Wake: A Novel (21 page)

The little girl scans the horizon.

She knows they are waiting for a ship—a ship that has a soldier on it. But they have been up here forever already and there has been no sign.

Then, at the blurry line where the sea meets the sky, she sees something. The little girl squints. Looks away. Looks again. It is definitely there: a dark shape in the fog. “Daddy,” she says, excitedly, kicking her heels against her father’s chest. “Look!”

Her father straightens up and gives a low cry. A murmur moves through the crowd; the girl stretches to watch as it ripples through the people below.

Now lights appear—ship’s lights—and then…a ship, many ships, a large, dark ship and six smaller ones on either side. Below, her older sisters jump up and down, clamoring to be lifted so they can see, too. But her father ignores them, and she stays up there on her father’s shoulders as the ships come closer, her heart beating a frantic rhythm on her chest. He pats her on the shins. “Good girl,” he murmurs. “Good girl.” And she could just about burst with pride, because she was the first, she was the first one to see.

Poplar is even farther than Evelyn thought.

She left the office at half past twelve; she hasn’t had any lunch and it’s already nearly two. She’s sitting on the bottom of the omnibus, squeezed in between the window and a large, damp-smelling woman; and the whole bus is crammed full of people, in the aisles, standing all the way up the stairs. She rubs her sleeve against the glass and peers out but recognizes nothing; she traveled into uncharted territory hours ago.

The scars of war are more obvious out here: entire houses missing in the middle of terraces, the gaps given over to tumbled rubble and wild grass. Earlier, the bus stopped by a half-ruined house and she could see into the upstairs bedroom, see the red-flowered wallpaper that the last unlucky occupants chose, weather-faded now, streaked with water and rust. When the bus lurched on again she was glad; it seemed too sad a thing, too intimate to be seen.

The conductor passes, and she leans over the woman and touches his sleeve. “Excuse me?”

“Yes, miss?”

“I’m looking for Poplar High Street.… Are we nearly there?”

“Next stop.”

She leans back in her seat. Poplar. It sounds so bucolic; Pissarro was the one who painted poplars, wasn’t he? There was a letter that Fraser sent her, an early one, describing a route march that he had taken.

Just like something out of Pissarro, a long, straight road with poplars on either side. You could never have imagined what was going on twenty miles north.

“Excuse me.” She squeezes past the woman beside her and, as the bus starts to slow, jumps off the back. The cold air is welcome after the packed, fetid bus. To her left is a straggling row of down-at-the-heels shops and costermongers, several of them with black-clad queues of women alongside who eye her as she passes by. The barrows are half-full of unpromising-looking vegetables: graying potatoes, carrots, gritty turnips, and swedes. From her right, on the other side of the road, comes the clank and trundle of distant, heavy machinery, and across roofs and scrubland she can see the tilting cranes of the docks.

She heads along a wide main street in which rubbish and dead leaves fill the gutters. On either side of the road a few bored-looking men sit sprawled on benches, smoking. She avoids their gaze—knows the look, sees it every day, the stare of unemployment, of anger and apathy: a combustible mix. Farther up the hill she passes two cafés with a steady stream of dockers pouring out of each. A couple of the men turn their heads and shout halfheartedly after her. She puts her head down and pulls her collar up.

Grafton Street is two streets farther on: two rows of low terraces facing each other across a narrow strip of earth. There are no pavements and no trees, only a tangled knot of children whose noisy, scrappy game has full possession of the road. She looks for numbers on the doors, but sees none. When she turns, having covered the houses on one side, she sees the children have left off whatever they were playing and are standing, staring her way. Some of them are older than she first thought; they look to be all ages, from toddlers to nine or ten.

“Excuse me.” She takes a couple of steps closer to them, cursing her accent. “I’m looking for the Hinds. I know they live at number eleven, but I’m not sure from which end I’m supposed to count.”

The knot of children contracts like a dirty brown sea anemone and a small girl is given a push from behind. Despite the cold, she’s not wearing any shoes. She crosses the dirt with small, wary steps toward where Evelyn stands.

“Number eleven?” Evelyn holds out the paper and points to the numerals.

The girl stares blankly at it.

“Hind?” She bends so that her face is close to the girl’s. “Rowan Hind?”

“That’s my dad,” the girl whispers, and flinches away; and then she is gone, running, a pale streak disappearing around the back of the terrace.

Damn.
Evelyn straightens up. She should have said something to reassure the kid; she must have thought her father was in trouble and ran back to warn him. He’ll probably hide—probably never come out now.

The rest of the children are still staring at her, as watchful as cats. She has the sudden, silly impulse to do something stupid, to pull a face or do a dance on the spot. But she does neither. Instead she folds the piece of paper, puts it back in her bag, and walks slowly away, toward the sounds of the distant docks. As she walks, she racks her brain. She could knock on doors, asking for the Hinds, but then that would only arouse more suspicion. Who knows what type of person they think she is? Someone come to cause trouble, no doubt.

And wouldn’t they be right?

She shakes her head. Damn. Damn.
Damn.

A door to one of the terraces opens to her right. A pretty woman stands framed within it. Evelyn can just make out the little girl hiding behind her skirts.

“Mrs. Hind?”

The woman is pregnant, close to her time, and tired. Pale eyes. Thin, fair hair tied loosely at her neck.

“Who wants to know?”

Evelyn crosses to her door, holding out her hand with a confidence she doesn’t feel. “My name’s Evelyn Montfort. I—work in a pensions office in Camden Town.” She tries a smile but feels it fall to the ground somewhere between their feet. “Your husband came to see me, two days ago. He was looking for help. I said that I couldn’t help him. But now I—find that I can.”

The woman is silent. Behind her Evelyn can see an uncarpeted hallway and the little girl, staring out.

“Is he there? Is he at home?”

The woman shakes her head. “He’s at work.”

“I see.”

“He’s a salesman,” she says, with a pale hint of pride. “Door-to-door.”

She nods. “Of course. It was silly of me to come so early.”

The woman’s eyes dart over Evelyn’s face. “Is he in trouble? He’s not in any trouble, is he?”

“He’s not in trouble, no,” she says softly, coming closer to the door. “Look. I realize that this must seem very strange, me coming out here like this, but I would very much like to talk to your husband. Do you think you could tell me what time he finishes work?”

“Four.” The woman narrows her eyes. “There or thereabouts.”

“Then if it’s all right, I’ll come back at four?”

There’s a silence.

“Mrs. Hind?”

The woman nods, briefly, and goes to shut the door.

When she reaches the end of the road, Evelyn turns, expecting to see the children still watching, but their fleeting interest has passed. They have knitted inward, and are playing again whatever noisy game they were playing before.

Two hours after it weighed anchor, the ship begins to move. It leaves the destroyers behind and starts to steam slowly to the eastern entrance of Dover Port, skirting the high, reared cliffs.

A young naval officer stands at the stern of the ship. The coffin is in front of him, covered with wreaths, with more wreaths piled high around it. The young officer had to help carry those wreaths aboard. Some of them took four men to lift. He wonders if it is a peculiarly French thing. They seem to go in for their flowers, all right.

He stands, legs spread, arms held behind his back. He can see the massed crowds, now, clustered deep around the port. High up on the cliffs, faces are fixed on the ship. On the ramparts of the castle, he can see the cannons readying to fire.

The cannon fire echoes and booms around the still harbor, causing the water to lift in tiny, shivering waves. A nineteen-gun salute. A field marshal’s welcome.

After the guns comes silence. An astonishing silence, clean and bare. Then the ship’s horn sounds briefly, once, and the young man moves to man his rope.

Hettie turns over in bed.

Rock-a-bye your baby

With a Dixie melody

The music is coming from somewhere nearby. Someone is singing along underneath. For a moment, in the darkness, she wonders if it is her brother, thinking hazily that Fred must have gone and bought himself a gramophone, but when she stretches her leg out, something feels immediately wrong, since the bed she is in is enormous. Then she sits up, hugging her arms around her, breathing hard. She is still wearing Di’s dress; its sequins have pressed themselves into her arm. It comes back to her then in a sort of sick, horrified rush.

It didn’t happen.

None of it. None of it happened in the way she had hoped.

At first—when they came in here, it had seemed as though it would. And when his mouth was on her neck, and they were lying, side by side, it was happening, and she was ready for it—and then—

Then there was space, and air; he had rolled away from her and was lying on the other side of the bed.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice muffled by his hands.

“What?”

“I just—” He started muttering then, just on the edge of hearing, something about losing something, about something being lost. Hettie watched, horrified, until after a moment he stopped and lifted his head. “Stay,” he said. “You can stay here till the tubes start running.”

“No.” She shook her head violently. “I’ll go.”

“Please!” He held his hands out as though to press her down into the bed. “Please just…stay. I want you to stay here. You’ll be safe. I promise. Just—” He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at it. “Just stay.” He moved away from her, over to the door. “You’re safe,” he said again.

Then he turned off the light and shut the door, and she lay there, heart hammering in the dark, wanting to run but unable to move, listening to him walking around, talking to himself outside. After what seemed like hours, he was finally quiet, and then she must have fallen asleep herself, because she doesn’t remember anything more.

The music has stopped now. Hettie slips out of bed, crossing the carpet to where a crack of light comes through the curtains. She pulls them apart, leaning forward, her fingertips pressed against the cold glass. The house she is in is part of a line of cream terraces, and she is high up, on the fifth floor or so. Part of a park, the branches of the trees almost leafless, stretches away up a hill to the right of where she stands. The day is cold-looking, and from the light, which looks to be failing, it must be afternoon, at least. Then she has slept through the day. She has to be at work at half past seven. She has to go home.

She finds the bathroom, uses the lavatory as quietly as she can, then picks up her shoes and pads to the door. She does all of this mechanically and quickly, because if she thinks too much then she might cry.

Behind the door the living room stretches, curtains drawn, the only light a corner lamp. The table is still shoved over to one side, the carpet rolled away. She can see the powder box on the chessboard. The Victrola hisses and scratches in the corner of the room.

Tsss
du
tsss
du
tsss
du.

A large wingback chair is in front of her, and beyond that she can see her coat and hat still draped over the back of the sofa. She sets off toward them.

“Morning.”

She jumps and whirls around; Ed is leaning around the side of the chair, frowning. “I hope you weren’t planning to go without saying good-bye?”

She grips her shoes and shakes her head.

“That’s good.” He nods. “Sleep well?”

She stares at him. He is smiling now, acting as though nothing strange happened last night at all. “I’m—not sure,” she manages. “Why. Did—you?”

He takes his time thinking about her question. His white shirt is untucked and unbuttoned. He has taken his collar off, and the collar and his tie are lying on the floor. There’s a decanter of whiskey on the table beside him and a half-empty glass in his hand. “I’m not sure I’ve slept at all,” he says finally. “Although…I may have nodded off for a minute just then. There was music on, I think. It’s finished now.” He lifts his glass toward her. “Like a drink? I think I might have another now you’re here.” He is speaking very precisely, as though it is an effort for him to do so, but the edges of his words are slurred.

She can feel a twisting in her stomach. She doesn’t want another drink—doesn’t want to be here in this dark room, with this man she cannot read. She is tired and on the edge of tears and wants to go home. “Do you know the time?”

“Time?” He shakes his head. “Don’t bother about
time.
Time’s a useless,
useless
thing.”

A flash of anger passes through her. “I have to be at work soon.”

“All right.” Ed stretches his neck around the wing of his chair. “It’s half past three,” he says, as a clock on a side table whirrs and clicks out the half hour. “Early still,” he says, shaking his glass with a blurry smile. “Come and have a drink.”

“I have to go.” She bends down, pulls on her shoes, and starts to buckle them.

“Whiskey?”

“No, thank you.”

“Vodka?”

She shakes her head, straightening back up.

His face creases in thought. “Tea?”

Silence. The Victrola hisses. They regard each other across the space.

“Tea,” he says decisively. “Just the thing for the afternoon.”