Toby's Room (29 page)

The fool. The utter bloody fool. He couldn’t believe the stupidity. In those first few seconds, his thoughts were all of concern for Brooke, who was risking everything, and for what? From his vantage point inside the barn door he saw Brooke come out of the stables and run across the yard. Neville threw his half-smoked cigarette away, watching the bright descending arc before it sizzled to a quick death in the mud. Then, slowly, he followed Brooke into the main building.

An hour later they were standing on opposite sides of the bed as Kent breathed his last. When he was certain it was over, Brooke reached across, closed Kent’s eyelids and pulled the blanket up over his face. Automatically, he reached for the file and noted the time of death.

‘You can lay him out in the morning, there’s no rush.’

As Brooke handed him the file their eyes met. Now, Neville thought, he’s got to say something now. But Brooke’s face remained expressionless and almost immediately he turned away. That was it, then. There was to be no discussion, no explanation – and, after all, what explanation could there be? Just this proud, stony silence: Brooke saying, in effect,
I’m stronger than you. You’ll never hear me plead
.

Neville spent what was left of the night in the sickroom. Kent’s corpse was more acceptable company than Brooke.

Towards morning, he went into the yard and held out his hand to see if it was still raining. A pinprick now and then; no more. He looked down at his palm as if he were seeing it for the first time, and then slowly, involuntarily, curled his fingers, turning his open hand into a fist.

Paul had been in the Domino Room for perhaps twenty minutes before Elinor arrived. At first he didn’t recognize her. She was flushed, her hair and shoulders covered with a fine mist of rain. When he bent to kiss her she smelled, mysteriously, of woodsmoke. Apparently she’d spent the whole day at Kew, going there and back by river. A wonderful day, she said. Her speech was quick and passionate, her pupils still dilated from the darkness outside. She was like a wild creature glimpsed in the headlights of a motor car; he was startled into a fresh awareness of her.

‘Wasn’t it very cold?’

‘Freezing. It was wonderful, though, and such a change from the hospital. Do you know, even outside the huts you never really feel you’re outside?’

She didn’t seem to belong to this room with its dark red plush seats and wreaths of cigar smoke, and that pleased him because with each visit his dislike of the place grew.

‘Why are you smiling?’ she asked.

‘I was thinking about Kit. Do you remember how he used to call the Café Royal “vile”?’

‘Yes, and he practically lived here.’

‘I’m going to see him this weekend,’ Paul said. ‘He’s invited me down to Suffolk.’ She was looking away from him so he couldn’t read her response. ‘Did you know they were letting him out?’

‘Yes, Tonks told me. It’s only a couple of weeks till the next operation – they’re hoping to fit it in before Christmas. I’m pleased he’s having a break – it’ll do him good.’

Paul wondered how much he should say. ‘He says he wants to talk to me.’

‘About Toby?’

‘I suppose so. Can’t think what else it would be.’

‘Well, you know …’ She brushed her hair out of her eyes, still not meeting his gaze. ‘I’ve got to leave that to you.’

‘I won’t press him, you know, if …’

‘No. I understand that.’

They sat in silence for a moment, looking around the room. It was a while since they’d been seen here together and at several of the tables he could see people rather obviously commenting on their presence. What his father would have called a clatfart shop. God, he hated it.

‘What are your plans?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to look for a flat. Catherine says she’ll go round with me.’

‘How is she?’

‘Getting ready to go back to Scotland. At least that’s the current plan. But … She’s going to have dinner with Kit and his parents before he goes back into hospital. So. We shall see.’

‘She said his mother was pressing her to go to see him.’

‘I don’t know how much pressure would be needed.’

‘I just hope she doesn’t get carried away by … Well, by pity. There’s a real danger here, you know, of people thinking that Kit’s like … That he’s the way he is because of his injuries. Whereas you and I both know Kit was a very difficult man before any of this happened. I think if you want to be a real friend you’ll remind her of that.’

Elinor was smiling. ‘There wouldn’t be anything personal at stake for you, I suppose?’

‘No, of course not.’

They lapsed into silence again, but he could feel the tension gathering in her.

‘Whatever it is,’ she said, turning to him and looking straight into his eyes. ‘You will tell me, won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course,’ he said, realizing, even as he spoke, what a rash promise that was.

With a final petulant hiss of steam, the train stopped. Paul hauled his bags off the luggage rack, opened the door and dropped them
on to the platform. A porter appeared, but no other passengers. The train must have been empty.

Neville was standing directly under the lamp. His nose and mouth were hidden by a thick scarf that he’d wound round and round the lower part of his face. Only the eyes showed, the corners creased by some change of expression, a smile, presumably, though of course a snarl has the same effect. Paul held out his hand, registering the shock of Neville’s hot skin against his own cool palm, and then Neville pulled him into an awkward, backslapping embrace.

The porter coughed. Before Paul could take action Neville had slipped a coin into his hand.

‘Good journey?’

‘Not bad. Certainly wasn’t crowded.’

‘Never is, that one.’

He picked up one of Paul’s bags.

‘No –’

‘
Face
, Tarrant. Nothing wrong with the arm.’

They walked side by side down the hill. They should have known each other well enough by now to chat easily in this situation, but despite the embrace there was still the awkwardness of strangers between them. It had always been like this: they greeted each other like long-lost brothers and a minute or so later remembered they didn’t actually like each other very much. Paul had never had such a strange, unquantifiable relationship with anybody else. Even now, after years of admittedly intermittent contact, he’d have hesitated to call Neville a friend; and yet nobody mattered more. There was nobody whom he so persistently measured himself against.

Neville was quickly out of breath, puffing and gasping through whatever apparatus was hidden by the scarf. Ahead of them, in the darkness, the sea turned and turned, the crash and grating sigh of its retreat more imagined than heard. They came out between narrow rows of houses to find it waiting for them in the darkness. Huddled dark shapes of fishing boats were drawn up on the shingle. The roofs of the huts sparkled with frost: the last few nights had been freezing.

‘Do you mind if we walk on the beach?’ Paul said.

‘No, go ahead. It’s all shingle, mind, won’t be easy on that leg.’

Paul’s breath plumed on the air as he slipped and slithered down the slope and half ran the last few yards to the sea. Neville followed slowly, a bulky, top-heavy shape, breathing stertorously through his mouth. At the bottom of the slope, there was a strip of firm, hard sand, but you couldn’t get to it because of the tangle of barbed wire that ran along the water’s edge. A gap in the wire left a space for fishing boats to come and go and presumably for the lifeboat to be launched. That, too, was hauled high on to the shingle, poised like a fish hawk about to dive. Neville joined him and for a time they were silent, looking out to sea through coils of rusting wire, thinking their own thoughts.

It had started to rain and the rain quickly turned to sleet, slanting silver rods disappearing into shining grey-brown pebbles. They turned by mutual consent and walked up the shingle slope, still not having spoken. Paul glanced sideways at Neville, who was struggling up the bank, hunched over, hands thrust deep into his pockets, the moonlight glinting on the whites of his eyes. Paul noticed that the scarf had a curious bulge on one side.

Suddenly Neville put on a burst of speed and pulled ahead. ‘Come on, Tarrant,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘It’s bloody freezing out here, and I could do with a drink.’

They climbed the last ledge on to the path, every step dislodging pebbles that peppered in their wake. The terrace facing the sea had gaps in it, missing teeth in an old man’s mouth. Many of the houses had their windows boarded up, and there were sandbags piled up against the doors.

‘Like the sandbags,’ Paul said.

‘Thought you might. Lends a homely touch.’

‘Do you know the Department of Information want to send me back to Ypres? They think I might need to refresh my memory.’

They laughed, the secretive, inward laughter of veterans, but Neville stopped laughing first. ‘Will you go?’

‘I’m not sure there’s a choice.’

After that they walked in silence, the moon accompanying them on the water. After the first fifty yards Paul stopped and looked back along the row of houses. ‘Does anybody actually live here?’

‘Not really. It’s Hampstead-on-Sea. You don’t get many people coming down this time of year.’ A few paces further on he stopped outside a double-fronted white house. ‘Here we are.’

It took Neville a while to persuade the key to turn in the lock. The woodwork was swollen and cracked and bloated and blistered from constant exposure to damp air, blown spume and quite possibly the sea itself, if the sandbags were anything to go by. At last, with a thump of Neville’s shoulder, the door fell open on to darkness and a smell of burning logs.

‘Can you manage to climb over?’ Neville said.

He held out his hand, but Paul insisted on scrambling over the sandbags unaided, only to stumble and have to accept Neville’s assistance after all. Neville followed, closing the door behind him. Total darkness, everywhere. Of course here on the coast blackout regulations would be particularly strict. After a few seconds Neville’s groping hand found the switch. The bulb cast a dingy light on to a hall that was scarcely more than a passage between two rooms. Striped deckchairs and parasols stood against the wall near the stairs. Rather more realistically, perhaps, four big umbrellas hung from a hatstand near the door. Everything was faded, but the effect was pleasant nevertheless. The house didn’t have the mildewed smell so many holiday homes have in the winter months.

Neville led him into the living room, which looked surprisingly well-furnished after the shabbiness of the hall. A fire blazed in the grate, a rush basket full of logs had been pulled up close to the hearth. Fat upholstered armchairs and sofas echoed the blues and reds of a Turkey carpet and on several low tables ranged round the room lamps cast a warm glow over books and scattered papers.

‘This is lovely,’ Paul said.

‘Not bad, is it? My mother loves this place. Would you like to unpack straight away or shall we have a drink first?’

‘Oh, a drink first, I think.’

Paul took his greatcoat into the hall. When he came back Neville had thrown his coat and hat on to a chair and, with his back turned to Paul, was unwinding the scarf. Paul had seen head wounds that left the brain exposed, missing jaws, eyes dangling on to cheeks – the lot. And yet, when Neville finally turned to face him, his heart thumped.

Neville joked about the Elephant Man, but he didn’t look anything like an elephant. He looked like a man with a penis where his nose should be: obscene, grotesque, ridiculous. Paul swallowed, trying to work out exactly what he was looking at. The lamplight cast a shadow across Neville’s face, making it difficult to see where the excrescence began and ended.

‘I know,’ Neville said. ‘Here, have a whisky. Dad knocks back a fair few these days – even Mother risks a tipple now and then.’

He sounded tired, rather than angry or bitter.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a tube pedicle. They – no, look, I’ll show you.’ He unbuttoned his shirt. ‘They cut a strip of skin off the chest, here, and then they roll the edges over so it’s a tube – that’s to stop it getting infected – and then they stick the other end … Well, wherever it has to go. Nose, in my case. If they need any bone they take it from the breastbone. And because it’s all coming from you, your body doesn’t reject it. Well, that’s the theory, anyway. Only it all went belly-up in my case because I got a cold, would you believe. A cold in the non-existent nose.’ He smiled. ‘Sorry about the conducted tour. I’m afraid you get a bit obsessed.’

‘No, no, it’s interesting.’

Neville raised his glass. ‘Well. Your good health.’

‘I’m afraid it’s a bit late for that.’

‘All right, then. My good looks.’

They chinked glasses and the small, familiar sound restored a kind of normality.

‘Sit down,’ Neville said.

Paul sank on to the sofa. Neville took one of the armchairs, moving the lamp a little to his right, either because the light hurt his eyes
or because he wished to spare Paul the sight of his face. Instantly, Paul was reproaching himself for not having handled the situation better, though he didn’t know what else he could have done or said. His perception of Neville’s injuries changed constantly. A moment ago the tube had looked ludicrous: he’d been ashamed of seeing it, but that had been his first reaction. Now Neville was sitting down, it became clear that the pedicle was pulling his head down towards his chest, restricting his movement. That had to be painful. And it added to the impression of top-heaviness Paul had noticed on the beach. Suddenly, he knew what it reminded him of: Neville had become a Minotaur, a creature that was both more and less than a man.

‘I’m surprised they let you out.’

‘Without a mask, you mean?’ He waved Paul’s denial away. ‘I threw myself on Tonks’s mercy, I told him I’d go mad if I didn’t paint.’

‘So how long have you been out?’

‘Three days in London, a week here.’ He was swishing whisky round his glass. ‘What did you do the first day you got out of hospital?’