Winnie was a sensible girl, however. She rallied, and took Alwyne’s arm. Just for tonight they were a couple, out on the town. To onlookers, no doubt, she was a kindly young woman supporting a tragic war victim. She knew differently. She knew something they didn’t know, something that would raise a few eyebrows.
‘Tell me what you’re seeing,’ said Alwyne.
‘We’re walking past the shops,’ she said. ‘They’ve got their shutters down because they’re closed now.’ She lowered her voice. ‘They say that Mr Bunting the greengrocer’s a German spy, they say he’s got a wireless station on his roof but he hasn’t, it’s just his pigeons he’s got up there.’ They walked past Mr Turk’s emporium where the pavement gleamed from where it had been swabbed down; they cut through the backstreets, past the courtyards with the sheets hanging like ghosts and the babies that cried day and night. Women watched them from the doorways; they squatted on their haunches as if they were relieving themselves but Winnie didn’t tell Alwyne that, it would sound rude.
‘We’re walking down Dock Lane,’ she said. ‘There’s a man lives here called Mr Purse. He’s got some shrapnel in his leg and every few weeks a bit of it moves down and comes out near his foot. He charges the children a halfpenny to look at it.’
Alwyne barked with laughter. ‘I love you, Winnie,’ he said, squeezing her arm. ‘You’re unique, do you know that?’
‘I’m nobody,’ she said.
‘Don’t you dare say that! Know what’s to blame? Our miserable society that tells you you’re nobody, you’re invisible. But you’re not invisible to me. I’m blind, I have no preconceptions. And know what I see? A singular young woman of kindness and wit, who’s brought me back to life.’
For a moment Winnie was too overcome to speak. They had reached the river. She took Alwyne’s hand and led him to the embankment.
‘Can you smell that?’ she asked. ‘Can you smell the sea?’
The water gleamed in the setting sun. This was just as good as Brighton. The light was fading, and clouds building up. They heard a rumble of thunder.
‘When I was little,’ she said, ‘I used to think thunder was the sound of God moving furniture around in heaven.’
Alwyne turned to her. ‘My darling girl,’ he said, and kissed her. He had never done this in public before, but then there was nobody in the vicinity to see them. Winnie tasted his familiar scent of tobacco and beard, but on their skin she smelt the tang of the sea.
‘I wonder if they’re doing this,’ she whispered, ‘in Brighton.’
‘I don’t trust that man,’ said Alwyne abruptly, and moved off.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Believe me.’
Alwyne wouldn’t say anything else. Winnie wished he would turn back and kiss her again, so bold it had given her a jolt, but he was tap-tapping across the cobbles. She caught him up and they walked towards the public house, the sound of its pianola drifting through the air. A barge passed, making the water rock. The tide was out; little waves lapped the shore, shifting the rubbish – orange peel, bones, bits and pieces. They slopped back and forth, laced with foam, in the fading light.
The saloon bar was thick with smoke. Alwyne ordered her a glass of port, and a pint of mild for himself. He fumbled for the coins in his pocket-book but Winnie didn’t help him, he had his pride. Besides, by that time somebody else had paid. Alwyne, with his white stick, was treated with respect. A group of drunken young soldiers cleared a path for them, and found them a seat.
One of the lads pulled up a chair and sat down. He said he was a gunner in the Leicesters and was back on a week’s leave. His eyes had the blank look Winnie had come to recognise. She had seen it in Mr Clay’s face.
‘When are you going home?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘I’m staying put. I’m having a fine old time of it here.’
‘What about your mother?’ she asked. The port had gone straight to her head. ‘What about your sweetheart?’
He shrugged. ‘Last time I went home me mum said look at the state of you. You’re crawling with bugs.’ He lit two cigarettes and put one between Alwyne’s fingers. ‘They can go hang.’
Alwyne started talking about the war. He said it was an act of mass insanity that was waking up the working class from their long enslavement. When it was over, a brave new world would dawn. Winnie of course had heard it all before. One had to make allowances; war had unhinged thousands of men like Alwyne, poor things. Her thoughts were far more pressing, for she had just remembered her earlier worry. What was she going to do about Ralph’s sugar?
St Jude’s was striking eleven as they walked up to the house, Alwyne a dead weight on her arm. The windows were dark. Winnie was suddenly so exhausted she could hardly open the door. That declaration of love beside the river seemed meaningless now, so much flim-flammery. Tomorrow Mr Turk was arriving and he would be needing his cup of tea.
He was a man who expected his demands to be met. It was her job to look after him and if she couldn’t manage that she would be out on her ear. There would be little support from Mrs Clay – Mrs Turk. It was quite clear where her loyalties lay. Winnie had worn herself out preparing the house for its new master, but the whole effort could be undone by the little business of the sugar. The problem was, their ration had run out four days earlier and there was not a grain of the stuff in the house. Not a grain, except for Ralph’s hoard.
Winnie knew where it was hidden; she knew every inch of his room. She also knew that the little twists of sugar were a gift from Boyce. The places where Boyce had got them – the Criterion, the Zanzibar – summoned up Boyce’s cocky farewells so vividly that Winnie could almost hear his voice. Night-night, Winnipeg, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. It would be easy, when Ralph was out during the afternoon, to take just a few of them.
And where was the harm in that? In fact, now she thought of it, Ralph would want her to take them. They loved each other, they would do anything for each other, and Ralph surely would hate her job to be jeopardised for the sake of a bit of sugar.
Winnie paused at the bottom of the stairs. The cat pressed itself against her skirt.
‘Are you still open for visitors?’ whispered Alwyne into her ear.
Winnie didn’t reply. Whether he went upstairs to his bed or downstairs to hers seemed of little importance. The real betrayal had nothing to do with Alwyne, and her heart ached.
*
Ralph let himself into the house. It was half past five, his usual arrival time. Brutus bounded up to him, tail wagging, as he always did. You could rely on dogs; they never changed, that was one of the best things about them.
Ralph stood still, listening. The faint clatter of pans came from the kitchen. Upstairs, he could hear the murmur of voices. He strained to hear. It sounded like his mother, talking to Mrs O’Malley. ‘… orchestra …’ he heard. ‘… West Pier …’ Mrs O’Malley would have crept down from her room to hear the news from the great wide world. His mother would have emerged from her bedroom, from her unpacking, to chat to the old lady on the landing. Most of the conversations in the house took place on the stairs.
Ralph looked at the hall-stand. No alien topcoat hung there. He glanced into the parlour. The table, the sideboard, the piano, the pictures … everything was as it always had been. For a wild moment Ralph thought: it’s all been a dream. His mother was home from a well-deserved holiday, and life would carry on as it had before.
Then he thought: they’ve quarrelled! They went to Brighton and she came to her senses, and it was over as soon as it was begun. It was an infatuation, the sort of madness Boyce had felt for the red-headed daughter of the upholsterer he had worked for, who had turned out to be a minx. The scales fell from my eyes, he said. What a chump I’ve been! What a top-hole, first-rate noodle!
‘Ralph, my pet!’ His mother was hurrying down the stairs. She threw her arms around him. ‘I’ve missed you.’
‘What’s that smell?’
‘Isn’t it nice
?’ She flung back her head, so he could sniff her neck. ‘Attar of Roses.’
‘Where’s Mr Turk?’
‘Neville, dear. He’s at the shop.’ She gave him something wrapped in paper. ‘It’s rock.’ Ralph pulled out a long, pink stick. ‘It’s got writing all the way through,’ she said.
She led him into the back room and collapsed into a chair. ‘Tell me how you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.’
‘I’ve been all right,’ he said. ‘What’s happened to your nose?’
Her nose was bright red. A little bit was peeling. ‘I caught the sun,’ she laughed. ‘It was a lovely day yesterday, was it here? I even paddled. Brighton’s so pretty, I shall take you there one day.’
But Ralph wasn’t listening. He was staring at the wall. ‘What’s that doing here?’
‘What?’
‘That.’
A glass-fronted cabinet hung on the wall above the occasional table. It hung in the place where the picture of A Stag at Bay used to be. Inside the cabinet was a collection of silver cups.
‘Oh. They’re Neville’s. He was a champion boxer, you know. This was the only place we could find.’
A little heap of plaster dust lay on the floor, where somebody had drilled into the wall. Ralph turned away, to check the rest of the room. His father’s photograph still stood on the mantelpiece. But the room didn’t feel the same. Not with that thing there, its powdery excreta dropped on their carpet.
His mother patted the chair next to her. ‘Sit down and tell me your news. Shall we have some tea? I’ll call Winnie. She even seems to have found us some sugar.’
‘Have you taken out Brutus?’ Ralph asked.
She shook her head.
‘I will then.’ Ralph went into the hallway and picked up the lead from the table. ‘He must be bursting.’
*
Ralph couldn’t sleep. It was very close; he had opened the window but still his room felt stifling. He kicked off the blankets and lay under the sheet, spreadeagled like a starfish. In the next room he heard the silvery chime of his mother’s clock. Midnight. The muffled thumps and murmurs had ceased, but he could feel the two of them lying there, on the other side of the double doors. It was the first night that Mr Turk had shared his mother’s bed. Ralph could almost hear them breathe.
Brutus was having a nightmare. Down on the carpet he whimpered and jerked. It made Ralph feel very alone, when his dog disappeared into his own secret world. A bone lay on the floor. Mr Turk had given it to Brutus, along with a whole box of provisions he had brought home and given to Winnie to store in the larder. Tins of pineapples, pears, sardines – where did he get all those things? Bottles of stout had been produced at supper. Ralph hadn’t drunk any but he had been perfectly polite. He had even asked Mr Turk if he had had a pleasant train journey.
The curtains were open. Outside, a full moon shone; Ralph could glimpse, above the black cliff of the viaduct, the milky glow. Why did the moon come up at different places each night? Why did it sometimes hang low in the sky, and then the next night, at the very same time, shine right overhead? There was nobody Ralph could ask. His mother and Winnie would have no idea. His father would have known the answer, but his father was dead. Ralph’s mother said he was in heaven but Ralph had a suspicion that it didn’t exist. In fact he was nearly certain of it. Scientific proof would be only a matter of time. In twenty years, thirty years at the most, people would have solid evidence that God was just dreamed up to make people feel better. Deliver us from evil. Well He hadn’t, had He?
No, God wasn’t in people; He was only in nature. God was in those snail shells Ralph had collected with his father – their delicate whorls, the miracle of them. God painted each a different colour, out of love. Ralph had arranged the shells in his cabinet of curiosities. It hung on the wall, a glass-fronted case filled with birds’ nests, skulls and clay pipes he found beside the river. The shells had a shelf to themselves. How beautiful they were, compared to big sweaty humans, all red faces and beery breath!
The dog growled. Ralph became aware of a noise. It came from the next room.
He froze. The noise was soft at first, so soft that only the dog had sensed it. Ralph put his hands over his ears. He lay there, rigid, willing it to stop. He opened and closed his legs like a pair of scissors, frantic to distract himself, as he used to do when he was about to be sick. He pressed the pillow to his face, trying to blot it out, but he could still hear it, the rhythmic creak of the bedsprings next door.
The blood rushed to his face. He got out of bed and crept to the door. He had to escape. He would go up to Boycie’s room, where the bed was made up. It was two storeys up, at the top of the house. He wouldn’t hear anything there.
Ralph tiptoed up the stairs, up past the first landing. A light glowed under Alwyne’s door; he heard bronchial coughing within. Up he climbed, up the last flight of stairs to the landing. Moonlight flooded through the window, bathing the floorboards. He turned the knob of Boyce’s door and went in.
Ralph stared. For a moment he thought he had walked into a lumber room. From floor to ceiling Boycie’s bedroom was filled with furniture – tables, chairs, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers. There was not an inch of space. Moonlight bathed the furniture in ghostly light; it shone on the polished mahogany. On Boycie’s bed somebody had dumped a wooden blanket-chest, as big as a coffin.
*
‘But it’s Boycie’s room!’
‘Neville had to put his things somewhere –’
‘You kept the room for Boyce.’
‘– he put another tenant in his rooms, he had to clear out his belongings. Besides, this is his home now.’
‘You said you were keeping it for Boyce.’
They were sitting on Ralph’s bed. Eithne took Ralph’s hand in hers. She said to him, very seriously: ‘Boyce isn’t coming back.’
‘He might. He’s probably lost, and wandering about somewhere. He might have been taken prisoner.’
Eithne gazed at her son. From the stairs came the swish-swish of Winnie’s broom. ‘Ralph, he’s dead. I’ve had a letter from his mother.’
‘When?’
‘Four months ago.’
Ralph stared at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It was never the right moment. I thought you had enough on your plate. I thought it would put you off your exams.’
Ralph glared at her. ‘I don’t care about my bloody exams!’
‘Ralph!’
‘I hate them.’
‘Don’t you want to be a grown-up man, with a man’s job?’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean, why?’
Ralph’s eyes glittered with tears. ‘Where did it get my father?’
There was a silence. Outside the door Winnie was humming, either because she wanted to drown out their voices or because she didn’t have a care in the world. Either way, Eithne envied her. It was only eleven in the morning and she wanted to crawl back into bed.
‘I’ve got to help Winnie.’ She stood up. ‘Let’s have no more nonsense. There’s potatoes downstairs for you to peel. Neville will be home in an hour for his dinner.’
‘He’s going to have his dinner here?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Can’t he go to a restaurant or something? What does he usually do?’
Eithne looked at her son. ‘Ralph, this is his home. I’m his wife. He’s up at five, he works all the hours God gives him, he expects a hot meal in the middle of the day. We have a lot to thank him for, you have no idea.’ She noticed, for the first time, a crop of boils on Ralph’s chin. ‘Things are bound to be different now, but it’ll be fine if we all pull together. I’m relying on you, my little trooper. I’ve always relied on you, and nothing will ever change that.’ She smiled brightly. ‘Let’s go to the pictures, just you and me. Let’s go there next week, Monday, Tuesday, any day you want! We can have an ice-cream!’
Ralph looked up at her with a wintry smile, like a teacher
with an errant pupil. How elderly he looked, sitting there hunched on his bed! Eithne’s heart turned over.
‘We can go to the penny arcade,’ she said. ‘I’ve got lots of money now, we can do anything you want.’
His face lightened, just a little. For a moment, they had a flash of their old closeness.
Eithne left the room, shutting the door behind her. She nearly bumped into Alwyne, who was lurking on the stairs. Everywhere she went, that man seemed to be in the way.
‘What do you want?’ she snapped.
‘Nothing. I was just looking for Winnie.’
‘Well, she’s there.’ Eithne pointed down to the hall, where Winnie was re-winding a bandage around the broom handle. It had split, some time ago. ‘Down there,’ she said, forgetting the man couldn’t see.
Eithne went into her bedroom and closed the door. At last she was alone. Suddenly she could bear it no longer. She dropped to her knees beside the bed and pressed her nose into the disordered sheets. She breathed in deeply, smelling her husband, drinking him in.
Chapter Five
I came across a Cornishman, ripped from shoulder to waist with shrapnel, his stomach on the ground beside him in a pool of blood. As I got to him he said ‘Shoot me’, he was beyond all human aid. Before we could even draw a revolver he had died. He just said ‘Mother’.
Private Harry Patch, Cornwall’s Light Infantry
Neville was obsessed with his wife. With my body I thee worship. He’d thought that now he possessed her his hunger would be eased, but if anything it had grown keener. He worshipped every inch of the woman – her heavy breasts, her round belly, the coarse bush of her pubic hair in which he rooted like a pig searching for truffles. On his way to Smithfield, in the pearly summer’s dawn, he pressed his hand to his nose and sniffed the scent of her on his fingers. Eithne was his miracle, his stroke of astounding good luck. He had no idea how her husband had been killed, she hadn’t spoken of it, but Neville couldn’t help himself: he blessed that German shell that had delivered this magnificent creature into his arms.