The Diamond Waterfall (44 page)

Jack falling to his death.

“I was thinking,” he said, “that time—with Stephen and Jack.
That
waterfall …”

“Yes,” she said. “I thought too … You forget, and don't forget—these things.”

“Except,” he said, “we can't be always not going to waterfalls … and Aysgarth Falls, they're quite quite different. It was my idea anyway. I wanted us to come.”

“And I wanted to come.”

Looking down, he could see a plain slab of dark, washed stone. A bird hopped onto it. A wren, he thought. It stayed there, unconcerned, while a fingerbreadth away the spray rose and fell.

“Olive,” he said, “would you marry me?”

If she was surprised, she showed it only a little. But first she smiled. She said:

“Oh, Hal love—whatever for?”

He was indignant. Frightened too.

“Because …” He hesitated.
“That's
not an answer,” he said.

“No,” she said, “it's a question—”

“Clever,” he said, exasperated. “All right. I'll ask you one.
Why not?”

She turned away from the bridge. Hands on his shoulders, she rubbed her face on his. “Silly, you're always so silly. I know what you want. Well, you can have it, darling Hal. We'll find a way, a place …”

For a moment he thought he would cry. He said in a too loud voice, “But I want to marry you.”

“Hal, have you
thought?
You're Mr. Henry Firth of The Towers. It's just daft—”

“It's what I want. I've known for ages. All the time in France—”

“You never. What you want, Hal Firth, is
me.
And I've said yes to that. Didn't I, love?”

Oh, but he never could. That wasn't how princesses were made. And that she should even
think
that was all he wanted.

He said stiffly, angrily, “I can get that sort of thing in France—or in London on the way up. I mean, skirt—if that was what I wanted.”

She seemed distressed. “Now
you're
being daft. Twisting my words—”

“I love you. I love you so much, Olive. That's why
I want to marry you.”

She said then, “It'd need a lot of thinking on. I'm not sure about wanting to marry anyone.”

“Tom—” he began.

“Tom—he's grand, Hal. If I was
looking
for a husband, now—”

“Olive,
marry me.”

She laughed suddenly, throwing her arms right about him. She whispered, her breath hot in his ear, “If you say that just once more …”

“What'll you do?” He was laughing now too.

“Something that'll really shock you. Wait till after we've had our lunch. When we're somewhere—when we're not overlooked, like.”

Olive's breasts, nipples that awoke to his touch. Olive's thighs, his hand in that forest of hair, so warm, damp-scented.

“I don't mind,” she said. “If you want. I shouldn't mind if you … I'd be proud.”

“I couldn't,” he said. Then over and over: “I couldn't unless … you'd have to be my wife.”

She smiled. “You mean it's not seemly?”

“I mean like I said, that I
want you to be my wife.”

“I thought we weren't going … Hal, love, dear Hal, I'm only saying
there's no need to
marry
me. We could love each other a lot—now, or tomorrow—and it would just be our secret.”

He said, “And if there were a baby …”

She smiled to herself. “I'd worry about that when it happened. Love children get along all right—if they're loved.”

“If you really loved me you'd
want
to marry me.”

She stopped his mouth with kisses. Then as suddenly, arranging her clothing:

“Get away,” she said. “You know I love you. Isn't that enough now?” She stood up. “What of that moustache? I don't see even the
beginnings
of it yet.”

“I thought—when I get back.” How terrible. He did not want ever to think about “back.” Out there. France. The Front … Terrible words. “I'll grow it then—for when I see you next.”

“If you loved me like you said, you'd grow one
at the double—”

“You sound like Sarge,” he said happily.

Back home, he copied out on a sheet of paper the passage from Lovely Ilonka's tale.

There was once a King's son who told his father that he wished to marry…. “No, no!” said the King, “you must not be in such a hurry. Wait till you have done some great deed. My father did not let me marry till I had won the golden sword you see me wear.”

He added underneath, “I haven't got a Military Medal or anything like that. But don't you think seven months' fighting—and more to come—is worthy of a golden sword? So … PLEASE OLIVE MARRY ME … With love from Hal.”

When his leave was up, and he'd seen her for the last time, he mailed it from the station on his way down south.

Eight months now since that August outing to the falls. And now he had this letter. Tom was to wed
someone else.
But it was the next paragraph which really lifted his heart:

“I've thought a lot of what you asked in the summer—I'm still not sure it'd be
right.
But it's so difficult these days. And I want above everything else for you to be happy. If it's
really
what you want, I could agree maybe. When you get leave next …”

He wrote her a long letter. He traded green (uncensored) envelopes with Swanker Russell for the contents of one of his food parcels so that he could write exactly what he wanted (although he fancied they read the letters anyhow). Pages and pages of ideas, plans, and instructions. He kept telling himself that for all his family cared … It was no business of theirs—Olive was
twenty-one and he, well,
almost.
If he was old enough to die for his country, then surely …

He explained that when he got leave he was going to wire her, in code. She was to come straight up to London—where he'd be waiting, having taken care of the special license. Then as soon as that was through, and if he had enough leave, they'd go down to Devon. (Wouldn't it be difficult to pretend they weren't married? And what about a bedroom?)

Although he terribly didn't want to, he felt he should add, “If you change your mind, and don't want to do it, then that will be quite all right. It must be what
you
want. Love from Hal.”

They were moved to the area near Poperinghe. Nothing seemed any different. Gus's nerves were no better. Worse, in fact. Hal wanted for him, more than for anyone else, that he should get the right kind of wound, soon.

Cold nights even though summer was on the way. Sleeping in the front line: no wonder he dreamed, never sure if he was awake or asleep. Hard wood of the plank pressing into flesh—so tired that even the discomfort couldn't keep him awake. Taking turn-about to sleep in the middle position. And everywhere the rats, bloated with corpses but still voracious—scrabbling for bully beef scraps under the duckboards.

He used to go into Poperinghe, Pop, to the club, Toc H. The garden, if you stopped your ears up, an oasis of peace in the spring days. Because the club made no distinction between officers and men, he could feel there most absolutely himself. Henry Firth of The Towers and '04 Greenwood at one and the same time. Often he would climb to the upstairs room that was the chapel and think of Olive and of Stephen, who had been his friend. Of Jack, and Bert. Gib …

Letters, more and more letters to Olive. She was settled in Kingsbridge, in Devon. Tom was married. Father and Granny Willans had moved out. It was sad, but …

He dreamed one night he was with Olive at Lane Top. She sat by the kitchen range. The fire roared. He could feel its heat in the dream. When he looked again he saw that she was quite naked. Except for the Diamond Waterfall. He didn't know what to say. “I'm wearing it just to please you,” she told him. “Do you like it?” But he didn't. He could see that it was beautiful, but “Not here,” he said, “it's not seemly.” They were words she might have used: “It's not seemly, Olive.” He was afraid, too, someone would come in and discover them. He tried to explain to her that they must run away, arrange it all better.

Snowy's elbow woke him.

The next day he heard that in twenty-four hours he would have leave, for ten days.

Then a golden dress was put on her and pearls were twined in her hair and she took her seat in the Emperor's carriage which was drawn by six of the whitest horses in the world, and they carried her without stopping to draw breath to the gates of the palace. And in three days the wedding was held.

He was in London and had arranged everything. But it wasn't any of it very real. Wasn't even how it might have been.

Three days before he'd left, Gus had gone. Hal, working as a runner, had simply come around a turn in the trench, signposted Mornington Crescent, and bumped into a couple of stretcher-bearers, and Gus.

“ 'Tis his belly,” said one of them in an Irish accent.

Hal said, “Gus, you got your Blighty one.” The bearer behind his head pulled an “all up, all over” face. Gus, eyes glazed with pain, mumbled something.

“What's that?” Hal asked, bending near.

“They'll give it me, won't they, then? Me job back …”

God forgive me, Hal thought. “Course they will,” he said. “My love to Leeds, Gus.”

Strangely, the face that haunted him afterward wasn't the dying Gus pumped full of morphine, but the white-faced Gus who'd said, “A foot stuck out accidental like—when the wheels come by. … I don't rightly know. I'd never thought, you see …”

Two more days, and Hal had left. Collecting his papers, getting his clearance, crossing on the boat on a fine July evening and thinking, They don't know at home. If it should be the last time …

He booked in at a small private hotel in Bayswater, with a view of the park. He told the manageress, “I'm getting married in two days. My fiancee's coming up from Devon.”

He was at Paddington to meet her. Although troops were milling around everywhere it was very different from Victoria. She was wearing a hyacinth-blue dress and coat and looked lovely. He wanted to tell everybody that she was going to marry him. She carried a large hamper. She said, “I brought eggs, butter, cream—because of the shortage. I thought they might like them at the hotel.”

First thing (he could have bitten his tongue off): “Are you sure?” he asked. “About—us?”

“No, I'm not. But I can't get out of it now, can I?” Then she added quickly, “You fond thing, of
course
I am.”

He said, “If they'd made me an officer like they wanted, I'd have had to get permission for all this. That would have put the cat among the pigeons.”

He told her straightaway about Gus. “Snowy's on leave,” he said. “It'll hit him hard when he gets back.”

It was very hot. When they'd put all their things in the room at the hotel and handed over the eggs and the butter, they went for a ride on the top of a bus. He said, “I hope we don't have an air raid or anything.” Then he asked her, “What did you tell Auntie Nellie?”

“Never you mind. But it's all right, Hal.”

He looked down from the top of the bus. Sometimes for a minute at a time, when he looked over the rails, it wasn't real. An engine backfired and he jumped so violently that he fell against the seat in front.

The man sitting there turned: “Whoa up—what's got into you?” After, he kept muttering on and off irritably. Either he thought Hal was talking too loud or else he didn't like his imitations, because he turned again suddenly and said:

“You Tommies—you're all the same. Don't have to pay on the omnibuses, and behave as if you own them.”

Olive was furious. “That's enough, gaffer,” she said. She waved her handbag at him. “It's thanks to boys like him you're free to get on a bus at all.”

“That'll do,” Hal told her proudly. Later, when there were seats free, they moved to the back.

Still that unreality. It came on again when they went for a walk in the evening before bed. It was quiet in the park. They filled in all the gaps in their news. He told her more of the hospital in France. She asked him, “What's it like being wounded, Hal?”

“It depends. That one I had, it was nothing—like being kicked in the shoulder, that time Bluebell lashed out when we were leading the hay in …”

“I remember.”

“I've been lucky,” he said. “I might even be lucky right through.” She squeezed his hand.

He said, “Olive, afterward, I don't know what my family—I won't be the same person, however you look at it. I'll go to Cambridge if I want. And not if I don't. It's as simple as that. What's different now is I can make the choices myself. They won't be able to dictate to me. Not just because I'll be twenty-one—it wasn't the running away either as you might think—”

A group of soldiers arm in arm, stumbling from drink, playfully barred their way. Then, turning aside onto the grass, began to sing in slurred voices. As the sound died away, Hal went on:

“It's just, after all I've done, and seen—you don't feel somehow anyone can
tell
you anything. Death. Other people's, and your own that could come any second. I saw death around the farm, and—Jack, of course. But it's when you … I mean, Olive, we're so reverent about death, aren't we? And you
can't
be out there. Bodies—bits of them cluttering up the mud, bits of bodies all stuck in with the sandbags, rats that steal biscuits off you and you're sick
knowing what they've been eating just before. And all the
ways
of dying. Those that don't go at once, that take a long time … Jack, Stephen … Jack in a sort of way died with dignity. Over there—you're as likely as not to go without …”