All the Beauty of the Sun

Home > Other > All the Beauty of the Sun > Page 13
All the Beauty of the Sun Page 13

by Marion Husband


  ‘No. Yes, sometimes …’ He sipped his coffee, aware of the other man watching him as though he wondered how likely he was to flake out. He supposed he looked nervous: jumpy, fey probably, through lack of sleep, through an excess of guilt and worry. He took another sip of the coffee, hoping it would buck him up, hoping that this man was not just remorselessly business-like but someone he could like. He felt that they would have got on all right during the war, as he had got on with other men like Lawrence Hawker: straight and easy going, jolly-good-show men. But that was unfair; it was obvious Hawker wasn’t that kind of fool.

  Lawrence lit a cigarette and pushed the box over to him. He took one gratefully. Blowing smoke down his nose, Lawrence leaned back even further in his chair, tilting on its back legs. ‘So. What are you working on at the moment?’

  Paul thought of his studio at home, the canvases turned to the wall, all his paintbrushes cleaned, all neat and tidy for his return. He had closed the shutters and the trapped air would become staler because Patrick wouldn’t even open the door on this tidiness; he never intruded, never asked the impertinent question that Hawker had just asked. And if Patrick did ask – he never would, thank God, but if he did, he would answer, ‘Nothing! For Christ’s sake, why don’t you just leave it? It’s all nothing, all right?’ No. He wouldn’t say that, not even to Pat.

  Hawker frowned at him. ‘Are you quite all right?’

  ‘Sorry.’ He exhaled. ‘I’m thinking about a series of portraits.’

  ‘Oh?’ Hawker looked encouraged.

  ‘Some of the traders in the market close to where we live.’

  ‘Oh.’ He looked less encouraged. He tapped his fingers against his mouth thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps not very decorative … Still, neither is a bombed landscape...’ He frowned at him. ‘Would they sit for you, those people? It’s against their religion, isn’t it? Or rather you are – you’re against their religion.’

  Paul thought of Matthew, shouting biblical verses at him on that terrible walk back to the hospital. His rant filled his head still, skewering his thoughts, his actions, until it seemed that everything he touched, everything he laid eyes on was made wrong by him, even Edmund. Since he’d returned from visiting Matthew he couldn’t look at Edmund without knowing he had debauched him. He had begun to feel as though he had ruined the boy’s life. But hadn’t his own life been ruined? Why shouldn’t he do some ruining? He flicked cigarette ash into the ashtray on Hawker’s desk. The man smiled at him as though he hadn’t been insolent at all.

  Lawrence got up and went to the barred window. ‘You know, I’ve rather been thinking that perhaps I could do something out here – make more of it in some way. It’s very sheltered, gets all the sun – obviously not as much as you get back in Tangiers. I feel obsessed with the sun at the moment, too much winter. If I whitewashed the walls … Perhaps if I put a glass roof on it … In the summer it could be an extension of the gallery – it’s such a small space, I need more space …’ He turned to grin at him. ‘More of your work, if you’ll let me have it. Paint what you must, of course, you will anyway.’

  Paul got up and stood beside him. The window looked out on to a yard. An elder bush grew in a corner, soon to blossom into the lacy white flowers that would turn into clots of black berries, weighing the branches down. Dandelions grew from the cracks in the paving stones; along the top of the walls someone had concreted shards of broken glass – green, brown, clear – a random, striking effect, like the upright quills of an exotic bird. He could see the yard would trap the sun; the imprisoned sun would make the glass glint and the window’s metal bars would send their shadows across the walls of this little room as the day wore on. At once he was back in his prison cell, a space that captured the noon sun like this. Sundays at noon he would lie on his bunk and watch the sun make shadows of the bars; Sunday afternoons and he would have time to crouch in the shell hole beside Jenkins, cradling his body in his arms, ineffectually wiping the blood from his face; he should have closed Jenkins’ eyes, that’s what he should have done. Lying in his cell he’d imagine slapping his palm to his forehead in exasperation at the obviousness of this revelation because exasperation made him feel as though he could lose himself in a harmless, meandering derangement. But there was too much comfort in such behaviour, he needed to be harder on himself and be truthful; he needed to remember his spite and lack of patience and pity, his childish, wanton rage at Jenkins, who was a coward, a cry baby, but still he shouldn’t have killed him. And truly he shouldn’t think of Jenkins as anything other than a fellow officer, scared as he was scared, because this was the truth and it wasn’t enough to be able to watch the shadows like this, safe in a sunny cell; there should be some harsher retribution.

  Paul sat down. His legs were trembling; he clasped his hands together to disguise their shaking, proper shaking now, not just the ordinary tremor Lawrence had noticed earlier, but the proper shaking memories of Jenkins. Aware that Lawrence was watching him intently, he made himself look up.

  ‘All right?’ Lawrence’s voice was sharp with impatience.

  ‘Yes. Sorry.’

  ‘Do you need to put your head between your knees or something?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Perhaps you should try harder to get a decent night’s sleep.’ Lawrence sat down and his tone was even more abrupt as he said, ‘May I give you a piece of advice? That boy, Edmund. If you’ve dipped your wick that’s fine, I really don’t care what you do. But he’s a leech – and Christ –’ he laughed shortly ‘ – you do look as though he’s bled you.’

  Paul stood up to go. ‘Thank you for the advice.’

  ‘Oh sit down. Bugger for Britain, I don’t care, but he’s indiscreet and foolish.’ He snorted. ‘You people really are led by your dicks, aren’t you?’

  Paul sat down. ‘I’m sorry – I thought you were pretending not to care. But now I’m not sure of the ground. Do you still want my work or is who I fuck too much of an obstacle?’

  ‘I don’t care. I thought I should warn you, that’s all. The police throw out their nets occasionally.’ Becoming more animated he went on, ‘All right, listen – just so you’re sure of your ground – I’m not good at coping around men like you, and by men like you I mean the shaking, the sudden … I don’t know – starts? And if you are going to throw yourself under the desk and cover your head with your arms I can’t help feeling that I might dive under there with you from sheer funk. You make me nervous. There you are. This honestly has nothing to do with the other thing. Who you fuck.’ He glanced away as though the profanity embarrassed him. Clearing his throat he said, ‘Not much, anyway, if we’re being frank. And I’m sorry but I’ve really made an effort to put the war in a box, if you understand me, and I can’t help thinking that you could too, if you tried … Sorry.’ He attempted to laugh. ‘Stiff upper lip, and all that. It’s not all bollocks, you know, what they taught us.’

  Paul felt his fingers go to his eye and he stopped himself. He had an idea that he should sit on his hands. His face began to twitch. He cleared his throat. ‘You’re right, of course. I do understand you.’

  ‘Do you? Because sometimes I think I’m being an arsehole. That I’m being too harsh, you know? And I know you lost your eye – that must have been bloody hell …’ He groaned. ‘Jesus. From biscuits to this. What a pair we are.’ Lawrence stood up. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.’

  Lawrence was laughing, hardly able to get the words out, saying, ‘… and this corporal, little face all serious as sin, says I’m very sorry, sir, I just cannot bring myself to eat it.’ Lawrence wiped the tears from his eyes, laughing so much that he fell against him. ‘Just cannot bring myself! He was vegetarian or something …’ He frowned at him with a drunk’s exaggerated concern. ‘Do you hate my guts?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I don’t hate queers, you know.’

  ‘No. I understand.’

  ‘You’re very understanding.’ He seemed to become aware of how he was slumpe
d against his shoulder because he made an effort to sit up straight. ‘I do hate some queers, but not because they’re queer. Well, I don’t know … Maybe that is the reason … Some of you buggers … Not you … I suppose there are types … Types who wouldn’t get past the recruiting sergeant … Am I making sense?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Have you stopped shaking?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good man! Keep buggering on, eh?’ He began to laugh again. ‘Well, no perhaps not in your case, what?’

  ‘What?’ Paul laughed at this affectation.

  ‘I know. Horrible, isn’t it? But then, you’re a prim little lower-middle-class boy with a grammar-school accent, so don’t let’s start on all that.’ He downed his Scotch and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Another?’

  Paul got up and went to the bar. He was more or less sober – one drink to Lawrence’s two, pacing himself, wanting to be in control. Lawrence barely noticed that he wasn’t matching him drink for drink. He drank a lot and often, Paul guessed, his way of buggering on, his war not held in a box but drowned in a bottle.

  The barmaid came out from the snug, wiping her hands on her apron, calling over her shoulder, ‘Oh, yes? That’ll be the day!’ not looking at him as she said, ‘Yes, sir, what can I get you?’

  Paul had the cowardly idea that he might simply turn and walk out. Ann still hadn’t seen him, she was looking past him to Lawrence, he saw how her expression softened; and then she turned to him and at once she was the hard-faced barmaid again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A Scotch, please.’

  ‘Single or double?’

  ‘Single, thank you.’

  ‘Anything else? To drink, I mean.’

  The landlord came over. ‘Everything all right, sir?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘Could I have a word, when you’ve finished serving the gentleman, Ann?’

  When he’d gone she said, ‘You’ve got me into trouble now.’

  ‘I don’t think so, do you?’

  Lawrence came over; he slapped Paul on the back and then draped his arm over his shoulder, leaning on him. ‘Hello, Ann, darling girl. This is Paul whom you’ve met. You’re being very slow with the drinks, old man. Or is it you, Ann? Are you the slow one?’

  She turned to Paul. ‘You shouldn’t have let him get so drunk.’

  ‘Did you let me, Paul?’ He frowned. ‘Christ. Were you meant to stop me?’

  Ann said, ‘Go home, Lawrence, you’ve had enough.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes. We don’t serve drunks.’

  ‘Yes you do. Anyway, you’re not serving me, you’re serving him, and he is mysteriously sober.’

  The landlord came back. ‘Hello, Lawrence. Maybe you should think about getting on your way now.’ To Paul he said, ‘Maybe you could see him home, sir.’

  ‘No! I think it’s appalling that you’re all ganging up on me. Fred – am I not your best customer?’

  Paul took his arm. ‘We should go.’

  The fresh air seemed to sober him a little. Outside the pub, Lawrence lit a cigarette, passing the open packet to him. Cupping a match to Paul’s cigarette, he said, ‘I don’t need a chaperone. Go back in there. Tell Ann you are very sorry that you took off with her sweetheart. Her lover. She’s quite a girl – she might even say not to worry – not to worry because he’s a bloody bleeder and you’re very, very welcome to him.’ He met his eye. ‘I am actually very grateful to you. I know I warned you off but it would be a relief if you took him away somewhere. Back to Tangiers, perhaps? He’d make a charming pet.’

  ‘Lawrence –’

  Passionately Lawrence blurted, ‘I can’t stand that she’s with him as well as me.’ He frowned at him. ‘My God. Now you look shocked. Are you shocked? I thought queers were unshockable, but look at you – you’re shocked.’ He laughed. ‘Oh, you are a little provincial, for all your airs. Or is it just the thought of cunt? Never mind. Won’t get into that again … I’m going home. I think you should go and apologise to Ann. It was very ungallant, what you did to her.’

  Ungallant; Paul thought so himself, of course. He had felt guilty about the girl, even when he was sitting next to her in that restaurant; he had known even then he would have Edmund.

  Have him. To have and to hold. He thought of the fifty years Edmund had talked of. From this day forward. In fifty years, he would be seventy-eight; he would be dead. ’Til death do us part. He thought of Edmund dressing, knotting his tie in front of the mirror in the hotel room, smoothing back his hair with both hands, catching his reflected eye, smiling. No one smiled at him like that. ‘You’re always smiling,’ he’d said.

  Edmund had brushed passed him, squeezing his hand briefly. ‘Ready?’

  Ready to go out into the damp spring air, to walk side by side to a little place Edmund knew. Greek. ‘They do a very weird thing with leaves.’

  Yes. He knew of stuffed vine leaves: koubebia. These were nothing like the ones he had eaten in Athens. And the lamb – he had such a hankering for lamb – was nothing like the lamb he ate at home. Nothing was as it should be and everything was as he remembered: the soft rain and washed-out sun; the belting rain and cold and skies the colour of iron bars, and the blossom everywhere, making a Japanese painting of almost every window, even the barred windows that looked out on to yards.

  He shouldn’t have remembered that window and the shadow bars but it was very easy to be back in his cell where he had concentrated all his memories by working on them so diligently. He could tune out the clatter and clangs of the prison, all its stinks, the stifling Augusts and the cold despair of Christmas, and revisit taking his pistol from its holder and pressing its barrel to Jenkins’ left temple. In his cell he could begin to see those things he hadn’t properly noticed at the time: how small Jenkins’ hands were, and soft like a child’s when he’d tried to rub some warmth into them, how clean Jenkins’ fingernails were compared with his own – his own hands were filthy compared with his, and too quick and furtive. He could see how shrouded the moon was and that there were no stars and no sound but the ringing in his ears from the single shot. One shot, not two – he began to doubt himself, perhaps he had shot him twice? No, he should think more carefully, remember exactly in careful detail the specifics: the clean, small hands and the missing button on Jenkins’ tunic and how, when he licked his parched lips, he tasted blood and thought he might have hurt himself, not thinking about this blood as clearly as he might.

  In his cell he would watch the sun move the bars across the wall and remember the smell of churned earth and muddy, stagnant water: hadn’t he sunk a little into this oozing quagmire, hadn’t he believed that it might claim him, although perhaps the mud had been too slow for that. And when the ringing inside his head stopped wasn’t the sound of his own breathing indecently loud, like that of a monster? A monster he couldn’t see, of course he couldn’t see himself, only his hands moving about Jenkins’ body, feeling for a heart beat … No, no need, only going through his pockets. Yes, he did that: he searched him for letters, for photographs, for cigarettes and matches, for something he could use or keep or throw away, he hardly knew what might be important, after all. He had an idea he would write to his mother; he also thought he might hand himself in and so evidence would be needed. He didn’t think he would get away with it.

  Outside the King’s Head, Paul pressed the heels of his hands hard into his eyes. He felt that his legs were about to buckle and he leaned against the pub wall. He imagined turning to face the wall, rolling his forehead against the brick, whimpering for Patrick; it took all his strength not to do this. But if he did Pat would hear him and run from the house and crouch beside him as he lay curled up beside the fountain in the courtyard. Patrick would stroke his back, his hair, murmuring, ‘I’m here now. I’m here.’ Where were you? A step away, that’s all, always close by. A letter hidden in his shoe or under his mattress; he could read his letters even in the dark of his cell, like
Braille. Patrick was always close by, and there waiting for him outside the prison gates like a vision, one he couldn’t trust, too astonishing to be true.

  He took a deep breath and stood up straight. He had survived, hadn’t he? All those memories of Jenkins, all that concentrating on the details of Jenkins – he had survived this self-inflicted punishment – not much to survive after all, but still, he was here. Wasn’t he strong now, even away from Patrick? He took a long drag on his cigarette. There now. Stiff upper lip, what? Not everything they had been taught was bollocks. He smiled. In fact he could laugh his head off at that one.

  He tossed his cigarette down; he wouldn’t light another from its stub; he was fine. He was fine. He wouldn’t think of Jenkins or Patrick; he wouldn’t think of Matthew and his ravings that had seemed like the true words of a prophet. He wouldn’t think of crouching in that trench, not caring at all that Jenkins was crying as he pressed his pistol to his head. He wouldn’t remember murdering Jenkins. He didn’t have to remember it any more, not ever again. In fact he would make a great effort not to think of the past at all.

  He thought of the barmaid, Ann, Edmund’s girl. Hawker was right, he should apologise: apologising would be a kind of penance, perhaps the kind of penance Matthew would give: abase yourself, pay for your sins in humiliation, be free of the guilt, at least the small amount of guilt he felt for what he had done to this girl. He thought of Edmund in her bed and his jealousy was quick and painful, an epiphany; he had never been jealous in his life before; he must love Edmund if he wanted him so wholly, so entirely for himself. He must love him, despite the filthy feeling Matthew’s words had left him with.

  Lighting another cigarette, he inhaled deeply and went back into the pub.

  Chapter Thirteen

  SHE WASN’T FAT, NOT really, not very; she was plump, perhaps. Iris frowned at her reflection; she knew that when she took off her corset there would be red weals on her skin, flesh that resembled pastry with that orange-peel effect above her private hair. Her pubic hair – she shouldn’t mince words, not even in her head, bad habit. She was not to be prissy. Besides, he was a doctor and had seen it all before.

 

‹ Prev