Small Wars (25 page)
Moira closed the front door after him, waited a moment with her hand resting on it, and then went back into the drawing room.
Clara, her head bowed, was absorbed in cutting out shapes – or pretending to be. George was standing by the window, looking out.
‘Clara,’ said Moira, and sat down near her. ‘Darling?’
Clara didn’t look up. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said.
‘Is he all right, do you think?’ said Moira, very gently.
There was a pause. Clara said tightly, ‘I’ve no idea.’
Hal had walked in only partial darkness. A low yellow moon hung over the fields, showing him straight streaked clouds near to it and the dark-cut shapes of trees below.
His civilian shoes weren’t good for walking, but he wasn’t tired and he covered the miles easily.
Morning came, with a grey sky and drizzle that was surprisingly drenching – he had no coat – but he welcomed the feel of it on his face, having been used to the very hot sun.
He passed through villages, or walked round them, clear in his direction, cutting through fields where the long grass soaked his trousers and birds flew up suddenly from the high hedges and banks as they heard him.
Every hour or so he thought he would stop, get to a station for a train or find a lift with somebody, but the walking became a peaceful compulsion and he found he couldn’t stop. He didn’t want to stop to have to climb over fences, or find his way across streams as he came to them. He found it hard to stop at all.
At first he noticed the landscape around him because it was emerging from night, and to find his way, but as the walking took him over he was caught up in the fever of it and his sight became feverish too. The ground was heavy and infinite below his feet, the fields circled and ringed him under the sky. Wet grass, thick hedges, clouded dark branches of far woods and clear frames of near ones – whole valleys opened up to him. The country lay around him. Some fields seemed so small, as if he could put them into his hand. Then, close up, the reddish tangle of twigs deep in the hedges as he passed them were as vast as universes, with perfect symmetry that he could almost unravel, if only he had the calculation to do it. The sun, far behind the deep cloud, moved its vague light through the day. He saw the leaves of brambles, all different, yellowing, with brown speckles or tattered edges and tiny holes left by small fat caterpillars, and strung between with spider’s webs that trembled as he watched. He saw small broken blackberries that had been scorned by birds. He saw wet red foxes slipping into secret woods beneath the big darkening sky. He felt the rain on himself and his own curious heat. His breath was regular, reliable, he was not tired, he was not lost, he would not stop, not, except, almost, when – on reaching the brow of a hill, coming out of thin black trees, with ferns wetly tangling his legs – he saw below him the barracks. There: the long buildings, the parade square, and far away, the town, threading through the valley.
The downhill was quick, a matter of moments, a numb gliding flight above the ground; the field, the fence, the metal road, the gate and stop. Then. Stop. Stop. Stop.
The sentry guard had seen him come down the long hill and walk around the perimeter until he reached the road.
He’d had two roll-ups while he watched him; it had taken that long. The man was wearing a shirt, which was wet through, and his face was burned brown by the sun, like a wog, with mud all over his trouser legs and his hands filthy too. But he spoke like a gentleman and had a proper haircut, so the sentry guard called him ‘sir’.
‘Come from where, sir?’
‘Woburton.’
‘In Buckinghamshire?’
‘Yes.’
‘But that’s thirty-odd miles away.’
‘Yes.’
‘Wait here.’
The sentry guard wasn’t about to let him just wander in, posh or not. They’d sent someone down for him.
There were guards in the corridor outside the office. The captain regarded him across the desk, frowning. ‘Have you had any lunch?’
‘No.’
‘Breakfast?’
‘No, I told you. I’ve come –’
‘Yes, yes. Thank you. Just a moment. Wait here.’
The captain left the room. Hal, still walking in his mind, had his eyes on the horizon.
The door opened again.
‘Why don’t you come and get cleaned up?’ said the captain.
After Hal had washed his hands the captain took him to the officers’ dining room, which was empty. He sat at a long darkly polished trestle table, like a school table, and was given tinned tomato soup and white bread. The captain, a slight man with a moustache, sat opposite, watching, and didn’t speak to him.
‘Thank you,’ said Hal, when he had finished.
The door opened. Another man, a major, came into the room. ‘Ah, there you are, Harris,’ he said.
‘Sir.’
The major turned to Hal. ‘We haven’t met. Charles West. It’s very quiet around here, Treherne,’ he said, ‘because they’re nearly all on their way to where you’ve just run off from.’
He was put into a small single room to wait. At exactly half past five Captain Harris opened the door. Behind him there was a man in a brown suit. The suit was soft, but he had military bearing. ‘Hal Treherne,’ he said. ‘You’ve led us a merry dance. My name is Jameson. Like the whisky. Major (Retired) Peter Jameson.’
Hal stood up. ‘How d’you do,’ he said, and they shook hands.
‘Glad you’ve come back. Walk all the way from Woburton, did you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I expect you’ll need a drink, then. Not a bad place just up the road. You might know it.’
‘All right.’
The pub had dark beams and a dog sleeping by a gas fire. The small corner bar was curved and there was nobody there, but, even so, Jameson, having bought two whisky macs, gestured to a table in the far corner. The room was gloomy and, away from the glowing fire, cold, too.
‘Shall we?’
He allowed Hal to go first, then sat opposite him and took out a gold lighter, laying it by the heavy cut-glass ashtray on the table and crossing his legs. He eyed Hal astutely. ‘I live over in Chippenham,’ he said. ‘I went all the way to Woburton to find you this morning.’
‘Sorry about that.’
Jameson lifted his drink and sniffed it. ‘Just the thing for a wet day,’ he said. He took a sip and reached into his inside pocket. ‘Cigarette?’ He held out a case.
Hal refused, with a minute shake of his head, watching him.
‘You’ve had a rotten time of it, I hear,’ said Jameson, lighting a cigarette for himself.
‘No worse than lots of people,’ said Hal.
Jameson examined the gold lighter, squinting through the smoke, then laid it down. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. I’m not going to dig it all up. I’m sure you’d rather I didn’t, but I can tell you, when they told me what happened to your wife – well…It was in the papers here. I’m most terribly sorry.’
‘I’m not cracking up, if that’s what you think.’
It was amusing to Jameson that they all said that, the ones who were and the ones who weren’t. There was a silence.
Two men came into the pub, glanced in their direction and away again to order their drinks. They had old tweed jackets and drinkers’ faces. The dog heaved to its feet on shaking, ancient limbs and stretched, yawning. It lay down again.
‘I never said you were cracking up, old chap. Although can you tell me what you
are
doing?’
‘I had to leave.’
‘All right. But why?’
No answer.
‘Let’s look at it this way, Hal. Why don’t you tell me what happened? At RAF Nicosia.’
‘All right,’ said Hal, levelly. ‘I went along to put them on the plane. Clara and the girls. I was going on to Episkopi.’
‘Yes?’
‘I saw them there all right, and then, when it came to it –’
He stopped, as if he were facing a wall.
‘Couldn’t leave your wife? Your family? It must have been terrible.’
Silence.
‘Still, I should think you’re utterly appalled at yourself, just disappearing like that.’
Hal frowned. ‘I can’t seem to get used to it,’ he said.
‘Yes. It’s all wrong, isn’t it? Not the sort of thing you do at all, is it?’
‘No.’
‘The thing is,’ said Jameson, steadily, ‘it’s all so easy to resolve.’ He smiled. ‘You’re not “cracking up” you say?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Had a sudden rash impulse, then? Acted on it?’
A pause then Hal said, ‘I suppose…’
Jameson pressed on: ‘The army take a pretty dim view of unauthorised absence – for God’s sake, I don’t need to tell you. You’re not some private, off on a weekend bender. But this is different. This is understandable. But only up to a point, old man. If you regret what happened,
truly
regret it…It can’t be overlooked, what you’ve done, it can’t be undone, but, look, we know your record, we can see this is entirely out of character.’ He leaned forward. ‘I don’t need to remind you of the demands being placed on us at the moment. We’re stretched to the limits. It’s all hotting up out there. It needn’t harm your career in the long term. Just one unfortunate episode. We can have you back with your unit, doing your job, within twenty-four hours.’
Jameson crushed out his cigarette, screwing it down onto the hard glass. Still hunched forwards, he fixed Hal with a look and smiled. ‘How would that be?’ he said. ‘How would that be, Hal?’
And Hal answered him: ‘No,’ he said.
Outside in the muddy road the wind blew the leaves round their feet.
‘It’s a great shame,’ said Jameson, despising him now and ready to go home. ‘This is going to get a lot more complicated from here on in.’
‘What happens now?’
Jameson was putting on his gloves. ‘I don’t know. Out of my hands, certainly. I need to speak to your HQ. They’ll take it from there. I’ll drive you back up to the barracks. You’ll be under guard. The longer you leave it, the worse it will be for you, I’m afraid.’
‘Yes, I see.’
A few dozen recruits and the headquarters personnel were the only other occupants of the barracks, apart from Hal. As Major West had pointed out, most of the regiment’s attention was focused on the eastern Mediterranean. Far away, the Israeli Army were on Egypt’s borders, ready to invade, and RAF bases in Cyprus were so overflowing with British and French troops that Malta was used to take the strain. Soldiers were moved from one place to another with the slow scrambling haste that characterises the transportation of great numbers. War was imminent; lines were drawn on maps – thousands will be taken from here to here to begin the bombardment here – while the logistics of kit, rations and coupons, of feeding those thousands in floating canteens, finding them beds and boots, was the overriding experience. Communications were sent by telephone, radio, wire; orders were given and drawn up, mapped out and circulated from Nicosia to Port Said, from London to Malta, and Paris to Israel. Communications were made about Hal, too. The rapidly rising organised chaos of Suez, Hal’s rank, recent history, his background, his record, all coloured the circumstances of his punishment. There were a number of players in the game of deciding his future; the stakes were high and precariously balanced.
Hal, in the officers’ quarters of his home barracks, heard the company sergeant major bark his instructions, his voice bouncing off the walls and echoing, and the marching feet on the stones obeying him. He walked up and down as he listened, marking the passing hours with remembered routine.
Clara could not drive. That is, she knew how to drive, but she had been told by the doctor that she was not allowed to, not for several more weeks. Her father drove her to the barracks while Moira stayed at home with Lottie and Meg. Her parents had tried to stop her going. ‘I’m all right. I went on an aeroplane, didn’t I?’
Clara dressed carefully, like a soldier preparing for battle. She wore an olive green wool suit, with a brooch that had been her grandmother’s and a cream silk blouse. She put her red lipstick on in two coats, blotting with tissue and powder on the first layer, so that it would be matte and not wear away. She had to leave the back button of the skirt undone, because the waistband rubbed where the dressing covered her stitches. The bandage had been changed that morning. Underneath it she had seen the red, raised scar. She was grateful for the protection of the dressing, and the silk blouse, tucked in, felt smooth between her skirt and the bare skin round it.
Her father drove her to the entrance of the barracks then stopped by the wide verge. Clara looked across at him. He smiled at her. His eyes met hers steadily.
‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘I’m sure it will be all right.’
He squeezed her hand. He was wearing driving gloves and she thin leather ones, so she couldn’t really feel his warmth.
Clara passed the sentry post and walked towards the main building in the wet air, her heels tapping on the stones. She could hear shots, far distant, echoing, and rooks flying up from the woods in alarm.
She waited in the billiard room of the officers’ mess, where at one end there were two sofas facing one another and a small coal fire. She watched the door, listening for Hal, and caught sight of herself in the mirror above the mantelpiece, white and frightened, the lipstick livid against her pallor.
The door opened. He came in.
The sight of him – a wave of relief: she hadn’t expected to feel so much love so quickly. She was disarmed for a moment. He was different. No, he was the same. He stepped towards her, frowned; he was shy – and something else. He didn’t look full at her.
‘Are you all right?’ he said, and put his hands into his pockets.
‘Yes, of course.’
He came further into the room. He was agitated, too active. ‘Sit down. They’re bringing tea for you,’ he said. He glanced out of the window. ‘Who brought you?’
‘My father. He’s gone to the pub, I think.’
‘No good waiting in the car.’
‘No.’
They looked at each other. A piece of coal slipped down amongst the other coals.
‘Please sit down,’ he said, not abruptly like before but really asking her to.
She sat. He seemed undecided, glancing around again, then came over to her and sat too, on the other end of the sofa.
‘You’re under guard,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘I thought you had leave,’ she carried on, just to say something. ‘I had no idea. I wasn’t very – I didn’t really have any idea what was happening. When they phoned I –’
He took her hand suddenly with both his and she stopped talking. He looked at her hand, holding each side of it lightly. He kept staring at it. He pushed her diamond ring, fiddling with it with one finger, familiar as his own hand, as foreign as it could have been to him.
‘I’m not sure what to do,’ he said.
Clara felt the cut in her stomach burn dully, tugging at her. She hadn’t taken the pills she had been given that morning because they made her feel sick and dizzy, but realised she felt it anyway and now had pain, too. ‘It’s all right.’
‘I have to apologise,’ he said, ‘I have ruined everything.’
‘You couldn’t have known. And I’m all right.’
He looked up at her.
The door opened – Hal let go of Clara – a soldier came in, a stooped ancient corporal, with a tea-tray. ‘Madam,’ he said, and placed it with shaking hands on the table between them.
Hal was tapping the heel of his shoe very fast on the floor in tiny movements.
Clara felt a hard, hot strain in her throat. The corporal went away and closed the door. She stared at her knees, examined the green wool, the stitches in the hem. She said carefully, ‘Please don’t blame yourself, Hal.’
‘If I hadn’t –’
‘You can go back to Cyprus.’
‘No.’
‘I’ll be much better soon.’
‘I know that –’
‘Would you like us to join you?’
‘Join me?’
‘At Christmas, perhaps?’
‘Clara – I can’t.’
‘I don’t understand. How can you not go back?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘They’ll court-martial you.’
‘I know.’
‘Because of me?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Hal? Because of me?’
Hal was struggling to articulate. ‘I can’t –’
She, gently, ‘Try.’
His words came out of him painfully. ‘I just can’t carry on with it.’
‘Hal?’
‘I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry.’
‘Please, don’t –’
He put his head into his hands.
Clara waited. She looked around the room. Thin steam rose from the spout of the teapot; she could see the grains of vapour in the cold air. The curtains hung still against the yellow walls. The ceiling was white with plaster moulding, like a wedding cake. The room was still and clear, and she felt clarity, too.
It was as if she could see their lives from above, stretching out behind them – the children, houses they had lived in, the travelling, the love and recent cruelties, strange beds and familiar ones, suppers, homecomings, all leading to this room. And then – after this – carrying on. The worst had happened to her. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t frightened. She felt quite strong.
She said, ‘We were nearly two months apart this time, weren’t we? That’s longer than usual. You know how low I had been feeling. I was terribly upset at first that we’d quarrelled. And I’m sorry I didn’t write to you.’
He lifted his head slightly, listening to her. She went on, ‘Even with everything that’s happened, I’m so happy to be home, and to see my family. And being in England. Isn’t it lovely seeing the leaves? I think, don’t you, that with time, and if we just – explain to everybody, how things have been, you’ll feel better. I’m feeling better already. We needn’t blame one another. Or ourselves. It’s your job, it’s everything to you. You should go back to Episkopi, and settle down again, and –’
‘I can’t, Clara.’
She was interrupted. She felt her confidence slipping. ‘But then…what will happen?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What will happen to me and the girls?’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You’re sorry?’
‘I have to clear things up.’
‘Yes. And go back!’
‘No.’
‘They’ll lock you up! For what? Why? What about me? What about the consequence?’
There was a long silence. Clara stood up, slowly. ‘I have to go.’
He didn’t raise his head.
