Exposure

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘Could we light a fire?’ asks Giles, as politely as he knows how. It doesn’t do to get on the wrong side of these people.

  ‘Don’t you know that there’s a war on?’ counters the other. But Giles knows that isn’t true. He’s not so far gone. The war is over. Did they think they could trick him, dressing up as doctors? He knows what they are up to.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere with you,’ he says clearly.

  ‘No one’s going anywhere,’ says the voice. It’s Anstruther. Giles remembers him now. The sawbones, Julian Clowde said. He was going to send Giles to the King David Convalescent Home for Officers.

  ‘I’m frightfully sorry,’ says Giles, ‘I don’t think I can walk.’

  ‘No one wants you to walk. Nurse is going to put on a fresh dressing. You’ll soon feel more comfortable.’

  It seems a long time since Julian Clowde was here, and since then Giles hasn’t been very well. His hands, too, are huge. He wishes they would light that fire. It’s so cold in here.

  His leg is out of the pulley and lying on the bed. It is enormous. He squints at it. Like a barrage balloon.

  ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘It’s nothing, Mr Holloway. I’m just changing your dressing.’

  Two days pass, as the maggots inside their cage dressing go to work. They liquefy and absorb Giles’s dead and dying flesh, cleansing the wound with a precision far beyond the finest surgical instrument. At the right moment, the sated maggots are removed. Nurse Foster, pale and sweating, disposes of them and applies a fresh dressing under the direction of Mr Anstruther. It’s all going well. Clean tissue has started to appear. The patient is quiet now. The temperature is down, the pulse steadier. It is all very satisfactory.

  Giles wakes to a pale splash of light on the wall. He turns his eyes towards the window, where winter sunshine outlines a black mass of twigs. For the first time in days, he knows exactly where he is. His head is his head, resting on his pillow. His hands – he flexes them – are the right size. He is as weak as a baby but even weakness is a pleasure when his body has nothing to do but float here under the gaze of those twigs. They are perfectly motionless. Lozenges of sky appear within their cradle. Giles traces the pattern. Even though the twigs aren’t moving, the pattern seems to change and shift, becoming more perfect until his eyes blur with looking at it. But perhaps he isn’t even looking at the twigs. No, they are looking into him, printing themselves on him, through his skin and through his flesh, into the centre of him. Everything else has been washed away. Even the pain is still.

  Not to have pain. To be still, not to thresh or cry out. He tests himself and finds that he wants nothing. He is neither hungry nor thirsty. There’s nowhere he wants to go, and nothing and no one that he wants to see. The splash of light. The size of it about the same as the size of his hand. The light trembles, but the twigs don’t move. He feels his body, lying, resting, pressing down on the white sheet. His wreck of a body that is cast up here and good for nothing. Nobody wants it any more, not even him. He doesn’t want the old body back. This is enough: his eyes, watching; his ears, hearing the tap of feet.

  The door opens and Sister steps quickly, lightly to his bedside. She takes up his right hand. She holds the little watch that is pinned to her breast, and times his pulse. With great effort, Giles opens his lips.

  ‘Am I dying?’ he asks.

  She smiles, and shakes her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘You’re much better today.’

  He doesn’t know how to name the pang inside him. Is he afraid, because he has to live? All this will go away. His life will start to push at him again, darkly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, embarrassed, because Sister must have noticed the tears that have leaked out of him. She shakes her head again.

  ‘There’s nothing to be sorry about, as far as I can see,’ she says. ‘You’re doing nicely now. Mr Anstruther will be pleased.’

  She goes away again. For as long as the splash of sunlight stays on the wall, he lies and watches it.

  17

  HM’s Spy

  ‘Mrs Callington, would you pop in for a word with the Headmistress at the end of the morning?’

  Lily lifts her head slowly. Harrold looks as if she has eaten something choice, and is sucking at the remnants between her teeth.

  ‘Of course,’ says Lily, and turns back to Barbara Watson. They are drinking their coffee together. Every day since the story in the newspapers about Simon, Barbara has kept a place beside her for Lily in the staff room at break-time. She hasn’t mentioned Simon, but she fetches extra biscuits and presses them on Lily, saying, ‘You mustn’t get any thinner.’ She’s a kind woman. Lily is tired of the little looks that flicker over her, from other staff and from the older girls. Barbara is a shield.

  ‘I’ll get you another cup of coffee.’

  ‘I’ll have to go,’ says Lily. ‘It’s five to already.’

  ‘You can take a few minutes more. Don’t look now: that wretched Harrold is still hovering by the door. She’s got her eye on us.’

  ‘On me.’

  ‘What an irritating woman she is. I can’t stand the way she comes in here at break-time, just when one wants to relax. Spying on us.’ Too late to catch back the word, Barbara realises what she’s said. She rushes on. ‘The Harrold has no idea what it’s like to spend the day in front of a class. There she sits in that damned office, like a spider in its lair.’

  Lily’s weary face lightens, just a little. ‘Do spiders have lairs?’

  ‘I am sure that Harrold has one. She casts off all semblance of humanity as soon as the outer door is closed. Lily, dear …’ Barbara’s eyes are bright. She looks almost as if she might cry. ‘I don’t want to be a bother, but I really feel that I can’t go on saying nothing. Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ says Lily, more stiffly than she intends, ‘but there’s nothing, really.’ To her surprise, Barbara doesn’t give up.

  ‘It isn’t kind in the least. I’m worried about you. Have you any idea what HM is up to?’

  ‘I can guess.’

  ‘She can’t get rid of you. Look how many pupils you have, more this term than ever. The parents think you’re marvellous.’

  ‘None of that will mean anything.’

  ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, I don’t know what to say. Perhaps if I had a word? After all, I have been here for twenty-seven years. One of the oldest inhabitants. HM only came five years ago.’

  ‘No, Barbara! Don’t. It won’t do any good, and she’ll hold it against you. Look how Harrold is watching you now.’

  Barbara turns her head. Yes, Harrold has her eyes on both of them. Harrold is HM’s spy; she came with her from Ashburton’s. She’s always in and out of HM’s office. You can never get a private word. Perhaps that’s the idea.

  She’ll hold it against you. Barbara thinks of her room: her fire, the smell of coffee brewed from freshly ground beans, and the pile of marking. Home. Easing off her polished brogues and putting on those rather jolly Tyrolean slippers she bought on holiday with Freya, before Freya moved to the High School in Edinburgh. Outside the window darkness has fallen, but it doesn’t matter. These winter nights are cosy. Rain beats against the glass, and you think: I’m glad to be indoors. You can feel sorry for those outside, roaming the streets. It’s the long summer evenings that she finds difficult. Streets full of strolling couples; babies out in their prams for an airing before bed; cries from the Lido and laughter that gusts from windows and back gardens.

  She’s never sorry to go to work. Her classroom. Her girls. They all know her, and she knows each one of them. They scrutinise the young teachers, taking in every detail of their clothes, their hair, the rings on their fingers. Their eyes rake for clues. Adult life is a mystery which captivates them and repels them in equal measure. How are they going to become women? They don’t look at her clothes, because they are always the same. Heathery in winter, navy with touches of cream in summer. They wouldn’t like it if sh
e changed. The younger ones lean against her desk, unselfconscious, while she goes through their work with them. As the holidays approach, the excitement mounts. One or two of the more thoughtful girls may ask politely, ‘What are you doing in the holidays, Miss Watson?’ and she’ll reply, ‘Oh, lots of plans. Friends, travel. Some wonderful books I’ve been meaning to read all year.’ They stare at her, blank as foals, then canter off together. Relieved, duty done. Inside Barbara Watson a little point of dread expands as the weeks of holiday gain upon her. What would it be like, what could life be like, without school?

  ‘I won’t sit with you tomorrow,’ says Lily.

  ‘Oh, my dear girl, surely—’

  ‘No.’ Lily clears her throat. ‘You mustn’t be dragged into all this. You don’t know—’

  She breaks off, and Barbara doesn’t dare to say any more. She sees, now, how much it costs Lily to put on that air of composure and come into the staff room.

  ‘I must go,’ says Lily. She stands, drops her shoulders, straightens her back. Barbara’s eyes sting. She looks down so that Lily won’t see her face, and when she looks up again, Lily has gone.

  There’s a small fire bubbling in the grate of the Headmistress’s room. Two tub chairs are placed one on either side, at inviting angles. Between the chairs is a low table, with brown chrysanthemums in a silver vase. The Headmistress sits with her back to the window, in the farther of the chairs.

  Lily had expected a formal interview with the desk between them. She walks to the chair, and sits, drawing her knees together.

  ‘Let me ring for coffee.’ HM presses a small brass bell-push to her right. There’s no sound, but Lily pictures Harrold scurrying with trays and cups. Behind HM’s head, clouds move slowly. The sky is clogged with damp.

  ‘Not a very pleasant day. Ah, here it comes.’

  A token tap on the door, and the tray enters, followed by Miss Harrold. Her face is pursed with self-importance. The tray is elaborate: a silver coffee pot, coloured rectangles of sugar, a pot of cream and a jug of hot milk. There are Bourbon biscuits: children’s biscuits. Miss Harrold slides the tray carefully on to the table and backs out of the room.

  ‘We weren’t sure if you would prefer milk or cream.’

  ‘Neither, thank you.’

  The coffee tastes faintly of metal, but it’s not bad. Suddenly, as she swallows the first mouthful, the thought comes to Lily that Harrold has put something into it. Not poison. Something dirty, disgusting. She wants to run from the room and spit the coffee out into a flower bed, but she cannot. Don’t be so stupid, Lily. You are imagining things, making a witch out of a petty woman. Her heart thumps and she feels her colour mounting. With an effort, she swallows.

  ‘A biscuit?’

  ‘Oh no, thank you.’

  HM takes a biscuit and eats it slowly. If she were alone, Lily thinks she might split the chocolate Bourbon open to nibble at the filling. Those chrysanthemums are shop flowers and they have no smell. Lily thinks of the wet, bruised flowers in her own garden, and the smokiness as she lifts their heads. What systems these women have. What has she told Harrold? Bring the coffee, give me ten minutes, and then come in with an urgent telephone message. These things can be awkward.

  I’ll walk out, Lily thinks. I’ll go before she can tell me to go.

  But she knows she cannot. She must have a reference from the school, or she won’t be able to get another teaching job. She places her coffee cup back in its saucer, and waits.

  ‘You look tired,’ says HM as she dusts crumbs from her fingers. She gives Lily the maternal smile she gives the girls from the platform on the last day of term, when they are noisier than usual. If there is to be control there must also be a measure of licence.

  ‘I’m not tired.’

  ‘Teaching is difficult work. One must have authority. One must be able to command the girls’ respect.’

  ‘I have no trouble with discipline.’

  ‘More coffee? No? But sometimes, situations change. The girls are very sensitive to a change of atmosphere.’

  ‘My teaching methods haven’t changed.’

  HM takes another biscuit. Her face is tranquil. ‘I have to think of the parents,’ she says.

  ‘Parham High and St Elfride’s are giving extra private French conversation lessons to their O-level candidates this year,’ says Lily. ‘The girls are each having half an hour a week.’ These two schools gobble up scholarship candidates at eleven, and excrete them to Oxford and Cambridge at eighteen. They are HM’s chief rivals.

  ‘All the candidates? Not just the top divisions?’ snaps out HM before she can help herself.

  Lily nods. ‘The exam board has increased the proportion of marks allocated to the oral.’

  ‘I see.’ Rumination, as the face sets into heaviness. Lily is quite sure that Miss Cartwright, Head of Languages, will have sent a memo to HM the instant she heard of the change to the board’s marking system. It’s second nature to do so, in this place. But HM, for some reason, hasn’t chosen to take it in until this moment.

  ‘We shall have to have another assistante,’ she says.

  And now Lily knows for certain. This is her dismissal. If HM had any idea of keeping Lily, she would have asked her to cover some of the extra hours. It will come any minute now, as soon as the woman had stopped calculating how to get the better of St Elfride’s and Parham. But Lily is not going to let it happen. She refuses to be humiliated.

  ‘I’m afraid that I shan’t be able to offer any extra hours,’ she says smoothly. ‘You see, we’re moving to the country. I had hoped to be able to finish the academic year, but I wondered if we might be able to come to some arrangement? My children will be changing school, so it’s better if they begin at the start of next term. I am most awfully sorry.’

  HM reddens. She swallows, and gives a slight, hen-like peck of the head.

  She didn’t expect this. She knows – she’ll know all the staff contracts off by heart – that I am employed by the term and on flexible hours. I am not paid for the holidays. I do not have to give a term’s notice. And she cannot sack me now.

  Lily knows she must get out before Harrold’s discreet entrance and sly glance. None of that, not any more, not ever. She would rather clean floors, like her mother.

  ‘I’ll ask Miss Harrold to organise the paperwork,’ says HM. A heroic comeback. She is calm again. She may even take another biscuit in a moment. ‘I quite understand your decision.’

  Of course you do, thinks Lily. There will be no resistance, and no scandal. I’m going quietly, which is probably what you wanted in the first place. I’ve even saved you the trouble of sacking me. What a fool I am.

  Lily stands up, and to her surprise, HM also gets up, holding out her hand. This close to her, Lily can feel the charisma, the sheer will by which she rises above more than a thousand formless girls and women, quells their mutinies and makes them want for themselves what she wants for them. Lily doesn’t want to touch her, but she takes her hand. Its pressure is light and dry, instantly given and instantly released. Her eyes are implacable. For the first time and with shock, Lily realises the intensity with which HM has wanted her gone.

  She believes what she’s read in the newspapers. She believes that Simon has betrayed his country – her country – and that he has been exposed and will be found guilty. She believes he has brought shame on his family. Because I am his wife, I must be part of what he’s done. I was wrong to think she was a hypocrite who only cared about the reputation of the school and the opinions of the parents. She does this from the bottom of her heart. She despises and condemns what she thinks I am.

  Now it is real.

  Lily has no job, and no income beyond the next couple of weeks. She stands by the netball court and watches the girls run, red-cheeked in the cold. It seems to her that hours have passed, but it’s still lunchtime and the girls are still playing. They’re children, after all, in spite of everything that is done to shape them. Wild shrieks rend the air where the
juniors grab hands and play Chain-He. It’s forbidden. They are not the sort of girls who need to play games like that. Board school games, old Miss Turville calls them when she is on duty. She doesn’t seem to have noticed that there are no board schools these days. In a moment the game will be broken up. Yes, here comes Miss Turville with a heavy leather netball in either palm, for the children to practise shooting at goal.

  Lily has two more pupils, one at three and one at three-thirty. If only she could go home. Tomorrow the American is coming to look at the house. She must tidy, and make the children’s rooms presentable. Soon Lily will have no job, and they will have no home. That will be her achievement. Paul hated it when she told him about the American boys. Sally’s bedroom has a sign on it: ‘Private! No Entry Except by Request. Signed: Miss S. Callington’. Simon made the sign. She’ll have to tell Simon that the Americans have taken the house. If they take it. They must. Simon’s face will close up, even against Lily. He can’t bear what he has done to them. He is helpless. He can’t do anything to help them.

  ‘Lily.’ It’s Barbara again, coming up behind her, too close, so that her breath smokes in the air beside Lily. Lily doesn’t want to talk to her, or anyone. If Erica were here, maybe – but even then, Erica has her house, her husband. The baby and Thomas are safe. ‘Lily, are you all right?’

  ‘Do you mean, have I still got my job? No. I’ve resigned, because we are moving away from London.’

  ‘You resigned? She didn’t—’

  ‘She didn’t sack me, if that’s what you mean. She would have done, but I got in first.’

  ‘Oh, Lily, dear.’

  Her voice is thick with emotion, but Lily feels nothing, nothing. Poor Barbara, her eyes are full of tears. ‘It’s all right. I was expecting it,’ she says. She sees the effort Barbara is making, to control herself and not to upset her, and it seems like something that is happening a long way away and has nothing to do with her.

  ‘But how will you manage?’