1982 - An Ice-Cream War (37 page)

It seemed a bit terse and ambiguous, but that gave her a vague satisfaction. She thought of adding some phrase like ‘I am sorry’ or ‘Don’t have any regrets’, but decided against it, signing only her name.

She sealed the letter in an envelope and addressed it. She felt determined and businesslike, she gladly noted, not morose or self-pitying. She was going to get rid of all her doubts and dilemmas, shames and disappointments, all the pains and grief that stood ranked in the future waiting for her. An interminable hellish gauntlet that she would no longer have to run. Her skilful evasion seemed suddenly profoundly satisfying. The choice she made now was, she thought, as bold and intelligent as any stoical decision to endure.

She picked up Felix’s letter and put on her heaviest tweed coat. It was a golfing coat with an attached cape and big buttoned skirt that came down to her ankles. She put her hand on the doorknob, she had everything she needed.

Outside it was a dark cool night, cloud-free, with the stars shining up above. She walked briskly up the drive to the big house. It was just cold enough for her breath to condense for a second or two. She slipped Felix’s letter into the letter box in the front door. A faint wind moved through the rhododendrons, causing the thick shiny leaves to clatter drily. She took a deep breath. All the worries and fears were dwindling into insubstantiality as swiftly as her condensed breath was hurried away by the breeze. It seemed to her that she faced only an avenue of bright tomorrows. She turned on her heel and set off down the path she had chosen.

26 June 1916,
Stackpole Manor, Kent

“Job,” cried Major Cobb. “Chapter twenty-eight, verse twelve.”

“Oh dear, no,” breathed Mrs Cobb, standing beside Felix. “Not again.” She pressed her fingers into her cheeks as if her teeth were aching. “Not again.”

Felix stared at the map of Africa, then squinted slightly so that the reds and greens went hazy and elided. The holiday before he had deliberately missed family prayers one morning, thinking he was old enough to absent himself without having to ask permission. His father had gone, in Felix’s opinion, raving mad. He had exploded with wrath at the breakfast table when Felix eventually appeared, accusing him of being a worthless atheist, a snivelling coward, a disgrace to the family name and, moreover, exhibiting a callous disregard of his brother’s noble sacrifice. It was the last insult that had stirred his conscience and so now he thought it worth it—for the quiet life that everyone was after—to comply with his father’s whims.

“But where shall wisdom be found?” the major intoned. “And where is the place of understanding?” His fat features had slackened, the puffy cheeks sagged, the double chins now bristly dewlaps which were never properly shaved. But he was as obsessive as ever, and Felix could see him shaking slightly as he loudly repeated the words of the daily lesson.

“Where is the place of understanding? Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.” He prodded the open bible in front of him with a stubby forefinger. “Neither is it found. In. The land. Of. The living.”

His mother stopped Felix, with a gentle pressure on his arm, as he was filing out of the library to go to breakfast.

“Darling,” Mrs Cobb said, a worried look on her face. “I’m a little concerned about your father.”

“I’m not surprised,” Felix said. “Shouldn’t he be in hospital?”

“
Really!
Felix. He’s just so upset.”

“We’re
all
upset, Mother. That doesn’t mean we have to behave like…”—he indicated the map—“Like
that
.”

“Oh dear,” Mrs Cobb said, taking her bottom lip between her teeth for a moment. “Oh dear. What is happening with this dreadful war? It’s most unfair.”

Felix went into the dining room. His father was sitting at the end of the table reading a newspaper. Beside him was Cressida, trying to ignore his constant mutters and exclamations. Felix’s empty place was next to hers. Opposite them sat Eustacia and Nigel Bathe. Nigel Bathe wore a tweed jacket, the two empty sleeves of which were pinned up just below his elbows. Beside him Eustacia cut up a plate of bacon and eggs, loaded up a forkful and popped it in his mouth.

“Morning,” Felix said. “Nigel, Eustacia, Cressida…Father.”

Felix felt as he always did these mornings a surge of pity for Nigel Bathe, whom he’d never liked. Nigel still grumbled and complained as of old—about the size of his disability pension, the inefficacy of the artificial limbs he was learning to use—but Felix didn’t grudge him it now. The rest of the family seemed quite accustomed to his presence at meals, his being spoon-fed by Eustacia, but Felix found it a most unsettling start to each day.

“Ah-ha!” shouted the major, causing everyone to look up sharply, and a section of fried egg to jerk off Eustacia’s extended fork and splat on the shiny table top.

“Here we are, here we are.” The major cleared his throat. “‘On June the nineteenth British forces in German East Africa occupied the important town of Handeni.’ Where’s my map?” He sprang up from the table and marched out of the room.

Everyone pretended nothing had happened. Felix opened the chafing dishes on the sideboard and helped himself to a large plate of kidneys, scrambled eggs, fried bread, bacon and sausage. He found that keeping his head down while he shovelled in food was the best way of avoiding the pathetic sight of Nigel Bathe across the table.

He sat down. “Well,” he said vacuously, “looks like it’s going to be a pleasant day.” He turned round in his seat and craned his head to see out of the window. His guess seemed accurate enough. The lawn was bright with sun, the fishponds were blue, only a few small indolent clouds occupied the sky above.

There were three letters by his place. A catalogue from a bookseller, confirmation of an appointment with his optician and one, unstamped, in a plain white envelope. He recognized Charis’s writing at once, and with a frown of curiosity tore it open. Nobody paid any attention.

He read the letter.

“Oh God. Jesus Christ,” he said in a shocked voice, getting up from his place.

“
Felix!
” Cressida and Eustacia said in unison.

He ran out of the room, stuffing the letter in his pocket. He rushed outside, sprinting across the sunlit lawn, the heels of his shoes biting deeply into the dew-damp turf. He vaulted over the eve-gate, skidding on a patch of mud beyond and falling over. He picked himself up and pounded through the wood towards the cottage. The back door was locked. He ran round to the front and let himself in. He knew at once the cottage was empty. He stood in the little parlour, looking at the grate of the fire, the ashes of the night before still there. His eyes passed uneasily over the sofa and he saw that the lid of the writing desk was folded down.

He went upstairs. The bed was unslept in. He opened the wardrobe. It was filled with hanging clothes. On the chest of drawers he saw Gabriel’s photograph. The strong square face, the simple smile. He felt an awful turmoil in his body, a sudden sickening awareness of just what he and Charis had done. He recalled the words of the letter: “I have written to Gabriel and told him everything.”

He sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. His brain was refusing to work. He realized one trouser leg was thick with mud, also the sleeve of his jacket and his left hand. He stood up. The bedspread was smeared and dirty.

He walked shakily down the stairs. Think, he told himself,
think
. She seemed to have walked out of the house without taking anything. No clothes, no suitcase…He tried to ignore one explanation which was shouting persistently in his head.

Not Charis, he said to himself. She wouldn’t. The sense of his own responsibility, so successfully evaded for so many months, hit him with full force. He sat down again, on the bottom stair, trembling all over. He patted his pockets for a cigarette, then realized he’d left them in his bedroom.

He got to his feet. The police would have to be informed. Perhaps she’d gone to Aunt Bedelia’s, just fled in a panic for whatever reason? It sounded plausible. But what was wrong? he asked himself. Why should she do it? Why now? She said she hadn’t been feeling well lately, perhaps that could have been a contributing factor. He turned a few more thoughts over in his head. But her note? He took it out of his pocket and spread it on his knee. It was so terse and final. Almost hostile. But why should she write to Gabriel too? This new factor made his head reel. He felt the blood thumping at his temples, he found it difficult to swallow. His stomach heaved and he gagged. He put the back of his hand to his mouth and leant against the wall for support. His mouth was full of fresh saliva, like thick water.

At once he pushed himself off the wall and rushed out of the house. Back through the wood, over the eve-gate, across the bottom of the lawn towards the fishponds. He saw his mother and Cressida standing agitatedly on the terrace. They called his name as he ran into view, but he ignored them.

He leapt down the steps to the seat by the middle pond. His first feeling was one of immense relief as he saw its vacant, glassy surface. The lilies, the reeds, the ornamental bulrushes, all as it always was, sunlit and undisturbed. He stood panting at the edge trying to peer beneath the reflections and the glare of the sun. He could see nothing. But the carp, prompted by his shadow on the water and expecting a feed, began to rise up from the depths. The water swirled, fish bodies coiled and swerved, thick lips and blunt snouts tested the surface.

“Blasted bloody fish!” he swore. He turned round to find a stone to throw—to make them scatter.

Then he saw the pedestal. The marble bust of the Emperor Vitellius was missing.

Felix kicked off his shoes and struggled out of his jacket. His mother and Cressida had reached the upper pond and were awkwardly descending the wide steps, their skirts held up in their hands.

“Felix!” his mother wailed in evident distress. “What’s happening, my darling? What’s wrong?”

He ignored them.

He jumped into the pool. It was deep, eight feet or more, and very cold. He allowed his momentum to take him down to the bottom, feeling the pressure in his ears, and the faint sound of his mother screaming. He opened his eyes, paddling furiously with his hands to keep himself down. Through the murk, all about him, he sensed the carp darting away into their hiding places.

Then one of his beating hands struck something soft. He spun round. Charis’s body was close in to the side. He’d been looking too far out. She was in the attitude of a dive or plummeting fall, her feet trailing up behind her, her head held down, tied in grotesque familiar proximity to the Emperor Vitellius.

Felix felt his lungs were on the point of bursting, but he forced himself closer. A length of twine was tied round her neck, its ends in turn wrapped and secured with many knots about the marble head. Through the drifting clouds of mud and sediment he saw that her eyes and mouth were open, her face relaxed and expressionless. Her hair had loosened itself and streamed weedily about her features, stirred by the currents of water caused by his beating, flailing hands.

1 July 1916,
Sevenoaks, Kent

“It seems she tied herself—round the neck—to the bust. She just had enough strength to lift it off the pedestal on her arms, take two steps to the edge and fall in. The weight dragged her straight down to the bottom.” Felix paused and took another cigarette out of his case.

“She had tied a lot of knots. She couldn’t even have got free if she had wanted to. She didn’t leave herself any room for second thoughts.”

Felix lit the cigarette. He was sitting with Dr Venables in the saloon bar of a hotel not far from the magistrates’ court in Sevenoaks where the inquest had been held. Dr Venables had been called to give evidence too, as he had performed a post-mortem on Charis’s body. Felix was the only member of the Cobb family who had attended. He was still feverish and agitated from all the lies he’d told.

The inquest had been a mere formality. Felix had told his edited story. He said he’d lost the letter in his panic and confusion. It had simply said, he swore, that Charis intended to go away. No reason had been given. A police constable from Ashurst read out his version of events and then Dr Venables had been called to confirm the cause of death. “A tragic case,” the magistrate had concluded. “Mrs Cobb is as much a victim of the war as our young men who have bravely given their lives in France.”

Afterwards, Dr Venables had invited him for a bracing drink. Felix said he didn’t want one but the doctor was very insistent. He sat opposite Felix now, his unnaturally dark hair shilling damply in the gloom of the bar. He pulled regularly at his earlobes while Felix talked.

Felix was acutely uneasy. For the last few days he had lived—he felt—constantly on the edge of a breakdown. The sense of his own appalling selfishness and lack of insight was a consistent tormenting rebuke. Sharp beaks of guilt stabbed at him. He felt a sense of overpowering, frustrating anger at her death. But somewhere deep inside, like an unfamiliar noise in a sleeping house, a more persistent trouble nagged.

He tried to focus on Charis’s death, on the powerful sense of loss which he knew he felt, in the hope that some expression of grief might relieve or overwhelm the massive doubts and guilts that were building up explosively within him. But, try as he might, impugn himself as he might, it was Charis’s dreadful legacy that obsessed him all his waking moments.

The letter. The letter to Gabriel. What in God’s name had possessed her to send it? He felt grossly ashamed that this was all he could think of. He despised and utterly condemned his highly-developed instincts of self-preservation. He could live with his guilt—just—as long as it remained a secret which he alone knew. The thought of Gabriel ever learning about Charis and him was horrific, the most potent of fears, and it left him weak and trembling.

He had telephoned Henry Hyams at the War Office on the pretext of wondering how the news of Charis’s death could best be conveyed to Gabriel. Did letters, he asked, ever get through? There was a reasonable chance, Hyams said, though it would probably take months, and now, with the British Army well inside German East there was really no telling.