‘May the Lord protect this place in the dark days to come,’ I say. ‘Amen.’
‘Amen.’
We carry on. Stumbling. Digging. Burying. Praying. Until all eight of the squares have gone. As Grace puts the earth back onto the last little grave she looks up at me and says, ‘Let’s not go back. Not yet.’
I follow her into the church porch, where she tuts and mumbles something too softly for me to hear, and it’s so dark I can’t see either. Then a spark of light. As a flame bursts to life I see her face. She’s got a cigarette between her lips. She lights the tip and shakes the flame from the match, leaving only the scarlet heat of the tobacco, which burns brighter as she takes a long breath.
And then she speaks. ‘Octavia would say it was not very ladylike, I know.’
I want to tell her she is the most ladylike woman I have ever met. Delicate. Strong. That’s what feminine is. God Himself has told Octavia that women are mighty. Grace has the power to save me. Every word, every movement, assures me that she can. And she’s beautiful. She is so beautiful. Even in the dark.
She takes another breath from her cigarette. ‘I know it’s not allowed. But tonight we’re not there, we’re here. I’ve been saving this packet, hiding it in my bedroom.’
There’s just enough glow from the cigarette to illuminate her lips. It makes them look red. Like the lipstick I have seen on the cosmetic counter, the lipstick we are forbidden to wear. Smoke is gathering around us in the porch, the smell reminds me of my brother Adrian. He always liked to smoke, though I’m not sure if it was the act itself or the fact Octavia hated it so much.
‘Can I tempt you?’ asks Grace and I see the tip move towards me. I shouldn’t but I have already taken the cigarette from her, I’m already bringing it to my mouth, placing my lips where hers have been. It’s slightly damp. I try to taste any trace of her but instead I get a mouthful of smoke. I’m coughing. I look a fool.
She laughs. ‘Take your time. Don’t breathe too deeply. Not at first.’
Leaning forward she takes hold of the cigarette, which is still between my lips. She is so close now I can see her; so close I can feel her breathing.
‘We may as well have one each,’ she says, lighting a second with the heat from mine. ‘It’s not like I can smoke them once we get home. So …’ she says, ‘what do you think?’
I daren’t tell her half of what I think.
‘Do you like the taste of rebellion?’ she says, trying to coax some words out of me. But I have none to give. Does she want me to feel something? Guilty? Exhilarated? Because I am neither. Surprised perhaps at how easy it was to break the rules. I know I should confess this next time I am called to list my transgressions. But I haven’t decided whether I will. Not yet. This is a moment just for us. For me and Grace. And I don’t think I’m prepared to share it. Because if I do it will become something else. Something more. Something wrong. And that’s not what I want it to be.
I’m not coughing when I breathe the smoke in now. I feel it slip down my throat and swirl around my chest. Then it rises up in waves and my head feels as though it’s expanding. As if I might float away.
Reflections
Grace and I are the last ones home. Octavia has stayed up to check us back into the house, and Emily seems almost disappointed that we haven’t been set upon by rogues in the backstreets.
‘I must get to bed,’ I say, ‘I’m exhausted,’ and for once I don’t have to pretend. I spend my nights chasing sleep around my bedroom, a game of hide and seek in which I’m always the searcher. But as we walked home it came to find me. I felt it creeping into the tip of my long shadow and on the corner of Castle Street it caught up, and took my hand: a feeling of calm and contentment seeping in under my coat. Now my legs feel too heavy to climb the stairs. But up I go, a laboured race to wash and get into bed before sleep stills my body and my thoughts.
The face that greets me in the mirror looks twisted, as though one side has melted. Up close I see the illusion: a smear of mud above one eyebrow that unbalances my features. It must be soil from the churchyard, dried on my skin in cracked patches like the scales of a serpent. The smell of tobacco lingers in my hair, shame clinging to each strand in pathetic rebellion. Against what? Against Octavia? Against God Himself? When I am away from this room, this house, this garden, it feels like there’s another truth, but now I am back I know there is only one path. Straying from it will only bring pain.
And so will wanting to.
And I wouldn’t want to be found wanting.
I had wanted Adrian to write again, though I told myself I didn’t. And now there’s been nothing since he told me he was getting married. I suppose I was stupid to think he might keep his promise to write, but I didn’t think he’d cut me off so soon. Perhaps his fiancée put her foot down. She won’t want to be associated with this. With us. With me. She will be busy picking out fabric for her wedding outfit and flowers for her bouquet. He’ll wear his military uniform, of course, but then decisions on what to wear are always easier for men. When they dress they don’t slip on the expectations that are sewn into the hem of every skirt and blouse.
As I stretch out and put on my nightdress I see the door reflected in my mirror. I imagine Grace is watching, closing one eye so she can look through the keyhole with the other. Against the glare of my lamp I am in silhouette: a shape, a shadow. And I turn sideways so she can see my outline, a hint of the side of my breast, the arch of my back. I let the dreams come and find me, sending fragments spinning into the air between us and she breathes them in: my nakedness, my truth. Suddenly I am tiny, small enough to fit through a keyhole, invisible like air. She tries to stay silent but the thought of me catches in her throat and I hear her gasp.
These are the thoughts I have. And they hurt. They make me ache: sharp pains as though the Devil is torturing me from the inside and I have to make him stop. Sometimes I succumb and climb into my bed and force him out. I reach beneath my nightclothes and exorcise the thoughts of her that make me shudder as they leave my body. And when they are gone I feel powerful and calm and everything seems clearer. I confess every incidence of selfabuse to Octavia. She insists on making a note of exactly when and where it happens. But when She presses me to tell Her what I think about, I don’t tell Her the truth. Vague fantasies about kissing young men seem to satisfy Her. When I go outside I collect snippets of body parts to use on such occasions: deep blue eyes, chiselled jaws, broad shoulders. It is the detail that makes the sin more plausible, because if I told Her the real thoughts the Devil puts inside my head, She might send Grace away.
Sea of Galilee
I peel back each layer of fabric slowly, holding my breath; teasing myself with the anticipation of what I might find; challenging myself to guess. Every morning I step into Castleside to find a bundle of packages, donations left by members, wrapped in old scraps of material or newspaper. A set of crystal glasses, or a dozen egg cups, it doesn’t matter what’s inside, or that they have been left here for the bishops, in that moment they are mine: the wedding gifts I’ll never have.
Members used to bring them to Number 12 in the hope that Octavia might see just how generous they were, but She soon grew irritated by all the callers. After Peter took the hoarding down at Castleside, She said there was nothing to stop donations being left just inside the back door here, and so that’s where I find them. This morning’s offerings were disappointingly easy to guess: the domed backs of three hot-water bottles, the unmistakable shape of a pair of bellows, wrapped so badly that the nozzle had torn through the paper. There was a picture too, a watercolour of the Sea of Galilee, painted entirely in the oranges and browns of a desert sunset: the rocks burnt umber, the water’s edge touched by the blush of fading light. I’ve carried it up to a bedroom on the first floor, the one I’d choose if I could live in this house myself. It is not the biggest, but it overlooks the street at the front and in it I put all the furnishings I like most: a hand-sewn Bible sampler Ellen inherited from h
er mother; an ivory clothes brush Donald brought with him from Cambridge; a decanter that became an increasingly close companion to Kate’s husband in the weeks before he went to war. I’m keeping an inventory of course. Everyone who gives will get their memories back, but once the bishops come, once the box is opened, it won’t matter to them any more. There will be nothing to worry about. Nothing to fear. And we’ll be far too busy preparing for Jesus to consider whether the chamber pot with the yellow roses belonged to Gertrude Searson or to Rachel Fox.
Until then, this is my house. I have lit the boiler and drawn water from the rainwater tank beneath the kitchen floor. I have plunged each knife into the Spong’s Red Seal Polisher which swallows dull blades then spits them out with a flash of light along their sharpened edge. In my mind I do the jobs that Grace does: I swing the carpet-beater into empty air, and heat the blue tin kettle to a whistle. Then at lunchtime she carries across a tray and we sit together. In the kitchen. Where the window is high and no one can see in.
There’s a noise downstairs. It sounds like someone is knocking on the back door. It won’t be Grace, not yet. Besides, she knows to come straight in. It must be one of the ladies with a donation.
All she has to do is try the handle. Open the door. Leave her parcel. Go.
If I walk downstairs I will have to speak to her, she might want to stay and chat, ask how I am getting on; so I concentrate on hanging the watercolour from the picture rail, holding it up at different places on the wall to find the right spot.
Another sound. A voice this time. I stand completely still and listen. ‘Hello?’ it says. ‘Are you there?’ A low voice. A man’s voice.
I think of the smashed window that I found in the pantry; the light I saw in the window from the Garden; and all the things that Octavia has told us that men will try to do to women, given the chance. I am trapped upstairs alone and they have come back. Whoever it was has come back.
I slip off my shoes so I can move silently across the wooden floor. If I make my way to the landing I can look over the bannister and I may be able to see where they are. Then I can decide whether to get out and run or stay in and hide. And pray, of course, I must do that either way.
I make it as far as the doorway, moving slowly, testing each floorboard as if it might give way and send me falling through it.
‘Hello? Miss Barltrop? Are you here?’ It’s a voice I know. American. It is Edgar. ‘See, I told you,’ he says. ‘It’s empty.’
‘It is too much of a risk,’ says another. ‘If anyone found us in here …’
‘Then we’d tell them we came to see if we could help, Donald, come on.’
From out here on the landing I can hear them clearly now, hear their footsteps on the tiled floor of the hall. ‘Hello?’ shouts Edgar again.
I could go back into the bedroom. Hide behind the door. But my legs won’t move.
‘It is Wednesday,’ Edgar says. ‘She told us herself, she cuts the linen on a Wednesday. And if I have to sit through another interminable game of bridge with those women, I don’t know what I’ll do!’
I hear the creak of the stairs. They are climbing up. And I am just standing here. I should hide.
‘But Edgar …’
‘Isn’t it worth the risk to get away from all those prying eyes? There’s no way we can talk freely with my landlady hovering, and there’s no question of us going to my room, it would get back to Octavia in no time. There have already been questions.’
‘What questions?’ says Donald and I hear their footsteps halt halfway up the stairs.
‘Emily’s been asking what we are discussing in our Bible study, reminding me that men must follow the rule of women. And Peter is eager to join our prayer meetings. All these months he could hardly bring himself to be civil to me when Octavia wasn’t in earshot. Now suddenly he’s acting like we might be friends.’
I have no choice now. Another few steps and they’ll find me standing here, shoes in hand. They’ll know that I have heard them.
‘Mr Peissart, Mr Ricketts, can I help you?’ I try to strike an imposing figure at the top of the stairs. Both men jump and look up to see where the voice has come from.
‘Dilys … Miss Barltrop. You are here,’ says Edgar, bringing his hand to his chest as if to steady his heart.
‘I am. And so are you. May I ask why?’ I hold onto the bannister tightly, my legs shaking.
‘We came to see if we could be of any assistance,’ says Donald. He looks around, pretending to appreciate the décor but I know he is avoiding my eyes.
‘That won’t be necessary. Thank you.’
The colour has drained from Edgar’s face. I see his knuckles blanching too, both hands gripping his cane too tightly. He tries to force a laugh, looking to Donald for some reaction, but he gives none; the younger man’s cheeks seem to wear the colour that the elder’s have lost.
‘Castleside is out of bounds until everything is ready,’ I say, surprised by the burn of anger in the back of my throat. ‘Octavia made that quite clear.’
There are too many thoughts let loose in my head, too many questions: a murmuration of starlings, taking form but refusing to hold their shape. I want to know whether Edgar and Donald have been in here before. Whether they have been lounging in the chairs in the sitting room, reading the books I have arranged on the shelves. This is my house, filled with the things I have collected and the thoughts I have had. They have no right to be here.
Edgar shrinks back. ‘Of course. I had quite forgotten. My apologies, Miss Barltrop.’
I like this feeling. This power I have. This must be what it is like to be Octavia, to dictate and make decisions. He longs to ask me – will you tell Her, Dilys, will you tell? But he won’t. Not out loud. And I already know I won’t ask him the question still swooping and soaring in my head – the broken window, Edgar. The broken window, was that you? If I knew the answer I would be required to tell. Octavia thinks the truth is a straight line but when you follow the strand of a secret you find it knotted up. If you’re not careful you get tangled in it.
‘We’ll say no more about it,’ I say. And he looks at me wide-eyed and disbelieving. There is silence between us. Silence that stretches out far too long.
‘Very good, Miss Barltrop,’ says Donald finally. ‘It is much appreciated. We don’t want to spoil the surprise of the grand unveiling. We’ll be sure to stay away until then, won’t we?’
Edgar gives a start as Donald pats him on the shoulder. ‘A misunderstanding, yes. Our apologies for disturbing you. We merely wanted to ask if we could help. But I see you have everything quite under control.’ He bows, then turns to Donald. ‘After you,’ he says, following him back down the stairs. I watch them cross the hallway in silence, Edgar striking the floor with a flourish of his cane, Donald looking up at me, his slicked-down hair starting to lift behind his ears. ‘Thank you,’ he says, mouthing silent words up to me. I hear the back door close behind them and I realise I’ve been holding my breath. For a moment I felt powerful, but that wasn’t really me. It was Grace. I was pretending to be Grace, and the effort of playing her has left me drained.
The General Strike
It’s almost midnight and the music has stopped. On the BBC, an announcer’s voice breaks the silence to give the final instructions: ‘All loyal citizens should keep calm, and determined to do their best to keep law and order.’ The moment has come, the strike is about to begin. ‘We commend the country to God’s guidance and ask that peace may be restored.’ Through the crackle of the signal we can hear his sincerity, and is it fear?
There were too many of us to gather in the Wireless Room tonight, so Octavia commanded that the radio set be brought into the chapel instead. Many of the resident members have come, there must be forty at least. Those who live in houses more than two streets away are under curfew: they were told to stay inside once dusk fell. Ellen is feeling too ill to make it down to chapel in the dark, but Grace will be with her and soon I will be too. Octavia agreed
that we could keep her company for the night.
It is so dark out there this evening, the moon looks as though it has been bitten to the quick, the thinnest crescent of fingernail scratching the sky. But inside, the chapel blazes with light. Everyone is holding a lamp, and though each one is turned down, the effect is unforgiving: every wrinkle and pimple seen in sharp relief. Rachel Fox looks like she is wearing a dusting of rouge on her cheeks, which is against the rules. She is clearly relishing the drama of the occasion. The prospect of catastrophe seems to brighten her complexion, her eyes are sparkling, her posture primed, as if she is waiting to take on the rioting mobs single-handedly, and if it came to it she might have to. At times like this it is men who are expected to spring forward and unleash their instinct to fight, but Edgar and Peter are the only men here tonight, which doesn’t fill me with confidence. And from the look of Peter, who sits fidgeting in his chair, it’s a burden that doesn’t sit comfortably with him either. It’s a pity Donald isn’t here, at least he has the vitality of youth and I have seen some of the ladies admiring the curve of his arms when they think that no one is looking. He is the nearest thing we’d have to a protector but I haven’t seen him since he came to Castleside. I’m not sure anybody has. When Octavia enquired after him this morning, Edgar said he’d been anxious to return to Cambridge before the strike brings the trains to a halt. He looked at me when he said it, the briefest glance. And when I walked across the lawn to Castleside Edgar was sitting on the bench under Yggdrasil.
‘Dilys,’ he said, standing up as I crossed the lawn nearby. ‘I am glad I have caught you. I hope you don’t misunderstand anything you may have heard me say to Donald. It can be … difficult living among so many women. We rather feel like we’re in the minority. Sometimes we just crave peace and quiet.’ I smiled politely and said that I quite understood.
The Rapture Page 13