A God in Ruins

by Kate Atkinson

  Vic had lost his boots somewhere along the way and was in agony with the cold. They all took it in turns to rub his feet but their own hands had grown increasingly benumbed. Their clothes were completely waterlogged and they were sodden through to the skin, intensifying their cold and misery a hundredfold.

  Poor concussed George Carr was propped up awkwardly but kept slipping down into the water on the floor of the dinghy. He was semi-conscious but moaning a lot. It was hard to say whether or not he was in pain, but Mac gave him a shot of morphine anyway and he grew quiet.

  The dinghy wireless had been lost when they were washed into the sea and who knew how far they had drifted from their original ditching position. The chances of an aircraft spotting them or a rescue launch finding them seemed remote.

  The sound of the engine had faded altogether by the time one of them—Norman—managed to pull the trigger on the Verey pistol and Keith said, “Too fucking late.” The cartridge served only to illuminate the vast darkness that they were adrift in and, if possible, lowered their spirits even further. Teddy wondered if they had hallucinated the aircraft engine. Perhaps it was like being lost in the desert and soon they would see mirages or become prey to all sorts of deceptions and delusions.

  “I’d give anything for a coffin nail,” Keith said.

  “I did have a packet of fags,” Kenny said, struggling to produce them from his pocket. They regarded the wet Woodbines with regret before they were tossed over the side. All the emergency supplies had gone, of course—cigarettes, food and anything that might have cheered or sustained them had been washed away when they had been submerged a second time. Teddy found a piece of chocolate in a pocket and Mac divided it up scrupulously with his penknife and divvied up the fragments. George had been right to eat his chocolate ration before they took off, Teddy thought—he was beyond caring now. Vic refused the chocolate, he was suffering terribly with seasickness.

  “I’ve heard all those tales,” Keith said, “of men drifting at sea for weeks in an open boat and how they end up eating each other, starting with the cabin boy.” They all instinctively turned to look at Kenny. “But I just want to let you know, I’d rather eat my own foot than any of you buggers.”

  “I feel personally insulted,” Mac said. “I’d make any man a good meal.”

  That set them all off talking about food, which is never a good idea when there is no possibility of any, but gradually the talk subsided and died away. They were too exhausted for conversation and one by one they fell into fitful sleep. Teddy worried that they might not wake from this cold slumber and remained awake on watch.

  He occupied himself by wondering what he would choose to eat. If he could have one meal, what would it be? A grand restaurant or a nursery supper? In the end he settled on one of Mrs. Glover’s game pies and, to follow, a treacle sponge pudding and custard. But it was not the food that he cared about, it was for them all to be sitting at the Regency Revival table, Hugh at its head, reinstated from the dead. Jimmy sitting on Pamela’s knee, the girls still in their hair ribbons and short skirts. Bridget ferrying dishes from the kitchen, Mrs. Glover grumbling backstage. Sylvie graceful and light-hearted. There was even a place for Maurice. And a dog sitting beneath the table. Or two—for they existed in his imagination, not their graves, and so both Trixie and Jock lolled warmly together at his feet. Despite his best intentions he couldn’t keep his eyes open and he fell into the dark pit of sleep.

  The second morning at sea had brought a leaden kind of light that promised nothing. The sea had been calmer for a few hours but now turned suddenly squally. They were drenched continually by spray, it hit them full in the face, making it difficult to breathe. It seemed impossible that they could be any wetter and yet it turned out to be perfectly possible. To make matters even worse, they discovered that the dinghy seemed to have developed a leak and they had to pump with the emergency bellows, but after a while they gave out too and they couldn’t find a way to fix them and the only way they had of bailing water was to scoop it up with their frozen hands, making them even more unserviceable.

  George was in a bad way, as was Vic. Neither of them could put up a defence against the waves that were continually battering them. Teddy crawled over to George and tried to take his pulse but the motion of the waves was too violent. He thought George might be dead but didn’t say anything to the others.

  When he glanced over at Kenny he saw that he was staring mournfully at George. He turned his gaze to Teddy and said, “If I’m going to die, skipper, I’d rather die with you than anyone.”

  “You’re not going to die,” Teddy said, rather curtly. They would all be done for if they started to despair. Best to avoid morbid thoughts.

  “I know, but if I do…”

  Where was their second dickey, you might be wondering? Guy. No one could remember seeing him after they had been attacked by the fighter and for a while there was much discussion in the dinghy about what might have happened to him. In the end they concluded that he had not simply disappeared into thin air but must have fallen, unseen and unheard, through the hole in the fuselage when they corkscrewed and had plummeted into the North Sea without a parachute.

  Another large fateful wave hit them like concrete. They hung on as best they could, but both Vic and Kenny were tipped into the water. Teddy never knew how they had the strength to retrieve a terrified Kenny (“Because he was a runt,” Keith said later), yet retrieve him they did. But no matter how many times they tried to heave the dead weight of Vic back on to the dinghy he would slip back into the water. It was a hopeless task, they were simply too weak. They managed to loop one of his arms through the dinghy’s ropes, but Teddy didn’t see how he could last more than a few minutes in the water.

  Teddy took up the position closest to Vic and was still trying to hang on to him when he rolled his head back and looked Teddy in the eyes and Teddy knew there was no fight left in him. “Well, good luck to you then,” Vic whispered and let his arm slip out of the dinghy rope. He floated away, just a few yards, and then disappeared quietly beneath the waves and into his unknown grave.

  George Carr was not dead, as Teddy had feared, but he died two days later in hospital, of “shock and immersion,” which Teddy supposed meant the cold.

  They were found by chance by a Royal Navy boat that had been hunting for another downed aircraft. They were lugged on board and stripped of their clothing and given hot tea and rum and cigarettes, and then wrapped in blankets and laid tenderly in bunks, like babies. Teddy immediately fell into the deepest sleep he had ever known, and when he was woken an hour or so later with yet more hot tea and rum he wished that he could have been left asleep in that bunk for ever.

  They spent a night in hospital in Grimsby and then caught the train back to their squadron. Except for George, of course, who was retrieved by his family and buried back in Burnley.

  They were given several days’ leave, but there was still the question of Kenny’s missing thirtieth op. None of them could believe that after everything they had gone through he would still be expected to officially finish his tour, but the CO, who they knew to be a kindly man, said “his hands were tied.”

  So, only a week after they had been pulled like half-drowned kittens from the deep, they found themselves sitting on the runway waiting for the signal for take-off. The remaining crew—Teddy, Mac, Norman and Keith, all tour-expired—had volunteered to go up again with Kenny for one last raid. He cried when they told him and Keith said, “You soft little bugger.”

  It was a reckless, cavalier kind of affair. For some reason they felt “proofed” by the ditching, as if nothing bad could happen to them, which, as the girl from the Air Ministry could have told them, was simply not the case. This was despite the fact that all the signs and portents were bad. (Perhaps Keith’s widdershins luck was at work.) They had borrowed an aircraft from another crew and took up two other men needing to make up sorties, on the principle that they were all odd bods on this trip. They even took a seco
nd dickey with them, although the second dickey wasn’t a new pilot getting experience but their own CO, who “felt like” going up. Teddy expected they might be given a gentle ride by him—a nickel op, perhaps, to drop leaflets on France—but no, they went to the Big City on a maximum-effort raid. They were all infected by a kind of madness and were ridiculously high-spirited, like boys setting out on a Scouts’ expedition.

  They weaved their way to Berlin and back untouched by flak and didn’t even encounter a fighter. They were one of the first aircraft to land back at the squadron. Kenny climbed out of the aircraft and kissed the concrete of the runway. They all shook hands and the CO said, “There, that wasn’t so bad, was it, lads?” He shouldn’t have said that. He flew on the fateful raid to Nuremberg and Teddy heard afterwards that he never came back.

  Lillian was quite clearly in the family way, wearing an old printed smock already stretching at the seams. She looked weary, dark circles beneath her eyes and veins standing out on her skinny legs. No blooming here, Teddy thought. It was hard to believe that this was the same Lil of the red satin unmentionables. Look where they had got her.

  “We had a wake instead of a wedding,” Mrs. Bennett said. “Sit down, Lil, take the weight off your feet.” Lillian sat obediently while Mrs. Bennett made a pot of tea.

  “I’ve never been to Canvey Island before,” Teddy said, and Vic’s mother said, “Why should you have?” Vic had inherited his bad teeth from her, Teddy noticed. “He didn’t say anything about the baby,” Teddy said and Mrs. Bennett said, “Why should he have?” and Lillian raised an eyebrow and smiled at Teddy. “Born out of wedlock,” Vic’s mother said, pouring tea from a big tin pot. She was an odd mixture of disapproval and comfort.

  “Won’t be the first, won’t be the last,” Lillian said. “He left a letter,” she said to Teddy. “They all do, you know.”

  “Yes, I know,” Teddy said.

  “Of course he knows,” Mrs. Bennett said. “He’ll have left one himself.”

  Teddy supposed that Vic’s mother could never officially be Lillian’s mother-in-law and in the future there might be some escape from her for the poor girl. Small mercies.

  “He said,” Lillian persisted, ignoring Mrs. Bennett, “he said that when the baby was born, if it was a boy, I was to call it Edward.”

  “Edward?” Teddy repeated blankly.

  “After you.”

  And for the first time in the whole of the war Teddy broke. He burst into tears, ugly, painful sobs, and Lillian stood up and put her arms round him and pulled him towards her swelling body and said, “There, there,” as she would in a few months to her own child.

  Vic’s mother, softer now, insisted that he eat with them, as if her corned-beef fritters would somehow heal their collective grief. He was fed more tea and cigarettes and sweets that they had bought for Vic’s homecoming and was allowed to escape only when his eyelids started drooping and Lillian said, “Let the poor man go, I’ll walk him to the bus stop.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Mrs. Bennett said, cramming a hat on her head. He was all they had left of Vic, Teddy thought, and they couldn’t quite bear to let him go.

  “He wrote about you,” Vic’s mother said, staring straight ahead as they waited at the bus stop. “He said you were the best man he’d ever known.” Teddy noticed her lip trembling. The bus hove into view, saving Teddy from trying to think of an answer.

  “I almost forgot,” he said, “our rear-gunner—Kenny Nielson—asked me to give the baby something.”

  Teddy produced the shoddy black cat that had been Kenny’s lucky mascot. It had survived its dunking in the North Sea but certainly didn’t look any better for it. On its very last op it had ridden proudly up in the cockpit all the way to Berlin and back.

  “That’s disgusting,” Mrs. Bennett said at the sight of it. “You can’t give that to a baby.” But Lillian took the little cloth cat and said to Teddy, “Thank you, I’ll treasure it.”

  “I’ll be off then,” Teddy said, stepping on to the platform of the bus. “It was nice to have met you. Well, good luck to you then,” he added, only later realizing that these had been Vic’s last words too.

  1982

  The Courage of the Small Hours

  Most nights he sobbed into his pillow, wondering what he had done to deserve this. It was because something was wrong with him, wasn’t it? Everyone said so—his mother, his grandmother, even his sister sometimes—but what was it? Because if he knew what it was that was wrong he would try to fix it, he really would. Really, really try. And then maybe this endless punishment would end and the evil witch who claimed to be his grandmother would let him go home and he would never be naughty ever again as long as he lived.

  Every night when he went to bed Sunny reflected in despair at the catalogue of bewildering rules, questions and general dissatisfaction (on all sides) that had filled his day at Jordan Manor (stand up straight close your mouth when you eat not in the house thank you very much wash inside your ears are you trying to grow potatoes in them what’s that in your hand what’s wrong with you). It didn’t matter what he did, it was never right. It was making him a nervous wreck. And why could he never remember to say “please” and “thank you,” his grandmother scolded.

  He had to muffle his crying because if she heard him she stomped up the stairs and barged into his room and told him to be quiet and go to sleep. “And don’t make me come up here again,” she always added. “These stairs will be the death of me one day.” Oh, if only, Sunny thought. And why had she put him up here if the stairs were so difficult for her?

  It was a cell, although she said it was the “nursery”—a horrible room in the attic on what she called “the servants’ floor,” although they no longer had “proper” servants, she said. The ones they did have—Mrs. Kerrich and Thomas—never came up here anyway. They were living in “reduced circumstances,” his grandmother said, which was why there was only Mrs. Kerrich, who came in every day to cook and clean, and Thomas, who lived in a cottage at the gates of Jordan Manor and who lifted and carried and repaired and “attempted” the garden. Sunny didn’t like Thomas. He was always saying things to him like “Alroyt? Dew yew want to come and see moy woodshed, young bor?” and then laughing as if this was the greatest joke ever, showing the gaping black holes where his teeth were missing. Both Thomas and Mrs. Kerrich had peculiar accents, flat and sing-song at the same time. (“Norfolk,” Mrs. Kerrich explained.) “They’re peasants really,” his grandmother said. “Good sort of people though. More or less.”

  Both Thomas and Mrs. Kerrich spent a lot of time grumbling to each other about being “at her ladyship’s beck and call,” and even more time grumbling about Sunny and the “extra work” he was causing them. They talked about him right in front of him as if he wasn’t there, sitting at the kitchen table with them, Thomas smoking his Woodbines and Mrs. Kerrich drinking tea. He felt like saying, “Where’s Mr. Manners today?” to them, which is what his mother would have said to him if he was being rude to people to their faces. In fact Mr. Manners would have been kept very busy if he had lived at Jordan Manor. Sunny would never be rude again to anyone as long as he lived if they would just let him go home.

  Still, it was better in the kitchen than the rest of the house. It was the warmest room and there was always the chance of food. If he hung about the kitchen long enough Mrs. Kerrich fed him, in the same casual way she occasionally tossed a tidbit to the dogs. His grandparents were frugal in their eating habits and he was always hungry. He was a growing boy, he was supposed to eat. Even his mother said so. To make matters worse, mealtimes were accompanied by a barrage of instructions—chew with your mouth closed sit up straight use your knife and fork properly were you brought up in a barn? His table manners were “appalling,” his grandmother said, perhaps they should feed him pig swill seeing as he ate like one. “They don’t keep pigs any more,” Mrs. Kerrich said, “or she’d probably feed yew to them.” Not so much a threat as a statement of fact really.<
br />
  Mrs. Kerrich sighed and said to Thomas, “Well, better get her ladyship’s ‘morning corfy,’ ” these last two words heavy with sarcasm, indicating Mrs. Kerrich’s peasant status as a proud drinker of strong, sweet tea rather than pretentious upper-class coffee. Sunny’s grandmother wasn’t a “ladyship,” she was just a regular “Mrs.” Mrs. Villiers. Mrs. Antonia Villiers. “Grandmama”—which was a word he stumbled over almost every time he tried to say it (not least because he found it hard to believe he was actually related to her). Why couldn’t he just call her Gran or Granny? He had tried it once. She had been standing at the French windows in the “drawing room,” watching Thomas, who was mowing the grass (“Incompetent!”), while Sunny was playing on the carpet with an old Meccano set of his father’s that had been “lent” reluctantly to him (“Be careful with it!”) by his grandmother when he said, “Can I have a glass of milk, Gran?” and she had whipped round and stared at him as if she had never seen him before and then she said, “I’m sorry?” a bit like his mother did only ten times nastier, like she wanted to bite you with the words. “Grandmama,” he amended hastily. “Please,” he added. (Mr. Manners nodded approval.) His grandmother just carried on staring at him until he thought one of them would turn to stone, but eventually she murmured to herself, “Can I have a glass of milk, Gran,” as if it were the most puzzling thing she’d ever heard. And then she returned to watching Thomas. (“You’d think he’d never seen a lawn before!”)

  “Milk?” Mrs. Kerrich laughed. “Yew never sa’isfied, bor, that’s your trouble.” Growing boys were supposed to drink milk, Sunny knew that, everyone knew that! What was wrong with these people? And eat biscuits and bananas and bread-and-butter-and-jam and all the other things that were considered indulgences at Jordan Manor but which his real grandfather—Grandpa Ted—saw as necessary punctuation marks during the day. Sunny was accustomed to being with grown-ups who seemed to know nothing about children—Adam’s Acre, his mother’s “women’s peace group,” his class at school—but in all these places he got fed, sooner or later.