The conversation became desultory. It drained away. His father fell asleep. Freddie flicked the pages of
Horse and Hound
and stared morosely at advertisements for shooting clothing. Gwen sat alone by the window, gazing out toward the lake; her hair was gray, Steenie saw—grayer than he had noticed before. He knew she was not looking at the lake; she was looking at her dead son, Acland.
The other side of the room, on the chaise longue favored by Maud, sat Boy. He sat bolt-upright, his hands on his knees; he made cracking noises with his fingers. He looked as if he were waiting for the command to go over the top. Wherever Boy was, Steenie thought, it was not Winterscombe.
Had Wexton been with him, Steenie would not have minded his family’s slump into this anticlimactic silence. But Wexton was not there, and Vickers was—smart, metropolitan Vickers, who took such clever photographs, who dared to wear his hair even longer than Steenie’s. Steenie was not sure he liked Vickers, though he wished to emulate him in certain matters—clothes, for instance. Also, Vickers flirted with him; there was no doubt about that, and Steenie found it flattering. Wexton had been away such a long time.
Vickers seemed quite prepared to ignore the heavy silence that lay upon the room. He was a great chatterer, and he chattered on now: a postmortem on the wedding. Vickers’s intention was to dissect the rest of the guests.
While Steenie admired his clothes, Vickers went down the guest list. He came to Constance. He discussed her dress, her veil, her astonishing diamonds. He came to Stern. He said how surprising it was—for once the man seemed to have made an effort to display taste. No violent waistcoat—and Stern might have been capable of that, even in morning dress.
“Such restraint!” Vickers laughed again. He reached across the sofa and put his hand on Steenie’s knee. “Tell me, is he reforming, do you think, or is it Constance’s influence?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so.” Steenie considered Vickers’s hand. The pressure of his fingers was not unpleasant.
“Connie adores him just the way he is. She says he’s courageous—to be so consistently vulgar. She says he does it on purpose.”
“No!” Vickers looked delighted by this minor revelation. “My dear, tell me more. I
long
to understand that marriage. Frankly, I have to say”—he lowered his voice—“I find him just the tiniest bit
sinister.
I can’t
tell
you the rumors I’ve heard. My sister said …”
He continued with these rumors for some while. Steenie listened, then half-listened. He tried to think about Wexton. He tried to summon up Wexton’s face. When this did not work, Steenie began to look at Boy—and what he saw alarmed him.
Boy was still sitting bolt upright on the chaise longue. His hands were still on his knees. His eyes were still fixed on the middle distance. His face was blank. Occasionally he shook his head from side to side. Once or twice Steenie saw his lips move: words, silent sentences. Boy was apparently now talking to himself.
Afterward, Steenie would never be quite sure whether it was concern for Boy or a desire to escape from Conrad Vickers that motivated him to propose the walk. Perhaps both: he felt that if he sat with Vickers any longer, he might be both influenced and coerced into some betrayal of Wexton; besides which, he could scarcely sit there and let his brother talk to the air. Any minute now and Vickers would notice. Steenie squirmed and then stood. He looked down at Constance’s Pomeranian, curled in a resentful ball on the sofa next to Vickers, and inspiration came to him.
“A walk,” he said rather wildly. “I ought to take Connie’s dog for a walk. Boy, Vickers, won’t you come with me?”
Vickers threw up his hands in horror.
“Walk! My dear Steenie—all that nasty wet mud? All that terrible fresh air? My dear,
no.
In fact, it’s late—perhaps I ought—”
Boy had not reacted to Steenie’s suggestion at all. He continued to stare into space. Steenie thought he might not have heard him.
With some haste he maneuvered Vickers out to the portico steps. Vickers was staying with other friends nearby; he remarked on this. He said Steenie must come over and meet them,
very soon.
Then, pausing by his motorcar, he looked back to the house.
“I must say, Boy is awfully
odd,
don’t you think? Whatever’s the matter with him?”
Steenie blushed crimson.
“It’s … the war,” he began hastily. “France. You know. Acland was exactly the same. He’ll be all right in a day or so—it just takes him a while to adjust …”
Vickers did not seem convinced by this. He pressed Steenie’s hand. He kissed his pink-and-white cheek.
“Too sad. My dear, remember—if you feel too gloomy, if you need to talk, just
pop
over. I’m sure to be there …”
Steenie watched his car disappear down the drive. He turned back to the house with reluctance. Halfway up those steps he began to wish he had gone with Vickers there and then. At the top of those steps he encountered Boy, who seemed recovered.
Boy swung his arms. He took deep breaths. His voice was loud and jocular.
“A walk,” he said to a portico pillar. “Jolly good idea. Just what we all need. Give the dog a run, eh?”
He gave Constance’s Pomeranian, peeing against the pillar, a look of pure dislike. “Just go and change out of all this clobber,” he said to the sky. “See you downstairs then, in a minute.”
He reappeared some fifteen minutes later. Steenie had put on his London overcoat, his London scarf and gloves, and his London shoes. He did not like country clothes. Boy had put on his oldest tweeds, shooting stockings, brogues. He wore a flat cap, one of the Purdeys was under his arm, and the Pomeranian was at his heels. He looked, Steenie thought, ridiculous.
“Boy, what are you doing? We’re not going up on the grouse moors, you know. We’re taking a very small dog for a very small stroll by the lake—”
“The lake? I thought we might go up to the woods, put up a few rabbits. It’s a fine day—why not?”
“Oh, honestly, Boy. And I suppose you think that thing”—Steenie gestured at the Pomeranian—“that thing is going to retrieve? This I have to watch.”
They set off for the lake. They took the path that wound around its shore and led toward the woods. Boy whistled. The air was clear and sharp. The Pomeranian pattered behind them. To his surprise, Steenie felt his spirits rise. Perhaps, he thought, he might just “pop over” to Vickers’s the next day—Wexton could hardly object to that.
He fell into step beside his brother. Boy, too, was cheerful. He was in a nostalgic mood, but his nostalgia was brisk. That was the tree they all used to climb; he pointed it out. Acland had claimed you could see eternity from its top—which, of course, was typical of Acland. There was the old boathouse; did Steenie remember the punt they used to keep there, now rotten? Oh, and there, just upstream, was the best place to fish.
When they reached the wood, these memories continued. Steenie, too, became caught up in them. Yes, that was the place all four brothers had once made a camp. That was the tree on which they had all carved their initials, and the date. The initials were still there, cut deep into the growing wood. Steenie looked at the date: 1905. The last summer they had spent at Winterscombe without Edward Shawcross.
Boy had walked on a little way. Steenie paused, then ran after him.
“Not that path, Boy. I’m not going that way.”
“What?” Boy turned. His face looked blank again, Steenie saw, as if he were having difficulty hearing.
“Not that way.” Steenie tugged at his brother’s arm. “It goes to the clearing. You know. Where … the accident was. I’m not going that way. I never do—not for all the tea in China.”
“Oh, all right.” Boy seemed not to mind the change of plan. He looked around him somewhat fussily, then sat down on a fallen tree trunk. He patted his pockets and drew out his pipe, then a box of matches, then his pouch of tobacco. Boy’s pipe-smoking, taken up only recently, irritated Steenie. Such a performance! All that crumbling of the tobacco, the tamping down, the succession of matches, the reflective puffings and drawings. Maddeningly slow!
However, Boy did not like his pipe rituals to be hastened, so after a while Steenie sat down next to him and lit a cigarette. He watched Constance’s dog patter back and forth among fallen leaves. He looked at his watch.
“Boy,” he said, “the light will go in a minute. We’d better start back.”
Boy had almost persuaded his tobacco to catch. He sucked at the pipe. The tobacco glowed.
“I killed him, you know,” he said in a conversational way. “I killed Shawcross. I’ve told Constance about it. I’ve given her a note. I wanted her to know, now she’s married. Do you think she’ll have read it yet? Will they have reached the train yet? Maybe she’ll save it and read it tomorrow.”
Steenie became very still. He watched the dog. He considered what to do.
“Boy.” He put his hand on his brother’s arm. His voice squeaked. “Boy, let’s go back now. You look awfully tired. I think—I think maybe you’re not very well. Do you have a headache? Maybe, if we went back now, you could lie down, and then—”
“Headache? I don’t have a headache. I feel fine. Why shouldn’t I feel fine? This is a wedding day—of course I feel fine.”
Steenie swallowed nervously. He tried to think calmly and clearly. Boy was mad. He was sitting here with his brother, on the edge of the woods, and his brother was mad. It was the war. This was what the war did to people. He had heard about it, discussed it once with Wexton. There was a name for this condition of Boy’s: It was
battle fatigue.
Steenie tried to think of what Wexton would do in these circumstances. Wexton would do … something sensible. He would … humor Boy—yes, that was it: humor him.
Steenie sprang to his feet. “Goodness, it’s so cold. I’m freezing. Come on, Boy—I can’t sit here a second longer. Let’s go back.”
Boy did not move. He continued to puff on his pipe. He stared at Constance’s dog, who, having had an energetic scratch, was now licking itself. Having licked, it curled up in a ball on a pile of leaves and prepared for sleep.
“I didn’t push him into the trap,” Boy went on, speaking as if there had been no interruption or pause. “I wouldn’t want Constance to think I did that. I didn’t know it was there, you see. But the thing was … Mama went to his room, and she shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have done that. It was very wrong of him. It hurt Papa. It wounded him. I suppose … that Papa ought to have killed him. But I knew he never would. And I was the eldest—it was my job. I wasn’t a boy any longer, you see. I was a man. I was engaged, that night. The timing was right.”
Boy looked up at Steenie as he said this. His expression was anxious, as if he wanted Steenie to confirm what he said was right. Steenie knelt down. He clasped Boy’s hands.
“Of
course
it was, Boy. I understand. Now, look—you don’t want to think about that now. Take my arm. We’ll go home—”
“I talked it over with Acland, you know. I did that first. I thought I’d better
consult.
He … I can’t quite remember what he said. He thought it was a good idea—yes, I’m sure he said that. It might have been Acland who thought of the Purdeys—or was it me? How odd. I can’t remember. It’s the guns, you see. All those guns. The noise never stops.”
He shook his head. He jiggled at his ear. Steenie had begun to cry.
“Look, Boy, please come back. Please don’t talk about this any more. Boy—none of it’s true. It’s the war—the war makes you think like this.”
“The war? What war?”
“Boy, you
know
what war. France, Belgium—the trenches. Please come home—”
“Oh,
that
war. I see what you mean. I thought you meant the other one.” Boy stood up. He knocked his pipe out against the tree trunk. He put the pipe back in his pocket. His face brightened. “Anyway, I’ve explained to Constance now. I feel better having done that. I told her how it all went wrong. You see, I would have shot him. It would have been very quick and very clean, a good death. But the trouble was …”
He lowered his voice. He turned to Steenie with a confiding air. “Her father was a coward. I didn’t tell Constance that. I thought it was better she didn’t know. He—he broke down. He started weeping, pleading. He lost control. He—well, I can tell you this: He wet himself. That happens, you know, to some men. I’ve seen it. They’re frightened of dying, and … they scream too. Shawcross screamed. I think he screamed. He tried to run away—and that was how it happened. That was the wrong thing to do, you see. He hadn’t had the right training. What you should do is keep very still. Deep breaths—then your hands don’t shake. You don’t stammer. Nothing. You look death straight in the eye—for the sake of your men, you see. Oh, and you can shout. Mackay—Sergeant Mackay—he says shouting is the best thing. You know what he said to me?”
Boy took Steenie’s arm. He leaned down to whisper. “
Shout, sir.
That’s what he says.
Shout to freeze their guts. Louder, sir. That’s it. Let them have it. Make them shit themselves. Fucking Kraut bastards.
”
Boy straightened. He smiled. “I don’t approve of his language, of course. But that’s the way he talks. And he’s right. It works. Shouting works. Stops the shakes. But you see, Shawcross didn’t know that. So he ran—like a rabbit. Straight into the mine field.”
Boy stopped. He lifted his Purdey, broke it, tucked it under his arm. He whistled to the Pomeranian. He took Steenie’s arm and set off toward the path.
“I’ve destroyed my photographs, you know,” he remarked, still in an easy tone, as they reached the lake. “Thought I’d better do that. Just the ones in the bottom drawer. I told Constance that too. I wanted her to know. Why do you think she’s marrying that man, eh? Why would she do a thing like that?”
They had reached the birch grove. Steenie’s face was wet. He needed to blow his nose, but did not dare.
Just keep walking,
he said to himself; they could already see the lights of the house. Boy seemed to be waiting for a reply.
“Well, Boy,” Steenie said in a bright and sensible voice, “I expect she likes him, don’t you? She may even love him, you never know—”