‘At the very least Kit knows something.’
There was no denying that. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Write to him. There’s no point me writing again, I’ve tried twice.’
‘All right. But you’re making far too much of it. So all right, perhaps Toby didn’t get on with Kit, perhaps something happened, they had a row or something … I don’t know, but it doesn’t mean it’s connected to his death. Kit’s always putting people’s backs up, you know he is — he’s famous for it.’
‘It’s more than that.’
‘Have you tried Kit’s parents?’
‘I wrote to his mother, I haven’t had a reply, I think she might be out of London. You could try; I mean, you have met them.’ She touched his sleeve. ‘I don’t want much, I just want to know how he died.’
That was actually quite a lot.
‘Who else do you think Kit might be in touch with?’
‘Catherine Stein. You remember Catherine?’
Oh, yes, he remembered Catherine. He remembered how she and Elinor had walked round and round the quad, in the lunch breaks, always with their arms around each other’s waist. Catherine was German, which, at the time, had seemed to be of no importance whatsoever. He wondered how she was surviving the war.
‘I thought it was over. Her and Kit.’
‘It is, but they still write. She’s back in London, you know, I thought you could go to see her.’
‘Why don’t you go? She’s your friend.’
‘I’ve already asked if she knows anything. She says no.’
‘Well, then …’
‘But if Kit did say something critical about Toby she mightn’t tell me. If it was something really bad …’
So she had thought about the possibilities. ‘All right, I’ll see what I can do. And now, Miss Brooke …’ Henry Tonks’s acerbic voice entered the room. ‘I believe you have a painting to show me.’
As they walked across to the studio, a few flakes of snow drifted irresolutely on the bitter wind. Once inside the barn, there was some heat from the wood stove; the frost-blind windows had circles of clear glass at the centre where the ice had begun to thaw. All the same, to work all morning at this temperature …
Elinor went to stand in front of the easel. ‘Right,’ she said, taking a deep breath. She swept the cloth aside.
Toby. Of course, Toby. Who else? Paul stood and looked at the portrait for a long time. He couldn’t make up his mind whether it was good or not; he rather suspected it wasn’t, certainly not in comparison with some of the landscapes. But if it was a failure it was an interesting and disturbing one. The resemblance to Elinor — she and Toby hadn’t been so alike in life, surely they hadn’t? — impressed itself on him with unpleasant force.
‘It’s very good,’ he said, in a tight, little voice.
‘Is it? I don’t know, I just can’t see it any more.’
‘Perhaps you need a break. You’ve been here a long time, alone.’ He watched her examine the word, and reject it. ‘Why don’t you come back to London with me, we can easily find you somewhere to stay a few nights; and don’t say “the dog” — you can bring him with you if you have to.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘No, don’t think about it. Come back with me.’
‘I can’t. Not just yet. There’s Toby’s twenty-eighth to be got through first …’
She’d turned away from him to face the portrait again. He wanted to grab her by the arm and pull her away from it. Despite her isolation and the loss of weight, he hadn’t been afraid for her till now.
‘You might never know what happened to him, have you thought of that?’
‘I know. I know I might have to live with that, but I’m not going to give up yet. He was my brother, for God’s sake.’
Blindly, she turned to him.
‘All right, all right.’ He cupped her face in his hands, brushing his mouth against hers in a sexless, almost brotherly kiss. ‘I’ll do anything I can to help. Promise.’
Thirteen
Back in London, Paul threw himself into work. Ever since he’d left hospital he’d been aware of an increasing restlessness. He was only really calm, now, when he had a brush in his hand, so he worked very long hours, dreading the moment when the shortening days and the failing light forced him to give up and go home. Evenings were bad; nights worse. Wherever he was, was the wrong place. Partly, this was a side effect of learning to live with constant pain, but it wasn’t just that.
One night after work he got his drawing pad out and tried to go on working, but he was too tired to think. Losing patience with himself, he grabbed his coat and went downstairs, hoping a walk might help to clear his head. The night was clear and cold; the moon full. He walked rapidly, head down, pushing his body as hard as the pain in his leg allowed. Shuttered windows — dead eyes — ignored him as he passed, and the blue-painted lamps gave people’s faces a cyanosed look, not unlike the first darkening of the skin after death. It would be easy, in his present febrile state, to start seeing London as the City of Dreadful Night.
At the end of the street, he stopped and looked up into the sky. A searchlight fingered the underside of the clouds, like a careful housewife assessing the quality of cloth. He couldn’t go back to his lodgings. He should probably go to the Café Royal where at least there would be people he knew and could — well, almost — talk to. Any company was better than his own.
But tonight, there was another possibility. He’d written to Catherine Stein, and received a brief, friendly reply expressing a willingness to meet. No date had been suggested. Now, though, he thought he might call on her. If she was out there was no harm done; if she was busy she needn’t see him. At the very least, it would provide a focus for his walk.
The streets were almost deserted. On these bright moonlit nights people hurried home, pulled the blackout curtains across and slept — if they slept at all — under the kitchen table or in the cupboard beneath the stairs. It was difficult not to despise these excessively timid civilians, when you thought what their sons and husbands were going through. No, not difficult: impossible.
He turned into Catherine’s road. A girl was walking along the pavement ten or so yards ahead of him, a slight figure wearing a black coat and hat. There was something about her posture — rounded shoulders and folded arms — that gave her the look of a victim. Even as he thought this, she turned and the light from the street lamp fell full on her face.
Catherine, he almost said, but checked himself. ‘Miss Stein.’ He’d called her Catherine when they were students but it seemed presumptuous to do so now. ‘I was just on my way to see you.’
‘Paul. Good heavens. I wrote to you.’
‘Yes, I got it this morning.’
They were still put out by the unexpected meeting, a little awkward with each other.
‘It’s been a long time,’ she said.
‘Two years?’
‘More than that.’
She was right, must be more like three. Yes, that was it. The last time he saw her, they’d been to the Café Royal, not long after the war broke out, and just as they were leaving a man came up and insulted her — called her a filthy German, something like that — and Kit Neville had head-butted him.
‘I was thinking about you only the other day.’ He sensed a slight withdrawal, a wariness. ‘You and Elinor. I’m working at the Slade now and I was walking through the quad and … Oh, I don’t know, getting a bit nostalgic, I suppose. Thinking about old times.’
‘Well, they were good.’
The sadness in her voice so subtly echoed his own he knew he had to talk to her — and not merely about Neville.