Tomorrow, Jerusalem

by Tomorrow, Jerusalem (retail) (epub)

  ‘Pa? Time for bed, I think?’

  Doctor Will’s head jerked up. ‘What? What’s that? Oh. Yes. Been a long day.’

  Ben stood and stretched, helped his father to his feet. ‘Do you need any help upstairs?’

  A little touchily the older man grunted. ‘Help? Why should I need help?’

  ‘Just wondered.’ Ben hid a small smile. Frail the old man might look – frail, indeed, he might be – but his spirit was unchanged.

  ‘Where’s Charlotte?’

  ‘She’s helping Bron to settle Peter in.’ The faintest shadow of a frown flickered across Ben’s face. In the three days he had been home he had hardly seen Charlotte, nor had an opportunity to speak to her. Her devotion to his crippled brother was, it seemed, absolute. She had taken on the role of nurse – almost of mother. And how could he, Ben, object to that? ‘I’ll turn in, I think.’ He laid a hand upon his father’s shoulder. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

  He trod quietly through the sleeping house. At the door next to the one that led into the room he shared with Charlotte he stopped for a moment, listening.

  ‘Papa?’ The little girl’s voice was a whisper, ‘Is that you?’

  Smiling he slipped through the door. By the glimmering light of the nightlight that stood on the side table he saw Rachel’s eyes, wide and still gleaming with excitement. ‘I can’t sleep.’ She wriggled over to give him room to sit beside her, ‘I’ve tried and I’ve tried, but I just can’t.’

  He ruffled her hair gently. ‘Stop trying. Then it’ll happen.’

  She nodded very unsleepily, the tangle of her hair night-dark upon the pillow. He looked at her, at the heartbreaking beauty of her, at the trust in her eyes. ‘You’re happy, poppet? At the school?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Papa! I truly am! It was so funny – I was so frightened – I didn’t want to go at all – and then—’ her smile shone in the dim candle flame. ‘Well, then it was all right. Patricia says she thinks I’ll be form captain next year – she’s junior house captain, you know – she’ll probably be head girl in a couple of years.’

  ‘So – you wouldn’t want to come back home? To leave?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ The child sat bolt upright. ‘Oh, please, Papa – no! I won’t have to, will I?’

  He shook his head, pressed her gently back on to the pillow. ‘No, no. I just wanted to make certain. I’ve got a new job.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Mama told me. You’re helping Sir Brian Bix-Arnold, aren’t you? Patricia was frightfully impressed!’

  He laughed a little. ‘She was? Well – I just wanted to make sure that you were absolutely happy – that, now the war’s over, you wouldn’t rather come back home?’

  She shook her head on the pillow. ‘No, thank you,’ she said very firmly.

  ‘Fine.’ He bent to kiss her. ‘Now – close your eyes and count to two hundred and fifty. I bet you’ll be asleep before two shakes of a lamb’s tail! Good night, my little love.’

  ‘Good night, Papa.’

  Charlotte’s pink and white room was empty, the fire flickering in the grate, a lamp lit by the bed, the covers turned down. As always as he entered he felt an intruder; too big, too clumsy – too male – for the exquisitely feminine room. He stood for a moment in the middle of the floor, quite still, his big head thown back, broad shoulders flexing. Seeing Sally had unsettled him; in the months they had been apart he had almost persuaded himself to believe that their parting was for the best. The sight of her today, the sound of the husky voice, the ready laughter, had twisted in his soul like a knife. But – for her own good as well as his own – he must leave her alone. The new post with Sir Brian was God sent; a chance to do something truly worthwhile. It would, too, give Charlotte the life style that she had for so long hankered after; perhaps it wasn’t too late for them? She had looked perfectly lovely today—

  He loosened his cravat, shook the heavy coat from his shoulders; turned as the door opened quietly.

  ‘Ben?’ Charlotte stood silhouetted in the doorway, looking as fresh and as pretty as she had twelve hours earlier. Her fair hair was swept up, revealing the delicate line of neck and throat, the small, well-shaped ears, emphasizing the striking bones of her face, rather more prominent than in her extreme youth, but no less lovely for that. ‘I’m glad you’re still up.’

  She came into the room, closed the door with a small, sharp click behind her. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  Ben started to undo the buttons of his dress shirt. ‘Is it important? It’s getting late – won’t it wait till morning?’ The bed lay between them, the sheets turned down, crisp and inviting. Her small, firm breasts swelled visibly beneath the fine material of her gown.

  ‘Yes, it’s important. And no, it won’t wait.’ She brushed past him, her perfume drifting into the room with her. On the far side of the room, as far from him as she could get, she turned, her chin up, her hands folded composedly before her.

  For the first time Ben sensed the well-disguised, finely strung tension that held her. His hands dropped to his side and the smile left his face. ‘Charlotte? What is it? What’s wrong?’

  There was a long moment of silence. He saw the breath she took to steady herself, saw the fingers that had been loosely laced before her tangle and clench, though the composed and almost expressionless face did not change, and when she spoke her voice too was cool and steady. ‘I think you’ll agree, Ben, that our marriage – if it can be called so – has been something of a miserable failure?’

  He stood as if struck, watching her.

  She waited for a moment, and as he did not reply spoke smoothly on, a speech she had rehearsed over and over.

  ‘That being the case I’m sure that you’ll have no great objections to what I am about to suggest.’ Her glance flicked across his face. ‘I no longer wish to live with you as man and wife. I’m willing to do the minimum to keep up appearances, if you should wish it, but I want you to know and to understand that as far as I am concerned for all practical and—’ a tremor of distaste twitched at the corners of her mouth, ‘—physical purposes – this marriage, which has always been a sham, is over.’ She stopped again and waited, her eyes sharp and wary upon his face.

  Ben had drunk a fair amount of champagne in the course of the day; suddenly he was aware of it. His brain seemed incapable of thought. He spoke very carefully. ‘What – exactly – do you mean?’

  Impatience sharpened her voice. ‘I mean precisely what I say. Our marriage is no marriage – I’m simply being honest about it and saying I no longer care to support the fiction. You have your new post with Sir Brian – you’ll be moving between London and Oxford, it will be a perfectly acceptable and reasonable thing for you to have an establishment of your own somewhere. I intend to move into the country she hesitated for one last moment before adding, very clearly, ’with Peter.’

  The words shook him from his shocked stillness. He took a quick, almost involuntary step towards her. ‘You – what?’

  Still absolutely composed she stood her ground. ‘I’m going to live with Peter in the country. Surrey, I thought, or Kent perhaps. It’s perfectly obvious that he shouldn’t stay here – the country will be much better for him in every way. I’ll find a bungalow – it will have to be a bungalow, of course – somewhere where no one knows us.’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me’, Ben’s voice was very quiet, threaded thinly with anger and with disbelief, ‘that you’re leaving me – for Peter?’

  ‘Yes.’ The word was simple, sharp and absolutely firm.

  ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘Oh, but I can. I’m going to.’

  ‘You can’t!’ His head was clearing a little, though astonished anger seethed. He stabbed a finger at her. ‘You can’t!’ he repeated. ‘You of all people? You’d never survive the scandal!’

  ‘There won’t be any scandal.’ She was completely self possessed. ‘I’ve already told you – I’ll do whatever is required to keep up the minimum of appearances. But I won�
��t live with you—’

  ‘And you expect me – simply – to agree to this?’ His voice was rising despite himself.

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to do anything simply.’ Her voice was caustic. ‘But yes, I hope you’ll agree. When you’ve thought about it.’ This time it was she who stepped forward, face lifted to him fiercely. ‘Think about it now, Ben – who would be most harmed by a scandal? You’re thinking of divorce? You won’t divorce me! Think of it! Think of the publicity – “wife leaves war hero doctor for crippled brother”! – How would Sir Brian like that?’

  He caught her arm, held her, his face very close to hers. ‘Oh no.’ His voice was harsh ‘You’ve miscalculated, Charlotte. You think I’d let that stop me from divorcing you if you go through with this?’

  She neither flinched nor moved in his grip. She had in the past months lived this interview a dozen times, had countered in her head his every move. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. So – I have something else for you to think of. What of Rachel? Take me into the divorce court and I swear I’ll make sure that every last miserable fact about our marriage will come out – including the reason why you married me.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes!’ Her voice was rising to match his. ‘This whole damned mess started with that child – you should have let me get rid of her when I wanted to! God above, she isn’t even yours!’ She wrenched her arm free, stood glaring at him. ‘And I wish to Christ she weren’t mine! Don’t you realize that I can never look at her without seeing him? The gipsy pig that beat me and raped me and sired her? Oh, no, Ben – don’t think I wouldn’t tell – she means nothing to me. When we part she goes with you. Keep her at school – do what you like – but keep her from me.’

  He stared at her in appalled silence.

  Her voice went on inexorably, ‘If you want her – and everyone else – all those important new friends of hers at that school she thinks is so fine – to know she’s a gipsy bastard conceived in rape – fight me. And—’ she lifted her head, watched him for a moment before adding softly, ‘if you want your precious Sally Smith to lose the good name she’s somehow acquired even if she’s never been entitled to it – then drag me through the courts, Ben. Try it. I’ll see her pilloried. A lot of good that’ll do her and that daughter of hers—’

  He froze. ‘Sally? What has Sally to do with it?’

  She threw a hand up in an impatient gesture. ‘Oh, Ben! Don’t play the innocent with me! I know! I know about you and Sally Smith. I can give you dates and times—’

  He was shaking, fighting off an anger so deep that he feared only violence could ease it. He stepped back from her, hands clenched by his sides.

  ‘I had you watched. A very reliable and rather dirty little man with a penchant for posing as a war correspondent. It was an offchance – but it came up with pure gold, didn’t it Ben?’ Apparently unafraid, she stepped to him, forcing him to look at her, ‘How dare you?’ she asked softly. ‘How dare you condemn my love for Peter – that’s clean, and pure – when you’ve been wallowing in filth with that woman? And then – you’d come to me—’ A spasm of disgust crossed her lovely, even features. She shuddered. There was a moment’s stark silence. Then ‘I wish you luck of her,’ she said. ‘What you do or who you do it with is nothing to do with me any more. I’m going away with Peter. We’re going to the country – somewhere where no one knows us. We’re going to be a respected and respectable couple; a war hero and his devoted wife. I intend to be a pillar of the community. I’ll take tea with the vicar and sell home-made cakes at the village fête. I’m going to get Peter away from this squalid place if it’s the last thing I do. He – we – are going to live somewhere that’s clean. Somewhere where people stop to pass the time of day. Somewhere where he can see the sky, and the trees, where he has a garden to take an interest in, where I can look after him – make him happy – and you’re going to let us. You’re going to do nothing to stop us.’

  ‘He won’t do it.’ Ben’s voice was suddenly certain. ‘Peter won’t do it. You’re my wife.’

  ‘Peter will do it. I can assure you he will. Ask him yourself. He needs me, Ben. More than he’s ever needed anyone in his whole life. I love him. I can make him happy. When he wanted to die I showed him the reasons for living. Oh, yes. He’ll do it.’

  ‘The family—’

  ‘I don’t care about the family. What have they ever done for me? It’s Peter I want. And I’ll have him. Nothing will stop me.’

  ‘Including your own daughter’s good name?’

  ‘Including that.’

  ‘You’re mad.’

  ‘I’ve never been saner.’

  He turned from her then, crashing a huge fist into the bedpost, not feeling the pain of the blow.

  ‘I’ve worked it out very, very carefully, Ben,’ she said quietly from behind him. ‘There’s nothing you can do. Nothing that won’t bring your own world crashing about your head. And about Rachel’s. It’s up to you. I don’t want a divorce. I don’t want the broadsheets with my name and face all over them; I don’t want the expense, and I don’t want the notoriety. But – if you insist – I’ll do everything I’ve said. I’ll ruin you, and Rachel, and Sally Smith. And at the end of it I’ll still have Peter. What will you have, Ben?’

  ‘Peter won’t do it,’ Ben said. ‘He won’t do it.’

  ‘Ask him,’she said.

  ‘I will.’ He turned his head to her, looking for a sign of weakness, of uncertainty, and finding none. ‘I bloody will!’ Blindly he turned to the door, threw it open; in time to see a face white as paper within its ebony frame of hair, the shining sapphire eyes blank with shock as the child backed away from him, turned, fled into the room next door.

  ‘Rachel! Oh, Christ! Rachel!’

  He followed her into the room. She had flung herself upon the bed, her head buried in the pillows, her shoulders shaking. ‘Go away!’

  ‘Rachel – please, darling – listen to me—’

  ‘Go away! Go away!’

  He did not know how much she had heard, could only guess from her reaction that she had heard it all. He gathered her into his arms, held the tense, resistant, shaking frame, cursing Charlotte, cursing his own self-absorption that had forgotten that he had left the child, wide awake in this room with only an ancient, thin wall between her and her mother’s raised voice. ‘Rachel, my love—’

  She pulled away from him with a violence that appalled him. ‘Go away! I won’t listen! I won’t!’ She crouched amongst, the tumbled bedclothes like a small animal brought to bay.

  He straightened the bed, soothing her, trying to control the shaking of his hands, to calm his voice to gentleness.

  She turned from him, in her clenched arms a battered bear she had dredged from the rumpled depths of the bed. ‘Go away.’

  ‘Rachel!’ He reached a hand to her shoulder, drew it back sharply as she shrank from him. ‘Rachel, listen to me – please, darling – it’ll be all right. I promise it will. No one will hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. You know how I love you-how I’ve always loved you?’

  The child did not respond.

  He stood up. Much as he hated to leave her, she was in no condition to listen to him now. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Please, darling, try to sleep.’

  She neither moved nor answered.

  He turned and walked to the door. As he turned to close it she shot upright in the bed, the bear clutched to her breast. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? The horrible things she said about me – they’re all true, aren’t they?’

  He stood in helpless silence.

  ‘Don’t let her do it,’ she said. ‘Please! Please! Don’t let her tell people! I couldn’t bear it!’

  For a moment he could not speak. Then, ‘Don’t worry, my poor little love. Rest. Try to sleep. We’ll talk in the morning.’

  He shut the door with infinite care.

  Peter’s door stood a little ajar, as if awaiting a visit. Lamplight fell softly across the hall. Ben d
id not knock. He pushed the door, stepped across the threshold, confronted his crippled brother.

  Peter sat in bed, a magazine haphazardly open on his lap. Smoke from his cigarette coiled about the room; not the first, from the haze that hung in the lamplight. As he lifted his thin face to the opened door he meticulously stubbed out the cigarette, closed the magazine. Looked at Ben with eyes that were wretched in a face that was set and blank with determination.

  Ben closed the door behind him without turning, his eyes never leaving his younger brother’s face.

  ‘You’ve spoken to Charlotte,’ Peter said, his voice very low.

  ‘I’d say rather’, Ben said drily, and wondered at his own composure, ‘that she’d spoken to me.’

  The blue eyes, avoiding his, drifted down to the counterpane. Long, thin, almost effeminate fingers picked at the loose threads. Beneath the bedclothes the outline of the useless legs was clear.

  ‘She tells me you’ve made some—’ Ben hesitated. In face of his brother’s helplessness it was maddeningly difficult to hold to his fury, ‘—rather unorthodox plans?’

  For a very long time Peter sat, head bowed, hands picking at the fabric of the counterpane. Then he lifted his head. The wrenching pain was still in his face, but his voice was firm. ‘I need her, Ben. You don’t know how much. I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. If I had thought that you loved her – that she loved you—’ He stopped. The silence was heavy with tension. ‘I’d have done anything – anything – I’d have died before I’d have taken her from you. But—’ In the quiet the unspoken words hung between them – you have so much. I have nothing. Nothing, now, but Charlotte.

  The lamp gleamed upon the tense, unhappy face that was so used to laughter. Shockingly it shone upon the tears that glimmered upon cheekbones planed sharp with suffering.