Wake: A Novel (17 page)

“All right, Mum?” Ellie peers into the dusk. “Ada? Hello! You all right? I was just at Sal’s. Thought I’d pop by to see how you’re getting on.”

“We were just having a cuppa.”

“You need a bit more light in here.”

“I should be going.” Ada stands.

“Don’t go on account of me.” Ellie looks from one to the other of them.

Ada rustles up a smile. “I’ve got to get the dinner on anyway. Jack’ll be back soon.”

Ellie nods, losing interest, and wanders over to the stove, showing the baby the syrup bubbling in the pan. “What’s this then, Johnny, eh? What’s this?”

“Ivy,” Ada says. “Please. Just give me her address.”

“I’ve told you.” Ivy’s voice is low, warning. “It was four years ago, anyway. A lot can happen in four years.”

“I know that. I just—”

Ivy leaves her side. She goes over to stand with her daughter and grandson at the stove. “Ada’s going, John,” she says to the little boy. “Say ta-ta.”

Ellie looks up. “Granny says say good-bye to Ada.” She lifts the arm of her son, who submits, gurgling, his mouth stretched wide, his cheeks bright red in the warmth of the stove, as she waggles his arm up and down. “Ta-ta, Ada. Johnny, say ta-ta.”

Two British undertakers walk through the winding, vaulted corridors of the château, their footsteps echoing on the flagged floors.

Their names are Mr. Sowerbutts and Mr. Noades. They arrived in France yesterday, on the evening boat train. In the pocket of his suit, Mr. Sowerbutts carries a letter of introduction from Sir Lionel Earle, permanent secretary of His Majesty’s Office of Works. Six British soldiers follow them, carrying the heavy, empty coffin that the undertakers have brought with them from London. The coffin has been hewn from an oak tree that grew at Hampton Court Palace. Messrs. Sowerbutts and Noades oversaw the construction themselves. It took two weeks, in which the oak was finished, planed, sanded, and polished to the undertakers’ exacting standards. Iron girders were strapped around the wood, and rings were riveted to the girders. A Crusader’s sword, given by the king, was grafted onto the lid, and the following was inscribed there in Gothic script:

At the threshold of the chapel, Mr. Sowerbutts and Mr. Noades pause. They stare in astonishment at the floor, strewn as it is with curling flowers and leaves. The colors are extraordinary. There is something faintly disturbing, faintly pagan almost, about the scene.

The French guards salute, their boots ricocheting like a fusillade as they leave.

Mr. Noades gestures to the British soldiers behind him to set the oak coffin down. Mr. Sowerbutts grips the bag that he has brought with him from England. He eyes the plain wooden coffin waiting for them in the center of the room.

The two men were told that they might ask for anything they needed for this day’s work, but they are perfectionists. They consider themselves, with good reason, the very best; they prefer to work with their own tools.

They have been told nothing of where exactly this body has come from, nothing of how long it has been in the earth. They know only that it has been taken from the fields of northern France. They are curious. They know that the fields there are made from thick, muddy clay. But how high was the clay content? How wet was the soil?

Mr. Noades joins his colleague on the other side of the plain wooden coffin.

“Ready?”

He nods. There’s a pause, and then the two men unscrew the lid and lift it.

A close, musty smell escapes from the box. Not particularly unpleasant. Well past putrefaction and decay. The body is still inside the burlap sack it was wrapped in two days before. Mr. Noades takes his shearing scissors and cuts open the material from bottom to top. Both men lean forward, breath held.

Inside is a small, hunched skeleton. Small remnants of skin cling to the bones of its skull. There is a patch up near the right cheek. It looks like parchment. Another covers the chin, and a tiny bit more remains on the scalp. Muddied khaki still adheres in places to the bones; the jacket is fairly intact, though most of the trousers is missing, except around the groin, where the skeleton appears to have been bent over itself in the ground.

Five years, thinks Mr. Sowerbutts.

Four and a half, thinks Mr. Noades. Depending, of course, on the wetness of the soil.

Autumn 1915, thinks Mr. Sowerbutts.

Spring 1916, thinks Mr. Noades.

Gently, they lift the remains of the man in the sack and arrange them in the oak coffin. They can do very little in the way of traditional preparation. They simply spread the bones with care, so that the skeleton is lying on its back, arms by its sides.

The men carry out their work silently.

Soon, these men know, the whole of the country will have their eyes on this coffin. The very power of this coffin will depend upon every person that looks on it imagining that the body inside belongs to them.

It is strange, even approximately, to know when this man fell.

And though they have been desperately curious, all the way here, there is something diminishing, somehow, about deciding on a year, about pinning this down.

Nevertheless, as they work, each of them crosses off men they knew who served: one who was taller than this, or one who died later than this one in the war.

When the body is ready, the undertakers seal the heavy lid.

Without saying anything, each knows they will not speak of this—not of the sight of this body, ever, to anyone. No matter who may ask.

Evelyn doesn’t look up from her desk until the last man has been dealt with. Then she sits back in her chair and stretches. Five o’clock.

Robin is standing over by his desk, buckling up his bag with his back to her. “Shall I lock up?” He speaks quietly, without turning around.

“If you would. I just have to finish something off here.”

She takes the round of keys from her bag and puts them on the edge of her desk. She doesn’t look up as he crosses the room toward her, but she sees his hand reach in and lift them, the fine light hairs on the tops of his fingers. While his back is turned, she rifles through the papers on her desk. She cannot find what she is looking for—must have filed it yesterday.

“Well, good-bye, then.” He is standing beside her.

“Wait.” Evelyn looks up. “Listen, Robin, I’m most dreadfully sorry for leaving you like that this afternoon.”

“It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not. It was my lunch. It overran.”

“Lunch with your brother?”

“Yes.”

His eyes flicker to her jersey. She remembers that she has changed—is wearing different clothes—and feels the blood race to her cheeks. There’s no way of making this seem better than it looks. She will only be digging herself a deeper hole.

“Here.” He holds out the keys in his palm. “For you.”

She puts them on the desk. “Wait, Robin.” For some reason she doesn’t want to be left here on her own tonight, not even for a minute or two. “Would you wait, just for one moment, please?”

“If you like.” He sounds surprised.

“I won’t be long, I promise.” She goes over to the ranged boxes on the wall, following them down until she reaches the letter
H
and then searching through the drawer until she finds what she is looking for: a small green slip with Rowan Hind’s name at the top. She copies his address into her notebook,
11 Grafton St. … Poplar,
then looks up. Robin’s tall silhouette is over by the window, hands in his pockets, staring out. Rain falls from a stooped gray sky. It is almost dark already. Evelyn feels the same strange beginnings of panic she felt a moment earlier; Doreen will most likely be out again, and she will be going home to an empty flat. “Ready,” she says, after a moment.

He still has his back toward her, looking out the windows.

“That rain looks foul.”

“Yes,” he says. “It does.”

“I’m not sure I’m up to braving it just yet.” She gives a small laugh. “I might make a cup of tea.”

“Fine.” He nods. “See you tomorrow, then.” He makes to go.

“Would you care to join me?”

He halts beside her desk. “For the tea?”

“Yes.”

“Er, no, thank you. I don’t much go in for consolation prizes.”

“Oh, God. I didn’t mean it like—” She stands up too quickly and her head is pounding. Her drunkenness of earlier on has shrunk to a thick, tight band across her scalp. “Actually”—she shakes her head, pressing her fingers against the desk—“I’m not going to have a cup of tea at all. I’m going to go for a proper drink. How about that instead?”

He starts to speak, but then she raises her hand.

“You know what? Don’t bother. Do what you like. I’m sorry that I asked.”

She puts on her coat and gathers her things. But Robin hasn’t moved. When she looks up at him he is smiling—a strange sort of smile she hasn’t seen before. “Actually,” he says, “I was going to say that a proper drink is just what I feel I need.”

The pub is on the corner, a few doors down from the office: one of those brown-hued workingmen’s pubs where women are rarely seen. Usually she would avoid it, but it’s raining hard, and she has no idea how far Robin can easily walk.

Inside it’s fairly quiet, just a few men, drinking on their own, hunkered down over their pints. She makes sure that she is the first to reach the bar. “I’ll have a gin and orange please, and…” She turns to Robin.

“A pint should do it,” he says, giving a brief nod to the barman.

“Gin and orange and a pint then, please.”

Robin looks across to the rain-spattered windows. “Filthy day.”

The memory of herself, half-naked, drunk, and standing by a window floods Evelyn. “Yes,” she says, drumming her fingers against the wood of the bar. “It is.”

The barman puts their drinks down, and Robin reaches into his pocket.

“No!” She puts her hand on his sleeve, and then pulls it immediately away. “I mean, let me. I wanted to make it up to you, for this afternoon.”

His eyebrows shoot up, but he half-steps away from the bar and opens his hands in mock defeat.

“Got a live one there,” says the barman to Robin, who smiles. Evelyn takes out her purse and pays with a stony glare. They turn with their drinks, and stand, awkward. Which table? Over in the corner is too intimate, by the door too drafty. She makes for an empty table in the middle of a row, slipping into the seat on the side closest to the wall. As Robin settles himself into the chair in front of her, she sees that his leg sticks out slightly: out and to the side.

I often go along to dances in the evening.

How the hell does he manage then, with that leg?

“So,” she says.

“So.” He looks at her. And there is something different in it. Challenging. It’s the same look that he gave her in the office before.

“Was it dreadful, then?” She sips her drink.

“I’m sorry?” He looks momentarily confused.

“This afternoon.”

“Oh, no, it was fine. Though I should probably pretend it wasn’t.” He smiles, lifting his glass. “This is interesting. I’ve never had a woman buy me a drink before.”

She raises an eyebrow as she lights her cigarette. “I’m sure it tastes the same.”

He makes a great show of holding the liquid to the light. He takes an exploratory sip. “Yes,” he says. “Everything seems to be in order.”

Despite herself, she smiles. She can feel the gin from her own drink hit her blood, and the band around her head eases a merciful notch.

“Listen, I don’t suppose I could have one of those, could I?” He points to her cigarettes.

“Thought you didn’t smoke.”

“Just sometimes, when I’m having a drink. Used to smoke like a chimney, like the rest of you, but I got a bit of poison, you know, bit of gas in the lungs.”

She pushes them across the table toward him.

He lights up, takes a small puff, and then puts the cigarette down in the ashtray, where it plumes blue smoke into the silence between them.

“So,” she says, eventually, “how are you finding the job?”

“How am I finding the job?” He sits back in his chair. “Well…it’s…many things.” He turns his glass in his hands. “Harder than I thought, in some ways; simpler in others. Mainly I’m just happy to be in employment. It’s not the easiest with—this.” He gestures to his leg.