A Cup of Tea: A Novel of 1917 (10 page)

D
id they notice right away that something was wrong with him? He was distant. They thought he was fatigued, worn down, shell-shocked. God knew what he’d been through. They were never able to get him to talk about it much.

They discussed it the first night. Jane said, in her usually direct fashion, “You were a prisoner?”

“I was an officer,” Philip said as though he had disdain for his own position. “I was treated better than a prisoner.”

They all felt as if the answers they received had been rehearsed, as if he’d been through a debriefing
and had been coached on what he was allowed to tell…and that there was a subtext to it all. That he felt in some way he had had more to do with the enemy than he would have liked.

Teddy tried to make light of it. He joked, “But there was barbed wire and all that stuff, right? Torture?”

Philip denied this.

“Come on—did they put you in isolation?”

Philip shook his head.

The only one of them who seemed to have any real understanding of it was Rosemary’s father. “There’s a syndrome,” he said, “where a prisoner starts to identify with his captors…”

Philip added, “Or associate with them and feels a certain amount of guilt about that.”

Sarah Porterville piped in, “I have an uncle who avoided capture by taking refuge in a brothel.”

“For a night?” asked Teddy.

“No, three months,” said Sarah. “My aunt had a terrible time with him when he came home…”

Everyone laughed except Philip who finished the brandy in his glass and poured himself another. “There were no brothels,” he said, “but the Germans had a lot of willing women.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Rosemary. “It doesn’t matter what it was—you’re home now.”

By the old Moulmein Pagoda,
lookin’ eastward to the sea…

I
t was Rosemary’s father’s favorite poem, Kipling’s “Mandalay” and, as he read it aloud to himself, it sounded almost melodic. They’d had a quiet dinner at home, Mr. Fell and Rosemary and Philip without outside interference. A rack of lamb, quince jelly, potatoes that had been roasted in their skins, and a twelve-year old St. Emilion that Mr. Fell had carefully selected from the wine cellar. Rosemary was bubbly, vivacious, seeming to almost flutter about the room, not letting Philip or her father assist in any of the serving and jumping up, much to Gertrude’s shock, to help clear the dishes.

After dinner, they’d retired to the living room and
had a long, spirited discussion about Braque. At eleven, Philip was tired and Rosemary went up to bed with him.

As they climbed the stairs, they heard Mr. Fell reading to himself from Kipling’s “Mandalay.”

Rosemary smiled but the soft, hushed way he was reading made it sound almost like a prayer.

Upstairs, Rosemary shut the door to their bedroom. She turned to Philip. She seemed playful in a grownup kind of way. She slowly undid the buttons of her dress to her waist. She was, in that moment, completely open, uninhibited. She smiled and walked towards him. She put his hand on her breast and then he buried his face there. He began to kiss her…She would show him that she could be more than a society wife, that she was capable of real passion, that all the months of waiting for him had built into a longing, a
pining that she could no longer contain. Kiss me there, Philip. She felt chills, a tremor of excitement that tingled down her spine.

And then his passion changed to something else and he broke down. She comforted him as best she could. She was thrown, her reactions were off, she was hurt. If she’d had the sense to talk to him about it or rather let him speak to her about what it was like to be out in the raw night with the stars overhead as they always were, curious, the placement of the stars never changed just shifted in the sky in relation to each other as the year marched on, cold, wet in the muddy trench, afraid to move, terrified that at any moment there would be a flash of light or the shrill aching sound of a shell as it pierced the air. Keep a stiff upper lip, a cool facade, your head about you. Can’t let the men know that you’re afraid. Keep a cool surface. Calm. Detached. As inside a part of you has been shattered.

T
he sun streamed in through the windows in filtered lines. There was buttered toast in a silver basket covered with an Irish linen napkin to keep it warm, strawberry preserves in a small ceramic jar with a tiny jam spoon, four-minute eggs hidden in handpainted eggcups, and a small vase of poseys in the center of the table looked almost like a still-life, back-lit by the morning sun.

Mr. Fell was examining a butterfly he had received in the mail. He held the butterfly up for Rosemary and Philip to inspect. Its wings were spread and affixed to a small pane of scientific glass. “A painted lady,” he
said. And then to Rosemary, as if it were a test: “Latin name…”

She answered instantly. “
Vanessa cardui
. They migrate, you know,” she said to Philip. “Can you imagine that flying two thousand miles to a warmer climate? They look as though they could barely fight the wind.”

Henry Fell put the butterfly down, carefully, so as not to bang the glass. “Very few of them survive the journey home the following year,” he said. “But the females lay eggs along the way. And then the children do it again the following year.”

Rosemary walked over to where her father was sitting. “Once, Papa, remember, when I was eight, we saw a flock…”

He corrected her, “A swarm…”

“A swarm of monarchs, like a patch of gold across the sky. We were in Connecticut…”

“And your mother was there. I remember,” said Mr. Fell. He picked the butterfly up again and looked at it. “Is it instinct or sense that makes them do it?” he asked.

“Is there a difference?” asked Philip.

“Yes, I think there is,” said Mr. Fell. “In more sensible times. You know we’re sending more troops to France and Italy.”

“What choice do we have?” said Philip.

“Don’t you always have a choice about war?” asked Rosemary sounding female and pacifist and slightly petulant. “It’s not as if we’ve been attacked. I sometimes think we may have entered into something that wasn’t our business. I’m sorry. I have trouble making sense of it.” She was quiet after this. She looked at Philip across the table. They had dressed in silence—neither of them mentioning the events the night before. It occurred to Rosemary, they should get their own place. Maybe, in their own apartment, there would be more room for honest interchange, less occasion to keep up appearances all of the time. She poured herself a cup of coffee and took a piece of buttered toast and topped it with preserves. Mr. Fell busied himself with the small note that had come with his butterfly. “Caught by the meadow at Sheepshead Bay, June r, 1918.”

“What are you doing today, dear?” Rosemary asked Philip, finally, after they had sat in a thick silence for a few minutes.

He looked surprised at the question. “I’m working,” he said.

“You’ve been there every day since you got back. Don’t you need a day off?”

Philip shook his head. “Teddy ran it by himself for
long enough. If you want to, you can meet me for lunch,” he said.

“I have a lunch,” said Rosemary, “one of those charity things. You’d just be bored…Then I’m working at the hospital.” If she’d looked at his face, she might have had a different answer.

“Another time then,” said Philip who shortly after that excused himself and went to work.

T
hat day at lunch, he took a walk and, almost without meaning to, found himself on the street outside Miss Wetzel’s Boarding House. There was a group of young boys playing stickball. Philip caught the ball as it almost rolled out into the street. He kicked it back. He considered taking off his jacket and joining them but they ran off. He stood across the street and looked up at Eleanor’s window. The window was half-open, the curtain was blowing in the wind. And then he saw her framed in the window.

The street receded. There was darkness all around him and the piercing sound of an incoming shell as
the night-sky exploded in a burst of light and next to him, the one they called “Dutch” because he was from Pennsylvania, no one knew his mother called him “Sweets”, guts wrenched open spewing in the clay-red mud, writhed in agony and then lay motionless. Keep a cool facade. Can’t let the men know you’re afraid. Order the men to fire. No, don’t. As, if they do, they’ll only draw more fire on themselves. What was the rule, “Fire when fired on”…Was that the rule? Run. No. Retreat. A proper, provisional retreat, carried out before dawn. Make a list. Won’t be able to take them with you, carry the dead on your back…or arrange a burial. Better, make a list so their families can be notified. Incoming…And the sky blasted white. Order the men to fire. No, don’t. And Philip was left to wonder whether it was an act of cowardice—or self-preservation. He saw Eleanor framed in the window. And the words he’d written to her echoed in his mind,
“Did I speak to you about duty and honor…I meant to…Duty and honor. And what it’s like to be bound to, one thing when your heart wishes you to do something else,”
as the day crashed in on him again and he stared up at the empty window where she used to live.

He walked across the street and rang the bell although it was evident to him that she didn’t live there anymore. Miss Wetzel opened the door and
peered up at him. He hesitated. “I’m looking for Eleanor Smith,” he said as politely and formally as he could. The bird-like woman shook her head. “Would you have an address?” She studied him for a moment—then left him in the open doorway as she reached in a drawer in the table for a slip of paper on which, in Eleanor’s own hand, was written her address.

He took a taxi to her apartment building. As the cab pulled up and stopped at the curb, she walked out of the lobby on Robert Doyle’s arm. Philip turned his head away so that she wouldn’t see him, then looked back and watched as they walked down the street. She wasn’t as thin as she had been, softer somehow yet moving with the same ease she’d always had, coltish, graceful. Her hair was straight, silken. Her skin unblemished. He watched her turn and look at Doyle and laugh at something that he’d said. Had he really expected she would wait for him?

He directed his taxi driver to take him to Jane Howard’s address. And, once inside, demanded a whiskey.

“Have you even had lunch?” Jane asked him as she poured him a drink.

“When did you get so conservative?”

“I know,” said Jane. “Isn’t it peculiar?”

She handed him the scotch. He took a sip and sat down in an armchair. “Have you seen her?” he asked.

“Eleanor,” said Jane. “Once.” She chose these next words very carefully. “There was a period when she didn’t go out much.”

“Because of me?” he asked. He wondered if she’d heard about his death…or his return.

“That’s best left between the two of you,” said Jane.

“She’s met someone else, hasn’t she?”

Jane made a face. “You know when Rosemary was little,” she said, “we used to play a game. I’d say ‘blue’ and she’d say…The grown-up version is, I’d say ‘blue’ and you’d say, ‘Moon.’ ‘War’…”

Philip answered immediately, “…Crime.”

Jane nodded. “‘Blue’…‘violet.’ But whenever anyone else would play,” she explained, “and they would say ‘yellow’ we would both say ‘sun’ or ‘chicken’, depending on our mood. But Rosemary and I always said the
same
thing usually at the same time.”

She was trying to explain to him that she had switched sides, that it was one thing when they were playing in this, but now that it seemed real, her loyalty was to Rosemary.

“You haven’t answered my question,” said Philip.

“I’m glad you’re back,” she said. And then very formally added, “Can I get you another drink?”

Philip nodded, acknowledging the new rules between them.

T
eddy found him in the office a few hours later with a half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a half-full glass. The mood at the docks was hushed, subdued.

An American carrier on its way to Britain had been hit the week before by German U-boats, less than a quarter of the crew had survived, and the ship had sunk, smashed and broken, in a mass of flames. It had been transporting civilian supplies, food, medicine, or as Teddy put it, “All this for potatoes and rubbing alcohol.” And all ocean crossings had been delayed until passenger and cargo ships could be accompanied by military escort. Fleets of warships had been dispatched
from England, France, and the United States. The seas were deserted except for the battalions and the German U-boats lurking under water just off the European shore.

Philip and Teddy had given their workers the week off but, not knowing what else to do with themselves, they showed up each morning, anyway, with bag lunches and dominoes and small children in tow and collected at the edge of the wharf idling away the afternoon, staring at the empty seas, as if their presence could somehow effect a speedier deployment.

Philip pulled another glass off the shelf for Teddy. “Join me,” he said.

Teddy grabbed the glass that Philip had set out for him. “All right, I’ll have one.” He poured himself a drink. He sat down across from Philip at the desk. “We weren’t better off without you, you know.”

“Weren’t you?” Philip asked him. “The business was fine. Rosemary lives in her own world. She’s always fine. And if she’s not, she rearranges the furniture.” He took another sip of his drink. “You expect it’s all going to wait for you,” he said, “and it’s all gone on without you.” He hesitated. “Maybe it’s me that’s changed.”

Outside the window, one of the men began to play
a mouth harp and the melody echoed, the waves breaking behind it almost like a bass-line. An ocean liner anchored out to sea, sat empty except for a three-man crew, as if it were a ghost hotel, swaying slightly on the flat, black waves and creaking on its moorings.