Moonlight

by Fergus O'Connell

  As Clara stands at the grill waiting for the toast to brown, she feels bathed in happiness. This was the phrase she wrote in her diary this morning while everyone else was still asleep. It is only one more day until she gets to go to town by herself. Hopefully, she will meet James from the Foreign Office again, but even if she doesn’t, she is still excited about her day.

  ‘I was wondering if you’d like to meet for lunch tomorrow,’ Henry suddenly says, breaking in on her reverie.

  Later, Henry is pleased with himself as he rides the omnibus to work. He sits on the open top deck. He has allowed himself plenty of time so he won’t be late and here he can enjoy the sunshine. The phrase ‘free as a bird’ circles in his brain. He will meet Clara for lunch tomorrow. Admittedly she didn’t seem all that overjoyed when he asked her, but never mind that. The important thing is that today he will make a point of saying to Mary that he can’t go to lunch with her tomorrow because he has to meet ‘the wife.’ As well as Friday, Thursday has always been one of their more popular days for lunch – the working week more than half over, ‘downhill to the weekend’ as Mary often says. By not going with her tomorrow, he hopes he will be making a very definite point.

  Another man making a very definite point is Der Kaiser. In Vienna, Berchtold receives a message from His Majesty. The message declares that Der Kaiser expects Austria to play Serbia and that Germany would not understand if the present opportunity was allowed to go by without a blow being struck.

  Sir Edward Grey meets with the French Ambassador and tells him that Britain and France will have to do everything in their power to calm the Russians. Paul Cambon, the Ambassador, warmly agrees.

  Later, Sir Edward tells the Russian Ambassador that it is crucial that the Russians not give the Germans any reason to believe that some kind of military action is being planned against them.

  Grey often thinks that really, in a perfect world, he would be able to bring all of the Foreign Ministers to London. There he would sit them down, rather like a headmaster with a particularly troublesome class, and they would sort everything out. He would go through their grievances one by one, asking each side in turn to give their side of the story. Then he would adjudicate, give a judgment, both sides would shake hands and that would be that. How simple it would all be. He could be Foreign Secretary on three days a week and spend the rest of his time at the cottage. Europe would be at peace.

  Instead he has to work through these ambassadors. He has to interpret whether or not they are dealing in good faith. And even if they are – and Grey thinks he has good, honest relations with most of them – can the same be said of their governments? Have the ambassadors been told the full story? The Tsar is weak and the Kaiser is mad, so who knows what goes on in those places. It is all impossibly complex. No wonder his sight has been affected. For this job he really needs the eyesight of an eagle, poised high over the continent and able to see down, not just into the courts of Europe but into the hearts of men.

  Chapter 21

  Thursday 9 July 1914

  Finally Thursday has arrived. But it is not the Thursday which Clara had been anticipating with such eagerness. She has arranged to meet Henry at one o’clock. There is an ABC near his office but for some reason he suggests a different one to her. Happily, it is nearer to St James’s Park. She wonders if she can make the lunch a short one so that she will still have time to get to the park. She dresses in her favourite going-into-town-in-sunny-weather clothes – a light white blouse and a long fawn coloured skirt. She wears the same hat she wore last week. The girls and Mrs Parsons see her off from the front door. Lewis, the sixteen-year-old boy next door, who is mowing the small square of grass in the front garden, calls, ‘Good morning, Mrs Kenton,’ to her.

  As the train rattles in towards the city centre it occurs to her that the original reason for her trip into London seems to have disappeared. She has felt none of that lonely gloom for several days – ever since the weekend, really. Today, even though she must meet Henry and may not get to see James from the Foreign Office, she feels relatively happy. She wonders if that episode last week was just about boredom with her life and it has all passed now that she is doing a few new and different things. Maybe she should make this a regular occurrence.

  Henry is on his way up the stairs to New Claims when he sees Mary, a flight above, coming down. She looks radiant. She is wearing fresh lipstick so that his eyes are drawn to her lips. His body remembers what it was like to kiss them. They stop on a landing and he smells her perfume. The memory of it arouses him. He recalls the sensation the first time he entered her. How tight she was. How good it felt as he rode her and then climaxed inside her.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Kenton,’ she says.

  It is standard practice for juniors to call managers ‘Mister’ but Mary often does it when she and Henry are alone. It is a sort of private joke between them. She did it when they were making love and for some reason, Henry found it very erotic. This morning, though, he gets straight down to business.

  ‘Ah, Miss Graham, I’d been hoping to bump into you.’

  Lowering his voice, he continues, ‘I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to have lunch with you today. I’ve got to meet the wife. Something about buying things for the family holiday in Devon in August.’

  Henry had been rehearsing what he would say from the time he left the omnibus and began his short walk to the office. That bit about the family holiday only occurred to him on the spur of the moment but he is pleased with it. He feels that his short speech succeeded in giving Mary a double reminder of his marital status and also how long term that was likely to be.

  If he had been expecting her to be upset or disappointed or sulky, he is taken by surprise when she is none of these things. Instead, she says, ‘I had been hoping to bump into you too, Mr Kenton. Don’t worry about lunch. There’ll always be another time. No, what I wanted to tell you was that my sister, you know the one I visited last week when I stayed up in town. Well, it turns out she’s ill and I’m afraid I’m going to have to stay up in town again tonight to be with her.’

  Mary fixes him with her eyes and Henry understands. His mind begins to race so that he forgets to say anything.

  ‘Well, you could say you were sorry to hear of her indisposition,’ says Mary, and it’s only the uncertainty about whether she is teasing him that snaps Henry back to the here and now.

  ‘Of course,’ he says hastily. ‘Of course, I’m very sorry to hear she’s not well. Please give her my best wishes.’

  ‘You could always give them yourself,’ Mary says and then with an ‘Anyway, I’d better go and get those files or they’ll be wondering what’s happened to me. Please excuse me, Mr Kenton,’ she steps past him and continues on her way down the stairs. Henry is already waiting outside the ABC when Clara sees him. He hasn’t yet seen her. He takes out his watch and checks it. Clara wonders anxiously if she is late. Then he sees her. He seems stressed.

  ‘I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,’ she says, wondering whether he’s going to be grumpy and ruin their lunch.

  ‘No, not at all,’ he replies, kissing her cheek even though Clara doesn’t really proffer it. ‘No, it’s just that, well, something’s come up. The partners aren’t happy with the figures for the first half of the year – they only just became available this morning, you see. So they’ve called a special management meeting for this evening. I’m going to have to stay over again. And as for lunch…’

  He tails off.

  ‘But you have no things,’ says Clara.

  It occurs to her how accommodating she always is. Henry has ruined her whole day and yet she is still trying to make sure that things run smoothly for him. Is she a good wife? Or a fool?

  ‘I was wondering if you could buy me some while you’re out shopping. I can use the same shirt probably, so just a collar and a razor. Here, let me give you some money.’

  Henry takes his wallet from his inside jacket pocket and extracts a red and white ten shilling
note.

  ‘That should be enough,’ he says. ‘But if there’s any left over, you be sure to spend it on yourself. And have them parcelled discretely, won’t you? You could drop them in at the reception desk. I can pick them up there. You’re a darling.’

  Henry kisses her again, says that he really must dash and then does exactly that. Clara is left standing there. She is suddenly overjoyed. If she hurries she can get to St James’s Park and James from the Foreign Office should still be there. After that she can get Henry’s things and do some of the shopping that she’s meant to be doing anyway.

  She guesses that it must be about half past one when she passes the milk stall at the Spring Gardens end of St James’s Park, with its two tethered cows that supply the milk. There is a long queue of thirsty customers. Clara hopes she is not too late. She buys a bag of breadcrumbs for the birds and then heads in the direction of the seat she occupied last week. While she is still a way off, she sees that James is already there – eating a sandwich and reading the paper.

  ‘Hello again,’ she says, as she reaches the seat.

  He looks up. There is a moment when he doesn’t recognise her and then his face breaks into a warm smile. He stands up, holding the paper in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other.

  ‘Why, Mrs Jordan, what a pleasure to see you again.’

  Hastily, he puts everything into his left hand so that he can extend his right. She takes it and he invites her to sit down. The parcel of sandwiches and a half-drunk bottle of lemonade are on the seat.

  ‘Here as always,’ he says with a smile of pretend weariness.

  ‘You haven’t had to travel to the Balkans to sort them all out then?’ she asks.

  He laughs.

  ‘No indeed. It looks like on this occasion they might actually do that for themselves. And without a war.’

  ‘That’s a blessing,’ she says.

  ‘Mrs Jordan – have you eaten lunch? Would you care to share my sandwiches?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  ‘No, please, I insist. Or would you care for something else besides ham and mustard?’

  He jumps up as she says that, no, she likes ham and mustard.

  ‘And permit me to get you something to drink. Lemonade?’

  Clara’s protests are ignored. Going over to a nearby vendor, he returns a few minutes later with a second bottle.

  ‘Now please,’ he says. ‘Do eat up. If you like ham and mustard, you won’t eat better.’

  She takes one of the sandwiches and bites into it. It is very good. The bread thick but airy, the meat exploding with flavour and the mustard so fiery that it seems to flare down her nostrils. Her eyes water.

  ‘Good Lord,’ exclaims James, who sees the effect on her. ‘I’d forgotten. I rather like mustard.’

  Clara is unable to speak for a moment and takes a drink from the lemonade bottle.

  ‘You do, don’t you?’ she laughs, when she has swallowed.

  His face is suddenly anxious.

  ‘Please – shall I get you something else?’

  ‘No, really, it’s a magnificent sandwich.’

  ‘You’re not just saying that?’

  She shakes her head, again unable to speak as the heat flames again in her nose.

  ‘I’ve never heard a sandwich described as magnificent before,’ he says. ‘Do you like food, Mrs Jordan?’

  Clara thinks that it’s the oddest question. She has never really thought about it, but now that he’s asked it, she realises that she does like food. Ever since those days when Clara’s mother took to her bed, and Clara, aged nine, had to come home from school and prepare meals for her brother and her father, she has enjoyed everything about it.

  She quickly worked out how to choose good produce in the shop or the market. She found a notebook her mother had with recipes written in it from her mother. Clara studied the copy of Mrs Beeton’s and found things to cook. She found the preparation – washing, peeling, slicing, chopping, stirring – strangely calming, especially if her mother was going through one of her bouts and her father was smouldering with suppressed resentment. And she enjoyed it when it all came together, as the smells and sounds of cooking filled the air. There was something uncomplicated about it all – in comparison to life in her house, which seemed very complicated indeed.

  ‘Yes, I do like food,’ she replies.

  ‘It’s life really, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘At least that’s what the Italians think. Or is it the French?’

  ‘Have you been to those countries, Mr Walters?’

  ‘Please, please – you must call me James.’

  ‘James,’ she says. ‘And you must call me Clara.’

  ‘Clara. Delighted,’ he replies, before biting into a sandwich. ‘Yes, I have. Well, I suppose somebody has to do it since our Sir Edward doesn’t like to. Fact is though, I love travelling.’

  Clara notes the ‘I’. She sees now, too, that he isn’t wearing a wedding ring.

  ‘Perhaps you should be our Foreign Secretary.’

  ‘If love of travel were the only qualification, I’d already have the job.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve never been to any of those places,’ she says. ‘I’ve never been outside England.’

  ‘Don’t think it matters, my dear Mrs Jo … Clara. Once you step outside your door in the morning, you’re travelling. At least that’s the way I like to think about it.’

  Clara thinks it is an extraordinarily beautiful way to think about it. And now she sees an opening.

  ‘And do your family like travelling as much as you do?’ she asks.

  They are sitting on the bench turned towards each other, but now James looks into her eyes.

  ‘I’m afraid there is no family. I have no children and my wife and I divorced several years ago.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘I shouldn’t have pried.’

  ‘Think nothing of it. You could hardly have known.’

  Clara isn’t in the least sorry that she pried, and after this response she intends to pry some more.

  ‘So you live alone now?’ she asks innocently.

  ‘I do. I have a little two bedroomed terraced house that suits my needs. One of the nice things about my divorce from the former Mrs Walters is that, whatever else we argued about, we never had any disputes about money. The result is that we now both live in houses with which we are relatively happy.’

  ‘So your divorce was amicable?’ asks Clara, astonished at her own daring.

  ‘You could say that. However, you could equally argue that if it was that amicable there would have been no divorce in the first place. And you, Clara. You have a husband? Children?’

  ‘One and two,’ says Clara, pleased at her little joke.

  ‘Probably better than the other way round,’ he says, smiling. Then he adds, ‘So you must live in a busy house?’

  ‘That would be the understatement of the century. I rarely get time to myself. That’s why coming here is so nice.’

  Then, realising, that he could have misunderstood what she said, she adds, ‘Not that I mean I want to be here by myself. It’s … It’s nice to have some grown-up company.’

  And then worried that this could be open to further misinterpretation, she adds even more hastily, ‘Not that my husband isn’t.’

  Clara realises she is blushing. If he notices, James says nothing. He is on a different track.

  ‘It’s not good to be alone,’ he says, almost to himself. ‘But then I also like my own company – and solitude, time to think. How to reconcile the two? Now that would be a happy marriage, I suspect – where one could have both things. What do you think, Clara?’

  ‘I think it would be a very happy marriage indeed,’ she replies. ‘For certain types of people.’

  ‘Wisest words I’ve heard all day,’ James says.

  The conversation goes on to other things. For his holidays, James is going walking in some part of France that Clara has never heard of. Picardy. He mentions a ri
ver. ‘The somm’ it sounds like. He describes the landscape and she imagines him walking under a blue sky over chalky pathways that cross rolling green hills, thinking who-knows-what thoughts. She pictures him stopping at some out-of-the-way French country restaurant or inn. The French are meant to have such great food. She tells him about Devon. She hopes that she will find some time for herself down there. She wonders (but doesn’t say) whether it would be too much to ask that Henry take the girls for a day so she could go off by herself. After all, they’re his children too.

  They finish their sandwiches. Clara thinks James is like no other man she has ever encountered before. She senses that he lives a rich interior life, just as she does. Clara doesn’t know what to say or do next. The only thing she does know is that she doesn’t want this to be the last time she speaks to this man.

  ‘I suppose I should be getting back,’ he says.

  He stands up and shakes crumbs from his lap. Then he takes up the paper that the sandwiches had been wrapped in and does the same. Some birds notice and began waddling eagerly in his direction.

  ‘I shall be in town again next week,’ says Clara. ‘On Thursday again. If you were going to be here, I could bring the sandwiches.’

  He looks at her and she isn’t quite sure what she sees in his eyes. Perhaps it is curiosity. Or surprise?

  ‘I should like that very much.’

  They shake hands and separate. As Clara walks away, she admits to herself that she came here today, not to banish some feeling or other, but rather for this conversation. She came to see James. And now she has arranged to see him again.

  What does she want from this? Where is she hoping it might lead? A once-a-week rendezvous between a divorced man and a married woman? Could she ever imagine inviting him home to meet the rest of the family? Of course not. The notion is laughable. Would she ever bring Henry with her to one of these assignations? She knows the answer to that too.

  A funny thought comes into her head. Where will they meet when the weather isn’t so fine? A tea shop? A restaurant? The reception area of a hotel? It doesn’t matter. All that matters for now is that she will see him again next Thursday.