Noonday

THIRTY-TWO

1 November 1940

A plane crashed here last week, on a hill about two miles outside the village. It’s still there, the wreckage, they haven’t started clearing it away. The fuselage is mottled black and gray, like one of those city moths, and there’s ribbon tape all round it. Children wait till dark then slip under the tape, scavenge whatever they can find to take into school and show around the playground. Mrs. Murchison, whom I met this morning in the post office — I think she’s quite lonely now with Rachel and the family away; she must be lonely if she stops and speaks to me — says one of the little horrors turned up at school with the pilot’s thumb in his gym bag. “That’s lads for you!” And then suddenly we were thinking of Kenny, and a silence fell.

A lowering sky today, scrawls of black cloud, wind rattling dry leaves around. I worked all morning and well into the afternoon. In London, the afternoons are always a dead time, but not here. Here — apart from walks and pauses to chop up vegetables for yet another nourishing stew — I work all day. Around about six, my eyes start burning with tiredness, and then it’s blackout time, nothing to do but light the fire and settle down with a book, only I can’t concentrate, I’m listening all the time for the nightly drone, for the window frames to start bumping, knowing all the time that any one of those bumps could be the end of somebody I love. I mean Paul, of course. Always Paul.

So why? That’s the question I keep tiptoeing round. Because he betrayed me. And it was a betrayal. That girl, so young, so unmarked by life. Oh, and the one before too, the art student. People told me about her, and I’d feel my mouth twist into a little, wry, sophisticated smile — a sort of oh-well-you-know smile — which seemed to get stuck on my face for hours, getting heavier all the time until my cheeks sagged. That’s why my periods went haywire. It was nothing to do with “the tears of a disappointed womb”—it was the strain of pretending, even to myself, that I didn’t mind. When, in reality, I minded so much I wanted to scream.

So, yes, that’s why.

Though it still leaves another question: Why Kit? Why him, of all people? Because he’s the person who’d hurt Paul most? But that only makes sense if I tell Paul. Because Kit loved me when I was young and I want those years back? Sweep two world wars away? Oh, yes, why not? Easy: just jump into bed with your childhood sweetheart. We-ell, not childhood exactly, though we were very young. And not sweethearts either, not really, though he certainly wanted us to be. His head lying in my lap on that country lane all those years ago. The weight of it, the warmth. The way when he tried to get up he deliberately brushed the back of his head against my breasts and I wanted to laugh. I still do. Smile, anyway.

When he looks at me, Kit sees me. Or he sees that girl — and perhaps that’s the same thing, or I want it to be. Paul doesn’t. I don’t think Paul’s seen me for years.

2 November 1940

Today I walked miles along the riverbank. The painting, the one of the little girl on the pavement, is finished. At least, I think it’s finished. I need to get right away, then go back and look at it with fresh eyes.

A blustery day, sunny spells, but mixed in with frequent heavy showers, one or two real downpours. Rooks whirling about above the bare elms like the scraps of burnt paper that drift down from London’s incinerated offices.

I was trudging along, looking at my feet, thinking about the painting, my fingers still feeling the imprint of the brush, smelling of paint, probably daubed with it as well, but it hardly matters; I meet nobody on these walks. And then I glanced up and noticed a curious seething movement in the grass on the other side of a long field. I couldn’t make out what it was: some reflection of the clouds, I thought at first, but then I realized the river was coming to meet me. It had burst its banks and flooded the low ground. I don’t know what I felt — a kind of exhilaration, I suppose. It was so beautiful: fractured reflections of clouds dissolving and re-forming as the water advanced. And all at once a great spray-burst of seagulls wheeling about and settling on the water.

Now it’s evening — every joint aches — but the painting is finished. And it’s good — I’m almost sure it’s good. Kenneth Clark’s probably going to hate it. Bad for morale. Though, actually, if one of his aims is to persuade people to send their children to safety — or leave them there — you could hardly imagine a painting better calculated to get the message across. No message, though. I don’t do messages. Anyway, it’s done — and I’m not going to spend the rest of the evening double-guessing what Clark might say.

It’s blowing a gale outside. The windows thump and for once it’s not a raid; the glass streams. I’m going to make carrot soup and light a fire.

3 November 1940

As I expected, I’m paying for that walk. I sat on the side of the bed this morning feeling like an old woman, bracing myself for the trip across the landing to the bathroom. I’m so stiff I can hardly move. Actually, though, it’s quite a relief to have physical pain to contend with. Takes your mind off the other sort.

Because last night, too tired to read, I got Paul’s envelopes out, intending to spend a pleasant, nostalgic hour sorting through old photographs. I thought I’d buy an album and stick them in. Oh, quite a cosy little evening I had planned! What I didn’t know was that the envelopes contain letters as well as snaps. And the first letter to fall out was the one Toby wrote to me a day or two before he was killed.

It was a shock, seeing that familiar handwriting again after so many years. Neat, regular, forward-slanting…You looked at Toby’s handwriting and your first thought was: how easy it would be to read. Only when you looked more closely did you realize it was virtually indecipherable. A bit like Toby himself.

I started reading automatically, before I had time to prepare myself. And there he was, instantly, his voice, as clear and strong as if he’d been standing beside me in the room.

Elinor — I’ve had two goes at this already, so this is it, has to be, because we’re moving forward soon and there’ll be no time for writing after that. There’s no way of saying this without sounding melodramatic, and I really don’t think I am. In fact, I feel rather down-to-earth and matter-of-fact about it all. I don’t think I would even mind very much, except I know it’s going to be a shock to you — and I can’t think of any way of softening the blow.

I won’t be coming back this time. This isn’t a premonition or anything like that. I can’t even explain why. I used to think officers’ letters weren’t censored, but they are sometimes, not by the people here, but back at base. They do random checks or something, and I can’t afford to risk that. I hate not being able to tell you. If you ever want to know more, I suggest you ask your friend Kit Neville — assuming he survives, and I’m sure he will. He’s been no friend to me. I know you’ll take care of Mother as best you can. Father’ll be all right, I think — he’s got his work. And Rachel’s got Tim and the boys. I don’t know what to say to you. Remember

How easy it is to feel superior to the dead: we know so much more than they did. I didn’t look after Mother. Father wasn’t all right — he died of a heart attack in the back of a taxi on his way to work less than two years after Toby’s death. He never even looked like “getting over it”—whatever that means.

Toby’s last letter. Unfinished, not signed. Never sent. It survived only by accident because there was a hole in his tunic pocket and it had slipped through into the lining. And the sentence about Kit had been crossed out. As Paul said at the time: a crossed-out sentence in a letter never finished, never signed, never sent. What possible significance can you attach to that? But I did attach significance to it. And I was right.

But there’s no point going over all that now. Now, the only word that matters is: “Remember.”

But I didn’t remember. If I’d remembered, I could never have gone to bed with Kit. I talk about Paul betraying me and use it to justify a far worse betrayal. Because it wasn’t Paul I betrayed — I don’t owe Paul any more loyalty than he’s shown me, and God knows, that’s been little enough — no, it was Toby I betrayed.

I look at his photograph, the one of him in uniform when he first joined up. It’s the one Featherstone used to do that awful portrait. He’s young, so much younger than I am now, but it’s not an unformed face, not by any means. There’s great strength there, great determination, but no trust. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more guarded expression. I miss him.

Kit. I can’t say, as Paul said about that girl — Sandra, whatever her name was — that it wasn’t important. That it didn’t matter. It was important. It does matter. But it can’t go on. And I’ve no idea what I’m going to say to him. I do know one thing: I don’t want to rake over the past, or try to explain why it’s impossible. We’d only start arguing about things that can’t be helped.

No. I think by far the easiest thing — well, easiest for me, and I hope for him — is just to let it slide. Not get in touch and — Well, I’d like to say: not see him again; but of course there’s no hope of that. There’ll be times when we’re working the same shift, however hard I try to avoid it. I’ll just have to be — cool, I suppose. And after all I might be imagining a problem where there isn’t one. I mean, for all I know, he’s regretting it every bit as much as me.

London again, tomorrow. So I suppose I’ll soon know.