Toby's Room

by Pat Barker

  Six: that was the score from their last excursion into hell. Ah, yes, Brooke said, but that was six families rescued from the pain of not knowing. You couldn’t fault him: not on that, not on anything. Only, if he went on like this, he was going to get them all killed. For one brief moment, Neville let himself imagine the unthinkable, pointing the revolver away from himself. Levelling it. Then, quickly, he pushed it back inside the sock and returned it to his bag.

  Next evening, after a particularly bad day, Neville decided he couldn’t put off talking to Brooke any longer. He went round to the farmhouse where the first-aid post was currently located, but found it empty except for Evans and Wilkie, who were rolling bandages and grumbling over a smoky fire.

  ‘Where’s Doc?’ he asked.

  ‘Where do you think?’

  He set off to the stables. As soon as he opened the door he heard Brooke’s voice and followed it, between lines of tossing heads and manes, to a box at the far end where he found Brooke kneeling down, peering at a horse’s hoof that one of the stable lads was holding between his knees.

  ‘Can’t see anything,’ he said, straightening up, ‘but she’s definitely limping on that side.’

  He jumped as Neville came up behind him. So perhaps even Brooke’s nerves weren’t perfect? ‘Do you think I could have a word, sir, if you’re not too busy?’

  ‘Yes, of course, I’m nearly finished here.’

  Neville went back to the farmhouse, sat on his bunk and waited. He was trying to work himself up into a state of desperation, but couldn’t manage even that. After a while Brooke came in, wiping his hands on his breeches.

  ‘Did you have a good ride?’

  ‘Huh, not really, she went lame on the way back. I think I might have to rest her a day or two.’ He looked more closely at Neville. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I’d like you to have a look at my chest.’

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Dunno, really. My heartbeat’s irregular, feels as if I’m choking, sometimes I can’t breathe …’

  ‘All right, get your tunic off.’ Brooke’s tone was cold. He went to the table, poured water into a bowl, soaped his hands and dried them on a towel, managing, somehow, to imbue each of these simple actions with deep scepticism. ‘Let’s have a look at you, then.’ The stethoscope moved across the pallid flesh. ‘Breathe. And again. Again. Deep breaths …’

  When, finally, he took the stethoscope away he remained unnervingly silent.

  ‘The thing is I had rheumatic fever when I was a child, I couldn’t play games for a year, and then when I went to enlist I was told my heart wasn’t up to it, and –’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Bryson. He’s a good man. Harley Street.’

  ‘So it wasn’t the army that rejected you?’

  ‘No, Bryson told me not to bother trying to enlist.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘I did volunteer for the Belgian Red Cross instead.’

  ‘Well, I can’t find anything wrong with you. You do have a few skipped beats but they’re quite common – doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your heart. You tend to get them with worry, tension, tiredness … Too much coffee. Too much alcohol. All of which is true of you.’

  You cold-blooded little prick. He wasn’t going to plead – he’d see Brooke in hell first – but then something went wrong, something slipped, and he heard himself pleading anyway. That awful whining, so familiar from sick parades, now coming out of his own mouth; the humiliation.

  ‘I just can’t take it any more. You can call me a coward if you like, I don’t bloody well care. I’ve reached the end of the road. I cannot go on.’

  ‘You can’t say that. It ends when it ends.’ He went to the door, obviously wanting the conversation to be over, but then turned back. ‘What do you want me to do? Send you back to base with a heart problem that doesn’t exist? I can’t do that.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘There’s no quick exit. And please don’t do anything stupid …’

  ‘Like crawling round No Man’s Land rescuing dead bodies? God forbid.’

  ‘We’re all frightened, every single one of us. It’s what you do with it that counts.’

  ‘And what do you do? Drink too much? Slope off to a brothel when you think nobody’s looking?’

  ‘I ride. Horses.’

  ‘’Course you do.’

  Suddenly losing patience, Brooke seized Neville’s tunic from the back of the chair and threw it at him.

  ‘Time to get back to work, I’m afraid. It’s your night duty or had you forgotten?’ He turned on his heel and was about to leave when he said, ‘Oh, and keep an eye on Kent, will you? Wake me up if he gets any worse.’

  Slowly, Neville put on his tunic and buttoned it up, before walking along the corridor to the large parlour that served as a temporary hospital.

  Hen Man looked up from his crossword.

  ‘You all right?’

  ‘Fine. More to the point, how’s he?’ He nodded towards Kent, who was propped up in bed on four pillows with his head drooping to one side. He was one of the older men and had been in the sick bay with chest infections several times before this latest crisis. ‘No better?’

  Hen Man pulled a face. ‘Bit worse if anything.’ He folded the newspaper and stood up. ‘Well, I hope you have a quiet night. But if you don’t, don’t wake me.’

  Night duty. On the ward, Neville’s wide awake, the morphine beginning to wear off just as the other patients are settling down to sleep. Peering along the row of beds, he sees the night nurse sitting at her table. She’s got her head propped up on her hands and seems to be nodding off. He tries to turn on to his side, and realizes he can’t move. Of course, his hands are tied to the bed, to prevent him touching the tube that’s stuck in the middle of his face. Boss-eyed, he squints down at it, but it’s only a blurred shape on the periphery of his vision. He closes his eyes because that’s the only way he can ignore what’s been done to him. Instantly, the morphine he thought was gone reaches out clammy hands and tries to smother him.

  Somewhere quite close there’s a sound of tortured breathing. Where’s the bloody nurse? Why doesn’t she do something? The man’s obviously suffering. Lazy cow. He opens his mouth to shout ‘Nurse? Nurse?’ but other words come out.

  ‘Calm down. Now I want you to sit forward, that’s right, put your arms forward as well, like this, look, now breathe, that’s right, and again. Deep as you can, and now I want you to hold the next breath and cough. Can you do that for me?’

  A stream of green phlegm, enough to fill the small bowl he was holding.

  Kent fell back against the pillows, a yellow doll with cavernous pits above his collarbone.

  ‘It ought to feel a bit easier now. Try to sleep …’

  Kent’s eyes flickering upwards so that for a few seconds there was only white. Bloody hell, Neville thought. I’ve got to get Brooke.

  When he was sure Kent was settled, or as settled as he could be, he set off down the corridor, dogged by his own pale shadow in the lamplight. Boiler muttered a protest as he felt the light on his face. Quickly, Neville passed through into the room he and Brooke shared. Brooke’s bunk was empty: must’ve gone for a pee or something. Couldn’t be anywhere else at this time, it was two o’clock in the morning. Neville waited, but he was aware, all the time, of Kent alone in the sickroom, of the urgent need to get back to him, and so when, after a few minutes, Brooke still hadn’t appeared, he set off in search of him.

  The lantern, held high above his head, showed slanting lines of rain disappearing into thick mud. Sploshing and slithering, he crossed the yard to the stables. Brooke was worried about his lame horse, that’s where he’d be. Amazing how horses need rest, and men don’t. The door was open. Inside, the noise was deafening; the wind hurled rain on to a corrugated-iron roof. No wonder the horses were restless. The darkness seemed to be full of tossing heads, stamping hooves, neighs, snorts, whinnies, here and there a glin
t of silver as a rolling eye caught the light. He was transfixed by the horses: huge heads, weaving bodies, smells of shit and straw. In the interval between one blast of wind and the next he thought he heard voices. Following the sound, he walked along between the rows of boxes to the last one on the left.

  A tangle of limbs and laboured breathing. His first thought was that a horse had fallen and was threshing about in the straw. For several long seconds, his brain went on telling his eyes that they were looking at a sick horse, but then he began to see faces in the gloom. A boy’s face first, dazed and panting, and behind him Brooke’s face, his mouth stretched wide in a silent scream.

  Neville didn’t know how long he stood there, before Brooke opened his eyes and saw him. They stared at each other. And then, suddenly, Neville was free to move. He backed away, half walking, half running between the lines of panicking horses, pushed the door open and almost fell into the yard. He stood with his back to the wall, blankly watching raindrops plop into puddles, unable to think. He couldn’t go back to the ward, not yet. Instead, he took shelter in the adjoining barn where he lit a cigarette and stood, breathing deeply, while his brain struggled to make sense of what he’d seen.

  The fool. The utter bloody fool. He couldn’t believe the stupidity. In those first few seconds, his thoughts were all of concern for Brooke, who was risking everything, and for what? From his vantage point inside the barn door he saw Brooke come out of the stables and run across the yard. Neville threw his half-smoked cigarette away, watching the bright descending arc before it sizzled to a quick death in the mud. Then, slowly, he followed Brooke into the main building.

  An hour later they were standing on opposite sides of the bed as Kent breathed his last. When he was certain it was over, Brooke reached across, closed Kent’s eyelids and pulled the blanket up over his face. Automatically, he reached for the file and noted the time of death.

  ‘You can lay him out in the morning, there’s no rush.’

  As Brooke handed him the file their eyes met. Now, Neville thought, he’s got to say something now. But Brooke’s face remained expressionless and almost immediately he turned away. That was it, then. There was to be no discussion, no explanation – and, after all, what explanation could there be? Just this proud, stony silence: Brooke saying, in effect, I’m stronger than you. You’ll never hear me plead.

  Neville spent what was left of the night in the sickroom. Kent’s corpse was more acceptable company than Brooke.

  Towards morning, he went into the yard and held out his hand to see if it was still raining. A pinprick now and then; no more. He looked down at his palm as if he were seeing it for the first time, and then slowly, involuntarily, curled his fingers, turning his open hand into a fist.

  Twenty-six

  Paul had been in the Domino Room for perhaps twenty minutes before Elinor arrived. At first he didn’t recognize her. She was flushed, her hair and shoulders covered with a fine mist of rain. When he bent to kiss her she smelled, mysteriously, of woodsmoke. Apparently she’d spent the whole day at Kew, going there and back by river. A wonderful day, she said. Her speech was quick and passionate, her pupils still dilated from the darkness outside. She was like a wild creature glimpsed in the headlights of a motor car; he was startled into a fresh awareness of her.

  ‘Wasn’t it very cold?’

  ‘Freezing. It was wonderful, though, and such a change from the hospital. Do you know, even outside the huts you never really feel you’re outside?’

  She didn’t seem to belong to this room with its dark red plush seats and wreaths of cigar smoke, and that pleased him because with each visit his dislike of the place grew.

  ‘Why are you smiling?’ she asked.

  ‘I was thinking about Kit. Do you remember how he used to call the Café Royal “vile”?’

  ‘Yes, and he practically lived here.’

  ‘I’m going to see him this weekend,’ Paul said. ‘He’s invited me down to Suffolk.’ She was looking away from him so he couldn’t read her response. ‘Did you know they were letting him out?’

  ‘Yes, Tonks told me. It’s only a couple of weeks till the next operation – they’re hoping to fit it in before Christmas. I’m pleased he’s having a break – it’ll do him good.’

  Paul wondered how much he should say. ‘He says he wants to talk to me.’

  ‘About Toby?’

  ‘I suppose so. Can’t think what else it would be.’

  ‘Well, you know …’ She brushed her hair out of her eyes, still not meeting his gaze. ‘I’ve got to leave that to you.’

  ‘I won’t press him, you know, if …’

  ‘No. I understand that.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, looking around the room. It was a while since they’d been seen here together and at several of the tables he could see people rather obviously commenting on their presence. What his father would have called a clatfart shop. God, he hated it.

  ‘What are your plans?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m going to look for a flat. Catherine says she’ll go round with me.’

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘Getting ready to go back to Scotland. At least that’s the current plan. But … She’s going to have dinner with Kit and his parents before he goes back into hospital. So. We shall see.’

  ‘She said his mother was pressing her to go to see him.’

  ‘I don’t know how much pressure would be needed.’

  ‘I just hope she doesn’t get carried away by … Well, by pity. There’s a real danger here, you know, of people thinking that Kit’s like … That he’s the way he is because of his injuries. Whereas you and I both know Kit was a very difficult man before any of this happened. I think if you want to be a real friend you’ll remind her of that.’

  Elinor was smiling. ‘There wouldn’t be anything personal at stake for you, I suppose?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  They lapsed into silence again, but he could feel the tension gathering in her.

  ‘Whatever it is,’ she said, turning to him and looking straight into his eyes. ‘You will tell me, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said, realizing, even as he spoke, what a rash promise that was.

  With a final petulant hiss of steam, the train stopped. Paul hauled his bags off the luggage rack, opened the door and dropped them on to the platform. A porter appeared, but no other passengers. The train must have been empty.

  Neville was standing directly under the lamp. His nose and mouth were hidden by a thick scarf that he’d wound round and round the lower part of his face. Only the eyes showed, the corners creased by some change of expression, a smile, presumably, though of course a snarl has the same effect. Paul held out his hand, registering the shock of Neville’s hot skin against his own cool palm, and then Neville pulled him into an awkward, backslapping embrace.

  The porter coughed. Before Paul could take action Neville had slipped a coin into his hand.

  ‘Good journey?’

  ‘Not bad. Certainly wasn’t crowded.’

  ‘Never is, that one.’

  He picked up one of Paul’s bags.

  ‘No –’

  ‘Face, Tarrant. Nothing wrong with the arm.’

  They walked side by side down the hill. They should have known each other well enough by now to chat easily in this situation, but despite the embrace there was still the awkwardness of strangers between them. It had always been like this: they greeted each other like long-lost brothers and a minute or so later remembered they didn’t actually like each other very much. Paul had never had such a strange, unquantifiable relationship with anybody else. Even now, after years of admittedly intermittent contact, he’d have hesitated to call Neville a friend; and yet nobody mattered more. There was nobody whom he so persistently measured himself against.

  Neville was quickly out of breath, puffing and gasping through whatever apparatus was hidden by the scarf. Ahead of them, in the darkness, the sea turned and turned, the
crash and grating sigh of its retreat more imagined than heard. They came out between narrow rows of houses to find it waiting for them in the darkness. Huddled dark shapes of fishing boats were drawn up on the shingle. The roofs of the huts sparkled with frost: the last few nights had been freezing.

  ‘Do you mind if we walk on the beach?’ Paul said.

  ‘No, go ahead. It’s all shingle, mind, won’t be easy on that leg.’

  Paul’s breath plumed on the air as he slipped and slithered down the slope and half ran the last few yards to the sea. Neville followed slowly, a bulky, top-heavy shape, breathing stertorously through his mouth. At the bottom of the slope, there was a strip of firm, hard sand, but you couldn’t get to it because of the tangle of barbed wire that ran along the water’s edge. A gap in the wire left a space for fishing boats to come and go and presumably for the lifeboat to be launched. That, too, was hauled high on to the shingle, poised like a fish hawk about to dive. Neville joined him and for a time they were silent, looking out to sea through coils of rusting wire, thinking their own thoughts.

  It had started to rain and the rain quickly turned to sleet, slanting silver rods disappearing into shining grey-brown pebbles. They turned by mutual consent and walked up the shingle slope, still not having spoken. Paul glanced sideways at Neville, who was struggling up the bank, hunched over, hands thrust deep into his pockets, the moonlight glinting on the whites of his eyes. Paul noticed that the scarf had a curious bulge on one side.

  Suddenly Neville put on a burst of speed and pulled ahead. ‘Come on, Tarrant,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘It’s bloody freezing out here, and I could do with a drink.’

  They climbed the last ledge on to the path, every step dislodging pebbles that peppered in their wake. The terrace facing the sea had gaps in it, missing teeth in an old man’s mouth. Many of the houses had their windows boarded up, and there were sandbags piled up against the doors.