We That Are Left

by Clare Clark

  He had played that conversation again and again in his head since the day on the bridge. Every time he sat down at his desk with a piece of paper to write to Phyllis in Malta he thought of it again and he put his pen down and put his head into his hands because there was nothing to say. Sound could not travel in a vacuum, however loud you shouted.

  The photograph was of a geometric pattern, an eight-pointed star like a cross with two points at each end, surrounded by a honeycombed pattern, light against dark. In the centre of the star was an eight-leafed flower. From the blur of light in one corner it was plain that the surface of the pattern was glazed. Oscar knew it immediately. He pressed his fingers against his eyeballs, fiercely enough to make the darkness sparkle. Eyeballs were harder than people thought which was why the white, the fibrous outer layer of the eye, was called the sclera, after the Greek word skleros, meaning hard. Then, blinking, he put the photograph face down on the desk and unfolded the letter. The handwriting was slapdash, scribbled in haste or perhaps on a train. Oscar’s eyes skimmed the page, hardly taking in the words, the acknowledgement that the previous photograph had indeed been a detail from a painted panel in the drawing room, the hope that this one might prove more of a challenge, the repeated entreaty to come to Ellinghurst for a weekend or perhaps even for Christmas.

  It would mean so much to me and I know Jessica would be glad of the company. I told you, I think, that Phyllis is away in Europe, and it is awfully dull for her rattling around on her own.

  The letter went on to several pages. Oscar did not read them. He looked at the plain back of the photograph on his desk. The pattern burned through the card, projecting itself like a film onto the back of his skull. It was one of the floor tiles from the octagonal room of the tower in the woods, the ones that Sir Crawford Melville had had brought back especially from India. He thought of Phyllis huddled on the bench the day that Theo’s uniform arrived at Ellinghurst, her arms around her shins, the cuffs of her jersey pulled down over her red hands. When she had looked up there had been two marks on her forehead where she had pressed it against her knees. He thought of Theo standing under the beech trees, the smoke of his cigarette smudging the dusk like chalk dust, and it was Theo who seemed real then and Phyllis the apparition, so that when he reached out for her in his imagination his hands slipped right through her and she faded, diminishing as he watched until all that was left of her was an ache in the air, tender as a bruise.

  The next morning, there was a brisk knock on his door.

  ‘Mr Greenwood?’ Mr Willis said sharply. ‘Mr Greenwood, I know you are in there. If I have to force the lock there will be a fine for damage to college property.’

  Reluctantly Oscar opened the door. Mr Willis took in his dishevelled state, the chaos of books and cups and discarded clothes that littered the room.

  ‘Alive, then?’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. It’s just I’ve been . . .’

  The tutor shook his head wearily. It was plain that his interest in Oscar’s health extended only as far as establishing that he was extant. In a tone that reminded Oscar of the public information films shown in cinemas during the War, Mr Willis informed him that the freezing weather had caused several pipes in the court to burst. A problem with the main required the paving to be dug up, making access to the staircases on Oscar’s side impossible. Oscar had until the following morning to vacate his rooms.

  ‘If you had come to see me when I first summoned you, arrangements might have been made to avoid disruption to your studies. As it is I am told there is nothing in college until next week. You have somewhere you can go, I hope?’

  Oscar shrugged.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll think of something,’ Willis said wintrily. ‘Happy Christmas, Mr Greenwood.’

  Oscar sat at his desk for a long time after his tutor had gone, staring at the photograph of the tower floor. Later he walked up to Mrs Piggott’s house on Chesterton Road. When he asked about the room she said she was sorry but she had another gentleman up there now, a travelling salesman. She offered him a cup of tea.

  It was snowing again as Oscar walked back over Magdalene Bridge, sticky flakes that clung to his coat and hat. The grey sky sagged over the college roofs and the river was oil-black. Ahead of him the black outline of a man pushed a bicycle along the narrow pavement. Oscar walked along the wavy line left by the tyre, the fresh snow creaking under his feet. In his rooms he packed a bag. The photograph of the tile from the tower was propped up against his table lamp. He picked it up, running his finger over the honeycombed patterns that encircled the star. He could not go, he knew that, it was impossible, and yet the urge to be there, where there was so much of her, where the air bore the mark of her like an imprint in snow, was so strong it was a kind of breathlessness. He opened Sir Aubrey’s letter again. It would mean so much to me and I know Jessica would be glad of the company. For a moment he let himself imagine it, walking in to the Great Hall, sitting in the window seat in the library, on the circular bench in tower. Then, biting his lip, he turned the page.

  I have been thinking a great deal of Thomas Gray these last weeks. Gray published fewer than one thousand lines of poetry in his lifetime, afraid, he said, that they would be taken for the works of a flea. As a young man I marvelled at his humility. Now I find myself wondering if it was not cowardice that constrained him, fear of failure or, worse, of mockery. It is safer to do nothing than to do something and fail. Gray died aged fifty-five. How old must one be before one understands that omission is the greatest failure of all?

  Oscar put the letter into his pocket and picked up his suitcase. At the door of his room he hesitated. Putting the suitcase down, he went to the bookcase. It took him several minutes to find the slim volume of poems he had read to his mother in Clapham. He held it in his hand, one hand smoothing the cover. Then, sweeping the Ellinghurst photographs from the mantelpiece, he tucked them inside the book and put them both into his coat pocket.

  At the Majestic Hotel the proprietress looked up when he arrived. Her hair was no longer copper but a dark purplish-red.

  ‘And just what time do you call this?’ she asked drily as she hauled out her ledger. ‘Alone, are you?’

  He did not know why he had come. The room was even worse than he remembered it. He did not bother to get undressed. He pushed some coins into the meter and huddled under the blankets on the lumpy mattress, flooded with a miserable gratification at the squalor of the room, the prodigal agony of remembering.

  It was very late when he finally slept. When he woke he could not remember where he was. It had snowed again in the night and the room was harsh with light. His head ached and he was filled with an obscure shame, like a drunk only half able to remember the night before. He knew then that he could not stay. His clothes were crumpled, twisted awkwardly around his body. He smelled of trains and old dog.

  He washed in the grimy bathroom at the end of the passage and changed into a clean shirt. He had to go away, somewhere where the air was clear and everything was unfamiliar. He would go to Europe, to the Alps. He would learn to ski. The improbability of the idea only added to his determination. He thought of the pictures in his book, the figures small as ants against the white majesty of the mountains, and then of Phyllis in bed, her knees a hump of blankets, her red head bent over her book of hieroglyphs. The bird with the human head was the glyph for soul, and the scarab beetle was said to push the sun into the sky at the dawn of every day. He wondered dully if there might be a time one day when not everything made him think of her.

  He went back to Cambridge. He needed boots, a thick coat, books.

  ‘Can’t that wait?’ he had said to Phyllis over and over as she read or scribbled in her notebook, his mouth tracing her jaw, her ear, the nape of her neck, his hand sliding wonderingly up her thigh, and she had only smiled and kissed him and moved the book where she could see it.

  ‘You’re next,’ she always said. ‘I promise.’

  A wooden barrier had been
erected across the arched entranceway, a painted sign nailed to its front: No Entry. Along the east side of the court a wide strip of paving stones had been lifted and stacked and several men were digging a trench. A pick sang as it struck rock. Oscar called out but the men only shook their heads and pointed to the sign. The barrier was secured with a heavy iron chain. When Oscar rattled it they shrugged and went on digging.

  At the Porter’s Lodge Oscar pleaded with the fat porter. ‘I only need ten minutes. Just to fetch some things.’

  ‘And you are, sir?’

  ‘Greenwood. M staircase.’

  ‘Mr Greenwood.’ With a grunt the porter prised himself out of his chair and, peering at a rack above his head, extracted an envelope. ‘This came for you yesterday. They said you’d gone down. No forwarding address.’

  Phyllis, Oscar thought. As he fumbled with the envelope his head buzzed with static like a radio set and his fingers seemed to belong to someone else.

  FATHER VERY ILL ASKING FOR YOU STOP

  PLEASE COME URGENTLY JESSICA

  34

  The proper name was cerebrovascular disease, Jessica said. A stroke, or rather two strokes. The first had been mild, though frightening enough at the time. They had been working in the library when suddenly his face had slackened, his eyes widening as though he was trying to focus. He slumped in his chair, his head falling sideways. He managed to tell Jessica that there was a pain in his head. Then the left side of his body seemed to crumple, his arms dropping at his sides, and he collapsed to the floor. By the time Dr Wilcox arrived he was conscious but disoriented and very dazed. It was not clear if he understood what the doctor was saying to him. The whole of the left side of his body was numb.

  The next day he was tired and a little shaky on his feet but otherwise apparently recovered. His arm and leg moved normally and his speech was unimpaired. When Dr Wilcox urged him to rest he waved away his concern. He told Jessica that the doctor was an old woman who fussed over nothing. A week passed. Then two days ago he had taken his camera and gone out to the barbican gate. No one knew exactly what had happened or how long he had lain there before the gardener’s boy found him sprawled on the path near the moat, one side of his face badly grazed.

  It was nearly a day before he recovered consciousness. Even then he was very confused. The seizure had paralysed his left side. The left side of his face hung loosely on the bone, his eye pulled down to expose the wet red gum beneath, and his tongue lolled in his slack mouth, making his speech unintelligible. A nurse was arranged, a brisk woman with a starched cap and a starched manner. She called Sir Aubrey the Patient with a starched capital letter.

  ‘I have no wish to agitate your father,’ Dr Wilcox confided to Jessica, squeezing her arm, ‘or you, my dear. But his condition is grave. He is weak, susceptible to secondary infections. To another seizure. If he has matters outstanding, affairs to be put in order, it might be advisable . . .’

  Jessica glared, pulling her arm away. ‘But you don’t wish to agitate him?’

  She cabled Eleanor and Phyllis and asked them to come home. She telephoned Mrs Maxwell Brooke who to her great relief received the news calmly and told Jessica that she would come when she could.

  ‘Today’s impossible, my dear. But perhaps tomorrow. I’ll telephone.’

  When she asked her father if there was anyone else he wished her to write to, he jerked his head and mumbled something she did not hear. The nurse wiped the saliva from his chin with a white cloth.

  ‘The Patient needs to rest,’ she admonished, rearranging his useless left arm on the counterpane, but Sir Aubrey reached out with his good hand and caught Jessica’s.

  ‘Osk,’ he managed.

  ‘Oscar?’ She frowned, unsure she had heard him right. ‘Oscar Greenwood?’

  His breathing was laboured. He tried to nod. ‘Osk.’

  She knew then that he did not expect to get better. She cabled Oscar with a heavy heart and wondered if she should telephone the lawyers. She was afraid her father might not have made the proper arrangements. He had never been practical. Eleanor had always said that for Aubrey meetings with the estate accountants were like going to sea, long stretches of mind-numbing boredom punctuated with flashes of blinding terror. It was one of the few jokes she made that made him smile. Besides, who knew what he might do for the satisfaction of confounding Cousin Evelyn?

  Oscar arrived after lunch the next day. The nurse said that she was sorry but Sir Aubrey was not well enough for visitors. He had developed a temperature, a thick cough. She asked that they leave him to rest. Instead, they went for a walk. It was very cold. Oscar buried his hands in his pockets.

  ‘You haven’t had snow here, then?’ he asked and Jessica shook her head.

  ‘Too close to the sea, Father always says,’ she said. They turned to look at the house, grey against the low grey sky. ‘Thank you. For coming.’

  ‘Of course.’ He hesitated. ‘How bad is it, really?’

  ‘Nobody seems to know. He’s very weak. If there was another stroke . . .’

  ‘So your mother and Phyllis, they’re coming home?’

  The crack in his voice touched Jessica. ‘I don’t know yet. I’ve cabled them. I’m sure Phyllis will; I mean, she’d better. I don’t know about Eleanor. Perhaps she’ll turn out to have a conscience after all. Even without the wretched Feda telling her what to do.’

  ‘Who’s Feda?’

  ‘She isn’t anyone. Not any more.’

  Oscar did not want to walk in the woods. They made their way down through the garden and across the moat towards the gatehouse. Oscar walked fast with a long stride. He was taller than she remembered, and more substantial. In her walking shoes her head barely reached his shoulder. It was hard to recollect the cringing little drip he had been as a boy, so painfully easy to cow that he might as well have worn a sandwich board begging you to torment him. He had a quiet confidence, a thoughtfulness that made him seem older than his years. At lunch, he had listened as she talked about her father, properly listened as though he meant to memorise the words, and the knot that had tied itself tightly inside her had eased because Oscar was there too, and whatever it was that happened next she would no longer have to do it all on her own.

  When they reached the gatehouse they stopped. Oscar touched the scowling face of one of the stone lions. Then he looked up at the coat of arms carved into the stone lintel of the archway.

  ‘Heaven at last,’ Jessica said.

  ‘My mother used to say that every time we drove in.’

  ‘Did she? I can’t imagine you did. We weren’t very nice to you back then.’

  ‘You weren’t very nice. The others were all right.’

  Jessica smiled faintly. ‘The others didn’t know you existed.’

  He was silent, gazing up at the lintel. She wondered if he was thinking of that afternoon in the tower, the afternoon that she put her arms around his neck and told him to kiss her. They had been barely more than children then but he had held her as though she was the only girl on earth. She wondered if she was still the only girl he had ever kissed.

  They walked back along the edge of the rhododendron plantation towards the East Gate. Oscar was silent, lost in thought. The wind had sharpened and the clouds were dark and bruised-looking. Above the inky scrawl of the winter trees Grandfather’s Tower swayed like the mast of a giant ship.

  ‘They’ll knock it down, I suppose,’ she said. ‘They won’t risk small boys throwing themselves out of the windows. Or lunatics, for that matter.’ Oscar did not answer. ‘Oscar?’

  He blinked at her, confused. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

  ‘Grandfather’s Tower. They’ll demolish it, I suppose.’

  ‘Who will?’

  ‘Whoever buys the place.’

  ‘The house is for sale?’ His shock was unfeigned. Jessica shrugged.

  ‘Not yet. But Cousin Evelyn thinks that houses like this are white elephants. And anyway he prefers Yorkshire. He’s told Father he’ll defin
itely sell. Poor Father, he couldn’t bear it, he was trying everything he could, but he never thought . . .’ She swallowed, trying to keep her voice matter-of-fact. ‘If he dies, I mean, if he dies now, before Phyllis or I . . . well, then it will be a school or a hotel or a madhouse. A madhouse would be best, don’t you think? At least there’s a tradition of that. Grandfather Melville was mad as a March hare.’

  ‘Jessica, I’m so—’

  ‘Don’t. I’m not sure I could bear it if you said anything kind.’ She turned away from him, pressing her fingers to the bridge of her nose. ‘Sorry.’

  He put a tentative hand on her shoulder. She closed her eyes. It had been as cold as this that afternoon in the tower, the tip of his nose icy against her cheek. Four years ago, almost to the day. She could still remember the way he looked at her when he finally stopped kissing her, his dark eyes wide with astonishment.

  She turned back towards him, stepping closer, and leaned her forehead against his chest. The wool of his coat prickled her skin. He patted her awkwardly, like a dog, and she thought of Jim Pugh’s old terrier, turning in ghostly circles on the dusk-clogged lawn.

  ‘Hold me,’ she whispered.

  ‘Jessica—’

  ‘Please,’ she said and she closed her eyes, waiting for his arms to encircle her, for the ground to stop pitching, just for a moment, beneath her feet.

  The motor car’s engine coughed as it turned in under the arch of the gatehouse. Abruptly Oscar dropped his arms. Burying his hands deep in his pockets, he set off briskly towards the house.

  ‘Oscar, wait,’ she called but he only walked faster, his shoulders hunched against the cold. The car was getting closer. As it rounded the bend its headlamps illuminated the leathery leaves of the rhododendron. She turned, one hand raised against the glare of the lights, and stepped onto the verge to let it pass. It slowed. Mrs Maxwell Brooke wound down the window. In the car beside her was Marjorie, her pointed face framed by a close-fitting hat.