Elinor to Paul
I’m sorry to hear you were turned down, since it’s what you wanted, though selfishly of course I’m pleased. Father and Toby are rowing all the time about Toby enlisting. I’ve never seen Father so angry. Last night after dinner I heard them shouting. I keep out of it. Father thinks he should go on with his medical training, says he’ll be far more use to his country as a doctor than he ever would be as a half-trained, cack-handed soldier, but of course Toby doesn’t want to miss the fun, he’s got the rest of his life to be a doctor.
We have first-aid classes in the town too. Mother tries to drag me off to them, but so far I’ve managed to resist. I do sympathize with your sense of being stared at and questioned all the time. I feel it too – though in a milder way, there isn’t the same pressure on girls, but it’s still made perfectly clear that painting’s a trivial occupation and ought to be set aside in favour of bandaging Mrs Dalton-Smith’s fat ankles – though what doing that contributes to the war effort God only knows.
I am painting again, though not with much conviction, it’s more a feeling of defiance. I won’t let Mrs Dalton-Smith’s ankles win.
Paul To Elinor
I was sorry to hear of Toby’s battle with your father. Of course, your father’s right. It would be more sensible to stay at medical school, but Toby wants the adventure. So do I, to be honest – or part of me does. Another part knows perfectly well I’d hate every minute of it. I’m not in the least militaristic, I’ve no desire to kill or injure anybody, but if I could wave a magic wand and be out there now, I wouldn’t hesitate.
I’m glad you’re painting again. It’s more than I’ve managed to do. I can’t keep still. Twice a day sometimes I walk into town to buy newspapers or look at the mobilization order on the Town Hall door – in case it says something different from what it said last time. But I see the doctor again tomorrow, and I think he’ll say I’m fit enough to come to London. If not I think I might come anyway. I’ve applied to the Belgian Red Cross and Neville seems to think I stand a good chance. So perhaps I’ll see you again soon.
Elinor to Paul
Ruthie forwarded your letter. I’m staying in this tiny cottage with Catherine. I’m so tired of the war, Paul. Rows at home and then you go to London and there’s no escaping it there either. At least here you can forget it some of the time.
It was quite a last-minute decision. We just packed our bags and walked out on it all and here we are. Free. In a tiny cottage down a long narrow lane which starts off by the church. You can see the spire over the trees. In fact, the Vicar’s our landlord. I don’t know how long we’ll stay but it’s very cheap and quite tucked away. One bedroom, with two little dormer windows. As you look up at the cottage from the front they peer out under the eaves like the eyes of a Shetland pony. Do you agree that houses have expressions? Some houses look quite mad, this one looks interested and friendly and a bit wild.
Downstairs there’s one big room flooded with light because it’s got windows on both sides. Hollyhocks and sunflowers in the garden. As sunflowers die they look more and more like old
men, the stalks develop a hunched back and the seeds fold in on themselves the way old people’s mouths do when they haven’t any teeth. Look at one, you’ll see what I mean. I’ve got two on the kitchen table where I’m writing and I draw them all the time.
I want to try to give you a flavour of our lives here because I’m happier than I’ve ever been before. On the other side of the garden fence there’s lovely countryside and everything’s fresh, not like London. Every possible shade of green and blue and gold and in the afternoons when the birds stop singing there’s total silence. Just the hum of bees in the foxgloves, they start at the top and tumble down from flower to flower. Last night we had a picnic, cheese and bread and apples and a big bottle of cider and when it was dark we went out on to the lawn in our nightdresses and danced. I can still turn cartwheels, Paul, so you see I’m not an old woman yet, though sometimes I feel like one. On the other side of the wall there’s a cornfield with cornflowers and poppies. We walked all the way round the edge in the moonlight and the poppies looked black and the corn was silver. It made me shiver to look at it. We keep the cider cool by putting it in a bucket of water under the sink. I’m full of cider now and my lips are swollen, I think I must look like a fish. I am so happy, but Catherine keeps yawning and saying it’s time for bed, so I must close.
The atmosphere at home is terrible, Toby said father can’t stop him serving his country in any way he damn well chooses, but the fact is he does want and need Father’s approval, and so far Dad simply won’t budge. He says war should be left to professional soldiers and all these half-trained boys running about all over the place are more trouble than they’re worth. I don’t know. I side with Toby because he’s my brother and we’ve always stuck together, but the fact is, I don’t want him to go either. More than anything I resent the way the war takes over all our lives. It’s like a single bullying voice shouting all the other voices down.
I wish you could come here, Paul. It would be lovely to see you, I do miss you, but now I’m just about to start writing real nonsense so it’s high time I went to bed.
Love, Elinor.
Elinor to Paul
Yes, I know, two letters in one day! I expect they’ll arrive in the same post, but I simply have to write again because something really awful has happend. We’ve been thrown out! The Vicar turned up, walking across the fields in his long black hassock (cassock?) – don’t know, doesn’t matter – his black gown, binding with briars my joys and desires. He said the Parish Council had brought it to his attention, etc. Oh, he was squirming, he didn’t know where to look. But the upshot of it is, they want us out. Can’t rent the cottage to a German. Catherine signed the rental agreement. Stein, of course. I nearly suggested she call herself Stone, but I didn’t dare, it seems such an insult to ask somebody to change their name. Apparently I’m welcome to stay to the end of the month, but Catherine must go.
Of course I’m going with her
! And so here we are, suitcases packed, waiting for the cart to take us to the station.
Catherine’s gone very quiet. I rant and rave and stomp up and down, but I know it’s no use, really. I’m still quite shocked. It seems so … I don’t know, un-English.
Anyway, there it is. We’re coming back to London so we shall be able to see each other after all.
I’m sending this to your home address though I suppose you may have already have left by now. Oh dear, what a muddle it all is. I can’t wait to see you, now more than ever. Elinor.
Sixteen
The last thing Paul had expected to feel was nostalgia, but as he stood in the entrance to the Domino Room, taking in the crimson velvet, the gilt, the flickering candles, the caryatids, the cupids, the whole grandiose, but cosy, feel of the place, he did feel a ripple of affection. So many evenings spent here, most of them with Teresa. He waited for the pang of regret, but it didn’t come. If anything he felt relived.
Finding an empty table, he sat down, looking around, trying to work out what had changed. There was an edginess about the place now: excitement, and fear. Not fear of disfigurement or death – most of the people in this room were at no risk of either – no, fear of being irrelevant. He looked from table to table, recognizing famous and not-so-famous faces, and what he sensed was a toxic mixture of excitement and paralysis. Though he only recognized it here because to a certain extent he’d felt exactly that himself, before he’d made himself start working again.
Neville was the first person to speak to him. ‘Hello,’ he said, coming over and shaking hands warmly, laying his free hand on Paul’s shoulder in that domineering way of his. ‘Elinor says you’ve been ill. You all right now?’
‘Fine. You?’
‘Oh you know, toddling on.’
He was looking round the room as he spoke. Paul suspected he was searching for more important people to talk to, but he showed no inclination to move on.
‘What’ll you have?’
‘Whisky please.’
Neville gave the order. ‘I suppose you’re up for the Red Cross interview?’
‘Tomorrow morning.’
‘You’ll be all right.’
‘When do you leave?’
‘Two, three weeks.’ He seized his whisky from the waiter’s tray. ‘Did you try to enlist?’
‘They wouldn’t have me. What about you?’
‘Went to see my own medical man. He told me not to waste my time. Anyway, the sooner I get started the better.’
‘Driving an ambulance?’
‘Painting, you fool.’
‘Will you be close to the fighting?’
‘As close as I can get.’ He was not so much drinking as throwing it back. ‘My father’s been out there twice already. He went to one hospital where there were five hundred men lying on straw, covered in piss and shit – some of them hadn’t had their wounds dressed in a fortnight. No anaesthetics, no disinfectant, nothing. Whole place stank of gangrene. As far as I can make out the medical services have been completely overwhelmed.’
‘And that’s what you’re going to paint?’
‘I’ll paint whatever’s there.’
‘You really do see it as a painting opportunity, don’t you?’
‘Too bloody right I do.’
Paul caught a movement by the door. Elinor had come in, and, just behind her, Catherine. The girls hesitated, gazing nervously round the room. Elinor smiled when she saw Paul waving and came over at once, with none of the pauses to greet people that he remembered from the past. He leaned forward to embrace her. Her cheek was cool, even in this heat, and her scent reminded him of fresh linen sheets.
She kissed him then held him at arm’s length.
‘You’ve lost a lot of weight.’
‘A stone and a half.
‘You were thin to start with.’
‘I’m careful about cracks in the pavement.’
Catherine shook hands, first with him, then with Neville. She was pale and wearing a black dress that drained her complexion of the little colour it had. Neville hadn’t spoken to Elinor, but now, at the last moment, he bowed and smiled.
‘I called at your lodgings this afternoon,’ Paul said to Elinor. ‘But you were out.’
‘I thought you were still in the country,’ Neville said, almost simultaneously.
Catherine answered. ‘No, the Parish Council didn’t like the idea of having a Church cottage rented by a German.’
‘A German –?’ For a moment Neville looked puzzled. ‘Oh, yes, of course, I’m sorry, I forgot. And they threw you out because of that? But that’s outrageous.’
‘Well, they did,’ Elinor said. ‘And they didn’t even offer to refund the rent.’
‘Why don’t you complain to the Bishop?’
‘Because it wouldn’t do any good.’
‘You can’t let them get away with it.’
She shook her head. ‘Catherine’s got enough on her plate without that. I don’t think you want the battle, do you, Cath?’
‘Not that particular one.’ She turned to Neville whose anger on her behalf, however misdirected, had obviously touched her. ‘You see, we may have to move house and if we do I’ve got to be there to help my parents, so I’m afraid painting in country cottages is a thing of the past.’
‘
Why
do you have to move?’ Neville said. He was becoming more truculent by the minute.
‘We live on the coast. Right on the front, in fact – the sea’s about two hundred yards away – and people think we’re signalling to German ships. It’s ridiculous, but that’s what they think.’ She tried a smile, but it wouldn’t stay on her mouth. ‘If we close the living-room curtains that’s a signal. Open them, that’s a signal. Flowers in the window: signal. And as for switching on a lamp … Well!’
‘But that’s insane.’
‘Oh, we’re the lucky ones. A family we know – they’re not even German, they’re Polish – had bricks thrown through the windows.’
Neville was breathing noisily, a dragon working up a head of steam. ‘Should you move? I mean, shouldn’t you stay and face it out?’
‘My father’s lived there thirty years and last week …’ She was
fighting back the tears. ‘Last week somebody spat at him in the street.’
‘So, you see,’ Elinor said, ‘not being allowed to rent the cottage doesn’t matter very much.’
Neville was leaning towards Catherine. ‘Do you have people you can stay with?’
‘My mother’s sister. I’m staying with her at he moment.’
Nobody came near them, though Neville and Elinor must have known everybody in the room. They were in quarantine, it seemed. Neville was aware of it, Paul could see that – he had that blue, dancing, truculent light in his eyes – he’d found a cause, and sooner or later everybody in this room would pay for ignoring Catherine tonight. Oh, he was a champion grudge-bearer was Neville, but he was also on this occasion – and how distressing it was to admit it – right.
One way and another it was a relief when Elinor suggested they should leave.
‘Good idea,’ said Neville, jumping up. ‘It’s boring in here tonight.’
It was raining, no more than a light drizzle but enough to make them decide to take a cab. Paul went to summon one, leaving Neville and the two girls standing in the shelter of the doorway. He’d just attracted a cabby’s attention and was turning to call the others when an incident took place. A young man, rather foppishly dressed, carrying a silver-topped cane, stumbled against Catherine as he was leaving and knocked her to one side. It might have been an accident, but his grin suggested otherwise. Neville spun round and head-butted him in the face. Blood spouted from the young man’s nostrils and splashed on his shirt-front.
Paul ran back to join Neville, whose fists were clenched in front of him. One of the young man’s companions grabbed his arm and pulled him back. The other bent and picked up his cane. By this time the doorman and several waiters had appeared, obviously determined not to have a fight in the entrance. Gradually, with muttered threats of future reprisals, the young man allowed himself to be dragged away.
In silence, they walked to the cab. Catherine was white and
seemed to be on the verge of tears. Elinor had an arm round her shoulder. Paul was stunned, less by Neville’s anger, which he thought was fully justified, than by the sheer backroom-brawl brutality of that head-butt. He wouldn’t have believed Neville had that in him.