But the
scratches and bruises were long healed, and all her own statements at the time
were to the contrary. Nor did the bride appear to be a victim, and she had her
parents’ consent. More than that, surely; a chocolate magnate, the
creator of Amo. Aunt Hermione would be rubbing her hands. That Paul Marshall,
Lola Quincey and she, Briony Tallis, had conspired with silence and falsehoods
to send an innocent man to jail? But the words that had convicted him had been
her very own, read out loud on her behalf in the Assize Court. The sentence had
already been served. The debt was paid. The verdict stood.
She remained
in her seat with her accelerating heart and sweating palms, and humbly inclined
her head.
“I
require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment
when the secrets of all hearts will be disclosed, that if either of you know of
any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do
now confess it.”
By any
estimate, it was a very long time until judgment day, and until then the truth
that only Marshall and his bride knew at first hand was steadily being walled
up within the mausoleum of their marriage. There it would lie secure in the
darkness, long after anyone who cared was dead. Every word in the ceremony was
another brick in place.
“Who
giveth this woman to be married to this man?”
Birdlike
Uncle Cecil stepped up smartly, no doubt anxious to be done with his duty
before hurrying back to the sanctuary of All Souls, Oxford. Straining to hear
any wavering doubt in their voices, Briony listened to Marshall, then Lola,
repeating the words after the vicar. She was sweet and sure, while Marshall
boomed, as though in defiance. How flagrantly, sensually, it reverberated
before the altar when he said, “With my body I thee worship.”
“Let us
pray.”
Then the
seven outlined heads in the front pews drooped and the vicar removed his
tortoiseshell glasses, lifted his chin and with eyes closed addressed the
heavenly powers in his weary, sorrowful singsong.
“O
Eternal God, Creator and Preserver of all mankind, Giver of all spiritual
grace, the Author of everlasting life: Send thy blessing upon these thy servants,
this man and this woman . . .”
The last
brick was set in place as the vicar, having put his glasses back on, made the
celebrated pronouncement—man and wife together—and invoked the
Trinity after which his church was named. There were more prayers, a psalm, the
Lord’s Prayer and another long one in which the falling tones of
valediction gathered into a melancholy finality.
“. . .
Pour upon you the riches of his grace, sanctify and bless you, that ye may
please him both in body and soul, and live together in holy love unto your
lives’ end.”
Immediately,
there cascaded from the fluting organ confetti of skittering triplets as the
vicar turned to lead the couple down the aisle and the six family members fell
in behind. Briony, who had been on her knees in a pretense of prayer, stood and
turned to face the procession as it reached her. The vicar seemed a little
pressed for time, and was many feet ahead of the rest. When he glanced to his
left and saw the young nurse, his kindly look and tilt of the head expressed
both welcome and curiosity. Then he strode on to pull one of the big doors wide
open. A slanting tongue of sunlight reached all the way to where she stood and
illuminated her face and headdress. She wanted to be seen, but not quite so
clearly. There would be no missing her now. Lola, who was on Briony’s
side, drew level and their eyes met. Her veil was already parted. The freckles
had vanished, but otherwise she was not much changed. Only slightly taller
perhaps, and prettier, softer and rounder in the face, and the eyebrows
severely plucked. Briony simply stared. All she wanted was for Lola to know she
was there and to wonder why. The sunlight made it harder for Briony to see, but
for a fraction of a moment, a tiny frown of displeasure may have registered in
the bride’s face. Then she pursed her lips and looked to the front, and
then she was gone. Paul Marshall had seen her too, but had not recognized her,
and nor had Aunt Hermione or Uncle Cecil who had not met her in years. But the
twins, bringing up the rear in school uniform trousers at half mast, were
delighted to see her, and mimed mock-horror at her costume, and did clownish
eye-rolling yawns, with hands flapping on their mouths.
Then she was
alone in the church with the unseen organist who went on playing for his own
pleasure. It was over too quickly, and nothing for certain was achieved. She
remained standing in place, beginning to feel a little foolish, reluctant to go
outside. Daylight, and the banality of family small talk, would dispel whatever
impact she had made as a ghostly illuminated apparition. She also lacked
courage for a confrontation. And how would she explain herself, the uninvited
guest, to her uncle and aunt? They might be offended, or worse, they might not
be, and want to take her off to some excruciating breakfast in a hotel, with
Mr. and Mrs. Paul Marshall oily with hatred, and Hermione failing to conceal
her contempt for Cecil. Briony lingered another minute or two, as though held
there by the music, then, annoyed with her own cowardice, hurried out onto the
portico. The vicar was a hundred yards off at least, walking quickly away
across the common with arms swinging freely. The newlyweds were in the Rolls,
Marshall at the wheel, reversing in order to turn round. She was certain they
saw her. There was a metallic screech as he changed gear—a good sign
perhaps. The car moved away, and through a side window she saw Lola’s
white shape huddled against the driver’s arm. As for the congregation, it
had vanished completely among the trees.
S
HE KNEW FROM
her map that Balham lay at the far
end of the Common, in the direction the vicar was walking. It was not very far,
and this fact alone made her reluctant to continue. She would arrive too soon.
She had eaten nothing, she was thirsty, and her heel was throbbing and had
glued itself to the back of her shoe. It was warm now, and she would be
crossing a shadeless expanse of grass, broken by straight asphalt paths and
public shelters. In the distance was a bandstand where men in dark blue uniforms
were milling about. She thought of Fiona whose day off she had taken, and of
their afternoon in St. James’s Park. It seemed a far-off, innocent time,
but it was no more than ten days ago. Fiona would be doing the second bedpan
round by now. Briony remained in the shade of the portico and thought about the
little present she would buy her friend—something delicious to eat, a
banana, oranges, Swiss chocolate. The porters knew how to get these things. She
had heard them say that anything, everything, was available, if you had the
right money. She watched the file of traffic moving round the Common, along her
route, and she thought about food. Slabs of ham, poached eggs, the leg of a
roast chicken, thick Irish stew, lemon meringue. A cup of tea. She became aware
of the nervy, fidgeting music behind her the moment it ceased, and in the
sudden new measure of silence, which seemed to confer freedom, she decided she
must eat breakfast. There were no shops that she could see in the direction she
had to walk, only dull mansion blocks of flats in deep orange brick.
Some minutes
passed, and the organist came out holding his hat in one hand and a heavy set
of keys in the other. She would have asked him the way to the nearest
café, but he was a jittery-looking man at one with his music, who seemed
determined to ignore her as he slammed the church door shut and stooped over to
lock it. He rammed his hat on and hurried away.
Perhaps this
was the first step in the undoing of her plans, but she was already walking
back, retracing her steps, in the direction of Clapham High Street. She would
have breakfast, and she would reconsider. Near the tube station she passed a
stone drinking trough and could happily have sunk her face in it. She found a
drab little place with smeared windows, and cigarette butts all over the floor,
but the food could be no worse than what she was used to. She ordered tea, and
three pieces of toast and margarine, and strawberry jam of palest pink. She
heaped sugar into the tea, having diagnosed herself as suffering from
hypoglycemia. The sweetness did not quite conceal a taste of disinfectant.
She drank a
second cup, glad that it was lukewarm so she could gulp it down, then she made
use of a reeking seatless lavatory across a cobbled courtyard behind the
café. But there was no stench that could impress a trainee nurse. She
wedged lavatory paper into the heel of her shoe. It would see her another mile
or two. A handbasin with a single tap was bolted to a brick wall. There was a
gray-veined lozenge of soap she preferred not to touch. When she ran the water,
the waste fell straight out onto her shins. She dried them with her sleeves,
and combed her hair, trying to imagine her face in the brickwork. However, she
couldn’t reapply her lipstick without a mirror. She dabbed her face with
a soaked handkerchief, and patted her cheeks to bring up the color. A decision
had been made—without her, it seemed. This was an interview she was
preparing for, the post of beloved younger sister.
She left the
café, and as she walked along the Common she felt the distance widen
between her and another self, no less real, who was walking back toward the
hospital. Perhaps the Briony who was walking in the direction of Balham was the
imagined or ghostly persona. This unreal feeling was heightened when, after
half an hour, she reached another High Street, more or less the same as the one
she had left behind. That was all London was beyond its center, an
agglomeration of dull little towns. She made a resolution never to live in any
of them.
The street
she was looking for was three turnings past the tube station, itself another
replica. The Edwardian terraces, net-curtained and seedy, ran straight for half
a mile. 43 Dudley Villas was halfway down, with nothing to distinguish it from
the others except for an old Ford 8, without wheels, supported on brick piles,
which took up the whole of the front garden. If there was no one in, she could
go away, telling herself she had tried. The doorbell did not work. She let the
knocker fall twice and stood back. She heard a woman’s angry voice, then
the slam of a door and the thud of footsteps. Briony took another pace back. It
was not too late to retreat up the street. There was a fumbling with the catch
and an irritable sigh, and the door was opened by a tall, sharp-faced woman in
her thirties who was out of breath from some terrible exertion. She was in a
fury. She had been interrupted in a row, and was unable to adjust her
expression—the mouth open, the upper lip slightly curled—as she
took Briony in.
“What
do you want?”
“I’m
looking for a Miss Cecilia Tallis.”
Her shoulders
sagged, and she turned her head back, as though recoiling from an insult. She
looked Briony up and down.
“You
look like her.”
Bewildered,
Briony simply stared at her.
The woman
gave another sigh that was almost like a spitting sound, and went along the
hallway to the foot of the stairs.
“Tallis!”
she yelled. “Door!”
She came
halfway back along the corridor to the entrance to her sitting room, flashed
Briony a look of contempt, then disappeared, pulling the door violently behind
her.
The house was
silent. Briony’s view past the open front door was of a stretch of floral
lino, and the first seven or eight stairs which were covered in deep red
carpet. The brass rod on the third step was missing. Halfway along the hall was
a semicircular table against the wall, and on it was a polished wooden stand,
like a toast rack, for holding letters. It was empty. The lino extended past
the stairs to a door with a frosted-glass window which probably opened onto the
kitchen out the back. The wallpaper was floral too—a posy of three roses
alternating with a snowflake design. From the threshold to the beginning of the
stairs she counted fifteen roses, sixteen snowflakes. Inauspicious.
At last, she
heard a door opening upstairs, possibly the one she had heard slammed when she
had knocked. Then the creak of a stair, and feet wearing thick socks came into
view, and a flash of bare skin, and a blue silk dressing gown that she
recognized. Finally, Cecilia’s face tilting sideways as she leaned down
to make out who was at the front door and spare herself the trouble of
descending further, improperly dressed. It took her some moments to recognize
her sister. She came down slowly another three steps.
“Oh my
God.”
She sat down
and folded her arms.
Briony
remained standing with one foot still on the garden path, the other on the
front step. A wireless in the landlady’s sitting room came on, and the
laughter of an audience swelled as the valves warmed. There followed a
comedian’s wheedling monologue, broken at last by applause, and a jolly
band striking up. Briony took a step into the hallway.
She murmured,
“I have to talk to you.”
Cecilia was
about to get up, then changed her mind. “Why didn’t you tell me you
were coming?”
“You
didn’t answer my letter, so I came.”
She drew her
dressing gown around her, and patted its pocket, probably in the hope of a
cigarette. She was much darker in complexion, and her hands too were brown. She
had not found what she wanted, but for the moment she did not make to rise.