He came and sat with her on the sofa, and for a moment it wasn’t clear which of them was going to subside against the other. In the end they both did, and sat in silence together, hands entwined, shoulder to shoulder, heads together in the beautiful closeness.
‘What did you say to him?’ she asked. ‘Outside?’
‘Nothing,’ Riley said. ‘I can’t say anything to him. He was talking about Odysseus and Penelope and – Tiresias? I couldn’t follow him.’
‘Tiresias was the prophet, I think, who Odysseus went to find in the Underworld. When he met all the dead heroes from the battle of Troy.’
‘Oh, Christ.’
Mrs Joyce called him. He was wanted on the telephone again.
*
Nadine was feeding Kitty, staring into her great eyes. Poor Julia, she thought, not to have the joy of this. Poor poor Julia.
And were my mother and I ever like this? Did I gaze at her with great big eyes?
She sat, baby in the crook of her arm, the bottle in her hand, being stared at across the room by Tom. His eyes were narrow under his little cap, his small tie like a noose around his neck.
‘Come here to me,’ she said, but Tom did not slip to her side with the same ease as he used to the winter before.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s only me.’ He came, and sat stiff and thin beside her. Nadine could see his eyes closing over, as if layers of ice had solidified between him and the world.
*
Riley was out with Peter again. They didn’t seem to be talking.
*
At dusk, Peter was alone out there. He stood up and stretched his long arms and let out a firm deep breath. He raised his head and shouted: ‘Come on, then!’
Riley had been waiting for it. He went out – and found Harker coming from the shed, dragging behind him a stretcher knocked up from a tarpaulin and two poles. Riley looked down at it.
‘The Boers, sir,’ Harker said sadly. ‘Spion Kop.’ Riley glanced at him, and nodded.
They lifted her on to the stretcher as best they could. Cold and rigor mortis prevented much movement, but Peter had laid her out beautifully earlier. They spread her nightdress clumsily and covered her with a blanket, and carried her upstairs to the bedroom.
The bloody mattress was already out in the yard. (‘Don’t burn it till everyone’s gone away somewhere,’ Riley had said, so it stood propped against dock leaves and nettles behind the wall.) Millie and Mrs Joyce had brought the guest-room mattress in and made the bed up: just two white sheets. Mrs Joyce had gone to Rose’s room with her mouth very pale and small, and asked, Was she to put on the good sheets, or which?
‘The good ones,’ Rose had said.
Riley and Harker lifted Julia onto the bed. The blanket had slipped from her face. They looked down and were embarrassed to see her in so intimate a state.
The women took over.
Riley went out, thinking of corpses tipped into ditches, lost in mud, bursting from the sides of trenches, never seen again. How were they, out there, the dead boys? Would any of their poor bodies ever come home and be honoured? That bloody poem – some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England …
Poor Julia. Poor everyone.
Oh God, where’s Peter?
*
He was in the kitchen, drinking tea with Mrs Joyce. At about six, two policemen came. Dr Tayle had spoken to them. They came into the drawing room, didn’t sit down, and told Peter, Rose, Riley and Nadine that they had come to say, in person, that there would need to be an autopsy. They were embarrassed.
‘Is there an idea,’ Riley said, ‘that a crime has been committed?’
They said no, no. They said they could say nothing till after the autopsy. They left.
‘Well,’ said Peter.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Nadine said again.
‘What doesn’t matter?’ said Peter. ‘It was the police, wasn’t it?’
‘It just means they have to look at her,’ Nadine said.
‘I know what it means,’ said Peter. ‘To look at yourself.’
‘As long as it doesn’t show any—’ Riley began, and Nadine broke in.
‘It won’t,’ she said. ‘Hush. It won’t.’
Peter was looking at them, one by one.
‘There’s no need to fear,’ Nadine said. ‘We’re all just scared …’ But Peter said, ‘Will they chop her up?’ and that silenced everyone.
Then, ‘You didn’t kill her!’ Rose burst out. ‘There’s no wound.’
The men stared at her.
‘We looked—’ Rose said. ‘I mean – we didn’t look. But we would have seen.’
Peter’s face was impassive. ‘Are you sure?’ he said.
‘There is no wound,’ Nadine said. ‘We would have seen. The autopsy will show that she haemorrhaged.’
‘You didn’t kill her,’ Rose said. ‘Nobody will think you killed her. She wasn’t killed.’
Peter said nothing. The three others stood, hoping, each of them, that they had not betrayed their fear to him.
‘Do you need to see?’ Rose said quietly. ‘For proof? So you really know?’
Peter raised his eyes to hers. ‘No,’ he said, courteously. ‘Thank you.’
*
They all went to bed early and lay sleepless – or so they all assumed. In fact, Peter sat in his study all night, and got through a bottle and a half of whisky; Tom slept soundly, Rose read, Mrs Joyce prayed, Kitty mewed quietly in Nadine’s arms while Nadine dozed, and Riley sat outside Peter’s door on the floor till about four, when he went upstairs, removed Kitty to her cot, and made love to Nadine with the full force of a man who is consciously and thoroughly glad that he is not dead.
*
Riley had to go back to London. The proofs of three new pamphlets had to be passed today or held up till New Year. He’d come back to Locke Hill the following day. First he went with Peter and Rose to the undertakers; then they dropped him off at the station. All was to-ing and fro-ing. What he really wanted was to stand beside Peter, to be there beside him, all the time, forever. However things were between a man and his wife, to lose the woman – to lose the woman – and now Peter was so losable, again …
Suddenly on the train he had a vision: himself coming home to Nadine, with the black eye and the bashed-in cheek. How cavalier he had been, racing off into the world of his own demons as if nobody else existed. Reaching back in time to that perverted familarity, that rush of thrill and violence. That stupid little show of masculinity which was actually as weak and foolish and cruel as anything he had ever done. How that recklessness had hurt her.
That little word, ‘hurt’, which catches in your throat.
If she lost me …
I am important to her.
She loves me.
*
Peter, coming back into the house, thinking, What is it now? This house? This home? found Nadine standing in the hall, with Tom holding her skirt and Kitty a white woollen bundle in her arms. He stopped dead and stared.
‘Bit of a pickle,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Nadine.
‘I don’t know what to do.’
‘Of course not,’ said Nadine. ‘No one does. It’s too cruel.’
Peter blinked, and said, ‘Yes, it is rather, isn’t it? I suppose we could have a cup of tea.’ Mrs Joyce was crying in her room, so Peter put the kettle on the range and made the tea himself. He brought it in to where Nadine and the children had settled back on the sofa.
‘That sofa!’ he exclaimed. ‘What it’s seen …’ He walked over to the fire, back to the sofa, then remembered the tea, and poured it. ‘Thank you for taking care of everything.’
‘I’m glad I was here to,’ she said.
Peter looked at the baby, and frowned.
‘Can I see her?’ he said.
He could tell Nadine was pleased that he wanted to. She made to give her to him, but that was too much – he almost stumbled back, his fear and bewilderment visible, no
doubt. Does she know I can’t abide human contact? Does she wonder how this creature even got conceived?
He looked down at the baby in Nadine’s arms.
‘Sweet,’ he said, rather hopelessly. How extraordinarily soft she is. She’s like a petal. The light would shine through her, like through ripe gooseberries, or a mouse’s ears. Somewhere in his battered heart a spark of love blinked. ‘Is she all right?’ he asked.
‘She is,’ said Nadine. ‘She was underweight, but she’s feeding well.’
Peter startled, and Nadine stopped.
‘What am I meant to do now?’ he asked, like a small boy. He was thinking, Surely this is where women sweep in and take care of everything …
Nadine said, ‘They need to be loved and looked after.’
And Peter said, tentatively, ‘Yes – but how? I don’t – can Tom go to school?’
‘He’s three,’ said Nadine.
‘Is that too young?’
‘Yes,’ Nadine said. ‘And he doesn’t need school. He needs a mother.’
‘And the baby too,’ said Peter.
‘Kitty,’ said Nadine.
‘Kitty,’ he agreed, humbly.
She had one hand laid still on Tom’s head, and looked like some Victorian painting, The Soldier’s Departure, or The Widow’s Fate, or something. But she looked happy, and competent. Peter glanced at the floor.
‘I don’t suppose,’ he started. What don’t you suppose?
Whatever it was, Nadine understood.
‘I mean – Rose—’
‘Rose is busy,’ Nadine said quickly.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll stay here for a bit,’ she said. ‘But my father – and Riley …’
‘No, of course.’
‘But they could come up to London with me,’ she said. ‘Till we can sort things out. Papa won’t mind. It will help to take our minds off things.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s very good. Just for now.’
Peter chose to appear relieved, but in truth they had both known it was going to happen that way, since the moment Julia died. How else could it be?
‘Mrs Joyce could come …?’
‘Oh no, you’ll need her – but Harding …?’
‘Of course. And – will Riley … um …?’ he asked. ‘Just till we sort things out?’
As he echoed her phrase, he noticed how empty it was. When or how on earth would anybody sort things out? Let alone me.
‘He’ll be happy to have them,’ she said. ‘And he’d do anything for you, Peter.’
‘I should speak to him,’ he said, as the vast possibilities of debt and friendship and obligation spread out for a moment in front of him, before the clouds of shame and necessity blocked off that view again.
As he left he turned and said, ‘Dread grief is upon me. It is, you know.’
*
Rose, coming in from the kitchen, saw that something had been settled. She raised her eyebrows to Nadine, who nodded.
‘What?’ Rose said.
‘The children are going to come and stay with us.’
Rose frowned. ‘But,’ she said.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Nadine said.
‘What?’
‘Don’t you even dare,’ Nadine said again. ‘Don’t you even dare think about coming back here and looking after him. You are going to live your life, Rose. You just are.’
‘You’d take the children on?’ Rose said. ‘Have you thought it through?’
‘It needs no thought,’ Nadine said. ‘There’s no “would”. It’s how it is.’
‘Does Riley know?’ Rose asked.
Nadine just looked her. Her face read clearly: As if Riley would not instantly recognise the situation and do the right thing!
‘And what about Peter?’ Rose said, tightly.
‘If it comes to it, Peter can come and live with us,’ Nadine said. ‘Or – or something – but you are not giving up medicine.’
‘Oh.’ Rose drew herself up a little. Is it that simple?
‘You’re not,’ Nadine repeated. ‘Stop taking on responsibilities which aren’t yours. It’s your life.’
Rose paused, looking at Nadine. She considered saying ‘but’ again. But she didn’t want to say but.
As she went over to the fire, she punched Nadine very lightly on the shoulder.
Chapter Twenty
Locke Hill, December 1919
A few days later, Julia’s body taken, the funeral fixed for the following week, time hanging like a noose, Rose and Nadine dragged an old cot down from the attic, to paint trills of flowers on it for Kitty. It seemed wrong, but then why? ‘There’s a birth here as well as a death,’ Rose said. And they had both laughed a little hysterically.
Nadine said, ‘It does all still seem out of our hands. I feel so – buffeted. I can’t remember when I last made a decision, an active decision, rather than just responding to what jumps out at me demanding a response.’
‘That’s normal, though, isn’t it?’ said Rose.
‘I don’t know. I was trying to think about it. First you’re a child and you’re meant to do what you’re told, then there was the war, and you did what was required, and then Riley’s wound, then peace and then – my mother, and coming back home and now Julia, and Tom and Kitty … Of course, it’s not really like during the war. But something is – I’m sort of helpless before fate. There’s no calm moment to say, all right, I would like to go this way, and do this. Like you’ve done.’
‘What I’m doing wasn’t entirely done as a result of calm reflection,’ said Rose drily.
‘But you made a decision,’ Nadine said. ‘You are doing what you’ve chosen.’
‘So are you. You chose Tom and Kitty.’
‘That was emotional,’ Nadine said. ‘Nothing rational in it at all.’
‘And you’re going to art school.’
‘Well, that now does seem irrational …’ Nadine said, to which Rose replied: ‘Ha! Now, don’t you dare. If I may quote.’
There was a short silence.
‘Oh, we’ll work it out,’ Nadine said. ‘And aren’t we lucky? That what we want to do and what we should do match up. And that we can do them.’ Another pause. ‘So far,’ she added. ‘But it’s as I said: out of our hands. Future buffeting is bound to occur. I used to just accept it. But now I know that I want to do something. Something proper and real in the outside world. There are women doing things all around us. Lady Astor, in Parliament! Virginia Woolf and Rebecca West and all the ladies on committees. You! It should all be possible now. I seem to have stopped being so terribly passive.’
‘We all have,’ said Rose. ‘Even Julia. She seemed the most accepting person of all – but then she just upped and chucked it all in and ran off.’
Nadine glanced up.
‘What do you mean?’
‘When Julia did a bunk,’ said Rose. ‘Over the summer. She went off in May, and wasn’t seen till August.’
Nadine’s mind flickered. ‘Oh! She mentioned she’d gone away somewhere, but – oh I wish I’d paid more attention! You just remember the daftest things, and nothing that really matters. Because you just don’t think someone’s going to suddenly die! Even though, really, we ought to know by now that they do. War or no war.’
‘Yes,’ said Rose.
Nadine painted four more little leaves.
‘Rose!’ she cried. ‘Is Kitty Peter’s?’
‘He believes so. And she looks awfully like him.’
Their eyes were wide.
‘She went to Biarritz,’ Rose said.
‘How long for?’
‘Nearly four months.’
‘Gosh,’ said Nadine. ‘I thought it was two weeks or something – she never said. Biarritz! Rose – would you like to travel?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘I have cousins in Rome,’ she said. ‘We’re corresponding and I’m going to go and see them. One of these days.’
‘You liked Italy, didn’t you.�
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‘I loved it,’ she said. ‘I felt like a person in a novel. Wildly adventurous – I suppose that’s what Julia wanted, as well. Were you very angry with her?’
‘Furious,’ said Rose. ‘For dumping Peter like that, for deserting Tom. I said she was decisive – certainly she was very good at making bad decisions. But I don’t know if she was quite sane. And I’m not sure people can be expected to be what they’re not.’
‘But if what we are is not good, aren’t we expected to try, at least?’
‘I think Julia tried very hard,’ Rose said. ‘And everything was swept out from under her. Peter has been very difficult, you know. Much worse after you and Riley left. He stopped bothering to maintain appearances. Because of Riley, I think. While Riley was here he didn’t want to disintegrate in front of him.’
Nadine gave a little shiver. Yes, Riley obliges you to keep things together. He’s a sort of – not a memento mori, but a memento vitae. Memento fortunae. ‘Do you think Peter has some kind of shell shock?’ she asked.
‘I think it’s grief and shame, and the deluded notion that drink can help you through.’
‘But,’ and here Nadine rocked back on her heels, her paintbrush pointing skyward like a flambeau. ‘Is there anything we can do for him? Now, I mean?’
Rose laughed. ‘Look after his children,’ she said. ‘For goodness sake, look at what you’re doing!’
‘That’s for them. I mean for him. Medically, or psychologically, or – you know. Him thinking he had killed her. The way … he didn’t know. It seemed almost as if he wanted to have done it.’
‘That’s a black thought, Nadine.’
‘And one that you’ve had too?’
‘No,’ Rose said after a moment. ‘Though I have wondered why he is so intent on punishing himself, when he has been punished so much already. I assume it’s just the usual thing. Like so many of them, he was put in some impossible position, and blames himself for not having been able to put it right.’
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