He was in an underground station, on the platform. Trains kept coming into the station. They pulled open carriages into which were crammed those who had died on the Titanic. The people were still wet and shocked from their experience. On the curved wall of the station, a film was being projected. It showed the sinking of the ship, the great stern now beginning its final death slide into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.
Lewis was back on the ship. The water washed around him, bitterly cold, biting into every part of him. He thought his body would shut down, it was so cold. The woman and child still held onto him. He tried to pull himself free. He was being sucked under. He couldn’t breathe. His nose and mouth were blocked. He was gasping.
‘Lewis! Lewis!’
He felt arms around him. The woman with the child was trying to pinion him. But no, suddenly now he was warm. He opened his eyes.
He was sitting up in bed, his pyjama jacket cold and stuck to him with sweat. The room was in darkness but some starlight came in through the open window and curtains. Helen sat opposite him in her nightgown, her hair untidy. She held him by the upper arms.
‘You were having a nightmare,’ she said.
As his eyes adjusted, he saw that she was frowning, her eyes intense, lips parted slightly. She lowered her hands to her lap.
‘I was,’ he said weakly. ‘I dreamt I was on the Titanic – and it was going down. I was in the water and I was suffocating.’
‘How awful,’ she said. ‘I wonder where that came from.’
‘I was reading in the paper yesterday about a gas attack somewhere in France. I think it may have been that. You know – gas, suffocation. I’m afraid, Helen. I don’t want to go.’
‘Oh, my poor boy,’ she said. ‘Come here.’
She pulled him towards her, moved closer and held him. He could feel her breasts pressing against him. She smelt of sleep. She stroked his hair and rocked him gently. She held him for what seemed like ages. He didn’t want it to end. Eventually, she lay him down as one would a child. She pulled the bedclothes up under his chin and then continued to sit there, her hands in her lap. She was still there when he drifted off to sleep.
It was late when he woke the next morning. Sunlight poured through the window and the air outside was alive with birdsong. He dressed and went out on the landing. Her bedroom door and window were open and he could hear her doing her usual mixture of humming and singing downstairs. He came down the stairs. She was at the table mixing what looked to be bread or a cake in a bowl.
‘Hello Lewis,’ she said, brightly. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Better. I fell back into a deep sleep. I’m really sorry about last night.’
A look of tenderness came on her face.
‘Don’t be silly. You’ve nothing to be sorry about. What you’re facing into – it’s awful, horrible. If it was me I’d be scared out of my wits.’
‘I know I said last night that I didn’t want to go, but I have to, of course.’
She nodded.
‘I’ll make us some tea.’
He pulled a chair out and sat down at the table.
‘I feel cursed,’ he said. ‘Maybe my whole generation is. That we have to go and do this. Why us?’
He joined his hands on the table as though praying.
‘With you —’ he said, looking down at the table.
He paused and then looked up. She was holding the kettle and had turned to look at him.
‘I don’t know if this sounds stupid or strange but – with you – I feel like I’ve got a mother again; that she’s been given back to me. And now, just when this happens, it’s all about to be snatched away again.’
Helen put the kettle on the range to boil. She came over and sat at the table opposite him.
‘We’re so happy here,’ he went on. ‘What should happen now is that I should find a job or go to university or something and that we would live close by one another and be able to meet like this. It’s not fair. This War isn’t fair.’
She reached across the table, took his hands and looked into his eyes.
‘I don’t think anyone ever said anything about life being fair. But you’re right – what you and your generation have been asked to do is appalling, unspeakable, unjust. If you were my son, I think I’d be telling you not to go. To become a conscientious objector.’
Lewis shook his head. He tried to speak but thought he might burst into tears if he did. She squeezed his hands.
‘I know. I know you wouldn’t. You’re in a position where you’ve got no other real choice. And there’s nothing I can say, there’s nothing anyone can do to make that easier for you. All I can suggest is that you try to put it out of your mind for now. Yes, continue your training and get fit. But let’s enjoy the rest of our time together. Who knows what will happen? Maybe the War will end. And you should start thinking too of what you want to do when it’s over. Be positive. You’re going to come back. You know you are. So make plans for that.’
Later he went out for a run. He went further than he had ever gone before – he reckoned it was about five miles. The last mile was tough – especially in the heat and on the uphills – but he pushed on. Endurance would be something he would need in abundance from now on. By the time he got back the dark cloud that had been hanging over him had lifted; he had managed to push November to the back of his mind. She was right. There was no point in thinking about things that might never come to pass. If something was going to happen to him, all the worrying in the world wasn’t going to change that. And supposing nothing did? Then he would have a future. She was right about that too. He needed to start thinking about what he would do when he got out of the Army. He just knew one thing for certain. Now that she was in his life, he didn’t want to lose her. He wanted to be near her. Maybe they could live together if he did go to university. It’s not like she had any roots here in Cornwall. They could go anywhere that they both decided to go. Other people might wonder about their relationship but he didn’t care. If he was going to live through a war, that would be the least of his concerns if he survived.
When he got back from the run, Helen had washed her hair and was sitting outside in the sunshine, brushing it as it dried.
‘Would you like me to brush it for you?’ he asked on an impulse.
She looked surprised but said, ‘That would be nice.’
She straightened up in the chair, hitched up the towel that was draped over her shoulders and handed him the brush. He stood behind her and began to pull it in long, slow strokes through her hair. She tilted her face up to the sun. Even though he couldn’t see them, he knew that she had closed her eyes. He continued to stroke with the brush and occasionally, she made low, purring-with-satisfaction kinds of noises.
‘That’s lovely,’ she said, dreamily.
‘You look so much younger than thirty six,’ he said.
‘Flattery, flattery, flattery.’
‘No, it’s true. I really mean it.’
In bed that night, he thought about her. She was thirty six, nineteen years older than him. She was old enough to be his mother. When she would be forty, he would be twenty one. When she was fifty, he would be thirty one. But she looked and acted a lot younger. And if he went to war and came back safely – say, next year – he wouldn’t be a normal nineteen year old with no experience of the world. He would have been in a war, for heaven’s sake.
He imagined them living together and sharing the same bed. He saw himself undressing her. Undoing her skirt so that she stepped out of it. Then unbuttoning her blouse. Taking down her stockings. He had seen her underwear on the clothes line. Bodices and knickers and one or two things that she called brassieres. He would unbutton the bodice slowly unveiling her breasts – and finally, he would kneel down in front of the goddess that she was, kiss her groin through the fabric and then take down her knickers. They would make love and after that drift off to sleep, warm and all cuddled up together and wrapped around each other and naked.
/> The next day Helen cycled into town to do some shopping while Lewis weeded the small vegetable patch that she had created. Once she had gone, he went to the back door, took off his boots and socks and went inside in his bare feet. He washed his hands at the sink and went upstairs. He stood in the doorway of her room. The bed was made and everything tidied away, except for her bottles and jars and a hairbrush which lay on the dressing table. The temple of the goddess.
He went inside. There was a faint smell of perfume. He looked at the labels on the bottles. ‘Shem-el-Nessim’, one of them said, along with a picture of a beautiful woman dressed for a harem. Helen in a harem. There was a thought for later. Outside the birds twittered. In the distance he heard a dog barking and a seagull shrieked. He went to the chest of drawers and opened the top drawer of three. It contained stockings, mainly white but also a couple of black pairs, each pair wrapped around each other in a ball. He took a white pair, separated them and stretched one between his hands. It was as insubstantial as air. How was it possible to make something so delicate? He stroked it against his cheek. He had shaved the previous day – he needed to every two or three days now – and the fabric was like the whisper of the wind against his skin. He held the stocking across his eyes like a blindfold. Everything was filmy, gauzy. She wore these on her legs. On her thighs. He smelt them and wondered if the smell was of her. He replaced the stockings carefully and took a black pair. Again he unrolled the ball and stretched a stocking. Holding it to his lips he kissed it, near to the top. The white ones spoke of summer and wine and tennis; the black ones were secret. Intimate. He replaced the stockings and closed the drawer.
The second drawer contained the bodices – buttons, ribbon, frills, bows, clips to hold the stockings – a froth of white. He inspected the clips. So simple yet so clever. The garments were shaped to her body. He took out a brassiere. She had tucked one cup into the other and the straps lay in the hollow of the cup. He pictured the wide straps straining around her sides, the narrow ones over her shoulders and down her back. The clasp where it all came together on her spine. To lay his head upon her breasts. To touch them. To hold them in his hands as though weighing them. To kiss them.
In the third drawer were the knickers. Again all white. The most sacred garments. He took a pair out and held them up by the waistband. He saw the curve of her body at the front and imagined the twin rounds of her buttocks at the back. He looked at the gusset from the outside and then from the inside. The fabric was different here – slightly thicker, wool unlike the rest of the material which was some kind of silky thing. Maybe it was silk. This was where the centre of her rested. The place where he had come from. Where everybody came from. But also the centre of her pleasure. He stroked the fabric against his cheek. He buried his face in the material but there was only the smell of clean washing, dried in the sun. He kissed it, letting his lips linger. He breathed her name.
‘Helen. Darling Helen.’
Then he carefully replaced it. The rite of adoration, the ritual of worship was over.
33
They were in the kitchen. The day was fine and Lewis pushed up the window over the sink. Behind him he heard Helen say, ‘I’ve been dreading to ask this, Lewis but when are you planning to go back to London?’
‘The end of October,’ he said, turning round. ‘That was what I originally agreed with my dad.’
She said nothing and the silence between them lengthened.
‘I suppose I could delay it,’ he said. ‘I’m not actually eighteen until the tenth of November. So maybe there’s no need for me to be back there until say, a week before. ‘I’ll write and ask Dad. See what he says.’
‘Would you like to stay longer?’ she asked.
‘You know I would. There’s nothing I’d like more.’
Later that afternoon, Helen said that she needed to go into town as she had to get some things.
‘I’ll get them for you,’ said Lewis.
She shook her head.
‘No, I’ll go. They’re woman things.’
He blushed. She smiled.
‘Won’t be long,’ she said. ‘Have the kettle on when I come back. I’ll get some cakes.’
Lewis filled the kettle – he would put it on in a while – and laid the table. Some time later she returned. She went to the kitchen table and began to unload what she had bought.
‘I bought scones,’ she said, ‘and some other cakes. The bakery was selling them off cheap to get rid of them before they closed. I’ve got clotted cream, there’s jam in the cupboard so I think we shall have a Cornish cream tea.’
‘You’re so good at this,’ he said.
‘Good at what?’ she asked, turning round.
‘I don’t know what you’d call it. Providing, I suppose. You always buy such nice things. And cook such nice things.’
‘Why, that’s a lovely thing to say, Lewis. Thank you.’
‘You do,’ he said. And then added, ‘I’ll make the tea.’
‘Food’s important,’ she said, as she returned to her unpacking. ‘It’s life, isn’t it?’
He took the kettle off the range and poured some of the boiled water into the teapot to warm it. He put the lid on and swilled the water around in it. He was about to pour it down the sink when something occurred to him that he wanted to say to her. He turned and, as he did so, he saw a shadow pass the window to which Helen had her back.
‘Oh, we’ve got a visitor,’ he said with some surprise.
They had hardly had anyone call while he had been here.
‘I wonder who it is,’ he said, putting down the teapot and going to the back door. Just then there was a firm knock on it. Lewis got to the door and opened it.
The man who stood there was tall, well-built with ruddy cheeks and a small grey-brown moustache. His dark suit looked like it was his best one and Lewis thought he looked very overdressed for a day that was still warm and sunny. The man took off his hat and there was sweat glistening on his forehead and upper lip. Underneath the hat the man was bald with just the finest fringe of grey hair above his ears and a tuft on top at the front. He held the hat in his hands and had a confident air about him, like he was used to calling at doors.
‘Good evening, sir. I was looking for a Mrs Helen Goddard and hoped I might have the right address.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lewis, ‘there’s no Mrs Goddard here. Maybe she was a previous tenant,’ he suggested helpfully.
The stranger hesitated a moment.
‘What about a Mrs Helen Hope, then?’
After that a few things happened together. Lewis heard Helen calling from the kitchen, ‘Who is it Lewis?’ He thought her voice sounded high and strange. Simultaneously, Lewis realised that this must be Helen’s husband, despite the civilian clothes. Lewis went to close the door but found that it wouldn’t close. For a second he couldn’t understand why but then he looked down to see that the stranger’s well-polished black shoe was wedged against the bottom of the door. By then Lewis heard Helen behind him in the little porch. He half-turned and saw that she was standing there with her hands hanging down by her sides.
‘Hello, Helen,’ said the stranger, in a voice that Lewis thought, sounded warm and friendly.
‘Hello, Bill,’ she said.
It seemed as though everyone had become frozen. Nobody moved. The colour was gone from Helen’s face and Lewis thought she gave the impression of being ill. He looked at her for some sign or guidance as to what he should do.
‘May I come in, Helen?’ the man she had called Bill asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, of course. Come in.’
Lewis released the pressure on the door and Bill stepped in past Lewis.
‘Come through to the kitchen,’ said Helen, turning.
Bill followed her with Lewis bringing up the rear. By the time he got into the room, Helen seemed to have composed herself somewhat.
‘Would you like some tea?’
‘That’d be nice. It was a long journ
ey down here.’
‘And I’m sorry,’ he said, turning to Lewis. ‘We haven’t been introduced. Bill Goddard. Detective Inspector Bill Goddard.’
He reached out a hand. Lewis took it. It was a worker’s hand, not calloused exactly but sandpapery. They shook hands.
‘Bill is my brother-in-law,’ said Helen.
Then she added, ‘Lewis is my lodger.’
The lady doth protest too much, thought Lewis. He saw that she was blushing.
‘Ah,’ said Bill.
He let the sound hang in the air before adding, ‘This is a nice little place you’ve got here, Helen.’
If he’d said ‘love nest’ the remark couldn’t have sounded more suggestive.
‘Though nothing in comparison to home, eh?’
‘Sit down, Bill,’ she said.
‘I’ll make the tea,’ offered Lewis, taking a step towards the sink.
‘Lewis,’ said Helen. ‘I need to speak with Bill privately. Would you mind leaving us alone for a little while?’
If Lewis was about to protest, he thought better of it. Or maybe he couldn’t think of anything else to say or do. He nodded and went out of the room, leaving them together. As he pulled the door shut he held it for a moment and looked back in at Helen. Her eyes met his but there was only blankness there.
Lewis stood in the little porch for a moment, uncertain what to do. Then he went as loudly as he could out through the back door, shutting it behind him. He hesitated a moment or two more and then tiptoed round to the side of the house where the window was open. He paused just before the window and listened. He had missed the beginning of the conversation.
Starlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 1) Page 17
