‘You say I’ve lost the right to despair,’ he says. ‘But you live in a different world to me. I’m somewhere else, far away, beyond despair.’
‘Why should you live in a different world to me?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe we all live in different worlds. You have God in your world. You say God was with me on that beach. Why wasn’t he with all the other poor bastards?’
‘I told you. God knows his own.’
‘You say I gave myself up to God. You have no idea. No idea at all.’
‘Then tell me,’ says Larry.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m your friend.’
Ed doesn’t speak for a few moments, pacing the aisle of the chapel like a ghost in the night.
‘Well, then,’ he says at last. ‘I’ll tell you how Lieutenant Ed Avenell of 40 Royal Marine Commando won his Victoria Cross.’
He comes to a stop in the aisle and stands facing the altar. His voice is quiet as a prayer.
‘I’m in the landing craft. In the smoke. And there ahead of me is Red Beach. The Fusiliers have gone in just before us. I stand up in the boat and see bodies in the water, and bodies on the beach. I see shell craters and I hear the big guns booming out of the cliffs. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it’s all a colossal mistake. It’s a stupidity. It’s a joke. All these men are being sent to die for no reason. A bunch of fools in London have dreamed up this adventure without the first idea of the price to be paid. And here am I in the middle of it, and I’m going to die. The folly of it, the wickedness of it, just took my breath away. My CO saw it too, he’s no fool. He gave the order to turn back, and then a bullet got him. A fine man went down, just like that, for no reason. That made me angry, I can tell you. Jesus, I was angry. I wasn’t angry at the Germans, I was angry at Mountbatten, and the chiefs of staff. And then I got angry at all the world, this stupid wicked world that hurts people for no reason. So after that I went a little crazy. I thought, I’ve had enough, time to go. Time to say goodbye. So I waded ashore and the mortars were dropping in front of me and behind me and the bullets were humming over my head and nothing touched me. Not a blind thing. I wasn’t being a hero, Larry. I was being a fool. I wanted to die. I was going up that beach shouting, Here I am! Come and get me! And nothing touched me. So I thought to myself, while I’m waiting for my number to come up, why don’t I help some poor bastard lying on the beach? So I went from body to body and rolled them over until one moved, and I picked him up. Not his fault he was smashed up. He never asked for this. So I took him down to the boats, and went back up the beach, waiting for my turn. Here I am! Come and get me! You hear what I’m saying, Larry? It wasn’t courage. It was rage. I didn’t want to stick around to see the whole sick joke told to the end. I wanted to get out, all the way out, finished, dead. But nothing touched me. You say God was with me. God was nowhere on that beach. God was absent without leave. God knows the way the joke ends and he’s gone off to get pissed and forget all about it. Why didn’t any of those bullets get me? Luck, that’s all. There’s nothing unusual about that. Half the men who landed on that beach were killed or wounded. That leaves half the men who never got a scratch. I was one of those men, one among thousands. That’s all. The only way I was maybe different to them is I wanted to die. So it wasn’t an angel you saw, Larry. It was a dead man walking. I never saved your life. You did that yourself. And I’ll tell you something for free. The guns didn’t get me on Red Beach, but I died anyway. I don’t belong in the world of the living any more.’
He puts his hands on Larry’s shoulders and holds him with those bright eyes.
‘Do you understand a single word of all that? Because I’m never going to say it again, and I’m never going to say it to anyone else.’
‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘I understand.’
‘Then in the camps – did you ever hear of something called the Commando Order?’
‘Yes,’ says Larry. ‘A lot of our best men were shot in captivity.’
‘Well, I wasn’t shot.’ Ed laughs as if it’s all a joke. ‘They just pretended to shoot me. But it’s not as different as you might think. When a German reads out an order and then puts a gun to your head, you think that’s pretty much it.’
‘Is that what they did to you?’
‘Three times. Just their little game.’
‘Jesus!’
‘You know how you survive? You stop caring. You want to die. Anything to escape the long slow horror of life.’
‘But you didn’t die, Ed. You came home.’
‘Home, yes. I come home and they give me a medal, and I’m supposed to be proud. These arrogant halfwits who play their war games with other men’s lives think they can honour me? I don’t want them anywhere near me. Let them go crawling up the beach at Dieppe and try to wash away the blood.’
‘It was a terrible, terrible mistake,’ says Larry.
‘The world is a terrible mistake,’ says Ed. ‘Life is a terrible mistake.’
‘But you’re in it.’
‘I wish to God I wasn’t.’
‘And you have a wife and child.’
Ed turns away abruptly, as if stung.
‘Why do you think I go on? Don’t you think I’d have got out before this if it wasn’t for Kitty?’
‘Just going on isn’t enough, Ed.’
‘Don’t tell me that!’ He’s shouting suddenly, the tension breaking through. ‘I’m doing all I can! What more do you want of me?’
‘You know as well as I do.’
‘You want me to pretend? You want me to smile and say I’m happy and isn’t the world a beautiful place?’
‘No,’ says Larry. ‘Just let her near you.’
‘You want me to drag her down to the hell I live in?’
‘She loves you, Ed. She can take it.’
‘That’s what you said to me before.’ He points an accusing finger at Larry. ‘You and me in that hayfield. It’s not your private darkness, you said. That’s why I went to her, Larry. Because of you.’
‘You went to her because you loved her.’
‘Yes. Yes, God knows I do love her.’
‘Then why do you hide yourself away from her?’
‘Because I must.’
Now he’s pacing again. Away down the mosaic-floored aisle and back.
‘You ask me to let her near me,’ he says. ‘You have no idea how much I long to do just that. To me, Kitty is the only pure good thing in a bad world. And Pammy, too. Those two are all that’s precious and holy to me. You can keep your Jesus and your Virgin Mary. The only gods I worship are my wife and child. I don’t want the rottenness of the world to touch them. But here’s the devil of it. I’m part of that rottenness. Of course I want to let her near me. Of course I want to touch her. I’m a man, aren’t I?’
Larry begins to understand.
‘Kitty says you sleep in your own room.’
‘For her sake.’
‘You leave her alone, letting her think you can’t really love her, for her sake?’
‘God damn it! What am I supposed to do? What do you want me to tell you, Larry? I’m not a good man, do you hear? Think of me as sick. Tell yourself poor old Ed’s got leprosy or something. Kitty doesn’t need my attentions, I can promise you that.’
‘But she does.’
Ed shouts out of the darkness.
‘You think she’d like it if I raped her?’
Larry is silent.
‘Yes, she’s my wife. A man can’t rape his wife, can he? But what if he’s a bad man? What if something happens inside him that makes him want to hurt and crush and destroy? Sex is a monster, Larry! I don’t want Kitty to meet that monster.’
He swings away from him, all the way up to the altar.
‘How long has it been like this?’ says Larry.
‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s what the war’s done to me. Maybe I was always this way.’
‘You could at least talk to Kitty about it.’
?
??How would she ever understand? You’re a man, you know how it is.’
‘Yes,’ says Larry.
‘Kitty’s a girl. Girls have no idea at all. For them it’s all a part of loving. How can I talk to her the way I talk to you?’
‘I think you have to tell her something.’
‘I know, I know.’ The old despairing tone returns. ‘Every day I think, I’ll talk to her today. But the moment comes, and I let it pass. I don’t want to lose her, you see. She’s all I’ve got.’
‘You think if she knew the truth about you she’d stop loving you?’
‘Oh, yes! Without a doubt! Look at me!’
‘I can’t see a thing,’ says Larry with a laugh.
‘Just as well. Thank God for darkness. I wouldn’t have been able to say any of this in daylight.’
Footsteps sound, approaching the chapel across the bridge.
‘Time’s up,’ says Ed.
‘Please talk to her,’ says Larry.
‘Oh, we’ll muddle along somehow,’ says Ed.
Louisa enters the chapel.
‘Heavens, it’s all dark! Are you in here, you bad-mannered men?’
‘We’re here,’ says Ed.
‘Everyone’s on their way to bed. Are you proposing an all-night vigil?’
‘No, we’re coming too,’ says Ed.
Kitty is in the library with George, helping him put away the cards. She looks up first at Ed as they enter, then at Larry.
‘Had a good talk?’ she says.
‘Larry’s been giving me a good wigging,’ says Ed. ‘I’m to stop being so bloody antisocial.’
*
Larry has changed into his pyjamas and washed and is ready for bed when there comes a tap on his bedroom door. It’s Kitty, in her nightgown.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I just know I won’t sleep.’
She comes in and closes the door behind her.
‘Please tell me.’
She sits herself down in the single armchair and fixes him with her eyes.
‘It’s not easy to explain,’ Larry says.
‘But you’ll try.’
He tells her about Ed’s anger and how he wanted to die on the beach at Dieppe, and again in the camps. She nods as he speaks, doing her best to understand.
‘What did he say about me?’
‘He said he loves you more than anyone or anything.’
‘So why does he keep away from me?’
Larry hesitates.
‘It’s still all very recent, Kitty. This nightmare he’s been through.’
She shakes her head impatiently.
‘Tell me, Larry.’
‘The thing is, he almost worships you. He sees you as the only good there is in the world.’
‘He worships me? He said that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is that why … why he won’t touch me?’
Larry doesn’t answer.
‘Don’t protect me, please,’ she says. ‘I have to understand this or I shall go mad.’
Larry sits himself down on the side of the bed and fixes his gaze on the rug on the floor between them.
‘I think,’ he says slowly, ‘Ed feels there’s a part of him that’s bad, and he doesn’t want that to … to hurt you.’
‘Because I’m good.’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re talking about sex, aren’t you?’
Larry keeps his eyes on the rug.
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Sorry, Larry, but I don’t know any other way to get to the truth of this. You mustn’t be afraid of upsetting me. Up to now I’ve been thinking he no longer finds me … he’s stopped being attracted to me. Almost anything’s better than that.’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘He feels that sex is bad, and I’m good.’
‘Something like that.’
‘But it’s so silly, isn’t it?’
Larry looks up and finds her attempting a smile. But she’s trembling at the same time.
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Do lots of men think sex is bad? Do you?’
‘No, not exactly. But there is a kind of sex that can feel bad.’
‘What kind? Tell me about it.’
‘Oh, Kitty. This isn’t easy.’
‘Just shut your eyes and pretend you’re talking to a man. What’s this bad kind of sex?’
Larry shuts his eyes.
‘It’s a feeling you get,’ he says, ‘that’s quite aggressive, and urgent, and entirely selfish. You want a girl, any girl. Not to be sweet to, or to love. Just for the one thing. You don’t want to ask, you just want to take. It’s a kind of conquering, I suppose. It’s very primitive. You don’t like it about yourself. But it’s there in you.’
‘Yes,’ says Kitty. ‘Yes, I can understand that.’
‘Does it disgust you?’
‘No. Not at all. Now tell me more. This bad feeling, is it there all the time?’
‘Oh, no.’
‘So what’s there the rest of the time? Is there a good feeling?’
‘Yes, there is. There’s real love, where you want to be loved back. The opposite of taking what you want, and conquering, and selfishness.’
‘And this real love – is that part of sex too?’
‘Yes. I think so.’ He hesitates, and then gives up the effort of pretence. ‘Actually, I don’t know. I don’t have enough experience.’
‘Does Ed have experience? Apart from me, I mean?’
‘I don’t know. Not that I know of. Probably.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t mind about that, really I don’t. I just want so much to understand what it is men are thinking and feeling. It’s hard for us girls, you know. We’re told such stories all the time. Then you come up against the reality, and nothing makes any sense.’
‘It’s the same for us. We don’t really know anything about girls. I don’t, at least.’
‘You can forget about worshipping us, for a start.’
She gets up out of her chair.
‘Now I’m going to let you get some sleep.’
She reaches out for him, and gives his hand a little squeeze.
‘Thank you, Larry. You’re a good friend.’
16
One afternoon Larry’s class is set to work on a life drawing of a female nude. The model is Nell. She takes off her clothes without hesitation, and places herself as the teacher instructs her, sitting on an upright chair, one leg tucked a little back. She asks him how she should hold her head, and he tells her to make herself comfortable. She chooses to bend her head a little forward, gazing over her knees at the bare boards of the floor.
The students set to work on a pencil sketch, following the measuring technique Coldstream has taught them. The teacher moves among them, checking to see they are marking what he calls the ‘fixed points’.
‘It’s all about touch,’ he says. ‘Your own feelings about what you see are unimportant. See accurately, and the touch will come.’
Larry doesn’t fully understand this, but he works away as best he can, and a passable sketch begins to emerge. At the same time he can’t deny the presence of other feelings. Nell’s naked body becomes more beautiful to him, and more desirable, as his pencil traces the curves of her thigh. He glances round the other students, almost all of them male, and sees them all intent on their work, and wonders if they’re feeling the same.
When the class finishes Nell puts her clothes back on, and lingers in the Life Room as the students pack up their sketches. Larry, watching furtively, sees the effect she has on the others, how they stand up straighter when talking to her, and laugh more loudly. He hears her asking Leonard Fairlie if she can see his sketch, and hears Fairlie say, ‘I’m useless at figures.’
‘It’s not figures,’ Nell says. ‘It’s me.’
Fairlie laughs at that, his baby face going pink beneath his month-old beard. Larry wants Nell to come over and talk to him, but instead now she’s talking to Tony Armitage, the w
ild boy who’s become something of a friend. Larry can tell at once from Armitage’s agitated arm movements that he’s trying to impress Nell.
‘What are you thinking when you’re drawing?’ she says.
‘I don’t think,’ Armitage replies. ‘Artists never think. I look.’ He gives Nell a ferocious glare. ‘I look.’
‘And what do you see?’
‘I see you,’ says Armitage.
Then evidently aware that he can’t improve on this, he sweeps himself out of the room, following the others.
Larry has lingered. Now he gets his reward.
‘I think they’re all shy,’ Nell says to him.
‘Well, they have been staring at you with no clothes on.’
‘You wouldn’t know it. No one’s mentioned it.’
‘What do you expect them to say?’ says Larry.
‘Oh, you know. Ooh, I can see your titties! Ooh, I can see your bum!’
Larry laughs. She slips one arm through his.
‘Buy me a drink, Lawrence.’
The Hermit’s Cave has survived the war unscathed, protected, say the locals, by the hermit himself, who gazes philosophically into the distance on the pub sign, wearing what seems to be a nightdress. Inside, beneath the smoke-grimed mustard-coloured ceilings, the students from the art college lunch on Scotch eggs and Murphy’s stout and argue about art and politics and religion. Leonard Fairlie takes the orthodox Marxist line on Christianity.
‘How else are the ruling classes to persuade the masses to be content with their pitiful share of the nation’s wealth? Obviously you have to create a compensation mechanism for them. You have to tell them the less jam they have today, the more jam they’ll have tomorrow.’
‘So who are these people, Leonard? Who are these cynical liars who’ve fabricated this monstrous perversion for their own evil ends?’
Peter Prout is a big smiley young man who may or may not be homosexual.
‘You want me to tell you who rules the country?’ says Leonard.
‘Somehow I don’t think Churchill dreamed up Christianity,’ says Peter. ‘Or Attlee or Bevin, for that matter.’
‘Beveridge, more like,’ says Larry.
‘Listen,’ says Peter. ‘I’m not saying any of it’s true. I don’t believe in Jesus being the son of God and all that. But it doesn’t have to be a conspiracy. It’s a folk myth. It’s a kind of communal dream.’