Noonday

by Pat Barker

  Dorothea’s favorite is her granddaughter. Six years old, and very good, she’s no bother, a lot less trouble than some of the adults. There was one particularly bad raid when she screamed—but then the rest of us nearly screamed too. The door was shaking with every blast; we thought it was coming in. Dorothea remained totally calm. There’s a whiff of the Raj about Dorothea; she’s very grand, but also a couple of decades out of date. Anyway, the cellar’s finally finished, according to Angela, so we won’t be seeing her again.

  I slept in this morning, tried to work but couldn’t seem to get started, and then the afternoon was so warm I just couldn’t bear to stay indoors. So I went and sat in the garden of my old house on a kitchen chair I pulled out of the rubble, no doubt looking very eccentric and rather pathetic but I don’t care.

  I love my garden. I’m no use at gardening, unlike Mother—or Rachel, for that matter—but some things seem to grow in spite of me. I have Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers peering over the fence into the next garden, almost as if nothing had happened, even though there’s ruin all around them. Paul went through a phase of painting sunflowers. He used to say they were absolutely extraordinary, different from any other flower, because they’re as tall as a man, you look them in the face—or they look you in the face—and they move. Measurably, in the course of a single day, following the sun. And then they age in the same way as people. They develop a stoop, a sort of dowager’s hump, and the seed heads fold in on themselves, like an old man’s mouth without teeth.

  Paul, Paul, bloody Paul. Just as I was getting thoroughly exasperated with myself, I felt a shadow falling across me. Looked up and there he was. He was holding the notice with my new address on it. “I hope you’re going to put that back,” I said.

  “Well,” he said.

  I wasn’t going to help him out, but eventually he did manage to get going, all by himself. It was very sudden, he said. It really was rather a shock, he said. Was I sure I was doing the right thing? Had I really thought it through?

  What I heard, loud and clear, was the one question he didn’t ask: WHY? He didn’t dare ask, because then I might have told him. And then the whole business about the girl would be dragged into the open and he’s probably fooling himself it needn’t be. Not now, and possibly not ever. I suppose I could have forced the issue, but really I couldn’t be bothered.

  He hung about. There was only the one chair, so after a while he sat in the grass at my feet, but that put him at a disadvantage so he stood up again, muttering something about if I wasn’t happy I should have said. Meaning the cottage, I suppose. I did say; he wasn’t listening. Anyway, it’s not about the cottage. It was awful. Really, really awful. I was glad when he gave up and went away.

  I just sat there, after he’d gone, looking at the ruin of our life together. Love affairs don’t need much—you can manage the whole thing on moonlight and roses, if you have to. But a marriage needs things, routines, a framework, habits, and all of ours were ripped away. I could forgive him the girl—well, no, not yet, but one day perhaps. What I can’t forgive, what I’m afraid I may never be able to forgive, is the look of relief on his face when all this was destroyed.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Neville walked as far as Russell Square before stopping to look back at the Ministry of Information: a brutal gray mass dominating the skyline. Then he selected a bench where he could sit with his back to it and began enjoying the last warmth of the sun as best he could through his heavy clothes. A few feet away, a pigeon crooned and preened, puffed out its neck feathers, gave its inane, throaty chuckle. He aimed a kick at the bird. “Why don’t you do something useful? Piss off up there and shit on it?” The pigeon lifted off, flapped a few yards farther away, and settled contemptuously on the grass.

  “Kicking pigeons now, are we?”

  He spun round to see Elinor sitting on the grass. She was looking up at him, so amused, so, in a way, accepting, that he had to get up and go to her. Then, feeling he couldn’t conduct even a brief conversation looking down on her like this, lowered himself onto the prickly grass. “Sorry.”

  “What for? Wasn’t me you kicked.”

  “Language.”

  “Shouldn’t worry, I don’t suppose it understood.”

  All around, people were sitting or lying in couples or singly on the grass, the girls still in their summer dresses. The brilliant summer had given way to a golden and apparently endless autumn, almost as if the bombs that stopped the clocks had power to stop the seasons as well.

  Elinor was stretched out, her eyes closed. It pleased him that she didn’t feel the need to sit up, to make conversation. Slowly, he lay back himself, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his lids. Lying here like this, they had no past—or none that had the power to hurt them now—and, quite possibly, no future; but that didn’t seem to matter. He knew from gossip at the depot that she was living alone. And he knew about Paul and Sandra. Some men would have seized the opportunity, but he’d always been held back by diffidence, the knowledge that he wasn’t attractive. Long before the injury to his face, he’d felt that. Years of reconstructive surgery had merely confirmed what he already knew: that his place was in the dark, listening to the tap-tap of approaching feet, a muffled voice, a face he couldn’t see, and didn’t want to see.

  After a while, though, he felt he ought to say something. “How’s Paul?”

  “Pretty well, I think. As far as I know…”

  He pricked alert, listening not to the words, but to the tone. “It’s just, I haven’t seen him around much.” This was a lie: he’d seen Paul “around’ fairly frequently—and once or twice with Sandra.

  “We’re separated.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, he’s having an affair.”

  “Actually, I—”

  “You knew?” Immediately hostile.

  “Somebody said something, but you know what it’s like, gossip, I didn’t pay much attention.” He rolled over onto his elbow. “Do you know the girl?”

  “I’m glad you said ‘girl.’ Every day of twenty-three.”

  “He’s a fool.”

  “Most men wouldn’t think so.”

  “I’m not most men.”

  Her face softened. “No, you’re not, are you?”

  He might, at this point, have told her that Sandra Jobling had left London, since she appeared not to know; but he chose not to. “Are you on duty tonight?”

  “Yes, in fact…” She glanced at her watch. “I should probably be going.”

  But she made no move. She’d rolled over onto her stomach and was idly picking the grass. He was afraid to speak, afraid of disturbing the intimacy of the moment. After a minute or so, she turned onto her back again, raising one arm to shield her eyes from the light that seemed to become only more dazzling as the sun sank behind the trees.

  A memory had begun nibbling at the corners of his mind. A year or two before the last war, smarting from one of Professor Tonks’s more withering comments on his work, he’d walked as far as Russell Square, intending to calm down or, failing that, play truant, go to the British Museum instead. And there she was: Elinor Brooke, whom he passed every day in the corridors of the Slade and watched, covertly, during drawing sessions in the Antiques room, but whom—despite all the brash self-confidence of his public persona—he’d never yet summoned up the courage to approach.

  Until that afternoon…

  “Do you remember—?”

  She smiled. “Warm lemonade.”

  “Oh God, yes.” He’d forgotten the lemonade.

  “There was a hut over there.” She pointed behind her, but without turning her head.

  So she did remember. He tried to pin down what he thought about that, but all thought was dissolved in warmth and light. He let his eyes close, aware all the time of how ridiculous he must look in his dark suit and polished shoes and his briefcase lying on the grass beside him. Lying side by side like this, they must look like an established couple, too tired, too jaded
, to be bothered to touch each other, and yet so firmly bonded they couldn’t bear to be more than an inch apart. In a word, married.

  As always, when he was close to Elinor, memories of their student days drifted into his mind. He’d proposed to her, once, on a summer’s day a long, long time ago, and this heat, the prickly grass, the tickle of sweat on his upper lip, reminded him forcefully of that day. Riding a bike, of all things, on his way to see the Doom in the local church—and a very fine painting it was too, though his pose as a Futurist had not permitted him to say so. And then, on the way back, he’d hit a bump in the road, soared over the handlebars and landed hard on the gravelly tarmac, cutting his hands and knee and sustaining quite a sharp blow to the head.

  Tarrant, who’d been there, of course, waiting to grab Elinor for himself at the earliest opportunity, had gone for help, and he’d lain with his head in her lap. Briefly, when he struggled to sit up, the back of his head had touched her breasts—not entirely accidentally. And he’d asked her to marry him, and then when she refused, or rather laughed, he’d told her that being in love with her was like loving a mermaid. That must have hurt. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she’d just found him as ridiculous as he’d feared he was.

  He didn’t want to think about that day, but in this merciless, unseasonable heat, things resurfaced, like the spars of a submerged boat in a lake that was drying out. He saw Toby Brooke, in the conservatory, helping his friend Andrew revise for an anatomy exam. Toby, stripped to the waist, arms stretched out on either side, and painted onto his skin: ribs, lungs, liver, heart; all the internal organs. “Living anatomy,” it was called. But standing there, in the sickly golden light of late afternoon, Toby had looked like a man turned inside out. It had disturbed him then in ways he’d never fully understood, and it disturbed him now. He felt a sudden chill, as if a shadow had fallen across his face, though when he opened his eyes there was nobody there, and the sky was the same ruthless blue it had been for months.

  What an autumn it had been. What a year. He closed his eyes again and almost immediately something unexpected happened. He began to feel Elinor—not merely sense her presence; this was actual physical contact—all along the side that was closest to her. He raised his head and looked at her, needing to reassure himself that she had not, as in some libidinous dream, moved closer and was actually touching him. Of course she hadn’t, one arm was still across her face, the other lying on the grass, an inch away from his own. He tried to think of something to say, to make her look at him, to dispel this strange hallucination. Could you hallucinate touch? Well, obviously, yes, since he’d just been doing it. And when he lay back and closed his eyes, the sensation came back. So, in the end, he simply surrendered to it, lying beside her on the grass, touching and not touching, soaking up the last of the sun.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  The moment she turned the corner into Gower Street, Elinor stopped, for there, on the steps of her new home, was a familiar shape: Paul. No more than a silhouette in the darkness, but she’d have known him anywhere. He was dressed to go on duty, his shabby uniform recalling the long, black, obviously secondhand coat he’d worn at the Slade, always managing to look supremely elegant—in sharp contrast to Kit, who’d looked like a sack of potatoes in his expensive Savile Row suits. Paul hadn’t even been aware of the contrast, which in Kit’s eyes had rather added to the offense. The prince in Act Two, she’d called Paul once, teasing. All these memories, bobbing to the surface, merely sharpened her sense of betrayal.

  He had propped a large parcel, wrapped in brown paper, against the railings, and was carrying another, much smaller, package under his arm. “I brought these.”

  The larger parcel had to be one of her lost paintings. She wanted to rip the paper off, find out which one, but she restrained herself. Confused now, for this obliged her to be grateful—he’d have gone to considerable trouble to get it and possibly some risk—she opened the door, and gestured to him to step inside.

  She led the way upstairs. “A long haul, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re on the top floor?” He waited until they’d finished their climb and she was opening the flat door. “Not very safe.”

  “I go to the shelter. Besides, it’s cheap.” She nodded at the parcel. “Which one?”

  “Me, I’m afraid.”

  They looked at each other, and she turned away, unable to share the irony that, in other circumstances, would have had them both laughing. “Well, I look forward to that.” She pulled the blackout curtains across and lit a lamp. “Sit down.”

  “There’s two.”

  “Toby?”

  “Yes. A bit damaged. Not too bad.”

  She couldn’t bring herself to thank him.

  “I think that’s it, I don’t think there’s a lot left. A couple of parcels, you know, big brown envelopes with strong, coarse string round them, but I couldn’t reach them. I’ll have another go tomorrow.”

  It was imperative to thank him. “No, well, it’s lovely to have these. Thank you.”

  The words stuck in her throat. An awkward silence fell. So far there’d been no mention of why they were here, in this strange room.

  He cleared his throat. “So you decided you couldn’t stand the cottage after all?” The cough was a nervous tic; he was inching his way forward.

  “I need a London base.”

  Innocuous enough, on the surface, but “I need” was the language of separation and they both knew it. A few days ago this would have been a joint decision. He looked at the fireplace, at the empty grate. “I hear you’ve been commissioned.”

  “Yes, I went to see Clark.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Neville.”

  “I don’t know how he knew.”

  “He always knows; he’s eaten up with jealousy.”

  He was inviting her to gang up against Kit, which at some points in the past she would have been very ready to do. But not anymore. “I saw you,” she said. “With that girl.”

  “Ah.”

  After waiting a few seconds, she let out an incredulous laugh, only just not a yelp. “Is that it?”

  “I don’t see what else I can say.”

  “You could—oh, I don’t know…Explain?”

  “It just happened.”

  “It just happened?”

  He spread his hands.

  “Oh, I see. The war, the nasty bombs—everybody jumping into bed with everybody else. So you thought you had to jump too?”

  “I’m not saying I’m proud of it.”

  “Hallelujah!”

  Silence. His almost-unnaturally long, slim fingers were beating a tattoo on the arm of the chair.

  “So what happens now?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, are you going to live together? Do you want a divorce?”

  He looked startled. “No, of course not, it’s over. She’s gone.”

  “Well, that’s convenient.”

  “It didn’t…Well, frankly, it wasn’t all that important. Not to me.”

  “And you think that makes it better?”

  He clearly didn’t know what to say.

  “Do you know, Paul, I’d actually rather you were breaking your heart over her. I wish you were in love with her; I wish you were suffering the torments of the damned, because then it would mean something. Better that than an itch in the groin you couldn’t resist scratching.”

  The clock on the mantelpiece ticked, stitching the silence. The sound seemed to penetrate his brain, at last. “You bought a clock.”

  “Yes.” She turned to look at it. “Which reminds me, I’m due on duty in a few minutes.”

  “Do you have anywhere you can paint?”

  “Through there.”

  “North facing?”

  She stood up. What did one say in these circumstances? It was hardly a normal parting: twelve hours from now one or other of them might be dead. She felt a tide of desolation sweep over h
er for the lostness of the one who would be left; never again to have the opportunity of saying what needed to be said. Well, here was the opportunity. Here. Now. And yet she couldn’t speak.

  He stood up. “There’s no need to see me out.”

  She shook her head. Going down the stairs, they didn’t speak at all. As she opened the front door onto the steps, she tried to think of something to say, but her mind had gone blank.

  On the pavement he turned and looked at her. “Take care.”

  She nodded. “And you.”

  It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

  TWENTY-NINE

  The first call came just before one in the morning. Elinor had been lying on one of the sofas reading grubby, tattered magazines, unable to sleep, thinking about Paul, the look on his face, the way he’d walked off down the street. She’d known he’d stop at the corner and look back and she’d gone inside so he wouldn’t see her standing there. A petty power-play, a means of hurting, of establishing control: she and Paul had never carried on like that, and now they did. Sad. Her mouth was dry and stale; she was too tired to think straight. It was almost a relief when the telephones started to ring.

  She was working with Dana Kresberg tonight. She liked Dana, and was rather intrigued by her. As an American, Dana could so easily have sat out these nights very comfortably in the Savoy; she could have gone out onto the balcony after dinner, with a number of American journalists, watching the night’s raid almost as if it were a firework display. And why not? This was not, after all, their war: or not yet. But Dana had chosen, instead, to become involved, to risk life and limb night after night, driving an ambulance through bombed and burning streets, and Elinor had never asked her why. Hatred of fascism? A love of adventure? Compassion for trapped and suffering people? An addiction to danger, perhaps? Everybody’s motives were a great mixture, but, unlike Londoners, Dana didn’t have the most basic motivation: defending your home. And that made her stand out in the team of drivers working out of the depot in Tottenham Court Road.