The Edge of the Fall (21 page)

He lay back beside her. She bent her head to his shoulder. ‘Beautiful stars,' he said.

‘Yes. It's very clear.' She closed her eyes. There was a hard, smooth stone just under her thigh.

‘Don't go to sleep!' he said, touching her face. ‘You'll freeze out here. Let's go back.' She heard him stand, pull at her arm. ‘I'll take you back.' She wanted to sleep for ever, but she gathered herself up. He linked his arm through hers.

‘Your hotel will fine you for being late. I'll give you the money.'

They began to walk back through the darkness. ‘Watch your step on the ground,' he said. ‘It's dark.'

She wanted to lean her head on his shoulder.

He cleared his throat. ‘I'm so sorry, Celia. I didn't know. I thought that – in the war – maybe. I didn't think that you were . . .'

She thought she could hear pity in his voice, wanted to push it away. ‘I'm not,' she said. ‘I have had other men. I just forgot what it was like.'

‘Other men?'

‘Two. One after the victory celebrations, took me to a hotel. Then last year I was in a pub with a drink and an officer offered to buy me another. He found a hotel too.' She let the words hang between them in the air, bold lies she had read in newspapers about other people. She wanted to sleep, lie down, feel his warmth. She didn't want to think. It was half true. She'd offered herself to Jonathan Corrigan, in the war, even though he'd turned her down, she'd wanted to go back to his room, be like the other women.

‘They took you to hotels? Celia, you shouldn't let that sort of thing happen.'

‘It was the victory celebrations. Everyone was doing it.' The lie sounded flat and weak.

‘I suppose so. I was working. This way,' he said, as they came up on the road towards the hotels. Now there were a few people here and there, workers going home, three men with their arms around each other, singing in German. ‘Don't do it again, will you, Celia?'

‘No.' I'm with you now, she started to say, then blushed. Now what? Were they supposed to get
married
? If he asked, she supposed she'd have to say yes. ‘Don't tell anyone,' she said, instead.

‘Of course I won't.' He squeezed her arm again. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?'

‘I don't know. Not much.' Lotte would be angry with her, best to keep out of her way.

‘We could go out, maybe. Go for a walk. Spend the day together. I don't have to work.'

‘That sounds nice.' They'd talk about it, then she'd understand it better.

‘Shall I come to the hotel?'

‘Maybe I should meet you outside instead.'

He nodded. ‘I suppose that's better.'

They were nearly at the hotel. ‘Don't come right to the door,' she said. She doubted Heinrich would be there, but even if it was just the hotel men who saw them, they might tell him.

‘I'll see you tomorrow, here,' he said. ‘About eleven or so?'

She nodded. The hotel doors loomed ahead, heavy and locked. ‘Would you wait to see if I get in?'

‘I'll stand here.'

I love you
. She reached up to him and then didn't know what to do. Despite the dark, everything felt so strange, awkward. He clutched her in his arms, held her close. ‘See you tomorrow,' he said. She felt his heartbeat, then turned to run. Tomorrow she'd understand, things would be clear.

She ran up to the door, rang the bell. A big man in a black suit opened the door. ‘I'm in room sixty-five,' she said. ‘I was out.'

‘Name? You'll have to do the late sign-in.' She felt his eye on her rumpled clothes.

‘I lost my family.' He wrote her name down ponderously, said she should come to see the manager in the morning to pay the fee for coming home late. She gathered her muddy skirts around her and set off up the stairs, her heart, her head, all of her, heavy with tiredness.

On the corridor, she pushed open the door. The light was blazing. Heinrich, Lotte and Hilde were sitting on Hilde's bed. Hilde was wearing her nightgown and was wrapped in a blanket, Heinrich and Lotte both wore dressing gowns.

She stood in the doorway and stared at them all. Even her hands were covered in mud, she could see that.

‘Where have you–?' Heinrich began.

‘I got lost.'

Heinrich nodded. ‘Celia, dear,' he said, coming towards her. She blushed at the thought that she might smell of it, what she and Tom had done. She shook her head. ‘I just need to sleep, Uncle. Maybe we can talk tomorrow.' She hoped not. Not really talk.

‘Please, Uncle. Let's sleep.'

He nodded. ‘Of course. We'll talk in the morning.' He shuffled out, smaller, back bent. Lotte was behind him. Celia pulled off her clothes, found her nightgown. ‘I meant it, Hilde,' she said, as she dimmed the light. ‘I don't want to talk.'

THIRTEEN

Baden Baden
,
August 1921

Celia

Next morning, Celia pretended to be asleep while they all trooped down for breakfast. She stayed under the covers, not looking. Hilde came back, said a few words which she didn't answer, adjusted her dress and left again, closing the door. Then Celia jumped out of bed, washed and dressed, combed her hair. She took out her favourite pale blue gown, her favourite from even before the war. Jennie had taken up the hem but still it was too tight, a little out of fashion. But she thought it made her look prettier than any of the new stuff. Tom would like it too – it might make him remember the old times. It was the last gown from the old days that she still had, she'd given away all the others because they didn't fit any more. It was probably too plain for Baden Baden, but she didn't care. Tom thought she was beautiful. She gazed in the mirror. She did look different, she was sure of it. It shone out: I have crossed over to the other side. With Tom. She pulled on her hat and boots and hurried out of the hotel.

He was there, by the tree, as he said he would be. He looked shy and when she saw him, she was flooded with awkwardness too. She held out her hand to him and he bent to kiss it. She blushed even harder.

‘Shall we walk to the park?' She nodded. He didn't put his arm through hers. They walked on together, quietly. The people milled around them. She wanted to talk to him, to ask him the meaning of it all. But she couldn't find the words to start. She'd have to tell Rudolf and Verena they were getting married, if that was what he
wanted. That was what you did, didn't you, after what they'd done? If they did get married, she supposed her parents would want to host the wedding at Stoneythorpe. At the back of her mind, she thought of things she'd read, that actually girls didn't always get married. Not anymore.

‘Did you sleep well?' he asked.

‘Quite well. Thank you.' She'd thought she wouldn't. She'd expected to lie there for hours, mind on fire. Instead, she'd fallen asleep almost as soon as she was in bed.

‘I couldn't sleep.'

‘Oh.' He looked tired now she considered him more closely, his eyes smudged with purple.

They walked on.

She had to say
something
. ‘How is the business?' she finally asked. ‘Are you just selling wood in Germany?'

‘Pretty much.'

They walked on. They passed a group of schoolchildren with sketchbooks – and then, thankfully, Tom began to talk. She gazed at the men and women around her. Were they all the same? Talking to fill the space when what they really wanted to talk about was forgotten, their sentences growing upwards like tree roots, but never breaking through. She said ‘yes' as he talked on about one businessman and his particularly difficult demands.

Only a few years ago, they had told each other everything, both on their horses, galloping through the farmland near Stoneythorpe. They had shared everything. Although, maybe, she thought, he'd say that he'd had to listen, agree with her, do what she wished, because he was her servant. She blushed again, dropped her face to hide it. He didn't notice.

‘Shall we sit?' They sat down on a bench by the other boating lake. She watched couples and families hiring boats and clambering in. She supposed he might suggest they do the same.

‘Where are your family?' he asked.

‘I don't know. Probably sitting in the hotel.'

He stared out at the water.

‘I'm sorry about them.'

‘I know. It's not your fault. How is your mother?'

‘She's fine. She gets tired a lot. Mary's training as a nurse now, as you know. Your family tried to take her into service. What a generous offer.'

‘How is Missy?'

‘She's well too.' He talked on. After a while, he stood up. ‘Let's go for lunch.' She followed him to a restaurant near one of the big hotels. The place was white and light with bright glass windows and large tables covered in clean tablecloths, shining cutlery. Smart men and women sat and talked in low voices. The waiter pulled out her chair and she sat down. Tom picked up the menu. ‘Would you like the crab, Celia? You always like the crab.'

‘Thank you.' She hadn't eaten crab for years, wasn't even sure if she'd like it any more. Under the table, by her foot, was a large brick, holding the table steady. Perhaps everything was the same: grand on the surface but held together with bricks. The vase in front of her was filled with giant lilies, excessively big, their stamens like fingers. There were so many big, false-looking flowers in Baden, horrid things. How stupid she'd been, wearing her favourite pale blue gown, thinking he would like it, that he'd even notice.

The waiter poured them both wine and water. She drank a lot of hers, then again. The wine made her feel better, her thinking clearer. He didn't touch his. She started telling him about Emmeline and the twins, even though he didn't ask.

‘She's feeling tired, says she's never felt so tired. She has a girl come in to help her but that's not much good with twins. But Mr Janus won't have more people. And he's no good because he's always at meetings.'

‘Oh yes. Is he still going to change society?'

‘He wants fair wages for the workers, especially the miners. You know, he said they did all the work and get no benefit now, that the rich got richer through the war.' She drank again.

Tom shrugged. ‘Always been that way. How can you change it?'

‘Well, you're getting richer. That's change.'

‘That's how those miners should do it. Pull themselves up as I
did. I did it myself. No one helped me. People can do it if they try. No point demonstrating and demanding money, sitting around complaining when you don't get it. They should go out and make it happen, like I did.'

She drank again. She didn't know what Mr Janus would say to that. ‘He's out all the time, working on the plans for revolution.'

‘Your sister has to do it alone. Like most women. Like my mother.'

Their food came. He picked up his knife and fork and she watched them flashing in the light. She started on her crab. It tasted cold and slimy. She didn't think she'd ever told him she liked it.

She drank again from her glass. It gave her courage. He wanted to talk about Heinrich, of course he did. She had to encourage him. ‘What's wrong, Tom? You seem so unhappy.'

He looked at her, then down at his place. ‘I'm not unhappy.'

‘Yes, you are. I can see.'

He ate again, then drank heavily from his glass. ‘I can't tell you.'

She put her hand a little closer to his, not on it, though, she was too shy. ‘You can tell me anything. Really you can.' She rested her foot against the brick. He was going to say
I wish I hadn't done that with you. I don't love you. I don't like you
. But at least if he said it, then it would be done and he'd feel free.

‘You don't have to like me, you know,' she said. ‘If that's it.' She felt brave saying the words.

He shook his head. ‘It's not that.'

‘Is it Heinrich? I'm sorry.' She tried and failed to imagine what it must be like not to know your father.

He cleared his throat again. ‘Celia. You've always been so honest with me. About your feelings. Even last night, about the officers in the hotels. And I haven't been honest with you.'

She felt a wash of relief, warm over her heart. ‘You mean when you thought we were brother and sister? That doesn't matter now.'

He shook his head. ‘Other things. Things in the war. I haven't told you.'

She put her hand on his, then. That was it. Of course it was.
Like all of them, France was still with him, rolling through his mind, waking him up at night. ‘You should forget them. Everyone did things they – you know. It was different then.' Men fighting with each other in the back of her van, nurses shouting, Cooper putting a bit of rotten leg on Waterton's seat in the car to make her jump. ‘I know you killed men. You had to.' No story that he told her could be as bad as those she'd heard: men strangling each other in the trenches, throwing rats at each other. You couldn't judge, that was the way, it was a different world and there was no point trying to make it connect with this world, this place full of expensive dresses and ice creams and false perfumed flowers.