A World of Other People (3 page)

And then it is gone. Passed from view into the streets behind the square. Sight becomes sound again. The spectacle vanishes, the drone of the plane’s one functioning engine, frantically defying gravity and holding the thing up, fading into the still night. And as it passes she watches Mr Eliot return to his
everyday human form, a three-piece-suited former bank employee, who, when passed in the street with briefcase and black umbrella, could be just anybody.

As soon as it is gone the watchers turn to one another. Everyone speaking at once. Everyone simultaneously bursting into babble. And all the same babble. The sheer improbability of it. Only a war, surely only a war, could throw such things up. And the talk continues, the excitement gradually leaving their voices, the babble slowly giving way to measured comment. But all the time returning to the same sentiment — the terrifying, improbable wonder of the thing.

After five, possibly ten, minutes, when the talk is quiet and their faces have begun to re-assume their drained ghostly look, there is a sudden, distant explosion. The group falls silent. Each staring inquiringly at the others. And the question, unspoken but there to be read in each of their faces, is the same. Was that it? Did they just hear it? Was that death, announcing itself somewhere out there in the dark streets beyond the square or in some quiet, familiar park?

The explosion, it is eventually suggested by one of the retired officers, may have been some stray bomb
with a time delay. Let’s hope. It happens. Not all bombs go off immediately. Some lie in wait in the rubble for their moment. And that, this officer suggests, was just such a moment. But he eyes the horizon and that part of the city from which the explosion came with a look that says he hasn’t convinced himself, let alone anyone else.

They gradually return to their talk. To the small talk that fills in the hours and gets everybody through a long night. But from time to time the heavy-coated figure of Mr Eliot, defying and possibly oblivious of the vertigo that afflicts him and leaves him trembling even at such modest heights, approaches the railing overlooking the square and, Iris imagines, watching him, sees it all again. You won’t forget me. You won’t forget.

And, once again, she is convinced it is inspiration that lures him to the railing. He is silent and stands perfectly still, staring out over the park, the Museum and the low cloud in the distance. Not so much memorising it as reliving it. The experience animating him all over again. Its mystery calling him back. And when he turns from the railing and back to the group it is with the same bright eyes and animated face she
saw before: that of the fox turning its muzzle to the night sky, to the white dove, clear in the moonlight, wrapped in flames. And as he turns back to the group he greets her stare with a puzzled nod. What did
you
see, he could almost be asking. To which she replies, I saw the fox shiver into life. I saw its eyes light up under the moon. I saw its nose lift to the night sky. I’m on to your little game.

In that hazy time before dawn, with the all clear sounded, they will each go their separate ways and walk home. Their steps heavy after a long, uneventful night — except for this one moment, the duration of which is now uncertain because the moment, Iris imagines, looking back on it, did not take place in ordinary time. And in time — familiar, measured time — they may even come to doubt that they ever saw what they surely did. So fantastic and improbable was the vision that passed in front of them.

Iris trudges through the quiet, deserted streets. It is late at night, or early in the morning. However you want to look at it. That time when the moon and the sun, like shift workers about to clock off and clock on, position themselves for the new day. There are sounds of motors somewhere in the distance. The
sky will be blue today. She turns into a small street off Bedford Square. All the houses, hotels and offices intact. No gaps in the row, for fate decided not to fall here tonight. It is a normal street. Her legs are heavy and she makes her way to St James’s Park like a sleepwalker, or as if she’s been to an all-night party and still has the prospect of a full day’s work in front of her.

In her flat, between resting and washing and going to work, and while her flatmate, Pip, sleeps, she picks up her notebook and writes it all down. The sheer, fantastic improbability of it all. And part of her writes it down for that very reason, as a testament, a proof, that it really did happen, and that, in the months and years in the future when she remembers the events of the night, she won’t doubt her memory and won’t tell herself that she’s making it all up because, well … and she nods to herself, pen in hand as she closes her notebook, you couldn’t.

Iris has come to the park to eat her sandwiches. She could take the tube to Russell Square for her nights on the rooftop looking for firecrackers (and there have been none since she started over a year ago, which comes as a relief to her, though not without a certain disappointment), but she chooses to walk from her work at Westminster. And it’s a good walk. One that builds up the appetite. Especially if you’re twenty-two, which Iris turned a month ago. And her reward is her picnic in the tranquil park. It is the most pleasurable part of the day, that part to which she looks forward.

She has just finished reading a letter from Frank, the young man who gave her the ring that she said
she’d wear when he returned and whom she thinks of as her fiancé — and, at the same time, doesn’t. For they’re not engaged, are they? It’s only a sort of possibility. Something that might happen, and might not — because she wasn’t sure then and she’s not sure now. Which is why she never put the ring on. It’s stowed away in her drawer and she looks at it occasionally and wonders what it means. Some days, rare ones, she likes the look of it and can see it on her finger; others she wishes it wasn’t there at all. Some days she wishes it would magically vanish. Frank writes to her, just as he said he would. And she’s here to receive the letters, someone to think of and to write back, just as she was meant to be. He’s somewhere in the Middle East, and while most of his letters mention sitting round in cafes talking to Russians and Poles, this latest is a short one saying he has a new job, that he may be out of contact for a while, and she doesn’t much like the sound of that although she can’t say why. She folds the letter, contemplating the question, and looks around the square.

She normally has a park bench to herself and she can sit and eat her sandwiches and watch the late September shadows lengthen across the square. There
is, she muses, a sort of cathedral glow to the park. And it is this place, this place that transports her, that she looks forward to as much as her picnic meal. For the peace that she finds here at this particular time of day, that rogue hour between the end of work and the beginning of her duties, is such that it makes it almost impossible to conceive of bombs falling and people dying. This place that transports her brings with it the illusion that there is no war; that she will soon rise and walk through the city to her station, contemplating a long, autumn evening with cider and cake, perhaps. But as much as she looks forward to and enjoys this time of day and this place and the peace that transports her, today she is distracted. And not just by the letter.

There is a young man sitting on a bench not far from her. He was there when she first arrived, and he’s still there. Not that she particularly noticed him when she first arrived. No, she gradually became aware of him. He sits alone on the bench and nobody approaches him or tries to sit on the bench with him. It is clearly
his
bench. And people, when they sit, choose to sit elsewhere. It is not that his behaviour is threatening or erratic. Nor does he shoot discouraging stares
at anyone. She doubts he would notice if anybody sat next to him. No, it is none of that. It is, rather, an intensity. And she thinks about it as she slowly munches her sandwich. It is, yes, the sheer intensity of his presence that alerts everybody around him to keep their distance. You can almost see it, Iris muses, coming off him in waves. An impression accentuated by his stillness. He is statuesque. No, he
is
a statue. And this is the fascinating thing. She has watched him now for the last fifteen or twenty minutes and he has not moved. Not once. He is staring straight ahead, it seems, to the exclusion of the world. He holds a paper bag of something, possibly a snack, but has made no attempt to open it. Has, more than likely, forgotten all about it. His feet are planted on the path. He is a statue. And has he blinked? She can’t tell from this distance, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he hadn’t. Of course, it’s impossible. Nobody can
not
blink for twenty minutes. Nobody can stay that still. But if anybody is capable of such a feat, she imagines this young man is.

And it is only as she finishes her sandwich, after contemplating the stillness of his bearing all this time (and she feels she could study him as she would a
statue; he doesn’t notice anybody and his eyes don’t shift), that she finds herself suddenly following his line of vision. For he is looking at something and he hasn’t taken his eyes from it the whole time he’s been there. But what? She follows what she imagines to be his line of vision: over the lawns, the kiosk (shut up, has been for months), over the tree-tops to the buildings opposite. His unblinking eyes, she is convinced, are focused on the corner building. And not just the building, but the rooftop. And this comes as quite a shock, for this is her rooftop. The rooftop from which, with the others, she will look out for firecrackers again this evening. But, apart from being convenient and affording a good view all around, it is an unremarkable rooftop. So why should this young man be staring at it, and with such intensity, for so long?

A plane flies overhead and everybody in the park suddenly looks up, eyes squinting in an effort to identify the thing, but it is far up and after a moment’s distraction the park returns to its former state of affairs.

And it is then, as Iris’s eyes drift back to the young man on the bench and as she returns the paper bag that held her sandwiches to her pocket, that the statue
moves. Ever so slightly. But the movement is all the more dramatic for being minute. So slight a movement that nobody would notice unless they were watching. And Iris has been watching, and she has noticed. The shoulders at first. A suggestion of a heave. Only faint, but there. His hands tightening around the paper bag he holds and whatever it contains. And his eyes, yes, his eyes closing. You had to be watching to notice and Iris was. The statue has moved.

As she pieces the movements together — the shoulders, the hands, the eyes — she realises what they signal. The statue has not only moved. The statue, she realises with astonishment, is crying.

She was about to leave. But she can’t now. Not while the statue is crying. Absurd as it may seem, she feels implicated. Responsible in some way. She has been watching him, studying him, all this time. Fascinated by the immobility, the stillness of the young man, and drawn to the waves of intensity radiating from him. Almost willing him to break. And now that he has broken she can’t go. Bronze and marble have melted into life.

So she waits. But the sobs, released into the world with a minimum of fuss so as not to draw attention to
themselves, do not stop. And show no sign of stopping. With the time when she must depart approaching, concluding that she cannot leave the young man like this (for he seems now to have entered the realm of her care), she rises from her bench and approaches him. Even when she stands in front of him, he doesn’t seem to notice. And she wonders if she is intruding and should just leave the poor man be, but decides against it. He must surely have seen her. She can’t go now. So, certain that he will not respond (but telling herself that she will, at least, have done something), she speaks.

‘Are you all right?’

It is, therefore, something of a jolt when his face lifts, his eyes fix on her with the unnerving intensity she knew all along they would have, and, after what seems to be an interminable pause, he answers.

‘No, I’m not.’

Under no circumstances do I ever talk about the weather. Or, if I can help it, waste my time thinking about it. His philosophy lecturer had said that. One of those above-it-all statements that struck a chord in those above-it-all years of easy pronouncements
before the war. But Jim is thinking about the weather. Endless clouds of it. And if there were someone in the cabin with him he would talk about it. If there were someone alive, that is.

The park is deep green, the sunshine lush. All around him people stroll, sit on benches, as he does, or stand staring up at the sky soaking up the last of the Indian summer. It is a peaceful scene. For a moment you could almost believe there was no war. Or that this place is a duchy unto itself that has somehow negotiated a separate peace. For a few hours, while the sun sinks and sets. But it is not Jim’s peace. He is in the park, and he is not.

Jim is flying with a dead man beside him. He is seated in the cabin of a Vickers Wellington. Not on a park bench. From the corner of his eye he can see that one of his engines is on fire. He is the pilot. It is a good plane. And he trusts this plane. But his instruments are gone. All of them, and he is flying on instinct and faith alone.

All will be well, a voice is quietly telling him. All will be well. Stay true to your instincts. Stay true to your own private radar system. And, all the time, the drone of the remaining engine hums him into a
trance. Almost to sleep. A dreamy sleep. For suddenly he is very tired. And he snaps his eyes open and peers hard into the endless cloud.

All will be well, the voice is reassuring him. The voice that has joined him at some point during the flight. The calm voice of the detached observer. All will be well, this calm, reassuring voice is telling him. The voice is not his, nor that of anybody he knows. And when he looks for the source of the voice it fades. When he looks back to the view in front of him it returns. Calm and reassuring. Somewhere in the park a baby cries, a bus rumbles up Southampton Row.

He once asked in training what to do in just such a circumstance. Everybody laughed, including the instructor. And he was told that the chances of losing everything were a thousand to one. Less. It had never, to the instructor’s knowledge, happened. He was now in that one-in-a-thousand fix, and if he were to reassemble that same training group and ask the same question, nobody would be laughing.

He never saw the night-fighter that got them and he lost half his crew in the blink of an eye. The second pilot is slumped in his seat, his stomach opened up. The wireless operator and the navigator behind are
gone too, blood and flesh splattered around the inside of the plane. They were six, now they are three. But they are not alone. There is this fourth who travels with them. This uncanny fourth who is there and who speaks in calm, measured tones, soft and soothing, but who fades into silence when Jim looks for the source of the sound, and who returns when he doesn’t. So Jim concentrates on what is in front of him, convinced that if he doesn’t look this uncanny fourth will stay with them and that soft, soothing voice, reassuring him that it is all just a nasty dream and soon he will wake, will not desert him.

This is the voice that told him what to do in that thousand-to-one fix. And he hears that voice once again coming to him through the green shadow of the drowsy park. You know what to do, you
know
, it said. Deep inside you, you know. Just close your eyes and it will come to you. And that was when he turned ‘F’ for Freddie (for that was the code name of his plane), all alone in sky, towards the river he knew was flowing through the quiet French countryside below. That was when he turned ‘F’ for Freddie towards the river and the canal that would lead them back to the coast and on to home.

A man in a three-piece suit and a bowler hat strolls easily along the gravel path, carrying a briefcase. The trousers are perfectly creased, the suit pure Savile Row. But Jim is somewhere over Brighton now (at least he thinks it’s Brighton), watching one of his engines flare as he enters marshmallow cloud. And it is at this point that he would dearly love to talk about the weather, if there were someone to talk to. But the nose and tail gunners are in their cabins so there is no one, only this uncanny fourth telling him that all is well. He believes that voice. And at the heart of this belief is the conviction that it can’t all end here. Not like this. That the moment is not right. That the moment, to use a phrase from his student days, has not been structured this way. That he will know the moment of his death when it arrives, and this is not it.

So with the tongues of flame now lapping about the right-side Pegasus engine, and with the drone — the almost sleep-inducing, dreamy sound of the remaining engine — humming in his ears, he concentrates on the clouds in front of him (the windscreen smeared where he has wiped the second pilot’s blood from it), convinced that they must surely soon part, that his own private radar system is true, that the voice of
this uncanny fourth who travels with them is a wise, knowing voice he can trust, and that all will be well.

An aeroplane passes overhead and the man in the Savile Row suit, the mother with the rattle, the whole park — except him; he remains motionless — look up to the autumn sky. He has suddenly been shot back up into the air by some giant catapult, and it is then that he hears the sound of something crashing in the night. He is suddenly face down in the sodden earth of a country field. There are flames. He smells fuel. And a voice, no longer calm, no longer reassuring, no longer detached, is telling him that it’s all going to go up. It’s going to go. Any second. But slow, liquid steps lead him back to the flames. Something takes him back. The branches of the trees rise and fall in the breeze. He is in an open country field. The park around him dissolves. The full, chandelier moon blots out the late afternoon autumn sun. Shards of memory come together and fly apart, fragments of a broken picture, a scattered puzzle that won’t stay still long enough to be assembled: a full moon, a country field, an old farmhouse, echoes of footsteps, a burning engine. Flames, bright yellow flames soaring into the night sky. And heat. He too could ignite with the
heat. He shields his eyes. Then everything explodes and the world goes black …

Childhood sobs. Deep. Inexhaustible. Tears, inconsolable tears. He is convinced that he must be a spectacle. A grown man crying in a public park, but he doesn’t care. He hasn’t cared for a long time. For this is the world he woke to, a world of other people: other people’s laughter, other people’s ease and repose, other people’s happiness — but not his. He left all that back in the country field the night his kite exploded into flames and the world turned black. And now he looks upon the laughter of other people with puzzled eyes. That was me once. I was one of you. But for more than a year he has lived in a world of other people. And when he comes to a park, this park or another, and becomes the spectacle of a man crying in a public place, other people know well enough to leave him alone.