Peacetime (20 page)

Mercer heard little of what he said, but imagined he was reassuring Jacob about what was happening. Even though there was no work on the airfield, Mathias explained, a check would be made on the prisoners at their camp in the town. He dare not be absent at any such roll-call for fear of jeopardizing his application to stay.

Watching the two of them together, Mercer saw again the true nature of the responsibility carried by one man for the other, and saw, too, the fine and shifting line between that responsibility and the dependence it created and sustained. He saw how
carefully Mathias explained everything, how the few hours of the immediate future were so precisely and reassuringly plotted. There were times, then and later, when this understanding between the German and the Dutchman was perfectly balanced and accepted by them both, and when it needed nothing but the silence between them to make itself clear.

Mercer stood back until Mathias had finished, after which Mathias gathered together his belongings and ran up the dunes in the direction of the airfield. The comparison between the two men – one so debilitated, the other so full of vigour – could not have been more marked.

Alone with Jacob, Mercer explained again what he himself now needed to do.

‘Just go,' Jacob told him, aware of Mercer's concern at leaving him alone. ‘What harm can come to me here?'

‘The tide might come in and drown you,' Mercer said, both of them aware that, were it not already ebbing, the water would not come within fifty yards of where Jacob lay.

‘Or I might be swallowed up by an earthquake. Just go. I promise you, I shall be here when you get back. You already explain yourself too often to Mathias.' He closed his eyes again to preclude any further discussion. The sun was no longer directly above him, though the sand remained warm in the shelter of the slope.

Mercer left him, following a different path from the one taken by Mathias.

As he approached the site, hoping to avoid those few men to whom he might now have to explain his absence, Mary stepped onto the road ahead of him. She walked in the same direction and did not see
him behind her. He resisted the urge to call out to her. His first encounter with Lynch remained fresh in his mind, and he hoped now to avoid the man until he was able to speak to her alone about what had happened. It occurred to him that the two of them might have again been together, and that Lynch was nearby and watching. He thought of Jacob in the dunes and let her draw further away from him, until she finally crossed the road and was lost to sight.

He arrived at the tower, collected several of his charts and went in search of the men he needed to see. One of these, a foreman, told him that the girl had been looking for him and that he'd sent her away and told her not to come back. Apparently, she had a message for him from her father, but this, the man suggested, was probably just something she'd made up to account for her presence there.

Probably, Mercer agreed. He asked about the recently discovered bombs on the airfield and the man told him all he knew, which was no more than he had already learned from Mathias. The man said they had enough to worry about with their own work to get too concerned about what happened at the airfield. Again, Mercer avoided all further conversation by agreeing with him.

Waiting a further hour, until the last of the lorries had gone, he went back to the dunes, taking with him a blanket and a bottle of water.

He was crossing beside the abandoned Light when he again saw Mary. She called to him. He waved and called back to her that he was too busy to stop. He searched all around her for Lynch, but saw no one.

‘I've been looking for you,' she called.

He cupped his ear as though he could not hear or understand her.

‘Earlier. I was looking for you.'

‘Tomorrow,' he called back.

She did nothing to hide her disappointment at this response. He pointed away from her, hoping to suggest some urgency, and then resumed walking.

Leaving her behind, he came to where the two small boats he had earlier seen out at sea were now moored in the channel beside the Light. There was little water in this and the boats lay on a bed of shining mud. A simple jetty joined the vessels to the channel's steep bank. There was no sign of the men.

He turned from the open land into the dunes. Mary was no longer visible behind him. Whatever he said to her now, he realized, whatever he confided in her, would find some cold echo in her father.

Reaching Jacob, he found him asleep. It had grown cooler on the shaded slope, and he unfolded the blanket and laid it over the sleeping man's legs. Jacob woke immediately, uncertain at first where he was or what was happening to him.

‘It's me,' Mercer said to him. ‘Mercer.'

‘What?' Jacob struggled to sit up and to look around him.

‘Me, Mercer. We were here with Mathias. He had to leave. You're coming back to the tower with me.'

Jacob shook his head and looked down at the lines of sand which had formed against his legs and sides. ‘I was dreaming,' he said. He raised his arms to allow Mercer to continue wrapping the blanket around him.

‘Are you cold?' Mercer asked him.

He nodded.

Mercer pushed the blanket tighter around his legs.

‘Thank you,' Jacob said. He reached out and held Mercer's arm for a moment.

‘The site's empty,' Mercer said.

‘Still, will it not inconvenience you to have me so close?'

‘Not at all. I'll be glad of the company.'

‘I doubt that. I sleep very easily. Not well, but easily.'

‘Can you stand?'

‘I imagine so.' Jacob pushed himself upright. ‘How long have they been gone?'

‘Long enough. Besides, it's none of their business.'

‘Of course.'

‘I mean it. They probably resent my own presence more than they resent yours. They expected something better than this, that's all. I actually heard those who had seen active service wondering what it was they'd been fighting for.'

‘Whatever it was, they were not fighting for people like me.'

‘I doubt any of them had the slightest idea what was happening.'

‘Few still do,' Jacob said. ‘And most will continue to deny it.'

‘Deny it?'

‘Of course. To many, it is a source of great shame. Believe me, there was nothing noble or heroic in our – in my – suffering or survival.'

‘But
denial
?'

Jacob remained silent for several minutes, then said, ‘You have a great deal in common with Mathias, and for that small mercy I am grateful.'

‘Meaning you and he have had this same conversation a thousand times already.'

Jacob smiled. ‘Perhaps not a thousand.'

‘He was telling me—' Mercer began.

‘He was explaining to you about the nature of my dependence upon him. This kindness of strangers in which I am steeped. You must not consider me
ungrateful, but you must understand that there is an art – what would you call it, a
grace
– to receiving and accepting all these acts of kindness without becoming
too
dependent or too beholden. The act must in some way satisfy the giver just as it fulfils a need in the person to whom it is directed. Sometimes the former is considerably less straightforward and harder to either understand or to accept than the latter.'

‘You and Mathias,' Mercer said.

‘Me and everyone,' Jacob said. ‘But, yes, especially Mathias.'

‘I understand,' Mercer said.

‘I wouldn't expect that much of you. Nor, I imagine, would I want it. I sometimes think that it is only our imperfect understanding of most other people that makes them tolerable to us.'

‘Seeing only what we want to see in them, you mean?'

Jacob held out his hand for Mercer to help him from the slope to the firmer shingle of the beach. They started walking. The blanket was now draped over Jacob's shoulders and he held it with both hands at his chest.

‘Mathias is right about the hospital,' Mercer said as they reached the open land of the site, and he looked around them to ensure they had not been seen.

‘Of course he is. But he knows only of his own imprisonment.'

‘Surely that's not how it would seem to you – a prison.'

Jacob shook his head. ‘Nothing so obvious or straightforward. But I prize above all else my solitude and what little true independence I am able to fool myself into believing I still possess.'

‘You needn't stay there for long. Just until you were well again.'

‘And how long do you imagine that might be?' Jacob paused, leaning forward slightly to ease his breathing and to clear his throat. He, too, looked around them. ‘I can't imagine how I came this far out,' he said.

They arrived at the tower without being seen and without encountering anyone.

A piece of paper lay beneath the door. Mercer picked this up.
We came looking for you. Not in. Lynch.

‘From one of the foremen,' he said. He waited at the foot of the stairs, helping Jacob as he climbed.

Arriving in the room above, Jacob finally shed the blanket and sat down.

Mercer prepared them tea and something to eat. After which Jacob asked him if he had anything stronger to drink. Mercer took out a bottle of whisky and gave it to him.

‘I must seem very abrupt and ungrateful to you,' Jacob said. ‘I honestly believed I might have reeducated myself to the ways of civilized men by now.' He filled a glass to the brim, mouthed a silent toast and drank it.

‘What did you say?' Mercer asked him.

‘I was drinking to my sister. I do it every day because I have so few other ways of keeping her memory alive. I have a single photograph of when she was a girl, eight or nine years old. One solitary picture, that's all. Everything else was lost.'

‘You have your memories,' Mercer said, refilling the glass and pouring a drink for himself.

‘You would not want the memories I possess, Mr Mercer.'

‘I'm sorry. I didn't think.'

‘Memories of which I will never be rid or free. This is good drink. Usually, I am forced to toast her in
something poor and raw, something which burns my mouth and throat and stomach, and which fills my head with its bitter and lingering fumes; it seems somehow more appropriate, more fitting.'

‘This is all I have,' Mercer said.

Jacob drained the second glass and held it out for more.

‘Will you tell me about her?' Mercer said.

‘About Anna? What is there for me to tell that will make any sense to you. I loved her more than I ever loved anyone in my whole life, including my mother, and she was fourteen when she died. We were not separated, you see, and I was with her or close to her the whole time. You cannot imagine what she was to me, or the loss I suffered when she died.'

‘It's painful for you,' Mercer said, hoping to indicate that he regretted having asked so bluntly and that Jacob need not go on.

‘Of course. But it is not a pain I would happily or willingly lose. Anna. She was day and night to me, Mr Mercer. She gave me purpose. And, please, don't misunderstand me – I am not one of your Romantic poets struggling for a metaphor or a symbol. Day and night. I was her older brother, see, her protector, her saviour; I was the one who would ensure she would survive; I was the one who would protect and save her; I was the one who told her everything she needed to hear; I – we—' He stopped abruptly, unable to continue, and they sat together in this awkward, unbroken silence for several minutes longer.

‘May I have the blanket back?' Jacob said eventually.

‘I feel the cold like an empty house feels it.'

Mercer gave him the blanket and fetched him another. He brought this from a cupboard in the room below, and when he returned, Jacob was again sleeping.

Mercer wrapped both blankets around him and took off his shoes. His feet beneath were bare and dirty. He lifted these and folded the blanket beneath them.

It was not yet seven. He himself rarely slept until midnight.

He worked at his charts for several hours, catching up with everything he had neglected during the day.

He watched the lights appear in the houses. He watched Mary's house in particular, but saw nothing of its occupants.

Later, in the darkness, as he prepared for bed, he heard the raised voices of men who must have earlier gone into town. He heard Lynch among these.

Jacob remained undisturbed by the noise. The stiff blanket lay around his face like a shroud.

One of these returning men played a harmonica, and its plaintive, discordant sound came sharply through the darkness. The men kept their distance from the tower, and walked one by one to their homes until silence returned.

The following morning he woke to find Jacob gone. The blankets lay on the floor beside the chair, and the half-empty bottle of whisky stood close by. He wondered if Jacob had woken and returned home in the darkness, or if he had waited until dawn and gone then. Mercer himself had woken several times during the night, but had heard nothing.

It was almost time to start work and he made his final preparations in advance of the others. In a few days' time, work would start on the laying of a major culvert, diverting water from the site of the new Station. Preparations for this were already underway, and all the smaller feeder drains, some as far as two miles inland, were being cleared or sealed in readiness for the work. For the few days this would take, the men employed on it – the majority of the workforce – would be forced to work up to their waists in mud and water and silt until the new culvert was operational and the old drain finally abandoned.

It was Mercer's intention that day to walk the course
of the old drain to assess where it might best be briefly blocked and diverted prior to its incorporation in the new scheme. There would be some localized flooding; feeder drains and dykes would overflow; land drainage and outflows would be temporarily affected. In ten days the afternoon tide would be at its lowest for a month, and the work was planned to coincide with this.