The Soldier's Wife

by Margaret Leroy

  “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked,” he says.

  He’s retreating rapidly. I can tell he is a proud man.

  “No, no, it’s not that,” I say.

  “It was wrong of me.”

  “I didn’t mind you asking. Really.”

  He takes a step away from me, everything in him withdrawing.

  “Good afternoon, then, Vivienne,” he says.

  He’s distant and formal again. He turns to go back through the gate.

  I swallow hard.

  “It would have to be . . .” My throat feels thick. My voice is very quiet.

  He turns quickly back toward me.

  I’m not looking at him. I’m studying my hands, the staining in the lines of my palms, the black crescents of earth in my nails.

  I try again.

  “It would have to be when Millie and Blanche are asleep. It would have to be late. Maybe ten o’clock?”

  I can feel his eyes on me, can feel the warmth of his gaze.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  I don’t dare look up as he leaves me.

  Chapter 32

  I HEAR THE SOFTEST knock on my door. I let him in.

  “Vivienne.”

  He says my name rather slowly, as though he doesn’t want to let go of it. Around us is the gentle quiet of the slumbering house, where everyone else is sleeping.

  I take him through to the living room. He looks around, and I suddenly see the familiar room through his eyes. For a while now, only women have lived here, and I see how feminine it is—all the lily-of-the-valley chintz, the tasseled tiebacks, the dahlias in a white jug. Everything draped and flowery. He seems too solid, too male, for this place.

  He has a drawing pad and pencils in a leather case, and a bottle of brandy, which he holds out to me. It has a French label. It looks expensive.

  “This is to say thank you,” he says.

  It seems an age ago that I tried to refuse his gift of chocolate.

  I take two brandy glasses from the china cabinet—the only ones that weren’t smashed on the day we nearly went on the boat. I put them on the piano. He pours the brandy. As he hands me my drink, he touches his glass to mine; the bright, assertive clink of glass is loud in the silence between us. I gulp the brandy and feel it warming me through, feel my edges soften.

  He’s looking at my bookshelves.

  “You have many books,” he says.

  “Yes.”

  “So who do the books belong to? Are they yours or your husband’s?” he says.

  “Mostly mine. Eugene didn’t much like reading.” I’ve used the past tense—I’m not sure why. “I brought most of them from London.”

  “Could you lend me a book, perhaps?” he asks me. “To help me practice my English?”

  It’s one of those moments, again—wondering where I should draw the line. But how can I refuse him this, when I invited him in—to draw me, to drink brandy?

  “Which one would you like?” I ask him.

  “Which is the best book here?” he says.

  I smile.

  “That’s an impossible question,” I say.

  He waits.

  I take down one of my favorite books, a volume of poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins. But this isn’t a sensible choice for someone who isn’t a native English speaker—the language the poet uses is rather eccentric and strange.

  The book falls open where there’s a ribbon bookmark, at a place where I have so often opened it before.

  “May I?” he says.

  I hand it to him.

  “You can correct me,” he tells me, “if I read it wrong.”

  He starts to read, quietly, carefully, stumbling slightly over the words:

  I have desired to go

  Where springs not fail,

  To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail

  And a few lilies blow . . .

  He pauses, looks up at me. “Sided? Is that a real word?” he asks me.

  He has that rather affronted look, which always makes me smile.

  “Kind of. But it’s an odd way to use it,” I tell him. I feel stupid that I chose such an inappropriate poem. “Maybe that wasn’t a very good choice. He’s quite a difficult poet.”

  “No, Vivienne, it was a very good choice,” he tells me.

  He turns back to the page.

  And I have asked to be

  Where no storms come,

  Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,

  And out of the swing of the sea.

  The silence after he’s spoken seems to hold on to the words, as you might hold water between your hands—just for an instant, a precious moment, before it all leaks away.

  “Did I read it right?” he asks me then.

  “Yes. Yes, you did.”

  But his reading has brought a kind of yearning sadness to the room, a desolate feeling. I don’t know where this comes from.

  “I like that poem. That is a beautiful poem,” he says.

  “That was always my favorite,” I tell him, trying to push away the sadness, my voice bland, ordinary. “We studied it at school.”

  “How old were you when you read this poet at school? Fourteen, fifteen?”

  “Yes. Something like that.”

  He smiles, as though the thought pleases him.

  “What were you like, at fourteen?” he says.

  I don’t know how to answer.

  “Like everyone else, I suppose . . .” Then I feel he deserves something better than this—more precise. Because I remember exactly what I was like—I hated being fourteen. “Well, no. That’s wrong. Not like everyone . . . I was always being reprimanded, for looking out the window in a dream. For not concentrating. And I was horribly shy, a bit clumsy, all elbows and knees. . . .”

  His eyes rest on me, warm, interested.

  “I used to envy the other girls. The shiny ones. The ones who seemed poised and perfect,” I say. “There are always those girls—you know, the ones whose stocking seams were always straight, whose hair was perfectly waved.”

  “Yes. There are always those girls,” he says, shrugging a little. As though he knows exactly what I mean about the shiny girls. As though they don’t really interest him. I feel a sudden light happiness, which I know I shouldn’t feel.

  “You can borrow the book if you want,” I say. “So you can practice your English.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

  He riffles through the pages, flicks back to the title page. I see him look at the place where I have written my name: Vivienne Mary Collier, then Collier crossed out and de la Mare written in. He runs his finger across the writing, as though he expects it to have a different texture from the rest of the page. As though he thinks he will learn from it, from the feel of my name on his skin.

  He puts the book in the pocket of his jacket.

  “Thank you, Vivienne,” he says again.

  I feel the intensity in his gaze. I turn from him.

  “Where do you want me to sit?” I ask, keeping my voice light, casual.

  He gestures toward the sofa. I seat myself, suddenly self-conscious, pulling down my skirt and awkwardly arranging and rearranging my legs. He sits opposite me on a chair. He takes out a pencil and rests the drawing pad on his knee.

  “Where should I look?” I ask him.

  “If you could turn a little to your left . . . ,” he says.

  I turn.

  “Like this?”

  “Yes. That’s perfect. So the lamplight will fall on your face.”

  To start with he’s mostly looking at me, just now and then marking the paper. He holds up his pencil, squints, works out the proportions of my face. It’s disconcerting to be looked at so intently. I’m glad I’m not quite facing him, that I don’t have to look in his eyes.

  “So, exactly how still do I have to be? Am I allowed to talk?” I ask.

  He smiles slightly.

  “Yes. For the moment,” he says.

  But the
n I can’t think what to say, can’t think of anything intelligent.

  “Have you always liked to draw?” I ask.

  The question is too obvious; it makes me sound stilted, naïve. But he answers it very seriously.

  “Not always. I drew all the time as a child, but then of course life intervened, as it has a habit of doing. I began again a few years ago, when I reached forty. I longed to have some time that was just my own. I thought, If I don’t do this now, I never will.”

  He must be in his mid-forties now. I feel how old we are, both of us, how much we have seen.

  “Getting older is strange,” I say. “It isn’t at all how you think it’s going to be.”

  He looks at me quizzically.

  I’m not sure quite why I said that. I try to explain.

  “I’ll soon be forty myself,” I tell him. “Yet sometimes I feel as if I’m still waiting for my life to begin.” I’m speaking slowly, working out exactly what I mean. “I spend so much time waiting. Waiting for Millie to start school, so I’ll have a bit more spare time. Waiting for Eugene to come back home . . .” I hesitate, wondering if I mentioned Eugene because I felt I should: not sure if I feel that, if I miss him. “Waiting for the war to be over . . . But life doesn’t wait—it trickles between your fingers, trickles away. . . . Does that sound stupid? I’m sure it sounds stupid.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” he says.

  “Do you ever feel that? Well, no, you wouldn’t, of course. Men’s lives aren’t like that, are they?”

  “Maybe not,” he says.

  “Sometimes I’ve envied that—the way men’s lives are more about doing than waiting. Sometimes I feel as though the real things are passing me by. As though I’ve been pushed to the margins of life. Sometimes I’ve even envied Eugene—going off to fight.”

  “Maybe war isn’t quite as you imagine,” he tells me. “Much of war is waiting. Much of it is feeling life trickling away.” He has a slight crooked smile. “Though it has its better moments. . . .”

  He’s stopped drawing, the pencil poised over the page.

  “Vivienne. I’m drawing your mouth now, so you will have to be quiet,” he says. He looks down at the paper again, marks it. “I’m just tracing in your upper lip now.”

  I’m suddenly very aware of my mouth. My face is hot. There’s a new little pulse at the side of my mouth, which I didn’t know was there. I wonder if he can see it.

  He stares at my mouth and draws in silence. I’m aware of the tiniest sounds in the room, a moth that beats at the lamp shade, a log that sparks in the grate. They seem crystal clear and dangerous to me.

  At last he puts his pencil down.

  “You can look at it now,” he tells me.

  I get up and go to him. He stands, puts the drawing down on the piano for me to see. I sense a slight nervousness in him—he cares what I will think.

  “It’s rough, it’s just a sketch,” he says.

  But I see he is being self-deprecating. It isn’t rough: it’s all there, very precise. I can tell he sees me clearly—the mole on my chin, the frown lines coming in on my forehead, my wayward hair that escapes from the hair grips and curls around my face. As though he sees me as I am. In the drawing, my mouth looks big and I know that’s true, though I don’t like it: I envy women with neat small mouths that look like little buds. I think maybe I have been wrong about him—maybe he doesn’t really admire me at all. I would have welcomed a little flattery.

  “It’s very accurate,” I say.

  “Some of it, perhaps,” he says. “But I haven’t drawn this part quite correctly.” He touches the paper with one finger, traces out the line of my cheek on the page. “I tried, but I couldn’t capture it. This part of your face is very lovely. This curve.”

  He takes his hand from the paper. He reaches out to my face and moves his finger very slowly along the curve of my cheek. His touch takes all words from me. We stand like that for a moment, his finger on my skin. His heat goes right through me.

  He lowers his hand, steps back from me. I can’t bear him moving away like that, can’t bear the distance between us.

  “Can I keep the picture?” I ask him. Wanting to hold on to something of the evening, something of him. My voice seems to come from far away.

  He’s surprised. Pleased.

  “Yes, of course. Yes.”

  He hands it to me.

  “I ought to go,” he says. “Thank you.”

  “Your brandy?” I pick up the bottle.

  “Keep it. It’s for you,” he says. “But may I come and drink it with you again?”

  “Yes . . . The day after tomorrow—you could come then.”

  He gives a little sigh when I say that, as though something is settled. Yet the words mean nothing—it was all decided when he touched me.

  Afterward I hide the brandy at the back of the cupboard, where nobody will see it, and I tuck the drawing away in one of my poetry books. I can still feel the place where he moved his finger over my face, as though my skin has come alive.

  Chapter 33

  I TAKE OUT THE book that Angie gave me.

  “This is a present from Mrs. le Brocq,” I tell Millie.

  She presses up against me on the sofa. Her hair needs washing; I breathe in its sweet, complex scent.

  “Well, read me a story then, Mummy,” she says.

  I open the book.

  She frowns.

  “There aren’t any pictures,” she says.

  “No. We’ll just have to imagine them. . . .”

  The sprig of restharrow is still held between the pages. Millie takes it and holds it lightly between her finger and thumb.

  I turn to the first story.

  “ ‘There was once a man from Guernsey who took the boat to Sark. . . .’ ”

  Millie is immediately pleased. A smile unfurls over her face.

  “We’ve been there, haven’t we, Mummy? We’ve been to Sark,” she says.

  I remember how we made the boat trip, one summer day before Eugene left, before the war began. We took lettuce-and-Marmite sandwiches and homemade lemonade. Sark is a small peaceful island, with no motor engines, no cars—a place of deep, dreaming lanes between overhanging hedges, of lovingly tended gardens lavish with flowers; and there are great seabird colonies there, on reefs and islets offshore, on L’Étac and Les Autelets. The birds rise in the air like a white smoke, and the noise of them reaches a long way over the sea.

  Millie is attentive—proud that the story tells of a place that she knows.

  I read on.

  “ ‘The man was an excellent marksman and planned to do some shooting, to put dinner on the table. He sat on the cliffs above Havre Gosselin, and saw a flock of wild duck that flew in a perfect circle, and seemed untroubled by the sound of his gun.’ ”

  Millie has a pensive look.

  “D’you think they weren’t proper ducks? D’you think it was really magic, Mummy?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  She sighs with pleasure, content that this is a tale of the uncanny. She strokes the pressed flower absently over her face.

  “ ‘When the man returned to Guernsey, he went to see a white witch—a sorchier—for advice.’ ”

  I’m about to explain, but Millie nods, familiar with the word.

  “ ‘The sorchier told him to shoot at the duck with a special bullet—a bullet of silver, marked with the sign of the Cross. So the man took the boat back to Sark and sat on the cliffs above Havre Gosselin. In the bright, still air beyond the edge of the cliff, the ducks flew in their perfect circle. The man shot his silver bullet, and the bullet hit one of the ducks, just catching its wing, not killing it.

  “ ‘On his way back home in the boat, the man noticed a girl among the other islanders—a girl who was pale and shaken, with a terrible wound in her hand.’ ”

  Millie’s eyes shine. She knows about the kinds of things that happen in such stories—the dazzling metamorphoses, the things that are not as they seem.

>   “That was her, wasn’t it, Mummy? The girl was the duck he shot at. The girl could do spells and could make herself into a duck. . . .”

  “Yes, I think so,” I say.

  But I’m only half listening to her. The story stirs me in some way that I couldn’t explain or express. I see the scene so vividly—the little boat, gray sea, gray sky, the girl’s black, black hair and her white, racked face, how she shuddered with pain and the bright blood dripped from her hand.

  I turn the page.

  “ ‘The man knew she was the duck he had shot, but he looked at her and said nothing. And for many years afterward, he kept silent, speaking of what had happened only on the day of his death. . . .’ ”

  Millie is thoughtful.

  “He was sorry, wasn’t he? He shouldn’t have shot her. That’s why he didn’t tell anyone.”

  I think about that moment, when they looked at each other, those two—the girl with her forbidden magic, the man who had wounded her hand. Did she understand then, when he looked at her, that he wouldn’t tell, that he would keep her secret?

  This moves me, in the story—the complicity between them.

  Chapter 34

  I TAKE RAINWATER FROM the water butt, which is meant to be good for your hair. I wash my hair and curl it. When it’s dry I shake out the curls; my hair smells fresh, of the countryside. When I’ve finished clearing up after tea, I put on my best navy dress. It’s made of silk shantung, and the dark gleamy fabric has a prismatic sheen, like oil on water. I look at my face in the mirror of my dressing table. It’s a three-way mirror, reflecting into itself, and my many reflections recede from me, all bright-eyed, flushed, and scared, as though I contain a multitude of eager, anxious women.

  Blanche comes in to say good night.

  “You look nice, Mum,” she says. “You haven’t worn that for ages.”

  There’s a question under her words.

  “I just felt like putting on something nicer,” I say.

  “That dress is ever so pretty,” she says. “You could go dancing in that. You don’t really look like somebody’s mum anymore.”

  She looks at me wistfully—perhaps a little enviously. Then she turns away from me, running her finger over the music box, the blurry Impressionist picture of two girls at a piano.