Atonement

by Ian Mcewan

  By any estimate, it was a very long time until judgment day, and until then the truth that only Marshall and his bride knew at first hand was steadily being walled up within the mausoleum of their marriage. There it would lie secure in the darkness, long after anyone who cared was dead. Every word in the ceremony was another brick in place.

  “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?”

  Birdlike Uncle Cecil stepped up smartly, no doubt anxious to be done with his duty before hurrying back to the sanctuary of All Souls, Oxford. Straining to hear any wavering doubt in their voices, Briony listened to Marshall, then Lola, repeating the words after the vicar. She was sweet and sure, while Marshall boomed, as though in defiance. How flagrantly, sensually, it reverberated before the altar when he said, “With my body I thee worship.”

  “Let us pray.”

  Then the seven outlined heads in the front pews drooped and the vicar removed his tortoiseshell glasses, lifted his chin and with eyes closed addressed the heavenly powers in his weary, sorrowful singsong.

  “O Eternal God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind, Giver of all spiritual grace, the Author of everlasting life: Send thy blessing upon these thy servants, this man and this woman …”

  The last brick was set in place as the vicar, having put his glasses back on, made the celebrated pronouncement—man and wife together—and invoked the Trinity after which his church was named. There were more prayers, a psalm, the Lord’s Prayer and another long one in which the falling tones of valediction gathered into a melancholy finality.

  “… Pour upon you the riches of his grace, sanctify and bless you, that ye may please him both in body and soul, and live together in holy love unto your lives’ end.”

  Immediately, there cascaded from the fluting organ confetti of skittering triplets as the vicar turned to lead the couple down the aisle and the six family members fell in behind. Briony, who had been on her knees in a pretense of prayer, stood and turned to face the procession as it reached her. The vicar seemed a little pressed for time, and was many feet ahead of the rest. When he glanced to his left and saw the young nurse, his kindly look and tilt of the head expressed both welcome and curiosity. Then he strode on to pull one of the big doors wide open. A slanting tongue of sunlight reached all the way to where she stood and illuminated her face and headdress. She wanted to be seen, but not quite so clearly. There would be no missing her now. Lola, who was on Briony’s side, drew level and their eyes met. Her veil was already parted. The freckles had vanished, but otherwise she was not much changed. Only slightly taller perhaps, and prettier, softer and rounder in the face, and the eyebrows severely plucked. Briony simply stared. All she wanted was for Lola to know she was there and to wonder why. The sunlight made it harder for Briony to see, but for a fraction of a moment, a tiny frown of displeasure may have registered in the bride’s face. Then she pursed her lips and looked to the front, and then she was gone. Paul Marshall had seen her too, but had not recognized her, and nor had Aunt Hermione or Uncle Cecil who had not met her in years. But the twins, bringing up the rear in school uniform trousers at half mast, were delighted to see her, and mimed mock-horror at her costume, and did clownish eye-rolling yawns, with hands flapping on their mouths.

  Then she was alone in the church with the unseen organist who went on playing for his own pleasure. It was over too quickly, and nothing for certain was achieved. She remained standing in place, beginning to feel a little foolish, reluctant to go outside. Daylight, and the banality of family small talk, would dispel whatever impact she had made as a ghostly illuminated apparition. She also lacked courage for a confrontation. And how would she explain herself, the uninvited guest, to her uncle and aunt? They might be offended, or worse, they might not be, and want to take her off to some excruciating breakfast in a hotel, with Mr. and Mrs. Paul Marshall oily with hatred, and Hermione failing to conceal her contempt for Cecil. Briony lingered another minute or two, as though held there by the music, then, annoyed with her own cowardice, hurried out onto the portico. The vicar was a hundred yards off at least, walking quickly away across the common with arms swinging freely. The newlyweds were in the Rolls, Marshall at the wheel, reversing in order to turn round. She was certain they saw her. There was a metallic screech as he changed gear—a good sign perhaps. The car moved away, and through a side window she saw Lola’s white shape huddled against the driver’s arm. As for the congregation, it had vanished completely among the trees.

  SHE KNEW FROM her map that Balham lay at the far end of the Common, in the direction the vicar was walking. It was not very far, and this fact alone made her reluctant to continue. She would arrive too soon. She had eaten nothing, she was thirsty, and her heel was throbbing and had glued itself to the back of her shoe. It was warm now, and she would be crossing a shadeless expanse of grass, broken by straight asphalt paths and public shelters. In the distance was a bandstand where men in dark blue uniforms were milling about. She thought of Fiona whose day off she had taken, and of their afternoon in St. James’s Park. It seemed a far-off, innocent time, but it was no more than ten days ago. Fiona would be doing the second bedpan round by now. Briony remainedin the shade of the portico and thought about the little present she would buy her friend—something delicious to eat, a banana, oranges, Swiss chocolate. The porters knew how to get these things. She had heard them say that anything, everything, was available, if you had the right money. She watched the file of traffic moving round the Common, along her route, and she thought about food. Slabs of ham, poached eggs, the leg of a roast chicken, thick Irish stew, lemon meringue. A cup of tea. She became aware of the nervy, fidgeting music behind her the moment it ceased, and in the sudden new measure of silence, which seemed to confer freedom, she decided she must eat breakfast. There were no shops that she could see in the direction she had to walk, only dull mansion blocks of flats in deep orange brick.

  Some minutes passed, and the organist came out holding his hat in one hand and a heavy set of keys in the other. She would have asked him the way to the nearest café, but he was a jittery-looking man at one with his music, who seemed determined to ignore her as he slammed the church door shut and stooped over to lock it. He rammed his hat on and hurried away.

  Perhaps this was the first step in the undoing of her plans, but she was already walking back, retracing her steps, in the direction of Clapham High Street. She would have breakfast, and she would reconsider. Near the tube station she passed a stone drinking trough and could happily have sunk her face in it. She found a drab little place with smeared windows, and cigarette butts all over the floor, but the food could be no worse than what she was used to. She ordered tea, and three pieces of toast and margarine, and strawberry jam of palest pink. She heaped sugar into the tea, having diagnosed herself as suffering from hypoglycemia. The sweetness did not quite conceal a taste of disinfectant.

  She drank a second cup, glad that it was lukewarm so she could gulp it down, then she made use of a reeking seatless lavatory across a cobbled courtyard behind the café. But there was no stench that could impress a trainee nurse. She wedged lavatory paper into the heel of her shoe. It would see her another mile or two. A hand-basin with a single tap was bolted to a brick wall. There was a gray-veined lozenge of soap she preferred not to touch. When she ran the water, the waste fell straight out onto her shins. She dried them with her sleeves, and combed her hair, trying to imagine her face in the brickwork. However, she couldn’t reapply her lipstick without a mirror. She dabbed her face with a soaked handkerchief, and patted her cheeks to bring up the color. A decision had been made—without her, it seemed. This was an interview she was preparing for, the post of beloved younger sister.

  She left the café, and as she walked along the Common she felt the distance widen between her and another self, no less real, who was walking back toward the hospital. Perhaps the Briony who was walking in the direction of Balham was the imagined or ghostly persona. This unreal feeling was heightened when, after half
an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any of them.

  The street she was looking for was three turnings past the tube station, itself another replica. The Edwardian terraces, net-curtained and seedy, ran straight for half a mile. 43 Dudley Villas was halfway down, with nothing to distinguish it from the others except for an old Ford 8, without wheels, supported on brick piles, which took up the whole of the front garden. If there was no one in, she could go away, telling herself she had tried. The doorbell did not work. She let the knocker fall twice and stood back. She heard a woman’s angry voice, then the slam of a door and the thud of footsteps. Briony took another pace back. It was not too late to retreat up the street. There was a fumbling with the catch and an irritable sigh, and the door was opened by a tall, sharp-faced woman in her thirties who was out of breath from some terrible exertion. She was in a fury. She had been interrupted in a row, and was unable to adjust her expression—the mouth open, the upper lip slightly curled—as she took Briony in.

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for a Miss Cecilia Tallis.”

  Her shoulders sagged, and she turned her head back, as though recoiling from an insult. She looked Briony up and down.

  “You look like her.”

  Bewildered, Briony simply stared at her.

  The woman gave another sigh that was almost like a spitting sound, and went along the hallway to the foot of the stairs.

  “Tallis!” she yelled. “Door!”

  She came halfway back along the corridor to the entrance to her sitting room, flashed Briony a look of contempt, then disappeared, pulling the door violently behind her.

  The house was silent. Briony’s view past the open front door was of a stretch of floral lino, and the first seven or eight stairs which were covered in deep red carpet. The brass rod on the third step was missing. Halfway along the hall was a semicircular table against the wall, and on it was a polished wooden stand, like a toast rack, for holding letters. It was empty. The lino extended past the stairs to a door with a frosted-glass window which probably opened onto the kitchen out the back. The wallpaper was floral too—a posy of three roses alternating with a snowflake design. From the threshold to the beginning of the stairs she counted fifteen roses, sixteen snowflakes. Inauspicious.

  At last, she heard a door opening upstairs, possibly the one she had heard slammed when she had knocked. Then the creak of a stair, and feet wearing thick socks came into view, and a flash of bare skin, and a blue silk dressing gown that she recognized. Finally, Cecilia’s face tilting sideways as she leaned down to make out who was at the front door and spare herself the trouble of descending further, improperly dressed. It took her some moments to recognize her sister. She came down slowly another three steps.

  “Oh my God.”

  She sat down and folded her arms.

  Briony remained standing with one foot still on the garden path, the other on the front step. A wireless in the landlady’s sitting room came on, and the laughter of an audience swelled as the valves warmed. There followed a comedian’s wheedling monologue, broken at last by applause, and a jolly band striking up. Briony took a step into the hallway.

  She murmured, “I have to talk to you.”

  Cecilia was about to get up, then changed her mind. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

  “You didn’t answer my letter, so I came.”

  She drew her dressing gown around her, and patted its pocket, probably in the hope of a cigarette. She was much darker in complexion, and her hands too were brown. She had not found what she wanted, but for the moment she did not make to rise.

  Marking time rather than changing the subject, she said, “You’re a probationer.” “Yes.”

  “Whose ward?”

  “Sister Drummond’s.”

  There was no telling whether Cecilia was familiar with this name, or whether she was displeased that her younger sister was training at the same hospital. There was another obvious difference—Cecilia had always spoken to her in a motherly or condescending way. Little Sis! No room for that now. There was a hardness in her tone that warned Briony off asking about Robbie. She took another step further into the hallway, conscious of the front door open behind her.

  “And where are you?”

  “Near Morden. It’s an EMS.”

  An Emergency Medical Services hospital, a commandeered place, most likely dealing with the brunt, the real brunt of the evacuation. There was too much that couldn’t be said, or asked. The two sisters looked at each other. Even though Cecilia had the rumpled look of someone who had just got out of bed, she was more beautiful than Briony remembered her. That long face always looked odd, and vulnerable, horsey everyone said, even in the best of lights. Now it looked boldly sensual, with an accentuated bow of the full purplish lips. The eyes were dark and enlarged, by fatigue perhaps. Or sorrow. The long fine nose, the dainty flare of the nostrils—there was something masklike and carved about the face, and very still. And hard to read. Her sister’s appearance added to Briony’s unease, and made her feel clumsy. She barely knew this woman whom she hadn’t seen in five years. Briony could take nothing for granted. She was searching for another neutral topic, but there was nothing that did not lead back to the sensitive subjects—the subjects she was going to have to confront in any case—and it was because she could no longer bear the silence and the staring that she said at last,

  “Have you heard from the Old Man?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  The downward tone implied she didn’t want to, and wouldn’t care or reply if she did.

  Cecilia said, “Have you?”

  “I had a scribbled note a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Good.”

  So there was no more to be said on that. After another pause, Briony tried again.

  “What about from home?”

  “No. I’m not in touch. And you?”

  “She writes now and then.”

  “And what’s her news, Briony?”

  The question and the use of her name was sardonic. As she forced her memory back, she felt she was being exposed as a traitor to her sister’s cause.

  “They’ve taken in evacuees and Betty hates them. The park’s been plowed up for corn.” She trailed away. It was inane to be standing there listing these details.

  But Cecilia said coldly, “Go on. What else?”

  “Well, most of the lads in the village have joined the East Surreys, except for …”

  “Except for Danny Hardman. Yes, I know all about that.” She smiled in a bright, artificial way, waiting for Briony to continue.

  “They’ve built a pillbox by the post office, and they’ve taken up all the old railings. Um. Aunt Hermione’s living in Nice, and oh yes, Betty broke Uncle Clem’s vase.”

  Only now was Cecilia roused from her coolness. She uncrossed her arms and pressed a hand against her cheek.

  “Broke?”

  “She dropped it on a step.”

  “You mean properly broken, in lots of pieces?”

  “Yes.”

  Cecilia considered this. Finally she said, “That’s terrible.”

  “Yes,” Briony said. “Poor Uncle Clem.” At least her sister was no longer derisive. The interrogation continued.

  “Did they keep the pieces?” “I don’t know. Emily said the Old Man shouted at Betty.”

  At that moment, the door snapped open and the landlady stood right in front of Briony, so close to her that she could smell peppermint on the woman’s breath. She pointed at the front door.

  “This isn’t a railway station. Either you’re in, young lady, or you’re out.”

  Cecilia was getting to her feet without any particular hurry, and was retying the silk cord of her dressing gown. She said languidly, “This is my sister, Briony, Mrs. Jarvis. Try and remember your manners
when you speak to her.”

  “In my own home I’ll speak as I please,” Mrs. Jarvis said. She turned back to Briony. “Stay if you’re staying, otherwise leave now and close the door behind you.”

  Briony looked at her sister, guessing that she was unlikely to let her go now. Mrs. Jarvis had turned out to be an unwitting ally.

  Cecilia spoke as though they were alone. “Don’t mind the landlady. I’m leaving at the end of the week. Close the door and come up.”

  Watched by Mrs. Jarvis, Briony began to follow her sister up the stairs.

  “And as for you, Lady Muck,” the landlady called up.

  But Cecilia turned sharply and cut her off. “Enough, Mrs. Jarvis. Now that’s quite enough.”

  Briony recognized the tone. Pure Nightingale, for use on difficult patients or tearful students. It took years to perfect. Cecilia had surely been promoted to ward sister.

  On the first-floor landing, as she was about to open her door, she gave Briony a look, a cool glance to let her know that nothing had changed, nothing had softened. From the bathroom across the way, through its half-open door, drifted a humid scented air and a hollow dripping sound. Cecilia had been about to take a bath. She led Briony into her flat. Some of the tidiest nurses on the ward lived in stews in their own rooms, and she would not have been surprised to see a new version of Cecilia’s old chaos. But the impression here was of a simple and lonely life. A medium-sized room had been divided to make a narrow strip of a kitchen and, presumably, a bedroom next door. The walls were papered with a design of pale vertical strips, like a boy’s pajamas, which heightened the sense of confinement. The lino was irregular offcuts from downstairs, and in places, gray floorboards showed. Under the single sash window was a sink with one tap and a one-ring gas cooker. Against the wall, leaving little room to squeeze by, was a table covered with a yellow gingham cloth. On it was a jam jar of blue flowers, harebells perhaps, and a full ashtray, and a pile of books. At the bottom were Gray’s Anatomy and a collected Shakespeare, and above them, on slenderer spines, names in faded silver and gold—she saw Housman and Crabbe. By the books were two bottles of stout. In the corner furthest from the window was the door to the bedroom on which was tacked a map of northern Europe.