The Great Fire (31 page)

'Mostly pine, is it?'

'More than half. This here' — a sheer sombre block — 'that's oak. Very hard, and burns a long time. But she's got to be dry. The pine burns well, but too fast. Sudden heat, and turns to ash. With time, the resin can coat a flue. This, now, that's alder.'

It would have been this man's father, showing the branch of alder and telling the child:

Alder dry, or alder green,

Will make you a fire

That's fit for a queen.

Dick Laister's hands, fingers long yet thick, prominent bone at the wrist. Slight gestures, practical, responsible. He was squatting above the tarpaulin as his father had done, and caring about the wood. Continuity was delusive, however, and the youth would be a biologist. It seemed that better times were coming, at least to some, and that such a boy might choose to be his friend.

A bicycle bell rang at the door. Leith calmly asked, 'Where do we get the wood these days?'

'Same timber yard, near Norwich. But it's scarce as hen's teeth, especially at winter's end. And they make you pay through the nose.'

Mrs Castle had the post in her hand and was giving a sixpence.

Leith said, 'We should make the date, to visit your father. Would you let me know?'

'I'll talk to him tonight. It's a family house, a bit of a mess. He rather keeps to his room. I'll let you know tomorrow.'

Mrs Castle said, There's letters for you, sir.

'My dearest,

These days have been passed in immensities — of distance, of ocean and sky, of unending empty desert places flown over. Immensity of time, of loss and longing, helpless desolation. I would not write you this way if I didn't know that we share it all, that you imagine me as I do you, and so we live in each other's thought. And then you wouldn't believe me if I wrote otherwise.

Today, at Sydney, I had your note from Japan, so fast, as if it had come on the same plane with me. (Had I thought that, it would have given better meaning to the name Dakota, which will signify anguish forever.) My darling, I am so grateful for your words, and for the happiness renewed by them. That we were together only one week ago. Tomorrow, I think, you should arrive in London, with all that entails. You will tell me.

We reached Manila in the night, which was spent at a hotel — a good hotel that had a notice that 'Firearms must be checked.' My grief, numbness. Again, at morning, the interminable flight, the empty sky going on and on. Knowledge that every mile must be retraced in order to find you. Again, in darkness, reached Darwin — which, having been bombed in the war, would seem a shanty town were it not for military installations. At the airport, people were kind, seeming to understand that some terrible experience was being endured. We were given a huge meal of steak and eggs, inedible. Then began the crossing of the desert, which took many hours. One might have been crossing Mars. How to describe, except to say that an occasional sight, after endless uninhabited miles, of a solitary house there below tore more than ever at imagination. After the desert, there were more stops, more steaks, and the arrival. Today I walked out in the city, registering nothing, thinking about you. I have no tears, as if beyond them.

As yet no news of Ben, nor will there be until he reaches Honolulu. He too moves, lost, in an immensity from which I must avert my mind.

Within days we should leave for New Zealand, by a small ship that takes few days. At Wellington, a house is to be rented, but the first address is the Hotel St George, in Willis Street. These places that neither you nor I have seen, names at the far end of earth; whereas you, at the heart of the world, walk on streets that I recognise. You have Bertram's address, if you can see him and speak of me.

I have such fear that our letters will somehow go astray. Whatever happens, you'll know that I've written. My need of your words. For such closeness, there should be a word beyond love.

He had taken the letter unopened to his rooms, where he found the bed made and the window open, and crocuses in a glass. He put the flowers on his father's blotter, remembering how he'd disbelieved in Oliver's photographed bowl of roses, and thinking that things should now change. He sat at the desk, supposing that her writing, his name in her hand, would quicken his heart forever; since that is what happens.

When he'd read, he got up holding the two pages, and walked from one room to the other, from need of movement; unable to act on responsibilities that had become identical with passions. Against all reason, she must move ever farther from him, at benefit to no one and at drastic cost to them both. Her youth, which kept them apart, scarcely existed in the face of such a letter. One year ago she had been the quaint little mermaid first mentioned by Ginger, odd product of neglect and intuition: the changeling. Who now wrote from the crucible of adult suffering.

When her parents were settled in that far archipelago, he would ask them to release her. He must speak to his mother, he would write to Bertram Perowne. He would write to Helen, and sat at once to do so.

George Laister's wheelchair was of poor quality and governmental issue. On one leg he had an artificial foot in a boot of unrelieved blackness. On the other leg, his trouser was turned down over the amputation. His hair was white and freshly washed, he was shaved and neatly dressed. Had been, like the room itself, put in order for the visit.

He said, 'Good of you to come' — not meaning it, not meaning anything.

Leith said, 'I should have come long since. I've been away, but should have known.'

Dick Laister brought a chair. He left the room, closing the door and shooing away a woman who'd been standing, agog, in the hallway.

Leith said, 'It was seeing Dick come in, with the wood, my first day home.'

'Put you in mind? They like to say, the old days, good old days. They weren't that good. We were worked to death. There was the first war, and the Depression. Decent people begging in the streets. Then this showdown.' Dismissive gesture to his feet. 'Dick's not on for that, he's going away.'

'He's going away to learn.'

'We'll see what comes of it.' He said, truculent: 'I'm not much company, I know that.'

'Would you come over, George, if I picked you up one day? Before Dick goes off. We could work it out.'

'We've only got a Land Rover here, I can't get into it. Besides, there isn't the petrol.'

'I'd fix all that. Get you out a bit when the good weather comes. Get you to the sea.'

''Twas the sea did for me.'

'Come on, George, I'm not being Lord Bountiful, I need a bit of rehabilitation myself.'

'I know you got hit. You got over it, though.'

Leith laughed. 'What do you know, as to that? I only mean, I'll be glad of the spring.' He said, 'I know that your wife died.'

'On top of all.' Still surly: 'Your father's gone. Will you take over?'

'I have to find out what that means. I've written a book and must be busy with it awhile.'

'He wrote books, too, your dad. Never took much note of me.'

'Or of me, I sometimes thought. That, too, I must work out.'

Dick Laister came back. Leith got up.

George shook hands. 'You'll be glad to go, I'm no company.'

'I'll come back, if you'll let me.'

'I woonder.'

Dick said, 'Come and have tea.' They stood in the corridor. 'No fun, I know.'

'I think we can do something for him, change the picture a bit.'

'He's hard to help. But, yes, the atmosphere's no good here.'

'We can talk about it.'

There was a long communal room, dated without being picturesque: evidence of toil, where women had aged over blackened pots and sodden laundry, setting down endless thick meals to men who struggled in from fields and animals. A place of glum silences, occasional harsh laughter, endurance; some brutality. On the turn for change. Two labourers, sinewed, sardonic, were warming themselves by a stove, one tall, one short. Both had clearly been soldiers. These were Dick's cousins, who grunted in Leith's direction and came to shake hands. At a long bench by the table, Laister's young brother got up, transferring his fork to his left hand; smiling. A tortoiseshell cat came curving to his ankles.

There was a girl, a child of nine or ten.

Leith sat where suggested. Dick Laister, though keeping himself in hand, was more in charge here; more familial in speech and mood. His cousins helped themselves from a tureen on the table. Places had been laid, but no woman showed herself — except for the child, who stared at Leith across the table. Lank, light hair; grey eyes, implacable. A lacklustre pinafore. A jostle of front teeth. Speechless, yet not shy. Leith asked her name, which was Edith.

There was mention of Madge: 'Wait till Madge gets wind of that,' 'Madge won't go for it, not Madge.' Leith thought of Melba Driscoll.

Another man came in, broad, heavy, in his thirties: again the evident soldierly past. Sat down, helped himself. Troubled, troubling, troublesome. Dick Laister spoke to him, and he nodded at Leith. The men talked about the government, criticising: 'Better than t'oother lot, at all events' — with a glance at Leith, testing the waters. Dick said, forestalling, 'Major Leith, here, was in the ranks, Tone.'

The angered man said, 'I saw you got the Military Medal, among the rest' — a medal given only in the ranks; but Tony could make it an accusation.

They had no time for Attlee, but liked Bevin and Bevan well enough.

Leith was eating stickily on bread and honey. The cat got up on the bench beside him, nuzzling her hard apple of a head beneath his arm. He rubbed at her with his elbow, down her arching back; said, 'I can't touch her with these honey hands. She'd be washing herself for the rest of the day.'

Dick's young brother remarked, 'She's got no oother plans.'

Edith told Leith, 'I want to go to London.'

'Someday you will.'

'Will you be there?'

'Very likely.' He said, 'We'll have an outing.'

'Like what?'

'You'll have to choose.'

'It'd be better you choose.'

'Why so?'

'If I did the choosing, you'd get fed up, and show it.'

Leith said, 'Edith, what a woman you're going to be.'

One of the men said, 'She's as good as a show, the little mawther.'

Edith kept her eyes on Aldred's. 'Are you married?'

The men hooted. 'Wait till Madge hears.' 'Don't get your hopes up, Ede.'

Child or not, it was the timeless challenge, and they had to put it down.

Out of her depth, the girl reddened but persisted. 'Are you, then?'

'Not at the moment.' Holding her gaze, he said, 'Soon.' The table took note.

'Is she pretty?'

'Yes. Most girls are pretty, I find. She has her own way of being.'

'What's that, then?'

'She's got through a lot without much help. That's often true for girls.' As you're discovering, Edith.

The men listened, uncertain whether he was making a fool of himself or not. The posh voice was always fair game, but then, all speech is an exposure. Dick Laister and his young brother were above that — though how they'd managed it, God knew. The girl was in a class of her own, like the cat.

Laister took him to the station in the Land Rover. 'Thanks for this.' Peered along the track. 'Ah well, my cousins. Jeff blusters a bit, but he's okay. Tone's on edge. Fell in with a bad lot, he's in a spot of trouble. Got himself arrested as an accessory.'

'What's his war record?'

'Record's good. A bit brutal. Not a bad bloke, really. Shows off, talks big.'

'When does the case come up?'

'End of the month. At Guildford.'

'If you can get the papers quickly to me, I'll do what I can.'

Laister said, 'Train's coming.' Put out his hand. 'That's good of you, really good. Everything's been good. Thanks.'

Leith said, 'We'll have to think about your father.'

When Dick Laister got back to the farm, Tony said, 'I thought your fine friend talked wet. With Ede, I mean. Giving the kid notions.'

Jeff said, 'Ede doesn't need anyone to give her notions.'

'I thought it was okay.' Laister poured himself a cup of overbrewed tea. 'Tone, I need your court papers. Leith'll do what he can.'

Edith said, 'I think he's divine.'

Aldred was home in time for dinner. His mother, who was stitching a black lace hem by the fire, looked up with pleasure. 'There's hot water for your bath.'

That evening, he wrote on the end of a letter to Helen: 'Yes, I do tell my friends about you. Sometimes I also tell those who are not my friends — flourishing you like a safeguard, a talisman.'

19

It is May, Aldred, and we've known each other for a year. And winter begins in the Antipodes, where I never could have imagined myself when I sat on your bed that morning of the terrible death, which was the start of our love, I think. And Ben and I had just come around the world, as if specifically to meet you there.

My darling, we're installed now in this house. In a way, I regret the hotel — having got used to it, and having had my own isolated room there rather than being exposed to a household. I got used to its curry-coloured curtains, I suppose, and its mustard carpets, and to the kindly help who brought mutton and potatoes and blancmange, in the dining room, and extra blankets to one's bed. To the trams rattling past the central crossroad, and the total silence that fell at 6 p.m. each evening — except on Fridays, when shops are open late and I could go to bookshops — of which there are several, small and good.