All the Beauty of the Sun

by Marion Husband

  ‘Daddy says I can’t.’

  A feeling that someone had collided violently into him, sending him spinning, made him stop, and this was ridiculous and melodramatic’ stopping so suddenly like this as if he had forgotten something and was about to run back for it. Bobby was looking up at him, small, impassive, tired; he shouldn’t have to bother with this strange man who didn’t talk and then talked too much and asked him silly questions and stopped dead as though someone had brained him. Paul was still holding Bobby’s hand. He looked down at him. He wouldn’t have recognised him; he had always imagined a one-year-old baby, as he was on the evening he walked out … He walked out … On the evening he walked out to Thorp Park … to Thorp Park where there was a place …

  ‘Paul!’

  He spun round, automatically lifting Bobby into his arms. He was no weight, slight and small just as he himself had been as a child. He held him tightly.

  ‘Paul?’ Edmund frowned at him. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘This is not right! None of this is right –’

  Edmund said, ‘No, I know, I understand, I understand, Paul …’

  As Paul paced his hotel room, Edmund watched helplessly from the door he had closed behind him; he’d taken no more than a step inside; he still held the door’s handle, as though this might reassure Paul that he would leave at any moment if he wanted him to. Paul stopped and turned to face him; he looked as if he was about to spring on him and tear him to pieces.

  ‘He’s my son! Mine! And I’m to pretend, pretend –’ He looked up to the ceiling. A few minutes earlier Paul had taken the child up to the next floor where Paul’s father waited for him. Paul had told Edmund to stay there, outside his room, his voice like that of an extremely angry teacher who was just about controlling his temper. And he had stayed there, like a schoolboy, with the same sick fear he used to have waiting outside the headmaster’s study for the cane.

  In Paul’s room, Edmund dared to step a little closer to where Paul stood staring at the ceiling. ‘Paul … Go up to him now. I’ll leave – or I’ll stay if you want me to, whatever you want.’

  ‘I pretended to be someone else! A stranger – I am a stranger, a stranger keeping a secret, hardly able to speak for giving it away. He must think I’m wrong in the head –’

  ‘He’s just a little boy, Paul, he doesn’t think anything.’

  He looked at him. Quietly, as if afraid to be overheard, he said, ‘They told him I was dead. I am dead. I’m dead. What can I say to him? What? What do dead men say?’

  Paul sat down on the bed. Sullenly he said, ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’

  ‘No, I’m sorry –’

  He sprang up again. ‘Christ Almighty! Why don’t you smoke properly – messing about, taking or leaving it! Why smoke at all? Useless –’ He pushed past him, out of the room and down the stairs.

  Edmund followed, catching up with him on the street outside. ‘Paul,’ he caught his arm. ‘Wait, you’ll need this.’ He handed him his wallet.

  Paul took it, shoving it in his pocket without looking at him. ‘Did you bring my key as well?’

  ‘No, sorry.’

  ‘Then I’m locked out.’

  ‘They’ll let you back in.’

  ‘Will they? Sure about that?’ He met his gaze. ‘I need cigarettes. Where’s closest?’

  ‘I’ll take you.’

  There had been a shop close by; Paul thought how he could have walked there alone, without a guide, and he would have tried to buy cigarettes, searching his pockets for his wallet, having to go back to the hotel, back through the lobby with the receptionist watching him avidly, back up the stairs, afraid of bumping into his father, or her, his ex-mother-in-law, a woman who looked at him as if he was something not right. But Edmund had saved him from all that, bringing his wallet, even though he had shouted at him as though he was some bloody snivelling kid of a second lieutenant, fresh off the boat. Edmund had saved him and in the tobacconist’s shop Edmund had even asked the man for the right brand, even asked for matches because he couldn’t speak for himself he was so angry and Edmund seemed to understand this, and on the street he opened the pack and took one out and lit it and handed it to him. ‘There,’ he said. There.

  ‘I can’t go back to the hotel.’

  Edmund had nodded, ‘All right. Come back with me.’

  Paul lay on Edmund’s bed, fully clothed apart from his jacket and shoes. Edmund sat on the chair, talking about a cricket match he had once played at school, quite a grand school where he was a better bowler than a batsman, and anyway, he had bowled five of them out … And this story went on, and he found it easy to drop in and out of it, listening to the musical sound of Edmund’s voice, light and easy and confident. He had a sister, Caroline; another sister, Diana; a brother Rupert – in the Household Guards, who thought he was the bee’s knees in his uniform, apparently. Edmund talked about how Rupert was the eldest and he only the baby of the family … The baby, the youngest, he might have guessed.

  He listened to him and smoked and smoked and Edmund got up and opened the window and he could hear the traffic on the street outside, feel the breeze that smelt of exhaust, of people going about their lives, and the breeze made his cigarette taste different, worse. Upstairs a baby cried; a woman called out; a door slammed. Edmund talked on; he made school sound as though it was only last week, that cricket-match tea with its egg-and-cress sandwiches and sultana cake, all its who said what to whom, that sunny cloudless day only last week so that he knew how young Edmund was, the youngest, the baby, whose father was a doctor, like his, but so much more grand, Harley Street, treating dukes but still as useless as any doctor, although he didn’t tell Edmund what he thought of bloody doctors. He only smoked, and Edmund seemed so proud of his family, and of his father; he loved them as he should.

  He thought Edmund wouldn’t run out of words: he was so confident, light and breezy, he would go on and on, but he trailed off, stopped. Paul noticed that the plate-cum-ashtray beside him was full, the pack of cigarettes Edmund had bought half empty. He noticed that Edmund was gazing at him, that look he had. It was a look he must surely only use on him because it was so strange, no one else would be able to bear it; they would think Edmund was mad and no one seemed to think this, not his family who loved him, or the boys at his school, in his cricket team. It seemed everyone adored him and always had.

  At last Edmund said, ‘I had another brother. Neville. He was killed. First of July, 1916.’

  Paul closed his eyes. Robbie had been there that day, and Patrick, and Patrick’s brother, and Matthew, and it had been Matthew’s birthday: happy birthday. He wouldn’t tell Edmund this; he didn’t want to take the focus away from this Neville by mentioning so many others, all of his platoon in fact, most of his regiment. He didn’t want to mention that he should have been there but wasn’t. He was on a beach in Dorset, fucking a sweet-faced second lieutenant; a second lieutenant just like him, gassed like him, recovering like him; recovering in the sand dunes, hidden by the sharp sea grass, grass that could cut paper-thin cuts, salt-stinging wounds, nothing, worth it for the chance to be obliterated by sex for a little while. But it seemed they could hear the guns like distant thunder rumbling relentlessly, doggedly, across the sea, and George was frightened, as he was, and they’d clung together. George Atkins – that was the second lieutenant’s name. George. Christ, he’d almost said, I wish you hadn’t told me your name, George. I do wish you’d kept your mouth shut on the introductions.

  ‘Paul?’

  He opened his eyes; he had forgotten Edmund, and that was inexcusable. ‘I’m sorry, Edmund. I’m sorry for your loss.’

  Edmund had stood up; he took the cigarette from his fingers and stubbed it out, putting the plate-cum-ashtray on the floor. Paul thought he would go on talking, lie down beside him perhaps, but go on talking about his brother, telling him everything. But his face had become like that of all the officers he had ever known; men who had snubbed him, men he couldn’t be b
rave enough for, no matter what he did, because they saw what he was and nothing mattered compared with that.

  Paul found himself gazing at him. Edmund’s transformation was horrible but it was only what he expected, he shouldn’t be stunned, he shouldn’t feel as stunned as this by an expression of such commonplace disgust; besides, he deserved it: hadn’t he been remembering George Atkins? Edmund must have seen into his thoughts; he must think him worse than disgusting to think of such a thing as he was sharing his grief so diffidently.

  Ashamed, he made to get up; he would go, of course, he had to go now. Only Bobby mattered anyway; and yet he couldn’t face his son, which was why he was here, on a near-stranger’s bed that smelled of sex, the sheets stained with him, with them both; how could he see Bobby again when he was such a man, how could he face anyone ever again? He gasped for breath and covered his face with his hands. He thought it might be possible to die of shame as Edmund lay down and with wordless resignation pulled him into his arms.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  ON THE TRAIN TO Victoria, Patrick stared out of the window and thought that he would never return to England again; this was the end of it. He thought of the station guard at Canterbury, where he had changed trains, who had stared at him with such hostility, muttering wog as he walked past him. Pasty-faced little bastard.

  Patrick stared at his reflection in the train window. Who would have thought he could look like anyone other than an Englishman? Who would have thought he could pass for a wog as he stood on the platform of a provincial station? Catholic, queer and now this; what a good joke. If Matthew had been well he would have shared the joke; Matt would have laughed. If Matthew had been well he wouldn’t have been on that station; he would have been in Soho, where no doubt wogs like him were so common as to be unremarkable.

  The train stopped and more passengers boarded carriages that were already full, so that they stood in the corridors, trying to keep a little distance from each other, bags strategically placed. Patrick had given up his seat two stops ago to a bone-thin girl and her baby. She had smiled at him gratefully, wearily, as her child grizzled and worried at the buttons on her cheap coat. They all looked so ill, Patrick thought, pale and exhausted; their hair greasy rat-tails that the women valiantly tried to style, a losing battle in the damp air. The sun had shone for them today, though; some were burnt red, sore-looking, some even a gentle shade of brown, not so dark as him, more like honey, sweet like honey, too: he had forgotten how unwashed his countrymen were.

  How could Paul miss this country? He knew he did miss it, although he never told him so. And it wasn’t just his family he missed – his father and his son. He actually missed England. He supposed exiles did miss home more than those who had made a choice to leave.

  He was tired, he would like to sit down, lie down, close his eyes; he should have travelled first class, as Paul would have: officer class – Paul had always had a certain sense of class. ‘I’ll call you sir if you like, you arrogant little get,’ he had shouted at Paul once: a kind of truth that would surface during an argument. Sir. Sir, would you care to stop being a wanker and come home? Because I’ve come to fetch you, sir. Surprise.

  Patrick leaned more heavily against the train window and closed his eyes; perhaps he could sleep on his feet, as he used to; he used to be able to sleep anywhere, in a shallow dip in the side of a trench, curled up in his greatcoat, ignoring the grunt and whisper of other men’s voices, their snores and farts, ignoring the cold and discomfort, trying to at least, trying to think of something else: hot sausages and mashed potato, a clean, warm bed; trying not to think too much about the young lieutenant Paul Harris who could never look him in the eye but looked to his side, past him, away from him: Thank you, sergeant, that will be all.

  Little Nancy, the men called Paul: tough little Nancy though, like he would kick your teeth down your throat if you looked at him sideways, raise his pistol and shoot you in the head if you didn’t carry out his order at once: jump to, man, jump to. Jump to. Paul used to say that a lot, shout that a lot. Get your bloody heads down! Keep your bloody heads down, holding his watch, eyes fixed on its face, his other hand raised, waiting to fall when the time came, the signal to scramble up the ladders, Paul first, or sometimes last, making sure there were no stragglers. No one would dare to straggle when Paul was around. Lieutenant Harris aiming his pistol at you meant business. Jump to, man, jump to. The men respected him – they knew where they were with him, there was respect for his fairness, his willingness to lead, despite the dirty-queer jokes they made behind his back.

  Curled up in a hollow in a trench, Patrick would try not to think about those jokes. It was difficult enough loving Paul as he did without all that filthy rubbish. Difficult! Easy, really, because Paul never looked at him, never spoke to him unless he had to, quick and to the point, looking to one side, away, as though he couldn’t stand the sight of him; easy to love someone so secretly without the loved one’s acknowledgement.

  ‘I actually wanted to throw myself on your body,’ Paul had told him years later. He didn’t believe him; it couldn’t be true, they were both too exhausted, too bowed by responsibility, too scared too often, too cold and hungry and miserable to care about sex. At least he was. He only loved Paul, and it was a soft and sentimental feeling; he only wanted to protect him, to comfort him, keep him alive. Paul was the most beautiful man he had ever seen, and kind and tender when a man was sick to death: St Paul then, touchy little sod, beautiful and mad and foul-mouthed and up for it, always, always. Always up for a fight, for a fuck, always, always. I actually wanted to throw myself on your body. Perhaps it was true.

  The train’s motion was rocking him to sleep – he hadn’t lost his old knack of sleeping anywhere, after all. He remembered sleeping on ferries in storms, too sick even to care about staying awake for fear of drowning. He had slept on trains that sped across Belgium and France, fast and straight as the French poplar-lined roads he had marched down on blistered feet. Marching, marching, either scorched by the sun or soaked by the rain, men to his side, men behind, men to the front; men staggering, out of step, look lively, keep up! It’s a long, long way – fuck that, fuck the singing, just keep on, not thinking, not thinking, make the pain in your feet all that matters, the whole world, no past, no future, just a pair of feet bleeding into your boots.

  Pat opened his eyes; he wouldn’t think of this. He would think of the train in Italy, the wine, bread and tomatoes they had bought when the train stopped, passed to them through the windows from the vendors with their baskets, their quick smiling hands and faces coming at them through the windows. Signori! Signori! The smell of that bread, flat as a pebble, warm and delicious; the tomatoes that were so sweet, bursting pips on to his shirt, the wine so rough it made Paul splutter. And the train that was nothing like this one but rickety, more wooden, like a toy, rattling through the olive groves, slow as you liked. And Paul slept against him, his head on his shoulder, hardly able to talk to him.

  Months passed before Paul could talk to him. Months of travelling from Durham gaol through Europe because it had seemed to him that they had to have this time as travellers, homeless, country-less; time for Paul to become used to him again away from any idea of being settled, pinned down to a life Patrick was so afraid he may not want.

  From the prison gates they travelled through England, boarding a ferry to cross the sea to France, a country they couldn’t escape fast enough. Then down more slowly through Switzerland, slower through Italy. And at the end of Italy, at the very toe of the Italian boot, they took another ferry to Sicily and it had seemed to Paul like the end of the world: he’d told him so on a Sicilian beach: I have nothing left to live for. You have me. Paul had nodded, pressing the heels of his hands hard into his eyes as if he could squeeze out the few tears he had left. All right, Paul said eventually, dropping his hands from his eyes to look at him, pitifully brave. All right.

  Finally he took Paul to the life he’d made in Tangiers, the life he
’d first escaped to when Paul had decided he must at least try to be honourable towards his wife, try to be faithful, to be ordinary as he put it. Ordinary. Patrick had even imagined he’d understood. He had imagined Paul could live this ordinary life.

  He had imagined this for a few weeks, long enough for him to leave England and travel to the place he had an idea of, a tolerant and cosmopolitan place where he could be ordinary in his way. Only then, after those few weeks, did he realise that Paul had merely been testing him and he should have stayed until Paul realised this, too. Paul would have realised that he could live with his wife and still have him, it would be fine, fine … He would have stopped Paul walking out one dark evening. He would have stopped him following that stranger; he would have pulled him back. He imagined his anger as he dragged Paul away from that place; but his anger would have been tempered by the knowledge that Paul had to go there: there could never be enough sex for Paul, there never had been enough, and there never would be enough.

  A man edged past him in the train’s corridor saying, ‘Sorry, mate, sorry.’

  Patrick pressed himself against the window, trying to take up as little space as possible. He was a big man; there were times when other men looked at him fearfully, looked at him slyly, sizing him up: big bastard – looking for trouble. Well, he was in the right place for trouble: England with all its pettiness and snobbery and its You have committed an offence that is debauched in the extreme and must be dealt with accordingly, properly and severely. Two years hard labour. Take him down.

  He remembered standing up in the public gallery, shouting, ‘No! No – that’s not right!’ Not right, not just. ‘Do you call that justice?’ Paul’s father had shouted. Paul’s father, George, who had wept, who wouldn’t allow him to speak even when he tried to tell him that Paul would survive, that he was tough, the toughest little Nancy in the world.