes to the worst I can always give him a cuppa. I’ve got rather a lot to do but I can always put it off till tomorrow – or do it after he’s gone.’ This was a lie. Margaret had been wondering through an empty morning how she would fill an empty afternoon.

  ‘Oh, I expect I’ll be all right by then. But thank you all the same.’

  ‘Well, you never know.’

  No sooner had Margaret shut the door behind her than Christine heard her greet someone on the staircase. ‘Well, well, hello! You’re quite the stranger. It’s yonks since you –’

  ‘Oh, didn’t Christine tell you?’ It was Peter’s resonant, over-confident voice. ‘ The FO sent me over to Prague for a month – for my sins.’

  ‘What gorgeous flowers!’

  ‘Yes, they are rather nice, aren’t they? Cost a bomb at this time of year, but there you are! Nothing’s too good – or expensive – for my girl. Is she in?’

  ‘Well … yes, she is. But the poor darling’s not feeling at all good. In fact, she’s thoroughly seedy. One of her beastly migraines. I’ve just put her to bed.’

  ‘Can I slip in and take a quick shufti?’

  ‘Well, I’m not really sure …’ Hadn’t Christine told her, after the ball, that she never wished to see Peter again? ‘But I’ll go in and check with her, if you like.’

  ‘Would you? That would be angelic.’

  As soon as Margaret opened the door, Christine raised herself on an elbow and, with a grimace, frantically shook her head. Margaret flashed a gratified smile, nodded and pulled the door shut. Christine could hear her explain that the poor dear was already fast asleep. ‘Shall I take the flowers?’

  ‘Would you? They’ll need to be put in water. And there’s some sort of sachet with them – you’ll have to add that. Don’t absent-mindedly drop it in her tea!’

  She was affronted. ‘I’d never dream of such a thing.’

  ‘I was only joking! Perhaps I can call back some time this evening?’

  ‘No promises. But no harm in trying.’

  Silence. Christine relapsed into a throbbing half doze.

  When she re-emerged, still drugged from the pills, she fancied but could not be certain that a figure was seated on the uncomfortable straight-backed chair at the other end of the room. She closed her eyes again, deciding that this was no more than a delusion of her migraine. But when, after some minutes, she once more roused herself, the motionless, shadowy form was still there. ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Me. Thomas.’ His voice sounded oddly thick, as though he needed to clear his throat.

  ‘Oh, Thomas! Have you been there long?’

  ‘Not long.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to come over to say hello to me?’

  He got up and began to walk slowly and stiffly towards the bed. She felt an immediate apprehension. He halted a few feet away from her. He stood there, silent, looking down at her.
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  ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ How easily each of them could now intuit the other’s moods!

  His hands, which had so far remained to his sides, rose and met in a small, flustered gesture. He gave a dry cough. ‘Horst. Horst is dead.’

  ‘Dead!’ She sounded incredulous and aghast. But curiously the news had come as no surprise to her. It was something that, subconsciously, she had known would eventually – perhaps even soon – happen, she could not have said why.

  He nodded. There was a long pause, while she waited. Then he muttered: ‘Killed himself. Last night.’

  ‘But that’s horrible!’

  She held out her arms to him, the kimono that she was wearing falling away from them to leave them bare. But he did not go to her. Instead he sat down on the edge of the bed, his body and face rigid. In the light that filtered through the silk scarf thrown by Margaret over the shade of the bedside lamp it was impossible to see the full extent of his desolation. She jerked herself up. As she did so, the pain pierced through her right eyeball; she almost cried out with it.

  ‘How did it happen?’ He shook his head, biting his lower lip. ‘How did it happen?’ she repeated, even more insistent.

  In a barely audible voice, his head turned down and away from her, he told her what he knew. Horst had disappeared when the time came for him and his fellow workers to return to the camp the previous evening. There had been a search – a hurried one since the guards had been eager, as always, to go off duty as quickly as they could – and he had then been posted missing. At a nearby farm, the nine-year-old daughter of the household had found him hanging from a beam in a barn when she had entered it late in the evening with a torch, looking for her cat. So far, apart from these bare facts, nothing else had been revealed. But, inevitably, a gale of rumours was swirling round the camp and there was a general air of excitement and horror. Wherever prisoners gathered, it was noticeable how the babble of their voices resonated more and more loudly as they yet again went over every detail. They all agreed that Horst was the last person they would have expected to do such a thing. There were even suggestions that he might have been murdered.

  Having finished his bare, halting account, Thomas got to his feet with a deep sigh, crossed over to the washbasin and, with trembling hands, poured himself out a glass of water. He swallowed it in two gulps, grimacing after each as though it were some bitter medicine. Then he remained there, head lowered as he stared down into the empty glass.

  ‘But why did he do it?’

  He shrugged, still staring down into the glass.

  ‘There must have been some reason.’

  He looked up at her. He hesitated. ‘ Today I found a letter. From him, from Horst. He left it in my locker.’

  ‘A letter? What about?’

  He fumbled in the breast pocket of his tunic and pulled it out. He half held out to her the thin, lined sheet of paper with the scrawled German characters on it.

  ‘Please – translate it for me.’

  ‘If you wish.’ He squinted down at it, as if for the first time.

  ‘Come and sit over here.’ She extended a hand and patted the seat of the chair beside her bed. ‘I’ll put on the light.’ She did so and the raw glare after the consoling darkness made her raise a hand to shield her eyes. When she looked across at him again, it was to find him staring at her with what was almost an expression of hostility.

  ‘He begins ‘‘Mein – mein sehr lieber Freund’’. My very dear friend. You must forgive me for what I have already done when you have this letter.”’ He screwed up his eyes, frowning down at it. Then, with the exasperation of a child urged to perform a task too difficult for it, he announced: ‘Impossible. My English is too bad.’

  ‘Why not just give me the gist then?’

  ‘The gist?’

  ‘In your own words. Briefly. Simply.’

  ‘Well …’ Again he stared down at the fragile sheet of paper. ‘I’ll try. He begins – no one is to blame, I am not to blame. What we discussed yesterday evening – that has nothing to do with it.’

  ‘What did you discuss yesterday evening?’

  ‘What we often discuss. The past. The future. Our lives.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He writes – for a long time he thought that maybe he would do this thing. But he always thought of his daughter Annette. Maybe she was still alive. If she was still alive, he must continue for her. But now …’ He broke off. ‘He gave up hope. Or hope gave up him.’

  ‘Is there nothing else?’

  Another long pause. ‘Only – he thanks me. Nothing more.’

  ‘May I see it?’

  ‘What’s the use? It’s in German.’ He again held up the sheet before her, as though she might not believe him.

  ‘Terrible,’ she said. And yes, in a weird way the whole incident had filled her with what she could only describe as terror similar to that induced in her each time that she had heard a V1 sputtering above her to its fatal and wholly arbitrary rendezvous with its victims.

  ‘And I’m to blame.’ He said it in a flat, barely audible voice, at the same time playing with the tassel of the dressing gown that lay across the foot of the bed.

  ‘You’re to blame? What do you mean?’

  ‘First Klaus. Now Horst.’ He shook his head. ‘I bring bad luck. And I’m a bad friend.’

  ‘But what more could you have done for him?’

  ‘Much. Much. I knew that he was unhappy. Needed me. And I – I did so little. Said so little. Took little notice. Now, I feel so ashamed.’

  ‘Well, in that case, I suppose I’m also to blame. I’ve taken up so much of your free time these last weeks.’

  He did not contradict her. Head bowed, speaking almost to himself, he went on: ‘I should have told him straightaway. I lied to him. I pretended that I was visiting Michael, not you. And then – he found out the truth – that I was lying to him.’

  ‘I’d begun to wonder if you’d told him.’ All at once she wanted to strike out at him, withholding that comfort with which in the past she had always been so generous.

  He tugged viciously at the tassel of the dressing gown cord until finally it broke. He held out the tassel in the palm of his hand. ‘See what I’ve done. Sorry.’

  Just as she had ignored the breaking, so she now ignored the perfunctory apology for it. ‘So I was right in my suspicion – you didn’t tell him.’

  He tossed the tassel down on to the bed. ‘ I didn’t tell him.’

  ‘Why on earth not?’

  He shrugged and looked away. ‘ I don’t know.’

  ‘But there must have been some reason.’

  ‘Perhaps – perhaps I didn’t wish to hurt him.’

  ‘Hurt him?’

  ‘You know how he feels about prisoners and English girls.’

  ‘But that’s absurd. Surely it’s your own business if you –’

  Roughly he broke in: ‘He was my friend! Don’t you understand? My friend!’

  ‘No, I don’t understand. I’m sorry.’

  His anger ebbed. With a fatalistic melancholy, he said all but inaudibly: ‘ You cannot understand. You’re right. Only a prisoner can understand.’

  ‘But can’t you explain?’

  ‘There will be a – what do you call it? In court. Untersuchung.’

  ‘An inquest.’

  He nodded. ‘An inquest. And they will then decide – what was wrong with him, why he did such a thing. He was depressed. He thought too much about his daughter – all, all the time. Maybe she was dead, maybe she was homeless, maybe she was starving. He hated the camp. He wished to return to his country. Oh, they’ll find reasons, many reasons. They will explain, of course they will explain. But,’ – suddenly his voice became relentless – ‘they cannot know. They cannot know anything.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘Ach, poor Horst!’

  There were no more questions she could put, no more comments she could make. Implacably she had driven him, a hunted animal, from covert
to covert in her desire to know all; but he had escaped her. He was a man, he was a prisoner; she was a woman, she was free. She could guess at the complexities of the relationship between the two men, and she could discuss them with Michael, with Bill, and even with Thomas himself, but she would never know, much less understand, except always at one remove.

  ‘Well, if you think you’re to blame, then so – in part at least – am I,’ she said quietly, more to herself than to him. ‘But most of all the whole stupid, cruel system that keeps you all here – merely because we want to stuff ourselves with more Brussels sprouts and drive our cars too fast on a new trunk road,’ she added in sudden, unreasonable anger.

  He stretched himself out on the bed beside her, his face buried in the dressing gown. ‘ Oh, Christine! How often you save me!’ He turned over and put his cheek against hers.

  After that for a long time they lay facing each other in a serene sadness, no longer touching. Christine had already put out a hand and switched off the lamp. Her head ceased to pound and, when she looked into his face, there too all tension was relaxed. Minute followed minute until, in that cold, unlit Oxford bedroom, she all at once had an illusion of Thomas and herself lying out on some vast, empty, tropical beach, with the sun blazing above them and the sea glittering out and out before them, and his breath, as now, gently fanning her cheek …