Regeneration (30 page)

He was waiting for the signal of the lamp at Sarah’s window, but she was a long time coming, and there was a chill inside him that had nothing to do with the cold. The darkness, the nervousness, the repeated unnecessary swallowing… He was back in France, waiting to go out on patrol.

He remembered the
feel
of No Man’s Land, the vast, unimaginable space. By day, seen through a periscope, this immensity shrank to a small, pock-marked stretch of ground, snarled with wire. You never got used to the discrepancy. Part of its power to compel the imagination lay precisely in that. It was the difference between
seeing
a mouth ulcer and probing it with your tongue. He told himself he was never going back, he was free, but the word ‘free’ rang hollow.
Hurry up, Sarah
, he thought.

He was beginning to wonder whether she’d met her landlady on the stairs, when a light appeared at the window. Immediately, he started to climb, clambering from the rusting washer on to the sloping roof of the scullery. Nothing difficult about the climb, the only hazard was the poor state of the tiles. He shuffled along, trying not to make too much noise, though if they did hear they’d probably think it was a cat.

Sarah’s room was on the first floor. As he reached the main wall, he stood up, cautiously, and hooked his fingertips into the crack between two bricks. Sarah’s window was perhaps three feet away, but there was a convenient drainpipe. He swung his
left foot out, got a toe-hold on the drainpipe – fortunately in a better state of repair than the roof – and launched himself at the dark hole. He landed safely, though not quietly, colliding with Sarah, who’d come back to see why he was taking so long. They froze, listening for any response. When none came, they looked at each other, and smiled.

Sarah was carrying an oil lamp. She set it down on the table by the bed, and went to draw the curtains. He was glad to have the night shut out, with its memories of fear and worried sentries whispering. She turned back into the room.

They looked at each other, not finding anything to say. The bed, though only a single, seemed very big. Their imminent nakedness made them shy of each other. In all the weeks of love-making, they’d never once been able to undress. Prior was touched by Sarah’s shyness, and a little ashamed of his own.

With an air of unconcern, he started to look round the room. Apart from the bed, there was a bedside table, a chair, a chest of drawers, and a washbasin, squeezed into the corner beside the window. A camisole hung from the back of the chair, and a pair of stays lay on the floor beside it. Sarah, seeing the direction of his gaze, kicked them under the chair.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’m not tidy.’

The sound of his voice released them from nervousness. Prior sat on the bed, and patted it for her to come and sit beside him.

‘We’d better not talk much,’ she said. ‘I told them I’d be late back, but if they hear voices they’ll all be in.’

He couldn’t have talked much anyway; his breath caught in his throat. They stared at each other. He reached up and unpinned her hair, shaking it out at the sides of her head. Then they lay down side by side, still gazing at each other. At this distance, her eyes merged into a single eye, fringed by lashes like prehistoric vegetation, a mysterious, scarcely human pool. They lay like that for ten or fifteen minutes, neither of them wanting to hurry, amazed at the time that lay ahead.

After a while Prior rolled over on to his back and looked at the photograph on the bedside table, moving the lamp so he could see better. A wedding group. Cynthia’s wedding, he thought, and that rather fat, pasty-faced soldier, smiling sheepishly at the centre of the group, must now be dead. People in
group photographs look either idiotic or insane, their faces frozen in anticipation of the flash. Not Sarah’s mother. Even in sepia, her eyes jetted sparks. And that
jaw.
It would’ve been remarkable on a man. ‘Your mother looks like my doctor,’ he said. He looked at the photograph again. ‘She’s not smiling much, is she?’

‘She was smiling at the memorial service.’ She looked at the photograph. ‘I love her, you know.’

‘Of cou…’ He stopped. Why ‘of course’? He didn’t love his father.

‘I’m glad you’re not going back.’

Without warning, Prior saw again the shovel, the sack, the scattered lime. The eyeball lay in the palm of his hand. ‘Yes,’ he said.

She would never know, because he would never tell her. Somehow if she’d known the worst parts, she couldn’t have gone on being a haven for him. He was groping for an idea that he couldn’t quite grasp. Men said they didn’t tell their women about France because they didn’t want to worry them. But it was more than that. He needed her ignorance to hide in. Yet, at the same time, he wanted to know and be known as deeply as possible. And the two desires were irreconcilable.

‘Do you think your mam’ll like me?’

They’d arranged to spend part of his leave together.

‘Not as much as she would if you were going back.’

‘Tell her about me lungs. That’ll cheer her up.’ He felt he knew Ada already.

Sarah rolled over and started to undress him. He pretended to struggle, but she pushed him back on to the bed, and he lay there, shaking with laughter, as she got into a tangle over his puttees. At last she gave up, rested her head on his knees, giggling. ‘They’re like
stays.
’

‘Don’t tell the War Office. You’ll have a lot of worried men.’

They stopped laughing and looked at each other.

‘I love you,’ he said.

‘Oh, there’s no need to say
that.
’

‘Yes, there is. It’s true.’

She took her time thinking about it. At last she said on an indrawn breath, ‘
Good.
I love you too.’

∗

Owen and Sassoon sat in a corner of the lounge at the Conservative Club. They had the room to themselves, except for one other member, and he was half hidden behind the
Scotsman.
After the waiter had served the brandies and departed, Sassoon produced a book from his pocket. ‘I’d like to read you something. Do you mind?’

‘No, go ahead. Anybody I know?’

‘Alymer Strong. Given to me by the author. He brought me a copy of Lady Margaret’s book and – er – happened to mention he wrote himself. Like a fool, I made encouraging noises.’

‘Not
always
disastrous. Why am I being read it?’

‘You’ll see. There’s a sort of dedication. In one of the poems.’

Siegfried, thy fathers warr’d

With many a kestrel, mimicking the dove.

Owen looked blank. ‘What does it mean?’

‘What a philistine question. I hope this isn’t the future pig-keeper speaking. I believe it to be a reference to the persecution of the Jews.’

‘But you’re not a Jew.’

‘I am, actually. Or rather my “fathers” were.’

‘I didn’t know that.’ Owen contemplated the fact through a haze of burgundy. ‘That’s why you’re called Siegfried?’

‘No-o, I’m called Siegfried because my mother liked Wagner. And the only thing I have in common with orthodox Jews is that I do profoundly thank God I was born a man and not a woman. If I were a woman, I’d be called Brünnhilde.’

‘This is our last evening and I feel as if I’ve just met you.’

‘You know all the important things.’

They looked at each other. Then a rustling of the
Scotsman’s
pages returned their attention to the book. Sassoon began reading extracts, and Owen, who was drunk and afraid of becoming too serious, laughed till he choked. Sassoon had begun by declaiming the verse solemnly, but when he came to:

Can it be I have become

This gourd, this gothic vaccu-um?

he burst out laughing. ‘Oh, I love that.
You
might like this better.’

What cassock’d misanthrope,

Hawking peace-canticles for glory-gain,

Hymns from his rostrum’d height th’ epopt of Hate?

‘The
what
of hate?’

‘
Epopt.
’

‘No such word.’

‘There is, you know. It’s the heroic form of epogee.’

‘Can I see?’ Owen read the poem. ‘This man’s against the war.’

‘Oh, yes.’ Sassoon’s lips twitched. ‘And particularly devastated by the role the Christian Church is playing in it. The parallels are worrying, Owen.’

‘I’m worried.’ He made to hand the book back. ‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’

‘No, look inside.’

Owen looked at the flyleaf and read:
Owen. From S.S. Edinburgh. Oct. 26th 1917.
Underneath Sassoon had written:

When Captain Cook first sniffed the wattle,

And Love columbus’d Aristotle.

‘That’s absolutely typical,’ Owen said.

‘It does rather encapsulate his style, doesn’t it?’

‘You know what I mean. The only
slightly
demonstrative thing you’ve ever done and you do it in a way which makes it impossible to take seriously.’

‘Do you think it’s a good idea to be serious tonight?’

‘For God’s sake, I’m only going to Scarborough.
You’ll
be in France before I will.’

‘I hope so.’

‘No news from the War Office?’

‘No. And Rivers dropped a bombshell this morning. He’s leaving.’

‘Is he?’

‘I don’t look forward to Craiglockhart without either of you. I did mention you to Rivers, you know.’

‘What did he say?’

‘That you were an extremely gallant and conscientious young officer…’

‘ “
Ooob
”. Who needed no one to teach him his duty.
Unlike
dot dot dot. And there were no grounds at all that he could see for keeping you at the hospital a moment longer. I think he was a bit put out about being asked to overrule Brock.’

‘I’m not surprised. You shouldn’t have done it. Look, I could do a lot with another month. I
bate
leaving. But the fact is I’d be taking up a bed some other poor blighter needs far more than I do.’

‘As I shall be doing.’

‘I didn’t mean that.’

‘No, but it’s true.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better be off. Under the new regime I believe the penalty for staying out late is public crucifixion.’

In the hall Sassoon produced an envelope from his breast pocket. ‘This is a letter of introduction to Robert Ross. It’s sealed because there’s something else inside, but that doesn’t mean you can’t read it.’

Owen tried to think of something to say and failed.

‘Take care.’

‘And you.’

Sassoon patted him on the shoulder, and was gone. Nothing else, not even ‘goodbye’. Perhaps it was better that way, Owen thought, going back to the lounge. Better for Siegfried, anyway. Their empty brandy glasses stood together on the table, in the pool of light cast by the standard lamp, but the unseen listener had gone. The
Scotsman
, neatly folded, lay on a table by the door.

Owen sat down, got out the letter of introduction, but didn’t immediately open it. The ticking of the clock was very loud in the empty room. He lay back in the chair and closed his eyes. He was afraid to measure his sense of loss.

20

__________

Rivers was due to leave Craiglockhart on 14 November, having fulfilled his promise to Bryce to see the new CO in. He was leaving in what he considered a totally undeserved blaze of glory. Willard was walking at last. Rivers could understand the VADs, the orderlies, the secretaries and the kitchen staff regarding this ‘cure’ as a great medical feat, but it was a little dismaying to find that even some of the senior nursing staff seemed to agree.

Willard himself was exasperating. All Rivers’s efforts to inculcate insight into his condition, to enable him to understand
why
he’d been in the wheelchair and how the same outcome might be avoided in future, were met with a stare of glassy-eyed, quivering respect. Whenever Rivers came anywhere near him, Willard positively leapt to the salute. He
knew
his spinal cord had been broken. He
knew
Rivers had reconnected the severed ends. Needless to say the other MOs were unimpressed. Indeed, after observing Rivers acknowledge one particularly sizzling salute, Brock was heard to murmur: ‘
And for my next trick I shall walk on water
.’

The last evening round was distressing both for Rivers and the patients. He left Sassoon till last and then, remembering that he’d spent the day with Lady Ottoline Morrell and had, presumably, been exposed to a great dose of pacifist propaganda, went along to his room.

Sassoon was sitting on the floor, hands clasped around his knees, staring into the fire.

‘How was Lady Ottoline?’ Rivers said, taking the only chair. ‘In full cry?’

‘Not really. The war was hardly mentioned.’

‘Oh?’

‘No, we talked about Carpenter mainly. Homosexuality. Or rather I talked. She listened.’

Poor Lady Ottoline. ‘The war didn’t come up at all?’

‘Not today. Last night it did. I think we both knew there was no point going over that again. Do you know what she asked me? Did I realize that going back would involve killing Germans?’ He brought his anger under control. ‘Pacifists can be amazingly brutal.’

That brief flash of anger was the only emotion Sassoon had shown since skipping the Board. He seemed at times to be almost unaware of his surroundings, as if he could get through this interim period between one Board and the next only by shutting down all awareness of where he was or what was happening. And yet he was writing, and he seemed to think he was writing well. All the anger and grief now went into the poetry. He’d given up hope of influencing events. Or perhaps he’d just given up hope. At the back of Rivers’s mind was the fear that Craiglockhart had done to Sassoon what the Somme and Arras had failed to do. And if that were so, he couldn’t escape responsibility.