Toby's Room

by Pat Barker

  Kit was propped up on three pillows. The fact that he’d been allowed to stay in bed at all meant he must be quite seriously ill. She sat down beside the bed. There was plenty of time to look at him, because his eyes were closed; he seemed to be unaware of her presence.

  ‘Kit.’ She touched his hand. His skin was clammy; she was tempted to wipe her fingers clean on the sheet. Beads of sweat had gathered on his forehead and in the creases of his neck. Every breath rasped. She watched his chest rise and fall, rise and fall, pleading silently: Don’t die, you’re not allowed to die. Yet.

  He was muttering to himself. She’d leaned forward till she could feel each labouring breath on her face, but the words made very little sense. ‘Padre’ – she got that; and she was almost sure the next word was ‘precious’.

  ‘What’s precious?’ she asked.

  And then there was a flood of words. She made out ‘arsenic’, ‘bedbugs’, ‘beetroot’.

  Beetroot?

  ‘Don’t be too hard on them,’ he said, clearly.

  ‘Kit, I don’t understand.’

  He opened his eyes. ‘I’m so glad you could come,’ he said, in the fluting tones of Lady Bracknell welcoming guests to her garden party. A second later the muttering started again. There was something about baths and … fumigation, was it? Then, very clearly again, ‘Direct hit, sir. Four chickens dead.’

  He started to giggle, but then suddenly frowned and turned away. ‘Water.’

  He was trying to reach a jug on the other side of the bed. Elinor walked round, poured a glass and held it to his lips, feeling a queasy mixture of pity and revulsion as he drank. He seemed to be drifting off, but then, just as she felt she’d lost him altogether, he roused himself and saw her, probably for the first time.

  He said, coldly, ‘Oh, Elinor, it’s you.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Been travelling all day. Never seem to get anywhere, though. I think we’re going round in circles half the time.’

  Nothing after that. He was either unconscious or asleep. She went on sitting by the bed, a lump of disappointment stuck in the middle of her chest.

  ‘Elinor. It is Elinor, isn’t it?’

  She looked up. ‘Mrs Neville.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased you’ve come to see him.’

  They touched cheeks. ‘I work here now,’ Elinor said. That decision seemed to have been taken; she couldn’t remember when. ‘I wasn’t sure if he’d want visitors …’

  ‘No, well, he says he doesn’t, but I think it’s better for him to see people, don’t you?’

  Mrs Neville couldn’t take her eyes off Kit’s face. As soon as Elinor stepped to one side, she went and stood beside him, kissing his brow and stroking his cheek and chest. What must it be like to have your son reduced to this?

  ‘I’ve asked Catherine to come. She’s having supper with us tomorrow night. Such a nice girl …’

  Kit was tossing his head on the pillow. Perhaps he’d recognized his mother’s voice and was trying to wake up.

  ‘There but for the grace of God and all that bollocks.’

  The words slurred, became a river of sludge, and then, unexpectedly, two words: ‘Doc’ and, a second later, ‘Brooke’. Kit was working his mouth in a curious circular movement, as if he were chewing. ‘It wasn’t my fault, he knew the risks.’

  It was tantalizing; he seemed to be on the verge of saying something about Toby, and yet she had to leave. His mother needed time alone with her son.

  ‘Goodbye, Kit,’ she said. ‘See you again soon.’

  His sour breath reached her. ‘Drawn by bloody Tonks. What a fate.’

  He started to laugh, coughed, and went into such a paroxysm of coughing that he began to choke. A nurse came running over and together she and Mrs Neville hauled him into a sitting position. The nurse thumped him on the back. His eyes were streaming; he was sucking in great shuddering breaths. When they were sure the fit had passed, they lowered him, gently, on to the pillows.

  ‘You his sister?’

  ‘Friend. He seems to have a very bad infection.’

  ‘Yes, well, they do tend to get them, when everything’s wide open like that. Don’t you worry, though, he’ll pull through.’

  Elinor had reached the door of the hut when she almost collided with a man who was hurrying in. Kit’s father. She wouldn’t have detained him, but he seemed to want to talk. Perhaps he dreaded these meetings with his son almost as much as he longed for them.

  ‘One good thing, we got the letter confirming Kit’s been commissioned as a war artist. I mean, we knew he had, but …’

  ‘He’ll be pleased.’

  ‘Mind, I can’t think why it took them so long. Far less talented people –’

  He stopped abruptly; she realized he was thinking of Paul.

  ‘Well, I’d better be getting on,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get back to work.’

  ‘You work here now?’

  ‘Yes, not as a nurse, I’m an illustrator. Well, hardly even that really, I’ve only just started.’

  ‘You’ll be able to look in on him, then.’

  ‘Yes, well, I hope so.’

  ‘It’s going to be a long job.’

  He was so stiff, so stoical in his bearing, it came as a shock to see tears in his eyes.

  ‘He’s been so brave, nobody knows how brave he’s been.’

  Ashamed of witnessing his tears, she patted him clumsily on the arm, and said goodbye. She watched him walk the length of the ward and stand at the foot of Kit’s bed, twirling his hat round and round in his hands, looking lost, abandoned, as if he, rather than the new patients, needed a luggage label to tell him where he was.

  Twenty

  Catherine stood at the window with her back turned to Paul.

  ‘I went home, you know. The other week.’

  ‘Home?’ For a moment his mind was blank.

  ‘Lowestoft. I walked along the beach and fortunately it was really foul weather so I wrapped a scarf round my face and pulled my hat down – and nobody recognized me. I’d have liked to go and see the house, look in the windows, but … I didn’t dare. I was frightened the whole time.’

  ‘You should have asked me. I’d have gone with you.’

  ‘No, I needed to go alone. It’s extraordinary, the whole town seems to be surrounded by barbed wire, all the bridges were guarded but of course it’s the nearest point in England to the continent so it’s bound to be like that, I suppose.’

  Paul handed her a cup of tea. He still didn’t know why she’d come. They sat on the sofa with a plate of biscuits between them.

  ‘Mrs Neville’s asked me to go and see Kit.’

  ‘Why don’t you? I’m sure he’d love to see you.’

  ‘I’m not sure it’s coming from him. Oh, she means well, but, you know, she’s frantic with worry and I think she’s trying to push him to see people when perhaps he’s not ready. What do you think?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘He certainly wasn’t ready to see Elinor. Or me. But then …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You were closer to him than we were.’

  ‘For a time. No, at one point we were very close.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I’d like to see him before I leave London.’

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘I thought I might go back to Scotland.’

  She was looking at him, waiting for a response. ‘You’ve got work here,’ he said. ‘And friends.’ He didn’t know what he felt, except that relief was part of it.

  ‘It’s easier up there. You don’t feel the same … hatred.’ She laughed. ‘Probably because we don’t see anybody.’

  ‘Is it really as bad as that?’

  ‘I think so. Do you know Olive Schreiner?’

  ‘Not personally, no. Of her.’

  ‘Well, she was staying at Durrant’s Hotel, in George Street, you know? And they asked her to leave – not because they thought she was German, they knew she was Sou
th African, but because the other guests might think she was German. You get little pinpricks like that all the time.’

  He remained silent.

  ‘Paul? What are you thinking?’

  ‘I’m thinking there are worse things than being chucked out of a hotel. Like ending up in a hole in the ground with your guts draped round your neck.’

  ‘It’s not a contest, though, is it? The suffering.’

  ‘Do you know, I sometimes think it is.’

  A long silence. Then she said, ‘I don’t think I could bear not to be friends with you.’ She reached out and took hold of his hand.

  ‘Only it’s never going to be more than that, is it?’

  ‘There’s Elinor …’

  ‘And Kit. Don’t forget Kit. As if any of us could.’

  This was why she’d come: to end something that had barely begun. And he was in danger of trying to pull her back, but without really believing that their incipient love affair stood a chance. At the back of his mind was the image of the two girls entwined on the sofa, impossibly conjoined: Siamese twins, though there was no doubt which twin was dominant. Elinor, every time.

  He reached a decision. ‘I think you should go to see him.’

  ‘Do you?’ she said, withdrawing her hand. ‘I’ll think about it. And now I think I should go.’

  At the door she turned. There might have been a kiss – he was hoping there would be – but at the last moment she smiled and shook her head.

  Elinor travelled back to London on a jolting train full of vacant-eyed passengers staring at advertisements. A ruddy-faced young soldier stood up and offered her his seat. She thanked him, aware of his admiration, of his body, even, as she had not been aware of any man, including Paul, for a long time.

  She really needed to talk to Paul, but it was difficult. After their joint visit to Kit, they hadn’t parted friends. But he wouldn’t turn her away; he never had. She’d go to see him now, she decided; chance his not being in.

  It was a weary climb up the hill to his lodgings. She knocked loudly several times, and was about to peer through the letter box when the door was suddenly flung open and a dark woman with spots of hectic colour on her cheeks stood there, her arms folded aggressively across her chest.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’d like to speak to Mr Tarrant, please.’

  ‘Oh, I expect you would, you and half a dozen others.’ She marched across the hall and yelled up the stairs, ‘Tarrant, there’s another one!’ She turned to Elinor. ‘No doubt he’ll be down in a minute, he’s keen enough, God knows.’

  With a sniff and a flounce she went back inside her own living room and slammed the door. For a moment the house was silent, though not peaceful. Even the dust motes, visible in the circle of light round a lamp, seemed to seethe with suppressed anger. Elinor looked around. The house was shabby and not particularly clean. The stair rods were speckled brown; some of them were missing altogether, so the carpet bulged dangerously over the treads. Somewhere in the shadows at the back of the hall, a clock ticked.

  At last, she heard a door open and shortly afterwards Paul came limping down the stairs.

  He stopped dead when he saw her. ‘Elinor.’

  ‘Were you expecting somebody else?’

  ‘No. What makes you think that?’

  ‘Just something your landlady said.’

  From behind the landlady’s door came the sound of a tenor voice, swelling: You are the cutest thing … ‘Oh, for God’s sake, if I hear that bloody song one more time today …’ She looked at Paul. ‘Do you mind if I come up?’

  ‘No, of course not, though …’ He jerked his head towards the music. ‘It’s not popular.’

  ‘She’s in quite a state, isn’t she?’

  He mouthed: ‘I think I might have to leave.’

  Something was wrong, she could feel it, and it wasn’t his landlady’s mood. Following him up the stairs, she said, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, you know …’

  ‘Work going all right?’

  ‘Yes, in fact I think I might have turned a corner. Mind you, I’ve thought that before.’ He was opening his door. ‘You must’ve been to the hospital.’

  ‘All day. I didn’t realize it was going to be like that.’

  ‘Threw you in at the deep end?’

  ‘You know Tonks.’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘Hard, really hard.’

  ‘Do you think you’re going to do it?’

  ‘I’m not sure I can do it. But yes, I’ll give it a go. Tonks says he’ll help, he says I can go back to the Slade, one day a week, if I want. Feels a bit like flying backwards …’

  ‘Well, I’m back there. Perhaps there’s a bit of elastic round our middles …’

  ‘I really hated being on the wards.’

  ‘So why do it? You don’t have to.’

  She pulled a face. ‘You’ve changed your tune.’

  ‘No, really. Why put yourself through it if you don’t have to?’

  ‘Can’t say no to Tonks?’

  She was taking in the room as she spoke. The walls were covered in a dingy yellow paper with an intricate paisley pattern that would have driven her mad in a week. The sofa sagged; he hadn’t bothered to add cushions or do anything to soften the bulging disgrace. How on earth could somebody with Paul’s eye for line and colour live like this?

  He took her coat. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  ‘No, I’m all right, thanks.’ She smoothed an imaginary crease in her skirt. ‘I saw Kit today.’

  ‘You haven’t been pestering him, have you?’

  ‘I don’t think he even knew I was there. Thing is, he’s developed a chest infection, it doesn’t look good.’

  ‘But he’s not …?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘I tried, he wasn’t making a lot of sense.’ Quickly, she ran through as many of Kit’s ramblings as she could remember. ‘There was one moment, he said, “It wasn’t my fault, he knew the risks.” So he does obviously feel guilty about something.’

  ‘ “He”? Not “Toby”?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘So you don’t know who he was talking about.’

  ‘Toby. Who else?’

  ‘Anybody else. Half the bloody army, more or less.’

  ‘No, you’re not listening. You don’t say “It wasn’t my fault” unless you’ve got a pretty good reason to think it might be.’

  He was shaking his head. ‘Elinor, we all feel guilty. Everybody who survives.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Every minute of every day.’

  A dragging silence.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ he said, patting his pockets in search of a cigarette. ‘And it’s not your fault, I’m not blaming you. But the fact that he feels guilty – if he does – means absolutely nothing. And anyway you shouldn’t be listening to what he says when he’s off his head.’

  ‘I didn’t go on purpose. I was drawing somebody on the ward. What am I supposed to do? Walk past?’

  Now she was lying. But only because he made her feel she was in the wrong, when she wasn’t.

  ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said. ‘But I could do with a drink.’

  He was drinking a lot more than he used to. It was only a couple of days since she’d last seen him, but he looked different. Older. Harder. Or perhaps she hadn’t noticed the changes before. Still, in every way that mattered, the same old Paul. She thought: I’ve missed you.

  ‘What’s the matter with your landlady?’

  ‘Doesn’t approve of lady guests.’ He produced a small bottle of whisky from a cupboard under the sink. ‘Oh, and …’ He contemplated the end of the sentence and evidently decided against it. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How many are there? Lady guests?’

  ‘Catherine was here earlier, that’s all.’

  ‘Two young ladies in one day.’ She was smiling as she took a sip from
her glass. ‘Bluebeard.’

  ‘Oh, hardly that.’

  ‘What’s going on? Between you and Catherine?’

  ‘Nothing’s going on.’

  ‘You like her, though, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I do, I’ve always liked her.’

  ‘Come on, Paul.’

  ‘I don’t know what you want me to say. After that weekend, you know, there didn’t seem to be a lot left between us. So when I bumped into Catherine I asked her if she’d like to go out with me. We went, I enjoyed it, I think she did too, and then … Well. Basically she thinks I’m not over you.’

  ‘And are you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  She forced the last of the whisky down. ‘I think I should be going. Is that the only reason your landlady’s fed up?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s a long story.’

  ‘And you don’t want to boast.’

  He insisted on coming with her to the front door, though she wished he hadn’t. She needed to get away from him now. In the hall, they stood facing each other. The question: To kiss or not to kiss? In the end, they brushed each other’s cheeks with closed lips. Wrong choice. Worse than a handshake; worse than nothing. The awkwardness was almost unbearable.

  ‘Well …’ she started to say.

  At that moment, the landlady’s door was thrown open.

  ‘You’d better get off, if you’re going. It’s not a station waiting room, you know.’

  ‘We are going,’ Paul said.

  He pulled Elinor out of the house on to the pavement. A strangled sound, half sob, half derisive laugh, and then the door banged shut behind them.

  ‘How do you put up with it?’ Elinor said. ‘It’s like living in Wuthering Heights.’

  He didn’t smile, just went on looking concerned. ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Good heavens, yes.’ The slight irritation she felt freed her to go and she turned to walk away.

  He caught hold of her arm. ‘Look, you don’t want this, I don’t want it, what are we doing?’

  ‘You want Catherine.’

  ‘No, I don’t, honestly, I don’t. If anything I want the two of you together.’

  ‘What? Paul, I can’t believe you said that.’

  If his expression was anything to go by, neither could he. ‘At least, let me walk you home. I can’t go back in there anyway.’