In the morning Percy could not get out of bed. Or he would not. He was ill. From what? He said to Rachel that he did not care to leave the Continent, that he could not bear to go back, and wanted to return to Arras and be close to John’s grave till he too died.
Rachel said that she also would like to do such a thing, but what was the use? What God gives, He takes away. She held his hand, wiped his tears, kissed him, and steadied a cup so that he could drink tea. She comforted him, but he wept and would not move. He was ill. But there were no symptoms – no headache, palpitations, vomiting, diarrhoea or sweats. Talk of getting a doctor enraged him. Nevertheless, he was ill, because he would not get out of bed.
The girls pleaded. They had to be back in London because there were people to see, dates to keep, shows to go to. When they suggested getting on the boat by themselves, Rachel’s face stiffened in an anger they had never seen. They must wait until their father was well, when they would go home together. Emma said she wanted to leave now, and didn’t see why they both shouldn’t. Or they could all get on the boat, even father, and have the motoring club bring the car back.
Rachel’s voice came close to a shout. ‘We’ve come here as a family, and we will go back the same way, as soon as your father’s better.’
Moody and subdued, the sisters wanted something to happen but didn’t know what. They walked around the town till, in half an hour, they decided that they had ‘done it’ and there was nothing more to see. They sat in a café, passing and repassing the diary to each other. ‘You write about this place,’ Clara said. ‘I wrote all that rubbish about the last one.’
‘And a fat lot you wrote, after all,’ Emma said. ‘Only two lines.’
‘Two and a half,’ Clara said. ‘I say, don’t look now, but look at that fat old man over there.’
‘What fat old man?’ asked Emma.
‘I said don’t look now,’ Clara snapped. ‘But look! He’s looking at us. I’m sure you could do a whole page on him.’
‘You do it, then,’ Emma suggested.
‘It’s you he’s looking at,’ Clara pouted.
‘I’m bored,’ Emma said.
‘You’re lazy.’
Emma scribbled several lines, then rested the pencil across the coffee-cup saucer.
‘Dirty old devil!’ Clara said loudly. ‘Just look at him.’
‘Oh do leave him be,’ said Emma. ‘He’s only reading the paper.’
‘He’s not. He’s fiddling with himself. He really is. Would you believe it? And it’s an English newspaper he’s reading. He must be from Birmingham – or Bradford! It really is too much.’ She laughed. ‘I’ll call the manager.’
‘Oh don’t, please.’ Emma knew her to be capable of it. ‘He’s not doing anything at all. Stop joking.’
‘Well,’ Clara said, ‘I’m bored as well. Damn this life. I want some fun.’
They rented a hut on the beach, and swam in the sea, but the breakers were grey and cold, and sent them shivering back up the sand. At a hotel dance they met two officers on leave from the Rhine, and did not get to their own beds till two in the morning.
Rachel said, with a lift of her eyebrows, that they seemed to be taking very good care of themselves.
‘If we can’t,’ Clara said, ‘who can?’
Percy stayed in bed for three days. He was ill, and they weren’t allowed to doubt it. From the window Rachel could see boats leaving for Dover. Waves erupted against the groynes. She played cards with him, and at such times he was cheerful and competent. But after a game or two he would throw the cards off the bed, and begin weeping again. He was ill, he said. Why did she look at him as if he was not? No one believed him. The world was a black glove, and he was inside it.
Rachel looked away. How could a face change so quickly – and what was the reason? – from being fairly normal to one streaked and shivering with an agony she couldn’t bear to look at? She felt like the young girl she had been when his first attack came on soon after they were married. Now he had something to grieve for, and so had she, but her feeling of shock and pity was the same as it had been then. His despair was so intense that her own wracking sorrow had no chance of expressing itself. He was ill, and it was easy to see that his spirit was fixed in such fear and torment that he was beyond help – though she would never admit it.
She calmed him by reading in English from the Hebrew Bible she carried, comforting him by intoning in her beautiful voice verses from Job or the Psalms. He held her hand, and adored her, and became still. He thanked God for sending her, for only through her did the darkness recede, and the black glove relax its grip. When he was finally calm she fought to stop her own tears breaking forth, something which his illness never allowed.
He got out of bed, and they stayed three more days so that he could recover before going home. Rachel sent the girls back as they wished, and she and Percy were alone. They held hands when standing on the beach, and while shopping, and made love in the afternoon and at night. They drove up the coast into Holland for a distant view of Flushing on the opposite shore that was pinned down by sunbeams from the troubled sky.
4
The kitchen was clean enough, Pam thought, but not really clean. Wanting a rest from two hours of reading, she went up the ladder with a damp rag soaked in detergent, and rubbed a circle of cleanliness the size of a large coin that might be taken for a dab of fresh plaster whose whiteness had not yet merged. Then she rubbed until the paint under the grease became as large as the memorial plaque sent by the King and his grateful people to John’s parents.
An attempt at proper cleanliness would mean enlarging the pristine area to take up the whole room. She looked from the ladder and saw dust everywhere. Closer to the ceiling there were cobwebs and spiders’ nests. The floor had been swept but not washed. It was tidy but not clean, calling for days of work.
Everything clean was not quite clean. Lace curtains wanted washing, and the water would darken when they were dipped. Folded tea towels needed a visit to the laundrette, and cutlery could do with a rinse and a polish. Heavier curtains in the living-room should go to the cleaners. The pelmets and woodwork ought to be washed down. Everywhere called for dusting, sweeping and scrubbing.
Was life worth throwing away on such labour every week, month, year? You took one breath only in order to draw another, and laboured from birth till no more breath would come. Everything you did in life was useless, except that it kept death at bay and allowed you to live with as much ease as could be managed. Cleanliness was comfort if you had been brought up that way – though it’s no business of mine who cleans the flat, she thought, coming down the ladder and putting buckets and rags away. He’ll have to get someone else for the job.
She read again for half an hour, then peeled potatoes and put them into boiling water, laid lamb chops under the grill, and cleaned lettuce. While he carried, searched, sorted, pondered and evaluated the long undisturbed hoard she walked in and out of the dining-room, setting the table and putting down a first course. The immersion in a different life pattern, as well as the long time since breakfast, made her stomach turn with hunger like a swimmer coming up for air. The corkscrew was difficult to pull. ‘I took a bottle of Mersault from the fridge.’