Life Class

by Pat Barker

  There was nothing she could say to comfort him. She reached across the table and folded his hands in hers.

  They came out to find the whole street lit up by a magnificent full moon, which looked down on the town and seemed to deride its blue-painted street lamps. Even the shiny road surface reflected a blurred white light back at the sky. Elinor looked up and saw how slack-bellied and stretch-marked it was, really, a mad old woman who’d decided to follow them home for reasons no sane person could guess at.

  There were no people on the streets and the only sound was a mutter of guns in the distance and closer at hand the rumble of vehicles going up to the front.

  ‘Let’s walk a bit, shall we?’ he said.

  She knew he was trying to change the mood of the evening, to effect the transformation from friends to lovers before they got back to the house. Above all to erase the memory of his mother’s suicide. She wanted to ask more but she daren’t. She felt he’d given her a key and done so very deliberately, but she’d no time to think about it. He put his arm around her shoulders, and they walked on. A misshapen blotch of darkness, they must have seemed from the outside. Part of Elinor had detached itself and was now sitting on a rooftop somewhere watching them cross the square. She seemed to see the whole town spread out below her.

  ‘It thinks it’s safe, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘I mean, the town thinks it’s safe. It’s really quite a smug little place.’

  ‘Well, it is safe. Safe as you can be with a war going on up the road.’

  ‘I like it. It doesn’t seem to care about religion or the state or anything much except itself

  ‘Making money.’

  ‘No, I mean like Dutch painting, you know? It loves its own life. This life. It doesn’t need anything outside to give it meaning. And the armies can march all over it, and it doesn’t care.’

  They walked on, feeling their hips jostle as they tried to match their strides. ‘Do you miss me?’ he asked.

  ‘Do you miss me?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s different for me, because I’ve never been with you here, so there isn’t a gap. And I don’t get much time to think.’

  ‘No, in other words.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have asked you to come.’

  ‘Why did you?’

  ‘I needed you. A bit selfish, I suppose.’

  ‘Oh, you’re allowed a little bit. You’re doing more than most.’

  She shivered and he put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Come on, let’s go back.’

  He had a key. She hadn’t been expecting that, and it made everything easier. Stumbling along the top corridor, they saw a line of orange light underneath the door, and opened it to find that a fire had been lit in the tiny grate. Flames and their shadows chased each other all over the walls.

  He reached for the switch. She said, urgently, ‘No.’ They undressed in the circle of light, throwing their clothes into two dark heaps on the floor. He got into bed first, with a theatrical chattering of teeth, burrowing down into the cold sheets and pulling back the covers on her side. She felt unshelled, goose-pimply anything but seductive, but in bed they shuffled closer together and pulled the covers up to their faces until only their cold noses stuck out over the top. The firelight had got into his eyes.

  It was different from that time in London, the last evening they spent together before he went to Belgium, when they’d come so close to making love. Then, she’d been excited by the sight of her own breasts against a man’s chest, rather than by anything Paul did. Tonight, she lost herself. She looked up once and saw him watching her. When he climaxed, he hid his face in her neck and then slid sideways on to the pillow, gripping the cloth between his teeth, snorting and pulling and tearing. In those last few seconds, he couldn’t have been aware of who he was with. Perhaps it was the shyness of their first time, which he might feel as much as she did, though he’d shown no other sign. But no, she thought, she’d discovered something about Paul that she hadn’t known before and couldn’t have found out any other way. Lovemaking for him would always be communion with a private god.

  Then, almost immediately, the perception was lost. They were laughing with triumph, pushing the bedclothes back, not cold now, not cold at all, trampling the counterpane down to the foot of the bed, admiring the shadows the firelight cast on the hills and valleys of their bodies.

  Then he talked for the first time about the hospital. She lay on his chest and felt the vibration his voice made, not listening; not wanting to know. One word kept recurring: Lewis this, Lewis that, Lewis the other.

  ‘Am I going to meet this Lewis?’

  He seemed surprised. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Yes, why not?’

  This is where his life was now. She remembered how he’d smiled as she talked about her life in London, the painting, the exhibitions, the Café Royal, the Slade – like somebody looking through the windows of a dolls’ house.

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve gone on a bit. It’s just there’s nobody to talk to here.’

  ‘Lewis?’ she said, her tone now frankly ironical.

  ‘You don’t talk about the hospital when you come off duty.’ He lay and thought, started to say something, ended by laughing. ‘Do you know, at the end of a shift we sometimes just sit in silence?’

  ‘You could always paint.’

  ‘What, a man peeing out of the hole where his penis used to be? Oh, yes, a great demand for that.’

  ‘No, other things. Landscapes. The things you used to paint.’

  ‘No, it’s all a mess, I don’t know what to do with it. Anyway, we’d better get some sleep.’

  He rolled over and kissed her, and they made love again, more gently, lingering, taking time. Only at the end did he turn his face away. Afterwards, they lay back to back, their spines touching, like a butterfly, she thought. Their spines were its body, their arms and legs its wings. She could feel his hands all over her now, even when he wasn’t touching her, as if they’d left a permanent imprint on her skin. She was thinking about this, trying to find the words to express it, but it was too much trouble to open her mouth, and an instant later she must have drifted off to sleep, because when she opened her eyes again the fire was out and grey rainy light was leaking under the skimped curtains, finding the little puddles of clothes they’d left on the floor.

  She turned over and found him still asleep. He’d turned to face her so the butterfly they’d made together was already broken, before she moved. She lay and listened to his breathing, a little whistle at the end of every breath. His arm was flung across his face – he hid himself, even in sleep – and it came to her that he didn’t love her at all. The conviction was absolute for about one moment, then began to soften with the strengthening light.

  He woke abruptly, going from sleep to complete wakefulness in a second, like an animal alert for danger. Almost at once he swung himself out of bed. Perhaps he thought he was late for the hospital, though after he looked at his watch he came back and kissed her. She watched him dress, donning the unfamiliar uniform that clearly, to him, had become a second skin. Her hip joints ached, her lips felt bruised, she was blinking and dazed, her whole body felt different, and there he stood dressed for work. He’d opened the window wide and a stream of cold air came in.

  ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ he said, bending over for a final, abstracted kiss, and then he was gone.

  There had to be a reason why she always remembered him in profile. Certainly, if she ever did try to paint him, he’d be turned away, searching for something – or somebody – but not expecting to find whatever it was. The loss had been long ago, and now only the posture, the expression, remained. What she loved most about him was the quality of detachment that prevented his ever really loving her.

  She was nowhere near as unhappy as this thought should have made her feel. In fact she wasn’t unhappy at all. He’d hardly reached the end of the street when she jumped out of bed and started to get dressed, eager for the day that lay ahead.

  Twenty-five

>   She wasn’t lonely, though she hardly spoke to a soul all day. This was what she liked: being alone in a strange city, walking by the canal, smelling dank water, dead leaves and grass, staring at people in the streets and at lunchtime pushing open the door of a little café, and finding nobody there except a woman with auburn hair who smiled at her but didn’t speak. Kit was constantly in her mind, the dread of meeting him, of having to explain, so finding this almost empty café was a relief. After lunch, she sat in the park and sketched, watching, out of the corner of her eye, a group of schoolgirls in blue uniforms, who sat on the next bench and twittered together, as unselfconscious as the birds who gathered round them in expectation of crumbs. By the time they’d gone, long blue shadows were creeping across the grass, and it was time to go home.

  Back in the room, though, she felt insubstaintial, the result of eating scarcely anything and speaking to nobody all day. She put her sketches away in a folder, then settled down to draw the rooftops from her window, but it was getting too dark and soon she had to stop. She was thinking about Paul all the time, but she felt peaceful, now, not inclined to pick and tear at the relationship as she’d wanted to do when she first woke up.

  Round about the time she expected Paul to arrive, she heard a quick, heavy footstep on the stairs and jumped up to greet him, but it was Madame Drouet. There was a young man downstairs, she said, with a distinctly disapproving air. Oh, Elinor said. She couldn’t think who it could be, but immediately her mind filled with the dread that Kit had some how found out where she was and had turned up like an outraged husband to demand an explanation. Apart from Kit she knew nobody here, but then she remembered Lewis. Yes. But why hadn’t Paul come with him? She ran a brush through her hair and went downstairs, smoothing her skirt nervously as she reached the last few steps. She had no idea what to expect, certainly not this extraordinary-looking youth with hair that seemed about to take off.

  ‘Good evening,’ he said.

  Oh dear. He sounded as shy as she felt, or worse.

  ‘You must be Lewis.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Paul had to go into theatre so he asked me to take you to the restaurant.’

  ‘All right. Wait a minute, I’ll get my hat.’

  She ran all the way upstairs and all the way down again, wondering what on earth she would find to talk to him about until Paul arrived.

  ‘Is Lewis your first name or your second?’ she asked as they set off.

  ‘Second. My first name’s Richard, but nobody ever uses it. Well, except at home.’

  ‘But Paul is always Paul.’

  ‘Yes, he is, isn’t he?’

  ‘I used to use my surname at college sometimes.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of girls doing that.’ He glanced sideways at her, curious. ‘Why did you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I suppose it was a way of saying, Take us seriously. It’s hard, you know, for girls to be taken seriously as artists. We don’t do it so much now.’

  They walked a little way in silence. ‘What’s keeping Paul?’

  ‘He had to go into theatre. We had a rush on. Did he tell you they’ve made him a dresser now?’

  She couldn’t remember. ‘That’s special, is it?’

  ‘You have to be pretty good.’

  She caught the note of hero-worship in his voice, the way Andrew sounded, sometimes, when he talked about Toby.

  ‘So what do you do exactly? If you’re a dresser?’

  ‘You bandage them up after they come out of theatre. Some of the wounds are … quite difficult.’

  ‘I’ll bet.’

  He looked startled, then laughed. ‘Paul’s not pleased, because he thinks now they won’t let him drive an ambulance.’

  ‘Which is what he volunteered for.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you? What do you want to do?’

  He was striding ahead. She had to trot to keep up with him.

  ‘The same, I suppose. I know it’s wrong, because you ought to be prepared to do whatever needs doing most, but no, I’ve got to admit, I’d rather drive an ambulance.’

  That speech, which should have sounded priggish, but didn’t, because his enthusiasm and energy kept bursting through, confirmed her liking for him. More than liking, perhaps. Attraction. He was attractive, in spite of his freckly skin and staring hair. He didn’t look human, not entirely human. Ariel. That’s who he was. She smiled as she sat down at the café table and looked across at him. Ariel and Miranda.

  She suggested a carafe of red wine while they waited. He hardly seemed to know what to do and kept looking at the door hoping salvation in the shape of Paul might suddenly appear. When the wine had been brought to the table and poured, she asked, ‘Do you think you’ll get your ambulance?’

  ‘I don’t know. We keep nudging them.’

  We. Evidently this had become a joint project.

  ‘Nurses are coming out all the time now. Proper nurses, so you never know, we might be lucky. Anyway’ he raised his glass. ‘To happier times.’

  He was happy now, and because of the times, not in spite of them.

  ‘Didn’t you ever think of enlisting?’

  He flushed, perhaps suspecting her of being about to produce a white feather. Little did he know.

  ‘No, I’m a Friend. It wasn’t an option.’

  ‘A Friend?’

  ‘A Quaker. We oppose all wars.’

  ‘Because Jesus said so?’

  ‘Yes – and because the inner light leads us in that direction. I know, that probably strikes you as –’

  ‘Doesn’t strike me as anything, particularly. I don’t think I have the right to judge other people’s decisions. I’m a woman. Nobody’s asking me to fight.’

  ‘And you don’t want to … nurse?’

  ‘Good God, no.’

  ‘So what do you do?’

  ‘Ignore it – as far as I can.’

  ‘And how far is that?’

  ‘Not very far, because there’s Paul, and there’s my brother who’s joined the army. And I’ve got a German friend whose father’s just been interned. But I keep working. Painting,’ she explained, to cut off the question.

  ‘Landscapes, Paul says.’

  ‘Quakers pray in silence, don’t they?’

  She couldn’t have done that, not that she prayed much at all. But to lose the vaulted aisles, the stained glass, the music, the words of the Book of Common Prayer and put nothing in its place except silence and other people’s faces and tummy rumbles. God, no.

  ‘Yes, we have a meeting at the hospital every Sunday morning. Paul joins us now and then.’

  So, added to the image of Paul expertly winding bandages around amputated stumps, she had to try to imagine him sitting in a hut in silence, surrounded by earnest, well-meaning – but surely rather dull? – men. Women too, presumably – all excellent people, no doubt. But Paul?

  At that moment, as if summoned by her incredulity, Paul appeared in the doorway and began threading his way between the tables. As he bent to kiss her, she smelled the cool night air on his cheek, overlaying, without hiding, the hospital smell of disinfectant and blood. He nodded to Lewis, picked up the carafe and caught the waiter’s eye, before sitting down. Silently she passed her own almost full glass across to him. He looked slightly embarrassed, but took it nevertheless.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, toasting them both, but nothing could hide his need for that first glass.

  She went on talking to Lewis, aware all the time of Paul, of the colour coming back into his face. She could see Lewis was concerned. We’ve a lot in common, she thought. We’re both in love with Paul. Three months ago, she wouldn’t have thought to use those words.

  A waitress, with a white cloth tied round her waist, came up to the table. She was invisible to them, standing there with a pad and pencil in her hand, but then, when Paul looked up to give the order, she said, ‘I haven’t seen you here for a long time.’

  ‘No.’ He’d flushed slightly. ‘I’ve
been busy.’

  ‘And you too, Monsieur Lewis. You have been too much occupied, I think?’

  Lewis agreed that he had been too much occupied. After she went, there was an awkward pause, and then Lewis and Paul both rushed in to break it, frustrating each other’s efforts. Elinor stared down into her glass, realized she didn’t care – she ought to care, but she didn’t – and then she started to smile, and then to laugh.

  Paul stared at her in amazement. ‘What’s funny?’ He sounded irritable, resentful even.

  ‘Nothing. I’m just happy to be here.’

  They ate some spicy sausages with potatoes. Paul looked even more tired than he had the night before and contributed little. Elinor talked about the things she’d seen and done that day, the places she’d sketched, and they asked about home, about London. Had it changed much? No. The searchlights were beautiful, there was a huge gun on Hampstead Heath, all the lamps were painted blue. The worst thing was the gutter press – always going on about ‘the enemy within’. Lewis asked about the Slade, what was it like now? A convent, she said. A nunnery. A herd of sheep with Tonks the only ram, but she kept faltering into silence.

  Paul burst out that when he looked back on those days now he thought they’d all been barking mad.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘This is mad.’

  ‘Well, all right.’ He was tapping his fingers on the table. God, he was bad-tempered. ‘Perhaps not mad, but like children. Spoiled, self-indulgent, selfish children.’

  ‘And this is better? Young men in wheelchairs. Or dead.’

  ‘At least it’s not contemptible.’

  ‘And we were?’

  ‘Weren’t we?’

  She shook her head. Lewis tried to change the subject, and from then on she concentrated entirely on him, asking him about his schooldays – not long past – and his ambitions for the future. He wanted to play the piano, he said, professionally, but he didn’t know if he was good enough. If he couldn’t do that, he’d teach.

  ‘Music?’

  ‘Oh, yes – I don’t know about anything else.’

  It had been a warm day – perhaps the last day of the long Indian summer. It couldn’t go on much longer, they were into November now – and the café was airless. She seemed to be breathing in the same breath over and over again. And the candles didn’t help.