House of Doors (35 page)

The colonel and the major lay in one small room together, separately unconscious. On her corridor, her ward. That didn't matter either. She could nurse them both. It was her duty.

Not nurse them back to any kind of health, she couldn't manage that. The major needed the colonel's care, and couldn't have it. There were other doctors here, but none so senior or experienced, none so innovative, none so bold. There were better doctors, all elsewhere and far away, all overworked already, not to be summoned for a single catastrophic man.

The colonel  . . . needed something that she had denied him. By her choice.

He had broken bones from his fall, and of course everyone assumed that his coma was part and parcel, came hand in hand: that he had knocked his head on the way down or else on landing, jumbled his brains if not cracked his skull.

Ruth knew better. In his head, she knew, he was still falling. Hand in hand, he and Peter, down and down.

She had let go, let him go. Coldly, deliberately, finally. She couldn't draw him back, not now. He was too far gone.

She didn't need to hear what people said, she didn't want to.

Sometimes, she had no choice.

Now, she had no choice.

They were gathered in the dining hall, everyone who could be: squashed up at every table, not a seat to spare. Ruth had an orderly on one side, she hadn't learned his name yet. On the other side, she had Michael. Him she was holding on to. Hand in hand and not letting go, not now.

Major Dorian stood on the stairs, where he could be seen by all. Where Major Black had stood before him, which they were all thinking and no one was going to say.

He said, ‘People. I know the war has been the last thing on your mind in these last days, we've all had monstrous shocks to contend with, terrible events. You've done remarkably well, the staff in particular, keeping everything together. I can't sing your praises loudly enough.

‘But the war goes on. It may seem far from here; that isn't really so. Hitler's reach is long.'

Was he trying to suggest that Hitler had reached this far, that his hand lay behind the major's calamity, or the colonel's? Sabotage, fifth columnists, betrayal? Ruth wasn't sure. He was moving on already, leaving it to lie there in her mind, in everyone's, unexamined.

‘Gentlemen, the major's special troops: you've trained this long and this intensely, and you're so close to ready, your missions are so urgent, it would seem criminal to let all that go now because of one accident in training. One double loss. The major would want you to follow through, and so, I'm sure, would the colonel.'

Well, he was lying, then. That was no surprise. The first casualty of war is truth; Aeschylus said that, and men had been repeating it ever since. And providing more evidence to support it. Whatever best suited their purposes at the time.

‘We have the trucks,' he said, ‘we have the drivers. We have the targets. We have another place that we can take you, for intensive parachute training. We have limited time, and a forecast of good weather. Gentlemen, who among you is still willing to go? I won't bludgeon you with talk of king and country, or appeals to your patriotism; that stands in no question. You honour those uniforms you wear. Neither will I ask you to do it for the major, for the colonel; that would be ` even going to urge necessity. We can likely win this war without you. Just, not so soon and not without more cost. Every blow struck now, struck high against the head, will count for more further down the line.

‘Oh, but you know this, you know all of this; we've talked it out before. It's time to call an end to talking. Gentlemen, the trucks stand ready for the road. Who will ride? On your feet now, if you're still willing.'

That was all. Well, that and the silence after, his expectant silence. His waiting.

And then the scrape of chair legs on the parquet, the shuffle of feet, the slow rise of bodies in the hall. One after another, men and more men, alone or in little groups together.

At her side, Michael's hand squeezing hers, then letting go.

Michael rising.

She sat there, head down, dizzy. Faint again. Too heavy to move, too numb to speak.

Distantly, she heard voices. ‘You, Tolchard? Aren't you a little  . . . borderline?'

‘I don't believe so, sir. I can keep silence when I need to –' his leg pressing against hers would attest to that,
I never said a word about us, did I?
– ‘and if I can manage that car I can manage a 'chute one-handed, with just a little work on the harness. I'd like to try, at least. I'd like the chance to prove it.'

For king and country. For the major, for the colonel. For himself, perhaps. Perhaps still that, at least a little. More, though, this was for her. Stupidly, self-defeatingly, he would leave and fight and die for her.

And she couldn't say a word. For all the reasons that put him on his feet, she stayed in her chair and let him go.

SIXTEEN

R
uth stood on the back step with her case at her feet. She had missed the last coach to the railway station. Deliberately so. She'd been quietly, selfishly adrift in the almost-empty house, saying goodbye. To Peter, or perhaps to Michael. She wasn't clear about that. She didn't expect to encounter either one of them again.

A car made a wide sweeping curve out of the stable yard, drew up with a hiss of gravel.

It should have been Michael's landaulet, surprising her again; but of course it wasn't. No chance of leaving as she had come. Not this house, not her, not now.

The passenger door swung open, and there was Aesculapius at the wheel, leaning over. There was his teddy bear too, in the passenger seat.

‘Get in, Sister Taylor. There won't be a better offer now.'

‘Cook's still here, I think,' though she had skipped the opportunity to say goodbye to him. Some conversations she was just not ready for.

This was actually another of those, but she wouldn't dodge it now. He said, ‘Indeed, but he's staying. I don't believe there's anything for you to stay for.'

There's nothing for me to go to either
. That was more true than even she had realized; it sat in her head like a revelation, that she was no longer in pursuit of a bullet.

‘Come with me,' the major said, ‘I want to talk to you.'

‘What, will you offer me another job?'

‘If you'll take it, yes. Not like this. Another kind of nursing. Will you come? I'm driving down to London, all the way.'

‘I  . . . have nowhere to go, in London.' It was a shock to realize that too was true. They'd only ever rented, she and Peter. She'd let that house go, of course, when she came north with no plans to return.

‘Don't worry about that. We'll find you a bed. And a life, if you'll take it.' And then, once more, ‘Will you come?'

Apparently, she would. He was out of the car, lifting her case into the back. She was in the car, moving the bear, getting settled. Being prepared. For what, she couldn't imagine and wasn't going to ask.

‘What will happen to the house now?'

‘D'Espérance? Oh, the Ministry will rescind possession, I imagine. No further use for it.'

As he pulled away, Ruth caught one last glimpse of the back door in the wing mirror. Standing wide, with a figure outlined in the doorway. He wasn't wearing whites, but still she rather thought it was Cook: her first glimpse of him outside his own domain.

Or not, perhaps. If Cook wasn't leaving, if the house was reverting to its former ownership  . . .

Well, that was another question not to ask. She might dance to Major Dorian's tune, she might have done that all along, but she was damned if she'd start before he whistled.

She sat still, then, and waited.

Soon enough, he'd tell her what he wanted. Soon enough, she thought she'd probably say yes. Make a promise of it. Yes.