by Pat Barker
‘Has he seen a doctor?’
‘Two days ago, he said go home and go to bed.’
‘Which of course he didn’t.’
‘No, well, he had to go into college; he had an appointment with his tutor. And he didn’t seem to be too bad. But then last night his temperature absolutely shot up.’
‘What’s his breathing like?’
‘Quite bad, I think it might be pneumonia.’
‘Is there a telephone?’
‘I think the landlady has one, but she lives next door.’
‘It’s just I’ll have to tell my parents.’
‘No, you mustn’t, he doesn’t want them to know. He’s afraid if your mother comes she’ll get it herself.’
‘They’ve got a right to know.’
‘You talk to him then, he might listen to you.’
Mother would come and nurse him. Surprising, perhaps, in such an indolent woman, but she’d have been on the next train.
‘Is term over?’
‘Finished yesterday. That’s why he wouldn’t give in, you see. He won’t take time off.’
She caught the note of hero worship in his voice. When Toby was at school, he’d always had hero-worshipping younger boys trailing round after him, coming to stay in the holidays, taking him away from her. This Andrew might think he was special but he was merely the latest in a long line.
They were climbing a steep hill now, which at least allowed her to stop talking for a while. The smell of sulphur that had hung over the city for weeks had gone; the air tasted crisp and sweet. With each step she pressed her foot down hard, relishing the squeak of her boots on the impacted snow. Odd, to be able to feel pleasure at such a time. She didn’t, even now, believe Toby was really sick, or in any danger. He never had been. Apart from the usual childhood things that everybody gets, she couldn’t remember a time when he’d been ill.
The houses on either side were more imposing now, set well back from the road and screened by trees. She bumped into a low-hanging branch that sent snow cascading over her head and shoulders. Taking off her hat, she beat it against the side of her coat.
Andrew was staring, as if he’d only just seen her. ‘You’re awfully like him, aren’t you? I didn’t think boy/girl twins could be identical.’
‘They can’t,’ she said. ‘One’s a boy, one’s a girl.’ He was supposed to be a medical student, for God’s sake. ‘Anyway, we’re not twins.’
‘Oh. I’m sure Toby said –’
‘I think I’d know.’ That verged on the sharp. ‘Toby was a twin, the other one died.’
‘Sorry, I must’ve got it wrong.’
He was still looking puzzled: Toby had said they were twins. She didn’t understand any of this, but there was no time to think about it now. ‘Is there anybody in the house who can help look after him?’
‘No, not really. I live at home, I can come in during the day, but I couldn’t stay overnight.’
‘I meant the landlady, somebody like that.’
‘I’m afraid she’s much too grand for anything like that. And I don’t think he knows any of the other tenants.’
The walk took a lot longer in the snow than it would normally have done. By the time they reached Toby’s lodgings Elinor was gasping for breath, in no state to face four flights of stairs, or brace herself for what she might find when she reached the top.
Andrew pushed open the door, called out a cheerful greeting and then stood aside to let her go in first. Her nostrils caught the usual sickroom fug of camphor and stale sweat. The room was in darkness except for a circle of firelight flickering on the hearthrug. She couldn’t see where she was going, but then Andrew stepped in front of her and lit the lamp. A bristle of meaningless detail: clothes, shoes, socks, furniture, books, dirty dishes piled up in a sink. None of it registered. She saw only Toby’s face.
‘Elinor.’
Three quick strides took her to the bed. ‘It’s all right,’ she was saying. ‘It’s all right.’
He gazed up at her, and a thick, pasty-white tongue came out and licked his cracked lips.
‘Don’t try to talk.’
As she spoke, she was pulling off her coat and scarf. She tossed them on to a chair and stamped her feet to shake off the curds of snow. The room filled with the smell of wet wool and the cold air they’d brought in on their skins.
Elinor glanced round. The fire was burning low, but there was a basket full of logs, presumably carried up by Andrew. There was a jug of water by the bed. As for food, well … She doubted if Toby could eat anything and she certainly didn’t want to.
‘You won’t tell Mother, will you?’
‘She’s got a right to know. And Father.’
‘Honestly, Elinor, this is a terrible thing …’ He was struggling to sit up. ‘Don’t let –’
He’d always been like this about Mother. Nothing must be allowed to upset or disturb her at all. It made Elinor actually quite angry: so much concern for Mother, so little for her. It obviously didn’t matter if she got ill. And Father, where was Father in all this? Nowhere. Rachel, not even mentioned. But she could see he was becoming more and more agitated.
‘All right,’ she said, at last. ‘I promise.’
He closed his eyes then and let her settle him on to the pillows, which were damp with his sweat.
When she’d made him as comfortable as she could, she turned to Andrew, who’d been hovering, awkward and clumsy, by the door, his gaze fixed on Toby’s flushed and sweating face.
‘I’ll be all right now, if you want to get off.’
He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I don’t want to, but I think perhaps I’d better.’
He went to stand by the bed. For some extraordinary reason she felt she ought to look away, but then, deliberately, didn’t. She watched him wrap one big red hand round Toby’s twitching fingertips.
‘Right, then, I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘What time?’
‘Nine-ish.’
‘Oh. Not till then?’
‘All right, I’ll try to get in for eight.’
Toby seemed about to say something else, but then shook his head.
She followed Andrew out on to the landing.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘here’s my telephone number. You will let me know, won’t you, if he gets worse?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she said, automatically, though she thought: I’ve just promised not to tell my mother and father. Why on earth would I tell you?
She stood in the darkness, listening to his footsteps going down the stairs, until she heard the click of the front door closing behind him. When she got back to the room, Toby’s eyes were shut, though she didn’t think he was asleep. Perhaps he wanted to avoid the rawness of undiluted contact with her, now that his friend had gone and they were alone. She looked down at him. There was a grey tinge to his complexion now, except for two patches of dark red on his cheeks that seemed to get more intense as she watched. The effect was ridiculous and even slightly sinister; he looked like a broken doll.
He’d thrust the bedclothes down below his waist. She tried to pull them up again, but he resisted. ‘No, I’m too hot.’
‘You’ve got a temperature.’
When she touched his forehead the heat frightened her, but a few minutes later he’d started to shiver and complained of feeling cold. She tucked the coverlet up around his chin, but almost immediately he started tugging at it, fighting to get it off. He opened his eyes and looked at her.
‘Has Andrew gone?’
‘Yes, just now.’
He nodded, but kept glancing towards the door.
‘He left me his telephone number.’
‘You won’t ring him, will you? He lives at home.’
‘No, I won’t ring.’
The port-wine stains on his cheeks turned him into a stranger. She sat by the bed, suddenly frightened, dreading the long night ahead.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said.
&
nbsp; Bizarrely, he’d voiced her thoughts. ‘I think the best thing you can do is get some sleep.’
He lapsed into silence then, his eyes fluttering upwards behind his half-closed lids. Perhaps he would sleep. She sat back in the chair and gazed around the room. It was very much a student’s lodgings, right down to the cheap prints tacked on to the walls. Books were stacked on every available surface, sometimes spilling over on to the floor. In one corner, wedged between the wardrobe and the window, was a skeleton, wearing Toby’s hat.
A carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked out the slow minutes. She felt lonely, and she hadn’t expected that. She’d thought they’d be in this together, but they weren’t. Toby had vanished into his illness, leaving her to face the night alone.
As his temperature rose, he began to mutter, a jumble of words that made no sense. He seemed to think he was back at home, in his own room. Once, he even called her Mother.
She touched his hand. ‘It’s Elinor.’
‘Oh, yes.’ He managed a smile. ‘I’m glad it’s you.’
But then he started rambling and the muttering got louder. He seemed to be saying one word over and over again. She bent closer, getting the full blast of his rancid breath.
‘Toby, I can’t hear you.’
‘Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry sorry …’
‘Shush.’
She put a hand over his mouth, but the sorries kept streaming out of him. He must be apologizing for what had happened between them, at the old mill and later in his room. What else could it be? Without warning he threw the covers off and swung his legs over the side of the bed. She pushed him back, knowing if it came to a fight he was almost certainly, in spite of his illness, stronger than her. She couldn’t make out what he was trying to do. He seemed to be staring at something, not at her, something or somebody behind her.
‘Sorry, I am so sorry.’
‘Go to sleep, Toby. Please.’
Sleep was what he needed, but she wanted him unconscious as much for her sake as his. He lay back, defeated, and closed his eyes. At first, he simply tossed and turned, made restless by the tightness of his breathing, but then, at last, he slipped into a deep sleep, and she was able to relax, a little.
A sulky fire burnt in the grate, spitting whenever a flake of snow found its way down the chimney and hit the hot coals. The room was beginning to feel cold. She pressed a log down hard on to the embers, but the flames that licked round it would take an hour or more to get a hold. The chair she was sitting in had springs sticking through the cushions. She twisted and turned, trying to get comfortable, but nothing worked, and the coat she’d wrapped round herself was still wet from the long walk through the snow. Toby was clinging to the edge of the bed, leaving plenty of space on the other side. Without undressing, or even loosening her belt, she climbed across him, and curled up in the narrow space between his spine and the wall.
She pulled the damp sheet over her, convinced she wouldn’t sleep, not with those dreadful rattling breaths beside her, but after a while she did manage to doze off, though she was aware, all the time, of the other body beside her, kicking, turning, never still, not for a moment, always wanting more room, more room. Without waking, he rolled over towards her. She wriggled away, but he seemed to be following her, pressing in on her, until her face was only a few inches from the wall. And he was pouring out sweat. At last, she gave up, and went back to sitting in the chair, trying to persuade herself that the curtains were beginning to let in a little more light. Though the clock said it was only twenty past three: the dead of night, the hour when the grip on life weakens.
She lit the lamp and brought it closer to his face so she could see the colour of his skin. The extent of his deterioration was frightening. While she’d been dozing, he’d turned from a doll into a clown. She put a hand on his chest and felt the huge, dark muscle of the heart labouring away in its cage of bone. Somehow or other she had to get his temperature down. She looked around for something to put water in, but all she could see was the jug by the bed. There had to be bowls somewhere. She found one in a cupboard beside the sink, and another in the bathroom across the landing. She filled them with tepid water and carried them to the marble washstand beside the bed.
As she brought the wet flannel close to his face, he said, ‘No!’ loudly, almost shouting, and reared away from her.
‘We’ve got to get your temperature down.’
He withdrew from her then, from his own body almost, straining his neck and head back as if to disassociate himself from the sweating bulk on the bed. She began to wash him down, singing little snatches of songs: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do, I’m half crazy … How different this body was from that other one on the slab, and yet how alike too. The glow of his wet skin in the lamplight … All for the love of you.
She worked rapidly, drying and covering him again as she went, so that he wouldn’t get chilled. Nursing was the only part of her education that hadn’t been neglected, until she’d gone to the Slade and met Tonks. At the end, she soaked the flannel in cold water and laid it across his eyes. She felt the darkness on her own lids, the cold weight, like the pennies they used to put on the eyes of the dead. As soon as the thought occurred she wanted to snatch the flannel away, but no, he was making little grunts and murmurs of pleasure, so she left it there, wetting it again to cool it down whenever it warmed through.
After that he slept for almost three hours. But then, gradually, inexorably, his temperature rose again, until he was twisting and flailing about, trying to escape from the bedclothes, even, it seemed, from his own body. And the muttering started again, but this time she couldn’t make out the words. Something about a train, was it?
‘You don’t need to go anywhere, Toby. Lie down.’
He gripped her by the upper arms so tightly it was an effort not to cry out.
‘Elinor?’
‘I’m here.’
He looked puzzled. Obviously he’d no idea where he was, or why she was here, but he let her plump up his pillows and straighten the sheets.
When she was sure he’d stopped struggling, she stepped away from the bed. Looking down at him, rubbing her arms, thinking: That’ll bruise. The fight seemed to have gone out of him. She didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, and she was almost too tired to care. She sank back into the chair, pulled the coat over her again, and slept.
She woke an hour later with dry lips and a dry tongue; she must have been sleeping with her mouth open. Toby was awake, watching her. She was so stiff it was a struggle to get out of the chair, but she managed to hobble the few steps to the bed and touch his hand. She was amazed to find it as cool as her own.
‘You look a lot better.’
‘Yes, I think I am.’
‘Do you think you could eat something?’
He was staring up at her, dazed by his recovery, but then suddenly his expression darkened. ‘I must have talked an awful lot of rubbish last night.’
She busied herself straightening the sheets. ‘No, you rambled on a bit, but I couldn’t make any of it out.’
His gaze wandered round the room, no longer with the confusion of high fever, but with a baby’s indiscriminate curiosity.
‘Have you been here all night?’
‘Yes.’
‘I hope to God you don’t get it.’
She shrugged. ‘Lap of the gods. Do you think you could manage a cup of tea?’
As she searched for cups and saucers she felt his gaze heavy between her shoulder blades, but he said nothing and before the kettle boiled he’d drifted off to sleep.
She went to the window and looked out on to the garden far below. Snow, snow everywhere. Every roof, every gable, every branch of every tree had changed shape overnight. Big white birds circled over the gardens searching for scraps, finding none, until the back door of one of the houses opened and a woman carrying a blue-and-white serving dish came out. She threw a chicken carcass on to the lawn, and then stood scraping small bones
and scraps of fat off the plate with the side of her hand. The minute she turned to go back in, the birds swooped down, fighting over the carcass in a great flurry of wings and snow.
How close had Toby come to dying last night? Easy, sitting here in broad daylight, to think she must have exaggerated the danger. He was, after all, young and strong, and strong young men don’t die.
What would her life have been like if he had? She couldn’t bear to think about it, not now, not while the fear was still present. But perhaps, after this illness, it would always be there? For a few hours last night, the unthinkable had become entirely possible, and from a realization like that there’s no going back.
She turned and looked at him. His mouth had slackened in sleep; each breath puckered the upper lip. But his colour was so much better; he would get over this. And the separation, the distance, that had grown up between them in the last few months, that had to end. Now. Toby had been right all along. Somehow or other they had to get back to the way things were. What had happened was not something that could be talked about, or explained, or analysed, or in any other way resolved. It could only be forgotten.
She stood at the window, timing her breaths to match the rise and fall of his. After a while, out of a white sky, more snow began to fall, tentatively, at first, then thick and fast, covering up the signs of battle on the lawn.
Eight
A few days later Elinor was sitting under the tall window outside Tonks’s room. There was a row of five chairs, but she was the only person waiting. She was nervous, as she always was before meeting Tonks, and the bright light from the window hurt her eyes. She hadn’t had much sleep the last few days. Toby had now gone home to recuperate, but worrying about him still kept her awake. Silly, really, because he was getting better.
She was here to tell Tonks that she didn’t want to continue with the anatomy course, and she didn’t know how he’d respond to that. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to get her on to it. She looked at her watch: five minutes past the time of her appointment, but there was no sound from behind his door.