Life Class

One

They’d been drawing for over half an hour. There was no sound except for the slurring of pencils on Michelet paper or the barely perceptible squeak of charcoal. At the centre of the circle of students, close to the dais, a stove cast a barred red light on to the floor. The smell of burning coke mingled with other smells: sweat, hot cloth, cigar and tobacco smoke. Now and again you could hear the soft pop of lips inhaling and another plume of blue smoke would rise to join the pall that hung over the whole room.

Nobody spoke. You were not allowed to talk in the life class. In the Antiques Room, where they spent the mornings copying from casts of Classical and Renaissance sculpture, talking was permitted, and the students — a few of the women, in particular — chattered non-stop. Here, apart from the naked woman on the dais, the atmosphere was not unlike a men’s club. The women students had their own separate life class somewhere on the lower floor. Even the Slade, scandalously modern in most respects, segregated the sexes when the naked human body was on display.

Paul Tarrant, sitting on the back row, as far away from the stove as he could get, coughed discreetly into his handkerchief. He was still struggling to throw off the bronchitis that had plagued him all winter and the fumes irritated his lungs. He’d finished his drawing, or at least he’d reached the point where he knew that further work would only make matters worse. He leaned back and contemplated the page. Not one of his better efforts.

He knew, without turning to look, that Professor Tonks had entered the room. It was always like this with Tonks, the quiet entry. He seemed to insinuate himself into the room. You knew he’d arrived only when you saw the students sitting opposite straighten their shoulders or bend more anxiously over their drawings. Tonks was a dark planet whose presence could be deduced only by a deviation in the orbit of other bodies.

Paul risked a sidelong glance. Tonks, bent at the shoulders like a butcher’s hook, was scrutinizing a student’s drawing. He said something, too low to be heard. The student mumbled a reply and Tonks moved on. Another student, then another. He was working his way along the back row, passing quickly from drawing to drawing. Sugden brought him to a halt. Sugden was hopeless, among the worst in the class. Tonks always spent more time on the weaker students, which indicated a kindly disposition, perhaps, or would have done had he not left so many of them in tatters.

So far his progress had been quiet, but now suddenly he raised his voice.

‘For God’s sake, man, look at that arm. It’s got no more bones in it than a sausage. Your pencil’s blunt, your easel’s wobbly, you’re working in your own light and you seem to have no grasp of human anatomy at all. What is the point?’

Many of Tonks’s strictures related to the students’ ignorance of anatomy. ‘Is it a blancmange?’ had been one of his comments on Paul’s early efforts. Tonks had trained as a surgeon and taught anatomy to medical students before Professor Browne invited him to join the staff at the Slade. His eye, honed in the dissecting room and the theatre, detected every failure to convey what lay beneath the skin. ‘Look for the line,’ he would say again and again. ‘Drawing is an explication of the form.’ It was one of the catchphrases Slade students sometimes chanted to each other. Along with: ‘I thy God am a jealous God. Thou shalt have none other Tonks but me.’

There was no getting round Tonks’s opinion of your work. Tonks was the Slade.

Paul looked at his drawing. If he’d been dissatisfied before he was dismayed now. As Tonks drew closer, his drawing became mysteriously weaker. Not only had he failed to ‘explicate the form’, but he’d also tried to cover up the failure with all the techniques he’d learned before coming to the Slade: shading, cross-hatching, variations in tone, even, now and then, a little discreet smudging of the line. In the process, he’d produced the kind of drawing that at school — and even, later, in night classes — had evoked oohs and ahs of admiration. Once, not so long ago, he’d have been pleased with this work; now, he saw its deficiencies only too clearly. Not only was the drawing bad, it was bad in exactly the way Tonks most despised. More than just a failure, it was a dishonest failure.

He took a deep breath. A second later Tonks’s shadow fell across the page, though he immediately moved a little to one side so that the full awfulness could be revealed. A long pause. Then he said, conversationally, as if he were really interested in the answer, ‘Is that really the best you can do?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why do it?’

Why indeed? Paul made no reply and after a moment Tonks moved on. At last, from somewhere, a rush of anger. ‘If I knew how to draw I wouldn’t need to be here at all, would I?’

He’d shouted, though he hadn’t meant to. All around people were turning to stare at him. Without giving Tonks a chance to reply, he threw down his pencil and walked out.

The corridor, empty between classes, stretched ahead of him. Its walls seemed to throb with his anger. The heat of it kept him going all the way to the main entrance and out into the quad. There he stopped and looked around him. What was he doing, storming out like that in the middle of a session? It was asking for trouble. And yet he knew he couldn’t go back. Students were sitting in small circles on the grass, laughing and talking, but they were mainly medical students enjoying a break between lectures and there was nobody he knew. He threaded his way between the groups and out through the iron gates into Gower Street. At first he started to walk towards Russell Square, the nearest green space, but that wasn’t far enough. He needed to get right away, to think about his future in unfamiliar surroundings, because although, in one sense, his spat with Tonks had been relatively trivial, he felt that it marked a crisis in his career.

If you could call it a career.

He’d been walking round and round the lake for over an hour. His shadow, hardly visible when he first entered the park, now trotted at his heels like a stunted child. Round and round the problem went: no talent, wasting my time, better leave now and get a job. Or would it be more sensible to wait till the end of the year? He’d always intended to spend two years at the Slade and it seemed a bit feeble to leave before the first year was over, but then what was the point of continuing when his work not only failed to improve, but actually seemed to deteriorate from week to week? It wasn’t as if he had unlimited money. He had a legacy from his grandmother, a slum landlord of quite astonishing rapacity who, by skimping on repairs and bringing up her large family on bread and scrape, had salted away a great deal of money in the box under her bed. What would her advice have been?

— Have nowt to do with Nancy-boy stuff like art, there’s no money in that, and if you’ve got tangled up in it, lad, get out as fast as you can.

She’d been horrified when he went to work as an orderly in a hospital; real men earned their living by their own sweat and blood.

This was getting him nowhere. He found a bench and sat down, feeling the heat heavy on his shoulder blades. Craning his neck, he looked up at the tops of the trees, dark against the pulsing sun. Everything was flooded in lemony light. After a while he straightened up and looked about him, and it was then that he became aware of the girl on the other side of the lake.

A young girl, still with the childish blondeness that rarely survives into adult life, was wandering along the waterside. She was about fifteen, dressed in the shabby, respectable clothes of a maid, her only ornament a bunch of purple velvet violets pinned to the crown of her black straw hat. Sent into service, he guessed, away from her own overcrowded home. Girls that age are not easily accommodated in two-bedroomed houses, parents needing privacy, adolescent brothers curious, younger children sleeping four to a bed. This would be her afternoon off.

He tracked her with his eyes. A few paces further on she stopped, standing at the water’s edge looking down into the depths. Thinking they were going to be fed, swans, geese and ducks set off towards her from all parts of the lake, so that the slim, grey figure quickly became the focal point of thirty or more converging lines. There was something odd about her and at first he couldn’t think what it was, but then he noticed that the buttons on her blouse had been done up in the wrong sequence. There was a glimpse of what might have been bare flesh between the edge of her blouse and her skirt. He kept expecting her to pull her shawl more closely round her or turn away and put herself to rights. But she did neither. Instead she stumbled a few feet further along, then stopped again, the shadows of rippling water playing over her face and neck.

She was swaying on her feet. At first he thought nothing of it, but then it happened again, and again. It came to him in a flash. Incredibly, this fresh-faced, innocent-looking girl was drunk. He looked up and down the path to see if she was alone and there, about twenty yards behind, stood a portly, middle-aged man watching her. Ah, authority. Probably the man was her employer — he was too well-dressed to be her father — but then, if he had a legitimate reason to be interested in her, why did he not approach and take control of the situation? Instead of strolling along at that loitering, predatory pace, his eyes fixed on her back. No, he was nothing to do with her — unless of course he was the man responsible for her condition. That, or he’d noticed the state she was in and recognized easy pickings when he saw them.

Bastard. All Paul’s long frustration in the life class — a frustration which could never be vented on Professor Tonks because he respected the man too much — boiled over into hatred of this man with his florid cheeks and his expensive suit and his silver-topped cane. He jumped up and began striding along the path, meaning to cut them off before they reached the gate.

The sun, past its height, had begun to throw long bluish shadows across the grass. Paul’s heels rang out on the pavement as he half-walked, half-ran round the head of the lake. He felt vigorous, clear. All the disappointments and complexities of the past few months had dropped away. He drew level with the girl, who had once more paused and was gazing out over the lake. A few yards away from her the geese were beginning to come ashore. Big, webbed yellow feet made puddles of wet on the dusty path as they lurched towards her, open beaks hissing. Startled, she took off her shawl and flapped it at them until at last, honking and hissing, they flopped, one by one, into the water again.

Now that Paul was closer he could see that her hair had slipped loose from the pins at the nape of her neck and straggled down her back. The blouse was badly torn, it must have been ripped off her back. Looking down, he saw that only one foot had a stocking on; the other was thrust bare into a down-at-heel shoe. He looked at the slim, naked ankle, and felt a tweak of lust that hardly broke the surface of his consciousness before it was transmuted into anger. Who had doen this to her? She was such a child. He was afraid to startle her by speaking to her and, anyway, she might well misconstrue his intentions.

The middle-aged man had stopped a few yards away and was gazing at him with obvious resentment. Paul turned to stare at him. Medium height, heavily built, bulky about the shoulders and chest, but a lot of that was flab. His trouser buttons strained to accommodate his postprandial belly. His eyes kept sliding away from Paul to the girl and back again. At last he stepped to one side, ostentatiously allowing Paul plenty of room to pass. Paul held his ground.

Meanwhile, the girl tried to move on, but staggered and almost fell. She seemed disorientated now and after standing for a moment simply flopped down on the path. With a glance at Paul the man moved towards her. Paul stepped forward to cut him off.

‘What do you want?’ the man said.

A Yorkshire accent? ‘Are you responsible for this?’

‘What?’

‘This.’

‘I never saw her before in my life.’ Greyish-green eyes, the colour of infected phlegm. ‘I was going to put her in a cab and send her back to her family.’

‘’Course you were.’

‘Do you have a better idea?’

‘We could take her to the police station.’

‘Oh, I doubt if she’d thank you for that.’

‘Let’s ask her, shall we?’

The man leaned forward in a fug of port-wine breath. ‘Look, piss off, will you? I saw her first.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘It’s not your business.’ A hiss the geese would have been proud of. ‘For God’s sake, look at her. Don’t you think you’re closing the stable door after the horse’s bolted?’

‘And a slice off a cut cake won’t be missed. What a fund of homely northern wisdom you are.’

Gooseberry-green eyes swelled to bursting. A purpling of pendulous cheeks, then Paul caught a flash of silver from the upraised cane. He raised his arm to break the blow and pain jolted from his forearm into his shoulder. Now he had his excuse, his legitimate reason. He twisted the cane out of the other’s hand and brought it crashing down on to his shoulders, once, twice, three times and then he lost count. There was no reason ever to stop, he’d never felt such joy, strength seemed to flow into him from the sky. But a minute later, as the man turned away, presenting only his bowed shoulders to the blows, Paul started to recover himself. In a final burst of exhilaration, he sent the cane whirling in a broad arc over the lake, its silver knob flashing in the sun.

‘Fetch!’ he shouted, feeling his spit fly. ‘Go on, boy, fetch!’

The cane plopped and sank. Concentric rings of ripples, laced with foam, spread out over the surface of the water. Its owner turned to face Paul, goosegog eyes red-veined with rage. ‘Do you know how much that cost?’

‘More than the girl, I’ll bet.’

The man’s neck seemed to swell over the rim of his starched collar. He’s going to have a stroke, Paul thought with interest, but the moment passed. At that point the girl, whom they’d both forgotten, staggered off again, stumbling from side to side of the path. Paul followed her, glancing over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being accompanied. No, the man merely stood and stared. Paul turned and went on walking. A second later, a blow between his shoulder blades sent him sprawling headlong. He was up and on his feet again in a second, fists raised, but the other man backed off, collected his bowler hat from the ground where it had fallen and, with several looks behind him to make sure he wasn’t being followed, walked away. At first it was a brisk trot rather than a walk, but when Paul showed no sign of wanting to pursue him, his step became more nonchalant. A hundred yards further on, he might have been any prosperous businessman out for an afternoon stroll.

Paul was still shaking, as much with glee as anything else. Again and again he relived that moment when the cane had wheeled through the air and disappeared into the waters of the lake. The return of Excalibur. Except that made him Sir Bedivere and beer-gut back there King Arthur.

By now, the damsel in distress was several hundred yards away, walking quickly in the direction of Lancaster Gate. He hurried to catch up, aware of a curious doubling, for now he was doing exactly what beer-gut had been doing a few minutes before. With different motives, he reminded himself sharply. Nevertheless there was something disturbing about it and, half consciously, he slackened his pace. No, but this was stupid, he had to see it through. He’d call a cab, select the most respectable-looking driver he could find and pay for the girl to be transported back to her own people. If she’d go. Suddenly the simple plan bristled with problems. She wouldn’t be keen for her parents or her employer to see her in this state. And could he trust the driver not to take the money and tip her out of the cab as soon as they turned the corner? He’d have to go with her, that’s all, but then, would she get into a cab with a strange man? He’d face that problem later.

Decided now, he quickened his pace, but just then a group of nursemaids pushing perambulators came bowling along towards him, taking up the full width of the path. By the time he’d made up the lost ground the girl had turned through the gate. Panting as he reached the spot, he looked up and down the road, but the pavements were crowded and, among the hundreds of hurrying people, her unsteady gait was no longer so conspicuous. And then he saw her, far away now, on the other side of the road, but there was no pause in the traffic to let him cross. He stood on tiptoe, seeing the black straw hat with its little bunch of cloth violets bobbing along, until eventually it was lost to sight in the milling crowds.

He’d left all his things at the Slade so he had to go back there. Jumping on a bus, he found a seat on the top deck and gazed out over the heads of the crowds. For the first few minutes he kept on searching for the girl, though he knew he wouldn’t see her.

The exhilaration had gone now. He was back with his own problems. Should he admit defeat and leave the Slade? Was he wasting Nan’s legacy?

– ’Course you bloody are. Art! It’s not for people like us, such as that.

What ‘people like us’ did — or, more frequently, didn’t do — had been a favourite topic of hers, the pincers used to nip off any green shoot of hope and ambition one or other of her children might have been cherishing. They’d learned not to, fast enough. She hadn’t applied it to herself though, at least not towards the end of her long life. At eighty, she’d bought herself a motor car. The only motor car previously seen in their streets belonged to the local doctor. Every Friday afternoon and all day Saturday she’d been driven round to collect her rents, sitting up on the back seat, ramrod straight (though she was a martyr to her back), dismounting now and then to bang on the doors of one ramshackle house after another, wresting coppers from reluctant hands. She must have been the most hated woman in the city.

— Aye, mebbe. But it put the clothes on your back, didn’t it? And paid for you to go to that posh school.

He got off near Russell Square and walked the rest of the way. Students were streaming away from the Slade as he approached, but he kept his head down, not wanting to speak to anybody. He hadn’t reached a decision, though if anything all that pacing round the park had strengthened his feeling that he ought to leave as soon as possible.

The Antiques Room did nothing to change his mind. Plaster casts of Classical and Renaissance sculpture stood in a line along one wall.

— Cartload of fellers showing their whatsits.

He’d spent whole mornings copying them, whole days when he first started, except for an hour at the end of the afternoon session when they were allowed to troop down the corridor to join the life class. On benches at the far end were smaller pieces: decapitated heads, limbless torsos, amputated arms and legs. Like an abattoir without the blood.

Had all his time in this room been wasted?

No time to be asking that question now. He picked up his bag and was about to leave when he heard a noise and turned to find Elinor Brooke standing by the open door.

‘I thought I heard somebody,’ she said.

She came towards him until she was close enough to touch. A stir of desire, almost indistinguishable from irritation. He wasn’t in the mood for ‘the treatment’ — by which he meant the air of intimacy Elinor created between herself and any man she spoke to, though to be fair it wasn’t only men, he’d seen her adopt exactly the same approach to women. No, he wasn’t in the mood for Miss Brooke, but then she raised her gigantic blue eyes to his … ‘Gig lamps,’ his father used to say. ‘Eyes like gig lamps.’ It had been one of the magic phrases of his childhood.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘Only I heard you’d walked out of the life class.’

He wondered which of the men had told her. ‘I needed a bit of fresh air.’

‘Was it something Tonks said?’

‘You know Tonks. He more or less said I was wasting my time.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Ye-es, ouch. Anyway, after that I thought I’d better go away and do some thinking. I couldn’t just go on drawing.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Hyde Park.’ He smiled. ‘I didn’t exactly run away to sea, did I? Do you mind if I smoke?’

‘No, go ahead. I might even join you.’

Her pupils shrank as the match flared between them. ‘What are you going to do?’

No advice, he noticed. She often asked for advice from men, but never gave it. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s any point staying till the end of term. I mean, you could say, if I’m wasting my time the sooner I’m out of here the better.’ A dragging pause. ‘He likes your work.’

‘Yes,’ she said, simply. ‘I know.’

They smoked in silence for a while. Then she said, ‘Life drawing isn’t the be-all and end-all, you know.’

‘It is here.’

‘So perhaps here isn’t the right place?’

He shook his head. It had taken so much determination to cut loose from his background and come to the Slade that he could hardly grapple with the idea that he’d made the wrong choice.

‘Anyway,’ Elinor said, standing up. ‘I’d better be getting on.’ She turned toward the door, then looked back. ‘A few of us are going to the Café Royal tonight. Would you like to come?’

He hesitated, but only for a second. What else was he going to do except sit inhis lodgings and brood about his non-existent future? ‘Yes, I’d like that. What time?’

‘About eight.’

‘Good. I’ll see you there. Are you going home now?’

‘Soon.’

He opened the door for her and watched her walk away down the corridor. With her cropped hair and straight shoulders she looked like a young soldier striding along, and for a moment he saw something in her, something of the person she might be when she was alone, not adapting in that sinuous way of hers to other people, not turning herself into a mirror to magnify whatever qualities he — it was generally he — fancied himself to possess. He’d have liked to know her, that secret person, but the mirror was also a shield and she’d be in no hurry to put it down.

Two

Three hours later Paul was pushing open the door of the Café Royal. Lying in the bath at his lodgings, he’d almost changed his mind about going, but the moment he walked into the Domino Room his mood lifted. The tall mirrors in which the heads of smokers, drinkers and talkers were endlessly and elaborately reflected, the laughter, the bare shoulders of the women, the pall of blue smoke above the clustered heads, the sense of witty, significant things being said by interesting people — it was a world away from his poky little rooms in St Pancras. A world away from home, too.

People glanced up at him as he passed, their faces illuminated by the small candles that flickered on every table. Everywhere, moist lips, glimpses of red, wet tongues, gleaming white teeth. How sleek and glossy they all were compared to the creatures who lived in the streets around his lodgings, scurrying about in their soot-laden drizzle, the women so tightly wrapped they seemed to be bundles of clothes walking. This was another England and, passing between the two, he was aware of a moment’s dislocation, not unlike vertigo.

At last he saw Elinor, sitting at a table directly underneath one of the mirrors. She had her back to him, but then caught sight of his reflection in the glass and raised her hand. It was a moment out of time, their two reflections gazing at one another. Then noise, laughter, movement rushed back, as he threaded his way between the last few tables to greet her. ‘Elinor.’

‘Paul.’

She raised her face to his and for one mad moment he thought he was expected to kiss her, but then she turned away. ‘Teresa, this is Paul Tarrant. Do you remember I said he might be coming? Paul, Teresa Halliday.’

The girl held out her hand. She was dark, with short, shining hair, high cheekbones and red, painted, pouting lips. That mouth still had the power to shock, though he’d noticed that many of the women here wore make-up. She was wearing a high-necked brocade jacket that made her look … Russian, Chinese? Anything but English. He was instantly attracted to her and thought she was aware of him, though once the introduction was over she said nothing further, merely leaned back against the plush seat waiting to have Elinor’s full attention again.

‘And this is Kit Neville.’

He’d seen Neville once or twice at the Slade. He was starting to be famous, a circumstance that some people attributed to a talent for painting and others to a talent for self-promotion.

‘Kit was at the Slade.’

Neville looked uncomfortable. ‘I left two years ago.’

‘But you’re always coming back.’

‘Oh, we all come back.’ It was said easily, but he was obviously nettled by the observation.

‘Not everybody.’

Paul was trying to recall the stories he’d heard about Neville at the Slade. Hadn’t he been expelled?

‘What’ll you have?’ Neville asked, raising his hand to summon the waiter.

‘Whisky please.’

‘I think the ones who keep coming back are the ones it didn’t work for,’ said Elinor. ‘It’s like turning a key in a lock. If it turns you forget about it. If it doesn’t you go on rattling away.’

‘Or move on to something else.’ Neville was flushed and miserable-looking. ‘So,’ he said, turning to Paul, ‘Elinor tells me you walked out on Tonks today.’

‘He said he thinks I’m wasting my time. I didn’t see the point of sitting there after that.’

‘He can be wrong, you know.’

‘How long were you at the Slade?’

‘Two years. And I didn’t walk out.’ Neville’s eyes were alight with a blue, dancing truculence. ‘Probably should have done, mind you, but I didn’t, I stuck it out, and in the end he more or less said, Go.’ He grinned, adding in a mock Oirish accent, ‘Never resign, mister. Get yourself fired.’

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

‘Why did he throw you out?’

‘He didn’t like my work. I didn’t like it much either so I can’t hold that against him. And …’ With a sidelong glance at the girls he lowered his voice. ‘He disapproved of my relationship with one of the models. She got pregnant and I refused to be fathered.’

Paul was startled and a little repelled by so much intimacy so early in their acquaintance. ‘Oh.’

‘I said, Why the hell should I pay? There’s at least a dozen others who could be the father and if you believe everything you hear Tonks was one of them. But of course he got on his high horse. What was it? For a long time he’d believed that nothing could exceed his contempt for my work, but in the light of recent events he now realized his contempt for my moral character was infinitely greater.’

What an extraordinary story to tell against yourself. It argued either unlimited egotism or a talent for self-destruction, or both perhaps. It was difficult to know what to say. Trying to lighten the tone, Paul said, ‘Are all the models like that?’

‘Like what? Oh, loose, you mean? Yes, a lot of them are, thank God. But …’ Nodding towards Teresa, he raised a finger to his lips.

‘She’s a model?’

She was so unlike the generally rather battered ladies who modelled for the life class he could scarcely believe it. At that moment she glanced across and met his eyes, smiled a slow, incommunicative smile, and immediately turned again to Elinor. The two girls were focused on each other in a way he found provocative.

‘What are you two getting so intense about?’ Neville asked.

That was clumsy, and he wasn’t a clumsy man. Too sure of himself for that.

‘Teresa’s husband’s been snooping round again.’

Husband. Paul’s eyes went to her left hand, but she wasn’t wearing a ring.

‘Caught him out the back last night trying to see through the window. Least, I thought it was him. You know, I pulled the curtain back and there was this face squashed against the glass, didn’t look like anything on earth, but then he stepped back a bit and of course I could see it was him. Anyroad, there’s me screaming blue murder and the chap upstairs ran down to see what was going on — only by that time he’d gone.’

‘He’s left you alone quite a long time, hasn’t he?’ Neville said.

‘Going on a year. But that’s what he does.’ She flicked a glance at Paul. ‘He starts getting on with his own life but then the minute things start to go wrong he decides it’s all my fault and comes looking for me again. And it always does go wrong. He can’t hold a job down. I don’t think it’s ever going to end.’

‘It will,’ said Elinor. ‘He’ll drink himself to death.’

‘That’s a slow process,’ Neville said, gazing down at his empty glass.

Paul took the hint and summoned the waiter. Elinor shook her head — she’d scarcely touched her glass — but Teresa nodded. With a stab of excitement, Paul realized she was tipsy.

As he gave the order, he heard Neville ask, in his blunt, authoritative way, ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Move, I suppose.’

‘Oh, you can’t,’ Elinor said. ‘Not again.’

‘Well, I can’t stop there. Even if he’s not outside spying on me I always think he is. And if he finds out I’m modelling …’

‘How could he find out?’ Neville said.

‘He’s only got to follow me. I thought I saw him the other day just as I was leaving Tonks.’

So she modelled for Tonks. Paul saw her slipping off her robe, mounting the dais, Tonks’s hand on her arm adjusting the pose. The image produced such a rush of desire and envy he missed part of the conversation.

‘Look,’ Elinor was saying, when he was able to concentrate again, ‘he’s got to eat, he’s got to sleep, he can’t be following you round all the time.’

‘What else has he got to do? Except drink.’

‘Doesn’t he have a home to go to?’ Paul said.

‘Well, you know you’re always welcome to stay with me,’ Elinor said. ‘There’s a sofa in the living room.’

‘I know, and it’s kind of you, but you wouldn’t have anywhere to paint. I’ve got to get it sorted out.’

Neville’s gaze on Elinor’s face had become even more intent. ‘You should go to the police,’ he said to Teresa, roughly, not looking at her. ‘That’d frighten him off.’

‘I’m his wife. I could go in with a couple of black eyes and a broken nose wouldn’t worry them.’

‘Has he hit you?’ Paul said.

‘’Course he has.’ Incredibly, she laughed. ‘Blames me for that too, he was never a violent man till he met me.’

‘Then Neville’s right. You should go to the police.’

‘They’re not interested.’

‘You have finished with him, I suppose?’ said Neville. ‘Really finished? There isn’t a small part of you still feels sorry for him?’

She looked away, resenting the question or made uncomfortable by it. ‘You can’t be indifferent to somebody you’ve —’ She shook her head. ‘No, it’s over. I couldn’t go back to him now.’

The conversation lapsed, though after a while the two girls started whispering to each other again. Paul sensed they were getting ready to part.

A few minutes later Elinor stood up. ‘I’ve got to go, I’m afraid.’

Instantly, Neville was on his feet. He was going past her lodgings on his way home, perhaps he could drop her off? She seemed about to refuse, but then nodded.

‘Teresa, are you sure you don’t want to come back with me?’

‘No, I’m all right, really. Don’t worry about me.’

They kissed goodbye. Paul watched as Elinor and Neville left together. At the door Neville put his hand between her shoulder blades, guiding her. They’d said nothing all evening to suggest they were more than acquaintances, and yet now, suddenly, he saw they had a close, perhaps even intimate, relationship.

Teresa had gone quiet. There were purple shadows under her eyes and he found himself wanting to touch them. He moved closer. They chatted about this and that, the conversation sputtering like a cold engine — on, off — until a shadow fell across their table and Paul looked up to find no less a person than the great Augustus John towering over them.

‘Teresa,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you join us? And your friend too, of course.’

She looked across him to a noisy table at the far end of the room. ‘Thanks, Gus, but I was just leaving. I’ve got a bit of a headache coming on.’ She was reaching for her bag as she spoke.

Another few words and, with a nod to Paul, the great man moved on.

She’d chosen to stay with him. Perhaps. More likely the headache was genuine and she was longing to get home. But that didn’t seem probable either with a potentially violent husband prowling round her backyard. He looked at her and saw how the purple shadows had changed the colour of her eyes from pale to smoky grey. The blood was thickening in his neck. ‘Shall we go, then?’

She nodded at once and stood up.

Three

A light rain had fallen. The street was busy, people hurrying to restaurant and bars. Women’s scents, as they walked past on the arms of husbands and lovers, mingled with the smell of leather and dung from the cab horses that stamped and jingled in a long row by the kerb. For no better reason than the freshness of moist air on his skin, Paul felt suddenly full of hope.

Teresa was pulling on her gloves, pale grey cotton, pressing each finger into place. She barely reached his shoulder but was so slim and held herself so erect that she struck him as a tall woman, and how beautiful that dark, warm colouring, those cheekbones that caught and held the light.

‘I suppose you’ve already had dinner?’

‘No, I came straight from modelling.’ Her voice had an unexpected rasp to it, like fingernails dragged across the skin. ‘I’ll have something when I get back.’

As she spoke her pale grey eyes darkened, and he realized two things: she was hungry — that must be why the wine had affected her so much — and she was afraid.

‘Perhaps we could eat together?’

She looked up at him. A cleft in her chin, he noticed, rare in women. He struggled not to touch it, the side of his thumb would rest there so sweetly.

‘That would be nice.’

‘There’s a place over there. Shall we try that?’

They ran across the street and pushed open the heavy door of the restaurant. Steamy heat, a smell of onions frying. The waiter showed them to a table by the window where they could look out at people walking past. Paul was delighted, particularly since the couple at the next table were engrossed in each other. They were virtually alone.

‘Would you like some wine?’

‘More wine?’ She blushed. ‘Yes, go on, why not?’

Her accent was very strong when she said that. He’d kissed and cuddled girls like her, standing with his back to the factory gates, pausing and pulling them deeper into the shadows whenever anybody walked past. But then he looked at her again and thought, Who are you kidding? You’ve never had a girl remotely like this.

They ordered soup and roast beef and talked about their mutual acquaintances. Had she known Elinor long?

‘Two years. She was only seventeen, you know, when she came to London. She’s always saying what an old stick-in-the-mud her mother is, but when you think of it … letting a seventeen-year-old girl come to London, unchaperoned. Most mothers wouldn’t do it.’

‘Would your mother?’

Her face hardened. ‘I was married at seventeen. No danger of that with Elinor. Though it’s not as if she hasn’t had offers. You must have seen how men react to her?’

‘I saw how Neville did.’

‘She keeps trying to get him interested in other girls.’ She looked at him mischievously. ‘Do you think she’s attractive?’

‘In a boyish sort of way …’

‘Isn’t that what men go for?’

‘Not all of us.’

‘Neville does.’

Perhaps she felt she’d said too much, because she immediately raised her glass, using it as a shield against her mouth as she gazed round the room.

‘Do you like Tonks?’

Her eyes widened. ‘Yes, I think I do. He’s a very kind man. Underneath.’

‘Tell that to Neville.’

‘Henry didn’t like his work. But I think he always thought he had talent.’

‘Not the way Neville tells it. Tonks told him he despised his work — and despised him even more.’

‘Oh? I didn’t know that.’

‘Henry’, he noticed, and she’d called Augustus John ‘Gus’. She was no more than a girl from the back streets of some northern town, and yet she assumed equality with these men. A fragile sort of equality, based, ultimately, on sex.

— Whore.

— Now, now, Nan. Rest in peace.

‘It’s not done him much harm, has it?’ she was saying. ‘He’s doing rather well.’

‘Painting trains.’

‘Not just trains.’

‘He’d like the view from my window.’

‘Oh, where do you live?’

‘St Pancras.’

‘I live there. Victoria Street.’

They looked at each other, registering that when they left the restaurant they would be going in the same direction.

Over coffee he asked about her husband. He was afraid she might think the question intrusive, but once she started the words streamed out.

‘I was seventeen. I can’t even say it was a mistake, I had to get away from home. Dad left when I was eleven and three years later Mam took up with somebody else.’

‘You didn’t like him?’

‘That wasn’t the problem.’

‘He didn’t like you?’

‘Not that either. I couldn’t tell Mam, I dropped one or two hints and she just —’ Teresa hunched her shoulders and crossed her arms over her chest. ‘She wasn’t well. That was half the trouble — she was always in bed with poultices on her chest — her skin was raw, you used to have to put mustard on them. I couldn’t see they were doing her any good, I used to hate putting them on, she used to scream, but the doctor would have it. He was costing that much you couldn’t disagree with him. So anyway I was downstairs making these bloody poultices and he used to come up behind me. What could I do? I couldn’t shout. And he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Oh, and I wasn’t allowed out, he was always saying he didn’t want me running round with any of the local lads, getting into trouble. It’s laughable really, all the trouble I had was at home. So in the end I ran away.’ She pulled a face. ‘Not very far — I went to me auntie’s in Redcar. She’s a dressmaker, so I used to help her with that and then I got on with Jack. He was a mate of Dave’s — that’s Auntie Nancy’s lad. He was in the army and, oh, he was smart. I couldn’t see the drink was a problem, but even if I had seen it I’d probably still have married him.’

‘Were you in love with him?’

‘God knows.’

For a while she sat in silence, looking down at her glass.

‘You don’t have to talk about it, you know.’

‘No, I want to. It lasted about six months. I mean, before things started to go wrong. I fell pregnant and he was over the moon. Came out of the army — big mistake, but it didn’t seem like that at the time — and he got a job in the ironworks. Labourer, but he was making good money. And then I lost the baby. The horrible thing is I was quite relieved.’

‘Because you knew it was a mistake? The marriage?’

‘Yes, I knew. Soon as he come out of the army. He was like a bloody sergeant major. Least little thing, his shirts weren’t ironed right, I used to get belted.’

‘You could have left him.’

‘You get cowed, you can’t do anything. Always being told what an ugly, useless slut you are. And then I fell pregnant again and he totally changed. He even stopped drinking. Only I lost that one too, and he got it into his head I’d done summat to get rid of it. Me auntie used to help women out, you know, and I think he thought she’d told me what to do. I told him I never did anything, but he didn’t believe me and that’s when it got really bad. I ended up in casualty twice. The second time me auntie says, “Don’t be such a bloody fool, our Teresa, he’s gunna kill you.” So I ran away again, this time to London. She lent me the money for the fare — every little bit she had put by, it cleaned her out — but it didn’t last five minutes here. I hadn’t anybody I could turn to. Then I got on with this artist and he says why don’t you try modelling? The lasses at home, you know, they’d laugh their heads off, me being a model. I used to get called Chinkyeyes and Flatface at school.’

‘But he followed you?’

‘Yes, I don’t know how he found me but he did. He needs me. Always did, that was the problem. You know, he’d be effing and blinding one minute and the next he’d be sat on the floor with his head in me lap.’

‘My heart bleeds.’

‘That’s what me auntie said.’

‘And now he’s back?’

‘Yes, but he’ll drift off again.’ She nodded towards the far end of the room. ‘I think the waiters are wanting to be off.’

Paul looked over his shoulder, realized they were indeed the only two people left in the restaurant, and raised his hand for the bill.

Pushing open the door of the restaurant, he was surprised to see the world going on as usual. ‘Shall I get a cab?’

‘No, let’s walk, shall we? It’s not raining.’

That was a relief. He had just about enough money left to pay for a cab, but it would have been a worry.

She took his arm and they set off. It was exciting just to be walking down a street with her, to match his strides to hers, to feel her hand nestling in the crook of his elbow. He asked who she was modelling for at the moment.

‘Saracen. I’m supposed to sit for him tomorrow, but I don’t know if I can.’

‘Why not?’

‘Jack. He might follow me.’

‘Won’t he just get fed up and go away? You say he drifts off again after a while.’

‘Yes, but there’s generally a pretty big explosion first, and I can’t afford to lose work.’

‘Has he hit you? I mean, since you left him?’

She lifted her face to his and he saw the light of the street lamps in her eyes. ‘Yes. Once. I’d been out and he was waiting for me when I got back.’

If Paul had been settled in life, if he’d even been successful as a student, she couldn’t have moved him as deeply as she did at that moment, but he had nothing to dilute this, no busy humming core of purposeful activity to protect him. He was mesmerized by her. That flat northern accent, so familiar to him, coming out of that scandalous painted mouth. But it wasn’t just her looks. In spite of her bitterness, her evident cynicism about men and their motives, he sensed a capacity for passion in her greater than anything he’d so far experienced.

The swish of her skirt both soothed and disturbed him. He hardly knew what they talked about. As the streets became greyer and meaner and the air began to smell of smoke and oil, she fell silent, looking down at her feet swishing in and out under the hem of her skirt. He touched her arm to get her attention. ‘Whereabouts do you live?’

‘Just along here.’

Twenty yards further on she stopped outside a tall, narrow house with cracked and blistered paint on the front door and skimpy, no-colour curtains drawn across the ground-floor windows.

‘I’m in the basement.’

He unlatched the gate and looked down the steps. In the small yard at the bottom were five dustbins overflowing with rubbish. Behind them, a low door led into some kind of storage space, perhaps intended to hold the bins. As far as he could tell it was empty, but the light from the street lamp didn’t reach all the way to the back.

He sensed Teresa was frightened. ‘Would you like me to open the door for you? Check everything’s all right?’

‘Please. If you wouldn’t mind.’

She gave him her keys and he went down the steps ahead of her, his nostrils assailed by a smell of rotting cabbage. A few leaves, thick-veined and gross, their stalks yellow and flabby with decay, littered the ground. He turned the key in the lock, but the door, swollen with damp, resisted him. All the time he was aware of the dark cavity behind him. Anybody could hide in there after dark. No wonder she was frightened.

The door gave before a more determined shove.

‘There we are.’

She’d stopped halfway down the steps. Now only her head and shoulders were lit by the street lamp. Gradually, as she edged further down the steps, her face fell into shadow. Then she was standing beside him. He caught her scent, sweet and dark, above the stench of rotting vegetables.

‘He got inside once.’

‘I’ll have a look around.’

He went first, walking ahead of her down a long passage, which bent sharply to the right in the middle. The lino was black with grey blotches, perhaps intended to suggest pebbles, but looking rather as if somebody had spattered paint across it. She had two main rooms — big, but dark. A tiny kitchen opened off the living room. The bathroom was squeezed in next door to the bedroom. He looked in the airing cupboard, inside the wardrobe, under the bed — feeling, as he pressed his cheek into the musty-smelling rug, like a ridiculous old maid — then returned to the hall. All clear.’

‘Good.’ She laughed on a sharply exhaled breath. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee? After all that.’

‘I’d love one.’

He had no idea what the offer implied and daren’t think. He told himself there was no hurry. Most of his sexual experience so far had been kisses and cuddles and worming his way into the drawers of girls whose sights were firmly set on marriage, always feeling a bit of a bastard since he had no intention of marrying anybody. That, and a series of rather unsatisfactory commercial encounters. They should have been easier, since both sides knew where they stood, but they hadn’t been. In fact, the memory of the first time could still make him cringe. The woman, beside whom any one of his aunties would have looked like a mere slip of a girl, pointed him towards a bowl of water and a bar of carbolic soap and towel on the dresser by the bed. Obediently he started to get washed. Hands. Face. Neck. Ears. Even now he felt a hot blush of shame prickle his chest, as he remembered her laughter.

‘Are you all right in there?’

He roused himself. ‘Yes.’

‘You’ve gone very quiet.’

‘Just thinking.’

While she finished making the coffee he looked around the room. Her taste was good. She’d used deep shades of red and blue and positioned small lamps to cast golden arcs of light over the walls, so the effect was of being in a dark, rich cave. The dustbins and squalor outside were easily forgotten.

She came back into the room carrying a tray.

‘The trouble with this place is everybody comes down here to empty the rubbish, so if I hear somebody moving about I don’t know if it’s him or just somebody from upstairs.’ She put the tray down on a table. ‘Or a peeping Tom. You get plenty of them.’

‘You shouldn’t really be living in a basement.’

‘I know, but it’s got a garden. And it’s cheap.’

Taking the cup from her, he sat down on one of the sofas, feeling the sharpness of worn springs under the velvet cover. ‘Are you getting a divorce?’

‘I’m not sure I could. It’s a lot harder for a woman. A man only has to prove adultery. A woman has to prove adultery and cruelty.’

‘Do you think he’d divorce you?’

‘Never in a million years.’ She forced a smile. Anyway that’s enough about me. I seem to have been talking about meself all evening. What about you?’

‘Oh, what about me? I think we come from the same part of the world. Middlesbrough.’

She shook her head. ‘Grangetown.’

‘It’s only a few miles. Just think, we might have walked past each other in the street.’

‘So how did you get to the Slade? Scholarship?’

‘No, my grandmother died and left me a small legacy. I was working as an orderly in the hospital at the time, but I decided to use the money doing this.’

‘Is that what she’d have wanted?’

‘Good God, no. She wanted me to be a teacher, I think, or a solicitor’s clerk, something like that. Good, steady money and a pension at the end of it.’

‘But you didn’t fancy that?’

‘I thought I had talent.’

‘Thought?’

‘There’s not been much sign of it recently.’

‘Do you think you might be trying too hard?’

‘I’ve got to try. I’m not like Neville. If I make a mess of this there’s no feather-bed for me to fall back on.’

They talked for a while longer, but she was obviously tired and after a few minutes he drained his cup and stood up.

As she was opening the door he said, ‘Would you like to go to a music hall?’ When she hesitated he said quickly, ‘But I don’t suppose you feel much like going out at the moment?’

‘No, I think it would do me a power of good.’

‘Friday at seven? I’ll pick you up.’

As the door closed behind him, he was amazed by the boneaching pain of the separation. He’d known her only a few hours, it oughtn’t to be possible to feel like this. He lingered, hoping she’d part the curtains and look out, but they remained closed, with only a strip of light to show she was still inside. How totally his life had changed in the space of a few hours. Fizzing with excitement, he set off to walk home. As he turned the corner of the street, a man walking fast, head down, hands thrust into his pockets, slammed into him. No apology. No acknowledgement even. Paul turned to stare after him as he strode away, the street lamps passing his shadow like a baton along the pavement. He half expected him to disappear down Teresa’s basement stairs, but no, he went straight past, his hunched figure dwindling rapidly into the dark. Relieved, Paul turned and walked on.

Four

The following day, Paul went to see Professor Tonks to apologize for walking out of the life class. The incident loomed so large in his mind it was salutary to discover how little importance Tonks attached to it. As for leaving the Slade …

‘What’s the point of going now? You may as well wait till the end of term at least.’

‘But if I’m wasting my time?’

‘Are you?’

‘You seemed to be implying that.’

‘I told you your drawing was bad. I don’t remember saying you were wasting your time.’

‘I don’t seem to be getting any better.’

‘Technically you are. Only …’

‘Only?’

‘Most people who come here are bursting with something they want to say, and the trouble I have with some of them is that they can’t be bothered to learn the language to say it in. Whereas with you it’s almost the opposite.’

Paul would have liked to defend himself, but didn’t know how. This wasn’t the criticism he’d been expecting.

‘I do have a problem with life drawing, I know that. But I thought my landscapes were … Well. A bit better.’

‘There’s no feeling.’

‘Perhaps I’m not managing to express it, but —’

‘I don’t get any feeling that they’re yours. You seem to have nothing to say.’

‘I see. No, yes, I do see.’

‘Well, then.’ Tonks spread both hands on his desk, preparatory to rising. ‘I wish I could tell you what to do about it, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to thrash this one out on your own.’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Why don’t you start by asking yourself: Do I want to paint? Or do I want “to be an artist”? Because they’re two very different things. And try to be honest with yourself. It’s not an easy question.’

Tonks had been kind, if not tactful, and Paul backed out of his room feeling that one day, when the sting had worn off, he’d be grateful. At the moment he felt he hadn’t been given much to go on. If Tonks had told him to go and learn anatomy, he’d have done it, no question. Ground and sweated away till he could name every bone and nerve and muscle in the body. He’d never been afraid of work. But ‘nothing to say’? What was he supposed to do about that? And as for wanting ‘to be an artist’ … Well, of course he wanted to be an artist. It was the opposite of the life he’d lived in the shadow of the ironworks that gobbled men up at the start of a shift and regurgitated them twelve hours later fit for nothing but booze and sleep. Too bloody right he wanted to be an artist. And that meant? God knows. He knew what it used to mean. Getting on a bike on Sunday morning and peddling like hell as far away from Middlesbrough as his legs would carry him to set up his easel in a field somewhere to paint trees and hawthorn blossom. Behind him, columns of black smoke, steam, spurts of flame, flakes of soot on sheets hung out to dry, the acrid smell of coke, sparks struck from boots as workers coming off the afternoon shift slurred over the cobbles.

Perhaps that was the trouble. Art had always been Somewhere Else. There flashed into his mind a memory of the back room in the Vane Arms, blue smoke, the rumble of dominoes being shuffled, knobbly hands, liver-spotted, necks like tortoises, blank, incommunicative faces, terse greetings: ‘Now then’, ‘All right?’ and the cold northern light coming in through frosted-glass windows. If he closed his eyes he could hear the scraping of dominoes on the tables. Which was also, come to think of it, the sound of the Café Royal. He’d never painted those men or even thought of doing so till now.

Leave it. Too complicated to sort out now and, besides, he had other things on his mind. Teresa. He thought about her all the time. She came between him and the page.

As soon as the morning session was over, he ran downstairs to the women’s Life Room. Most of the students had gone, but Elinor was still there, putting the finishing touches to her drawing. Seeing her like this through the open door, he was attracted to her all over again, as he had been the first time he saw her in the Antiques Room. He’d come very close to falling in love with her that day. Everything about her had attracted him, from the crown of her shockingly cropped head to the slightly pigeon toes peeping out beneath the hem of her paint-daubed overall. What can you do to resist a girl whose defects are perfections? She was so much more alive than anybody else.

Today she’d been working in charcoal and had black smudges round her mouth where she’d absent-mindedly sucked the stick. Ruthie Wilson, a small dun-coloured girl, like a wren, quick and secretive in every movement, was tapping the corner of her own mouth to point them out. At last, losing patience, she got out her handkerchief, gave it a lick and rubbed the marks away. Elinor stood motionless, like a small child, letting herself be cleaned up. There was so much intimacy in that action, Paul caught his breath.

How they dawdled, the two of them. Shifting from foot to foot, he waited while they got their things together and drifted towards the door.

‘Paul,’ Elinor said.

She looked delighted to see him.

‘Oh, hello,’ said Ruthie.

‘Elinor, can I talk to you for a minute?’

‘Yes, all right. We’re on our way to Lockhart’s.’

The café was crowded by the time they got there, the queue stretching from the counter to the door. As soon as he entered, Paul felt his face grow slick with steam and grease. Lockhart’s was cheap. Everything about it said cheap, from the smears of grease on the badly wiped tables to the brown crusts in the sugar where people had dipped wet spoons. Standing directly behind Elinor, he noticed how the hairs at the nape of her neck, fairer than the rest, crept into the centre, half covering the tender runnel of white flesh. When they first met, the nape of Elinor’s neck had kept him awake at nights.

Ruthie went off to join some friends, while Paul and Elinor found a table near the kitchen door. Paul had to squeeze himself close to the table to avoid being jolted by waitresses going in and out, but at least they were alone.

‘So,’ said Elinor, ‘what did Tonks have to say?’

‘I should stay to the end of term.’

‘Was that all?’

‘More or less.’ He didn’t want to tell her about having nothing to say, it hurt too much. ‘Common sense, really. I’ve paid the fees.’

‘Do you want to stay?’

‘Now, yes.’

‘Hmm.’ Her face was alight with curiosity. ‘How did you get on?’

‘With Teresa? Very well.’ He hesitated. ‘In fact I saw her home. She lives in a basement, did you know?’

‘No, I’ve never been. She always comes to see me.’

‘Mad, really. Anybody could get in.’

Elinor took a sip of her coffee and emerged with a line of foam on her upper lip.

‘Elinor.’ He patted his upper lip, aching to be allowed to do what Ruthie had done a few minutes earlier. Instead, he passed a white, folded handkerchief across the table. Elinor wiped the foam off on the side of her hand and handed his handkerchief back to him, still virgin.

‘Have you known Teresa long?’

He tried to keep the question casual, though just saying her name excited him.

‘Two years? She modelled for me when I was up for the scholarship. Free. It was very good of her and well, you know, it makes all the difference.’ Her eyes darkened. ‘She’s had a rotten life.’

‘The husband seems to be an absolute brute.’

‘He put her in hospital twice.’

‘Didn’t anybody do anything?’

‘No, of course not. He got off scot-free. Surprise, surprise.’

She sat back, withdrawing her warmth from him as if he too were tarnished by the universal male stain.

‘I’m surprised she doesn’t go home.’

‘He’d still find her.’

‘Yes, but at least she’d have family.’

‘An auntie. What’s the point of that? She needs six hulking big brothers. Besides, the work’s here.’

‘Modelling.’

‘Well, there’s not much call for it up north. I know it’s not much of a living, but —’

‘How much does it pay?’

‘You really do like her, don’t you?’

‘Ye-es. Yes, I do — only I’m not sure she’s actually finished with her husband. Finished finished.’

‘’Course she has, the man’s an absolute nightmare. No wonder she’s suspicious of men. And being a model doesn’t help.’ She stared at him. A lot of men think models are fair game.’

‘Neville.’

‘For one.’

He was remembering Neville’s story about the baby with a dozen possible fathers, though it had suited Neville to say that. ‘He seems to be an interesting chap.’

‘Oh, he’s that all right. Have you seen his latest paintings? They’re on in the Grafton Gallery.’

‘No, I haven’t. I’ll have a look.’

‘I don’t like the new stuff particularly, but there’s no denying it’s powerful.’ She was making patterns with the coffee dregs in her cup. ‘He knows exactly what he wants to do.’

‘I wish I did.’

‘So do I. Wish I did.’

‘You’re doing all right. Everybody seems to think you’ll get the scholarship.’

‘Yes, but it’s all schoolgirl stuff, isn’t it? There’s nothing there.’

So perhaps they were all dissatisfied with their work? Perhaps that was an artist’s normal state?

Elinor pushed her cup away. ‘Shall we get back, then?’

He said goodbye to her at the top of the basement stairs. She was a good friend. If he’d learned nothing else at the Slade he’d learned that men and women could be friends, even intimate friends, without sex intruding. But then, halfway down the stairs, she turned and looked back, and there he was again, a rabbit caught in the light of the gig lamps, unable to move or look away.

No, it was impossible. He couldn’t still be attracted to Elinor, not now, when all his thoughts were focused on Teresa. What on earth had possessed him to say Friday? He could equally well have said today or tomorrow, at least asked if she was free. As it was, he’d condemned himself to three whole days without her. Fool.

Five

He didn’t have to look at the leaflet to know which paintings were Neville’s. They leapt off the wall. He’d done three studies of the Underground: streaks of light, advertisements, perpendicular lines that suggested strap-hangers, blurred heads and faces of people, everything fragmented, explosions of noise and speed. The sensation of noise surprised him, but it was the right word. These were very noisy paintings. Did he like them? He didn’t know, but he saw at once that this was fully mature work, streets ahead of anything he could produce. So far ahead and so different in its subject from anything he would ever want to paint that he was protected from envy. He got Neville’s address from Elinor and wrote a warm note of appreciation.

After posting the letter, he tramped up and down the streets around his lodgings, so absent that a scrap of paper blowing across the road startled him. Every time he thought of Teresa little flickering flames ran along his veins. In the end, because he couldn’t help himself, he went to her street. All around him, in the long mean terraces, was a sense of furtive, scurrying lives, of people living in one room, alone, cooking their suppers on a single gas ring. Walking down the street, he touched each railing as he passed, as a small child might have done, until he stood gazing down the basement steps at her front door. There was the familiar reek of rotting vegetables, but no red glow from behind the curtains. She was out. He was shocked by that. But then, why shouldn’t she be out? She had a whole life that he knew nothing about. He ought to go, but still he lingered, hoping she might somehow, miraculously, come round the corner. He was behaving like one of the peeping Toms she complained about and saw, abruptly, that the chasm dividing him from those pathetic, little men was no bigger than a crack in the pavement.

Back home, he wandered between the two rooms of his small flat, pausing to gaze out on to the railway lines through net curtains stiff with dirt. He sat on the edge of his bed, staring down at his clasped hands, and wondered where she was, and who she was with. This obsession grew like a tumour. One of those spongy excrescences that grow on the throat or the side of the neck and choke the life out of you. He was living his whole life, minute by minute, breath by breath, solely in the hope of seeing her again.

By the time Friday evening came he was exhausted, but kept going by the energy of his desire for her. They went to the Coliseum and sat in the front row of the balcony. He sat as close to her as he dared, aware of the curve of her shoulder and arm, of the vibration of laughter in her chest, far more conscious of her than of anything happening on stage, where a couple of grotesquely made-up men teetered about on high heels warbling like prima donnas. Normally he loved the music hall. What he liked best were the ‘turns’ — comedians, acrobats and jugglers — but most of all he was fascinated by the men in wigs and make-up and outlandish female costumes and by the young girls swaggering up and down, immaculately clad in white tie and tails. They seemed to turn the whole world upside down, to suggest anything was possible. In the music hall it was Twelfth Night every day of the year.

After the interval there was a one-act play with a complicated plot about spies. One-act plays always struck him as being rather pointless — you’d no sooner worked out who the characters were than the curtain came down — and tonight he was even less inclined to pay attention than usual. But Teresa seemed to enjoy it. As they were leaving, she chattered about the play, and he smiled and assented and expressed opinions, but really he had no clear idea of what it had been about. In his inside pocket, burning a hole, as they say, was a packet of sixpennies. As he stood on the kerb trying to hail a cab he was remembering the first packet he’d bought. Three visits to three different barbers before he plucked up the courage to ask for what he’d wanted. By the time he’d managed to get some he looked like an ex-convict. A cab pulled up at last and he gave Teresa’s address.

They sat in silence most of the way. They might have been a middle-aged married couple returning from their weekly night out, though he was so intently aware of her he could have counted the blonde hairs on her forearm where they caught the light. He paid the driver, and exactly like last time went down the steps first to check that it was safe. Nothing felt safe. His heart throbbed in his throat. Turning the key, he heard a rustle in the cavity behind him and spun round, fists clenched, only to see a naked tail trailing through rubbish before the creature whisked away into the dark.

‘We get a lot of cats,’ Teresa said.

‘Cats? That wasn’t a cat.’

Once inside the dingy hallway, he stood and stared at her. All his carefully prepared speeches deserted him. And then they were kissing, a long hard kiss that seemed to drain him. He pulled away, holding her at arm’s length, searching her face. In the dim light her eyes were more violet then grey. They went into the bedroom hand in hand, like children. With other women, he’d always felt rushed, even as he’d checked and held himself back. This was different. A slow, peaceful progression. He helped her undress and she stood in the lamplight, rubbing the pink stripes the corset had left around her waist.

‘I’m only allowed corsets on my days off. Saracen’d have a fit if I showed up looking like this.’

She was a tall, pale lily rising from the dark foliage of her dress. He knelt before her, his lips moving over the gentle curve of her belly where a few silver stretch marks rose from the bush of hair. The imperfection reassured him because it seemed to bring her beauty within reach.

‘Are you cold?’

His voice creaked as if he hadn’t used it for a long time.

‘A bit.’

She got into bed and lay on her side, facing him, her eyes full of candlelight. He freed his cock from the cling and torment of his underpants and heard her laugh, but it was a triumphant, friendly, sensual chuckle that brought them closer together. He walked towards the bed, hoping she’d touch him, not wanting to ask for it. She cradled his balls in her hand, he felt them lift and tighten, and then she leaned forward and kissed him there, licking and mouthing the purple, glistening knob. He saw the creases in her neck. Oh, my God, careful. He eased her lips away. A lot of this was being done in an almost jokey way. Only when he climbed into bed and leaned over her did her smile fade. She stared up at him, her pupils flaring as his body cut off the light. She seemed wary, as he was himself. He lay half beside her, half on top, nuzzling her neck, shoulders, breasts, smelling the bitter almond smell of her nipples, brushing his face from side to side on her belly. A hot, briny tang was perceptible under the sweetness. He lowered himself on to her; her back arched as she rose to meet him. As they twisted and writhed, a knot of white limbs on the jangling bed, he was aware of the darkness outside, the wet, the cold, the gritty streets. A goods train rumbled past. He thrust deeper, trying to shut the noise out, but the roar of trains was part of their lovemaking, and when at last he let her go, they lay listening as a whistle shrieked and faded into silence and the rattling at the window frame ceased.

‘Do they wake you?’

‘Only if they’re late.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’ He felt a moment’s delighted recognition, out of proportion to the small, shared experience. ‘You get restless, don’t you, and then you realize what’s missing. The sleeper’s late.’

‘When I first moved in here, I thought, I can’t put up with this, but then after a bit you can’t imagine living without it.’

In the brief interval between trains, he heard the wind rising and a few small drops of rain hit the glass. He started to kiss and caress her again and this time they reached a sharper peak. There was bewilderment, even pain, in her final cry. He bit into the pillow, tossing his head, trying to tear the cloth, then with a final roar fell forward and lay still.

After a minute he rolled over, smiled, laughed, wiped sweat from his face, laughed again, and then they were hauling themselves out of the stormy sea and on to the safety of the rocks. He pulled her out of bed and they ran, naked, into the kitchen where they cut themselves big, thick slices of bread and butter — doorsteps, she called them — and washed them down with strong, sweet tea. They kept looking sideways at each other, grinning. She put a match to the fire and they sat on the sofa side by side, stretching out their bare toes to the heat.

‘Like bairns waiting for Christmas,’ she said.

‘I just had my present.’

She was rubbing the pink corset marks again. ‘I hope they’re gone by morning.’

‘Why? Are you modelling?’

‘Yes.’ Her tone hardened. ‘It’s what I do.’

He pressed his thumb against her cheekbone. ‘You should try head modelling, you know. No, really. You’d be amazed how few models have good heads.’

She smiled, but looked away. What did it matter if other men saw her naked. It wasn’t worth arguing about and, anyway, what right did he have to interfere in her life. Only he wanted her to himself. He lay back and held out his arms for her to join him. Immediately she came and snuggled into his side. Soon her warmth and the heat of the fire began to make him drowsy. He’d drifted off to sleep when, jarringly, she jerked upright.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Ssh.’ She raised a hand. ‘Can you hear it?’

He listened. ‘No.’

Perhaps he had heard something, but only the fire collapsing in on itself where it had burnt hollow. His mother had always said a hollow fire was a sure sign of disaster and would snatch up the poker and smash the coals into a more acceptable shape. Didn’t help her much, poor woman. He sat up and shook himself awake.

‘I’m sure I heard something,’ Teresa said.

‘Could be somebody emptying the rubbish.’

‘No, out the back.’

It was obvious what he had to do. Barefoot, wearing only his trousers, he let himself be led along the dog-leg passage to the back door. There were two bolts fixed to the wall with rusty screws. For God’s sake, you could kick it open. She pulled the bolts back and he stepped out into a small, dark basement courtyard. It smelled of damp and leaf mould. Steps led up to the main garden, where buddleia bushes with detumescent spikes loomed as tall as trees. Reluctantly, he stepped out into the yard, the raw, wet air on his skin shocking him into full wakefulness. The flags were slippery with rain and moss; snail shells crunched between his toes. As he went up the steps, he saw a stretch of wet lawn silvery in the moonlight and through the tangle of bushes a wire fence separating the garden from the railway line beyond. An intruder would have had to come in through one of the neighbouring gardens, that, or risk crossing the main line. But nobody with any sense would do that. At the top of the steps he looked around: no sign of anybody, no sign that anybody had been there. Anybody crossing the lawn would have left footprints in the wet grass. Probably she’d imagined it, but he walked round long enough to convince her he was taking it seriously, then went to stand by the wire fence. Beyond the slope of blond grass, the railway line had started to hum. He was aware of Teresa, at the top of the steps now, watching him. In a minute, a dozen or so rocking, swaying carriages hurtled past. A child with her face pressed against the glass waved to him, but the small human gesture was lost in the grind of pistons. He felt a ripple across his naked skin as the displaced air rushed back.

‘Can you see anything?’

‘No. If he was here he’s gone.’

‘It’d be him all right.’

‘I didn’t see anybody.’

She gazed around her, the moonlight glittering in the whites of her eyes. ‘Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I’m imagining things.’

But she didn’t sound convinced.

Shivering, she pulled the edges of her wrap together and went down the steps into the house, and with a last look at the wet grass and the shining rails, he turned to follow her.

Six

Neville replied to Paul’s note of congratulation with an invitation to lunch. Just family, he’d scribbled underneath his signature. I thought we might go for a swim afterwards? Weather permitting, of course.

‘I wonder what he wants,’ Teresa said.

‘Does he have to want something?’

‘No-o.’

‘Well, I’ll know soon enough, won’t I?’

Sunday found him in the Nevilles’ dining room overlooking a balding lawn. The weather, after a few fitful weeks of mixed sunshine and rain, was now definitely getting warmer. The rhododendron leaves were limp in the midday glare.

Paul was sitting next to Mrs Neville, a thin, energetic woman who was an enthusiastic suffragist.

‘Suffragist,’ she insisted. ‘Not gette.’

‘No,’ Neville said. ‘But gette’s on the way, isn’t it?’

‘Well, if the moderates don’t make progress, what do you expect? Obviously people are going to be attracted to more extreme tactics.’

‘Don’t start throwing bricks, my dear,’ Colonel Neville said. ‘You’re a terrible shot.’

Mrs Neville seemed to be fond of her family, in an abstracted kind of way, though Neville, jokingly but with an edge to his voice, claimed she never listened to a word he said.

‘Poof! What nonsense.’ She dropped a kiss on her husband’s forehead, acknowledged her son and his guest with a vague, bright smile, and swept out of the room.

‘It’s true,’ Neville said, caught between amusement and self-pity. ‘Half the time she doesn’t know I’m here.’

Paul thought he detected a lot of tension beneath the surface in this family. Neville was in awe of his father, a war correspondent who’d faced danger in every corner of the world. Throughout his life the father had gravitated towards violent conflict, and the son was desperate to measure up. No easy matter if the worst danger you face is a collapsing easel. But it made sense of Neville’s preoccupation with virility in art. Paul had read a couple of Neville’s articles now and both of them were full of the need to stamp out the effeminacy of the Oscar Wilde years. You’d think, the way Neville wrote about it, that the Wilde trials had taken place last year, not a generation ago. What a shadow it cast.

After coffee Colonel Neville retired to his study and the two young men went upstairs to Neville’s quarters: a large studio right at the top of the house. The treetops were level with his windows.

There were several completed paintings to admire, one of them very fine indeed. Many were urban, industrial landscapes. Paul was generous with his praise, though inwardly discouraged. In comparison with this his own work was immature, and he couldn’t understand why. He wasn’t particularly young for his age. His mother’s long illness and early death had forced him to grow up and take on responsibility. So this maturity of vision in a man whom he found distinctly childish in many respects bewildered him. Living at home, spoiled, self-pitying, moaning on because his mother didn’t pay him enough attention — for God’s sake! The work and the man seemed to bear no relation to each other. And the contrast was all the more painful because Neville was painting the landscape of Paul’s childhood. These paintings were the fruit of a trip up north to seek out the same smoking terraces and looming ironworks that Paul had turned his back on every Sunday, cycling off into the countryside in search of Art. He glanced sideways at Neville. One of them was mad.

‘They’re very powerful.’

‘I managed to get inside one of the works and see a furnace being tapped. God, it’s an amazing sight.’

‘You haven’t tried to paint it yet?’

‘No, I’m gearing myself up.’ He was pulling a bathing costume out of a drawer as he spoke. ‘Shall we go for a swim, then? It’s too nice to stay inside.’

Pausing on the landing to collect towels from the airing cupboard, he led the way downstairs. In the hall dust motes seethed in a shaft of sunlight. No sound anywhere, no voices, no traffic noise. Only the steady ticking of a clock.

‘It’s quiet, isn’t it?’

Paul was referring to the absence of traffic noise, but Neville chose to take it more personally.

‘Oh, it’s always like this. Do you know, sometimes I don’t talk to a living soul from one day’s end to the next? Mother’s got her blasted meetings, Father’s never here …’

‘I suppose there’s always the Café Royal.’

‘Can’t stand the place.’

He was there every night. ‘I thought you liked it.’

‘Like it? Of course I don’t like it. It’s vile.’

They had turned out of Keats Grove now and were walking up the hill towards the Heath, the sun heavy on the backs of their necks.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask,’ Neville said. ‘How did you get on with Tonks?’

‘All right, I think. He doesn’t seem to want to throw me out, and the fact is, I don’t want to leave. There’s too much going on.’

Neville was too short of breath to reply and they climbed the rest of the hill in silence. When they reached the bathing area, he pushed the gate open to reveal an area of sparse grass covered in lobster-pink flesh. Paul stepped inside and took a deep breath. Smells of pond water, sopping towels, damp hair. The path ahead had wet footprints dabbled all over it.

‘Reminds me of school, this,’ Neville said.

‘I’m surprised you can stand it.’ Neville looked a question.

‘Well, you don’t seem to have liked school much.’

‘Doesn’t mean I don’t remember it. Let’s face it, Tarrant, it never really leaves you, does it?’

‘Mine has.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘Grammar school.’

‘Oh, well.’ He was tugging at his tie as he spoke. ‘I say, Tarrant, you’re not chippy, are you?’

‘I’m sorry?

‘Chippy. A bit, you know —’

‘Not at all. I think it had a lot of advantages.’

‘Such as?’

‘Not having to shower with your back to the wall.’

‘Oh.’

Neville looked around him uneasily, but the men stretched out on the grass might have been asleep for all the interest they showed.

‘Or perhaps you think that’s an exaggeration?’

‘Not where I was. The dormitory was a sewer.’

My God. Paul hadn’t expected either the frankness or the bitterness of Neville’s response.

‘Where do we leave our clothes?’

‘C’mon, I’ll show you.’

Neville was obviously well-known here. Several of the men lying on the grass looked up and greeted him as he walked past. Paul followed him reluctantly into a low brick building that housed the lockers. It was too soon after lunch to go swimming and he disliked padding about on other people’s wet footprints. At one point he was holding on to the wall and shaking one foot like a disgruntled cat.

A few minutes later, walking along to the end of the jetty with his locker key on a string round his neck, he began to change his mind. The pond was a sheet of silver with concentric rings of turbulence around the dark sleek heads of the swimmers. He gazed out beyond the fringe of willows and hawthorn bushes to the sunlit hills beyond, then turned and started to climb down the steps, the icy water inching up his mottled things.

Neville came running along the jetty. ‘Jump, man. S’torture doing it like that.’

A second later, he dived into the choppy water. Paul watched him resurface: eyes blind, slack mouth sucking air. Then he dived again. A gleaming back showed above the water and he was gone.

Challenged, Paul let himself fall backwards, through the warm skin of water into the murky depths. All around him now were white, struggling legs. Neville swam towards him, arms sheathed in silver bubbles, hair floating from side to side as he twisted and turned. They stared at each other. Absurdly, out of nowhere it became a contest. Who could stay down longest. Lungs bursting, Paul gave in and broke the surface on a screech of indrawn breath. He pushed the hair out of his eyes to see Neville, a few feet away, laughing into his face.

‘It’s bloody freezing,’ Paul said.

‘You need to keep moving.’

They swam off in opposite directions. Paul circled the boundary ropes twice, sometimes clinging to the rope to watch the other swimmers. The shock of the water on his skin had cleared his mind, that, or seeing Neville’s work. The strength of it. In some mysterious way Neville had become his marker. It wasn’t friendship, though a friendship might develop; it wasn’t rivalry either. Neville was too far ahead of him for that. He didn’t know what it was. Only that he’d had close friendships that were less important than this wary, sniffing-about-each-other acquaintanceship.

The banks were covered with the starfish shapes of men spread out to expose the maximum amount of skin. Deciding he’d had enough of the cold, Paul hauled himself out of the water, found a space and lay down, shrugging away the scratching of coarse grass between his shoulder blades. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the orange glare behind his lids. Purple blotches drifted across, fading to nothing. All his doubts about his painting, his envy of Neville’s talent, his constant anxiety over Teresa’s husband dissolved into the warm air. He was drifting off to sleep when the orange light behind his lids darkened to black and a shadow fell across his skin.

Paul opened his eyes, squinting between his spread fingers. Of course. Neville. Eyes gleaming bright and malicious beneath wet hanks of hair.

‘You didn’t last long.’

‘Bloody freezing, man.’

‘You should try it in winter.’

Paul smiled. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you come here in winter?’

‘It’s been known.’

Extraordinary — when he seemed so fond of his comfort in every other respect. The man lying next to Paul stood up, scratched the grass marks on the backs of his thighs and wandered off. Neville took the vacant place.

Disliking the proximity of so much chilly wet flesh, Paul closed his eyes again. He could hear Neville’s breathing, feel him wanting to talk.

‘I’ve known Elinor a long time.’

‘Yes,’ Paul said, ‘I suppose you must have done.’

‘The thing is, I’m in love with her.’ He waited for a response. ‘And I think you are too.’

Reluctantly Paul turned to face him. There was such an intensity of suffering on Neville’s chubby features that Paul could hardly bear to meet his eyes. ‘No. We see a lot of each other, obviously, because we’re in the same year, and I do like her. But I’m going out with Teresa.’

‘Teresa Halliday?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah.’ He took a moment to think about it. ‘That’s all right, then.’

What an inept, bumbling approach. He was a strange man. Talented, yes, but malicious, too tormented himself to feel much kindness for other people, and bitter. What did he have to be bitter about? Choking on his golden spoon. But since he was here, he might as well get some information out of him. ‘Have you know Teresa long?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Neville said. ‘Way back. She used to model at the Slade when I was a student.’

‘Have you ever met her husband?’

‘No — and neither has anybody else. Why?’

Paul could feel Neville’s gaze on the side of his face. ‘I just wondered.’

‘You mean, you wonder if he really exists?’

Paul sat up. ‘You think she’s making it all up?’

Neville shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She likes drama. She likes to be at the centre of the stage with everybody else revolving round her. You saw her, the first night we met. She wouldn’t let Elinor talk to anybody else.’ He waited for Paul to say something. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s a bit odd he never actually shows up. Look, all I’m saying is, if he’s real, why has nobody ever seen him?’ He rolled on to his back. ‘In two years.’

‘She does seem to be genuinely frightened.’

‘She’s an actress. They all are.’

They? Who were ‘they’, for God’s sake? Women? Models? None of it made any sense. And why should other people have seen Halliday? He was hardly likely to stroll into the Café Royal and drag her out into the street.

Abruptly, Paul got to his feet.

‘It’s getting a bit chilly.’

He wanted to get away from Neville.

‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll get dressed.’

He needed to be with Teresa, to reassure himself that none of this was true.

Seven

That conversation with Neville changed everything. He tried not to let it and, for a time, seemed to be succeeding, but the next time Teresa announced that she’d heard a noise and asked him to go outside and check, he refused. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

They were lying in the bed after making love. For a moment there was silence. He felt the tension in the arm that lay alongside his.

‘I’ll go,’ she said, reaching for her wrap.

‘No —’

Too late. He heard her bare feet slapping on the lino and then the creak of the front door opening. A current of colder air rippled across his skin. He waited. When she didn’t return immediately he got up and followed her.

She was standing halfway up the basement stairs, peering out between the railings. ‘Look, do you see?’

He followed her pointing finger across the road to a house with a large porch. In the deep shadow he thought he could see a figure, but even as he watched, it split into two. A courting couple.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, struggling to keep the impatience he felt out of his voice.

Teresa turned to look at him.

‘Come back inside.’

She followed him down the steps and back along the passage into the bedroom. ‘You don’t believe me.’

‘I do. But there’s never anybody there when I look.’

‘You think I’m making it up.’

‘No, I don’t think that. But I do think you might be getting it out of proportion.’

‘I had another letter.’

It was the first he’d heard of any letters.

‘Saying what?’

‘The usual.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘I burnt it.’

‘Why?’

She turned away from him. ‘Because I couldn’t bear to have it in the house.’

‘What did it say?’

‘That he’s going to kill me.’ She managed a smile. ‘They don’t vary much.’

‘And you don’t keep them?’

‘Would you want something like that in your flat?’

‘No, but I’d keep it. It’s evidence, for God’s sake.’ She shook her head.

‘If you took those letters to the police they’d have to take it seriously. Promise me you’ll keep the next one.’

‘All right.’

He sat down on the bed, his thoughts seething. He watched her carefully all evening. She didn’t seem particularly worried … Later, after they’d eaten, she got her dressmaking dummy out of the spare room, and went on with a jacket she was making. She was actually humming under her breath as she draped cloth along its curved side. He lay on the sofa pretending to read, but then got his sketch-book out and started drawing her, because this gave him the excuse to do what he was compelled to do anyway: search her face. Her eyes. Her mouth, thinned suddenly to a hard line, bristling with pins. He didn’t know what to think.

That was Sunday. On the Friday following, they got back to Teresa’s flat from an evening at the music hall, and found a letter on the doormat. No postage. Obviously delivered by hand. While Paul locked and bolted the door, Teresa carried the letter through into the living room.

He found her standing by the mantelpiece with a sheet of flimsy blue paper in her hand. Wordlessly, she handed it to him.

He read: I’LL KILL THE PAIR OF YOU — JACK

The capital letters exactly filled the space between the lines so the impression was of a child’s handwriting exercise. ‘Are they all like this?’

‘Pretty much.’

She was waiting to see how he’d react. He’d have given anything, at that moment, to have believed her, but even as he took her in his arms his mind whirred with suspicion. Capital letters. Why go to the trouble of disguising your handwriting and then add your name? It seemed stupid, but then, for all he knew, Halliday was stupid. He knew nothing about him. No, this was madness. He had to believe her. If she was lying now she was … What? Manipulative? Insane?

She was smiling in triumph. ‘There, you see? I told you he was hanging round.’

‘Why do you think he sends them?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Do you think he’s drunk when he writes them?’

‘I don’t know. Probably.’

‘Did he always drink? I mean, when you first met him?’

‘You mean, did I drive him to it?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Yes, he drank. Only it didn’t seem to have the same effect on him then. He just got a bit …’ A faint, unconscious smile. ‘Cuddly. But then after we married he started drinking more and … Well, if he was bad-tempered when he started it made him fifty times worse. Whatever he was feeling it made it worse. I’ve seen him sometimes, on a Saturday night, he’d have offered his own Granny out to fight.’

‘Where did he get the money?’

‘He worked for it. He was a furnace man. They work bloody hard. And they do need the drink. You see them come off shift, it’s straight across the road into the pub. They’ll sink five, six pints, think nothing of it, and they’re not drunk on it either. And if he was ever short of a few bob he only had to go bare-knuckle fighting. Take anybody on. The other lads used to lay bets on him.’

The warmth faded from her face.

‘Have you got a photograph of him?’

She looked puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘If he’s going to kill me I’d like to be able to recognize him. If you don’t mind?’

She went to the sideboard, reached under a tablecloth in the top drawer, and brought out a photograph. It was a wedding portrait, the two of them together, standing outside a church. Teresa was plump, smiling, full of hope, pretty, but not beautiful as she was now. Halliday was tall, dark-haired, not bad-looking, though his head and neck were unusually long so that his shoulders seemed to be surmounted by a tower.

Teresa stared at the photograph and her expression softened. Oh, she’d loved him once. How on earth had they got from the moment outside the church to where they were now?

‘I suppose he still loves you.’

She waved the letter. ‘You call that love?’

Her face was white and shrivelled. Coarse. For the first time she repelled him. Knowing it was the wrong thing to do, he began interrogating her. When had she left Halliday? How often did he turn up? When was the last time? She became restless under the questioning, and no wonder. He was being tedious, bad-mannered. No, worse than that, he was behaving like a bully, but he kept on. It was a relief when she finally lost her temper and told him to get out. He went without argument. He’d got as far as the door when she came after him, holding on to his arm, begging him to stay.

He let himself be persuaded. As she led him along the corridor to the bedroom, he felt the same urgency of desire as he’d felt the first time. He knew he ought to break off the relationship now, but he couldn’t. Beside these moments: the salty taste of oysters on her tongue, the fumbling with her dress, the smell of her skin, the rumbling of a train that shook the bed, besides these moments the threat from Halliday meant nothing.

After their lovemaking, he lay in the candlelight absent-mindedly stroking her hand. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, but worse — because it seemed to symbolize the power of the past more trenchantly — the flesh on her ring finger was permanently indented. Unconsciously, he began picking at the groove in her skin until she snatched her hand away.

Paul lay for a moment in silence. Then: ‘Was he a good lover?’

‘Who?’

Who indeed. ‘Jack.’

‘No, not really. He only cared about himself.’

He wondered what she’d say about him. After a while she turned away from him and he heard from her breathing that she was asleep, but it was a long time before he was able to follow her and even then he had long confused dreams that were always threatening to turn into nightmares. In one of them he sat by his mother’s grave drinking a cup of tea, with a plate of sandwiches and fancy cakes balanced on his knee. When he looked up everybody he knew was there, eating and drinking, talking, laughing, their chairs turned in to face the headstone. And then, looking down, he saw the grave was open.

He came awake with a jump, staring around him, but gradually his breathing quietened. Nothing to be afraid of, he told himself, knowing all the time that he had every reason to be afraid. She’ll never rest, his grandmother had said. And she never had. Night after night she walked the corridors of his dreams.

But he was used to her presence. He didn’t mind. Pressing his cheek against Teresa’s back, he breathed in the smell of her hair, and, after a while, drifted back to sleep.

Normally Paul left before breakfast, going back to his own flat to shave and change his clothes, but this morning he lingered. They ate toast and drank coffee lying in bed and then she went off to the bathroom to get ready for her day.

As soon as he heard the bathroom door close he was out of bed. He began searching through her drawers, the bottom of the wardrobe, the sideboard, anywhere, not even trying to justify his behaviour. He needed to know — that was all. He didn’t even admit to himself what he was looking for, until the last second, when he held it in his hand.

A cheap blue notepad. Going across to the window, pressing his shoulder against the glass to get as much light as the grey morning allowed, he saw that the paper was the same weight and colour as the letter she’d received last night. He put the pad and the letter side by side, rubbed the bottom edge of the pages between his thumb and forefinger, held them up to the light to check the watermark. Identical. That, by itself, didn’t mean much — notepads like this were sold in every corner shop and every branch of Woolworths in England. But on the first page of the pad he could see the indentation of letters where the writer had pressed hard. The K in KILL was particularly sharp and deep, but if you looked closely you could make out the whole sentence.

I’LL KILL THE PAIR OF YOU — JACK

There could be no doubt. He saw no way round it. She’d written the letter herself.

Eight

He was out of his depth: too intelligent not to know it, too proud to admit it. He needed to talk to Elinor, who knew Teresa better than anybody else, but it was difficult to get hold of her. At last though he managed to corner her in the Antiques Room and she invited him to tea at her lodgings after college.

Prompt at six o’clock, he knocked on her door. He heard his name called and stepped back to see Elinor leaning out of a window on the third floor, her heavy dark gold hair swinging forward in two sharp points on her cheeks. ‘Hang on a sec, I’ll come down.’

Footsteps, quick and light, and then the door was thrown open and she looked out at him, smiling.

‘Doesn’t your landlady mind men calling?’

‘Men?’ She peered round him. ‘Oops, he’s brought the regiment. No, she’s down in the basement. As long as there’s not too much noise, she lets us get on with it. She’s even letting us redecorate.’

Elinor led the way up a broad staircase whose dark green carpet had a beige strip in the centre where the pile had worn through to the backing. She was clearly in the thick of decorating — he smelled distemper the moment she opened her door. Lolling tongues of rose-trellised wallpaper lay on the floor where she’d simply seized it and pulled it off the wall. A bucket of grey, glutinous sludge, a table and a stepladder occupied the centre of the room, but a sofa and two chairs had been pushed together at the far end so that some kind of normal life could continue.

‘What colour are you doing it?’

‘Stone. I thought grey might be a bit too depressing.’

‘And you’re doing it all yourself?’

‘No, Ruthie comes round to help. She’s on the floor above. We’re doing mine first and then we’ll do hers.’

‘It’s a big job.’

‘Oh, I don’t mind, I like it. Anyway, there’s no choice. I can’t work with that stuff on the wall. There’s another room, if you’d like to see?’

The bedroom. Elinor’s bed under a patchwork quilt, a chair, a wardrobe. Nothing else. Sunlight came in through the smeared window and crept in parallelograms of light across the faded carpet. From below came the hum and rumble of traffic.

‘I’m leaving this till last.’

He scarcely heard her. He was staring at a painting she’d propped against the wall: a female nude, facing away, rubbing a bath towel down her left arm. The ends of her glossy black hair stuck in wet coils to her white shoulders. ‘Teresa.’

‘She modelled for me. I said. Don’t you remember?’

He did, now she mentioned it, but still it came as a shock. They gazed at the painting together. He felt a surge of desire, not for Teresa, but for Elinor. He imagined kissing her, and the image was so vivid that for one crazy second he thought he’d done it, and was groping about in his mind for some way of repairing the damage.

‘That’s the one I won the scholarship for.’

He realized she’d brought him here into her bedroom to show him this, but he didn’t know why. A natural pride in a good piece of work? Or something more fundamental: a demand that he should recognize her as an equal? Well, if that was her motive she needn’t have bothered. There could be no question of equality. If he stayed at the Slade another ten years he’d never be able to paint sunlight on wet flesh like that.

‘It’s wonderful. I’m so glad I’ve seen it.’

She smiled. ‘Come on, I’ll put the kettle on.’

‘Can I do anything to help?’

‘No, I don’t think so. There’s only room for one.’

He stood in the kitchen doorway while she boiled water and made salmon-and-cucumber sandwiches. He wanted to say more about the painting, but he’d always found it difficult to praise an artist to his face, her face, or even to accept praise gracefully himself. Though that hadn’t been much of a disability so far.

‘Right, I think that’s it,’ Elinor said, wiping her hands on her sides. ‘Here, you can carry the tray.’

He set it down on a small table, which she cleared by sweeping piles of books on to the floor. They sat facing each other, the sofa and chairs so squashed together their knees were almost touching. She offered him a plate and a sandwich, but didn’t immediately pour the tea. He noticed there were three cups.

‘I got a note from Teresa saying her husband was prowling round.’

‘Ye-es.’

‘Poor Teresa. She must be terrified.’

Her eyes had gone black with anger. Her sympathy reminded him how very much he liked her, and he was reaching out to touch her hand, when –

‘Elinor.’

Neville, gasping for breath after the long walk upstairs. He stopped in the doorway, registering the scene, and his face changed colour — not a flush, but the most extraordinary darkening, like a male fish that finds itself unexpectedly confronted by a rival. ‘Oh, hello, Tarrant.’

Why does she do it? Paul wondered. Obviously she’d invited them both to tea, at slightly staggered times, implying, though not promising — for when did Elinor ever promise anything? — that each was to enjoy a tête-à-tête. Now she avoided looking at either of them.

After an awkward pause, Neville produced a bottle of wine from the green bag he was carrying. ‘I thought you might like to celebrate the scholarship.’ He glanced at Paul. ‘You know about this?’

‘I’ve just been admiring the painting.’

‘Oh, you’ve got it back?’

‘Yes, this morning. Come through, I’ll show you.’ Paul listened to the murmur of voices from the bedroom. Neville loved her. It was unmistakable. He always spoke to her with a kind of clumsy, affable superiority, making the most of his extra years and his fame, but increasingly the mask of confidence slipped to reveal lust and pain and fear.

‘I couldn’t have done it without Teresa,’ Elinor was saying, as they came back into the room. ‘A model makes all the difference.’

‘Yes, and she’s a good model too, isn’t she?’ Neville sat down next to Paul. Are you painting her?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll get some glasses,’ Elinor said.

The two men were left alone. After a pause, Neville asked, ‘How’s the life class going?’

‘Oh, you know. I’ve more or less given up.’

Elinor came back with three glasses and a bottle opener. Neville uncorked the bottle and poured. After they’d toasted Elinor’s success, there was silence. Then Neville said, ‘Oh. I’ve got something to celebrate too. I’ve bought a motorbike.’

He looked so pink and glowing, so insufferably pleased with himself, that of course they had to troop downstairs and admire the gleaming monster. Another craze, Paul thought, dismissively, another fad. That was the kind of reaction Neville provoked. Not contempt, exactly, but something close to it. The vanity of the man. The wealth. And yet you had to share his delight in his new toy. He was such a child.

‘I don’t suppose I can tempt either of you to have a ride?’

‘No,’ Elinor said.

Paul raised his glass. ‘Not at the moment.’

Back upstairs, flushed with wine and triumph, Neville became more expansive, reverting to the subject of Teresa’s husband. He seemed to have forgotten Elinor was there. ‘Why does she live in that wretched little basement? There’s no need. She’s not that poor. And even if she was, some man or other would always fork out. If she was half as frightened as she says she is, she’d be only too glad to move. Look at it. No proper locks on the windows. Anybody could hide in that coal-hole, the bolt on the back door doesn’t work … One screw —’

Too late, he stopped, stared into his glass and emptied it in one gulp.

‘She seems very happy there,’ Elinor said.

Nobody replied. Paul smiled and stood up. ‘I think I ought to be going.’

Elinor was looking up at him with some concern. He shrugged, then bent and kissed her, rather enjoying the expression of pain that flickered across Neville’s face. ‘Shall I see you in Lockhart’s tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

‘One o’clock?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right, then.’

‘No, wait, I’ll see you out.’

They walked downstairs together. ‘Are you and Teresa coming to the Café Royale tonight?’ she asked, as he opened the front door.

‘Yes, I’m meeting her there. Are you coming?’

‘Don’t know.’ She jerked her head towards the stairs. ‘I’ll see how things are.’

She was hugging her upper arms, though it wasn’t cold. For the first time since he’d known her she seemed vulnerable, not dashing at all, a little half-starved cat. He put his arm round her. ‘I’m really pleased about the scholarship.’ He hesitated. ‘Elinor …’

‘I know what you’re going to ask and the answer is I don’t know.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes, probably. But it was ages ago. Nev’s a troublemaker, you know that.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, I know. I’ll see you later.’

It was nothing to be miserable about, he told himself, walking off down the street, merely the confirmation of something he’d suspected since their first evening. What happened before they met didn’t matter. It was far less important than the threat — if there was a threat — from Halliday.

Nine

That Saturday there was a fair on Hampstead Heath. He asked Teresa to go with him but he wasn’t surprised when she refused. Instead, he arranged to go with Elinor and Ruthie, and with Ruthie’s friend Michael Abbott, a cheerful, sociable, self-confident young man who spent hardly any time in classes and yet never seemed to doubt his ability as a painter.

They met at Elinor’s lodgings and went up together on the bus, sitting on the top in the open air. This was the first day that felt like summer. Paul managed to sit next to Elinor. As she twisted round to speak to Ruthie, her knee pressed into his thigh under the rain apron. He glanced at her sideways but she didn’t seem to notice. She was full of life, carefree, and suddenly his affair with Teresa seemed limited, shadowed by the bitterness of her marriage that he pretended to understand, but couldn’t. The cabbage leaves and the dark hole behind the dustbins seemed to epitomize everything he’d begun to dislike. But then he remembered the sound of the trains, the vibration of the bed as they roared past, the way Teresa’s skin gleamed in the candlelight.

‘Hoy!’ Elinor waved a hand in front of his face.

‘Sorry I was miles away.’

‘I know where you were. Couldn’t she come?’

‘She wanted to go to the Café Royal. I fancied a change.’ His words hung on the air, silence giving them a weight he hadn’t intended. Say something. Anything. ‘How about Neville? I’d’ve thought a fairground was just the ticket.’

‘He’s painting a factory in Leeds.’

He sensed coolness, but whether directed at Neville or at him — perhaps she found the question intrusive — he didn’t know. It didn’t matter. It was a summer evening, and warm, and they were going to the fair together.

At the fairground they stood on muddy trampled grass, breathing in smells of candyfloss, roasting chestnuts, chips, beer from the beer tents where men queued and carried away bottles, two or three in each hand. On the boat swings girls hung on to their skirts, shrieks of laughter slicing the air. They went on the swings first. He handed Elinor in and sat opposite her as the chocks were pulled away. Hauling on the tasselled rope they rose higher and higher. He saw her open mouth and knew she was laughing but couldn’t distinguish her laugh from the roar around them. At one point her skirt flew up. She squealed, like any shop girl on an outing, and he caught the hem and pinned it down with his foot. By the time their go was over he’d had enough and so had she, jumping down and swaying against him, so that her nose bumped against his shoulder. He took hold of her arms to steady her, she looked up at him and for a second they might have kissed, but Abbott, waiting behind him, said, ‘Hey get a move on. It’s our turn.’

They waited. All around overtired children whinged, mothers snapped and slapped, fathers took refuge in the beer tents, gangs of youths roamed about, braying, jeering, contemptuous, excluded. Paul wanted to get Elinor somewhere quiet and alone, but she and Ruthie stuck together as they always did. As soon as Ruthie got off the boat swing they were arm in arm again, strolling towards the merry-go-round whose grinning, blue-eyed horses rose and fell. When it stopped, Elinor said, ‘Aren’t you coming?’ Her skin was orange in the light of the naphtha torches, which cast shuddering shadows over the heaving ground. ‘No, you go.’ You could only ride three abreast and so Abbott was in his glory, with a girl on either side.

As the music started to play again, they laughed and waved and set off, slowly at first as the man went from horse to horse collecting fares, then faster, rising and falling, rising and falling. They seemed at one point to ride him down, Elinor straight ahead, unseeing, as he slipped and fell under the hooves. He was shivery, too hot and too cold at once, the awful warm gassy beer lying heavy on his stomach. He would wait for them to get off, he decided, then find somewhere to sit down. For a moment, he stopped looking at the horses and gazed through them to the other side. A man stood there, a tall man with a ginger moustache and a hat pulled down low over his eyes. What little could be seen of his face was a beaten bronze mask, expressionless in the light of the naphtha flares. Paul stared. The man stared back at him. He was alone, which seemed odd, but then perhaps he was waiting, as Paul was, for somebody to get off the ride. Aware that his stare was becoming confrontational, Paul made a deliberate effort to switch his gaze away. A second later, unable to help himself, he looked back and the man had gone, but so suddenly Paul was left wondering whether there’d ever been anybody there at all. It was all this nonsense with Teresa, he told himself. He’d spent so long staring at shadows, he was starting to imagine things.

By now he was feeling rather ill, but determined not to let it spoil the evening. The ride seemed to go on for ever, but at last he felt Elinor’s hand on his arm. He bought more beer because it was his turn, but the more he drank the worse he felt. They tried the Hall of Mirrors next, Elinor gazing at her reflection in the distorting glass, now tall, now short, now fat, now thin, all arms and legs one minute, all head the next. Like Alice in Wonderland. She even looked like Alice, with that short full skirt and her hair tied back with ribbon. Almost doll-like. He felt a spasm of dislike that came from nowhere and did nothing to lessen his desire.

Outside again, he said, ‘Do you mind if I sit down a bit? I’ll just be over there by the bandstand.’

‘Are you all right?’

Elinor’s face, looking up at him, seemed scarcely less distorted than her reflections had been. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m just feeling a little bit sick, that’s all.’

‘It’s the beer,’ Abbott said, gloomily. ‘I’ve never tasted anything like it.’

They went off to the Ghost Train, and Paul started pushing through the crowd towards the sound of a brass band. He felt adrift, disconnected from everybody and everything. Perhaps he should stop seeing Teresa. At the moment he seemed to be in a state where he was happy neither with her nor without her.

Despite the blaring music, the bandstand was a peaceful place. Many of the seats were empty. All around crowds of people surged from one attraction to the next. Sweaty faces under funny hats; fat men fanning themselves with handkerchiefs; children carried high above the crowds, their white, skinny legs clasped in their fathers’ meaty fists. A stench of horse dung, leather, petrol fumes, raw, wet earth, trampled grass. Everywhere, couples, some of them now beginning to leave the fairground to look for peace and quiet, passion rather, under the trees. He felt a swell of yearning for Elinor or Teresa or … No, no, no, neither of them, for some anonymous girl he could pick up by the swings and take outside and never see again.

The band were playing a military march: ‘Men of Harlech’. He sat down and listened and after a while he did start to feel better. Probably Abbott was right. It was the beer, and he hadn’t had anything to eat. Perhaps he should get something. A bag of chips would do. When the band took a break, he stood up intending to buy some food, but as he turned to go, his attention was caught by reflections in a tuba. Distorted figures, chairs, caravans. He shifted his weight from side to side and the images changed. A face loomed up behind his face in the shining metal, and, ashamed of the childish game he’d been caught playing, he turned away.

He sensed that he was being followed. Almost as if some menacing doppelgänger had jumped out of the tuba and was pursuing him. Paul slowed down, striving to appear unconcerned. He felt if he showed any sign of fear the other would feed on it. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that it was the tall man with the ginger moustache, the man he had not yet allowed himself to call Halliday The other slowed too, marching in step. What a ridiculous situation. Paul wanted to get away, but he didn’t want to go too far from the bandstand, since he’d arranged to meet Abbott and the girls here.

Oh, to hell with it. He turned on his pursuer. He wasn’t as tall as he’d seemed from a distance, but he was powerfully built. He wouldn’t be easy to take on. If it came to that — at the moment he was grinning. A flush of anger prickled Paul’s face and chest. ‘Do I know you?’

Eyes like polished black pebbles. ‘No, but we’ve got a fair bit in common. You’re fucking my wife.’

So this was it. Halliday It was nothing like he’d expected. In the early days when he’d imagined meeting Teresa’s husband, he’d envisaged a short, sharp, violent encounter in the basement or the street outside her flat. Leave my wife alone, you bastard. THUMP. Instead, here he was, not ten inches away, showing his teeth. Grinning. Paul walked away. He didn’t want a fight — he needed to feel right was on his side before he could hit out, and it was difficult to feel that here. Teresa was married to this man. He strode along, weaving his way through the crowd, knowing Halliday was close behind. Without warning, he lunged forward and grasped Paul’s arm. Paul stopped immediately, making no attempt to pull away. He was close enough to see the hairs in Halliday’s nostrils. Close to, like this, close enough to smell the hot, beery fug of his breath, Paul could see how frayed and grubby his shirt was. His eyes were bloodshot, his speech slurred. The man was a wreck. Not just down on his luck, but terribly, terminally stricken.

‘You can’t just walk off like that.’

He sounded reasonable, even friendly.

They stared at each other. Paul said, ‘All right, spit it out. What do you want?’

‘I want my wife back.’

‘That’s up to her.’

‘Oh, I suppose you’ve nowt to do with it?’

‘She was already separated when I met her.’

‘I saw you.’

‘What do you mean, you saw me?’

‘Fucking my wife.’

The gap in the bloody curtains. ‘You can’t blame me for the state of your marriage.’

‘I don’t. I blame her.’

For a moment Halliday’s grin disappeared in a blaze of misery. Almost immediately, he was smirking again. Paul could have understood anger, but despite Halliday’s words what he saw in his face was not anger but a kind of jeering complicity. He seemed more like a pimp than an outraged husband.

And, God, he was drunk. It hadn’t been so apparent at first, but now he was swaying on his feet. ‘You’re one of a long line. Don’t you go thinking there’s owt special about you. She’s had more men than I’ve had hot dinners.’

‘Aw, piss off. And if I catch you following me round again –

‘You’ll do what?’

Suddenly Halliday’s fists were clenched. Paul walked on again and this time he knew he wan’t being followed. When he looked back Halliday hadn’t move. He stood, shabby, burly, bereft, in front of the bandstand where now, under the conductor’s raised baton, the band was tuning up again.

He had to tell Teresa. Tell her what? That Halliday was following him around, that he was angry, that he wanted her back; but she already knew all that. All the same he had to go to see her. Halliday was pathetic, with his swearing and his grinning and his melodrama and his filthy shirt, but he was angry and persistent, and he’d seen them making love. That would goad almost any man into action.

Why, with all her dressmaking skills, did she not run up a pair of curtains that met in the middle? It wouldn’t have taken her more than an hour. Or get bolts fitted on the doors? Or live in a first-floor flat? At the moment he felt guilty for ever having doubted her, but when he stepped back a little he saw that her behaviour was every bit as odd as Neville had said.

He would put bolts on the doors. That was one practical thing he could do to help. And although his meeting with Halliday had left him more bewildered than ever, he didn’t feel he could end the affair now.

In the distance he saw Elinor, with a bunch of pink candyfloss in her hand, standing a little to one side as Abbott and Ruthie talked. Waving, calling her name, he struggled through the crowd to join her.

Ten

That evening Teresa sat at a corner table in the Café Royal, staring all around her, noticing who was in tonight. She never seemed to get tired of the place, but Paul had begun to hate it. He felt all the time that, as Teresa’s latest lover, he was being assessed, and he had no independent status to make the verdict a matter of indifference to him. A young man with a flushed, familiar, subtly jeering face came up and spoke to her, but she ignored him, and he rapidly withdrew. She had immense self-confidence with men, though with women she often seemed wary. She’d have said this was because she liked men better, that she preferred their company, but really it was all based on contempt. On long, hard experience of men as sexual predators. In Teresa’s eyes, every man she met, from the waiter who served their drinks to the Archbishop of Canterbury, shuffled towards her with his trousers round his ankles and his dick pointing at the sky.

Paul kept his back to the room, leaning forward, trying to get her full attention. He wanted to talk to her, and he knew she was resisting him.

‘Oh, look,’ she said ‘there’s Gus.’

She raised a hand to wave, but Paul caught hold of her wrist. ‘No, don’t do that.’

She sat back, sullenly. ‘You never want to meet anybody else. You only like being with me when we’re on our own.’

‘That’s not true. You could have come to the fair with us.’

‘The fair?’

He could see she wanted to pick a quarrel. Well, she could have one, but not about their social life. ‘I saw Jack this afternoon.’ He thought she changed colour, though in this golden light it was hard to tell.

‘Oh? Did he see you?’

‘Yes, we bumped into each other at the fairground.’

‘By accident?’

‘What do you think?’

She shrugged. ‘What happened?’

‘What do you mean, what happened?’

‘Did he try to start a fight?’

‘No.’ He was watching her curiously. ‘He seemed a bit pathetic, actually.’

‘Did he?’

‘Yes. Sort of a mangy-tiger feel about him.’ She winced and turned her head away. ‘For what it’s worth, I think he’s still very much in love with you.’

‘Then he’s got a bloody funny way of showing it.’

Tears, almost. Not quite.

‘So you say. But he never actually does anything, does he?’

She stood up. ‘I’m going to say hello to Gus. Come if you want.’

That was his last chance to speak to her. She was swallowed up in the crowd around the great Augustus and soon he could see only her head and shoulders. He should have challenged her about the note, only he knew that if he did and she lied it would be the end of the affair. And he wasn’t ready for it to end.

In the cab going back she hardly spoke. He went through the usual routine, going down the steps before her, looking in the coal-hole, unlocking the door, going in first.

‘I’ll buy some bolts,’ he said. ‘It won’t take me a minute to put them on.’

He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before. She’d infected him with her passivity.

They undressed and got into bed. Their lovemaking had changed, become rougher, less nuanced, more abrupt. Every night, now, he seemed to be pushing at the boundaries of what was acceptable, waiting for a protest and then, when none came, moving still further away from tenderness. Was this what Halliday had done? After it was over he lay staring into the darkness, knowing he didn’t want to spend the night with her. She’d lied to him; worse than that, she’d lied about something that mattered for reasons he couldn’t understand.

He rolled over and kissed her upper arm. ‘I think I’ll go back tonight, if you don’t mind. I want an early start.’

‘Hmm? Oh, all right.’

She was too sleepy to be surprised. He gathered his clothes together as best he could and went into the bathroom to dress. Letting himself out of the flat, he climbed the basement steps and paused for a moment, his face lifted to the light of the street lamp, defying Halliday who might — might — be watching from the shadows but more probably was tucked up warm and drunk in bed. If he was going to do anything he’d have done it long since. Then Paul started to walk home. The gritty fumes from the railway line were mixed tonight with a fresher smell: the dawn smell and as he walked he felt the wind quicken, flattening his trousers against his legs as he reached the corner of the street. He didn’t look back.

Paul had never been a heavy drinker, but now he drank every night. He knew it was pointless looking for Halliday, he had to wait for Halliday to find him, and he felt it would happen. It wasn’t over. On the last day of term he went with a crowd of students to the Crown. The evening was warm. All the doors and windows were open, the bar was crowded, drinkers spilling out on to the pavement. He drank four pints of tepid beer, very quickly, argued passionately on subjects he didn’t care about in the least, sang, swayed from side to side, vowed undying friendship to people he would never see again, became sentimental, demonstrative, then, abruptly, morose, and, deciding he wasn’t fit company for anybody in his present state, plunged out into the night. He staggered and held on to the wall, while above his head pale London stars swam in shoals from roof to roof.

The city was brazen and clamorous. The crowded pavements exasperated him and so he turned into the side streets, letting his feet carry him forward, unthinking, until there was no sound except the echo of his footsteps and the stamping of horses at a cab stand. He turned left, blindly, and found himself in a livery yard. The darkness now was full of tossing manes, snuffles, snorts, slurrings and scrapings of iron-shod hooves on stone. The horses were too intent on their hay to bother about him, though he caught a glint of eye white as a head turned. Was there a way through? He couldn’t see, and didn’t fancy slithering all the way across the muddy yard to find out, so began to retrace his steps. He’d almost reached the lighted pavement when a shadow peeled itself off the wall.

‘Sorry,’ he said, thinking it must be a groom or an off-duty cabbie. ‘Took the wrong turn.’

‘Too damn right you did.’ That voice. Genial, complicitous, dangerous, drunk. ‘Got you now, haven’t I?’

The world shrank to a few yards of muddy ground. There was no time except for the long second in which he turned to face Halliday He opened his mouth to speak and a fist smashed into it, sending him staggering back against the wall. The next two blows he dodged and then began to dance around, looking for an opening. Nothing existed now except Halliday’s eyes and grinning mouth. Paul darted back, Halliday followed, swinging his fist wide, unable to stop. As he lunged past, Paul hit him on the mouth. The pain in his knuckles was pure joy. Halliday shook his head. Anybody else would have been on the ground. The punch seemed to sober him. He came for Paul, who backed away, feeling the wall hard against his spine. The next blow caught him on the side of the head and he went down. Huddled against the wall, he felt Halliday’s boot smash into his ribs. And again. The sounds jerking out of him seemed to come from the boot not his mouth. He tried to crawl away. Halliday followed. In desperation Paul lunged forward and grabbed Halliday round the knees. Halliday tried to kick himself free. When that failed, he pummelled Paul’s head and shoulders, but Paul hung on. Hands came down, clawing, finding the orbits of his eyes. He let go of Halliday’s knees and pulled at his wrists. Then a voice. Not Halliday’s. Somebody else. He seized his opportunity and crawled towards the light. Behind him the voices went on. Then legs coming towards him. He braced himself for another kicking, but, instead, a hand touched his shoulder. A face, not Halliday’s, bent over him. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn’t stretch. Everything hurt. Up to this moment, there’d been hardly any pain, but now, as the other man helped him to his feet, every move was agony. ‘I’m all right.’

‘Aye, you look it.’

Paul was on his feet now, though only just. Halliday had gone.

‘Can you walk?’

‘I’ll be all right.’

As long as Halliday didn’t come back. He looked around, tried to think. Get a cab. There was a stand not far way, he remembered that. He tried to walk, but after a few feet everything went black.

‘Come on. I’ll get you to a cab.’

Every step sent a jolt of pain from his ankle to the top of his skull. Somewhere in all this he’d lost his hat. Dazed, he looked round and found it squashed flat into the mud. His suit was caked with mud and worse. Cab. Cab. He couldn’t think further than that. They set off, Paul’s arm across the groom’s shoulder. He wondered if his mouth was bleeding, and pressed his lips to find out, but his hand was so filthy the blood — if there was blood — didn’t show. At last, the cab stand. One cab waiting.

The driver took one look at him. ‘Sorry mate. Can’t do it. What you been doing? Rolling in it?’

Paul was too weak to argue, and the groom was going no further, he could see that. ‘Can’t leave the yard. More than me job’s worth,’ he said, though his breath stank of porter.

Paul struggled to get money out of his pocket and pressed it into his outstretched hand. ‘Thanks.’

‘Thank you, sir. Mind how you go.’

Paul clung to the railings. There was a hospital half a mile away, or there was Elinor. Elinor was just round the corner. He could go there, clean up, then get a cab.

Shaking, though the night was hot, he staggered along, holding on to railings whenever he could. It was late, too late to knock on anybody’s door, but he had no other way of getting home. He knocked and waited. Almost immediately the upstairs window opened. ‘Who is it?’

He stepped back into the light.

‘Paul? What on earth —? Wait, I’ll come down.’

He swayed on his feet. The street lamps blurred. Then the door opened and Elinor, still dressed, got hold of him. ‘What happened?’

‘Halliday happened.’

‘Oh, my God.’

He saw her hesitate, torn between loyalty to a friend and horror at the state he was in.

‘Are you hurt?’

‘I don’t know. My ribs hurt.’

She stepped back. ‘You’d better come in.’

It took a long time getting up the stairs, hips jostling hard against each other. Her arm was round his waist. At last they reached her room and he collapsed on to the sofa. All he wanted to do now was sleep. Sleep or, preferably, die.

‘Where does it hurt?’

No sympathy. She could smell the beer on his breath.

‘Ribs. Mainly.’

‘Take your shirt off.’

That was a struggle. When it was done, he fell back, hearing her make little tetching sounds of dismay or disapproval. She fetched hot water and soap from the kitchen and set to work to clean him up. ‘I daren’t run a bath,’ she said. ‘It’s too late. The boiler makes a terrible racket.’

Ten painful minutes later: ‘You’ll have to go to hospital, Paul. I can’t cope with this.’

‘In the morning.’

‘Did he kick you?’

‘Ouch!’

‘It’s got to be washed, Paul. It’s filthy.’ She gently wiped the flannel across his side. ‘You should really have that stitched.’

He was aware of her slim waist as she bent over him. The lace front of her blous tickled his face.

‘There,’ she said, at last, sitting back. ‘That’s the best I can do. We’ll get you to a doctor in the morning.’

‘I can’t stay here.’

‘It’ll be all right. You can’t go home.’

She made him toast and cocoa, fetched a pillow and bedspread and settled him down for the night.

‘Call me if you need anything.’

‘I need to warn Teresa.’

‘Tomorrow. I’ll go and see her, if you like?’

‘He might be there now.’

‘There’s nothing you can do. Try to get some sleep.’

He lay down, dreading the long, sleepless night ahead, only to surprise himself by drifting off almost at once. His sleep was full of confused, dark dreams. More than once he jerked awake to the sound of wheels clattering over cobbles, and hardly knew whether the cab was in the road outside or in his dream: the black, windowless vehicle that had taken his mother away. Glancing up at the curtains, he saw that dawn was mercifully close, and lay as still as he could, trying not to move his head.

Every breath hurt. Every thought hurt. Teresa had been telling the truth all along and he hadn’t believed her, and now she too must be at risk. He ought to get up. He swung his legs on to the floor, and groaned. Enough of that. He had to get moving before people were about.

At the third attempt he got his right arm into his shirtsleeve and then had to stop, wiping sweat away from his upper lip. All the while, in some separate corner of his brain, the fight with Halliday went on and on, every blow and kick constantly replayed. But it was merely background noise and still left him free to think about his future. There was no confusion now, only a dreadful clarity. The whole of the past year had been a complete waste of time. Hanging round the Café Royal with a beautiful model on his arm, spending too much, drinking too much, turning in work that would have disgraced a schoolboy. What did he think he was doing? His time at the Slade was ending in failure — and he deserved to fail.

It was time to go home, have one last try at painting something good — no, not good; honest. Honest would be a start. And if that didn’t work, he’d look for a job — almost any job. Stop squandering his nan’s legacy.

But meanwhile there was Teresa. That had to be finished properly. He had to make sure she was all right.

He was trying to get the left arm into his sleeve, but his muscles seemed to have stiffened overnight and he could hardly move. Bracing himself for another attempt, he looked up and saw Elinor, wearing a long white nightdress, watching him from her bedroom door.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes.’ Oh, God, that was a squeak. He took a deep, searing breath. ‘Not bad at all.’

‘You look terrible.’

‘Ah, but you should see the other chap.’

It hurt to laugh. Elinor came across and helped him into his shirt, then his socks and shoes.

‘I’m sorry to be so useless.’

He looked down at the burnished golden bell of her hair, and imagined stroking it. Get a hold of yourself, he told himself. You’re no use to any woman in this state.

Once his laces were securely tied he stood up. The floor shelved away beneath him, the air turned black, but when the rush of blood subsided, he was still on his feet. She was brushing his jacket. Some of the dirt had dried and came off easily, but it was still a mess. Cautiously, with a lot of help from her, he managed to get into it and stood while she gave him a final brush down.

‘You’ll have to buy a new one. You can’t go anywhere in this.’

‘No, I know.’

‘I’ll make some tea. Have to be black, I’m afraid. I’m out of milk.’

‘No, I won’t have any, thanks. I’d better be off.’

‘You need a doctor.’

‘I’ll go to the hospital. Soon as I can. Promise.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, better not.’

He looked out of the window. The street was deserted. With any luck he might slip out unobserved.

‘You’re welcome to stay, you know.’

‘No. I shouldn’t be here at all, really. It was selfish.’ He raised his hand and laid it against her cheek. ‘Dear Elinor. Thanks for putting up with me.’

She blushed. ‘When shall I see you?’

‘I don’t know. Will you go to see Teresa?’

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll be over there as soon as I can. And then I think I might go home for a few days. I need to think.’

‘Good idea, let things calm down a bit. But don’t think too long, will you? I’ll miss you.’

He bent and rested his cheek against hers. She let him out of the room and watched through a crack in the door as he tiptoed downstairs. The house was heavy with the breaths of sleepers. Opening the door, he peered out, and slipped out into the street like a burglar.

The buildings he knew so well looked unfamiliar in the pre-dawn light. Crossing the road, he limped along, stumbling once or twice where a tree root had raised the paving stones. At times he went dizzy, but steadied himself and went on again. Straight to the hospital to get his ribs bound up, then he’d go to see Teresa, to make sure she was all right. He owed her that at least.

Eleven

Opening the door to let him in, Teresa kept her face averted, took him along to the living room, and left him there. He stood in the doorway and stared, struggling to take in the changes. She’d stripped the red and blue shawls from the furniture and taken all the paintings down. A beige three-piece sofa, so lumpy and ancient the springs bulged out of the seats, took up a huge amount of space. Cigarettes had burnt black holes in the arms. A greasy patch on the back showed where a previous tenant had rested his head. The pictures had left ghost squares on the wall. The rugs, rolled up, revealed the full horror of the carpet with its interminable, meaningless pattern.

The shock of this dismantling was very great. He went into the bedroom and found Teresa putting a folded skirt into the suitcase that lay open on the bed.

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m going away for a few days.’ Her voice was tight to bursting.

‘Where? How long for?’

More than a few days. Two more suitcases, already packed, stood at the foot of the bed.

‘My auntie’s.’

Her face was in shadow. He caught her arm and pulled her across to the lamp. She had a bruise on one cheekbone and a cut on her lower lip. ‘Jack?’

‘Who else?’ She laughed. It would have distressed him less if she’d screamed. ‘I might as well go home. I certainly can’t model looking like this.’

‘When did this happen?’

He sounded overbearing, bullying. He was angry with her because he hadn’t been there to protect her.

‘The other night, after you’d gone. You left your cigarettes behind, I thought you’d come back for them.’

‘What did he want?’

‘Oh, to tell me what a bitch I am. And how much he loves me. He was drunk, for God’s sake.’

‘Did he…?’ He glanced at the bed. An old, brown bloodstain, the shape of Africa, took up the centre of the mattress. He’d lain on that, night after night, and never known it was there. ‘Don’t go.’

‘No choice.’

‘You’re not going back to him?’

‘What do you think?’

He sat down on the bed, heavily. She tugged a blouse sleeve from underneath him, angry with him for being there and being useless. He didn’t blame her. ‘When were you going to tell me?’

‘Now. This evening.’ But she wouldn’t meet his eye.

‘Do you know where he’s staying?’

‘No.’ She was crumpling newspaper and stuffing it into shoes. And I wouldn’t tell you if I did.’ She squeezed a pair of shoes down the side of the case.

‘What train are you catching?’

‘The eight o’clock.’

She closed the suitcase and snapped the locks shut.

‘You were just going to leave, weren’t you?’

‘No, of course not. You know I wouldn’t do that.’

They stood and faced each other. She came into his arms and he held her, stroking her hair, but his thoughts were all of Halliday, the bright, black buttons of his eyes, the sweating bulk of him. ‘I’ll find him.’

‘If you’ve got any sense you’ll keep out of his way.’

She made to lift the suitcase from the bed, but he got there first and did it for her.

‘How are you getting to the station?’

‘Elinor’s coming for me in a cab.’

‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No, better not. Honestly. Let’s say goodbye here.’

‘You are coming back?’

‘Of course, I always do. I just need to let him calm down a bit.’

A knock on the door. Teresa went to answer it, slipping on the chain before she opened it. Elinor’s voice. She came into the bedroom, wearing a small, rather elegant black hat, braced for conflict.

‘Paul. I’ve been trying to find you all day.’

‘I’ve been at the hospital. Took ages.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Cracked ribs. Nothing that won’t mend.’

‘I warned you, I told you what he was like.’

‘I don’t mind what he did to me.’

They began a final search of the flat while he stood, helpless, watching them open and close drawers, check cupboards, peer under sofa and chairs. Both women were, at some level, enjoying this, Elinor more than Teresa. Finally, Teresa lay face down and looked under the bed.

‘Can’t see anything.’

The whole flat seemed to have been demolished, though in fact comparatively little had been taken away. The glow he remembered had always been an illusion, created by lamps and a few brightly coloured shawls and rugs. All the time, underneath, there’d been this cold squalor. For the first time, he noticed a smell of rancid fat from the kitchen.

‘You don’t have to go on your own,’ he said. ‘We can go together.’

‘No, Paul. He mightn’t bother tracking me down if he knows I’m not with you.’

Elinor went to the door to see if the cab had arrived, leaving them alone for a few minutes. Teresa was looking in the wardrobe mirror, adjusting her hat. She paused, pin in hand, meeting his reflected gaze. ‘You’ll get over it, you know. Quite quickly.’

‘I love you.’

She turned to face him. ‘You don’t love me. If you love anybody, you love Elinor, and you only love her because you know she won’t have you.’

He was starting to be angry, not just with Halliday but with her as well. How dare she tell him what he felt?

Elinor said from the hall, ‘The cab’s here.’

Paul could hear the cab horse stamping its feet, snorting, jingling its harness. The time they had left was measured in seconds; there was nothing he could do to stop her going. He lugged one of the three cases up the basement steps and went back for the other two, but the women were already carrying them. He brought the shawls and rugs. The cabman was strapping the suitcases on to the back. Elinor got into the cab.

Paul stood on the pavement with Teresa. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the cab rock as the driver climbed into his seat. ‘Well. Goodbye, then.’

‘Elinor’s got the address.’

‘I’ll come to see you, shall I? When you’ve settled in.’

‘No, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ She was scanning the street, obviously still frightened. ‘Oh, God, the keys. I meant to take them back. Would you be an angel and drop them through the letter box?’

Somehow that phrase ‘be an angel’ summed everything up. He kissed her dry mouth. She smiled and stroked the side of his face, then got into the cab. The cabbie clicked his tongue and the horse ambled forward. Paul watched them to the end of the street, the black, shiny cab lurching and swaying over the greasy cobbles. It was like the day they came and took his mother away, though he hadn’t witnessed that. Auntie Ethel had made a great fuss about needing a particular brand of pickled onions and he’d been sent all the way into town to buy a jar. When he came back his mother was gone.

The cab turned the corner. He went and stood in the empty living room, looking around him at all the bare spaces. He said, ‘Teresa?

The hum of silence answered him, broken by the persistent dripping of a tap. He walked from empty room to empty room, until at last he accepted defeat, closed and locked the door, and slipped the keys through the letter box. He heard a chink as they hit the lino and then he had to turn and walk away.

Twelve

Floating on her back, Elinor watched the treetops wave against the blue sky. Minnows darted all around her. When she closed her eyes she could feel thousands of tiny mouths rasping on her skin. This was the last hour of peace she’d have for some time. Kit Neville and Paul Tarrant were due to arrive on the ten o’clock train. She’d invited Kit first, weeks ago, but then he’d taken her home from the Café Royal and kissed her goodnight and she’d let him because she supposed she ought to want to, but immediately — the taste of his dinner on her tongue — she’d known it was a mistake. ‘Look —’ she’d started to say, but he’d put his hand gently over her mouth. ‘Your eyes aren’t for looking,’ he’d said solemnly. ‘They’re for being looked at.’ She stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. She was an artist, for God’s sake. If her eyes weren’t for looking, what was she going to paint?

After she’d finally managed to persuade Kit to leave, she’d sat down and drawn a caricature of him on his motorbike, which made her feel better for a time. But the next day she’d got a letter from him containing a proposal of marriage. She’d expected another of his jokey, self-pitying apologies — and when she finally took in what the letter was saying she’d stuffed it in a drawer and tried to forget about it. She thought if she ignored it he’d soon realize what a fool he’d been and then it need never be mentioned again, but there was the weekend coming up. In a panic she’d invited Paul Tarrant as well. And then, knowing Mother would disapprove of her inviting two men, she’d asked Catherine to come along as well, only she’d had to cancel because her father was ill.

The whole thing was a mess. The thought of Kit and his constant, clumsy efforts to manoeuvre her into bed had spoiled the morning. Even before he arrived.

After swimming slowly to the rock, she clambered out, feeling the sun hot on the top of her head. A breeze ruffled the hairs at the nape of her neck. Raising her arm to her mouth she sucked her skin in sheer delight at her own taste. Why couldn’t men leave you alone? Though this was her fault, really, not Kit’s. She should have replied to his letter, said no, cancelled the weekend. And that would have been the end of it. Instead she’d drifted, and now the confrontation she’d dreaded was inevitable, and it would be worse because she’d put it off.

Groaning at her own folly, she stood and started pulling on her clothes. Her stockings stuck to her wet knees and refused to rise higher. Bundling them under her arm, she walked back to the house, her toes slippery inside her shoes. Beechmast crunched under her feet. She was trudging along thinking of Kit and what she was going to say to him, but then suddenly she straightened her back and she was Rosalind in the Forest of Arden, swaggering about in her doublet and hose. Really, she ought to stop going on like this. Any sane adult female ought to be able to walk through a wood without turning into Rosalind, but she never managed it. It was a sign of immaturity, this constant trying on of other identities. Fun, though.

She slipped across the hall without being seen and ran upstairs to her bedroom, where she wrung out her bathing dress and stockings and put them to dry on the windowsill. Her short hair was already starting to dry. ‘Oh, Elinor, you had such beautiful hair,’ Mother never failed to say on every visit home. ‘Why did you do it?’

I’ll get it cut again next week, she thought. More than anything else, more than anything she’d ever said, the cutting of her hair had made Mother realize she was serious about painting. Like a nun setting sail for God.

‘Yes, my girl. And a nun’s the way you’ll end up.’

Elinor ran downstairs and along the hall to the breakfast room, where she found her mother talking to Toby and his friend Andrew Martin. It was unusual for Mother to be up as early as this. Was that a sign of trouble ahead? Toby and Andrew had huge plates of bacon, eggs, sausages, black pudding and fried bread in front of them. Elinor teased them about getting up so late when she’d been for a swim already.

‘Listen to her,’ Toby said. ‘I’ll have you know we’ve done two hours’ revision.’

‘Don’t believe you.’

‘Andrew?’

‘It’s true, Miss Brooke.’

‘Good heavens, you must be desperate.’

‘Some of us work, sis. We can’t all swan around all day with a sketchbook.’

‘If you think —’

‘Elinor,’ Mother said.

Mother could never tell the difference between mock fights and the real thing.

Toby speared a sausage on the end of his fork. ‘So when are the beaux arriving?’

‘They’re not “beaux”.’

Mother gazed at her with diluted blue eyes. ‘What a pity Catherine couldn’t come.’

‘Perhaps sis didn’t fancy the competition.’

‘Her father’s ill.’

‘We believe you. Thousands wouldn’t.’

Mother was rubbing her temples, a sure sign of a migraine on the way. Father had been meant to come home last night, but then a telephone call deferred his arrival till late this afternoon, and he was going back tomorrow. The minimum amount of time.

Elinor bowed her head over her scrambled eggs, pretending to an appetite she didn’t feel. No man was ever going to entice her into a cage to mope and contemplate her mouldy feed and peck at her own feathers till her chest was bald. You had that sense of Mother sometimes. She’d been a great beauty in her time. She must have hoped for more.

Men are April when they woo, Orlando; December when they wed.

A trap driven by a dark-skinned, taciturn driver with a fat chestnut pony ambling between the shafts met them at the station. Neville heaved himself on board, swatting a fly that seemed determined to settle on his nose. Paul sat diagonally opposite. The driver flicked his whip and they lurched off. A slow shamble. The pony broke into a trot once, as they were leaving the village, then decided the effort was too much and lapsed back into a walk.

Neville was looking impatient, but Paul found it easy to settle into a slower pace. He was glad of this break. Since Teresa had left he’d been spending far too much time alone. He hadn’t wanted to go home till the bruises had faded and was now thoroughly depressed and run down.

A hundred yards further on the trap turned right into a narrow lane. So narrow it was like a tunnel running between the tall hedges, where bindweed, foxgloves and cow parsley grew far above their heads. Leaves brushed the back of his neck; he felt the wetness of cuckoo spit on his skin. ‘I’m surprised Elinor comes to London at all when she’s got this. I know I wouldn’t.’

‘There is the little matter of stimulus, I suppose. The Café Royal, theatres, concerts, art galleries? Man cannot live on cowpats alone.’ Lowering his voice, he added, ‘Whatever you may like to think.’

‘Oh? I thought the Café Royal was “vile”? And I seem to remember you were going to burn the National Gallery?’

Neville seemed very tense. He’d been argumentative on the train too, holding forth on the crisis in the Balkans as though he were an acknowledged expert, though Paul suspected his views were merely a rehash of his father’s. Still, he sounded impressive.

The farmhouse was visible across the fields. Paul sat up and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Horseflies drunk on shit feasted on the men’s upper lips. Neville kept trying to swat them and they rose into the air buzzing angrily. The trap turned into another lane, narrower if possible, but here the trees met above their heads so there was shade at least. Rounding a bend, they saw a long, low house set back from the lane with a gravel drive leading from the gate to the front door.

As soon as the trap stopped Elinor appeared at the front door, greeted them boisterously and led the way into the house. The porch was full of umbrellas, muddy boots and mackintoshes. Smells of wet dog, leaf mould, saddle soap and damp, but the hall, once they’d struggled into it, was impressive. Stone flags, rugs, a bowl of roses whose fallen petals lay like little gondolas on a lagoon of polished wood. Further along, a wide staircase led to the upper floors.

Mrs Brooke came out of a door on the right and held out her hand to Paul. ‘Elinor’s told me so much about you.’

Paul felt Neville’s gaze on the side of his face. He shook hands, uncomfortably aware that his palms were hot and damp. Elinor introduced Neville, then stepped back, awkward and gauche as she never was in London. When her mother left them, Paul saw her shoulders relax.

‘Come through. I’ll show you your rooms.’

Over lunch they met Elinor’s brother, Toby, and a friend of his from medical school, Andrew Martin. Toby was a taller, masculine version of Elinor — the resemblance was astonishing. Andrew was a burly young man with small, shrewd eyes the same shade of reddish brown as his hair. Toby was helping Andrew revise for his exams. He’d failed anatomy and was having to resit.

‘What are all you young people going to do?’ Mrs Brooke asked, as the coffee cups were cleared away.

‘I thought we’d cycle to the church,’ Elinor said. ‘Have a look at the Doom.’

‘You’ll have to count Andrew and me out, I’m afraid,’ Toby said. ‘We’ve got to stick at it.’

‘How long till the exam?’ Neville asked.

‘Three weeks,’ Andrew said.

‘Oh, well, that’s reasonable.’

Andrew shook his head. ‘Depends how much you don’t know, doesn’t it?’

They fetched bicycles from one of the outhouses and set off for the church. The Doom had only recently been reclaimed from the limewash of centuries and was said to be very fine. Neville could dimly remember reading something about it in The Times. Left to himself he wouldn’t have bothered going to see it, but Elinor loved it and that was good enough for him. He’d do anything for Elinor — even cycle two miles in this heat.

The sun had gained in strength while they were having lunch, burning away the last wisps of cloud. Neville wasn’t dressed for the weather. His tweed jacket was far too thick, but it was the nearest thing he possessed to country wear. Elinor, looking trim and comfortable in a dark blue skirt and white blouse, led the way. Tarrant rode beside her; Neville brought up the rear. His joints had started to ache — they flared up from time to time for no apparent reason, and today they were bad — but even without that he wouldn’t have been looking forward to the ride. It was ages since he’d ridden a bicycle, not since he was a boy, and he’d fallen off fairly frequently even then. His father had taught him, on the paths of Hampstead Heath. He could still remember the gritted teeth, the impatience. His father had always let go too soon, before he was ready. ‘You’ll be all right,’ he’d called, as Kit, aged six, wobbled towards disaster.

Tarrant was pedaling like mad and still had enough breath left to talk to Elinor. She was pointing out a hill she used for sketching. ‘Miles and miles of grass. You know how the colour changes when the wind blows over it?’

Oh, for God’s sake. Grass is grass.

At last, they reached the top of the hill. He could relax a bit, even snatch glimpses of the hedgerows, which were covered all over with those pale star-like flowers. Bindweed. That was it. It was a triumph for him to be able to identify anything, but he remembered those flowers from holidays in his childhood, how they shrivelled and puckered as darkness fell.

The lane smelled of tar. He remembered something else from childhood, how he’d been fascinated by tar bubbles, poking the dusty tops till they wrinkled like elephant’s skin. You pushed them back and there were pools of inky black underneath. He’d got tar stains all over his shirt. Nanny had been furious, but Father seemed relieved, if anything. He was afraid I was turning into a sissy. Still is, for that matter. Oh, he’d die rather than admit it, but underneath that’s what he thinks.

‘Hey watch it,’ Tarrant said.

Neville had nearly bumped his back wheel. ‘Sorry, old chap.’

What a clown I am. No, that’s not true. He was perpetually on the alert for disparaging remarks, even when they came from himself. Only there was something he did that other people didn’t do. Like putting himself into situations where he showed to poor advantage and then, instead of learning from his mistake and avoiding those situations, doing it again and again and again.

‘You’re your own worst enemy.’ Those had been his headmaster’s parting words. A bit rich, really, considering he was lying in bed with a fractured coccyx at the time and he certainly hadn’t kicked himself in the arse. But there was a grain of truth there, all the same. Only what people never seem to realize — his wet hands slithered on the handlebars, he was finding it difficult to hold on — what people don’t realize is that knowing that you’re your own worst enemy doesn’t automatically turn you into your own best friend. Insight. The psychologist Mother had insisted on sending him to, when he was fifteen, had gone on and on about insight. Rubbish. He had insight by the bucketful and it did him no good at all.

This was too bad. He couldn’t breathe.

‘Do you mind if we stop for a bit?’

Elinor braked at once. ‘Good idea. I’m feeling a bit puffed.’

She wasn’t. She was only saying it to make him feel better; he hated her for that. He was boiling, eyes stinging with sweat, upper lip prickling, temper and temperature sky-high. They could have driven to the church in the pony and trap, for God’s sake. But no, no, they had to pedal along on these ridiculous contraptions. Why?

Once they’d stopped and were leaning against a fence with their bikes pulled up on to the verge, he started to feel better.

‘Look, there it is,’ Elinor said, touching the back of his hand. ‘Not much further.’

‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Tarrant asked.

‘Of course I’m all right.’

As soon as he could breathe again, he remounted, wobbled and set off down the lane. Tarrant. What was he doing here? There wasn’t much to recommend Tarrant, except his looks of course. Certainly not his talent as a painter. Anaemic pastoral was the kindest description of what he produced. No originality. No force.

At the top of the next hill they turned a corner and there ahead of them was the church. It was isolated from the village, which lay in a valley half a mile further on. They propped their bicycles against the stone wall that surrounded the churchyard, pushed open the gate and went in. Long grass, leaning headstones. Still gasping for breath, Neville pretended a great interest in the inscriptions. Dearly beloved wives, husbands, children and fathers, all mouldering away, their names half erased by wind and time.

Elinor was pushing her outrageously short hair out of her eyes. ‘Do you ever wonder what the real relationships were?’

‘The real ones?’ Tarrant said.

‘Yes, you know, the lovers, the illegitimate children. It’s all here.’ She swept her arm across the graveyard. ‘I bet there are plenty of people buried here with their husband or wife and their real love’s in a grave a hundred yards away.’

Neville found himself wondering about the parents’ marriage. From what he could gather, Dr Brooke spent Monday to Saturday in London. And his own parents, though they continued to share a house, lived entirely separate lives. He’d have liked to talk about it but of course he couldn’t because bloody Tarrant was there.

‘Anyway come on,’ Elinor said. ‘The Doom.’

The porch, with its stone bench and handwritten notices about services and flower rotas and supplying bibles to the heathen, struck cold after the heat of the sun. Neville was soon simmering with irritation again. He hated the way Elinor and Tarrant were approaching this. There was a smugness about it, a feeling of ‘Oh, well, you know, this is the real England.’ Bollocks. There was some excuse for Elinor, she’d grown up in the country, but what about Tarrant? If this was the real England, what did he think Middlesbrough was? A mirage? Neville wiped sweat from his chin. His scalp prickled. His toes swam inside his shoes, his knees ached, his ankles ached, his arse ached, and no, no, no, NO, this was not the real England. At that moment he’d have liked nothing better than to be back in London, in Charing Cross, or Liverpool Street, flakes of soot on his skin, grit in his eyes, advertising everywhere, steam, people, pistons turning. Anything to escape from the clamorous boredom of trees.

Elinor turned the ring handle and they went inside. A shaft of sunshine, finding its way through stained glass into the chancel, revealed the myriad dust motes seething there. None of them was religious — nor exactly atheists either — and so, out of respect for something or other, their own capacity for aesthetic appreciation, perhaps, they spoke in whispers, but did not kneel.

Elinor touched Neville’s arm. ‘There, you see?’

He’d been looking straight at the east window, but now he raised his eyes to the chancel arch and saw that he was in the presence of greatness. The Doom, the figure of Christ in Majesty at its centre, covered the whole arch. Below Christ’s feet, St Michael held the scales. A small, white, naked, squirming thing cowered in one pan; in the other, its sins, piled high, tilted the balance towards Hell. On the left, other worm-like people hid in holes in the ground or stared up at flashes of light in the sky. The women’s drooping breasts and swollen bellies retained at least the sad dignity of their function, but the men … Albino tadpoles poured into the Abyss. On the right, the righteous were welcomed into Heaven by angels holding robes to cover them, as if the greater part of redemption consisted of getting dressed.

‘It’s amazing,’ Tarrant was saying, ‘The man who painted this wouldn’t have had a clue what Tonks was on about. He wasn’t interested in anatomy.’

‘Or beauty,’ Neville said.

Elinor said, ‘But you wouldn’t want to put this on a bonfire in Trafalgar Square?’

‘I don’t know how I’d get it there.’

‘Nev!’

‘Oh, all right, it’s good. I’m just saying it’s not relevant to the modern world. You can’t learn anything from this.’

‘Do people change that much?’ Tarrant said.

‘Love would be the same, wouldn’t it?’ Elinor said.

‘No, of course not. Sex might be the same, but not love. They didn’t expect to love their wives.’

‘Then they were wiser than we are.’ She sat down in the front pew. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to talk. That’s the trouble with your crowd, Nev — talk talk talk. Nobody ever painted a better picture by talking about it.’

‘That’s the Slade down the drain for a start.’

‘I don’t want to talk about the Slade either.’

All this while, above their heads, the Doom exerted its power, silencing them at last. Tarrant hadn’t said much, Neville realized, or perhaps he had and been ignored. The man was an excrescence.

‘I wonder how it happened,’ Elinor said. ‘Why they stopped believing the world was going to end?’

‘Some people believe it now,’ Tarrant said. ‘There’s a man marches up and down Oxford Street with a placard every Saturday morning.’ He deepened his voice. ‘The End of the World is at Hand.’

‘And everybody laughs at him,’ Neville said.

‘They don’t, actually. They don’t see him.’

‘There must have been a moment, mustn’t there?’ Neville said. ‘I mean, obviously not a moment, a decade, a generation, when all this punishment stuff just didn’t wash any more?’

‘Perhaps it was the Black Death,’ Tarrant said. ‘Perhaps they stopped believing then.’

‘You’re explaining it away, both of you,’ Elinor said. ‘And you shouldn’t, it’s too good for that.’

And he didn’t even sign it. The painting disturbed Neville. He wanted to be out in the sunshine, to see Elinor’s breasts under the thin blouse, to wipe away the memory of the maggot-like creatures emerging from holes in the ground. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he flexed his back. Every muscle in his body ached — and there was the ride back still to come. ‘Are we off, then?’

Elinor lingered. He and Tarrant were wheeling their bikes down the road before she caught them up. ‘Sorry I couldn’t tear myself away.’

Neville was sweating before they’d gone a hundred yards. God, he hated this, and it was all so unnecessary. The pony and trap, for God’s sake. Or they could have waited for Dr Brooke’s arrival and asked to borrow the car. Elinor drove, didn’t she? Of course she drove. She did everything men did and generally better. She was standing up on her pedals now, toiling up the bank, but he noticed she still had enough breath left to talk to Tarrant. They shared so many interests. The same poets, the same artists, the same blasted countryside. Sit them down over a glass of wine and they’d chatter on for hours about cornfields and trees in a way he found completely incomprehensible. Though he and Elinor had a lot in common too. She loved music halls and cafés and dances and fancy-dress parties and nightclubs and street markets and Speakers’ Corner on Sunday mornings and barrow boys selling hot chestnuts on winter evenings and the river — all of these things they shared. The one time he’d said something about how well she seemed to get on with Tarrant she’d just shrugged her shoulders. ‘Why not? We’re friends. You share different things with different people.’

Only it wasn’t friendship Neville felt. Tarrant’s affair with Teresa had ended badly, but he’d get over that fast enough, and then he’d be looking around. He was attracted to Elinor, that was obvious, always had been, and Neville thought he detected signs that she felt the same way about him. Tarrant was better-looking than a man had any legitimate reason to be. And he could be charming, but really there was nothing to him.

They were nearing the crest of the hill. He hoped they’d stop and wait for him, but they didn’t. By the time he’d sweated the last few yards, they were freewheeling down the other side. Elinor was squealing with pleasure. And suddenly he thought, to hell with it. Why can’t I be like that?

He took a deep breath, gripped the handlebars and pushed off, bumping down the hill, gathering speed, wobbling from side to side, afraid to steer because he knew if he changed direction he’d fall off. He had no hope of avoiding the pothole that swallowed his front wheel and sent him careering over the top of the handlebars. Sun and trees flashed, the world somersaulted, then shrank to an inch of tarmac level with his eyes.

Am I dead? Cautiously he moved his arms and legs and they seemed to be all right. He lifted his right hand to his face. The palm was scuffed and bleeding, the grazes coated in grit. That’s going to hurt. His bike lay, twisted, a few feet away, but as soon as he tried to lift his head to assess the damage he knew it was a mistake. Black spots drifted between him and the light. Trees and bushes rotated round his head and went on circling even after he lay back.

He heard Elinor call his name. ‘Nev, are you all right?’

He didn’t know. He required advance notice of that question. Running footsteps. Two heads bent down to peer at him.

‘What happened?’ Tarrant asked.

Bloody obvious what happened. No breath for stupid questions.

Elinor said, ‘Can you sit up?’

He tried again, but something was wrong with his head; the slightest movement made him feel sick.

‘Did you lose consciousness?’ Tarrant asked.

‘Don’t know.’ His voice was mouldy, like something kept in a cupboard for years.

‘Can you move your legs?’

Yes — though they didn’t seem to have much to do with him.

‘Look,’ Elinor said, ‘I’ll get the car. Dad’ll be home by now.’

‘No, I’ll go. I’ll be quicker. Help me get him to the side of the road.’

‘Should we move him?’

‘Can’t leave him in the middle of the road. We’re too close to the bend.’ Tarrant turned to Neville. ‘Do you think you can manage it?’

Somehow, with Tarrant supporting his head and shoulders, Neville shuffled to the side of the lane. The grass felt cool after the hot tar of the road. A smell of stagnant water rose from the ditch behind him. There was a whole succession of plops as frogs and toads leapt for cover.

They were talking together in low voices, Tarrant and Elinor. Like parents. He didn’t like that.

‘Are you feeling better?’ Elinor asked.

‘Yes.’ He made himself speak in a stronger voice. ‘But I don’t think I can ride the bike.’

‘You certainly can’t. You’ve buckled the front wheel.’ She turned to Tarrant. ‘You’re right, you’d better go. If Dad isn’t home, bring the trap.’

Tarrant ran down the hill, then, obviously revising his ideas of what constituted an emergency, slowed to a walk. They watched him mount his bicycle and pedal away.

‘He won’t be long.’

He could take for ever as far as Neville was concerned. Elinor was kneeling beside him. He caught her smell — peppery, intimate — as she bent over him. The dark circle of a nipple pressed against the white lawn of her blouse. He detected, or imagined he could detect, that bitter almond smell — or was it taste? You could never be sure. Some people couldn’t smell it at all.

‘If you took your jacket off I could bundle it up and put it under your head. The grass is damp.’

No, he didn’t think he could manage that. Instead she lifted his head on to her lap and he lay back, feeling a bit of a fraud. The first shock was wearing off. He’d stopped feeling sick and was beginning to suspect there was nothing much wrong with him, except for a large bump on his forehead and the skinned palms of his hands. Possibly he could have walked back. But this was better. Elinor had avoided being alone with him ever since he’d sent that letter, three weeks ago now, suggesting marriage. Well, now was his chance. ‘Elinor, you know what I said in my letter?’

He felt her thigh muscles tense. Her hand, which had been resting on the side of his face, was abruptly withdrawn. ‘Ye-es?’

‘Have you thought about it?’

‘No, not really. I can’t take it seriously.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t think you’ve thought it through.’

‘I have. No, listen.’ He tried to sit up, then, remembering her sympathy for his injuries was perhaps the only factor working in his favour, groaned and fell back again. ‘We have a lot in common.’

‘That’s why we’re friends.’

‘Two can live as cheaply as one.’

‘Doubtful.’

‘You’d be able to get away from your mother.’

‘I already have.’

‘We could share a studio.’

She was shaking her head. ‘It wouldn’t be like that. You’d have to get a job, or accept commissions you didn’t want, and I’d be in the kitchen cooking dinner and before we knew where we were there’d be babies crawling all over the floor.’

‘There doesn’t have to be.’

‘Anyway, that’s not the point, is it? I just don’t want to.’ She turned away from him. ‘All the good things we might have if we got married we’ve already got as friends, so why change?’

SEX, he wanted to shout, but of course he couldn’t. ‘I’m a man,’ he said, at last. ‘You can’t blame me for wanting more.’

‘I don’t. Blame you. But I don’t want more.’ She shook her head, defeated, as he was, by the lack of a shared vocabulary. ‘I don’t want that.’

He pressed, because he had to. ‘That?’

‘You know. Sexual intercourse.’

She made it sound like a weird practice allegedly indulged in by primitive tribes in the Amazon basin. ‘You only say that because you haven’t experienced it.’

‘I say it because I’ve never wanted to.’

‘If you’d only let me try.’

‘No, and it doesn’t matter how many times you ask, the answer’s always going to be the same. I’m happy as I am.’

‘Are you? I don’t think you are.’

‘All right then, I’m not.’ She started picking at her fingernails. ‘But I’m not going to pretend I feel something when I don’t.’

If only she’d let him try. He’d take care of her, he’d make sure there wasn’t a baby, and if she didn’t want marriage, all right, they’d have a different kind of relationship. And all the better, a sly, self-regarding voice inside him whispered. Was he really ready to forsake all others and cleave him only unto her? He wasn’t trying to fool her when he talked about marriage, but he sometimes thought he might be trying to fool himself.

Exasperated by the complexity of his feelings, he clasped her hand, only to release it with a cry of pain as the pressure forced grit deeper into his raw skin.

‘I think you’d better lie down,’ she said, dry, sensible.

‘I won’t give up,’ he said.

‘And I won’t change my mind.’

Neville closed his eyes and concentrated on feeling the warmth of her thighs through the nape of his neck. Somewhere close at hand a frog croaked.

Thirteen

Elinor escaped upstairs to her room for the last hour before dinner, leaving Paul and Kit talking to Father on the terrace. He’d brought a stack of newspapers back with him from London and they were deep in discussion about the European crisis, which seemed to be getting worse every day. Nobody bothered to mention Ireland any more.

Pouring water into the bowl, she splashed her face and neck. Behind the drawn curtains, the room was full of syrupy light. A floorboard creaked in the passage outside her door, but it was only the old house flexing its joints. Mother wouldn’t appear again till dinner. She’d been tired for as long as Elinor could remember, rousing herself to give instructions to the housekeeper after breakfast, then slowly sinking into intertia. Sometimes she got a headache and took to her bed for days at a time. ‘Be thankful you don’t suffer from migraines, my girl,’ she’d say on these occasions. ‘They’re a real problem.’ But to Elinor it had always been obvious that migraines were not a problem but a solution. Generally one would strike whenever Father rang from London to say he wouldn’t be home for the weekend. In addition to his post at the London hospital he had a large private practice, and one set of patients or the other could usually be relied upon to supply a weekend emergency. Once, speaking to Toby, Elinor had referred to their parents’ separation and he’d gaped at her. That was how skilfully they’d managed it. Their own son didn’t know.

And against this background she was supposed to believe in marriage.

She pulled the curtain aside and saw Father and Paul talking on the terrace. The bumble and rumble of male voices reached her but only a few distinct words. Germany, Servia, Austria-Hungary Russia, mobilization, ultimatum, alliance, triple alliance — on and on it went. She was so bored with it.

Letting the curtain drop, she caught sight of herself in the dressing-table mirror and was startled by her fugitive expression.

I’m happy as I am.

Are you? I don’t think you are.

No, all right, I’m not. She hadn’t been happy for weeks. That night in the Café Royal, seeing the expression on Paul’s face as he stared at Teresa, she’d felt herself diminished. Neutered. Waiting for marriage was all very well, but suppose you didn’t intend to marry? What were you waiting for then?

Then worms shall try that long preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust.

More to the point, what was she going to wear tonight? She had one evening dress left over from her pre-Slade past — white satin with a bow across the chest. Fetching it from the wardrobe, she held it up against herself. No, it reminded her too much of herself as a chubby, giggling teenager. There was nothing else, except her dark blue dress and they’d all seen that fifty times already. Rachel had left some of her dresses behind when she got married. Quickly Elinor slipped across the corridor into what had been her sister’s bedroom.

The wardrobe released a smell of faded roses: the ghost of corsages past. Elinor ran her finger along the rails, selected a black dress and, standing in front of the cheval mirror, held it against her. Another girl stared back at her: alert, aroused, apprehensive, excited. She undressed, fetched a pair of Rachel’s stays from the drawer and squeezed herself into them. Now the dress. A black waterfall of satin fell heavy and cool over her face. She looked in the glass again, afraid of seeing a child dressed up in her big sister’s clothes — though she was older now than Rachel had been when she first wore this dress. Instead, she saw that the dress had transformed her. Her breasts were hoisted up by the stays. She looked down at them, feeling her breath hot on her skin, excited, though more by the imagined reaction of men than by any desire of her own. Yes — smoothing the skirt down, admiring the shape the stays gave her — yes. The effect was too formal, for what was, after all, little more than a family party, but that didn’t matter. She’d make a joke of it, explain her mother was always complaining she made no effort, so look, here I am, she’d say, making an effort.

Halfway down the stairs she saw herself endlessly replicated in the tall mirrors that faced each other across the landing. She realized she was dressed entirely in black. Perhaps she should go back and get a stole, or a necklace, anything to make her appearance less uncompromising. In this light even her eyes looked black. She didn’t feel particularly well — she had a pain in her stomach on the left side, low down — and yet she looked better than she’d done in weeks. Earrings, that would do it. But then the study door opened and Father came out. He looked up and she saw the flare of pride in his face. So, altering her posture and movement to suit the dress, she glided downstairs and into his arms.

‘What’s all this then?’

His breath tickled her ear. ‘Nothing. Just thought I’d make an effort for once.’

‘Well, you look wonderful. I think I’d better go and spruce myself up.’

‘Where’s Toby?’

‘Conservatory. Helping Andrew with his revision.’

‘I’m surprised he hasn’t got you giving a tutorial.’

‘Oh, no. I’m off duty.’

The conservatory blinds were pulled down and the whole room glowed orange-gold. The two young men seemed to hang suspended in the viscous air. Elinor stood quietly in the doorway, blinking in the changed light. Toby had taken off his shirt and was standing motionless, arms outstretched, like a crucifixion — though the effect was rather spoiled by the loops of his braces dangling round his hips. His trousers had been pushed down: she saw a glint of dark gold hair pointing up towards the navel, matching the meagre twist between his breasts. Andrew was leaning towards him with something, a pencil, or pen, in his hand. She realized the network of dark lines that covered Toby’s skin were not, as she’d thought at first, shadows cast by the baskets of big ferns that hung from the ceiling, but writing or drawing of some kind. A pattern? A map? Then she understood. Toby’s nerves had been drawn on his skin.

‘Keep still,’ Andrew was saying. ‘Hard enough without you wriggling.’

And then they saw her. Andrew straightened up at once and took a step back. Toby gave a brief, hard laugh. ‘C’mon in, sis.’

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘Living anatomy,’ Toby said.

‘Will it wash off?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Andrew said. ‘We do it all the time in college.’

Toby was taking in every detail of her dress. ‘You’re looking good, sis.’

‘It’s Rachel’s.’

‘I thought it wasn’t your usual style. No, you look good.’

Andrew was staring from her to Toby and back again. He looked as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. She felt herself blush. ‘Don’t you find it hot in here? I’m surprised you can work.’

Toby reached for his shirt. ‘It’s a scorcher, isn’t it? I think I’ll have a cold bath, try to cool down.’

‘I’m going to sit outside.’ She wanted to be away from the under-current of tension in this room, which she could neither understand nor persuade herself she was imagining. ‘Have you seen Kit?’

‘I think he’s upstairs,’ said Andrew.

‘Nursing his concussion,’ said Toby.

‘Headache.’ She giggled, only to feel immediately disloyal. ‘Actually, it was a very nasty fall.’

As soon as she stepped across the threshold, the colours changed again. The ooze of sticky golden light that seemed to clog your movements was gone. The sky was a clear translucent blue, fading to mauve above the horizon, with small, flossy orange clouds dotted here and there — that outrageously improbable orange that never seems real even when you’re staring straight at it. The trees loomed tall against the glow of light, casting long blue-black shadows over the lawn.

A faint breeze blew, pimpling her skin. Chafing her upper arms, she looked down towards the wood, wondering whether there was time for a walk. Rachel and Timothy would be here soon, and she needed time to think. Somehow mulling over a problem in her bedroom never seemed to work; the familiar walls and curtains merely repeated her thoughts back to her. She was sorry for Kit, of course she was, but angry too. All very well for him to talk about the months and years he’d loved her, but he’d had two other women in that time. Two that she knew about. Kit was very successful with a certain kind of woman. Here, she pulled herself up short, repelled by the snobbishness of the phrase, which seemed to go somehow with the dress, as if by changing her clothes she’d also changed her attitudes. Disliking herself more by the minute, she walked across the lawn and into the wood. Dry beechmast crunched under her thin shoes. She remembered the feel of it under her bare feet, walking back from her morning swim. She’d been Rosalind then, and it hadn’t been an escape, she’d been happy. Now, only twelve hours later, she wasn’t happy and would have welcomed a way out, but she was stuck with being herself. High time too, Kit would have said. Kit, Mother, Rachel. She didn’t want to listen to them, though. Her head was full of other people’s voices. What she needed was to get her own mind clear.

The pool. She and Toby had swum there as children; she’d followed him in — she remembered this clearly — she’d followed him, though she wasn’t supposed to; don’t go in, she’d been told, it’s too deep. Stepping gingerly, she’d clung to the reeds, her toes curling with disgust in the cold ooze. Sun on her back, white, thin legs angling into the water. Why did they seem to bend like that? She’d stared down at them and tried to understand. Minnows would appear from nowhere and graze her toes. There, if anywhere, she might recover some sense of herself. At the moment her life at the Slade, the life she’d struggled so hard to achieve, seemed meaningless. Oh, she’d get over it, back in London, painting again … Only tonight the sense of … exclusion? Was that it? Something like that. She felt sidelined, a spectator at the feast, while all around her other people stuffed food into their mouths. I don’t like being sexless. If that’s what I am. The pool glinted between the trees, catching the last of the evening light, reflecting it back at the sky. Drawing a deep breath, or as deep as the stays would allow, she ran towards it.

Neville was lying on the bed in his room watching a square of sunlight retreat across the carpet. He had both windows wide open, but the air was hot and still and he couldn’t splash cold water over his face because he’d get the bandages on his hands wet. All he could do was sweat and fume.

He hadn’t enjoyed the afternoon much. Sitting in the car, the backs of his thighs damp against the hot leather, he’d felt a complete ass. It was a relief to be back in the house, in the cool shade. Dr Brooke examined the bump on his head, peered at his pupils, made him close his eyes and touch his nose with his index finger. Did he feel sick? Not now. Drowsy? He did, a bit, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He was too afraid of being packed off to bed, leaving Elinor and Tarrant together. No, bugger that for a lark. He didn’t feel drowsy. As a matter of fact, he’d never felt more awake in his life. Dr Brooke washed his hands carefully while Neville watched, breathing audibly through his nose. But even as he gritted his teeth, he was remembering how Elinor had bent over him, how the dark circle of her nipple had pressed against the white cloth. He wanted to groan and, since the impulse coincided with Dr Brooke’s extracting a particularly large piece of gravel from his palm, groan he did. Twenty minutes later, hands cocooned in white bandages, he was free to sit outside on the terrace reading the newspapers, waiting for the pain in his hands to subside.

Only when Tarrant announced he was going for a walk did Neville feel able to go upstairs and lie down. He took off his outer clothes and stretched out on the bed, but he didn’t feel like sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes Elinor’s slim body cavorted on the inside of his lids. Images spawned other images. He lay and watched like somebody in a picture palace who has no control over what he sees. The orgy of voyeurism filled him with shame, but he didn’t know how to make it stop. She could stop it, Elinor. If only she’d learn to behave like a woman. This was more like being in love with a brilliant, egotistical boy than a girl. Except a boy would have slept with him by now. She was so utterly self-centred. Nothing mattered except her talent and whether she was fulfilling it or not. What made him really angry was that she asked the impossible, and she didn’t seem to know it was impossible. She expected him to stifle his desire for her and treat her exactly as he would Tarrant, or any other male friend — not that Tarrant was a friend exactly — and she didn’t seem to see how unreasonable she was being. Better end the friendship than go on like this. Perhaps he should say that? It might shock her into seeing their situation from his point of view. Nothing else worked.

Exasperated, he forced himself off the bed and into his dinner jacket. Every muscle in his legs and back ached. As he stared at himself in the glass, fingering the bump on his head, he was briefly freed from desire and saw instead the small, sad figures of the Doom tumbling into hell. Then, pulling himself together, he straightened his tie, smoothed his hair back and went downstairs.

Finding nobody around, he let himself out on to the terrace and walked diagonally across the lawn into the wood. Once inside, his eyes adjusting to the shafts of sunlight that slanted down between the trees, he made his way along the path. He caught a glint of water between the trees and was tempted to explore further, but perhaps he ought to remain within earshot of the house. Lighting a cigarette, he leaned against the nearest trunk and looked up at the sky. All he wanted was a few minutes’ peace before he had to go back and face people. Sitting at the dinner table with Elinor a few feet away, saying virtually nothing — he’d noticed at lunch how subdued she was in her own home, how many irritated glances her mother cast in her direction. Only on the trip to see the church had she been anything like her normal self, and he’d ruined that.

And then he heard rustling, twenty or so yards ahead of him, near the pool. At first he could make nothing out, just a dark shape that seemed at first to be merely a thickening of the shadows, but then she moved again and he saw her pale face, bare shoulders, thin arms. She was walking towards him, the hem of her dress lifted well above the ground. And what a dress. He had never seen her wear anything like that before. She looked, for almost the first time in all the years he’d known her, like a woman. And yet there was something childish in the gesture — a little girl taking care of her best frock — that made his heart contract; but then she saw him, and immediately became her usual smiling, teasing, confident self.

‘How’re your hands?’

‘Stings a bit, not too bad.’

‘Do you think you’ll be able to paint?’

‘Oh, yes.’

He wished she hadn’t mentioned painting. It was what they had in common: the foundation of their friendship, but it was useless to him now. He wanted to make love to her, but he didn’t know where to start. And so, though he was furious with himself for giving in, he ended up nattering on about painting. Had she ever painted the pool? Yes, she’d painted Toby swimming. He threw his cigarette away, a bright are falling through the blue air.

‘I suppose we ought to be getting back,’ she said. No. He drew her to him, feeling the winged collar bones alien against the palms of his hands. Her skin felt cool, his hands hot and heavy. Thick, raw hands — he brushed the image away. She was looking up at him nervously, as he lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her lightly, his lips barely brushing hers, then clasped her more tightly and began to probe. As he tasted the salt of her dry mouth, he thought of the right word for her expression. Experimental. He was aware of a coldness, no more than virginity perhaps, but it was a barrier he had to break through. He shut his eyes. Nothing now except his strong muscular tongue threshing against hers, though she was pulling away. He felt her neck muscles go rigid as she tried to pull her head away. He hollowed out his body so she wouldn’t feel his hardness pressing into her. His fingers twined around the short hair at the nape of her neck. She pushed her hand between them, round his throat, and he felt his blood pulse against her thumb. He was thudding, contused, breath thick in his throat, praying for her to respond, but she was all the time trying to break away, and at last the pressure of her fingers on his windpipe forced him back.

She stared at him, her eyes black. ‘We’ve got to go in now. That’s the gong.’

Reluctantly, even angrily, he stepped back, hearing the dinner gong sound for the second time. From where they stood he could just make out lighted windows between the trees. ‘After dinner,’ he said. ‘Tonight.’

She was already moving away. He could see the sharpness of her shoulder blades. ‘I don’t know.’

‘No, you’ve got to promise.’

She turned on him. ‘No, I don’t have to promise. I don’t have to do anything I don’t want.’

They left the wood and walked across the lawn, their feet leaving dark trails in the wet grass. She pushed open the door of the conservatory. Half a dozen colourless moths came in with them and immediately began to flutter around the single lighted lamp. In the hall, he caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. White-faced, her eyes huge. She looked shocked, but she couldn’t be. She’d wanted that kiss as much as he did, and wanted more. Neither of them looked normal. They were night creatures, like the moths, as endangered as they were by the light.

‘Perhaps I’d better go in first,’ she said. ‘Do I look all right?’

Lichen clung to the back of her dress. He brushed it off, then stood while she dusted the crumbly grey-green scurf from his shoulders. Tarrant came down the stairs and stared at them curiously. Neville turned to greet him and by the time he looked round again, Elinor had walked into the drawing room. He followed her into the bright lights and the buzz of conversation, feeling naked, vulnerable, skinned, but almost at once Toby came across and offered him a drink, and he talked to Toby and Andrew, and then to a tall, etiolated man with a sad moustache who turned out to be Elinor’s brother-in-law, and then it was time to go in.

Elinor was at the other end of the table opposite Tarrant. I have to see her, Neville thought. I have to make something happen.

Fourteen

The heat in the dining room was stifling. The windows couldn’t be opened because of the danger of attracting insects into the room, though a daddy-long-legs had got in somehow and batted noisily from wall to wall, casting huge shadows over the table and the heads and shoulders of the people gathered round it.

‘Why daddy-long-legs?’ Toby wondered.

Nobody seemed inclined to speculate.

‘Anyway it isn’t,’ Elinor said, a moment later. ‘It’s a harvestman.’

Daddy-long-legs. Harvestman. What did it matter? Why didn’t somebody just get up and swat the bloody thing? Neville was fidgety, miserable, bad-tempered. All he wanted was to be alone with Elinor. Instead he had the prospect of an hour, perhaps, more like two, talking to people who didn’t interest him in the least.

What was keeping Dr Brooke? Five minutes after the rest of them had sat down the chair at the head of the table was still empty, but then, smiling, apologizing, he appeared and sat down. Immediately Mrs Blackstone wheeled in her trolley and started dishing out soup.

Soup?

Cold, thank God.

Dr Brooke was saying the call had come from the hospital.

‘We’ve been asked to clear the beds. Postpone non-urgent operations.’

Nobody spoke for a while. Then Andrew said, ‘Do you think there’s going to be a war, sir?’

‘I hope not.’

‘If there is I’ll enlist.’

Toby looked across at him. ‘You’d do anything, wouldn’t you, rather than revise?’

‘Oh, come on. If it was a choice between enlisting and stuffing your head full of boring anatomy, which would you choose?’

‘Enlisting, of course.’

Dr Brooke straightened his knife and fork. ‘I think you’ll find the army can manage quite well without help from either of you. That’s what professional armies are for.’

‘It’s the not knowing I can’t stand,’ Elinor said.

‘It’s like a thunderstorm hanging over you and it just won’t break.’

It occurred to Neville that his father, by this time in the evening, would know what was in tomorrow’s paper. He’d have started work on Monday morning’s article by now. After dinner, he’d give him a ring, see what he could come up with. It pleased him to be in the know, to have access to more up-to-date information than anybody else.

Tarrant was sitting opposite Elinor. She still looked very pale. Her bare shoulders were really not appropriate for such an informal gathering, and the black satin, settling in oily, glistening folds around her hips, seemed to eat light rather than reflect it. There couldn’t have been a greater contrast between the two sisters. Rachel was a great, blowsy overblown rose, beginning to droop. Her expression had hardened when she saw Elinor coming towards her in the black dress.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Elinor had said.

‘Of course not. Suits you.’

Her sister’s dress. Well, yes, of course, it had to be. Could anyone seriously imagine Elinor enduring long hours of pinning and fitting to possess such a thing? Though it was a bit tactless, in view of Rachel’s matronly bosom and slipping hair, to confront her with a younger, slimmer version of herself. Certainly Mrs Brooke seemed to think so. Whenever she glanced at her younger daughter there was a tightening of the lips that suggested she didn’t find her an altogether pleasing sight. Once, Elinor caught the glance and lifted her chin defiantly. He understood Elinor better for having met her mother. He could see what she was reacting against.

After a gloomy start, nobody mentioned the European crisis again. Toby and Andrew laughed a lot and Rachel joined in, becoming more boisterous, even a little tipsy perhaps, as the evening progressed. For the past year, Paul gathered, her baby had absorbed the whole of her attention. Now she was almost disabled for adult company, shrieking away like a much younger girl, observed, a little anxiously at times, by her husband, from behind his pebble glasses.

Neville talked mainly to Dr Brooke, while shooting frequent glances along the table at Elinor. He listened to Dr Brooke, asked and answered questions, even launched into a vigorous defence of modern art, all without engaging more than a tiny fraction of his mind. Dr Brooke seemed to be knowledgeable about the London art scene, at any rate about Tonks and that Slade crowd, though he was inclined to underestimate his daughter’s achievement in winning the scholarship. It was a pleasure to put him right about that. He only wished Elinor had been close enough to hear him do it.

After a stodgy rhubarb pie had been served and valiantly consumed, Mrs Brooke stood up. Neville leapt to his feet to hold the door, but although Elinor’s arm brushed against his sleeve in passing, she didn’t meet his eye. She seemed furious. With him? Or perhaps she disliked the custom of ladies withdrawing after dinner? His mother would have none of it.

Over port, politics was inescapable. Tim Henderson, Elinor’s brother-in-law, spoke with a dry well-informed passion about the impossibility of avoiding war if France was attacked. Andrew, who seemed to have only one thought in his head, again insisted he’d enlist on Tuesday morning if he got the chance.

‘What about you?’ he asked, suddenly, addressing Neville.

‘Enlist, of course.’ No bloody choice. He looked up to find Tarrant on the other side of the table laughing at him. ‘What’s amusing you?’

‘You don’t sound very keen. What happened to, “War is the only health-giver of mankind”?’

Dr Brooke looked puzzled.

‘The Futurist Manifesto, sir,’ Tarrant explained.

‘Oh, I see. Well, I suppose it’s an interesting point of view, though if war’s such a health-giver I do wonder why we need to clear quite so many beds.’ He was standing up as he spoke. ‘Shall we join the ladies?’

Elinor, sitting by the open French windows in the drawing room, had been having a hard time. Rachel started the moment they entered the room. What on earth possessed her to wear that dress? Not that Rachel minded of course, she was welcome to borrow any of her old dresses, but why that one? It was far too low-cut. And, anyway, it was a ball-gown not a dinner dress. At the very least she should have worn a stole with it. And, besides, she was too thin to carry it, she looked positively scrawny round the collar bones. Why was she so thin? How many proper cooked meals did she eat in a week? In vain Elinor tried to insist that she did eat. It was just that she walked everywhere.

‘I walk miles.’

‘Ye-es. Through London streets after dark.’

‘With other girls. I don’t go on my own.’

‘Other girls aren’t chaperones. If anything, they egg each other on. And as for inviting two young men for the weekend … For heaven’s sake.’

‘I did invite another girl. She had to cancel.’

‘Then you should have called it off.’

‘At the last minute?’

‘What do you think it looks like? You and four unattached young men.’

‘Four? Toby’s my brother.’

‘A lot of families wouldn’t let you invite one.’

‘I didn’t invite Andrew.’

‘No, but he’s unattached, isn’t he? It’s the same thing.’

‘Is he? I don’t get that impression.’

‘Well, we don’t know if he’s attached, do we?’

Elinor laughed. ‘Oh, I think we do.’

Mother was looking puzzled. ‘He hasn’t mentioned anybody.’

‘Anyway,’ Elinor said, quickly changing the subject. ‘I’m not interested in Andrew.’

‘So which of them is it, then?’

‘It’s not like that. We’re just friends.’

‘You’re sailing very close to the wind. You know, you can only flout convention so far before you start to get a reputation. You might wake up one morning and find nobody wants to know you.’

‘The people I respect —’

The door opened and Mrs Blackstone came in with the coffee. The two sisters sat in silence, fuming, until she withdrew.

‘I don’t have to sit and listen to lectures from you, Rachel. I’ve got my life, you’ve got yours, let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’

‘Shall I pour our coffee now?’ Mother said. ‘How long do you think they’re likely to be?’

‘Not long,’ Rachel said. ‘I think Dad’s hoping for an early night.’

Elinor retreated to the terrace where the night air on her skin felt like a hot bath. She was hurt, it had been such an onslaught. All the things she’d achieved in the past four years, the independent life she’d built for herself, seemed to count for nothing here. The only thing that mattered to her mother was finding a husband. As for painting, well, nice little hobby, very suitable, but you won’t have much time for that when the children arrive.

What hurt more than anything was that she hadn’t hit back. She could have done. Rachel had been piling on weight ever since she got married, she was fat by any standards, but did Elinor say so? No, not a single snide remark, not an unkind word, but, my God, it was open season on her when Rachel got going. Of course, if she did retaliate there’d be a breach. Well, perhaps it was time, perhaps there ought to be a breach. It wouldn’t be easy to live with, though. All their childhood she and Rachel had been friends, allies, co-conspirators in this not particularly happy household. If she quarrelled with Rachel now she’d feel utterly alone. The warmth withdrawn, the chill along one side …

God, this heat. It was actually cooler inside the house, she was baking out here. She found a newspaper on the table and tried to use it as a fan, but it was damp and flaccid with dew and the newsprint came off on her hand. Times like this you need your friends. If only Catherine were here. Instead of that there was Paul, still mooning over Teresa, or so she supposed — she’d hardly had a chance to talk to him yet — and Nev. Who seemed determined not to be a friend at all.

Nobody had been kinder to her or more encouraging. He seemed to understand, better than most men, the problems a woman encountered in being taken seriously as an artist. And yet, in the next breath, he was holding forth about the need for virility in art. Virility was the essence of great art; effeminacy had to be extirpated at all costs. Where did that leave her? Counting the hairs on her chest? The glorification of war, ‘the beautiful ideas that kill, the contempt for women’, the whole Futurist baggage. She didn’t understand how he could believe all that — if he believed it — and still profess faith in her talent as a painter. Perhaps it was a mistake to take him seriously — he wasn’t an intellectual by any means, though he’d have liked to be — but then, wasn’t it patronizing not to take him seriously? And his ideas were rooted in his character. He was a bully. If she knew anything about him at all, she knew that. A bullied boy, a bullying man, it was too commonplace to be worth remarking on. And it wasn’t the whole truth; he could be very kind. And they had a lot in common. If only he could be content with friendship.

Though she couldn’t blame him for trying it on tonight. Somehow, in this ridiculous dress, she’d sent out the wrong signals. She’d thought she was doing something rather clever, turning herself into a parody of a young lady dressed for the marriage market, but it hadn’t turned out like that. She’d slipped into being the person the dress dictated, and now she was going to have to pay, in hours and hours of embarrassment. She had wanted him. Briefly. Or she’d wanted something — to be different. Rachel would say she’d led him on, but that wasn’t true. She didn’t want to marry him, or anybody. She only had to turn round and look at Rachel, nodding off in the armchair. Rachel, who before her marriage had been a promising pianist, and now sat with the baby on her knee, picking out nursery tunes with one finger. Nev said it wouldn’t be like that, and she believed him — or at least she believed he meant it — but it would, because marriage changed everything. It had its own logic, its own laws, and they were independent of the desires and intentions of those who entered into it. She felt a moment’s pleasure in the cynicism of this perception, though God knows it was depressing enough.

She heard Father’s voice in the room behind her, then Kit talking about the crisis of course, what else? Everybody was getting so excited, it repelled her. Particularly Kit. Look at him now, holding forth, puffed up like a toad in the mating season. He’d telephoned his father, things were worse, far worse, than they’d thought. Germany had declared war on Russia and was advancing on France. If she invaded …

At last the buzz died down. Kit detached himself from the group and came to join her on the terrace.

‘That’s it, then,’ he said.

‘Is it?’

‘Seems to be.’

‘Do you think we’ll fight?’

‘Got to. We’ll lose all credibility if we don’t.’ She turned away. ‘What will you do?’

‘Well, I’ve got to get out there.’

‘Enlist?’

‘Not sure. They mightn’t have me. And anyway I need to be there now, not in six months’ time.’

‘I don’t see why you have to do anything. Let the army do it.’

‘I’ve no choice. Don’t you see? You can’t go around saying, “War’s the only health-giver of mankind” — not that I ever did say that, incidentally — and then when one breaks out say, “Sorry, I’m not going, I don’t feel well enough.”’

‘No, I do see.’ She was laughing.

‘It’s not funny. Father’s going out next week. He asked if I wanted to go with him.’

‘And do you?’

‘How can I refuse? It means I’ll have to leave a bit early, I’m afraid.’

She turned away to hide her relief.

‘I do love you, you know. Can’t we at least talk about it?’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘I could come to your room.’

‘You could not.’

‘Down here then, after they’ve gone to bed.’

‘There’s nothing to say. I won’t marry you, I don’t want an affair. I’m happy as we are.’ She looked straight into his eyes. ‘I’m sorry if you’re not, but there’s nothing I can do about that.’

He took a step back. ‘Perhaps it would be better if we didn’t see each other for a while.’

‘If that’s what you want.’

‘You don’t care.’

‘I do. Just not in the way you want.’

‘This is torture. You’ve no idea.’

‘No, probably not.’

‘It’s like being in love with a mermaid.’

She understood what he meant and it hurt. ‘I think we’d better go in.’

Fifteen

Paul to Elinor

Thank you for your very kind letter. I’m sorry to have been so long replying, but the fact is I’ve been laid low with a feverish cold that brought on a bout of pneumonia. As a result I feel a bit flattened, though I’m downstairs now, sitting in the front room with a blanket over my knees like a little old man. The blanket’s not really necessary. The weather’s still warm, though not as unbearably hot as it was last week when I was ill, but somehow if you’re feeling weak it helps to be covered up. I’ve been watching cabbage white and tortoiseshell butterflies playing around the buddleia bushes in the front garden. I counted eighteen this morning, then I had a nap. Exhausting work, counting butterflies.

But I’m getting stronger every day. Have you heard from Teresa? I still haven’t, and don’t expect to now. I mind a lot less than I thought I would. Somehow the war and this illness between them have clanged down like a great steel shutter between me and my previous life. When I look back on my time at the Slade you’re the only person who seems real. And Neville, oddly enough. Now he has written, and at length, which surprises me a bit. He’s volunteered to drive an ambulance for the Belgian Red Cross, but I expect you know that already. He says it’s the fastest way out there. Meanwhile, it all seems very far removed, though my stepmother’s bandaging class meets in the room behind me so I hear all the chatter, and Dad brings the papers home. Half a dozen sometimes. Everybody’s very excited. I suppose because they all feel they’re caught up in history. I just cough and count butterflies. I’m sure you’re much more actively and usefully employed.

Elinor to Paul

Well, it’s active all right — I don’t know about useful. We — Ruthie and me — spent the first few days wandering round from place to place, sitting in cafés, reading newspapers, jabbering till our jaws ached, me increasingly fed up but somehow not able to pull myself out of it. Still can’t. London’s full of heat and dust, the air’s got that burnt smell you get in August even in the parks.

We went to see the regiments mustering in Green Park and the crowds cheering them, thousands, there were three girls in front of me, shop girls or housemaids and they were screaming and waving flags and one of them jumped up and down so much she wet herself and hobbled off with her skirt bunched up between her legs, shrieking and giggling. In the evenings people gather outside Buckingham Palace or one or other of the embassies, or the Café Royal of course for our crowd. You know how glamorous it used to seem? Well I thought so, anyway. Now it’s full of frightened old men who think their day is over (and they’re probably right) and overexcited young men who jabber till the spit flies, though it’s only stuff they’ve read in the papers. The women have gone very quiet. It’s like the Iliad, you know, when Achilles insults Agamemnon and Agamemnon says he’s got to have Achilles’ girl and Achilles goes off and sulks by the long ships and the girls they’re quarrelling over say nothing, not a word, it’s a bit like that. I don’t suppose men ever hear that silence.

Nobody’s doing anything. I mean nobody’s doing any work. My teaching’s dried up, the young ladies of Kensington are all learning first aid instead. And I can’t paint. Everything you think of seems so trivial in comparison with the war — but I don’t accept that. I just don’t seem to have the energy to act on what I believe. Only Neville keeps going, but then he’s painting the war, the regiments, the searchlights, the guns on Hampstead Heath — he can hear them from his studio he says. I bump into him from time to time in the Café Royal and he always speaks, though on the personal level we haven’t been seeing much of each other recently. He has to do a first-aid course and some kind of vehicle-repair course before he goes out, but that only takes up the mornings and he paints like mad the rest of the time.

It’s worse for Catherine than it is for me. Do you remember her? Catherine Stein. Tall and fair with goggly eyes? Before the war nobody ever thought of her as German, though we all knew she was, now suddenly it’s the only thing that matters. And there’s talk of interning German men which makes her worry about her father who’s not in very good health.

I suppose there is a sense of being caught up in history, but in Catherine’s case she’s caught up like a mouse in a trap. I wish you were here — God, now I sound like a seaside postcard — it would be lovely to talk to you. Catherine’s got her own problems and Ruthie’s all very well but she knows what she thinks about everything and I never do which makes her exhausting company. Please, please, Paul, come back to London soon.

What an extremely forward letter! Mother and Rachel would certainly not approve.

Paul to Elinor

I’m surprised you find the women in the Café Royal have gone quiet. The women in Beryl’s bandaging class certainly haven’t, I can hear them behind me as I write. Not entirely pleasant either. Women whose sons haven’t enlisted are given quite a hard time by the other ladies. Beryl tucks the rug around me with great assiduity whenever they’re here.

When I’m better I’ll have to enlist. I thought at first I’d be able to stay out of it, but now I don’t think I can, and I don’t want to. I’m not sophisticated like Neville. To me it all seems simple. If your mother’s attacked, you defend her. You don’t waste time weighing up the rights and wrongs of the matter or wondering if a confrontation could have been avoided if only the batty old dear had been a bit more sensible. Only I can’t, honestly can’t, see what untrained volunteers are going to do. The last two wars in Europe have been fought by professional armies and they only lasted a few months. What I don’t want is to spend a wet, cold winter in a tent on Salisbury Plain while proper, professional soldiers get on and finish the job.

Paul to Elinor

Today I tried to enlist. It wasn’t anything like I expected. No open arms and welcome to the army my boy well done. Quite the contrary in fact.

You spend an awfully long time sitting around with no clothes on waiting to have some part of your anatomy poked, prodded and assessed. We kept glancing along the bench, sizing each other up. Prime-quality male horseflesh; medium-quality ditto; skinny, knock-kneed, wheezy old nag fit only for the knacker’s yard — me. Actually I did all right till they got to my chest, by, I must say, a somewhat circuitous route. (Details not fit for your maiden ears.) I was asked to cough — that wasn’t a problem, I do a lot of that — only I couldn’t stop. The MOs conferred, waited for me to stop coughing, and then asked me to cough again. I kept trying to explain I’d been ill, but by the time I got my breath back they had stethoscopes in their ears and couldn’t hear a word I said. Then the chief MO, who looked rather like a cynical sheep, shook his head. He was quite decent really, though he couldn’t resist his little joke. He said the best thing I could do to serve my country was join the German army and cough a lot.

As I was getting dressed I managed to catch a glimpse of what he’d written on the form. A whole paragraph of stuff, and then at the bottom: Query TB.

The thing is I know it’s not true. I’m coughing a lot, I do have night sweats, and yes there is family history, but I also know it’s the aftermath of pneumonia. A few weeks’ fresh air (admittedly in short supply round here), plenty of good food and all this coughing and wheezing will clear away.

I don’t know what to do. I have tried. I know I have — but that’s no use, you see. I walk into town and there are newly enlisted men going to the railway station, men I went to school with, some of them, and I can’t help thinking everybody’s looking at me, wondering why I haven’t volunteered. Perhaps I’m being oversensitive, but I seem to see that question now on every face.

Meanwhile, I’m attending a first-aid class, a six-week course, and frankly a bit of a waste of time because I covered all this ground and more while I worked in the hospital, but at least it makes me feel I’m doing something. Or do I mean, makes me look as if I’m doing something? It’s something for Beryl to tell her bandaging class at any rate.

I’ve written to Neville, to ask who he contacted to get into the Belgian Red Cross. It’s not what I wanted to do but it’s better than nothing and I do have experience of working in a hospital. Fingers crossed.

I haven’t asked if you’re getting any painting done? I’d started drawing, in a rather pathetic, tentative way, but being turned down seems to have driven it out of my head.

Elinor to Paul

I’m sorry to hear you were turned down, since it’s what you wanted, though selfishly of course I’m pleased. Father and Toby are rowing all the time about Toby enlisting. I’ve never seen Father so angry. Last night after dinner I heard them shouting. I keep out of it. Father thinks he should go on with his medical training, says he’ll be far more use to his country as a doctor than he ever would be as a half-trained, cack-handed soldier, but of course Toby doesn’t want to miss the fun, he’s got the rest of his life to be a doctor.

We have first-aid classes in the town too. Mother tries to drag me off to them, but so far I’ve managed to resist. I do sympathize with your sense of being stared at and questioned all the time. I feel it too — though in a milder way, there isn’t the same pressure on girls, but it’s still made perfectly clear that painting’s a trivial occupation and ought to be set aside in favour of bandaging Mrs Dalton-Smith’s fat ankles — though what doing that contributes to the war effort God only knows.

I am painting again, though not with much conviction, it’s more a feeling of defiance. I won’t let Mrs Dalton-Smith’s ankles win.

Paul To Elinor

I was sorry to hear of Toby’s battle with your father. Of course, your father’s right. It would be more sensible to stay at medical school, but Toby wants the adventure. So do I, to be honest — or part of me does. Another part knows perfectly well I’d hate every minute of it. I’m not in the least militaristic, I’ve no desire to kill or injure anybody, but if I could wave a magic wand and be out there now, I wouldn’t hesitate.

I’m glad you’re painting again. It’s more than I’ve managed to do. I can’t keep still. Twice a day sometimes I walk into town to buy newspapers or look at the mobilization order on the Town Hall door — in case it says something different from what it said last time. But I see the doctor again tomorrow, and I think he’ll say I’m fit enough to come to London. If not I think I might come anyway. I’ve applied to the Belgian Red Cross and Neville seems to think I stand a good chance. So perhaps I’ll see you again soon.

Elinor to Paul

Ruthie forwarded your letter. I’m staying in this tiny cottage with Catherine. I’m so tired of the war, Paul. Rows at home and then you go to London and there’s no escaping it there either. At least here you can forget it some of the time.

It was quite a last-minute decision. We just packed our bags and walked out on it all and here we are. Free. In a tiny cottage down a long narrow lane which starts off by the church. You can see the spire over the trees. In fact, the Vicar’s our landlord. I don’t know how long we’ll stay but it’s very cheap and quite tucked away. One bedroom, with two little dormer windows. As you look up at the cottage from the front they peer out under the eaves like the eyes of a Shetland pony. Do you agree that houses have expressions? Some houses look quite mad, this one looks interested and friendly and a bit wild.

Downstairs there’s one big room flooded with light because it’s got windows on both sides. Hollyhocks and sunflowers in the garden. As sunflowers die they look more and more like old men, the stalks develop a hunched back and the seeds fold in on themselves the way old people’s mouths do when they haven’t any teeth. Look at one, you’ll see what I mean. I’ve got two on the kitchen table where I’m writing and I draw them all the time.

I want to try to give you a flavour of our lives here because I’m happier than I’ve ever been before. On the other side of the garden fence there’s lovely countryside and everything’s fresh, not like London. Every possible shade of green and blue and gold and in the afternoons when the birds stop singing there’s total silence. Just the hum of bees in the foxgloves, they start at the top and tumble down from flower to flower. Last night we had a picnic, cheese and bread and apples and a big bottle of cider and when it was dark we went out on to the lawn in our nightdresses and danced. I can still turn cartwheels, Paul, so you see I’m not an old woman yet, though sometimes I feel like one. On the other side of the wall there’s a cornfield with cornflowers and poppies. We walked all the way round the edge in the moonlight and the poppies looked black and the corn was silver. It made me shiver to look at it. We keep the cider cool by putting it in a bucket of water under the sink. I’m full of cider now and my lips are swollen, I think I must look like a fish. I am so happy, but Catherine keeps yawning and saying it’s time for bed, so I must close.

The atmosphere at home is terrible, Toby said father can’t stop him serving his country in any way he damn well chooses, but the fact is he does want and need Father’s approval, and so far Dad simply won’t budge. He says war should be left to professional soldiers and all these half-trained boys running about all over the place are more trouble than they’re worth. I don’t know. I side with Toby because he’s my brother and we’ve always stuck together, but the fact is, I don’t want him to go either. More than anything I resent the way the war takes over all our lives. It’s like a single bullying voice shouting all the other voices down.

I wish you could come here, Paul. It would be lovely to see you, I do miss you, but now I’m just about to start writing real nonsense so it’s high time I went to bed.

Love, Elinor.

Elinor to Paul

Yes, I know, two letters in one day! I expect they’ll arrive in the same post, but I simply have to write again because something really awful has happend. We’ve been thrown out! The Vicar turned up, walking across the fields in his long black hassock (cassock?) — don’t know, doesn’t matter — his black gown, binding with briars my joys and desires. He said the Parish Council had brought it to his attention, etc. Oh, he was squirming, he didn’t know where to look. But the upshot of it is, they want us out. Can’t rent the cottage to a German. Catherine signed the rental agreement. Stein, of course. I nearly suggested she call herself Stone, but I didn’t dare, it seems such an insult to ask somebody to change their name. Apparently I’m welcome to stay to the end of the month, but Catherine must go. Of course I’m going with her! And so here we are, suitcases packed, waiting for the cart to take us to the station.

Catherine’s gone very quiet. I rant and rave and stomp up and down, but I know it’s no use, really. I’m still quite shocked. It seems so … I don’t know, un-English.

Anyway, there it is. We’re coming back to London so we shall be able to see each other after all.

I’m sending this to your home address though I suppose you may have already have left by now. Oh dear, what a muddle it all is. I can’t wait to see you, now more than ever. Elinor.

Sixteen

The last thing Paul had expected to feel was nostalgia, but as he stood in the entrance to the Domino Room, taking in the crimson velvet, the gilt, the flickering candles, the caryatids, the cupids, the whole grandiose, but cosy, feel of the place, he did feel a ripple of affection. So many evenings spent here, most of them with Teresa. He waited for the pang of regret, but it didn’t come. If anything he felt relived.

Finding an empty table, he sat down, looking around, trying to work out what had changed. There was an edginess about the place now: excitement, and fear. Not fear of disfigurement or death — most of the people in this room were at no risk of either — no, fear of being irrelevant. He looked from table to table, recognizing famous and not-so-famous faces, and what he sensed was a toxic mixture of excitement and paralysis. Though he only recognized it here because to a certain extent he’d felt exactly that himself, before he’d made himself start working again.

Neville was the first person to speak to him. ‘Hello,’ he said, coming over and shaking hands warmly, laying his free hand on Paul’s shoulder in that domineering way of his. ‘Elinor says you’ve been ill. You all right now?’

‘Fine. You?’

‘Oh you know, toddling on.’

He was looking round the room as he spoke. Paul suspected he was searching for more important people to talk to, but he showed no inclination to move on.

‘What’ll you have?’

‘Whisky please.’

Neville gave the order. ‘I suppose you’re up for the Red Cross interview?’

‘Tomorrow morning.’

‘You’ll be all right.’

‘When do you leave?’

‘Two, three weeks.’ He seized his whisky from the waiter’s tray. ‘Did you try to enlist?’

‘They wouldn’t have me. What about you?’

‘Went to see my own medical man. He told me not to waste my time. Anyway, the sooner I get started the better.’

‘Driving an ambulance?’

‘Painting, you fool.’

‘Will you be close to the fighting?’

‘As close as I can get.’ He was not so much drinking as throwing it back. ‘My father’s been out there twice already. He went to one hospital where there were five hundred men lying on straw, covered in piss and shit — some of them hadn’t had their wounds dressed in a fortnight. No anaesthetics, no disinfectant, nothing. Whole place stank of gangrene. As far as I can make out the medical services have been completely overwhelmed.’

‘And that’s what you’re going to paint?’

‘I’ll paint whatever’s there.’

‘You really do see it as a painting opportunity, don’t you?’

‘Too bloody right I do.’

Paul caught a movement by the door. Elinor had come in, and, just behind her, Catherine. The girls hesitated, gazing nervously round the room. Elinor smiled when she saw Paul waving and came over at once, with none of the pauses to greet people that he remembered from the past. He leaned forward to embrace her. Her cheek was cool, even in this heat, and her scent reminded him of fresh linen sheets.

She kissed him then held him at arm’s length.

‘You’ve lost a lot of weight.’

‘A stone and a half.

‘You were thin to start with.’

‘I’m careful about cracks in the pavement.’

Catherine shook hands, first with him, then with Neville. She was pale and wearing a black dress that drained her complexion of the little colour it had. Neville hadn’t spoken to Elinor, but now, at the last moment, he bowed and smiled.

‘I called at your lodgings this afternoon,’ Paul said to Elinor. ‘But you were out.’

‘I thought you were still in the country,’ Neville said, almost simultaneously.

Catherine answered. ‘No, the Parish Council didn’t like the idea of having a Church cottage rented by a German.’

‘A German —?’ For a moment Neville looked puzzled. ‘Oh, yes, of course, I’m sorry, I forgot. And they threw you out because of that? But that’s outrageous.’

‘Well, they did,’ Elinor said. ‘And they didn’t even offer to refund the rent.’

‘Why don’t you complain to the Bishop?’

‘Because it wouldn’t do any good.’

‘You can’t let them get away with it.’

She shook her head. ‘Catherine’s got enough on her plate without that. I don’t think you want the battle, do you, Cath?’

‘Not that particular one.’ She turned to Neville whose anger on her behalf, however misdirected, had obviously touched her. ‘You see, we may have to move house and if we do I’ve got to be there to help my parents, so I’m afraid painting in country cottages is a thing of the past.’

‘Why do you have to move?’ Neville said. He was becoming more truculent by the minute.

‘We live on the coast. Right on the front, in fact — the sea’s about two hundred yards away — and people think we’re signalling to German ships. It’s ridiculous, but that’s what they think.’ She tried a smile, but it wouldn’t stay on her mouth. ‘If we close the living-room curtains that’s a signal. Open them, that’s a signal. Flowers in the window: signal. And as for switching on a lamp … Well!’

‘But that’s insane.’

‘Oh, we’re the lucky ones. A family we know — they’re not even German, they’re Polish — had bricks thrown through the windows.’

Neville was breathing noisily, a dragon working up a head of steam. ‘Should you move? I mean, shouldn’t you stay and face it out?’

‘My father’s lived there thirty years and last week …’ She was fighting back the tears. ‘Last week somebody spat at him in the street.’

‘So, you see,’ Elinor said, ‘not being allowed to rent the cottage doesn’t matter very much.’

Neville was leaning towards Catherine. ‘Do you have people you can stay with?’

‘My mother’s sister. I’m staying with her at he moment.’

Nobody came near them, though Neville and Elinor must have known everybody in the room. They were in quarantine, it seemed. Neville was aware of it, Paul could see that — he had that blue, dancing, truculent light in his eyes — he’d found a cause, and sooner or later everybody in this room would pay for ignoring Catherine tonight. Oh, he was a champion grudge-bearer was Neville, but he was also on this occasion — and how distressing it was to admit it — right.

One way and another it was a relief when Elinor suggested they should leave.

‘Good idea,’ said Neville, jumping up. ‘It’s boring in here tonight.’

It was raining, no more than a light drizzle but enough to make them decide to take a cab. Paul went to summon one, leaving Neville and the two girls standing in the shelter of the doorway. He’d just attracted a cabby’s attention and was turning to call the others when an incident took place. A young man, rather foppishly dressed, carrying a silver-topped cane, stumbled against Catherine as he was leaving and knocked her to one side. It might have been an accident, but his grin suggested otherwise. Neville spun round and head-butted him in the face. Blood spouted from the young man’s nostrils and splashed on his shirt-front.

Paul ran back to join Neville, whose fists were clenched in front of him. One of the young man’s companions grabbed his arm and pulled him back. The other bent and picked up his cane. By this time the doorman and several waiters had appeared, obviously determined not to have a fight in the entrance. Gradually, with muttered threats of future reprisals, the young man allowed himself to be dragged away.

In silence, they walked to the cab. Catherine was white and seemed to be on the verge of tears. Elinor had an arm round her shoulder. Paul was stunned, less by Neville’s anger, which he thought was fully justified, than by the sheer backroom-brawl brutality of that head-butt. He wouldn’t have believed Neville had that in him.

They got into the cab. Gradually Neville’s breathing returned to normal. None of the others could think of anything to say. Paul looked across at him — he was still shaking with anger, but exhilarated too, you could see it in his eyes. He was like that all the time underneath.

The cabby was waiting for instructions.

‘Café Eiffel Tower?’ Elinor said.

Catherine shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I just want to go home. You go.’

‘Why don’t you and Tarrant go?’ Neville said. ‘I’ll see Catherine home.’

‘All right,’ said Paul, snatching the chance of time alone with Elinor, though amazed it had been offered. He shook hands with Neville. ‘Shall I see you again before you go?’

‘Give me a ring tomorrow. We’ll fix something up.’

Paul got out and handed Elinor down.

‘Well,’ said Elinor, as the cab drove away.

‘He’s found a cause.’

‘Hasn’t he just? You know, he’s always going on about his parents and their campaigning and how neglected he felt because of it, but my goodness the block chipped. Blocks.’

‘He likes Catherine.’

‘I hope he does.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I hope she’s not just a cause.’

‘You don’t mind him going off with her like that?’

‘Good heavens, no. Lets me off the hook.’

‘Is it over? Between you and him?’

It seemed obvious that it was, but he needed to have it spelled out.

‘It was never on.’ She walked a little further. ‘Did you see how he enjoyed hitting that man?’

‘He deserved it.’

‘But Nev head-butted him.’

‘No, it wasn’t exactly Queensberry Rules, was it?’

‘You see, you’re laughing. You’re as bad as he is.’

‘I think that fellow deserved everything he got.’

They were drifting aimlessly along. After a while she took his arm and that pleased him.

‘Are we going to the Eiffel Tower?’ he said.

‘No, I’ve had enough of people for one night. Let’s just walk.’

London at night was more obviously changed than London by day. The lamps had been painted blue and cast a ghastly glow on to the faces of passers-by. The darkened streets directed your attention to the sky, where searchlinghts stroked the underbelly of the clouds. All around was that burnt, used-up smell of late summer in the city.

‘I hate August,’ Paul said.

‘Well, this August isn’t much fun.’

‘No, I’ve never liked it. My mother died in August.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

He smiled. ‘It was a long time ago.’

Silence for a hundred yards or so. Then Elinor said, ‘What time’s your interview?’

‘Ten-thirty.’

‘Neville seems to think they’ll jump at you.’

‘It’s not fighting, but it’s the best I can do.’

‘The best you could do is stay here and paint.’

‘Not an option. We can all go back to painting when it’s over. Except Neville. Do you know, he told me he’s going out there to paint?’

‘I admire him, actually’ she said. ‘He’s the only person I know who kept going. Everybody else sat round and talked. Including me, I’m sorry to say.’ She glanced sidelong at him. ‘I suppose you’ve been too ill to do anything?’

‘No, I did a bit.’

‘And are you pleased with it?’

Oh, that artist’s question, both wanting and dreading to hear that another artist’s work is going well.

‘I am, quite.’

‘Oh, good.’

This was the longest walk he’d done for quite a while, and he was pleased at the way his chest was holding up. It helped that the air was warm and slightly moist. They strolled on, leaning against each other now. The conversation flowed, but it was the conversation of friends and he wanted to change that. He needed to tell Elinor how he felt about her, even if it caused her to withdraw, and it probably would. Teresa had vanished almost without trace. Little remained of her now except a voice saying, ‘You don’t love me. If you love anybody, you love Elinor, and you only love her because you know she won’t have you.’ In his memory, even that remark had been pruned. ‘You don’t love me. You love Elinor.’ That was what he remembered her saying because that was what he wished she’d said.

‘Shall we have a walk round?’ he said, as they were passing Russell Square.

‘I thought we were walking? Miles.’

‘Let’s sit down, then.’

Further in under the darkness of the trees he slipped his arm around her waist. He could feel the rise and fall of her breath. Their footsteps rang out on the path with that hollow sound of night-time in the city. Veering to one side, he steered her on to the grass. Now there was only the rustling of leaves under their feet, the sharp smell of soil and decay. The searchlights were clearer now, sweeping from side to side above their heads.

‘Neville’s painted them, you know. The searchlights.’

Bugger Neville. ‘I bet he has.’

Before she could speak again he covered her mouth with his own. He could see hands, frozen in the air. At last, with a sigh, she let them settle on his shoulders. He stood with his back to a tree, holding her close, wanting to laugh and shout with triumph, simply because she hadn’t pushed him away. Everything was possible now. He whispered in her ear, ‘I love you.’

She was looking up at him. He saw the searchlights in her eyes, and pulled her deeper into the shade. He started to kiss her neck, then her throat, his hand closed around her breast and then she was pushing him away. Breathing deeply, eyes closed, he heard a creaking sound. He looked up thinking it must be a bough, but although the tree was in constant motion in the upper branches, the sound seemed to be coming from further away.

‘What is that?’

‘I don’t know.’

Taking her hand, he led her towards it. Far from them being alone, as he’d thought at first, he realized the square was full of couples, entwined together in the shadows of the trees or stretched out full length on the ground. One couple were making love. As he walked past he glimpsed an elastic garter, a stocking top and a bulging white thigh.

The sound came from near the centre of the square. He could see what was causing it: a line of cylindrical black shapes suspended from a metal frame, swaying in the wind and causing the ropes they were suspended from to creak. Elinor walked up to them and he followed.

‘What are they?’ he asked.

He caught the glint of her teeth as she smiled.

‘It’s the Kaiser.’

She turned one of the bags round to face him and he saw that a ferociously glaring mask had been pinned to the cloth. They were just straw-filled sacks, used for bayonet practice, weighted so they wouldn’t move too easily. Pale gold straw bled from rents in the material.

‘I watched them practising the other day. They’re supposed to yell when they stick it in.’ She pulled a face. ‘Apparently nobody dies unless you yell.’

She went along the line, setting them all in motion, one by one. The snarling faces jiggled and turned.

He felt the evening start to slip away from him. As she turned, he tried to kiss her again, but his kiss landed on her ear. ‘Can we go to your lodgings?’

Her hands had come up to form a barrier. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Can I see you tomorrow, then?’

‘Yes, that would be nice.’

He relaxed. She wasn’t rejecting him. She just needed time. He guessed that glimpse of the girl with her skirt around her waist had frightened her as much as it had aroused him.

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Anywhere,’ she said. ‘As long as it’s not the Café Royal.’

They laughed, and their laughter restored a kind of normality. Turning their backs on the straw men dangling from their gibbet, they began to walk towards Gower Street.

His hand settled on her waist. Till now he’d intended to stay in London only till the day after tomorrow, but now he thought he’d stay longer, make it a full week.

A lot could happen in a week.