Charlotte Gray

by Sebastian Faulks

  ‘Lots of smart young women are doing their bit, you know,’ he said. ‘The FANYs are as posh as Queen Charlotte’s ball. You needn’t think it infra dig.’

  ‘That isn’t what I thought at all. I’m not a snob. I just thought it didn’t seem realistic for someone like me who’s had such a quiet life.’

  Cannerley poured the last of the wine into her glass. ‘Nothing seems realistic these days, does it? The world’s upside down. Anyway, I shan’t bully you. There’s just one other thing.’

  He didn’t have time to tell Charlotte what it was, as a couple approached their table. The man wore a dinner jacket, the woman a dress with beads and tassels across the bust.

  ‘Hello, Dick, you old devil. Fancy finding you here. I thought you chaps never left the office. You remember Sylvia, don’t you?’ The man stood grinning by the side of the table. He had grey hair and a sweaty, indoor complexion; a scarlet cummerbund had been pushed down to an angle of forty-five degrees by the belly it restrained.

  Cannerley sprang to his feet and embraced the woman with apparent fervour. He introduced Charlotte, and the man shook her hand with a conspiratorial chuckle in Cannerley’s direction. His appreciative gurglings prevented Charlotte from hearing what his second name was, but Cannerley addressed him as ‘Roly’.

  ‘Are you going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Rather,’ said Cannerley. ‘Shall we team up?’

  Peter Gregory was sleeping badly. He had a narrow bed in a low-ceilinged cottage. The mattress offered sinking reassurance when he was tired, but on bad nights the woollen blankets knotted themselves round him and the lower sheet was drawn up into corrugated ridges by his continual turning. Moonlight glanced through a space in the curtains and spilled a track across the floorboards, prompting his mind to turn at once to visibility, cloud base, instruments.

  He was twenty-eight years old, but there were one or two lights of grey in his cropped and uncombed hair. He climbed out of the deep mattress, crossed the room and hauled a packet of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his tunic. He switched on the bedside lamp, which shed a tight glow beneath the circle of its floral shade. In it he could see a green glass ashtray and a book, face-down, broken-spined. So mean was the little pool of light, that when he actually wanted to read he had to balance the lamp on the headboard, behind his right ear. He sat up to smoke, then found he was too cold and had to lie beneath the eiderdown with the cigarette sticking out from his lips like a periscope. He whipped his hand out and knocked the ash off as fast as possible, so he could get his fingers back in the warmth. His feet were iced up from the walk across the room.

  His mind was on Charlotte Gray. Once, he had been able to indulge his admiration, his desire for women in such a way that they seemed to expect little from him. There were mild reproaches when an affair ended soon after it began (he had found another woman, he was posted somewhere else, it was only a light-hearted thing); but something in the way he behaved allowed the women to escape intact – with a sentimental letter, briefly brimming eyes, but then smiles and bravado and no feeling of betrayal. He wished he could recapture that lightness, but he felt that it sprang from an innocence of which he had been deprived. It belonged to another time.

  He had been farming in Nyasaland when the war broke out. Like many of his contemporaries, he had found it difficult to settle in England and a family friend had spoken seductively of Africa. At that age he regarded his work as provisional; he was still looking, not very urgently, for what he would really do. A fierce South African neighbour called Forster told him they should at once return to England and join up. Forster was unhappy with the way some people in his own country seemed sympathetic to the Nazis and wanted to put every distance he could between them and himself. Since he and Gregory had both flown planes in Africa they should obviously volunteer as pilots. Gregory reluctantly agreed. Another war? What did they want with another war? But he went, and thought he could fight it in a way that suited him.

  He reached up from under the eiderdown and stubbed out the cigarette. Forster was the first man in his squadron to shoot down an enemy plane. Gregory confirmed it; he flew round in fascinated circles, watching the German fighter plummet through the air and bury itself in the hillside with a squally blossoming of flame. Forster was also the first man to be killed.

  Others quickly followed. Every man to whom he grew close in the desperate intimacy of shared experience was able to return affection and support for only a brief time. Gregory did not feel blessed or lucky; he felt he had in some way let down the others. Perhaps he was not worthy of dying. A woman with whom he had thought himself in love began to make demands of him; she wanted to be married and have children. When he heard himself explaining to her that this was probably not the time and that he was certainly not the man, he saw how much things had changed. He could not risk drawing someone in to this extent, when he viewed his own life with such detachment, when he saw it as impermanent, waiting for a shape. And at this ending there were no tearful smiles, but remorse and bitterness.

  A year ago he would have been round at Charlotte’s door. He was powerfully drawn to her; she engaged not just some reflexive male desire, but a will towards friendship such as he had known as a child, when he would become besotted with some small friend and grow fractious if denied his company. A year ago it would have been irresistible; there was a pleasure in her conversation which would have seemed a guarantee against a fickle loss of interest and some woundingly short romance.

  As he switched off the bedside light and searched once more for sleep, he wondered if these days he was capable of such feeling. For Charlotte’s sake, it was much better not to risk it.

  Charlotte was in Dick Cannerley’s arms. His face was smooth, his left palm moist. He was holding her tightly to him, his right hand against her back. Their feet were in a pool of light, one of several thrown on to the floor by the low-shaded lights at the small tables round the room. The singer was wearing a white tuxedo; he put his head on one side and closed his eyes while his voice sidled up to the melody. Charlotte looked over Cannerley’s shoulder and saw the clarinettist lick his lips as he raised the reed for his unctuous solo. Between the tables went a stout woman in a low-cut plum satin dress, her mouth a glistening cherry bow of lipstick; against a narrow bar with shaded violet lights were two other women, equally made-up, and unattached. The barman set out a silver tray with a bottle of champagne he had just taken from the shelf behind, and two glasses. Although the shelves were full of other bottles, champagne was the only thing that anyone was drinking. The wire brushes made a circular pattern of sound over the cymbal and the papery drum, while the pianist’s muted minor chords descended in ersatz tenderness. Charlotte blinked through the smoke and tried to loosen Cannerley’s grip. He was murmuring something inaudible, perhaps seductive, perhaps an offer to make further introductions.

  Maybe she should take him up: anything would be better than this nightclub, or her icy little room without Gregory.

  All through lunch on Saturday Charlotte was afraid. She kept looking at Gregory and she knew it was going to happen. When he stood up to go to the bar she imagined what his legs would look like: thin, naked. When he was lighting a cigarette she wondered what the skin of his hands would feel like, not twitching the ribbed metal of the lighter wheel, but on her back. While he talked, she was thinking of what he would say to her when they were alone. How much of this public person would he shed? Would he remain considerate and controlled, or was it such a different game that she would not recognise the creature he became? Was she supposed to do everything he wanted, or did she invite and guide him?

  It was a curious lunch. Michael Waterslow had brought Gregory at Daisy’s instruction, even though he had to be back at the airfield that evening. Charlotte was required for an extra surgery with Dr Wolf at six. There was a hasty, organised atmosphere because they knew they all ought to be somewhere else. Daisy had chosen this hotel at Streatley-on-Thames because she remembered being taken there
before the war; there was a view of the river through the window of the lounge where Charlotte could see a swan bending its neck into the reeds by the far bank. With the speared cherries in the drinks, the menus bound like illuminated manuscripts and the corridors of unoccupied bedrooms upstairs, it felt, for all its half-timbered exterior, like a place of assignation.

  Gregory was drinking beer from a dimpled mug; Michael, above his gin and tonic, was expressing correct but surprisingly forceful opinions about the conduct of the war. Charlotte had absent-mindedly accepted some yellow, cloying drink in a schooner. She was looking at Gregory and thinking how much she loved him. She felt as though the organs of her stomach had mysteriously liquefied. There was fear in the exquisite anticipation because she was not in control of herself.

  She was embarrassed that all of them must know why they were there, but she did not really care. Since she had conceded a single name to the violent mixture of feelings that assaulted her she had felt better about it. Properly speaking, this probably wasn’t love, she understood; but love was part of it. There were only perhaps two dozen words in English to describe two thousand mixed emotions people felt; but if she called it love, then that at least suggested both the gentleness – like an extreme opposite of wanting to do harm – and the obsessional longing for his presence. She remembered a character in a book who measured his feeling for some cruel girl by the anguish of his anticipation at seeing her, and by his grief at her departure, because he actually enjoyed her company so little. With Charlotte it was the opposite: Gregory’s presence was an enchantment greater even than his absence.

  As they moved into the dining room she felt him watching her. She smiled at him and saw a light of understanding in his eyes. It was all right. He had overcome his own reservations, though she had no idea what they might have been. She would be able to know him properly, to understand and pacify. The violent change that was necessary to her life would now be made. It would be all right.

  ‘Goodbye, Peter. You don’t mind running Charlotte back, do you?’

  ‘Not at all. Goodbye.’

  Gregory pulled on his silk inner- and his leather outer-gloves and banged the passenger door of Borowski’s two-seater. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to Charlotte, ‘it’ll soon warm up.’

  On the steps of her house, he said, ‘Do you mind if I come in for a moment?’; and, once inside the flat, he said, ‘You look freezing. Let me feel your hand.’

  Once Charlotte’s hand was in his, it was not difficult for him to wrap both arms round her.

  Charlotte allowed her head to rest for a moment on his shoulder, then lifted her face to his. He kissed her quite gently, while his hands rubbed her back, between her shoulder blades; she felt his tongue on the inside of her lips. His hands moved beneath her jacket and pulled her more closely to him. He moved his mouth from hers and lowered his head to the base of her neck, opening the top button of her blouse to find more skin for his lips. Charlotte sighed a little and ran a hand through his hair.

  He pulled back from her and held her face in his hands. Charlotte opened her eyes and smiled at him. She felt an overpowering relief. She had not been imagining it all. Now that it was acknowledged between them, they would be able to drop the falsity of reserve and move into a new and honest world, where they could be happy. She saw suddenly how much she had feared that he didn’t care, that perhaps she had misinterpreted the signs, the small flirtations. What a burden was lifted from her by his complicity; she loved him for having felt the same thing she had felt.

  His eyes seemed to be searching for consent before going on. She answered by kissing him again, and rubbing the palms of her hands down the side of his hips. He moved both his hands to the front of her blouse and undid the buttons. His hands had been kept warm by the gloves, she noticed, as she felt them stroke her. Somehow he managed to work his fingers beneath the layers of her underclothes and she sighed again as she felt them on her skin.

  ‘Which is your room?’

  She led him by the hand, her clothes disarrayed, down the narrow hall. Once in her bedroom she pressed close to him again, to lose herself. He whispered flattering, encouraging words to her, which she barely heard; though she did hear it when he said, ‘I think we should get undressed.’

  She had somehow not foreseen anything so mechanical; she had imagined that their clothes would just cease to matter. This access of self-awareness made her turn her back to him as she undressed, hurriedly for fear of losing the momentum of his desire. She yearned for invisibility: she wanted to be with him but she didn’t wish to feel his gaze on her private flesh. She felt excruciated by all its imperfection, so known to her, so long concealed. She turned to face him as she slipped off the last of her clothes and awkwardly walked the three or four paces to the bed.

  He smiled with reassurance, encouraging, admiring her. Now she felt his warm hands everywhere, over the small of her back, stroking the rise of her hips, gently trailing along the skin inside her thighs. For fear of doing the wrong thing, she did little in return. Eventually, when she thought perhaps he never would, he let his hand drift up between her legs and she felt herself separated by his touch.

  Charlotte was beginning to slide, as though she were about to slough off an old identity and take on something more direct and powerful. She wriggled against the bed, her legs widening a little. She put both arms round his neck so that there could be no ambiguity, no sense that she was holding back. She felt him roll over within her circular grasp and push one of her knees with his, wider still. She closed her eyes tight as his body lowered itself on to hers.

  After a few moments she heard him say, ‘I can’t do this, Charlotte.’

  She opened her eyes. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re . . . you’ve never done this before, have you?’

  ‘No. But it’s all right.’

  He had rolled off her and was lying on his back. She propped herself on one elbow and looked earnestly into his face. ‘It’s all right. I want you to. I want you to do it.’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s too much. I should never have come this far. I was carried away. You’re irresistible, Charlotte. You know that?’

  ‘It doesn’t seem like it.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You’ll be grateful in the end. I’m a useless case. You don’t want me.’

  ‘I do want you.’ She leaned over him and kissed his face all over. ‘I do want you, I do.’

  He pulled himself away from her and rolled off the bed. He walked over to where he had left his jacket on the floor and took a packet of cigarettes from the pocket. In her embarrassment Charlotte had not noticed that he had managed to keep his shirt on. The tails hung down almost to his bony knees; his legs were as she had expected, bare, thin, slightly bowed.

  He offered her a cigarette, she shook her head, and he leaned against the mantelpiece of the little boarded-up fireplace as he lit one. Charlotte was struggling not to sob.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking.’ He blew out some smoke. ‘I just didn’t realise that you hadn’t done it before. It made me stop. I should never have done it anyway. I’m so sorry. All I can say is it’s better this way. You can hate me for a little while – you should hate me for a little while. Then it’ll be over. You’ll have hundreds of men, real men, decent men, to choose from.’

  Charlotte quelled her urge to weaken. She would not let him go. She climbed out of bed, naked and cold, and went and stood by him. He was facing the wall, to flick some ash off his cigarette, and she circled his waist with her arms as she laid her cheek against his back. Her arms slid down a little so her hands were over his abdomen.

  She held on to him tightly, and, as she stroked him, her hand brushed against something; she heard him suck in his breath and felt his body tense as he gripped the mantelpiece. Although she moved her hand away he took it in his own and put it back. His flesh was warm and inflated, almost pneumatic, in her hand as she moved her fingers up and down; she was amazed by the softness of his sk
in. He was gripping the mantelpiece, so there was only one point at which their bodies touched. She heard him panting and she felt exultant as she quickened the imprisoning movement of her hand. When she heard him gasp, ‘No’, she knew that it was the last thing he meant as the flesh inside her fingers swelled and seized. He turned round and kissed her, but she held on to him for a moment with her hand.

  Back on the bed she fixed her eyes on his as he lay beside her, then climbed back beneath the blankets. He looked shame-faced. He shook his head. ‘You’re a very determined woman, Charlotte.’

  When Gregory awoke it was dark. He looked at his watch: he was due back at the station at eight and it was now a quarter past five. He glanced down at Charlotte’s head and stroked her hair.

  He said, ‘What time are you due at your doctor’s?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘I think you’d better get going.’

  Charlotte sat up with a start when he told her the time. ‘God. You’re right.’ She caught him looking at her breasts, which were flushed and rosy against the white of the sheet. Gregory wanted to take the soft, filmy tips and pull them gently with his lips, but he could see that Charlotte’s modesty had been restored by sleep. She covered her breasts with her arm. ‘Aren’t you getting up?’ she said. He shook his head.

  She got off the bed and crossed the room stiffly. He saw how much she resented the intimacy of his eyes, but could not bring himself to turn them away. She pulled her underclothes on quickly, standing sideways to him in the narrow room. Her face was pink from sleep and her cold fingers fumbled on the tricky fastenings.

  ‘You haven’t got a spare pair of those, have you?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The stockings. My feet get so cold when I’m flying.’

  Charlotte, without looking round, said, ‘I might have an old pair. I’ll have a look. My mother sent these from Edinburgh.’