Spare Brides

by Parks, Adele

  But she didn’t nurse him. She crawled on to his knee, her nakedness on his lap; he could feel the dark moistness of her sex. She was erotic and honest at the same time. He could see the fine hairs on her slender arms as she pulled his heavy, strong ones around her small body. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered. ‘What was it like?’

  ‘They told us not to tell you.’

  ‘I know, but we’re breaking so many rules, one more can’t matter.’

  ‘People say that all we need is work and then everything will be fine, everything will go back to how it was before, but it’s a lie. They hand out soup and pamphlets; if you are lucky they might show you how to walk on your new sticks, but no one teaches the men what they really need to know.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘How to forget, or at least, how to lie. Lie to oneself.’

  ‘I don’t want you to lie to me.’

  ‘I know.’ He said nothing for a long time, and then, finally, he admitted, ‘It’s a hideous thing to live with.’

  ‘Everything you witnessed?’

  ‘Not that alone. Also the things I did.’ He glanced at her, nervous that he’d find condemnation in her expression but determined to face it if he must. She looked calm, interested. He fell silent for many minutes. She didn’t prompt him. At last he said, ‘We were not all in it together, like they told us. At least we weren’t for long. Not once we started to fight, because some made it through and others didn’t. That’s an insurmountable difference. It was lonely. They talk of comradeship, and it was there, alongside desperation and death, but we couldn’t make each other feel better; we could only watch each other die.’

  He told her that junior officers had a life expectancy of six weeks at the Front. He admitted that when they first promoted him from private, to lance corporal, to corporal, to sergeant, he hadn’t wanted it. None of it. Dead man’s shoes. But he had no choice. There was never a choice. War took that away. He watched as men were slaughtered brutally, and their pathetic, disfigured bodies piled high. He told her that he’d helped pick up parts of his friends no bigger than a cat or a dog, put them together in grisly indiscriminate graves. He’d ignored the likelihood that the wrong arm was going in with the wrong torso. Made do. Did their best. Didn’t admit that their best was nothing. Nowhere near good enough. ‘A chance bullet takes out the man next to you. The one behind you, in front of you. It makes no sense. Whistled past my ear so many times. Took me down twice. Down but not out. Those injuries probably saved my life: eight months and then four months in the san.’

  A bullet through the shoulder and then another buried deep in the thigh was seen as a bit of luck. A year less risk. He told her he’d been terrified and despairing at times. Lots of times. By talking, he was breaking the gentlemen’s code that the War Office had asked the men to live by. Best not to mull, they’d insisted. Best to forget, but he remembered it all. Perhaps it wasn’t courageous or right, but he told her everything anyway. He couldn’t not.

  She listened carefully. It was clear from her face that she was shocked, horrified. Disgusted. But not at him; at the whole bloody mess. He’d had to do those things. He was under orders. There was a war going on. War, just another word for filth. Hell didn’t cover it. He’d been lucky and he’d been vicious, ruthless. That was how he’d survived. He had quick reactions; he ducked faster. He wanted to live. They all said the same – they had wives, sweethearts and mothers to go home to – but he’d always believed he wanted it more. He’d seen them give up. The light in their eyes went out. They wanted it to be over more than they wanted to survive. Then they were done for. He’d done anything he’d had to, to survive. When he was shot for the second time, he’d burrowed down deep into the dead bodies and let the battle rage around him. He didn’t try to get the attention of the stretcher-bearers because, despite agreements made by grey men who didn’t go into battle, there was always a danger that men could be picked off as they were being loaded up. He’d waited for hours, until the ceasefire, when the corpses were collected. He’d felt the bodies turn stiff above him and the lice crawl off the dead soldiers and nestle into him. Lice were transparent when hungry and turned black like raisins when they’d had their fill. As they swelled up with his blood he’d thought, thank fuck, at least I’m not dead yet, I’m not in hell. Although he was.

  He had been told he was brave; over and over again they said it, and they gave him pips and medals. But brave was dangerous, brave was a step away from reckless. People said it was a miracle he’d survived, and they were right. He was always first over the top – as an officer it was his duty, he didn’t have any choice – but he kept low and the bullets flew to his left, to his right. He tried to keep some standards. Didn’t give a shit whether the men cleaned their boots; not that sort of standard. He tried to keep some humanity. He didn’t read his men’s letters. He let them self-censor, although it was his job to score out the words that might be truthful enough to upset those back home. He didn’t report the queers, and once, when his senior officer accused a man in his platoon of being a deserter, a coward – Edgar knew the lad had been talking about shooting off his own foot – he argued that it was a case of neurasthenia. The officer had been so surprised that a chap from Middlesbrough even knew the word, let alone the rights it carried with it, that he’d hesitated. The truth was, they all had chronic mental and physical weakness and fatigue; he could have got them all out on that technicality. He saved one life. A coward’s life. But a life all the same. It was something. Edgar’s men liked him.

  The misery was beyond articulation, and yet here he was pouring it all out. Loneliness and terror were the henchmen of silence. ‘By the end, I hated everyone. I hated the other men who survived around me and had seen what I had done; I hated them because they had done the same. I hated the senior officers and politicians who insisted we push on, over and over again. I hated the enemy for not just bloody giving up and going home. And I hated the rats,’ he confessed. ‘I’m not afraid of them; I just hate them. The ones in the trenches became as large as Labrador puppies as they stuffed themselves on rotting dead men’s flesh. The rats developed a reaction to dead man. Ironic, hey? Eating flesh made their faces bloat and turn chalky. They became like lanterns in the darkness of the trenches. I often woke with a start as a rat’s tail whipped my cheekbone, searching out another meal.’ Lydia quivered, but he did not stop. The violence and terror poured from his mouth, an unbrookable stream. ‘My stomach turns when I pass the abattoir on Canton Street. The death reek is unforgettable. Have you ever seen a dead body, Lid?’

  ‘Yes, my aunt and then Lawrence’s father.’

  ‘Laid out, were they? Peaceful?’

  ‘I suppose. They didn’t look quite themselves.’

  ‘I’ve seen dead men that I’ve killed and they weren’t laid out and peaceful. They were crying for their mothers and sweethearts. They smelt of piss and fear. I’ve pushed men off my bayonet and known that the only thing I could do for them was plunge it in again. Can you imagine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, and you shouldn’t have to. I shouldn’t ask you to. We fought with knives and even our bare hands.’

  Eventually his words slowed. His eyes stung and his throat ached with grief and stories. ‘You can tell me more another day,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes, I can, can’t I.’

  They let sleep take them. Knotted together – a tangle of limbs and thoughts, disappointment and hope – they slept on the wooden reading chair.

  38

  SHE WOKE NEXT morning back in the bed. He must have carried her there at some point. The sun was flooding in through the rooftop windows, like a bar of gold bullion stretching down from heaven into the bedsit. He was whistling and she could smell bacon frying. The place was already too hot. She’d soon discovered that his lodgings were eternally too hot or too cold; even when it was bright outside, they’d shivered in here. The place was heated by a largely ineffective penny-in-the-slot gas stove, so it was nearly always
necessary to light the fire in the grate. The fire was a hungry, dirty monster which greedily consumed a sackful of coal in just a few hours and emitted volumes of smoke that covered Lydia and Edgar and all his possessions in a film of black soot. Edgar had to regularly trudge down two flights of stairs, out to the coal shed in the yard, to get another sack. This chore invariably led to irritating encounters with his unyielding landlady en route; she would question the wisdom of him burning coal in spring and insist he pay for it there and then, not trusting any of her tenants to settle at the end of the week. Edgar did not waste his charm on his landlady, but he was fair and polite and never baulked at paying over the odds for the coal. He even paid for all the chimneys to be swept. His rooms were, by Lydia’s usual standards, grubby and inconvenient. Yet she was mostly comfortable and happy here. Happier than she was anywhere else.

  Lydia was scared and amazed by her happiness. It filled her being and her head. She had never imagined it could be so. She had always thought happiness was synonymous with conforming to strict social standards and amassing enormous wealth. She thought beautiful clothes had an awful lot to do with it too. She’d spent a lot of time with him, alone. Talking. Making love. Just being. Every moment was irresistible, essential; and yet secretly, in a strange, unfathomable, contradictory part of her brain, she always hoped to find fault, to tire of him. She’d quietly hoped that her deep longing was lust, not love. That her fascination with him would wane. It had not.

  And now, now that he had opened up to her, laid himself bare, she was bound: heart, body and soul. She was his. As inconvenient as it was.

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘I’m starving.’

  He beamed at her. His good looks were such that she was surprised afresh every time she set eyes on him. ‘Boy, you are good-looking,’ she would often murmur, without embarrassment or device. Just a fact.

  He made a meal for her: strong tea, fried eggs and bacon, with big chunks of bread that weren’t quite fresh. She watched as he threw it all together. He managed the pan and spatula, plates and cutlery with his right hand. He used his left to take his cigarette in and out of his mouth. He had rolled up his sleeves. His white shirt hung loosely around his neat waist as it flowed from his broad shoulders. His trousers were kept up with braces. She loved him completely and hopelessly.

  ‘Why don’t I stay here with you?’ she offered.

  ‘Oh, that wouldn’t work.’ He didn’t look up from the pan.

  ‘Why not?’ She kept her eyes trained on him.

  ‘You wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘I think I would.’

  ‘You’d get sick of me.’

  ‘Never. I never would.’

  39

  LAWRENCE HAD STUDIED the books and consulted with his lawyers and accountants. He thought there was a way to make it work, but only just, and it would demand sacrifices. He thought it was ironic that by inheriting a fortune, there was a very real danger that he might actually be worse off, unless he exercised great caution. Luckily, the late earl had not been a spendthrift. He’d been a careful and wise man, alert to the charge of squander. He had never allowed his wife to throw parties for two and a half thousand guests, the way the Marchioness of Londonderry did; he had not kept a staff of forty, he had only one motor car and he’d thought holidaying abroad was something only youngsters did. Even so, death duties were so extreme that to keep Clarendale running and in the family Lawrence would have to sell off a substantial amount of farmland, perhaps the odd painting and, unfortunately, Dartford Hall. It was the loss of Dartford Hall that irked. Yes, it was a draughty pile, in need of renovation, but he had a sentimental attachment to the place because it was his and Lydia’s first home. They’d been very happy there, all things considered, the war and whatnot. But it had to go.

  Lawrence straightened his back, tapped out his pipe and told himself that this was an opportunity; detaching himself from agriculture could, if handled properly, be progress. He would release more cash than he needed to pay off the tax and then he’d invest in government bonds. Here in Britain, for sure, it was the patriotic thing to do, but in America and the colonies too. Spread the risk. If he could generate an income, drawn from dividends and independent of the land, he’d be secure. He would be able to pass the Clarendale estate on.

  To whom was a different concern.

  He turned in response to a knock at the drawing room door; Sarah popped her head around and smiled warily.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb, Lawrence.’

  ‘Not at all.’

  Her smile nudged a fraction from apologetic to relief, and then settled upon being nervously ingratiating. ‘I thought you might like a cold drink. It’s so hot again.’ She pushed through the door, revealing the fact that she was carrying a rather cumbersome tray, laden with a jug of lemonade, two glasses and a plate of biscuits, freshly baked by the smell of them. He rushed to assist. Having taken the tray from her, he looked about helplessly: where to set it? Sarah smiled at his obvious lack of experience in serving himself. Carefully she cleared some papers and a novel from a side table so Lawrence had somewhere to place the tray.

  ‘Are you joining me?’ he asked.

  ‘If you don’t mind.’

  ‘I’d be happy to have the company and a break from all of this.’ Lawrence waved at the piles of paperwork. Sarah’s eyes followed attentively.

  ‘Shall I open the patio windows?’

  ‘It is stifling in here.’ He was suddenly aware that the room smelt fusty and male. He’d been bent over the papers for days; the air had been breathed in and then out too often.

  ‘Everyone always benefits from fresh air,’ Sarah said tactfully. Lawrence noted that before she opened the window she looked around and located two or three paperweights, then carefully placed them on the piles of documents. As the sweet summer breeze whooshed through the room, the papers fluttered but were not disturbed. She was a thoughtful, careful woman. They sat on chairs, facing partially towards one another and partially towards the view of the wide lawn, which was framed by heavy elms and sycamores that drooped down into a stream.

  ‘Shall I pour?’ asked Sarah. Lawrence smiled and nodded; it would be peculiar to have it any other way. ‘Have you heard from Lydia?’ she asked conversationally.

  ‘Not since Thursday, when she sent a telegram to say she’d arrived safely.’

  Lawrence noted that Sarah’s face did not move a fraction when he gave this information. If she thought his wife neglectful in her correspondence, as he himself did, then she did not say so. ‘Have you heard from her?’

  ‘No.’ She smiled reassuringly. ‘Why would I? If she had time to send a telegram to anyone, then it would be you.’

  ‘I suppose she must be very busy.’

  ‘London is hectic.’

  ‘I ought to ring her at Ava’s.’ He knew he didn’t sound enthusiastic; he wasn’t.

  ‘I could do that for you,’ Sarah said quickly. ‘I’ve been meaning to telephone Ava; we hardly managed a word at your father’s funeral, and Beatrice is going to stay with her again soon. Let me telephone.’

  ‘Well, send Lydia my …’ He hesitated. He meant love – Send Lydia my love – but it wasn’t something he could say to another woman, even a dear friend like Sarah; he rarely said the word to Lydia herself. He settled for, ‘Send her my best wishes. Tell her not to spend all my money on new shoes.’

  Sarah laughed appropriately at his small joke. ‘She must be tempted, though. If I were her, I’d buy all the pretty things in Bond Street, Selfridges and Liberty combined.’

  Lawrence grinned. ‘Ah, and here’s me thinking you were the perfect wife. I now see your flaw. You are a wastrel.’ He wagged his finger playfully.

  ‘No, I am not,’ Sarah spluttered with mock indignation. ‘I said if I were her. Lydia looks wonderful in everything she puts on. I can’t imagine how she ever holds back.’

  Lawrence didn’t know how to respond. He knew Sarah well enough to understand that she was
not fishing for compliments. She didn’t want or expect him to insist that she would look just as beautiful as Lydia in all those fashionable clothes women liked so much. For a start, it wasn’t true. Very few women looked as beautiful as Lydia, and he would not insult Sarah’s intelligence by throwing out a platitude. Secondly, it would be unseemly, almost flirtatious, for him to make such a comment, even to a steadfast family friend like Sarah. In the final analysis she was a woman and they were alone. Yet he did want to say something. He wanted to tell her that she was lovely. Lovely in an enduring, magnificent way. Her beauty was rather like an old stately home, not quite fashionable any more but solid, undeniable, valuable. Since Arthur’s death, who was there to tell her such things? Lawrence searched around for a means to express himself but, as so often was the case for him, he couldn’t think of an elegant way to say what he wanted. He chose instead to ignore the comment, letting the chattering birds in the trees fill the gap.