The Steady Running of the Hour: A Novel (21 page)

24 August 1916

The Langham Hotel

Marylebone, Central London

The lovers stand beneath the portico. A porter sets Ashley’s haversack on the space beside the motorcab driver’s seat, cinching a canvas strap over it. Ashley passes a coin to the porter and waits behind Imogen as she takes her seat in the cab. He leans up to the glass, whispering to the driver.

—Victoria Station.

The driver pushes the red flag down on the meter. He touches his cap to the doorman and shifts the taxi into gear.

Ashley and Imogen do not speak. They are not sitting close to each other, the hem of the girl’s skirt some distance from his woolen puttees. Ashley lowers his window and leans his head toward Regent Street, the morning air cold upon his face. He hopes the breeze will wake him. He watches a motor omnibus come into view, the passengers at the back clutching the brass handrail and stepping or jumping from the running boards as it slows. A uniformed female conductor climbs the staircase to the upper deck, calling out to the passengers.

—Gentlemen, please hold tight.

The huge placard beneath the conductor advertises Dewar’s White Label. The omnibus disappears from view. Imogen crosses her arms.

—It’s cold—

—I’ll shut it, Ashley says.

—Keep it open.

Imogen’s eyes are bloodshot. She puts her hand to Ashley’s chest.

—Careful, he warns. You’ll smudge the buttons. They’re meant to gleam like a mirror.

—Let them throw you in jail.

—They’ll throw me in the front line. Only as a private.

—You said the men last longer than the officers.

—So I’ve heard. But neither lasts forever.

Imogen shakes her head. —You needn’t say such things.

Ashley’s mouth tightens, but he says nothing. He unfolds his embarkation orders and rereads them. He replaces them in his pocket.

—I’m sorry, Imogen says. I don’t feel well at all.

—It’s no wonder. How much have we slept this week?

—Perhaps two nights in five.

—It’s good practice for France.

The motorcab passes Hyde Park, rounding the Wellington Arch. Ashley resolves not to speak for the rest of the journey. It will be better that way. He will report to the RTO at the station and then they will say good-bye.

The station is teeming. Swarms of returning soldiers in tin hats emerge from the long troop trains, their greatcoats and haversacks caked with dirt, entrenching tools and shovels swaying from their bodies as they walk toward Victoria Street or queue for the free buffet, some of them already holding cups of tea and cakes or sandwiches. The soldiers bound for France are cleaner but equally burdened, brown paper parcels of foodstuffs or extra clothing dangling from their shoulder straps.

Ashley leads Imogen by the hand, pushing his way through the
crowd until they are halfway down the train platform. They stop here, the traffic of soldiers streaming past the island of their two bodies. An idling locomotive periodically steams and screeches. Amid the chaos they can barely hear.

—Damned hard place to say good-bye, Ashley says.

—Then let’s not say it.

—You know the things I would say to you. I’ve said them already. It was the best week of my life—

—Is that all it was?

Ashley shakes his head. He looks up at the dusty glass roof, the sunlight breaking in among the ironwork.

—I shouldn’t have come onto the platform, Imogen says. I’d sworn I wouldn’t do it.

—It doesn’t matter. You’ll have a letter from me before you miss me.

—I miss you already.

The conductor marches down the platform, blowing his whistle and calling for boarding. Ashley holds his rail ticket and his stamped orders in his hand.

—I ought to board.

Imogen unwraps the silk scarf around her neck. She folds it and puts it in his hands.

—I know you don’t want to take it, she says, but I don’t care. You don’t believe I can protect you, but the protection doesn’t come from me.

Ashley pushes the scarf back toward her.

—I’d lose it. It would be torn, or dirtied—

He closes Imogen’s hands around the scarf.

—There’s a note in your bag, he says. Read it when I’ve left.

They stand awkwardly apart. Imogen’s face is turned away, her eyes on the puffing locomotive. Ashley knows he will regret not embracing her, but still he does not do it.

—Good-bye, he says.

Imogen turns to him, shaking her head in exasperation. Her voice breaks.

—You can’t just stand there. You can’t leave like this, when we’ve only just begun—

—Imogen.

—You ought not to go, she insists. You ought to choose me instead.

He kisses her on the cheek, but she only stands there woodenly as he touches her and backs away.

—I shan’t say good-bye, she whispers.

Ashley steps onto the train and takes his place in the cramped compartment of an officers’ carriage. He greets the other three officers, a pair of boyish second lieutenants and an RAMC captain reading the newspaper. Ashley sits down and his legs graze those of the captain. Gruffly the captain shuffles his newspaper. Ashley recrosses his legs, resisting the urge to look out the window. Finally he looks down to the platform, but he does not see her there.

Ashley hears a clatter a few compartments down. The RAMC captain lowers the corner of his newspaper to look.

—Madam, a voice barks. Madam, the train is departing.

Imogen comes into the compartment, the conductor trailing in the corridor behind her. Her eyes are wet. The scarf is in her hands.

—Take it, she says. Take it.

We climb the steps of Montmartre in the thick morning fog. I walk behind Mireille, gripping the handrail to keep up, following the back of her upturned coat collar. Mireille turns right onto a cobblestone street, then makes an abrupt left.

—Do you know where we’re going?

—It’s possible.

—But you’re no Parisian.

—No.

We walk through winding streets and climb stone staircases, passing from the shadow of apartment buildings into a field on a hillside. The sky opens above us. Through a wire fence I see neat rows of plants and we walk along the fence until we reach the gate. Mireille tugs at the low doorknob.

—It’s locked, she says.

—What’s inside?

—A vineyard. The Montmartre vineyard. They have a festival once a year where you can drink the wine.

Her hand slips from the doorknob.

—It’s bad wine anyway. Give me your camera, I’ll take a picture of you. Then you’ll have that at least.

I unsling my camera and hand it to her, standing awkwardly in front of the gate. Mireille laughs.

—Tristan, you have to smile. It wasn’t such a bad night.

I laugh and Mireille snaps the picture. We start back down the hill toward the place des Abbesses.

—Do you need to sleep before your train?

I nod. —I should probably go back to the hostel.

—Of course. We’re not too far from the métro—

Mireille looks down at the cobblestones, walking with her hands in her pockets. She looks up at me.

—I wanted to ask you. What you told me in the bar, about the lawyers in England and the inheritance. You weren’t joking?

—No.

—And the English soldier and his lover. The letters you found in Sweden. It’s all true?

—It’s all true.

Mireille nods. —I wasn’t sure if you were serious.

We walk for a few blocks in silence. Then Mireille says, —I hope you find what you’re looking for in Picardie.

We reach the place des Abbesses. The square is empty, the sycamores shedding leaves in the breeze. A carousel is stored under its plastic covering. I’m thirsty from the night of drinking and I cup my hands under a cast-iron fountain, pulling out gulps of water that spill onto my shoes. As I drink Mireille wanders the square, pausing beside a trash can. She reaches into it and when she comes back she is holding a newspaper triumphantly, the pages still crisply folded. She hands it to me.

—
Un journal en anglais
, she says. It’s yesterday’s, but that’s fine.

Mireille leads me under the gate into the métro, the glowing Art Nouveau letters above spelling
Abbesses
. We go down a long spiral staircase to a broad landing. From here the steps lead on each side to
different platforms, one for trains bound for Porte de la Chapelle, one for Mairie d’Issy.

—I’m going the other way, Mireille says.

A faint smile comes over her face.

—Do you have something to write on?

She writes her phone number on the flyleaf of my notebook in red ink. Her elaborate cursive is hard to read.

—Is this number an eight? If I can’t read this—

A train roars in below us. Mireille sighs and shakes her head. She looks at me, waiting for the rumbling to stop.

—What if we go to Picardie together? I was going to leave on Friday, but I can miss a few classes. Then you can stay with me at my grandfather’s house, you won’t have to go to a hostel.

I look at Mireille. She shuts my notebook and hands it back to me.

—I was thinking about it all night, she says. But I’d drunk a lot, so I didn’t trust myself, and I knew if Claire heard she’d kill me. So I waited to tell you, but I’m sure now. We can take your train to Amiens, we just go a few more stops.

I write down the time of my train, then I tear off the page and hand it to Mireille.

—I’ll meet you on the platform, she says.

I go down to the Mairie d’Issy platform and sit on a bench, opening my notebook to look at Mireille’s handwriting on the flyleaf. I smile and shut my notebook. A current of warm air shifts through the station. I look up and see Mireille sitting on the bench across the tracks from me, her face turned to the empty tunnel. My train comes screeching in and I get on, checking my map to see where I change for line 8. I notice that the trains from Mireille’s platform don’t go toward her apartment, only toward northern Paris. To get home she should have gone one stop with me and changed at Pigalle. Unless she didn’t want to ride with me.

I put the map back in my pocket. I’m not going to worry about it.

My dorm room at the hostel is locked up for cleaning, but the desk clerk lets me in to get my backpack. I sleep for a couple hours in the luggage room on a pile of old mattresses stacked in the corner.

I reach the Gare du Nord half an hour before my train. At a bakery inside the station I buy a pair of croissants and two paper cups of café au lait. I take the newspaper that Mireille gave me from my bag, the
International Herald Tribune
. The headlines all look familiar: the upcoming American elections; a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip; a suicide attack in Iraq.

I fold the newspaper under my elbow and look up at the station’s enormous black signboard. The plastic letters flip from the center with blinding speed, spelling out the destinations letter by letter. To pass the time I try to guess at the cities as the letters arrive, but I’m usually wrong.

BRUXELLES-MIDI ROTTERDAM AMSTERDAM. LONDON WATERLOO. LONGUEAU AMIENS ABBEVILLE ETAPLES BOULOGNE
.