Life Class

by Pat Barker

  Walking down Regent Street to the Café Royal, Paul stumbled and almost fell. It had been a long day, his knee was starting to trouble him. He hated the atmosphere in London now, it was so different from last August. Then there had been crowds, heat, dust, cheering, the burnt smell of London foliage in late summer. Now there were these trampling shadows with their blue-tinged skin. Oh, and everywhere, the posters. One in particular pursued him form street to street. A jack-booted German officer trod on a dead woman’s bare breasts, while behind them a village burn to Beside the picture was a letter from a serving British soldier.

  We have got three girls in the trenches with us, who came for protection. One has no clothes on, having been outraged by the Germans … Another poor girl has just come in having had both her breasts cut off. Luckily I caught the Uhlan officer in the act and with a rifle shot at 300 yards killed him. And now she is with us but poor girl I am afraid she will die. She is very pretty and only about 19 and only has her skirt on.

  Nothing Paul had heard or seen in Belgium suggested that this scenario was probable or even possible, but then, it’s difficult to persuade young men to lay down their lives to preserve the balance of power in Europe. Some other cause had to be found, more firmly rooted in biological instinct. Pretty young girls with their blouses ripped off did the trick nicely. God, the cynicism of it.

  Not a bad painting, though. In fact all the posters he’d seen were good. Elinor might complain that painting was being dismissed as irrelevant, but it seemed to him that the exact opposite was true. Painting, or at least its near relation – print-making – had been recruited.

  He should have asked Tonks what he thought about the posters. Tonks was the only person he’d seen so far, and there, too, he’d thought Elinor was wrong. Her portrait of a Tonks unswervingly dedicated to the teaching of art while the war crashed and rumbled round his ears didn’t hold up for a second. Tonks had gone back to medicine, and now spent more time working in a hospital than he did at the Slade.

  ‘What else could I do?’ he said. ‘I’m a surgeon, for God’s sake. I have to do something.’

  The sight of Tonks bending over his paintings – the familiar question mark of his curved spine – could still inspire fear in Paul. He waited for the whip-crack of contempt, but it never came. Instead, Tonks put his hand over his eyes. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘There’s this too.’

  Tonks took the drawing to the window. It was of a young man who had had the whole of his lower jaw blown off by a shell. It was several minutes before Tonks turned to face Paul again. ‘I don’t see how you could ever show that anywhere.’

  ‘No, I know. But I wanted you to see it.’

  Tonks mentioned names and promised letters of introduction. He would do everything he could to help but his time was limited. He was expecting to go to France himself soon. When, at the end of the corridor, Paul looked back, Tonks was still standing at the doorway to his room, watching him go. Perhaps from the window too, though Paul didn’t look up, merely smiled at the men in their wheelchairs and hurried past.

  A few minutes later, in Russell Square, great rosy-cheeked, raw-boned lads charged and twisted bayonets. He stopped to watch. Afterwards they lay on the grass, their strong young limbs sprawling, smoking Woodbines and crooning sentimental songs. ‘Row, row, row your boat, gently up the stream’. Oh, and ‘Itchy Coo’. Over and over again. He could cheerfully have bayoneted the man who wrote that.

  Night-time was best. London in the dark still had an excitement, a glamour, that it had entirely lost by day. The cold and gloom made the Café Royal seem fragile, a bubble floating on a black river. At first he thought nothing had changed, but then he looked again more closely and realized everything had. Burnt-butter smears of khaki darkened the red and gold. Young men everywhere: carefully cultivated moustaches over mouths not yet thinned into certainty, breeches and puttees self-consciously worn. Out there, the war stank of blood and gangrene; here, it smelled of new clothes.

  Kit Neville was there. It was strange after their last meeting in Ypres to see him here, in his element, beaming, rubicund, gleaming with success. He seized Paul and bore him off to a quiet table by the far wall. As soon as they were sitting down he summoned the waiter and, without consulting Paul, ordered two large whiskies.

  ‘You’re back, then?’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  ‘Sorry I know, obvious.’ Neville seemed to be wanting to say something that couldn’t be said here or, perhaps, anywhere. ‘How are you finding it?’

  ‘Strange. I don’t seem to be able to slot back in.’

  ‘No, nor me.’

  Nobody could have looked more at home.

  ‘Congratulations. Everybody’s talking about your paintings.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Several more gulps of whisky went down. ‘You know what I think? What I really think?’

  ‘No, what do you think?’

  ‘I think that once the bloody war’s over nobody’s going to want to look at anything I paint.’

  Paul started to produce some reassuring pap.

  ‘No, listen, it’s a Faustian pact. I get all this attention for a few months, however long the bloody thing lasts, but once it’s over – finish. Nobody wants to look at a nightmare once they’ve woken up.’

  How typical of Neville to find grounds for self-pity amidst the blaze of success. Paul couldn’t think of anything to say, so ordered two more large whiskies instead.

  ‘Seen Elinor?’ Neville asked, carefully casual.

  ‘No, I’ve only just got here.’

  ‘You know she’s in with that Bloomsbury crowd?’

  ‘I know she goes to Lady Ottoline’s parties. Do you?’

  ‘Good Lord, no. You have to be a full-blown conchie to get in there. They don’t like my stuff, that’s for sure. Or me.’

  Their drinks arrived. Neville swished his whisky round and round the glass, but judiciously, careful to spill none. ‘You must have seen something of Elinor?’

  ‘She came to see me in hospital.’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course, you were wounded, weren’t you?’ Was that a twinge of envy? ‘How is it?’

  Paul pulled a face.

  ‘Still. Keeps you out of it, I suppose.’

  ‘Depends how much movement I get back. The knee’s quite stiff at the moment, but they seem to think it’ll improve.’

  ‘Ah, well, early days. Have you managed to do any painting?’

  ‘I have, yes, quite a bit.’

  ‘More cornfields?’

  ‘In winter?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know, do I? Mangelwurzel-picking, perhaps?’

  Paul repressed a smile. ‘No, nothing like that.’

  A few minutes later Neville caught somebody else’s eye and moved off. Twisting round in his chair, Paul watched as he was welcomed into the circle around Augustus John. Oh, he was flourishing, was Neville, the great war artist. Paul thought of his own paintings and the determination to get his own exhibition together grew stronger. He’d painted them with such a curious cold intensity – in some cases knowing that a particular painting could never be put on public display – and yet here he was scrabbling around for contacts, envying Neville his success.

  He finished his whisky and went outside, walking up and down the street until his mind felt clearer. His relationship with Neville was strange because he couldn’t call it friendship and yet Neville was one of the most significant figures in his life. That remark about the Faustian pact had echoed his own feelings in a way that nobody else could. He’d lain in bed in Belgium looking at the swollen hand that didn’t seem to belong to him and thought exactly that.

  It was twenty minutes before he returned to the Café. And there she was, her shining cap of hair reflected in the mirror behind her. She looked older, but not as tired as most people did at the end of this long winter. Quite the contrary, in fact. She glowed. The lights caught the gloss in her hair, the sheen of her eyelids, the full, red pouting mouth. She hadn’t see
n him. He watched her for a while talking to the men on either side of her, teasing, flirting, playing one off against the other, then suddenly sitting back against the red plush seat, self-exiled, bored, thin arms folded across her chest. He walked across and kissed her. She was expecting him – they’d arranged to meet here – and yet her lips were slack with surprise.

  Recovering, she said, ‘Oh, come on, Angus, move along. I want to talk to Paul.’

  The seating was rearranged and he sat down beside her. Her whole body was turned towards him, screening the other men out with her shoulder, but the eyes that looked up at him were wary. The feeling of hope that had flared in him when he first saw her began to fade.

  ‘I haven’t seen you for quite a while,’ she said. Getting in first, he couldn’t help thinking.

  ‘I don’t move in the same exalted circles as you do.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘Gower Street.’

  ‘Ah, the old stamping ground.’

  ‘Just across the road.’

  ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea? On a quiet morning you’ll be able to hear Tonks shouting, “I suppose you think you can draw?”’

  He smiled. ‘I saw him this morning. I went to show him some stuff I’ve done.’

  ‘And … ?’

  He raised his shoulders.

  ‘Did he like it?’

  ‘I don’t know about “like”. He’s going to put me in touch with some people. With a view to getting an exhibition together.’

  ‘Paul, that’s fantastic.’

  She leaned across and kissed him. There was no doubting her sincerity.

  ‘Have you seen Nev’s show?’ she asked.

  ‘No, I’ve heard about it. Have you?’

  ‘It was amazing. Totally new, somehow, though obviously he’s building on what he did before. It’s as if he was born for this.’ She smiled. ‘Do you know, as I was leaving there were these two old codgers wandering about shaking their heads and I heard one of them say, “It’s not much like cricket, is it?”’

  ‘It’s terrifying people still think like that.’ He felt her withdraw and said quickly, ‘I’m pleased for Neville.’

  ‘So am I.’

  A pause. She was looking round the room. ‘Are you working?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I thought at first I wouldn’t be able to, but once I started I couldn’t stop.

  ‘Landscapes?’

  ‘No. Well, some, but not the sort you mean. The hospital and the road.’

  She put her hand on his arm. ‘Don’t let’s talk about the war, Paul. Please? It gets into everything.’

  ‘Well, yes, of course it does.’

  Her expression hardened. ‘If you let it.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Not mentioned in Bedford Square?’

  ‘Sometimes. Not often. Mainly we talk about art.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Don’t let’s quarrel, Paul.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of quarrelling.’ He shifted restlessly in his seat. ‘Do we have to stay here?’

  ‘No, I’m quite happy to move on. It was just a place to meet.’

  She stood up and said goodbye to the two young men.

  ‘Who are they?’ he asked, as they left.

  ‘No idea.’ She pulled a face. ‘Hangers-on.’

  They hardly spoke on the journey in the cab. Under cover of the silence, a bead of tension formed and grew. He was aware of the shape of her shoulders under her coat. Remembered seeing them too, the bones standing out from the skin. Her collar bones in particular looked poised for flight. He could picture it all exactly, down to the bluish shadow between her breasts. He leaned towards her – her hair smelled of scent and smoke – and tried to kiss her, but she moved away.

  Her rooms were on the top floor. Slanted, beamed ceilings, stonewashed walls, red, rust and brown rugs on the floor.

  ‘This is lovely’ he said.

  She pulled the curtains closed before switching on the lamps. ‘Will you light the fire? I’ll put the kettle on.’

  The fire was already laid. He put a match to the paper, then sat back on his heels, watching the flames lick and flicker round the sticks. The paper turned orange first, then brown. Black holes formed, glowing red at the edges, and little fluttering helpless wings that whirled away up the chimney on a shower of sparks. There. That ought to go.

  While she was busy in the kitchen he wandered through into the other room and found a painting on the easel. It was a view of the hill behind her parents’ farmhouse, covered in deep snow.

  ‘Finished?’ he asked, hearing her come into the room behind him.

  ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Don’t do too much more to it, will you? It’s perfect as it is.’

  ‘You know we had snow the week before Christmas? I was at home looking after mother so in the afternoons when she was asleep I painted.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Up and down. Worse since Toby left.’

  The kettle whistled. She disappeared to make the cocoa. When she came back with the tray, he cleared a space on the table by the fire and said, ‘I did do one painting you’d approve of. A canal with poplars.’

  ‘At least you’re working.’

  ‘Are you really content to let it all pass you by?’

  ‘The war? Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t think it matters very much. I don’t think it’s important.’

  Silence. She looked slightly uncomfortable.

  ‘Of course it matters, in one way, it matters that people are dying. I just don’t think that’s what art should be about. It’s like painting a train crash. Of course it’s dreadful, but it’s not …’ She was groping for words, which had never come easily to her. ‘It’s not you, is it? An accident’s something that happens to you. It’s not you, not in the same way people you love are. Or places you love. It’s not chosen.’

  ‘You think we choose the people we love?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Toby’s out there now, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes. He left about a month ago.’

  ‘Is he at the front?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, suppose something happened to him? I’m sorry, but, you know, suppose he was killed, would you still say the war doesn’t fundamentally matter?’

  ‘Yes, then more than ever.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘The last thing I’d want to do is paint any part of what killed him. I’d go home, I’d paint the places we knew and loved when we were growing up together. I’d paint what made him, not what destroyed him.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, taken aback by her ferocity. ‘Let’s hope it never comes to that.’

  ‘I’m so frightened for him.’

  ‘But you still don’t want to know what’s happening?’

  ‘I do know, as much as he can tell me. He writes every week. What about you? Will you go back?’

  ‘If I can. I’ll do something.’

  ‘I won’t. Daddy keeps dropping hints about nursing, but I won’t do it. That’s how it is, you see, even for a woman.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘We all have to give in to the great bully.’

  They sat in silence. The firelight crept over her face and throat. She was blossoming. It hurt him to see her, though it would have hurt him far more to see her thin and pale with grief.

  ‘How are you really?’ she asked. ‘The truth.’

  ‘I don’t know. All right.’

  ‘Only all right?’

  ‘Lewis is dead.’

  She bowed her head. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘I only realized how fond –’ The truth. ‘I only realized how much I loved him when it was too late.’

  She looked startled. ‘I suppose men do become very attached to each other in those circumstances.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that. I’d have loved him anywhere.’ He laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I haven’t been converted. I shan’t be jumping on any of your new
friends.’

  ‘I can think of one or two who’d be delighted if you did.’

  He lay back in the chair, his injured leg stretched out in front of him. ‘You know in Ypres you said I didn’t love you?’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’

  ‘No. I thought it.’

  ‘Anyway it isn’t true. There’s not an hour goes by I don’t think about you.’ He looked directly at her. ‘I think we should get married.’

  He didn’t know what he’d expected. Certainly not this cool, considering stare. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, lots of reasons.’ He was smiling now, getting ready to pretend he hadn’t been serious. ‘We could share a studio. Save rent.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, listen, that’s not a bad idea.’

  ‘It wouldn’t work.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it?’

  ‘You’d need somebody to take care of you while you were working.’

  ‘Not true.’

  ‘You don’t mean it. You’re at a low ebb at the moment, so you’re clutching at straws, but as soon as you felt better you’d wonder what on earth had possessed you. You don’t love me.’

  ‘I do, you know.’

  ‘As a friend.’

  ‘No, as a woman.’

  ‘No.’

  Exasperated, he said, ‘You seem remarkably determined not to be loved.’

  ‘I don’t think you can love a woman.’ That shocked him. ‘That’s very sad, if it’s true.’

  ‘You don’t trust us.’

  ‘No, I’m not sure I do. Mind you, I don’t trust men either so I don’t know where that gets us.’ He sat thinking. ‘And I probably wouldn’t be faithful to you.’

  He saw the recoil on her face. For all her contempt for the conventions she didn’t like that.

  ‘No, I know you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I suppose we could always have an open marriage.’

  ‘You mean you sleeping with anybody you fancy and me sitting at home pretending not to mind? No thanks.’

  ‘Anyway’ he went on, after a pause, ‘I can’t ask you to marry me, my knee won’t bend.’

  Instantly she threw herself at his feet, gazing up at him with clasped hands and adoring eyes. ‘Darling Paul, please say you’ll be mine.’