Heart of War (74 page)

She muttered, ‘You've got to give me more. I can't stand it.'

Deerfield was looking thinner than he used to, and his plump face was haggard. He said, ‘I can't, Stella! Oh God, I wish I'd never got into this with you. It's not worth it … nothing could be …'

‘I can't sleep at night. Look at me.'

Deerfield shook his head. He knew what she looked like – beautiful, but no longer virginal, dark shadows under her eyes, mouth set. People thought it was the baby – she was nearly six months gone now.

He said, ‘I've given you bromides … Look, there is a new hypnotic drug called Veronal, which might act better …'

‘I want heroin,' Stella said. ‘It's not only not sleeping. I hurt … it's like torture everywhere, in my head, my stomach, legs …'

‘You're taking aspirin, a great deal of it.'

‘It's not enough … I sweat all night sometimes, and can't sleep till I get the little dose you allow, and then not for long.'

‘I'll give you codeine, for the pain.'

‘I want heroin.'

‘I've told you a dozen times, Stella, that if you don't detoxify yourself before the baby is born, it will be born addicted, and may die within a few days.'

She stood up unsteadily, looking down at him. Her blue eyes were blazing, her teeth set, a thin film of perspiration sheening her skin – she said, ‘I'm leaving now, Charles … going first to the cottage to get a kitchen knife … then driving to Hedlington … to your office … If you're not there by then, to give me an injection – of heroin, a big one – I'll kill myself, on your doorstep. Then what will happen to your career?'

Deerfield looked up at her, aghast. Gradually, he gathered his wits. Perhaps it would be the best way out, in the end.

Boy strolled round the stumps to his place at cover point, as young Calder took the ball from the previous bowler and walked to the end of his run. The batsman had already been in for twenty minutes, with a score of 19, and appeared well set to finish the match and probably win it for a Weald Light Infantry team from the Depot in Hedlington. Boy settled into position, keenly aware of the powerful odour of mothballs surrounding him; his white flannels had been in the drawer for several years.

He looked at his watch. The shadows were long and the light flat and cool. The colours of the women's dresses were muted outside the marquee. Earlier he'd seen his cousin Stella here in a brilliant yellow dress, but she seemed to have gone. Pity, he would have liked to speak to her; he'd hardly seen her this leave …

The ball was hit straight at him. He awoke from a daydream, and caught it. Harry Swithin walked past him on the way to the marquee, grinning, ‘You looked as if you were catching a potato masher, Boy. I was expecting you to throw it back at me.' He passed on.

Only one more day. The land was unbelievably green, the trees so heavy and tall. How was it possible to turn a tree like that elm into match sticks and sodden pulp? Helen was wearing a blue shirt. He picked her out, and felt his hands moisten, and his throat constrict.

The war was like that damned Indian Ordnance Depot claim for the lost pakhals – whatever you did, it came back.
You could say that you didn't owe it; that it wasn't your fault; even, at last, that you'd paid … it would come back. The shelling abated, but always came back: the trenches receded in memory as you went out on relief, but they always came back – the smells, the corpses, the shit piled in the latrine buckets, the whiffs of gas, of rotting flesh, of dead rats, of maggots … the bitter cold, the body hanging on the wire in a frosty night, twenty yards away, staring at you, Private Hammond … (Hammond '57, because he had a brother in C, Hammond '91) … staring at you with wide eyes, for a day and a half until they'd been able to send a patrol out to cut him loose.

They were cheering, Ted England pulling up the stumps. He glanced at the little blackboard set up on the easel beside the marquee. It read 104–7–7. As Walstone had made 103 the visitors had won, with what must have been about the last ball of the game, for it was half past six, the time agreed upon for drawing stumps. He headed for the marquee, his eyes on Lady Helen Durand-Beaulieu. She was watching him, her dark blue eyes glowing, her parted lips creamy soft.

In a trance he found his blazer, put it on. The girls were waiting for him and after goodbyes they walked away together across the grass, under the trees, and onto the gravelled drive leading to the Walstone Gate and the Old Bridge. The bats were out over the Scarrow as they crossed the Old Bridge, and Boy felt a surge of sheer joy at living. He linked arms with the girls on either side and said, ‘What song do we all know?'

‘Green grow the rushes oh!' Carol exclaimed, squeezing his arm. ‘That's a lovely song.'

‘Not that, it's his Regimental march,' Helen said with a touch of sharpness – ‘Greensleeves!'

She raised her voice in a pure contralto, untrained, low, strong, a mature woman's voice, singing from the depths of her being:

Alas, my love, you do me wrong to cast me off discourteously
,

And I have loved you so long delighting in your company
.

Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight

Greensleeves was my heart of gold, and who but my lady Greensleeves
.

I have been ready at your hand to grant whatever you would crave

I have both waged life and land your love and goodwill for to have Greensleeves was all my joy…

They all sang the chorus with her, Boy in his baritone, the other two in pleasant trebles. The harmony soared into the heavy foliage of the trees above, surged out across the fields, and entered the open windows and doors of the cottages along their road. Probyn Gorse, standing by his door, heard, and listened. Boys and girls in the summer night, he thought. Adam and Eve.

As they entered the village proper, P.C. Fulcher peered at them from a corner and said, ‘'Ere, 'ere … Why, it's Captain Rowland … and Lady Helen … I thought you must be folks from London …'

Boy waved a hand, ‘It's all right, Mr Fulcher. We'll be quiet now. We just felt good.'

‘Don't know what about, sir,' the constable said. ‘I 'ear we lost to the soldiers.'

“Fraid we did … Here, girls, I feel like a drink, and here's the Beaulieu Arms, Prop. James Haversham, licensed to sell beer, wines, spirits and tobacco. We will enter that imposing portal and I shall stand you all drinks from my amassed pay, which at eighteen and sixpence per day, plus field allowance, lodging allowance and mess allowance, comes to nigh on twenty-five and ninepence per diem, and my lodging's been quite free most of the time, free – damp, and draughty.'

Helen pushed him, as P. C. Fulcher chuckled. Helen said, ‘Go on in, and stop talking, Boy. I'm thirsty, too.'

‘Ever been in a pub before?'

‘Two or three times. Your father and mother don't approve, nor do mine, but we working farm girls all go sometimes.'

‘Just to prove you're as good as men, I know.'

They entered, Boy leading the way. The barmaid was old Parsley, a grey-haired maiden lady of about eighty, who'd served him his first pint of bitter in this same bar some twelve years ago. The Public bar, which they had gone into, was half full of farm labourers, a couple of farmers' teen-aged sons, but, at that moment, no other women. Boy said, ‘Everyone having bitter?'

‘Cider for me,' Carol said. ‘Scrumpy.'

‘Scrumpy for me, too,' Helen said, ‘only half a pint, please.'

‘Two pints of bitter, please, Miss Parsley, and one pint and one half of scrumpy.'

‘Yes, sir.' She peered at them. ‘Good evening, m'lady … I heard the cook left up at the big house.'

‘I'm afraid so, Miss Parsley. Mother's trying to teach Hazel how to cook, but she's not having much success. Father's learned how to boil an egg, though.'

The old lady behind the bar chuckled and peered at the young women with sharp old eyes behind her gold-rimmed glasses – ‘Drink up, young ladies. There's only one way to take good British beer … fast! And scrumpy, too, m'lady … otherwise it tastes like …'

Helen raised a finger, ‘Shhh!' She turned to Boy and they raised glasses, all four, clinking them together. The farmers in the bar watched from the corners of their eyes, some amused, some approving, some disapproving. The girls were gentry, of course; they could afford to act badly, and it didn't matter – they were not the village. But let one of their own daughters come in here, in a band, with a young man, and there'd be some words spoken and tears shed later.

Probyn Gorse came through the open door and, before he was inside, called, ‘Pint of old and mild, Miss Parsley.'

He glanced at Boy's party and nodded, ‘Evening, Captain … m'lady … miss … miss.' So it was them singing, he thought; there was only one Adam … but which was Eve, to sing that mating song in the twilight?

The girls had another half pint each and Boy, feeling the need for something stronger, took a double whisky, with soda from the heavy siphon on the bar. Probyn finished his pint, laid money on the bar, and went out. Five minutes later Boy said, ‘We ought to be going on home now.'

Carol Adams turned – ‘I suppose we'd better. Anyway, if I drink any more beer…'

Little Frances cut in unexpectedly – ‘You two go on. Carol and I are just getting going. We're shredding reputations.'

Carol said, ‘Well, I don't know …'

Frances insisted – ‘We'll stay, Miss Parsley … two half pints please.' She looked at Boy and he saw that she was blushing.

‘See you later, then,' he said, and went out, holding the door open for Lady Helen to precede him. In the street they turned left, without speaking, and walked out of the village.
At the last cottage Boy slowed his pace. There was a sliver of moon in a pale twilight, and the softest of heavy breezes, sweet with honeysuckle from the hedges and new scythed hay from the fields. His heart was in his mouth and he could not properly control his breathing. Yet he had no idea what would happen … only that he did not want to reach home, or see his father and mother, only to keep on breathing this instant, her hand now in his. But how, what? … She possessed him, soul and body.

She pulled him to a stop, turned him round in the lane, and put her arms about his neck, and her face under his, her lips parted. Slowly, at first wondering, at last accepting, he pressed down. Her lips opened, and as though she had been twined naked round him it was plain to him that her body opened. She stood away and said, ‘I love you, Boy.'

He said, ‘I … I love you, too. I've never felt like this before, so I don't know … but it must be. It can't be anything else.'

She took his hand again and led him a few yards up the lane, where a five-barred gate marked the entrance to a field – the field where they had been haymaking. She walked along the side hedge until they were well away from the lane, then turned again, and began to unbutton his blazer. ‘Spread it on the grass,' she whispered. Swiftly, she took off her boots and stockings and then her breeches and drawers, finally shirt and short camisole, spreading them all on the long grass under the hedge, where the scythe blades had not reached. Trembling, Boy followed her example, until they stood face to face, naked in the hot summer dusk. She pulled his head down to kiss her breasts, then they kissed mouth to mouth, standing until their strengths flowed from their knees into their loins, and they collapsed slowly, like falling intertwined trees. Again he kissed her iron-hard nipples, slid his hand into the mysteries of her sex, and they ached and throbbed, and moaned together, crying Helen … Oh Helen … Boy, my darling … darling…

Behind the hedge Probyn Gorse listened with satisfaction. The Captain was doing right by the girl, and she by him. 'Twould have been a shame just to stand up and fuck like dogs, when there was so much love and so much innocence. They deserved each other. The moans grew to a climax, punctuated by a sharp cry from the woman – must have broken her maidenhead there, he opined. He looked through
the hedge and for a few moments observed the heaving and thrusting of the two lithe young bodies, flesh white and firm and strong. Probyn leaned back, and waited for the climax, the outcry … and after, ah, good, the captain was not jumping to his feet, finished, impatient to be off. He was loving her, more than when he was in her. Women needed that whether they were duchesses or milkmaids. He was a good man, Boy Rowland. Only hope he comes back again, from France, so they could go on as they had started, till they were as old as he.

She lay on her back in his bed, naked, her arms wrapped tight around him, holding him to her, holding his weight on top of her. Her face was damp with the exertions of their lovemaking, and with her tears, that had flowed unchecked since the moment, after she had stripped off her nightgown and spread herself for him, when she had felt him enter her body. It seemed that the first night and this night and the day between had passed like a flash of the sun on a distant window. As soon as they had eaten their dinners, after the first love in the hayfield, they had gone to bed, and at eleven o'clock she had come to him … and stayed till dawn … worked all day … now again. Tomorrow – no, this day, for it was two o'clock in the morning – he must return to France.

He slid off her at last, and they lay side by side, he resting one hand on her sex, where she lay quiet, her thighs slightly parted. She whispered, ‘Scratch my back, darling.'

‘What?'

‘Scratch my back … Mummy told me once that all women liked their backs scratched, and I said, I don't, and she said, you will one day … Now I understand. Go on!' Boy scratched away, while Helen made small noises like a happy pig, giggled, and wriggled her backbone and the skin of her back.