All the Beauty of the Sun (11 page)

Soon she did have the hang of pulling pints and taking money and giving change, doing the small additions and subtractions in her head. She had begun to think that there was actually nothing to it when there was a sudden commotion, drinkers moving back in surprise as one of their number fell to the floor, the glass he'd been holding smashing beside him, beer spreading and foaming around the shards. At once, moving from behind the bar with practised agility, Fred was crouching beside the man's body and feeling for a pulse.

Everyone gathered around. Susie had snorted. ‘Typical. Why do they have to come in here to drop dead?'

‘For God's sake woman, show some charity.' Looking around, Fred's gaze came to rest on a man Ann hadn't noticed before that moment, and an expression that was something like relief mixed with apprehension crossed his face. ‘Father,' he said, ‘would you come over here?'

‘Father!' Matthew had said much later. ‘I shall always be Father to Fred, no matter that he's twenty years on me. I shall start calling him
son,
see how he likes that.'

But that evening Matthew had only edged his way through from the back of the little crowd and knelt beside the man's body, careless of the broken glass, not seeming to mind the spilled beer, closing the startled eyes and saying words so softly and intently that no one could hear.

Later, after the body had been taken away, the drinkers shooed out and the doors closed and bolted, Susie said to her, ‘Come through. I think we deserve a shot of brandy in our tea tonight.'

In the living room at the back of the pub, Fred and the Father had turned to them. The quiet argument they seemed to be having stopped abruptly.

To Matthew, Fred had said, ‘This is Ann. She's come to work for us.' To her he said, ‘This is my cousin, Ann. He's called Matthew and whatever you do don't call him anything else but Matthew. Isn't that right, Matthew – or how about just Matt? Nice and informal, Matt.'

Matthew had stepped towards her, holding out his hand. ‘Ann. How do you do?'

Almost at the pub, dawdling now, she remembered the feel of Matthew's hard, calloused hand in hers, and how she had thought that a priest's hands should be softer and that their expressions should be softer, too, not angry and impatient, as though he could hardly wait to leave. But he had stayed when Fred offered him a drink and the four of them had sat round the coal fire that Susie, with surprising meekness, had set about lighting.

Matthew drank the whisky Fred gave him and then stood up to go. Fred stood up, too, saying, ‘Would you walk the girl home, Matthew? It's late – you don't know who could be out so late.'

Immediately she had protested but Matthew had said impatiently, ‘Don't argue with the man. It's pointless.'

Outside the pub he'd said, ‘Which way?'

‘You don't have to walk me home.'

‘And what would Fred say if they found you in the morning with your throat cut?'

She'd had to run to keep up with him. Breathlessly she said, ‘Slow down. I've been on my feet all night.'

He had slowed his pace. After a while he'd said, ‘I'd say from your accent that you're from Belfast?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why did you leave?'

‘Same reason everyone leaves.'

‘Which is?'

‘The lure of London's bright lights.'

He glanced at her, smiling for the first time. Looking around him at the dark, grimy street he said, ‘They are quite dazzling, aren't they? Especially tonight.'

‘Who would have thought life could be so exciting.'

‘Who indeed?'

They had walked on, and after a little while she'd said, ‘They won't find me with my throat cut – really, you don't have to see me to my door.'

‘It happens that this is the right direction for me.' Quickly he added, ‘And I shouldn't have said that – it's a nasty image, especially after what happened tonight.'

‘Did you know the man who died?'

‘Yes.' After a moment he'd said, ‘He was one of my congregation. His name was Peter O'Connor. He had ten living children. Ten. He would boast to me about his ten children. I had to be very impressed, of course.' He had stopped at the corner of the street. ‘Which way now?'

Matthew would come in the pub often after that night last winter, taking time to talk to her, often walking her home. It was always so cold, their breath hanging on the air, merging. She would pull her scarf high around her face in preparation for stepping out of the pub's warmth so that he would grin when he saw her.
All set?
he'd ask; he always asked this, waiting at the bar as Fred counted out the night's takings from the till. He always said goodnight to Fred, Fred always held up his hand in a half salute – lips too busy mouthing his sums to answer. Matt always smiled at her then, and then always offered her his arm. All set. Weren't there murders on the street? Men who would cut your throat for fun? But she was on the arm of Major Matthew Purcell who had won a medal for bravery: Fred had told her this. He had told her this as though he was justifying something to himself and to Susie, who had only said
Watch your step, madam
, as she would have expected Susie to say.

He'd walk her home and she would hold on to his arm tightly because the pavements sparkled with ice; close to him, in step with him, he wasn't so much taller, but stocky, compact, she could feel the strength in the tenseness of his arm as she leaned on him too heavily, afraid of falling in her wrong shoes. Walking home and he talked; he always talked, telling her about his life before the war, his father Pip who was a gamekeeper, who took him out to shoot grouse on the Yorkshire moors, that beautiful land, rugged and desolate, then soft and beautiful, a tapestry in a certain light. Pip the gamekeeper, short for Phillip, odd to have a father called Pip, he said, a child's name, after all. Things became confusing when Pip called his son Father; he'd smiled at her then – a mild smile, a mild joke.

She wondered why he had left the church, why he had given up on the respect, all those men and women and children calling him Father, bowing heads to him, deferring to him, believing him wise. She thought of the priests who came to call at home, her father saying Father too often, her father wanting the priest gone, wanting to be father himself again in his own home.

But Matthew had left the church during the war. From the church to the army – one institution to the other, he'd said. He didn't speak of the war, or his medal that Fred had boasted about. He only told her of the explosion that sent him flying off his feet –
I could feel myself lifted – lifted, extraordinary, like flying
– to land on his head, his helmet gone and his skull cracked.
Never the same since.
That look again, that smile. Perhaps you end up in love without much noticing that you were heading in that direction, as you might suddenly come across the glittering sea after a walk down a green, shaded lane. Unexpected, exciting, such a thrill when you suddenly realise it, when it's there in front of you suddenly, suddenly when he stops and takes your hand and pulls you into his arms so that your bodies collide, powerful and urgent, hard and strong, fast as the sea to drown you.

Outside the pub now, she hesitated before going in because it seemed to her that her face would give too much away – she knew how thinking of Matthew changed her, made her soft-looking and vulnerable. Susie would eye her speculatively, and Fred would look guilty, as he often did around her now, as though he knew, as though he realised he should have warned her, properly warned her; as though he should have told Matthew to keep away. So she made herself think of Edmund, and that creature he had left her for, drawing on her anger to make her hard again; this would work, for a time, although her anger had abated a little – Edmund was becoming nothing more than a boy she once knew; her thoughts would return to Matthew soon enough. She drew breath and pushed open the pub door.

Chapter Twelve

L
AWRENCE
H
AWKER HAD MADE
him coffee – decent, proper coffee. It cooled in a blue and gold bone china cup on Hawker's desk, beside it a matching plate on to which Hawker had spilled arrowroot biscuits from a tin. Snapping one of these biscuits in half Hawker dunked it in his own coffee to which he'd added a slug of the Scotch that Paul had refused. Frowning at the bitten-off biscuit, Hawker said, ‘I acquired a taste for these during the war – odd because they're fairly dull. We were sent a whole bloody crate of them once. I seem to remember one of the chap's uncles had a biscuit factory …' His frown deepened. ‘Christ – sounds like I made that up, doesn't it? An old war story with which to entertain …' He grinned at him. ‘Drink your coffee. Have a biscuit. For God's sake, relax. You're my star turn, can't have you flaking out.'

Paul realised he was sitting on the edge of his seat; reaching for his coffee, he sat back and the cup rattled in its fine saucer. Lawrence caught his eye and looked away again. Rather too cheerily, he said, ‘Do you miss foreign climes?'

‘No. Yes, sometimes …' He sipped his coffee, aware of the other man watching him as though he wondered how likely he was to
flake out
. He supposed he looked nervous: jumpy, fey probably, through lack of sleep, through an excess of guilt and worry. He took another sip of the coffee, hoping it would buck him up, hoping that this man was not just remorselessly business-like but someone he could like. He felt that they would have got on all right during the war, as he had got on with other men like Lawrence Hawker: straight and easy going, jolly-good-show men. But that was unfair; it was obvious Hawker wasn't that kind of fool.

Lawrence lit a cigarette and pushed the box over to him. He took one gratefully. Blowing smoke down his nose, Lawrence leaned back even further in his chair, tilting on its back legs. ‘So. What are you working on at the moment?'

Paul thought of his studio at home, the canvases turned to the wall, all his paintbrushes cleaned, all neat and tidy for his return. He had closed the shutters and the trapped air would become staler because Patrick wouldn't even open the door on this tidiness; he never intruded, never asked the impertinent question that Hawker had just asked. And if Patrick did ask – he never would, thank God, but
if
he did, he would answer, ‘Nothing! For Christ's sake, why don't you just leave it? It's all
nothing
, all right?' No. He wouldn't say that, not even to Pat.

Hawker frowned at him. ‘Are you quite all right?'

‘Sorry.' He exhaled. ‘I'm thinking about a series of portraits.'

‘Oh?' Hawker looked encouraged.

‘Some of the traders in the market close to where we live.'

‘Oh.' He looked less encouraged. He tapped his fingers against his mouth thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps not very decorative … Still, neither is a bombed landscape...' He frowned at him. ‘Would they sit for you, those people? It's against their religion, isn't it? Or rather you are –
you're
against their religion.'

Paul thought of Matthew, shouting biblical verses at him on that terrible walk back to the hospital. His rant filled his head still, skewering his thoughts, his actions, until it seemed that everything he touched, everything he laid eyes on was made wrong by him, even Edmund. Since he'd returned from visiting Matthew he couldn't look at Edmund without knowing he had debauched him. He had begun to feel as though he had ruined the boy's life. But hadn't his own life been ruined? Why shouldn't he do some ruining? He flicked cigarette ash into the ashtray on Hawker's desk. The man smiled at him as though he hadn't been insolent at all.

Lawrence got up and went to the barred window. ‘You know, I've rather been thinking that perhaps I could do something out here – make more of it in some way. It's very sheltered, gets all the sun – obviously not as much as you get back in Tangiers. I feel obsessed with the sun at the moment, too much winter. If I whitewashed the walls … Perhaps if I put a glass roof on it … In the summer it could be an extension of the gallery – it's such a small space, I need more space …' He turned to grin at him. ‘More of your work, if you'll let me have it. Paint what you must, of course, you will anyway.'

Paul got up and stood beside him. The window looked out on to a yard. An elder bush grew in a corner, soon to blossom into the lacy white flowers that would turn into clots of black berries, weighing the branches down. Dandelions grew from the cracks in the paving stones; along the top of the walls someone had concreted shards of broken glass – green, brown, clear – a random, striking effect, like the upright quills of an exotic bird. He could see the yard would trap the sun; the imprisoned sun would make the glass glint and the window's metal bars would send their shadows across the walls of this little room as the day wore on. At once he was back in his prison cell, a space that captured the noon sun like this. Sundays at noon he would lie on his bunk and watch the sun make shadows of the bars; Sunday afternoons and he would have time to crouch in the shell hole beside Jenkins, cradling his body in his arms, ineffectually wiping the blood from his face; he should have closed Jenkins' eyes,
that's
what he should have done. Lying in his cell he'd imagine slapping his palm to his forehead in exasperation at the obviousness of this revelation because exasperation made him feel as though he could lose himself in a harmless, meandering derangement. But there was too much comfort in such behaviour, he needed to be harder on himself and be truthful; he needed to remember his spite and lack of patience and pity, his childish, wanton rage at Jenkins, who was a coward, a cry baby, but still he shouldn't have killed him. And truly he shouldn't think of Jenkins as anything other than a fellow officer, scared as he was scared, because this was the truth and it wasn't enough to be able to watch the shadows like this, safe in a sunny cell; there should be some harsher retribution.

Paul sat down. His legs were trembling; he clasped his hands together to disguise their shaking, proper shaking now, not just the ordinary tremor Lawrence had noticed earlier, but the proper shaking memories of Jenkins. Aware that Lawrence was watching him intently, he made himself look up.

‘All right?' Lawrence's voice was sharp with impatience.

‘Yes. Sorry.'

‘Do you need to put your head between your knees or something?'

‘I'm fine.'

‘Perhaps you should try harder to get a decent night's sleep.' Lawrence sat down and his tone was even more abrupt as he said, ‘May I give you a piece of advice? That boy, Edmund. If you've dipped your wick that's fine, I really don't care what you do. But he's a leech – and Christ –' he laughed shortly ‘ – you do look as though he's bled you.'

Paul stood up to go. ‘Thank you for the advice.'

‘Oh sit down. Bugger for Britain, I don't care, but he's indiscreet and foolish.' He snorted. ‘You people really are led by your dicks, aren't you?'

Paul sat down. ‘I'm sorry – I thought you were pretending not to care. But now I'm not sure of the ground. Do you still want my work or is who I fuck too much of an obstacle?'

‘I don't care. I thought I should warn you, that's all. The police throw out their nets occasionally.' Becoming more animated he went on, ‘All right, listen – just so you're
sure of your ground –
I'm not good at coping around men like you, and by
men like you
I mean the shaking, the sudden … I don't know – starts? And if you are going to throw yourself under the desk and cover your head with your arms I can't help feeling that I might dive under there with you from sheer funk. You make me nervous. There you are. This honestly has nothing to do with the other thing.
Who you fuck.
' He glanced away as though the profanity embarrassed him. Clearing his throat he said, ‘Not much, anyway, if we're being frank. And I'm sorry but I've really made an effort to put the war in a box, if you understand me, and I can't help thinking that you could too, if you tried … Sorry.' He attempted to laugh. ‘Stiff upper lip, and all that. It's not all bollocks, you know, what they taught us.'

Paul felt his fingers go to his eye and he stopped himself. He had an idea that he should sit on his hands. His face began to twitch. He cleared his throat. ‘You're right, of course. I do understand you.'

‘Do you? Because sometimes I think I'm being an arsehole. That I'm being too harsh, you know? And I know you lost your eye – that must have been bloody hell …' He groaned. ‘Jesus. From biscuits to this. What a pair we are.' Lawrence stood up. ‘Come on, I'll buy you a drink.'

Lawrence was laughing, hardly able to get the words out, saying, ‘… and this corporal, little face all serious as sin, says
I'm very sorry, sir, I just cannot bring myself to eat it.
' Lawrence wiped the tears from his eyes, laughing so much that he fell against him. ‘
Just cannot bring myself
! He was vegetarian or something …' He frowned at him with a drunk's exaggerated concern. ‘Do you hate my guts?'

‘No.'

‘I don't hate queers, you know.'

‘No. I understand.'

‘You're very understanding.' He seemed to become aware of how he was slumped against his shoulder because he made an effort to sit up straight. ‘I do hate
some
queers, but not because they're queer. Well, I don't know … Maybe that is the reason … Some of you buggers … Not you … I suppose there are types … Types who wouldn't get past the recruiting sergeant … Am I making sense?'

‘Yes.'

‘Have you stopped shaking?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good man! Keep buggering on, eh?' He began to laugh again. ‘Well, no perhaps not in your case, what?'

‘
What
?' Paul laughed at this affectation.

‘I know. Horrible, isn't it? But then, you're a prim little lower-middle-class boy with a grammar-school accent, so don't let's start on all that.' He downed his Scotch and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Another?'

Paul got up and went to the bar. He was more or less sober – one drink to Lawrence's two, pacing himself, wanting to be in control. Lawrence barely noticed that he wasn't matching him drink for drink. He drank a lot and often, Paul guessed, his way of buggering on, his war not held in
a box
but drowned in a bottle.

The barmaid came out from the snug, wiping her hands on her apron, calling over her shoulder, ‘Oh, yes? That'll be the day!' not looking at him as she said, ‘Yes, sir, what can I get you?'

Paul had the cowardly idea that he might simply turn and walk out. Ann still hadn't seen him, she was looking past him to Lawrence, he saw how her expression softened; and then she turned to him and at once she was the hard-faced barmaid again.

‘Yes?'

‘A Scotch, please.'

‘Single or double?'

‘Single, thank you.'

‘Anything else? To
drink
, I mean.'

The landlord came over. ‘Everything all right, sir?'

‘Yes, thank you.'

‘Could I have a word, when you've finished serving the gentleman, Ann?'

When he'd gone she said, ‘You've got me into trouble now.'

‘I don't think so, do you?'

Lawrence came over; he slapped Paul on the back and then draped his arm over his shoulder, leaning on him. ‘Hello, Ann, darling girl. This is Paul whom you've met. You're being very slow with the drinks, old man. Or is it you, Ann? Are you the slow one?'

She turned to Paul. ‘You shouldn't have let him get so drunk.'

‘Did you let me, Paul?' He frowned. ‘Christ. Were you meant to stop me?'

Ann said, ‘Go home, Lawrence, you've had enough.'

‘No.'

‘Yes. We don't serve drunks.'

‘Yes you do. Anyway, you're not serving me, you're serving him, and he is mysteriously sober.'

The landlord came back. ‘Hello, Lawrence. Maybe you should think about getting on your way now.' To Paul he said, ‘Maybe you could see him home, sir.'

‘No! I think it's appalling that you're all ganging up on me. Fred – am I not your best customer?'

Paul took his arm. ‘We should go.'

The fresh air seemed to sober him a little. Outside the pub, Lawrence lit a cigarette, passing the open packet to him. Cupping a match to Paul's cigarette, he said, ‘I don't need a chaperone. Go back in there. Tell Ann you are very sorry that you took off with her sweetheart. Her
lover
. She's quite a girl – she might even say not to worry –
not to worry because he's a bloody bleeder and you're very, very welcome to him.
' He met his eye. ‘I am actually very grateful to you. I know I warned you off but it would be a relief if you took him away somewhere. Back to Tangiers, perhaps? He'd make a charming pet.'

‘Lawrence –'

Passionately Lawrence blurted, ‘I can't stand that she's with him as well as me.' He frowned at him. ‘My God. Now you look shocked. Are you shocked? I thought queers were unshockable, but look at you – you're shocked.' He laughed. ‘Oh, you
are
a little provincial, for all your airs. Or is it just the thought of cunt? Never mind. Won't get into that again … I'm going home. I think you should go and apologise to Ann. It was very ungallant, what you did to her.'

Ungallant; Paul thought so himself, of course. He had felt guilty about the girl, even when he was sitting next to her in that restaurant; he had known even then he would have Edmund.

Have him. To have and to hold. He thought of the fifty years Edmund had talked of. From this day forward. In fifty years, he would be seventy-eight; he would be dead. 'Til death do us part. He thought of Edmund dressing, knotting his tie in front of the mirror in the hotel room, smoothing back his hair with both hands, catching his reflected eye, smiling. No one smiled at him like that. ‘You're always smiling,' he'd said.