They’d collapsed in giggles while, at the next table, a middle-aged couple, puzzled and slightly scandalized, had pretended not to listen.
He sat at the kitchen table, his bad leg stretched out in front of him, and watched her pour boiling water into the teapot.
‘How is it? Your leg.’
‘Still attached. I’m one of the lucky ones.’
‘Do you feel lucky?’
‘We-ell. No; yes, I do really.’
‘I’ll let you put the milk in, you know how you like it.’
‘Do you remember the night I proposed to you, I couldn’t kneel down?’
‘I don’t recall you trying very hard.’
‘Oh, I’m sure I did, I was very romantic. Then.’
‘Well, go on, what about it?’
‘It’s the same knee.’
‘That’s it, is it? I was expecting another proposal, at least.’
‘It’s interesting, that’s all. Wounded twice in exactly the same place.’
‘What do you think God’s trying to tell you, Paul? Leave the Church of England? Become a Methodist? They don’t kneel.’
She came and sat opposite him. With her thin arms crossed over her chest, she seemed wary, almost nervous. There was something dried up about her, old-maidish, even. A flare of hope he’d experienced upstairs, when he watched her stroke the counterpane, faded. He thought, sadly, of the house in Ypres where the brass bedstead had seemed to grow till it filled the whole room. And that night, the first night they’d ever spent together, that bed had been the whole world.
‘I kept expecting to see you in London,’ he said.
‘I don’t get up to town much these days.’
He glanced round the room. It was a farmhouse kitchen, designed to be lived in rather than set apart for cooking. A fire burnt in the small grate; there was a scent of pine cones. On a table by the door, a vase of dried hogweed cast dramatic shadows across the whitewashed wall.
‘It’s nice here, but doesn’t it get a bit lonely?’
‘Not really. And I certainly don’t miss London. You get so much more work done down here.’
‘So you are managing to work?’
‘Non-stop. How about you?’
He hesitated. ‘I’ve been commissioned as a war artist.’
‘Yes, I heard.’
He waited for her to congratulate him.
‘Pay’s good. Five pounds a week.’
‘That is good. Have you started anything yet?’
‘I’ve done a couple of landscapes. Well, you know me, what else would I paint?’
‘Corpses?’
‘Not allowed.’
‘Ah.’
‘You don’t approve.’
‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’
The conversation was sticky, punctuated by long silences, though not from any lack of things to say. They were tiptoeing round each other, each aware of the possibility of a sudden flare-up. If nothing else was left of their long, fractious love affair, a willingness to speak hurtful truths, and a fear of hearing them, remained.
‘I’m actually working at the Slade,’ Paul said. ‘I bumped into Tonks and he said I could have a room.’
‘Doesn’t five pounds a week run to a studio?’
‘Yes, but I need a lot of space. Some of the paintings are going to be quite big.’
‘How big?’
He spread his arms wide.
‘Hmm. Mind you don’t fall off the scaffold.’
He laughed, but he was nettled by her sarcasm. This was exactly the kind of prickly, competitive exchange he was used to having with Kit Neville, and one or two other of his male contemporaries. But then, Elinor had always been more like a brilliant, egotistical boy than a girl. He remembered a fancy-dress party at the Slade — the end of his first term — coming into the hall and seeing a figure dressed as Harlequin, wearing a mask. He hadn’t known, at first glance, whether it was a man or a woman. Later, when he danced with her, her body against his had felt slim and muscular, but very far from masculine. The mask, the anonymity, had excited him, especially when he realized there was a second Harlequin figure, also female. He didn’t know, to this day, which girl he’d danced with first.
With an effort, he dragged himself back to the present. He’d feel more bones than curves if he danced with her now.
‘I was so sorry to hear about Toby.’
He’d already offered his condolences twice, once by letter and once, in person, at the hospital, but he felt it needed to be said again. She nodded; her eyes were bright though he suspected she was past crying. He wondered if she’d ever really cried at all.
‘You know, at first I thought “Missing, Believed Killed” meant there was a tiny bit of hope, but Father says they don’t say that unless they’re sure. It just means there’s nothing left, nothing identifiable.’
She was looking at him, perhaps even now cherishing a small, flickering hope that he might say something different.
‘Your father’s right, I’m afraid.’
‘But surely they’d find the identity disc?’
‘Not necessarily, not if it was a direct hit.’ He groped for something to soften the brutal reality. ‘It would be very quick, no pain, he wouldn’t even have known.’
God, the platitude count was mounting. He hated visiting bereaved relatives; you always ended up saying something utterly banal. Or, worse still, telling lies.
‘Did you know Kit was one of Toby’s stretcher-bearers?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Actually, I haven’t heard from Kit for quite a while.’
‘Nor me.’ She took a deep, unsteady breath. ‘After Toby — after we got the telegram — I wrote to Kit to ask him if he knew anything, but I didn’t get a reply. I thought it was a bit odd, really. I mean, you’d expect a letter of condolence, wouldn’t you? I mean, he knew Toby, they served together. Only for two or three months, but … Well, I suppose that’s not very long.’
‘Out there it is.’
‘But no, nothing. Not a word. I thought, he can’t have got the letter, so I wrote again.’ She shrugged. ‘Still nothing.’
‘Perhaps he just didn’t know what to say.’
A weak explanation, and not one he accepted for a moment. It was extraordinary that Neville hadn’t written. Why hadn’t he? Because he knew how Toby had died and for some reason couldn’t bring himself to trot out the usual consoling platitudes? But that didn’t excuse ignoring her letters. In fact, Paul couldn’t think of a single acceptable excuse.
‘You must have heard from Toby’s CO?’
‘A couple of sentences. Quite … I don’t know. Grudging.’
‘You could always try the Padre.’
‘Oh, he wrote too, same sort of thing. “Very gallant officer” — so on and so forth. I could’ve told them that.’
‘They mightn’t know anything.’
‘No, I suppose not.’ She wiped her hand across her eyes. ‘Do you think it’s too early for a glass of wine?’
‘I think it’s a marvellous idea.’
She fetched a bottle from the dresser. ‘Here, you open it. I get into a muddle with that corkscrew.’
He drew the cork, poured wine into two glasses and handed one to her. ‘Well,’ he said, at a loss for words. ‘Absent friends.’
They moved closer to the fire. He was glad not to have the expanse of the table between them, though she chose an armchair and left him to occupy the sofa alone. For a moment the only sound was the crackle and hiss of flames.