Moonlight

by Fergus O'Connell

  Each year he increases her housekeeping allowance a little with a ‘Well prices aren’t going down, are they?’ And he must be right because the additional money doesn’t seem to buy any more. She still has to be careful about the cuts of meat she buys and she still makes most of the girls’ clothes herself. She had thought that, with his promotion earlier this year, he might increase what she got, and she mooted that with him the night he took her out to celebrate. But he simply said that it wasn’t that much, that he’d been given a lot of extra responsibility but not a lot of extra money to compensate him for that. Of course, how much he received or, indeed, how much he earns is and always has been a mystery to her.

  So she’ll just have to muddle on, she supposes, and put up with whatever she has to put up with when these extra expenses occur. And at least they don’t have a mortgage – Henry said that they should clear that with the money she inherited from her father, which they did. And she has a good husband and two beautiful, healthy children. There are so many, many people less fortunate than her.

  But then she begins to dwell on how things can change in the blink of an eye. What if Henry were to die? He has explained to her before how she would be taken care of financially, but it still worries her. And perhaps even more worrying than him dying is the thought of him living. She always laughs silently when she thinks of this. What she means is what would happen if he tired of her and left her. She would have this house, the girls, no savings and no income. Or would she have the house? Legally, she’s not sure what the situation is. When she married Henry did all of her property become his? She keeps meaning to consult a solicitor and find the answer to this question. But where would she find the money to pay a solicitor without Henry finding out? Actually, she knows she could probably find the money and still keep it from Henry if she had to. Maybe the real reason she doesn’t do it is that she doesn’t really want to know the answer.

  Her father made his money by coming to London and opening a stationary shop. As well as selling to the general public he pursued contracts with businesses – banks, insurance companies, offices. At first just paper, ink, ledgers, that kind of thing. But soon he began to offer a service whereby he would take care of all their printing requirements, supplying the special forms they required to run their enterprise. His business blossomed. When she left school, Clara worked there until she got married. It is the only type of work she knows. But now her father is dead, the shop is sold and the time when Clara had an income of her own seems like another age. In fact, it doesn’t seem like her life at all, but rather somebody else’s – or something she read about in a novel.

  And supposing something was to happen to one of the girls? She has finally returned to where she started thinking about all of this several hours ago. Supposing they got sick or had an accident? She would never be able to get over something like that. And the house, while it is big and comfortable like an old pair of shoes, it always seems to need something doing to it. And while Henry was glad to come and live here, and she knows he likes the prestige associated with living in a house like this, he still complains when he has to spend money on its maintenance. And Henry is no good at that kind of thing himself and never helps in the garden. ‘I’m no good with my hands,’ he says, with an implication that to be good with one’s hands is a somewhat demeaning thing. So they have to hire in people – and this costs money. So lately Clara has started trying to do some of these things herself. And to her surprise, she has had some success. Clara, as it turns out, is good with her hands.

  Whether Henry lives or dies before her, whether he leaves or stays, she worries about growing old. She has two different visions between which she alternates. In one he is not there, the girls are grown up, have left and are living their own lives – married with children, in all likelihood. She really has no life beyond the girls. She sees herself rattling around the house, a shrivelled old woman. What will she do then? Sink into a bottle of gin?

  And even more disturbing in some ways is the scenario where she and Henry grow old together. What will that be like then, given that, in some ways, Henry is old now? When it happened, she’s not quite sure. He was young when she met him and during their courtship and some early part of her marriage. It’s something that mystifies her – she can never quite pinpoint the time when it occurred. Was there a moment or did it happen over a period of time? She can’t tell or remember.

  And so Clara fills her hours in bed until finally sleep overtakes her tired body and her exhausted mind. On that strange and distant and hazy border between waking and sleep, happier thoughts start to emerge shyly; times when she really was truly, truly happy. People from her life that she knew loved her – her grandparents, for example – her mother’s parents. They are dead now but maybe – wherever they are – they love her still. She hopes so. She’s not religious in the conventional sense but she often thinks about the people who went before her and views communing with them as a form of prayer. She remembers happy times she spent at home or summers long ago. And in the short periods where she does sleep deeply, she dreams long, convoluted, richly coloured dreams. She often remembers these and speaks about them with her girls over breakfast – as long as their father isn’t there.

  Chapter 7

  Sunday 28 June 1914

  Nobody is sleeping at number 2 Ballhausplatz in Vienna. (I promise, weary reader, this will be our last port of call for what has been, I think you’ll agree, an exceptionally long Sunday. We shall meet the Austrian manager and, once we’ve done that, there will be only one major character left for you to meet and we can leave that until tomorrow. So then everyone will be able to go to bed. So let’s be done with it, shall we?)

  Leopold Anton Johann Sigismund Josef Korsinus Ferdinand Graf Berchtold von und zu Ungarschitz, Frättling, und Püllütz – how about we just call him Berchtold? – is the Austrian Foreign Minister and manager. A wealthy landowner in Hungary and Moravia, Berchtold, through marriage, is one of the richest men in Austria. Amongst many other things, he owns a castle in Moravia – his country seat – surrounded by magnificent forests. That is where he is this afternoon, opening a charity bazaar, when the news of the assassination reaches him. He catches the next train back to Vienna.

  Berchtold joined the diplomatic corps in 1893, and although not credited with any great ability – fifty shades of Grey, if you’ll pardon the pun –he nevertheless impressed with his courtly manners and aristocratic background. Promotion was consequently rapid. After spells in London and Paris, Berchtold was appointed ambassador to Russia in 1907, serving at St Petersburg until his return to Vienna in 1912 whereupon he took up his appointment as Emperor Franz-Josef’s Foreign Minister.

  If you want to picture what Berchtold looks like try to imagine a balding and very stern headmaster of an early twentieth-century posh school. In fact, the headmaster is not just stern; he’s angry. There is a permanent anger bubbling just under the surface and ready to break out at the drop of a hat. Perhaps he is sexually frustrated – the headmaster, I mean – and this is where his anger stems from. Berchtold has a little moustache and a permanently slightly irritated look about him. It is that look a headmaster has when a habitually offending pupil is relating a story that the headmaster doesn’t believe in the slightest and, rather than listening to the excuse and try to treat it on its merits, the headmaster is already trying to decide what the punishment will be.

  At the outset of the Balkan Wars two years ago, Count Berchtold flirted with the idea of war against Serbia, but vacillated and pulled back from intervention at the last moment. The result is that he has a reputation for being weak and indecisive.

  When Berchtold arrives in Vienna there are already black flags draped from some of the buildings, looking oddly sinister in the dusty evening sunlight. People stand around in groups reading special editions of the newspapers. When his car stops for an old lady to cross the street, Berchtold hears a voice say through his partly open window, ‘We can’t put up with any more of thi
s.’ The car continues on to 2 Ballhausplatz where his staff is already waiting for him.

  Amongst them are Count Hoyos, his chef de cabinet, Count von Forgach, Second Section Chief, and Alexander Musulin, Head of Chancery. (Don’t worry – you don’t need to remember any of these people. I’m just trying to give you a sense of the gathering. Hoyos is the leader of a group of younger diplomats at the Ballhausplatz, known as the ‘Young Rebels,’ who have always favoured a more aggressive foreign policy as the only recipe to stop the decline or disintegration of Austria.) In the weeks to come, Berchtold will hold daily meetings with these men and their advice will shape his tactics.

  Also there is Franz Graf Conrad von Hötzendorf – or Conrad, for short – the Head of the Austrian Army. With his beaked nose, chin jutting out like a ledge on which a seagull could have nested and magnificent moustache, Conrad is the very model of a modern major general. He is a social Darwinist, which is just a fancy way of saying that he believes in survival of the fittest. Which is just a clichéd way of saying that he believes that the struggle for existence is ‘the basic principle behind all the events on this earth’ and is ‘the only real and rational basis for policy making.’ Conrad believes it is self-evident that at some stage Austria will have to fight to preserve its status as a great power. Accordingly, he first proposed a match against Serbia in 1906. He did so again in 1908–09, in 1912–13, in October 1913 and May 1914. Between 1 January 1913 and 1 January 1914 – in case anybody should have been in any doubt about his position – he proposed a game against Serbia twenty-five times. Since mid-1913, Austria had asked Germany three times for help to play against Serbia. Each time, Der Kaiser had refused.

  Conrad is widely regarded as a military genius and so he is the author of numerous books on military matters. He is a great believer in the attack – that armies which fight defensively invariably turn out to be the losers. He doesn’t have much time for the new technologies like the machine gun. However, in his book on the Boer War, he does concede that such technologies could make frontal attacks more costly. His solution? Abandon the thought of such frontal attacks altogether? Well, er, no, not really. His solution is that armies are going to have to be bigger – they’re going to need more men so that they can force the issue and overcome massed machine guns. If a genius is someone who can foresee the future then Conrad probably is a genius. His analysis will turn out to be chillingly accurate when it comes to the Group of Death.

  So as you’ve probably guessed, the mood of the meeting could not be described as conciliatory. Pretty much all the men in the room at number 2 Ballhausplatz are keen on an aggressive war against Serbia. Berchtold is worried about preparing public opinion for any such war but, perhaps judging by the mood on the street this evening, that isn’t going to be much of a problem. Anyway, this evening the meeting breaks up and the men go to bed having reached no decision on what action to take.

  Chapter 8

  Monday 29 June 1914

  Henry has been wondering a lot lately whether, seven years ago, Clara had trapped him. He is wondering this now as the train rattles along the Central Line towards his station at Bank. It is such a nice day that he was tempted to take the omnibus and sit upstairs in the sunshine, but in the end habit won out. Henry likes his routine. If he arrives at one of the milestones on his daily journey earlier than usual, it gives him a little lift; if later, he becomes concerned. Not that he is ever late for work. He believes his punctuality, a record as firm as the Bank of England itself, was one of the factors when they considered him for promotion earlier this year and when he subsequently was given the title ‘manager.’

  He joined the firm as a clerk. His first step up the ladder was when, still as a clerk, he was given responsibility for all of the company’s stationary requirements. They already had a contract with Clara’s father so Henry’s job was just to make sure it ran smoothly. He liked the old man, despite his somewhat gauche country ways. He was honest, easy to deal with, every bit as predictable and reliable as Henry could have wanted and things ran like clockwork.

  Except that, one day, quite unexpectedly, they ran out of claims forms. It was during the winter – a particularly cold one – and there had been a lot of water damage from burst pipes and so a surge in claims. Henry probably would admit that he had become a bit complacent after six months in charge of stationary. The old man seemed to do most of the work. It was a cushy number. Except that Henry did have to do some work and one of his tasks was to ensure that there were always plenty of forms on hand. He had been careless, lax. Somewhere in his head a little voice had been saying, ‘The old man’s taking care of it’ with the result that he hadn’t noticed how quickly the stockpile of claims forms had gone down. It was only when another great batch disappeared and he discovered there was only a handful left that Henry realised he had a problem. A big one.

  It was a sticky situation. Even now, whenever he thought back to that dreadful day, he felt a momentary chill. It could all have gone so horribly wrong. Work in the claims department could have ground to a halt and it would have quickly become apparent where the fault lay. He’s convinced they would have let him go – it had happened to people for less – and without a reference.

  Trying not to look like he was panicking, Henry stepped out and hurried round to the stationary store. It was a bleak rainy day with a high wind and he was in a cold sweat. When he discovered that Clara’s father wasn’t even at the shop, Henry reckoned the game was up.

  ‘Can I help at all?’ the girl behind the counter asked.

  It was almost as though he hadn’t seen her up until then. Trying to keep the tremor out of his voice, Henry explained that he knew that a delivery of claims forms wasn’t due until late next week, but he wondered if, by any chance, there were any already printed, since a sudden, unexpected need had arisen. The girl said she would check.

  While she disappeared into the back, Henry prayed that she would find some forms. Even ones that maybe had been printed and hadn’t quite come up to the old man’s exacting standard. Even these. Please God, the old man hadn’t thrown them in the bin. Henry looked out unseeing as the rain ran down the plate glass window of the shop. People hurried past. Umbrellas were blown inside out. It was the end – he knew it, could feel it. Even the weather knew it. He pictured himself returning to the firm empty handed and praying that the tiny remaining pile of claims forms would hold out, all the while knowing that they wouldn’t. Like a fuse burning its way towards a keg of gunpowder, the last one would finally be taken. Then somebody would ask – brightly, cheerily, in a completely routine sort of way – ‘Any more claims forms, Henry?’ and then he would have to own up. After that he would be called into Mr Faber, the managing partner’s, office. And after that? After that would come his hat, coat and the door, stepping out into rain-lashed, end-of-the-world London.

  ‘How many do you need?’

  He spun round. The girl carried several thick, heavy blocks of forms wrapped in brown paper.

  ‘They’re all printed,’ she said. ‘You just need to tell me how many you need. And we’ll have to find some way of keeping them dry while you get them back to the office. Or I can have them delivered,’ she added with a smile.

  In that moment, Henry felt he had never seen a more beautiful woman. He could have kissed her. The relief he felt would literally stay with him for days. It would remain the first and only time he made such an error. After work he hurried to the nearest pub and downed three whiskies, and it was only when he was going home to the room he rented that he remembered the pretty girl in the stationary shop. She was short with blonde hair and really quite the loveliest face. He recalled her perfect skin and soft blue eyes.

  Henry was quite surprised by the effect the incident had on him. His self-confidence soared. Even though he clearly had played no real part in the solution to the problem, he found he walked around the office with something of a swagger now. It was a swagger, which if anything, further increased when Mr Faber said to h
im one day, ‘Seem to be keeping on top of all that stationary business, Kenton.’ It was the closest Faber was ever likely to get to a compliment.

  The following week, when the old man was supervising a delivery, Henry thanked him for having had the foresight to have extra batches of claims forms on hand.

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ he replied. ‘That’s what we’re here for.’

  ‘That nice girl in your shop was very helpful,’ continued Henry.

  ‘Ah, you met Clara,’ said Mr Jordan. ‘She’s a good girl is Clara. She’s m’daughter, don’t you know.’

  Henry did it all as it should be done. The old man already knew him, which was an advantage. The next time he met the old man, Henry asked if Clara had a young man in her life. When Clara’s father confirmed that she didn’t, Henry asked if he might take Clara to tea, perhaps on Saturday at lunchtime, after he’d finished work for the week.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ said the old man amiably. ‘But you’ll have to ask the lass herself – it’ll be her decision.’