The wedding was small. Rachel wanted to hire a medium for her mother to attend but Joe refused, and that was their first fight.
‘Maybe an Edison doll if you insist,’ he said flatly. ‘But no mediums.’ Eventually, she gave in. Her mother claimed she did not mind, but thereafter she pointedly ignored Joe whenever he tried to say hello during Rachel’s weekly ectophone calls.
They gradually got to know each other over the next three years. A trickle of small things they shared, usually after they made love or during long walks around the Serpentine. Rachel told him about the early years in India, and always feeling cold when she came to England. How she tried to fit in at the Court. Joe talked about playing rugby for England. How he got into flying, during an off-season when he was looking for a rush and found that he loved looking at the world from above.
But he never, ever said anything about the war. And when she lost the baby, there were suddenly two things they could not talk about, two large stones that filled the empty space in every conversation.
Maybe in the past few weeks, she had made things worse by adding a third.
* * *
Joe arrived a few minutes late. He was in full dress uniform, khaki and medals, clean-shaven, hair freshly cut. He looked better than he had for months, and if not for the grey in his hair, he could have stepped out of the day they first met.
He gave Rachel a curt nod and sat down.
‘Was there a reunion at the club?’ she asked. ‘It’s that—well, you look jolly dashing.’
Joe’s face was set. ‘No. I will tell you later. Let’s get a drink.’
Cava materialised, and they drank it in silence. It tickled Rachel’s belly. Then she reached across the table and took Joe’s hand. He leaned back in his chair, but Rachel did not let go. She had to do it now, before she lost her resolve, before they fell back into their old pattern again like two gramophone needles in their own grooves.
‘Joe, I know things have not been right. We both know why, I think. I thought we could … we could come out, somewhere different, somewhere nice, and, well, talk about it.’
‘Rachel, I … Oh, Hell. Is talking really going to solve anything? What happened was my fault. Both with the baby, and … that night, when you brought the finches. Just let me live with it, will you?’
‘Joe, you can’t just take the blame like that. The baby, it was … all normal, until it wasn’t. Maybe if I had been more careful, it wouldn’t have—’ Her voice caught. She closed her eyes. ‘Silly me. I brought us here so I would not cry.’
Joe patted her hand. ‘It’s all right, now. It’s all right.’
She kept her eyes shut for a while and heard Joe giving the waiter their orders. Later, she had no idea what they were. When he spoke again, his voice was gentle.
‘I don’t know what happened, not with you, and not with me, the other night. I’m not a doctor. But I am pretty sure it had more to do with me than you, both times.’
‘That is not true. Maybe … if you said something about it. What happened. What they did to you. It would help me. Help us.’
Joe said nothing for a while.
‘We’ve been through this before. It would be unfair to the lads, Rachel,’ he said finally.
‘I’m not one of them. But I comprehend duty, you know I do. Maybe I could understand.’
‘I really hope you do, Rachel.’ He sighed. ‘I really hope you do. There is something I was going to tell you tonight anyway. I re-enlisted. It sounds like there is going to be a pretty good scrap in Spain. A lot of the lads at the club were raring to go, and so I thought, why not? And to be honest, I think it is best for both of us if I stay away from you for a while.’
Rachel covered her mouth with a hand. She felt the vertigo from the Tower again, a black abyss opening before her, except this time she was already falling.
‘Joe. Please don’t,’ she whispered. ‘It’s not safe. There is—’
There is a traitor helping the Soviets. She bit her lip. She wanted to come clean about Bloom, about Max, about their operation. But there was no telling what he would do, what he would think. In many ways, they did live in different countries, with different languages, with glass walls between them.
In the end, the lifelong habit of not sharing secrets won.
‘There is what?’ he asked after she remained silent for several breaths.
‘I just know it won’t go well. From something I heard at work.’
‘There are always rumours, Rachel. In any case, I can hardly withdraw now. Would make me look like a bounder. Bad for the old morale.’
‘It’s something else, it’s—’
‘Hush,’ Joe said. ‘Coming here was a good idea. But I think it is better if we don’t try to say too much. I am not stupid, Rachel. I know there is something going on with you. I am not about to judge. I … when things were really bad, I visited some places, in the East End, where you can … well. Aetheric love, they call it. I thought it would make the nightmares go away. It didn’t help, though. I am more sorry than I can say, Rachel.’
The jealousy fluttered in its cage in her breast, and she looked away. So it had been that, as she’d suspected: ectoplasm fantasies, nothing real. It still made her skin crawl.
‘I’m sure it didn’t,’ she said quietly. ‘I don’t want to know about that.’
‘And I don’t need to know about your … work. Or whatever it is.’
Maybe he would understand, Rachel thought. She pushed against the glass wall as hard as she could.
‘It is not what you think it is, Joe. It really isn’t. Let me explain what has been happening—’
Joe held up a hand. ‘It makes no difference to me, really. I am going anyway.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want to.’
‘Joe, I need to understand why. Aetheric love I think I can just about live with, given time. But going away to a war, away from me—that is different. I deserve an explanation. And I might understand more than you think. I was a nurse for a while, remember? I saw injured people. But I’ve never understood what could have hurt you so badly you must keep it from me.’
Joe said nothing. He turned his cap in his hands and put it down. He ordered more wine and emptied his glass. Their first course arrived. Joe stared at the scallops on his plate and cautiously ate one, then put his fork down.
‘All right, Rachel. All right, then.’
* * *
It took Joe a while to get to it. He talked slowly at first, about joining up, being shipped to France. Rachel held her breath as emotions from old memories played across his face like images from a magic lantern. She said nothing, only made small noises to egg him on, practically held her breath so as not to stem the flood of words.
‘It felt ridiculous at first,’ Joe said, ‘wearing those contraptions. I did better than some of the lads: I was fit enough to carry it and walk. They did not work very well. One boy from Kent got electrocuted. I saw some films of the early experiments. One showed some poor bastard with ectoplasm pouring out of him but no control, flailing around, smashing the lab until they shot him in the head.
‘We all got Tickets, of course—all soldiers did—but it was early days, we were still afraid. The officers would try to get the boys to charge across minefields, but it just led to more fear. The ectophones were poor, things did not work so smoothly in Summerland back then, and in any case we had all kinds of ideas about the place because we did not know any better. So there the soldiers all sat, in the trenches, in a stalemate.
‘And that was where we came in, the ectotroops, tanks and flyers. I was always sensitive, even as a child, but only a little bit. Sometimes I would have this funny sensation, like a tickle in the back of my head, and see people who were not there, and crazy lights. But that was it.