by Parks, Adele
‘Stop it, Charlie! Stop it!’ she shouted.
He crouched down, trying to get closer to her. It wasn’t clear if he wanted to hold her or continue to beat her. His face broke apart; the vicious anger vanished and self-pity invaded. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ Then, ‘Why? Why don’t you want me?’
Ava hurt too much to reply. She squashed herself as far as possible against the wall and away from him. Her blood was on the William Morris wallpaper. She could smell dust in the carpet. She swallowed down her vomit.
36
HE HAD NOT expected her visit, and yet he found himself hoping for it. Normally they telephoned one another or sent a telegram to confirm an arrangement first. This afternoon he’d heard his landlady close the door behind herself at two forty-five precisely, as was her habit; just five minutes later, there was an impatient rapping on the door. He’d been lying naked on his bed, still and calm, wanting to nap but finding he was too hot to sleep. He thought of ignoring it – it was probably kids playing knock and run, and by the time he dressed and got downstairs they’d have scarpered – but the knocking continued; it was almost frenzied.
As he opened the door to her, she fell upon him, lavishing kisses on his face: lips, cheeks, eyelids. She stood on tiptoes to do so. Girlish. Enchanting. He could smell sunshine in her hair and taste her lipstick.
He pulled her in off the street; someone would see them and there would be gossip. Sometimes her picture turned up in the society pages of newspapers; some of the women about the doors made a hobby of cutting out the pictures of pretty aristocrats and sticking them into a scrapbook as though they were family; she might be recognised. The door closed behind them and the cool tiled passageway seemed to be a sanctuary from the noise and the heat of the street. She was a balm. Her sweet-smelling body, her petticoats and smile. He’d missed her; more, he needed her.
It was snatched and sudden and thrilling. He kissed her repeatedly; her mouth, her neck and lips. Soon they were tangled in one another. He could feel her narrow ribs pressing into his chest; she was getting too thin. Her breasts were hard and small. He loved them. Actually loved them. Ached to touch them, to fasten his lips on her sweet pink nipples. His hands slipped down her hips, tilting her pelvis into his own hardness; his mouth found the fleshy petal of her earlobe. Then he held her hands above her head and used his own to pin her to the wall. He was not trying to restrain her – although he had; she was rooted – he was trying to resist tearing at her, taking her. He wanted to slow it down. Get upstairs at least. He couldn’t have her here in the passageway. Could he? She opened her eyes and stared at him; for one disconcerting minute he thought she was reading his mind. Her eyes said yes. Yes, he could have her here, or on the stairs, or over the banister. He could have her anyhow or any way. She was his. He kissed her again, stronger, harder.
Over the past couple of months he’d found, to his astonishment, that there were times when he could forget. There were times when death didn’t linger and pollute. When he was inside her, engulfed, there were moments where he felt alive. And glad to be so.
No longer able to resist, he ran his hands down her silk-clad body. Every curve tantalised and comforted in equal measure. There were no words. He didn’t tell her he’d missed her. He didn’t ask what she was doing here. He didn’t want to know how long she could stay. All words disappeared; they were superfluous. They were left in a nude, raw silence. Stripped to desire. The only sounds he could hear were the tick of the hallway clock, kids playing in the street outside, laughing and hollering, and the sound of their tongues exploring one another. The heat oozed under the door and bit his bare ankles; upstairs, he’d pushed his feet into shoes but hadn’t had time to put on socks. He was wearing loose, baggy trousers held up with braces; his shirt was only half fastened. She kissed his collarbone, leaning into him; she grabbed at his hair, stroked his chest, felt the solid abdomen, then started to scrabble with his flies, inexpertly unbuttoning them. Her hand swiftly found his hardness. The excitement was staggering; the relief immense. He had to concentrate very intently on not allowing it to be all over in that instant. Blistering with anticipation, his lips meshed with hers; he kissed her so completely it became difficult for him to know where he ended, where she began. He pulled up her dress and she wiggled out of her knickers, then he sank into her. Home. He stared into her eyes and she stared back, never losing one another. Not for a second. It scalded, it was implausible, it was exactly right. He felt the climb, the summit, the freefall. It was over in a matter of minutes. As he sagged against the wall, breathing deep and fast, he caught the smell of her skin: slightly damp with sweat, but still with notes of lavender and lime. He thought it might never be over.
They ran up the stairs. Hand in hand, her knickers in her handbag. Giggling, they fell through the door of his room. He bounced, delighted to find himself happy; willing to accept the mood, however temporary it might turn out to be. Many women resented his moods. They wanted him to forget and move on. He understood, he wanted that too, but it wasn’t something one could control. Lydia did not resent his moods; she said she admired them. She seemed to understand that his experience had made it impossible for him to be blithely pleasant all the time. If he was feeling low, she always knew when she should try to cajole him into better spirits; when she should sit silently close by. But today, after taking her in the dingy hallway, up against the floral wallpaper, he was buoyant. Like a drunk he spun round the room, arms wide, waiting for her to notice.
Her eyes danced about and she spotted it immediately. ‘You’ve bought a gramophone,’ she commented, laughing. She quickly went to inspect it. Crouched down by it and ran her fingers along the varnished wood. ‘Do you have any records?’
‘Three. So far. We can buy more.’
Lydia picked through the discs and selected ‘Sweet Lady’ by Frank Crumit. She smiled as the disc rotated; it rose and fell seductively, like a woman dancing with veils. He’d kept his promise. Slowly, he’d started to amass items of comfort.
‘Tea?’ He held up one of two tiny yellow and gold cups and saucers. They looked ridiculous in his big hands; he’d bought them for her, not him, and he never used them when he was alone, preferring his mug. She looked at them thoughtfully, then beamed. She dug into her bag and retrieved a small blue box, wrapped in Selfridges ribbon; it housed a delicate, engraved silver teaspoon. She nearly always arrived with a small gift. A vase, a cushion, a pair of wine glasses; items carefully selected to be neither excessive nor intrusive. They were building something together. When she wasn’t there herself, he liked to see the things she’d brought around the place; he assumed she was motivated by the same train of thought. She wanted to leave a physical trail, so he wouldn’t forget her. She didn’t know it wasn’t necessary.
‘Tea would be perfect.’
He had not been sure when exactly she would come to him, but he had known that she would and had prepared. He reached up to a shelf above the kitchen sink and pulled down a tin of shortbread biscuits; she’d once mentioned that shortbread was the only thing that made shooting in Scotland in August bearable. Carefully – with no hint of self-consciousness that he, a man, was serving a woman – he set a tray. The plate for the biscuits was a different but equally lovely pattern to the cups and saucers, and different again to the milk jug and the sugar bowl. Lydia seemed to like to buy piecemeal, lavishing attention and distinction on each purchase. A matching set would have seemed ostentatious and careless. The eclectic china was somehow more wonderful and impactful.
They sat and sipped their tea. Lydia was beneath a shaft of bright sunlight that splashed through the rooftop windows; like a cat she soaked up the golden warmth. Her hair was ruffled and her dress askew. Edgar sat in the cooler shadow and watched her.
‘Are you surprised to see me?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Good surprised or bad?’ She was fishing.
‘Most definitely good.’
She grinned. ‘I couldn’t telepho
ne from the country. It was too …’ She paused, wondering how to phrase it. ‘Hectic.’ He could imagine. Wealth bought everything except privacy in one’s own home.
‘Is the old man dead?’
‘And buried.’
‘When?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘And you got away to London today?’
‘I had to be here. With you.’
She said that sort of thing. She didn’t hold back or exercise any caution. He was cautious enough for both of them. She ate the biscuits hungrily, laughing and chattering as she did so, and then, when they had finished their tea, they went to bed.
They could not get enough of one another. In the trenches, some men had slept with their girls’ silk stockings pulled over their heads. Edgar hadn’t got it at the time, but now he did. He wanted to be inside her all the time. He wanted to be permanently joined. They made love until they were sore, almost sick, but they could not stop. Over and over again their bodies found one another. Lips, breasts, legs and fingers.
The afternoon nudged into evening, but they were reluctant to leave the sanctuary of the stuffy, sultry attic and so dined on shortbread and tinned pears before the room was captured by the cooler blue of a summer’s night.
‘I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you,’ she murmured, as he withdrew and rolled off her, finally satiated.
He lay on his side and gazed at her, running his hands the length of her body, feeling both her softness and her firmness under his caress. He’d missed her too, but he could not say so. Instead he said, ‘Where does your husband think you are tonight? In Eaton Square?’
She yawned. He knew that she pretended to be bored when she was infuriated. She didn’t like him acknowledging her husband, but how could he not?
‘No. The house is closed up for the summer because of his father and what have you.’ She stretched out her arm and felt around blindly on the bedside rug, hoping to locate a packet of cigarettes; the sight of her slim, pearly arm caused his stomach to contract with desire.
‘Then where?’
‘With Ava.’
Edgar sighed and checked the clock. It was after three. ‘I suppose you had better get back to Ava’s, then.’
‘I want to stay here tonight.’ She stared at him; her expression was one of both challenge and vulnerability, swirled together like a potent cocktail. He couldn’t say what he wanted exactly, but her staying wasn’t practical or sensible.
He kissed her shoulder, gently. ‘What if Lawrence telephones Ava?’
‘He hasn’t done so before.’
‘But there’s always a first time.’
‘No, he won’t telephone.’ There was something about the firmness and clarity in her voice that made him pity her and hate Lawrence. It was illogical, because most lovers wanted to hear of the strife and discontent, or at least indifference, between their mistress and her husband, but Edgar felt slighted on her behalf.
‘Doesn’t he care?’ He couldn’t understand this cool and distant man she was married to. If Lydia had been his wife, he might go mad with lust, he might never let her out of his sight; he would at least want to telephone her regularly if she was away. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
She gently put her finger on his lips. ‘Don’t talk of Lawrence. He’s not like you. You don’t know him.’
Hurt, he asked, ‘Why are you loyal to him?’
‘I’m not.’ She looked surprised. ‘I’m ashamed that I’m not, but I’m not. I just don’t want him here with us. This is our place.’ She kissed him slowly. ‘Don’t let Lawrence in.’ After a moment or so she added, ‘I thought I might stay with you all week. I’ve brought a bag with me. I have everything I need. A whole week. Wouldn’t that be glorious? What do you think?’ She’d stayed over in the past, but only for a night at a time. She’d always had to sneak out before dawn.
‘How will we avoid the landlady and a scandal?’ He smiled as he asked the question, ready to be won over to her way of thinking.
‘Darling, I know you’ve seen off worse.’ She put out her cigarette, closed her eyes and was asleep in moments. He envied her her tranquillity. He didn’t question her lack of conscience; he knew too many people who had had to give up the nicety of conscience.
He climbed out of bed, stretched and then walked around the room. He pulled out a stool and climbed up on it so that he could poke his head out of the rooftop window to breathe the London air. It wasn’t refreshing or reviving. It smelt scorched and polluted. He got down and strode to the basin. He threw cold water on his face. Nothing helped.
‘Just come to bed. Sleep,’ she implored. She sat up, eyes barely open, her voice soupy with fatigue.
In their three months together, he had never once fallen asleep next to her. He’d learned in the trenches how to ignore exhaustion. The reliving of the earth-shaking roar of the guns prevented sleep; he preferred staying awake to being a witness to what he’d done, so he’d learned how to push past exhaustion like a ruthless Roman marching along a road towards a village he must conquer. But they had made love several times, and the heat was soporific; he needed to rest. For once he was being lulled to sleep, rather than falling into it like a pit of gloom. He wondered whether he could resist. ‘I don’t care if you shout out,’ she murmured. ‘I won’t think any the less of you if you do. There’s nothing you could do that would make me think less of you.’
He knew she was wrong about this. It was the sort of thing people said if they hadn’t seen the bleak filth of life. Yet he climbed back into bed and lay down next to her.
He didn’t scream out that night, or the next. By the third night they’d both forgotten that he’d ever feared he would. They went about their business like a contented and legitimate couple. He had to visit the office in the morning, so she called on friends or shopped. In the afternoons they went for slow walks in the public parks and visited tea shops. He held her hand. He was tall and the sun was bright; his long shadow marked a way in front of them. The evenings were the best. They did all manner of things. One evening they went to the cinema, where the doorman was dressed as a vampire. He held out his warm hand for Lydia to shake; she practically jumped out of her skin. They giggled and squirmed their way through the picture, crunching on peanuts and sucking on oranges. That night they ate omelettes and peach melbas at the Savoy; another time they had soup with oyster crackers at a milk bar. Every night they danced in clubs before returning home to his lodgings to make love. They didn’t talk about his screaming, but they both wondered whether she’d fixed him.
37
ON THE FOURTH night they decided to have a quiet supper at a little restaurant in Islington and then skip the club and return to his bedsit before nine o’clock. It was a risky manoeuvre, but Edgar managed to distract his landlady in the back room while Lydia crept upstairs, sneaking like a child locating a midnight snack. They made love again. She laughingly complained that it was almost becoming too much. Climaxing practically hurt her, she was so exhausted, whereas he went longer and longer each time, his body getting used to hers.
The screaming, when it came, was savage and relentless. The men were burning; they’d lost half their bodies but they could still scream. Their agony pouring, spewing over everything. He could smell their searing flesh and their blood. That of his men and the enemy. Both the same. He shot first, watching them splay their arms, reminding him of Punch and Judy puppets expressing surprise. Whooosh. Something wet splattered on his face. Another man’s chest, or brains or ear. Over they go. Over the top. Wasn’t worth thinking about. Couldn’t think anyway, the guns were too loud. He ran on, his boots sinking in the soft mud and swollen, bloated bodies. He scrambled over dead men and not quite dead men. They stared at him, shocked and horrified, although they must have known; after all these months, they all knew how they would end. He could still pick them off, bang, splayed arms, puppet, strings cut, bang. This wasn’t the worst. Too close to shoot now, no more bullets anyway. Slug the Hun. Bash in his fucking face with
the end of your gun. If you’re lucky, he goes down after two or three heavy blows. If not, you have to do the worst. Shove it in. Stab him. Stupid fucking short blades. Couldn’t skin a rabbit. Over and over again. Stab, stab, stab. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Don’t look at his face. Don’t think of it as a face. Don’t think of him at all. He’d do the same to you. Was trying to. Don’t be sorry. Scream at him. Scream at them fucking all.
‘It’s all right, it’s all right. Baby, it’s me. I’m here.’
The sheets were damp with his sweat, but not the sweat of sweet loving; the sweat of terror. Of horror. He shook and whimpered. He could smell piss. She didn’t notice, or pretended not to.
She held him tightly even though he threw her off two, three times. She linked her arms around him again; not so much of an embrace as a padlock. She spoke in a low, calm tone, murmuring endearments over and over again. ‘Darling, darling. My love. My love. It’s OK, it’s OK,’ she soothed. He began to realise it was her kissing his ear, not rats trying to gorge themselves on his flesh, assuming he was an already dead man. Her skin was soft, nothing like the rough fabric of a uniform. She poured him a glass of milk, like a mother does for her child. He drank it obediently. He was shaking. She prised his fingers off the empty glass and took it from him. She changed the sheets and scrubbed the mattress as best she could. He couldn’t look at her. She took his hand and led him to the reading chair. He thought that if she put a blanket around his shoulders, they were finished. I can’t have her think of me that way. Damaged. An invalid. I will not think of myself that way. I can’t. If he did, it was over for him. If he sank into despair or depression, he’d never be able to pull himself up, it was too much effort. He’d given it everything. Everything and more. He had nothing left. He needed her to admire him, believe in him and in the war, because if she questioned, he’d disintegrate. He’d often thought that the war was a tragedy and a vast idiocy, a squandering of youth and of time, but he couldn’t have her articulate those same thoughts.
