‘Paul.’ She seemed so taken aback that for a moment he thought she wasn’t going to ask him in, but then she stood aside. ‘Come in. Sorry, I was just getting changed …’
‘My fault, I should have …’
‘Is anything wrong?’
‘No, well, yes. Kit Neville’s been wounded. Tonks just told me.’
She took a step back. ‘Is it bad?’
‘Quite bad. He’s in Queen’s Hospital.’
‘Queen’s … That’s facial injuries, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, my God.’ She pushed her hair off her face. ‘You’d better come up.’
He followed her upstairs and into the living room. Two cups lay side by side on the draining board. He sat on the sofa. Catherine stood with her back to the fire, twisting her fingers together, almost wringing her hands. He hadn’t known people actually did that.
‘Has Tonks seen him?’
A door clicked open and Paul turned to see Elinor in her grey silk dressing gown. So she’d come to London and not told him …
Catherine was looking over his head. ‘Kit’s —’
‘I know, I heard. How long’s he been back?’
‘A few days.’
‘So, this wound — it’s not the reason he didn’t write?’
‘No, they ship you back pretty fast if it’s a bad wound. Especially facial injuries because they just don’t have the facilities out there. Everybody goes to Queen’s.’
Belatedly, she came across and kissed him. He felt warm flesh through the thin silk — she must be naked underneath — and her hair smelled of rosemary. It felt awkward, embracing her like that in front of Catherine; he was relieved when she pulled away.
‘I’ve got to see him,’ she said.
‘Tonks says he doesn’t want visitors.’
‘Too bad, I’m going.’
‘Elinor, for God’s sake, he’s got a shrapnel wound in his face.’
‘I don’t give a damn what he’s got, I’m going.’
‘No. You can’t —’
‘Oh, I think you’ll find I can.’
She was pacing up and down the small room as she spoke. At one point she leaned against the sink, only to push herself off it again immediately. She went to the bedroom door; he thought she might be going to shut herself away, but then she turned and came back into the room. At last she came to a halt, standing by the fireplace, chafing her arms under the loose sleeves of her gown.
‘Grief’s bad enough at the best of times,’ she said. ‘But when you don’t know …’ Her voice hardened. ‘I’ve got a right to know.’
‘And Neville’s got a right to privacy. Look, why don’t you leave it a couple of weeks, let him settle in, and then we’ll go together.’
‘No. Now. I owe it to Toby.’
The mere mention of his name produced a paroxysm of grief. Paul could do nothing but hold her close and wait for it to pass. He saw Catherine, who’d been reduced to a bystander in all this, watching them, and sensed her confusion. She was visibly withdrawing from him, as she realized how deeply involved he still was with her friend. He could have howled.
Instead, he went on holding Elinor, rocking her, until at last her sobs subsided into hiccups. Finally, in despair, he caught her face between his two hands and kissed her, lightly, on the forehead. ‘There, there. Come on, now, it’s all right.’
Elinor freed herself. ‘It’s not all right, nothing’s all right. I want to see him.’
Exasperated beyond bearing, Paul went and looked out of the window, leaving the two women to whisper together. A young soldier came staggering along the street, weaving from side to side as if the pavement were the deck of a ship labouring through heavy seas. As he passed the house, he almost overbalanced, clutched at a lamp post and clung to it, his fair, foolish face dazed with drink and shame. Shame, because he’d never intended his precious leave to be anything like this.
‘Paul,’ Catherine said.
He turned to face them. They were sitting on the sofa, their arms and legs so entwined it was difficult to see which limb belonged to which girl. There was something accusing in their joint stare. His fantasy was rapidly turning into a nightmare.
‘She’s going to see him, Paul. Whatever you say. Wouldn’t it be better if you went with her?’
‘Why don’t you go?’
‘Because he wouldn’t want to see me. I’m the last person … But he might want to see you. You’re a soldier — he knows you won’t be shocked. I just think it’d be easier, that’s all. Easier for him.’
This was defeat, and he knew it. Turning to Elinor he said, ‘When do you want to go?’
‘Now.’
‘Don’t be silly, it’s far too late.’
‘Tomorrow, then. First thing.’
He nodded. ‘I’ll see you at Charing Cross Station at ten o’clock. I don’t know what time the trains go, but they’re quite frequent, so I don’t suppose we’ll have long to wait.’
He didn’t want to stay after that. They both came to the front door to see him off. He walked away from them, conscious of his limp, feeling them all the time behind him, watching, though when, eventually, he turned round, they’d gone inside and the door was shut.
Next morning, the train journey to Sidcup passed in almost total silence. Elinor gazed out of the window; Paul pretended to read. It seemed they were no longer even friends.
On Sidcup Station, a pretty young girl came up to Paul, holding her hand out, begging for cigarettes. When he gave her a packet of Woodbines, she said, ‘Gawd bless yer, guv,’ and bobbed a curtsy, before running back to her mother, a tall, angular woman with an imposing bosom, floor-length skirts and a wide-brimmed hat. She was one of three smartly dressed society ladies standing behind a trestle table collecting for the wounded soldiers at Queen’s Hospital. The young girl was managing to dart flirtatious glances at Paul behind her mother’s back.
Elinor looked exasperated. ‘If you’ve finished …’
‘Shall we get the tram?’ Paul said. ‘The porter said there’s one goes straight past the gates.’
‘No, let’s walk.’
He didn’t think she was up to it, but he was too tired to argue. At Charing Cross he’d exhausted his patience in a last-minute attempt to persuade her not to come at all. This unannounced visit to Neville was, at best, ill-judged; at worst, unfeeling, even cruel, but Paul was committed to seeing it through. So let her walk, if she wanted to. He didn’t care.
The road took them through the village and out into open country. Blue-painted benches were set at regular intervals along the grass verges. Hospital blue. Evidently the colour was intended as a warning: Don’t look this way, if you don’t want to see horrors. On one of these benches a soldier was sitting, wearing the red necktie and blue uniform of patients in military hospitals. Twenty yards or so ahead of Paul and Elinor, a dumpy little woman with a shopping bag was dragging a small child along by the hand. As soon as she saw the soldier the woman crossed, very obviously, to the other side of the road, but not all her care could prevent the child staring at the strange man on the bench. He smiled; the child screamed. Her mother bent down to smack the backs of her legs, and then yanked her — crying inconsolably — away. The soldier got stiffly to his feet and strode off down the road, back to the hospital grounds where he knew he would be safe.
The whole ugly little incident had taken no more than a minute, but it confirmed Paul in his view that they should not be here.
The hospital was approached by a long avenue of beech trees. Their dead leaves lay on the grass, reddish-brown, smelling pungently of decay. As a boy, he’d have been down on his knees scuffling through handfuls of mulch in search of stag beetles. Now, he limped soberly along, escorting a young lady, though they kept straggling apart, and not merely because of the uneven ground.