Paul tried to remember. ‘Had dinner with Michael Corder, I think. Do you know him? He –’
‘Bor-ing!’
‘What did you do?’
‘Went to a brothel. I thought at first the stupid little cow was going to refuse. I soon put a stop to that.’
Paul had an unpleasantly vivid image of Neville’s vast bulk pounding away at some half-starved little whore, his tube of harvested flesh an inch away from her face. ‘Are your parents coming down for the weekend?’
Neville gaped at him, then burst out laughing. ‘My God, Tarrant, what a dried-up little prude you are. No, of course my parents bloody well aren’t coming, I’m here to paint.’
‘And have you managed to start?’
‘Yes, bit of a relief really, I wasn’t sure I could. It’s been a long time.’
Paul drained his glass and stood up.
‘I’d better get the unpacking done, I think.’
‘I’ll show you your room. Right at the top, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s all right.’
It wasn’t: he found stairs extremely difficult. He hoped Neville would go first, but he hung back so every stage of Paul’s struggle was observed from behind. He reached the third floor hot, sweaty and embarrassed. Neville led him into a room on the left and he collapsed on to the bed, in too much pain even to pretend to be all right. ‘Sorry, I’m a bit slow these days.’
‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’
Paul shrugged. He wasn’t going to complain about his leg to a man with a penis for a nose.
‘I’m next door,’ Neville said. ‘Bathroom’s across the landing.’ He continued to hover. ‘I suppose I could always put you in Mother’s room …’
‘No, this is fine.’
‘I never thought … Anyway, I’ll leave you to it. There’s some kind of stew for dinner. No idea what it is, I just warm them up. But the wine’ll be good, I can promise you that.’
And flow freely, no doubt. But who was he to criticize? He was drinking far more than he should.
After Neville had gone, Paul began transferring clothes from his bag to the wardrobe by the bed. The room smelled sweet, though he couldn’t tell where the smell was coming from. Nothing obvious like potpourri or lavender, but it was very pleasant. In fact, the whole room was pleasant: plain, solid furniture, a white coverlet on the bed, a faded blue rug on the polished-wood floor. No, it was good. He could have been happy here, if it wasn’t for the thought of what awaited him downstairs.
Talking about the prostitute like that … That was Neville all over. The first time Paul had met him, oh, years ago – before the war – he’d told some sort of story against himself, without appearing to realize how damaging it was. Something about a model he’d got pregnant, or somebody had got pregnant, and he was refusing
to pay … Yes, that was it. He was refusing to support the child. What a thing to say to a complete stranger. Of course, he had no reason to look down on Neville because he’d visited a brothel. In France, after Elinor stopped writing, he’d used prostitutes himself for a time. Sheer misery; nothing else sluiced away the blood. He didn’t think he’d bullied them, though … Ah, well. No doubt they’d get through the evening somehow.
Paul switched off the light, but before going downstairs he crossed to the window and looked out. Even on this comparatively calm night, there was a line of white foam where the sea chafed against its bonds. On the ground, you felt safe behind that ridge of shingle, but up here you could see how vulnerable the town really was.
Dropping the blackout curtain, he groped his way along the edge of the bed until he found the door. Using the banisters as a crutch, he hobbled downstairs and followed Neville’s voice into the kitchen where he saw an improbable figure with an apron tied around its waist, hunched over the range stirring a black pot.
‘How now, thou secret, black and midnight hag?’
Neville glanced up. ‘Beef,’ he said. ‘I think.’
Over dinner and a bottle of decidedly robust red wine they talked about painting and painters. Neville’s opinions were always entertaining, if vituperative. At one point, Paul realized that Neville didn’t believe
anybody
could paint – except, of course, himself. Even the great painters of the past were merely hauled into the light and damned with faint praise, before being tossed, almost casually, on to the muckheap of history. ‘Past, Tarrant,’ he kept saying. ‘Past. Done with. Over.’
It was an extraordinary performance and one that left Paul almost gasping with disbelief.
‘I’m hoping to get some reviewing soon,’ Neville said. ‘Fact, I want to do quite a bit of journalism in the future. Sort of thing I can pick up and put down, you know, because I’m going to be in and out of hospital for the best part of next year. And they’ll have to let me out to go to the exhibitions.’
‘Sounds like a good idea.’
Please, God, don’t let him review me
.
‘What are you doing?’ Neville asked.
‘Painting? Landscape around Ypres.’
He was braced for some gibe about the past-ness of landscape painting, but instead, Neville lapsed into silence, and for a moment the two of them sat there, each lost in his own memories of the ruined city.
Neville roused himself. ‘Can I top you up?’
‘Yes, all right, go on.’
‘So, anyway, your dinner?’
‘Sorry?’
‘You said you had dinner with Michael Corder.’
‘Oh, yes, so I did. Dried-up little prude that I am. He lost an arm, you know. Arras. Anyway, it was quite interesting because we were talking about whether anything positive’s come out of the war – apart from the fact that you can see women’s legs and you couldn’t before – and he said he wouldn’t have missed it for the world. I just sat there and looked at his empty sleeve. But that’s it, isn’t it? A lot of people want to believe they’ve got something good out of it. That they’re better people, less selfish …’
‘I’d settle for my nose.’
Back in the living room, Neville built up the fire and sat back in an armchair, but he was fidgeting all the time. In pain. Paul knew the signs.
‘So what do you think you can get away with?’ Neville said.
‘Sorry?’
‘What will you paint?’
‘It’s all fairly straightforward. No bodies. You can show the wounded, but only if they’re receiving treatment. I think in practice that means bandages.’
‘So no wounds, either?’
Paul shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It hardly applies to me.’
‘Well, I intend to push it as far as I can.’
‘Why, what’s the point? If you push it too far they won’t let you show it. Besides, you can get round it …’
‘You can. Your landscapes are bodies.’
‘Yes, I know. Don’t worry, it’s intended. I know what I’m doing. It’s the Fisher King. The wound in his thigh?’
‘Balls.’
Paul looked surprised. Even by Neville’s standards that was forceful.
‘That’s where the wound is. Idiot. He was castrated.’
‘Oh, all right, then, balls. The point is, the wound and the wasteland are the same thing. They aren’t metaphors for each other, it’s closer than that. Anyway, you do the same thing. All those mutilated machines.’
‘My machines aren’t mutilated, they’re triumphant.’
‘At least you’re working again.’
‘Yes, I suppose I have to be grateful for that.’
Neville lapsed into silence. A few moments later he said, ‘Have you thought what you’re going to do after the war?’
‘No point.’
‘Surely you can think about it?’
‘No, I can’t. I take it you can?’
‘Oh, God, yes. Minute it’s over, I’m out of here.’
‘Here? You mean, London?’
‘England. I want to go somewhere where you don’t have the past sitting on the back of your neck like a fucking dead weight. New York, Chicago. We’re a nation of fucking caryatids. It’s squashing us. Can’t you feel it?’
‘Well,’ Paul said, ‘I’m impressed. I’ve never managed to see beyond it.’
All these past weeks he’d been trying to fit back into civilian life. It had been like poring over a chessboard, always trying to work out the next move, the winning strategy, and now, with one great sweep of his arm, Neville had scattered the pieces. You don’t have to play this game, he’d said. There are other places. Other games.
I never did fit in
, he thought. He’d always been a ‘temporary gentleman’. And as long as he remained in England he’d never be
anything else. So why not move on? New York? Chicago? No, not for him. He knew immediately, without having to think about it, that he wanted the south: warmth, sunshine, lemons growing on trees. He’d never been anywhere like that. Never been anywhere at all, except France and Belgium, and even those countries he’d experienced as a succession of holes in the ground.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I ought to think about it.’
They went to bed, predictably drunk, an hour later. Around two in the morning Paul woke to a loud thud. For a second he was back in the trenches, shells falling all around, but then his splayed fingers encountered clean, crisp sheets and he thought:
England. Home
. He was sweating so he pushed the bedclothes down, trying to get cool. The blackout curtains were so effective he could see nothing in the room, not even shadows. His face was pressed into a smothering pelt of darkness. He lay listening, straining to identify the sound that had awoken him.
The window shook and rattled, but that wasn’t the sound he’d heard. Feeling his way across the floor, he pushed the window open. He felt rain cold on his face, rain or spray, he couldn’t tell; the wind was blowing straight off the sea. Far below, waves roared and crashed, white foam slavering up the last slope of shingle. The house seemed to sway and rock in the gale. He tried to close the window gently, but the wind pulled it from his grasp and slammed it shut. His chest was wet. He stood there, struggling to calm himself, and then he heard it again: a cry from the room next door, long-drawn-out, despairing … Desperate.
All his instincts were to rush in and help, but he knew from his own experience that no help was possible, and that Neville would be humiliated if Paul found him lying in a puddle of sweat and piss. If he was as bad as that; and Paul had known many who were. No, best let him fight it out alone.
Paul got back into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. What must it be like, having that thing on your face? To know you
looked grotesque? To know that people would find the sight of you repulsive or ridiculous, despite continually reminding themselves it was tragic?
He lay there, rigid with tension, while in the next room the cries subsided into sobs and the sobs into silence. He imagined Neville staring into the darkness, wondering if Paul had heard. He wouldn’t refer to it at breakfast. They never did.
Not for the first time, Neville confounded his expectations. When Paul came downstairs next morning, Neville immediately said, ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you last night?’
‘No, I slept very well, thank you.’
‘It’s just I have this recurring dream. Not about the war, it’s … I’m walking down the central aisle of a stable, you know, with horse boxes on either side and the horses are sticking their heads over the doors, you know the way they do. There’s some sort of sound going on in the background … Could be guns, I’m not sure. And there’s something wrong. Nothing obvious, just something. It’s quite dark, one oil lamp, I think. And suddenly I realize what it is, the horses are watching me and they’ve got human eyes. You know, white showing all the way round, not just when they’re startled. And that’s when I wake up.’ He handed Paul a cup of grey tea. ‘Sorry it’s a bit wishy-washy. Virgin’s piss.’
Paul took the cup. ‘Long as it’s hot.’
‘Do you think dreams mean anything?’
‘Doubt it. I certainly hope mine don’t.’
That was strange. He felt the dream had been recounted for a reason, not merely because Neville wanted to explain, or apologize for, any disturbance in the night. ‘Fresh air, that’s what you need,’ he said, bracingly. ‘Blow the cobwebs out.’
‘I’ve got to work.’
‘Work a lot better if you get some fresh air.’
A few minutes later they were letting themselves out of the front door. The sea was a heaving steel-grey mass flecked here and there with white. A knot of men had gathered by the lifeboat and were staring out to sea, but though Paul followed the direction of their gaze he couldn’t see anything. Couldn’t hear what they were saying
either, every word was snatched up and hurled away on the wind. Even breathing was difficult. But at least that meant there was no need to talk. Neville was wearing his greatcoat, had pulled his hat down and wound a scarf around his lower face, but the weather was cold enough to justify it. He looked no different from anybody else. Paul suspected his company was the last thing Neville needed or wanted, at the moment, but the situation left them with little choice.
Beyond the shelter of the houses, you felt the full force of the wind. It was still blowing almost directly off the sea. Ahead of them was a row of cottages, some obviously abandoned, their doors and windows blocked by shingle. Others had smoke coming from their chimneys, though there was no barrier to save them from the rising tide.
‘How do they manage?’ Paul said.
‘Open the front door, let it run through.’
‘I can’t imagine anybody living like that.’
The place was called Slaughden, Neville said. It had once been a bustling fishing village, but over the generations storms had swept away most of the houses and the shingle had piled up, choking those that were left. It had become the little town’s ghost twin.
‘That’s the awful thing, really. The sea doesn’t just take away, it gives back, but what it gives is tons and tons of shingle. And that’s almost equally destructive.’
Paul turned and looked back across the marshes. Through some trick of the wind, the shining wet roofs of the houses seemed to appear and disappear like a shoal of rocks at high tide. From this distance, the town might have been out at sea.
A few hundred yards further on, Neville said, ‘Well, that’s me done. Enough fresh air for one day. You coming?’
‘No, I think I’ll go a bit further on.’
After Neville had gone, Paul turned inland, hoping for some shelter from the wind. The path had recently been flooded; he slipped and slithered along until he found a sheltered spot where he could sit down and rest. All around him, the reeds whispered to each other, a papery rustle, not unlike the sound the palms of your hands
make when you rub them together. Even when the wind died down, the murmuring still went on, the reeds swaying in unison, making secrets.