Toby's Room (33 page)

His bed hadn’t been slept in. That left his studio, which would be, presumably, on the second floor. Paul pushed doors open till he found it. Neville wasn’t there either. Paul was about to withdraw,
but then his eye was caught by the painting on the easel. Normally he wouldn’t have dreamt of looking at somebody else’s unfinished work, but from the glimpse he’d had of this, he knew he had to see more.

No wonder Neville had seemed so preoccupied with what the censor would allow, because he’d been painting the moment of death, the only subject more strongly discouraged than corpses. The figure at the centre of the composition was being blown backwards by the force of an unseen explosion, while behind him on the horizon a grotesquely fat sun, a goblin of a sun, was eating up the sky.

Paul knew he was looking at the moment of Toby Brooke’s death, though not exactly as Neville had related it. There was no revolver here. Well, fair enough, Neville was under no obligation to stick to the facts. Whatever ‘the facts’ were. Now that he was better rested and able to think more clearly, Paul wasn’t sure how much of Neville’s story he believed. Oh, Neville had set out to tell the truth – he didn’t doubt that for a moment – but was it possible that, in the end, he’d ducked out of revealing something too dreadful to be told?

Paul backed out of the room and closed the door quietly behind him. There came a time when you simply had to let it go and accept an approximation of the truth, and he’d reached that moment now. Two men set out into No Man’s Land; one man came back. That was all anybody else knew, or would ever know.

Downstairs, the front door opened. Neville was back.

‘Where’ve you been?’ Paul said.

‘The doctor’s. You said you’d seen him, I thought I ought to go and say how sorry I was about Ian.’

Paul leaned over the banisters. Neville was standing in the hall, holding a loaf of bread and a bottle of milk. He looked surprisingly fresh. Invigorated, almost. Suddenly, Paul felt that any anxiety about this man was not merely unnecessary but stupid. Look at him; just look at him. Whoever else went under, Kit Neville would survive.

Paul arrived at the station early in a cold drizzle and sat down to wait for the train from Sidcup. When it drew in he got to his feet and searched for Elinor among the grey-black hurrying figures. She was wearing a lavender-coloured hat; it cheered him to see her bobbing along, though the face she turned up to him was sharp, hungry for information.

All that day he’d been thinking about what Neville had said, only a few minutes before Paul had left for London.

‘For God’s sake, man. Brooke blew his brains out so his family didn’t have to know. Do you really think he’d want you to tell Elinor? No, he made his choice, and the least
you
can do is respect it.’

Paul wouldn’t have dreamt of telling Brooke’s parents, or his older sister, for that matter. Knowing how he’d died would only cause them additional pain and they’d already had to endure so much. But then, couldn’t the same be said of Elinor? He didn’t know. He took her in his arms, put his lips to her cold, damp cheek, and still he didn’t know.

‘We can go next door, to the hotel,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve been stuck in a hut all day, I could do with some fresh air.’

They began walking down Villiers Street towards the river. A dank stench came off the water, mingling with the sulphurous smell of the fog that had been thickening since morning.

He asked how her day had been.

‘Oh, not bad. I enjoy it, you know. I never thought I would, but I do …’

They turned left on to Victoria Embankment.

‘I’ve said I’ll do another day. Tonks is going to France at the end of January, so they want me to do a bit more.’

‘Yes, he told me he was going. Doesn’t seem to be looking forward to it very much. Fact, he said he’d seen enough horrors to last him the rest of his life.’

‘I’ll miss him. I couldn’t have done it without him.’

Ahead of them Waterloo Bridge loomed out of the mist. The water underneath the nearest arch broke into V-shaped ripples as a boat passed through. There were flecks of crimson on the surface of the river, where the setting sun had briefly managed to free itself from a bank of cloud, but they were fading even as he watched. From the far side, almost invisible in the mist, came shouts and splashes and then, one after another, factory whistles began to blow for the start of another shift. London in winter.

‘Doesn’t it make you want to paint it?’ she asked.

‘No, it makes me want to get away from it. Oh, I can see it’s beautiful, but it’s not for me.’

She’d slowed down and was scuffing her sleeve along the balustrade, looking at the great arc of the bridge with the hundreds of grey and black figures pattering across.

‘Neville would love it. But then, he’s luckier than I am.’ Instantly, Paul realized how crass that sounded. ‘I mean, as a painter, he’s got all this waiting for him after the war.’

‘You’ve got the countryside.’

‘Well, ye-es. But landscape’s starting to feel a bit old hat even to me.’

She turned to face him.

‘How was he?’

He started to say something bland, and stopped.

‘Different. You know, before the war I used to think he was incredibly self-pitying, because, let’s face it, he had it a lot easier than most. And yet there he is, no nose, quite a lot of pain … Not that he ever mentions it, but … Well, I know the signs. Facing God knows how many more operations, and there isn’t a trace of self-pity. I mean, he’s actually quite funny about it now and then. Is it true the last operation was a failure because he had a cold in the nose?’

‘Oh, it was a bit more than that. Fact, I think he very nearly died.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Did you talk about Toby at all?’

The white face under the lavender hat took the decision for him: he couldn’t lie to her, not about this. ‘Yes.’

She tried to smile. ‘Well? How bad is it?’

‘Bad.’

‘Go on.’

‘He killed himself.’

‘Why?’ She was up in arms at once. ‘Because he was frightened? I don’t believe –’

‘No, nothing like that. Because …’ He threw up his hands. ‘He was having an affair with a boy who looked after the horses and somehow or other the CO found out.’ He watched her struggling to take it in. ‘You’ve got to realize nothing could’ve saved him. Yes, he was well liked, he was respected, he’d got the MC – none of it would’ve made the slightest difference. Except, I suppose, it was why the CO took the decision he did, which was to let Toby know he’d been reported. Otherwise, the first he knew he’d have been arrested. In effect the CO gave him the chance … Well. To sort it out in the only way possible.’

Her face was completely blank; he couldn’t tell whether she was taking it in or not.

‘Otherwise, you see, it would have been a court martial, he’d have been stripped of his rank, probably got ten years with hard labour
and
he’d have been struck off the medical register – even when he came out he wouldn’t have been able to practise as a doctor. So you can see, can’t you, why suicide must have seemed the only way? He was trying to spare his family the disgrace.’

Her mouth twitched as if she wanted to speak.

‘Does that make sense?’ he said.

‘Oh, God, yes. Except it wouldn’t be “family” – it would be Mother. Even as a boy he was always trying to protect her.’ A small, hard laugh. ‘The wind was never allowed to blow on her.’

She turned and looked over the river. Before, when he’d tried to
imagine this moment, he’d dreaded her tears. Now her composure worried him more.

‘Let’s get you somewhere warm. It’s freezing out here.’

‘How did he do it?’

‘You’re sure you want to know?’

She looked at him.

‘He said he saw something moving in No Man’s Land. They’d spent all night getting in the wounded, but he thought, or said he thought, that there was somebody else out there. He took Neville with him.’

‘So Kit
was
there?’

‘Yes, he was. Just as it was getting light Toby stood up and fired at the German lines. Obviously, he thought he was going to be shot, but – God knows why – nothing happened, so he turned the revolver on himself. It was over in a second, there couldn’t possibly have been any pain.’

‘But there would have been a body.’

‘Another bombardment started, not long afterwards. Every inch of the ground was shelled. Of course, they went out looking for him, but there was nothing left.’

She was breathing heavily, still tearless.

‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘Neville says he was quite exceptionally brave in the last few days. He refused to leave the line even when he was wounded. If it hadn’t been for this other thing he’d have been decorated again, no question.’

‘No, but there was, wasn’t there? This “other thing”.’

She made as if to walk on and for a moment he hoped that might be the end of it, but then she turned back.

‘Who told the CO?’

‘The Padre. I don’t know how he knew.’

He’d set out to tell her the truth, or at least the version of the truth that Neville had told him. Instead, he’d started lying without ever taking a conscious decision.

‘Will you tell your parents?’

‘No, I don’t think so. What’s the point? It only adds to the pain.’

‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you?’

‘No, I needed to know.’

He touched her elbow and they started to walk on again. She looked almost dazed.

‘Did you know about Toby?’

‘That he liked men?’ She shrugged. ‘Yes and no. I mean, I always thought he and Andrew were lovers. But … It’s never that simple, is it?’

‘Were there ever any girls?’

She took so long to answer he was beginning to think she hadn’t heard the question.

‘There was a girl, once.’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know.’

They turned away from the river, cutting up the steep lane that lead from the Embankment to the Strand. At the top of the hill, Paul looked back at the water. Here and there, dark, sketchy shapes of boats smirched the mist. Tiny figures like insects still swarmed across the bridge, while underneath the strong, brown, muscular river flowed, oblivious of the city that befouled it.

He touched her arm. ‘Let’s have a drink, shall we?’

They went to the Savoy. Paul had never been there before, nor ever dreamt he would one day be able to afford it. The foyer seemed vast, with red-and-gold rugs covering a black-and-white marble floor. A short flight of stairs led down to a room in which groups of smartly dressed people were reflected in tall gilt mirrors. A murmur of conversation, a chink of glasses, gloved waiters bending deferentially over the tables …

They sat on a leather sofa several feet apart, for all the world like a Victorian courting couple. He ordered two brandies, and was pleased to see some colour returning to her face as she drank. He told himself it didn’t matter that he’d withheld a large part of the truth from her. Some secrets aren’t meant to be told.

After a long pause, he said tentatively, ‘Have you thought what you might do after the war?’

He was painfully aware of how insensitive this question might seem so soon after she’d learned of Toby’s suicide, but she turned to him with a smile.

‘Depends who wins.’

‘I think that counts as Spreading Gloom and Despondency.’

She nodded towards the chattering crowd. ‘They could do with a bit of that.’

‘They might look at us and think exactly the same.’

‘Yes, you’re right, of course. Nobody wears a broken heart on their sleeve. Oh, now … What would I do? I don’t know. I take it we’re not thinking Thirty Years?’

‘No point, we’d all be past it.’

‘I’m past it now.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘I don’t know, I can’t think that far. Actually, it’s worse than that. The other day I realized – this is going to sound really mad – what I really think, deep down, is that the dead are only dead for the duration. When it’s over they’ll all come back and it’ll be just the same as it was before.’ She glanced at him. ‘I told you it was mad.’

‘There mightn’t be anything left worth coming back for.’

‘Now who’s spreading Gloom? Anyway, presumably you have thought?’

‘Something Neville said … I suddenly thought I want to get away from all this. Everything. I want to be somewhere where I know I could never possibly fit in …’

‘England?’

‘
No
, somewhere warm. Somewhere oranges grow on trees.’

She laughed. ‘It does sound rather nice.’

‘You could come too.’

No reply. He was damning himself for a fool, but then, just as the silence became unbearable, her hand crept along the expanse of leather between them and took refuge in his. Frightened, they looked into each other’s eyes and tried to smile, but it wasn’t possible. Not yet.

Now they’d decided to sell the house, it seemed to turn its face away from her, like an abandoned child rejecting the mother when she returns. No click of claws in the hallway; no bloodshot eyes raised to hers: Hobbes had gone to live with her mother. The house seemed to be giving up: there was a smell of damp, though Mrs Robinson said she lit fires in all the downstairs rooms whenever she came in to clean.

This would be Elinor’s last visit. Paul was coming tomorrow to help take her luggage to the station. Father was organizing a van to remove the furniture and the rest of their stuff. She wandered from room to room, unable to settle to anything, then forced herself to go upstairs, pack what remained of her clothes, and start on the far more difficult job of sorting out books and papers. She’d take just the one photograph of Toby, she decided; the one where his face seemed to be disappearing into a white light. All the others were of teams at school and university; this was the only one of Toby by himself.

She picked it up and looked at his face, wondering why she found it so hard to paint, when she knew every inch: the blue eyes, closed now; the ears, crammed with silence; the mouth, stopped for ever. It was too painful to go on looking, so she replaced the photograph gently on the shelf.