Dark Angel

by Sally Beauman

  “Hello!” Wexton shouted. He shouted in a very loud voice, so it was impossible to pretend not to hear him. Jane stopped.

  “Hello.” He made an encouraging gesture. “Come and join me. Are you hungry? Would you like a sandwich?”

  “I was about to walk back. I ought to go back.”

  Jane approached the square of mackintosh cape on which Wexton sat. She looked at him but kept her body turned to the path. Poised for flight.

  “Me too,” Wexton said cheerfully. He patted the cape. “Sit down for a minute. I’ll walk back with you if that’s okay. Have some of this sandwich first. The sea air always makes me hungry. Poems too. Here—it’s cheese. French cheese, but it’s not bad once you’re used to it.”

  He held out to her a squashed baton of bread, and brushed away the sand that clung to it. Jane took the sandwich and bit into it. Cheese, and mustard, and what might have been pickles of some kind—gherkins, perhaps. Jane did not usually like gherkins, but the sandwich was excellent.

  “Have some coffee.” Wexton was unscrewing a flask. “I put a bit of brandy in it. Just a drop. It’s cheap brandy, but it perks it up a bit.”

  He handed her the lid of the flask, which was fashioned into a cup. Jane took a sip.

  “Good?” Wexton was looking at her anxiously.

  “Very good.”

  “Caffeine and brandy. It’s unbeatable. Whisky’s not bad either, but I can’t get that.”

  This lack seemed to worry him, for he frowned, then turned back to stare at the sea. He seemed to feel no further need for conversation. Once or twice, making odd huffing and puffing noises, he wrote a few words in his notebook, looked back at the sea, then crossed them out.

  Jane had always imagined that writing poetry must be a secretive and exalted process. She felt flattered that she should sit here and Wexton should continue to write. She took several more sips of the coffee. She stole a look at the notebook. She made out a list of words, most of them illegible. She began to feel relaxed—almost tranquil. The sandwich was good. The coffee was good. Wexton wrote a poem. He made no demands on her.

  After they had sat in silence for perhaps ten minutes, she clasped her hands together in her lap. She cleared her throat.

  “What is the poem about?”

  To her relief, Wexton seemed unoffended. He sucked on the stub of his pencil. He poked his pouchy cheeks with the tip of it. Wexton, who was then twenty-five, appeared to Jane much older. He had been born looking forty-five, he used to say to me, and remained that way whether he was twenty or sixty. Jane considered his heavy cheeks, his furrowed brow; she thought he was as large and as ruffled as a bear, but that he also had the look of a hamster.

  “It’s about Steenie and me.” He did not sound too certain. “I think. And the war, I guess.”

  He nibbled the pencil, spat out a splinter, and turned to look at Jane.

  “I came to France to find the war, you see. And now I’m here, I discover it’s someplace else. It’s like trying to stand on the tip of a rainbow. I expect you find the same. Yes?”

  He made this remark in a simple, direct, almost apologetic way. The inquiry was cautiously optimistic. He sounded like a man hoping to retrieve a suitcase from lost-luggage.

  “Over there,” he went on before Jane could reply, pointing in the direction of the boom of guns. “I guess the war is over there. But you know, they sent me up to the front line last week, and even then …” He shrugged. “You know what I think? I think it’s waiting. It’ll wait a good long time, years maybe, until we’re all back home—someplace else anyway. Then up it will pop. A jack-in-the-box. Here I am. This is the war. Remember me?” He looked back at Jane. “I’m not looking forward to that. Are you?”

  “No. I’m not.”

  Jane was drawing in the sand with her finger. She looked down. She saw she had written the letters of Acland’s name. She scrabbled them out, quickly.

  “But you do know what I mean? I hope you do. I hope someone does. After all, it could just be me. I wonder about that.” He turned upon her a beseeching gaze. Jane drank the last of the coffee. The wind blew her hair in her eyes, then made it stand up in points, a jagged copper crown.

  “No, it’s not just you.” She made her voice very firm. “And I know exactly what you mean.”

  Jane was beginning a friendship that would last for the rest of her life. When she sat with Wexton on that headland, she had been in France two months.

  The time could be measured. Day by day. Week by week. She measured and recorded it in her diaries. Those diaries allotted one page to each day. Sometimes she overran the allotted page. Sometimes she made no entry at all. When she read them back, time scrambled. On one of the pages, she found several weeks later, she had written one phrase, repeated three times. She could not remember having written it, but there it was. It said: In Transit.

  She would remain in transit, no matter where she was posted, until she reached one particular place. That place (it was the location of a large Allied encampment, some thirty kilometers from Saint-Hilaire) was called Étaples. Étaples was the last place Acland was known to have visited. He had spent his last forty-eight-hour leave there; then he had been posted up the line (or down the line—she did not know which). Then he had died.

  She had schemed to reach Étaples long before she left London. To ensure a posting there, she had written letter after letter. She had pulled strings without shame. The precise place where Acland had fallen was shrouded in military secrecy; if anyone even knew, it would be no more than a numbered square on a numbered map in the midst of a war zone. She could not visit that place. Acland had no grave. Very well, she would go to Étaples. Jane knew this had become an obsession, and sometimes she felt it was not a very healthy obsession. Even so, it remained. She told herself that if she reached Étaples, she would be able to relinquish Acland, to say farewell. She knew this was not the whole truth. In her heart she believed that, if she went to Étaples, she would understand his death. She would find him.

  “Étaples?”

  A young woman with a crisp upper-class English accent, an accent exactly like Jane’s. Like Jane, she wore the uniform of a VAD (the Voluntary Aid Detachment). She stood next to Jane in a basement kitchen beneath a military hospital in Boulogne. Jane had landed the previous night. The journey had been slow; the Channel was mined. It was the beginning of her first day in France.

  “Why there? Over here, one place is much like another, you know. Wherever you go there’s confusion. Oh—and people dying. That too.” She handed Jane a knife. “Sharpen it first. There’s the steel. It makes it easier.”

  They stood side by side at a long deal table. It was five o’clock in the morning, still dark outside. The kitchen was cold. The young woman’s breath made puffs in the air. In front of them, slapped down on the wood, were sides of meat. Jane had been told this was beef, but she suspected it was horse. Jane’s task was to separate the fat from the meat. The meat would be used to feed patients and staff; the fat would be sent on to munitions factories. It was used to grease shells.

  Jane looked at this meat. It was putrid. The fat on it was green; the leaner flesh was scummed. The smell of decomposition was very strong. She felt she might vomit.

  “They won’t let you nurse, you know,” the young woman continued. She scraped out a maggot with the point of her knife, and speared it.

  “Those Red Cross nurses may be angels to the men, but they can be absolute bitches to us. They’ve no time for VADs at all. You’ll be lucky if you get to empty a bedpan. Not that I blame them, in a way. None of us is trained.” She gestured to the other VADs at the table. “They shipped me out on the first boat. I can’t change a dressing.”

  “But I have nursing experience. I was two years at Guy’s, on a surgical ward.”

  “You can try telling them. They won’t listen. Look—the best way to do it is this.”

  The woman pushed back a strand of hair with a greasy hand. She inserted her knife into the meat,
gripped the meat, and levered. There was a sucking sound. A tranche of fat was freed.

  “I shouldn’t even be here.” Jane poked at the meat. “I’m supposed to be in Étaples. I told Matron that. I told the sister—”

  “They stood still long enough to hear? Well done.”

  “Maybe not. But I have letters from London. They state quite clearly: I’m to go to Étaples. It was all arranged.”

  “Letters from London!” The woman sounded impatient. “They aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Not once you’re out here. No one knows who anyone is, and no one much cares. You go where they decide to send you. When you arrive no one’s expecting you. No one knows why you’re there.” She gave her piece of meat an expert half-turn, like someone making pastry.

  “Do you know what happened to me last month? They sent me up to the front with a consignment of medicines. It turned out to be the wrong medicine. Quinine. It should have gone to Scutari, but the labels were mixed. I stayed one night; then I came back on the next train.” She gave Jane a sideways look. “And I was glad. I was a coward, perhaps, but I could not have stayed there. You might think about that before you insist on another posting.”

  “Why couldn’t you have stayed?”

  Jane turned to look at her companion. Her face had taken on an expression with which Jane was familiar. Jane had seen it before—on Boy’s face, on Acland’s face, on the faces of numerous men. An absolute closing-off, which was perhaps tinged with contempt. The young woman shrugged. Jane realized she had irritated her.

  “The smell. At least, here, the carcasses aren’t human.” The woman put down her knife. “Do you know what someone looks like when they’ve been in a gas attack?”

  “No, but—”

  “It burns the eyes out. They melt. Do you know what someone looks like when they’ve taken shrapnel in the stomach? When the man next to them stepped on a mine? Did they have that on the surgical ward at Guy’s?”

  “No, they did not.” Jane’s hands jerked. They wanted to hide her face. She forced them down. “No. But the people there were dying too. I saw … terrible things.”

  “Terrible things?” The woman’s eyes were accusatory.

  “It was a cancer ward.”

  “Cancer comes from God.” The woman turned away. “He did not invent bombs or gas or shells or bayonets or bullets. Men did. I think that makes a difference. Maybe it makes a difference. I don’t know anymore. It’s better not to talk about it anyway. Talk is cheap. I have learned that.” She stopped abruptly.

  “We’ve met, you know. You obviously don’t remember, but we have. You’re Jane Conyngham—Boy Cavendish’s fiancée? We met years ago. In Oxford—a party Acland gave. A picnic. We took punts on the river. I recognized you at once.”

  The river. The Isis. One of the canals behind Balliol. Jane could hear the slap of the water against the punt. The branches of a willow brushed her face. Acland lay back on the cushions opposite her. One of his hands trailed in the water. His face was lifted to the sky; light, then shadow upon his face. It was one of the few times she had seen Acland peaceful.

  “Acland is dead,” she said into the silence of the kitchen. The clatter resumed. A knife scraped steel. There was blood on her hands. The young woman sighed.

  “I didn’t know that. My brother went, in the first six months, and after that … I’m sorry. I was harsh. It was just … the way you spoke of Étaples, and the way I remembered you. I couldn’t put the two things together. Obviously, you’ve changed. We all change—sometimes it makes one arrogant.” She paused. “Listen, Jane—may I call you Jane? May I give you some advice? Forget Étaples for the moment. Speak to the matron again. Explain about Guy’s. Insist you must nurse. There’s a place called Le T report—you could mention that. I went there for a week. They have three hospitals. They’re short of staff. The matron there is much younger—not so much the old guard. If you’re still set on Étaples, she might arrange it. But it helps if you remember something, you know …”

  “Remember what?” The woman’s name had come to her. Venetia. Yes, Venetia. She was connected in some way—a niece, perhaps—with Maud’s great friend Lady Cunard.

  “You’re in transit. We all are. Neither here nor there—somewhere in between.”

  “In transit?”

  “Until the war is over.” She turned back to the table. She picked up her knife. “It will be different then. I suppose.”

  “And so I went to Le Tréport.”

  Jane lifted her face to the wind. Beside her, Wexton wrote a word, then crossed it out.

  “And after that?” He did not look up.

  “So many places. They never let me stay anywhere very long. Back down the coast again. Then inland. Then north—a place called Trois Eglises. That was close to the front. The guns were very loud. Then back to Le Tréport for a week. Then here, to Saint-Hilaire. They allowed me to nurse, in the end. But I still feel like a parcel, back and forth. In transit. Just as she said.”

  “You never felt you’d arrived?”

  “No. Just that I was passing through. I think if I could reach Étaples as I planned, I might feel I had arrived then. Perhaps. I expect that is a delusion too.”

  “Why Étaples?” Wexton looked up. “You didn’t say. Why that place more than any other?”

  Jane hesitated. She did not discuss this—with anyone.

  “Because of Acland,” she heard herself say. “He was there just before he died.”

  She wanted to grab at the words, at once. Retrieve them quickly. She had the impression that they echoed, repeated themselves in the wind and the drizzle, shaming her.

  “Acland?” Wexton said.

  “Yes, Acland.” Jane stood up. Brisk, brisk, brisk. She made a great business of belting her coat more tightly, turning her collar up. “I was very fond of him. Look, it’s growing dark. I must go back.”

  Wexton made no comment. He stood. He gathered up his belongings, wound the numerous mufflers around his neck. The sky was darkening now, and he switched on a small flashlight produced from his pocket. They began walking, side by side. It was awkward, for the path was narrow and their shoulders kept bumping each other. The flashlight flickered.

  “You sound ashamed,” Wexton said when they had gone some way. “Is. there some reason you’re ashamed? I mean—why shouldn’t you be fond of him?”

  “I was engaged to his brother, for one thing.”

  “Were engaged?” Wexton sounded interested but noncommittal.

  “Yes. I broke it off. Surely Steenie told you? After Acland died. It seemed the right thing to do.”

  Jane lifted her face to the wind. It buffeted her eyes. They watered. She was not crying—although sometimes she found now that she did cry, abruptly and without apparent reason. She was not crying now. It was simply the wind. They had almost reached the steps to the promenade. The lights of the cafés were close. She could hear the accordion again.

  “Why?” Wexton paused. He shook the flashlight. Its battery was fading. Its light went off, then came on again. “Why did it seem the right thing to do?”

  “I didn’t love Boy, for one thing.” Jane increased her pace. She could have hit him for this persistence.

  “And you did love Acland?”

  Jane stopped. She turned. “I did not say that—”

  “No.” Wexton had also stopped. “You said ‘fond.’ Fond isn’t much of a word. It’s kind of weak. Love is much better. Or it could be. Should be. If people didn’t misuse it.” He looked at Jane and perhaps understood her expression, for he seemed contrite.

  “I’m sorry. I’ve overstepped the English mark. I do that, Steenie says. He says I’m a vulgar American.” He paused. “I’ll learn, I suppose. Not to ask questions. To be English. On the other hand, maybe I won’t. Can you hear the accordion? I kind of like accordions. I go to that café sometimes when I come off duty. They do an omelette with potatoes in it, which is very good. I thought I might try to cook it sometime. I like to cook�
��did Steenie tell you? I’m teaching myself.”

  He had taken her arm. Jane kept that arm very stiff. They came to the steps and Jane marched up them. One, two, three: she jerked her legs like a marionette. She did not look at Wexton. She would not look at Wexton. She was displeased—with his Americanness, with his questions. Steenie was right. He had overstepped the mark.

  Just as she thought this, they reached the promenade. It was lit with gas lamps; they paused in a pool of bluish light. Jane looked down at her own feet in her stout hospital shoes. She looked at the circle around them, the light, and the shadows beyond. She saw herself on a small island, marooned by her Englishness, marooned by her upbringing. Her circle; her mark. Wexton had indeed overstepped it. He stood in the same pool of light now, as she did. She stared at his feet. They were extremely large. He wore heavy shoes, encrusted with damp sand. The laces had broken and been knotted.

  “You shouldn’t apologize.” She looked up at him. “I should. Why pretend? I was taught to do so as a child, I suppose. I go on and on doing it. I never say what I truly think. I try to, but I can’t. And it’s such a waste of time—I’ve learned that here, if nothing else. We have so very little time, all of us, and we ought not to waste it on evasions. So—you’re right, you see. I know you’re right. Fond is a feeble word. I was never fond of Acland. I loved him. I loved him for years and years. I never told him, and now he’s dead. That’s all. Please don’t be polite—I couldn’t bear it. I know what you must think. I know you’ll go away and laugh at me …”

  “Why should I do that?”

  “Look at me! Just look at me!” Jane’s voice rose. She caught hold of Wexton’s coat in an angry way. She forced him around so that the light from the streetlamp shone on her face. She was shaking. Her face was streaked with tears.

  “I’m plain. Not even something strong and definite, like ugly. Just plain. Dull. Invisible. I was invisible to Acland. I always knew that, and I loved him just the same. On and on, for years and years—loving him in that stupid, timid, shrinking way. I despise myself for it. I wish he had known. It probably wouldn’t have mattered to him. He would have been embarrassed. You’re embarrassed. I embarrass myself. But all the same I wish he’d known. I wish I’d had the courage to tell him.”