The Blind Light

by Stuart Evers

  ‘I don’t have to imagine it,’ Drum says. ‘Neither do you. We’ve seen it.’

  ‘And that’s just it,’ Carter says. ‘That’s exactly why I don’t want to show you the bunker. It’s just like Doom Town. Once you’ve seen it, you can’t not see it again. I took Daphne down to the bunker just after it was all finished and she was dead to the world for a week. It changed her. I can’t even mention it around her, it terrifies her so much. It’s the air, Drum. It’s the air and the sheer, I don’t know, architecture of it. It changes you. It’s changed even me.’

  Carter does not look in any way changed, there is no difference to the way he knocks back his whisky and motions to Bobby for two more. Back into an old routine, just the two of them again.

  ‘And you’re sure it’s going to blow over?’ Drum says.

  ‘No,’ Carter says. ‘I have as much clue as Bobby here. But we’ll be okay. Trust me.’

  ‘Yes,’ Drum says. ‘I trust you.

  18

  ‘I do much prefer to eat in the kitchen,’ Daphne says, ladling cassoulet onto plates. ‘The dining room is so formal, and I love the low light in here. It makes me think of the lovely French farmhouse Jim and I stayed in last year with the McKenzies. A big round table laden with lovely food and lovely wine and all served without any kind of pretension at all. Just conversation and food and comfort. If it were down to me, I’d eat every meal in the kitchen. Every last one.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gwen says, accepting a plate from Daphne. ‘It’s so homely.’

  Gwen looks at Drum, but Drum will not look at her, only at the incoming plate, superlatives spinning though he’s not so much as dipped a fork in the sauce. It is homely: pans hanging copper above the range, candlelight kissing their wide bases, slate flooring and dark-wood cabinets, the round table laid with a red-and-white gingham cloth.

  ‘Yes,’ Daphne says. ‘Homely is exactly the right word for it.’

  Daphne looks pleased with Gwen for using the right word. Folk are simple. Even those with money, simple. Easily pleased. You take a moment to listen, a moment to observe, and the compliment becomes obvious. Hair or weight, house or car, intellect or beauty. Pub skills, the dark art of the nocturne.

  ‘Salud,’ Carter says. ‘Or should I say iechyd da?’

  He laughs and Gwen takes a tight-lipped taste of wine. She realizes she is smiling, despite the predictability, the obviousness of it all. What Nick would have made of this. How he would skewer them; Nick’s accent thick as mince, words sharp as tines. Gwen smiles as she eats the simple stew with the ten-bob name; smiles and sees Nick join them, pint of black and tan in hand.

  ‘The recipe,’ Daphne says, ‘was given to me years ago by a friend of my mother’s, Madame Ganz. It’s the one time I’ve ever been thankful I’m fluent in French.’

  Carter laughs and Gwen wonders how many times Daphne has said these exact words; how many times she’s thanked her French for the food before her guests.

  I never much got on with French myself. French letters especially. Always found them a bit of a fiddle.

  Hush, mischievous Nick. Quiet, you old skate. Back in your box.

  This is the only box I’ve never wanted to get inside.

  Be quiet, you old filth-monger, you’ll make me laugh.

  ‘Delicious,’ Drum says. ‘Utterly delicious. Gwen, you should get the recipe.’

  At last he looks at her. This a look she recognizes; one they share and assume others cannot decode.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Yes I should.’

  She does not laugh, but she can hear Nick’s cackling as he wanders away, suddenly out through the French windows, trudging towards the fields, black and tan in hand. She sees him wave and disappear into the night. Oh to join him. To walk the tracks and pathways and find a pub lit in the night, to sit by its burning fire.

  The light is perfect for eating, for the avoidance of eating: Carter has barely touched his food, but is pouring himself more wine. He has been drinking all afternoon, even after returning from the pub, Gwen is sure; there are different drunks for different periods of time: this the long drunk, the long, slow drunk that ends with silence and maudlin stares, that gets a manic burst not long before its end.

  Drum is talking to Carter about cars; Daphne is talking to her about France. Pub talent, to be able to follow two conversations at once and wish to be part of neither. She nods and agrees with Daphne about the wonderful books of Elizabeth David.

  ‘Another strike then, Drum,’ Carter says, changing the subject. ‘What is it this time? Not enough biscuits during tea breaks?’

  Heaven help us.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Drum says, suddenly serious in the gloom, shaking his head. ‘Feels like I’ve talked of nothing else for months.’

  There is piano music playing, something she hasn’t noticed before, a record player in another room. Cutlery scrapes on plates. No one quite knowing where to look, least of all Drum, who seems to be inspecting the large pepper grinder in the centre of the table.

  ‘But at least you get to come and see us,’ Carter says. ‘So it’s not the end of the world.’

  The piano music. The scrape of cutlery on plate. And then laughter. The two men laugh, madcap laugh, banging the table and making the plates jump, just the two of them laughing, heads lolling over the table, shoulders chugging, putting cotton napkins to their eyes.

  19

  As Daphne serves a baked-dark tarte Tatin, the telephone rings. Not the one in the hallway, but one off in Carter’s study. Two lines, two numbers. One to which Drum does not have access.

  ‘I’ll be right back,’ Carter says, taking with him wine and cigarettes, a grim face smiling.

  ‘I’m sorry it’s a bit on the toasted side,’ Daphne says. ‘But I prefer it a bit chewy, don’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Gwen says, though as far as he knows, she’s never eaten tarte Tatin. Daphne passes him the cream and Drum pours some over the pastry and apples, the cool swim of white over the steaming dessert. Mrs Eyre on the phone. Could only be her.

  ‘So, Drum,’ Daphne says, ‘how did you like the Wolf?’

  Drum takes a forkful of tart, and feels the bunker lurch up from below, swallowing him, sucking him down. Mrs Eyre is telling Carter the latest and the latest is bad. The latest is the worst. It is happening, it has happened. And he has pastry on a dessert fork. It is drenched in cream.

  ‘It’s very homely,’ he says. ‘The beer’s good too.’

  ‘When I was young we tried to get in there for a drink,’ Daphne says to Gwen. ‘Three of us girls. They looked at us like wolves as we walked in and we ran straight out. Aptly named, is the Wolf.’

  Gwen smiles and Mrs Eyre is still talking, still on the phone. Drum eats the pastry. It is claggy in the mouth. It’s like a bad apple pie, too heavy with something cloying and fussy.

  ‘At school I overheard some of the boys talking about trying to get into our pub. I didn’t know what to do. Whether to tell Da or not,’ Gwen says. ‘In the end I did tell him and he just nodded. He let them all have one drink but not another. If I hadn’t said anything he’d have clipped them round the ear and no mistake.’

  Daphne laughs and he can’t muster even the vaguest of smiles. Gwen looks at him and her eyes look muddled, expression confused presumably by his blankness. How does Mrs Eyre sound? How old is her voice? Does she speak the Queen’s English?

  He takes another piece of tart.

  ‘This is delicious,’ he says. ‘It’s so tasty. I’ve never had anything like it before.’

  Daphne beams at the compliment, but both women are looking at him with something approaching concern. Something in his face. Something he can neither see nor hide.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Carter says, coming back into the kitchen. ‘Just work. Panic over.’

  ‘On a Saturday night?’ Drum says.

  ‘As I’ve told you before,’ Carter says. ‘I’m a very important man these days.’

  ‘And everything�
�s fine, is it?’ Drum says.

  Carter swills his wine, drinks the remainder of the glass and pours himself more.

  ‘Yes,’ Carter says. ‘Everything will be fine.’

  20

  Drum’s hands creep inside her nightgown, his fingers massaging just below her breasts and down to the tops of her legs. The allure of a strange bed, of doing something they perhaps should not. It is a pitiful seduction, one that smacks of prepared desire, perhaps a deflection. He kisses the crook of her neck and she moves her hips towards the curtained window. He is hard against her back and behind.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she says. ‘You’ve been all at sea tonight.’

  ‘All at sea?’ he says.

  She sits up, hair bed-tamed and snaking over the pillow; he lies on his back, the sheets pulled down over his chest.

  ‘My mother was a maid in a house like this,’ he says. ‘What would she make of this? Lying in one of their beds, but still treated like staff.’

  ‘I thought they were very welcoming,’ she says. Though Carter off, Carter strange. Just drunk, perhaps, but something bothering.

  ‘Welcoming?’ he says. ‘Did you hear him? Hear her? We’re like . . . a test case. Some people to show around the house before the important people are invited. We used to sit up all night, me and him. And now he’s yawning at eleven . . .’

  ‘Shhh,’ she says. ‘You’re imagining things.’

  She puts her hand to his face. She kisses him on the mouth. ‘Would it help if I did it for you?’

  She takes him in her hand. ‘Do you think this might make things better?’

  Fleetingly, it seems, yes. For the briefest of moments. Yes. At least then sleep. At least that.

  21

  In the bathroom he wipes himself down. He sits on the toilet and imagines the bomb babies being conceived; the magic unlocking, the anti-fission, across the US and Russia, in the cigar dens of Havana. How many last ditches, how many let-us-revels will lead to births amongst the bunkers and shelters, to pregnancies terminated from the skies? A long time with that. The different faces; different men and women. Bodies danced with glass as the bombs come, the babies dust as soon as they are conceived.

  A long time imagining that. A long time.

  22

  On the armchair in the nursery, Annie on her breast, she can still smell cum, the high notes of it, some having sprayed her nightgown. She doesn’t mind: she almost likes its disreputable stink. Would it have been better to have lain back and let him get on with it? Always promised she wouldn’t do that. She used to suck him, back when she didn’t want sex. Quick that. Always so quick. Quicker than the hand. But she doesn’t do that with her mouth any more. Hasn’t for a long time. Jaw ache and the taste, more pronounced after the birth.

  Annie sleeps, loose lips on her nipple and Gwen hunkers down in the chair, pillow behind her head. Outside she can hear feet on the carpet, someone shushing, the noise going past the door several times. The start of a wail then, quick feet on carpet then on wooden stairs. Gingerly, Gwen plucks Annie from her breast, puts her back inside the cot. The gentle laying down, the holding of breath, the child not waking. Sleeping as though she never wakes; sleeping as though she drifts off and morning comes sooner than expected.

  The landing is half lit from below stairs. Gwen stands barefoot looking down through the balustrades, a baby’s tears and squall tucked somewhere below. Go back to bed. Sleep now while Annie sleeps. Go back to bed, ball up the duck-down pillow, and sleep. Sleep.

  The wood is cool on her feet, the kitchen light burning at the end of the hallway. Stealing, she thinks. This an act of burglary. Indecent to do so, but she walks through into the kitchen anyway, Daphne there pushing a pram back and forth over the slate floor, back and forth, shushing the quietening child.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ Daphne says to her.

  ‘Annie woke and then I heard Tommy and—’

  ‘It’s the only way he sleeps some nights,’ she says. ‘I can stand here for hours rocking him back and to.’

  She picks up a glass of brandy, drinks from it, sets it down on the counter top.

  ‘Medicinal,’ she says, laughing. ‘That’s what my mum always said. And she said it an awful lot. Help yourself if you’d like. I must keep pushing on.’

  Gwen poured herself brandy from the decanter, sat down at the same kitchen chair she’d been seated in at dinner. Daphne’s housecoat was translucent roses, beneath it silk pyjamas. To feel those on your skin. For those to be your clothes. Your buttons to fasten.

  ‘Annie’s still on mother’s milk. At night mostly.’

  ‘But you get to lie down. Barely even awake, I’d imagine, while you’re doing it. Not that I’d want to start all that again. As soon as he got his teeth . . .’ At this she shudders.

  ‘He sounds settled now.’

  Daphne stops pushing the pram. Thomas screams as soon as he is stilled. Daphne pushes the pram back and forth and the screaming stops.

  ‘That’s just what he wants you to think. Sly little man he is. Sly and vindictive.’

  Gwen has not drunk brandy for many years; it reminds her of shock, of old movies, hip flasks and Mr Elphrin from the bank who came in for a glass after closing on a Friday. The brandy tastes different to what she’s had before. The good stuff, no doubt. The best.

  ‘So you like the house?’ Daphne says.

  ‘Yes,’ she replies. ‘Very much.’

  ‘I hate it,’ Daphne says. ‘Honestly, Gwen, I’ve come to loathe it. Each day I hate it more. Two years of work, two years of getting rid of his parents’ terrible taste, and I already want to rip it all down and start over again. The rugs are foul. The parquet is the wrong colour. And as for the wallpaper . . .’

  She finishes her drink and shakes it side to side.

  ‘Would you, dear?’ she says. Gwen pours her a large measure and passes it back.

  ‘It’s to be expected though, isn’t it?’ Daphne says, ‘The emptiness at the end of a great project. Nothing left to do, just time to sit back and marvel at your own mistakes.’

  ‘Annie’s room isn’t painted,’ Gwen says. ‘There are three stripes on the wall. One pink, one yellow, one blue. We couldn’t decide.’

  ‘It must be nice to have a girl,’ Daphne says. ‘The one we lost was a girl. I was going to call her Clarissa.’

  What to say to that. Where to even look. Daphne pushes the pram and Gwen drinks the brandy and a clock ticks and the wheels of the pram make a sound like rubber soles on a dancefloor. Go to bed. Go to bed now. Leave her pushing the pram, alone and spooling. Leave her with the decanter and the ticking clock.

  ‘I should go to bed,’ Gwen says.

  ‘Stay and drink some more,’ Daphne says. ‘Keep me company.’

  Her voice is soft, sisterly almost, but not one to disobey.

  ‘Tell me, do you miss home?’ Daphne says. ‘I can’t imagine moving all that way.’

  ‘I miss my friends,’ Gwen says. ‘My family too, but friends most of all.’

  Patty no longer sees Gill. Gill is now friends with Glenda. Patty has made friends in Aberdeen, but says she sometimes struggles with the accent. Gill has had another baby, but Frank works long hours and she is mainly alone. Gwen has Bridget. Gwen likes Bridget but not as much as she likes her friends from home.

  ‘I loathe my friends more than I loathe this house,’ Daphne says. ‘Goodness knows what they’ll say when they finally see it. Something vile, I shouldn’t wonder. Spiced and sweetened, but underneath utterly vile.’

  ‘I can’t think why,’ she says. ‘It’s beautiful. We’re both so grateful for inviting us to see it.’

  Daphne laughs, a small and throaty chuckle, the sound of which echoes off the copper pans.

  ‘Inviting you?’

  Gwen feels something unsettle, come unstuck somewhere in her stomach, beneath her rib cage. Just the faintest sense of a complex problem suddenly revealing its simple, logical answer. Back and forth the pram wheels go. Back and
forth. The large stone in the wedding ring going back and forth with it.

  ‘Yes,’ Gwen says. ‘We needed the break.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, dear. I don’t doubt it for one moment.’

  Daphne looks back at the pram, bends down to see inside, to see her sleeping boy. She chances a stop of the pram and the boy instantly screams. She pushes and he quietens.

  ‘He looks so beautiful when he sleeps,’ Daphne says. ‘In the daytime he looks like he’s made of light and rainbows. It just radiates from him. And I watch him crawl and shuffle and I wonder when he’ll learn to lie. When he’ll learn to cheat and deceive and when I’ll notice it for the first time. When I’ll see his father’s face look back at me and tell me he’s not lying.’

  Daphne pushes the pram harder.

  ‘Our men are liars, Gwendoline. They’re not dishonest, but they’re born liars. Dishonesty – and I’ve thought about this a lot – is an active thing. You must choose to be dishonest. But lying just comes naturally to some people. They can’t help it. They’d lie about anything and have no idea why. It’s just who they are. They’re liars. Yours and mine. Both born liars.’

  ‘Well I wouldn’t—’

  Daphne just laughs. Laughs so much she forgets to push the pram and the screaming starts again. She pushes the pram one-handed, grabs the brandy glass with the other.

  ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’ Daphne says. ‘Okay, so what would you say if I told you that I didn’t invite you here? And that my lying husband didn’t either? What would you say to that? We didn’t invite you here. Your husband asked to come. He begged, in fact. And my husband, the man who lies straight to my face, couldn’t bring himself to make the most politic of untruths. Couldn’t even do that! Won’t break a promise. Won’t break his word. You have to laugh, don’t you? Won’t break his word! The lying hound.’