Wake: A Novel (22 page)

He pushes himself up out of his chair, and makes his unsteady way over to a door, on the other side of which is a small kitchen. “Come on,” he says, turning to her at the door. “Come and keep me company.”

And there is something in the way he says it, something so helpless suddenly, that she relents and follows him, standing in the door while he fills the kettle, hugging herself against the cold.

He doesn’t open the blind, just puts a little electric light on and roots through tins, opening them and smelling them. It’s as though he’s never made a cup of tea in his life. After a moment he straightens up and turns to her, seeming to read her thoughts. “I usually have help,” he says, “with things like this.”

“Oh. Yes.”
Of course
.

“But…” He turns back and starts rooting around in the cupboards again. “I gave my man the morning off.
Aha.
He lights on the right tin, shakes leaves from it into the pot, then takes a knife and holds it up. “Not entirely sure where he keeps the teaspoons,” he says, apologetically, before dunking the knife and using it to stir. “Come on, then. Shall we take it next door?”

He carries the pot and a cup and saucer carefully over to the table in the living room. “Sit down,” he says. He sits opposite her, frowning as though weighing something up. “Think I’ll leave it awhile,” he says after a minute, pointing in the direction of the teapot. “And then I’ll pour.”

She puts her hands under her thighs. Her arms are covered with gooseflesh. Last night’s fire is an ashy pile in the grate. She thinks about putting her coat on. Under normal circumstances that would be impolite. But the normal rules of behavior seem no longer to apply, so she reaches for it, sliding it over her lap.

Ed smiles hazily in her direction. “We need music, don’t we? Hang on.” He stands again, weaving his way over to the Victrola and bending forward to wind it up. The scratching stops and the singing returns—the same song that woke her. He joins in softly, his back to her, swaying to and fro.

Rock-a-bye your baby

With a Dixie melody

When you croon, croon a tune

From the heart of Dixie.

“You know this one?” He turns to her.

“No.”

“It’s an old one. A lullaby.”

He lifts his arms up and starts moving with a ghostly partner around the floor. “Come on,” he says after a bit.

Hettie stays where she is.

“Come
on.
You’re no fun.”

Fun?

Was what happened last night fun, then?

She stands defiantly and walks over to him. He puts his hands on her shoulders, leaning his weight on her, and they move a little, side to side.

“This is nice,” he says, his eyes almost closed. He reeks of drink. When he tries to turn, he catches himself on the low table and begins to sway, like a tree half-felled, and she has to move to save herself as he falls onto the floor.

“Fuck.”
He puts his hands up to cover his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” She kneels beside him. “Are you hurt?”

“’S all right. ’S not your fault. Shouldn’t be so—goddamn
tight.
” He lies there for a moment without moving.
“God,”
he says. “I’m just—so bloody
drunk.
” He closes his eyes. “Think I must be tired, too,” he says. “Hard to tell.”

Over on the Victrola the singing warbles to a stop and the scratching comes back. Hettie eyes the door. Ed opens his eyes and smiles up at her. “Would you mind awfully giving me a hand to my feet?”

She puts her hands out and he takes them, nearly toppling her over as he pulls himself up. “That’s better.” He pats himself down. “Nothing broken.” He is still swaying a bit. “Shall we sit down?” he says. “I think I need to sit.”

He makes it to the sofa, where he sits heavily, shading his eyes to look at her, closing one of them as though he is in sudden, blinding sun. “That’s better,” he says. “Two of you, then. Come and sit beside me.”

“I have to go,” she says.

“Please?”

She sits on the very edge of the sofa, the bit nearest to the door. She feels him lean closer to her, but she doesn’t look at him.

“Did I tell you you remind me of someone?”

She threads her fingers together in her lap. “Yes. You did.” She can feel his eyes on her face.

“And did I tell you who it was?”

“No.”

There’s a silence, then, “How old are you?” he says.

“Nineteen.”

“Nine
teen
?”

She turns to his gaze, which is steadier all of a sudden, tender, and she is caught in it. It is as though some of his drunkenness has left him in his fall. And her stomach plunges, because he is still here, this man she met at Dalton’s, this man who is unlike anyone she has ever known. “Why?” she says. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven.” He shakes his head. “Twenty-eight soon
.
Ancient history.
” He fishes a cigarette case out of his pocket, taps one out, and puts it in his mouth. “You remember,” he says, leaning forward to light it. “Last night. How we were going to speak to each other. How we were going to tell each other the truth?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I didn’t. I’m a liar.”

His eyes find hers. Her heart thuds.

“And I want to tell you now.”

“I should leave—” she says.

“Not yet. There’s time. Just stay. For a minute. Please.” He gives a small smile. “You look frightened.”

“I’m not frightened.”

“You’ve no reason to be. You’re perfectly safe. I can’t do any of that stuff, even if I wanted to.”

“What do you mean?”

“All that,” he says, waving with his hand. “Down there.”

She swallows.

“That’s it,” he says. “
That’s
the truth.” He sits back, opening his hands. “There it is.” Then he looks back up, his hands still open, as though offering her something. It is as though he wants her to do something, with this thing he has said. Take it from him somehow.

She doesn’t want it.

She wants him to stop.

But he doesn’t stop. He carries on speaking.

“Happened in France first,” he says. “One of those girls behind the line.”

Hettie brings her arms around herself.

“Country girls. Their fathers would open the houses for the men.”

For a second she wonders if she has heard him right. “Their
fathers
?”

He nods, looks up at her. “They’d do it to make money. They were desperate by then. Starving. Their farms had been destroyed. You’d pay more for it, you see, if it was in a house. But they were always clean. You were less likely to get the clap.”

She cannot imagine it. She heard the stories, in the beginning, about German soldiers, and Belgian women, and the rapes, but this is different somehow. Her father would never have done a thing like that. He would have protected her. Wouldn’t he?

But the idea has a creeping fascination—a war in London; coming to Hammersmith; soldiers in the street.

Some fathers would. Some fathers might.

How hungry would she have to be to do it herself?

“What happened?” she says. “In the houses, I mean, how did it work?”

He shrugs. “Usually…you’d queue up—”

“How many—people—men—how many would there be in the queue?”

“Depended. Army-sanctioned whores…they’d be doing it for days at a time. There’d be forty, fifty, sixty men waiting their turn. They didn’t last too long though, the women, they were usually on their last legs. This house was for officers, and the girls were fresh. I only had to wait two or three until my turn.” He grows quiet. “She was young.”

“How old?”

“About your age. Perhaps a bit younger.” He stares ahead of him. “I went in and I washed myself. They always had a little sink in the corner for that. Then, when I turned to her, she was looking at me. Mostly they didn’t, you see. And she had such a lovely face. In the midst of all of that—awfulness.” His face contracts. “She was so…fresh. And then she lay back, and I lay on top of her and”—he gestures with his hand: a flat line—“nothing.” He gives a brief, rueful laugh. “I couldn’t touch her.” He looks up at Hettie. “She had hair like yours. Long and brown and unbroken. And that’s what I thought, when I saw you in that terrible club; I’d been about to go home, but then I saw you standing there. And I thought, Maybe I can get it back. That thing I lost. Maybe you can help me get it back.”

He is not making sense.

“You cut your hair,” he says, and there is something terrible, imploring, in his face. “Why did you do it?
Why?
”

Hettie shakes her head. She can feel anger now, rising in her. She is angry with him. With all of them. All of the men, waiting their turn. For those young girls. And those women.
On their last legs.
What happened to them, after that? Where did they end up?

“Why does it matter?” she says. “Why does it matter if I cut my hair?”

“Because you can never go back,” he says.

“Hair grows.”

“I know it does,” he says sadly. “But you can never go back.” And he bends forward, putting his head in his hands.

She can hear him, breathing hard.

She should touch him, she thinks. This is her job here. She should reach out and touch his arm. Say something to make him come back to himself. Rouse him to his manhood somehow. She thinks this, but she is angry, and this anger is a fierce, clear thing, and she does not.

“I didn’t want to hear that story,” she says.

He looks up at her. “Oh, God,” he says, and his face drains of blood. “I’m so sorry. It’s just—there was something—I lost. And I—haven’t tried to be with anyone since.”

“I want to go home.” She stands up, pulling on her coat. “I have to go to work and I want to go home.”

“Of course. That was dreadful of me. All of it. God,” he says, shaking his head. “What an utter fool.”

And then he hits himself, punches himself hard in the temple. He hits himself so hard that her hand flies up to her mouth. He sits there for a moment, as though stunned. Then lifts his hand again.

“No!” She puts her hand out to stop him and catches his wrist. “Please! Don’t.”

He stills, nodding slowly, as though acknowledging something, and brings his hand onto his lap. He flexes his fingers out. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “I don’t know quite what happened there.”

After a moment, he stands up. He straightens his trousers. All of his drunkenness seems to have drained quite away. He simply looks exhausted now. He pats his pockets and takes out some money. He looks at it, seeming to think about it. “Have you enough money to get home?”

“Yes. I’ll get the tube. It’ll be running now.”

“Right-o.” He puts the money back in his pocket, and she is glad. “Your hat,” he says, picking it up and passing it to her. Their knuckles graze briefly as she takes it from him. Then he walks to the door, and they step out onto the green-tiled landing. He presses the button for the lift.

He looks down the lift shaft, as though it is fascinating all of a sudden, as though study of lift shafts is his favorite thing in the world. It seems to take an awfully long time traveling up. They stand side by side, not speaking. When it arrives, he pulls back the cover. “Forgive me,” he says, quietly, “for being such a terrible bore.”

“You weren’t,” she says.

He shakes his head. “You’re very kind,” he says, with a tiny, rueful smile, “but I know that’s not true.”

Hettie steps into the lift, and he pulls the grille across.

As the lift starts to jerk and crank its way down, she catches a last glimpse, through the grille of the door, of the latticed, broken jigsaw of his face.

This is not how Ada had imagined it. She had imagined somewhere different: a dark room with a round table, like somewhere from the pictures, or from the comedy sketches—the ones of people talking to the dead. There have been plenty of those these last few years. But this room is ordinary and light: the back room of a house in a street as ordinary as Ivy had said it would be. And the woman sitting opposite her is ordinary-looking, too, in a way. There is something about her, though, difficult to grasp. It is hard to tell her age, for a start; she could be forty-five or so, the same age as Ada, but she could be ten years older. Her skin is smooth and unlined. She seems to have all her teeth.

The woman was reluctant when Ada knocked on her door. She could tell that, when she asked for a Mrs. Kempton, holding out the piece of paper she was carrying, explaining that a friend had recommended her—a friend who had come to see her during the war. The woman looked up and down the street and then, “All right,” she’d said, she supposed she’d better come in. “But I don’t really do this anymore.”

She showed her down a hallway smelling of recently cooked meat, past an open door through which Ada glimpsed a parlor with a piano against one wall, then into this room at the back of the house, with just one table in it and no other furniture, no pictures, looking out over a small garden, in which a rosebush stands, still heavy with the last of its blooms.

“Have you brought something of his with you?” the woman asks now.

Ada’s heartbeat increases. They haven’t even spoken of money yet. How much will this woman ask for when they are done?

She takes the lumpy one-eyed rabbit from her bag. It took a long time for her to decide what to bring. It is a toy she stitched for Michael one Christmas, when he was a baby, and which he didn’t let go of for the next few years. She puts it on the table, where it sits, sorry-looking and saggy; the felt rubbed bare in patches, its one brown eye staring back.

The woman turns the worn rabbit in her hands. In the silence, Ada can hear a clock ticking somewhere in the house. “Have you nothing else?” the woman says eventually. “Nothing else of his?”

Her mouth feels dry. “Is that wrong, then?”

“Not wrong, no.” The woman puts it back on the table. Her hands are pale, her fingers long. “I just wonder if we may need something a little more recent than this. Have you a photograph at all?”

The most recent one Ada could find was the one from the box, the one that was blurred, and she had hoped not to have to get it out, but she takes it from her bag and puts it in the woman’s outstretched palm.