House of Doors (19 page)

Her own head might have been spinning a little, she might have been falling herself, but he was looking up suddenly, twisting his head to find her, close and awkward as she was.

Now he had the words suddenly, now they were getting there, the truth at last; and yes, poor fool of a hero, it was all about his vanity after all.

She really should have known.

He said, ‘Children might get used to me, perhaps – but they'll never be my own, will they? No girl could get used to this.'

‘Across the breakfast table, do you mean? Or in bed, is that it?' Yes, of course that was it. He was trying to blush again, his face like a jigsaw, all his scars standing out. ‘Do you really think that poorly of us, as a sex?' She gave his arm a shake again, this time in simple admonishment. ‘Beauty's not the only thing that matters, you know,' though of course it must seem that way, at that age.

Perhaps she was wrong, perhaps – at that age – beauty really was the only thing that mattered. Odd, that she couldn't remember. Peter had eclipsed his own face in her mind; now when she thought about him – when she could see past his falling – it was the whole man that she thought of, his entire self. Ten years ago, though  . . .?

‘Not all, no – but I don't believe I'll get as far as breakfast. I don't believe I'll get as far as bed. What girl will ever come close enough to see past this?' He wanted to make that gesture of his,
see my face, see me for what I am
, but of course she was holding his arm and she wouldn't let him do it. He tossed his head instead, and glowered at her, almost too close to see him at all. As it happened she could see every detail of his grafts, every stitch mark of his scarring – but if her eyes were less acute, if the light were just a little softer  . . .

I'm here. Is this close enough?
She wanted to say that, but it was impossible. He needed to see it for himself, and his eyes were blurred by tears. Something deeper than self-pity, a well of clean distress. That sweet voice thickened clumsily as he said, ‘I  . . . I'm afraid that I'll die, and I will never have slept with a girl. I can get it over quickly, if Major Black will only let me; or I can hang on for forty or fifty years, behind this hideous face, and it'll still be the thing that I carry. Do you blame me, truly, for wanting to be quick and clean and gone? And some use to my country in the going? And then not having to do this any more, not having to talk to girls while all the time I'm thinking
you never will, will you? You and all your kind, you never will. Not with me, not now.
'

‘Oh, good heavens above,' she said lightly, not to let him see the truth of it, that she didn't actually blame him in the least. ‘Is that all? You astonish me. I thought you pilots had these matters all arranged. There are places you can go, you know. In London, and probably closer to home, wherever your home airfield was. Don't your fellow officers take you there to celebrate your wings? Long before your accident, someone should have done that for you, silly boy. Virginity isn't a blight, any more than it's a treasure. It's just something to be attended to. And after that – well. Your future's up to you.' She wanted to say
in your own hands
, but he'd probably take that amiss. In this mood, he'd turn savage if she gave him half a chance. ‘I've been a nurse a long time, you know. I've seen men far worse hurt than you, finding themselves wives and having families. And others turning their backs on responsibility altogether, refusing to settle down, keeping girlfriends all their lives.'

He wouldn't be convinced so easily. He had built himself a tower of isolation, and he meant to leap from the top of it in one fabulous gesture of finality. It would take a significant effort of will now for him to step back to earth and soldier on more plainly. She had to give him better reasons, or he'd never choose to live.

Maybe self-contempt was the spur he needed. He had enough of that, she thought, to spare.

‘You do actually have to ask a girl, though. First. Unless you honestly think it's better to fling your life away, sooner than hear her say no. Some of them will say no, I'm sure; for some of them, your face may be the reason. For others, not. We're not all that cheap or silly. A girl might still say no, but I think you'll be surprised how many don't. Charm and good company count for more, Michael. You'll learn that. If you let yourself.'

Charm and good company, youth and vulnerability and impulsiveness and hurt.

He lifted his head one more time, looked at her too closely, didn't try to hide the bitter anticipation in his voice as he said, ‘Will you, then?'

Somehow, she had really not expected that.

She had every reason in the world to say no, except that he expected it. He was boxing himself in, one last clever move and it was done; her refusal would be his confirmation, that there really was nothing to live for now.

Boxed in herself, she couldn't do that to him. She had no more liberty than he did; they were pieces on a board, moving each other.

She couldn't say yes, either. She hadn't said yes to any man, since Peter. That was  . . . long ago. She'd only had the word once, and she spent it. She couldn't claim it back.

Virginity wasn't a blight, but fidelity in widowhood? That might be.

She worried absurdly that Peter might be watching from the mirror.

The door was closed, and even so she thought he might be standing right outside. Watching, through the wood.

Her only sureness was that he wasn't quite in here, in this little room. In here there was only her and Michael. So long as neither of them looked beyond, so long as they could keep this privacy, so long  . . .

So long and no longer, but for now, well.

She leaned forward and kissed him.

It was what you did, how things began. Always with a kiss.

Kissing Michael was curiously like kissing a book, she thought. A book in a country-house library, perhaps, a hand-sewn binding with high ridged seams. Those lips of his were like much-handled calfskin, butter soft and warm but not responsive.

She didn't know how much that was ignorance and how much it was nerves, how much the stiffness of artifice. Hand-sewn lips would never be as flexible as nature's own. She wasn't sure if their skin too had come from his underarms, or some other part of his body; she half thought she was still on duty here, testing Colonel Treadgold's handiwork. She hoped not to test it to destruction, sprung stitches and leaking seams.

Or she hoped not this either, but perhaps she was doing Aesculapius' work instead, or Major Black's. Cutting him loose, letting him go. Giving him this last gift, the one thing that he wanted. This once behind him, what more could there be, what could she find to keep him, to give him cause to stay?

Well. All that was for afterwards. Whatever the repercussions, whatever the consequences, she was committed now.

She slipped her tongue between those unyielding lips – rubber, she thought, underlying the leather; how had the colonel made them, and with what? – and teased his teeth apart, found his own tongue lurking. Shy and wet and strange, not Peter, not tasting right. No matter. She should follow her own advice, perhaps.
Your future's up to you.

He wouldn't relax, of course not. It would be foolish to expect that, a young man stretched like wire, so very ready to snap. Still. He was obedient to her hands, not resistant, if not quite yet ready to cooperate. Starting to believe it, perhaps.

She had to undress him, he didn't seem able to manage on his own account. Perhaps he always needed help, what with that awkward hand, but tonight it was more than that. She thought he hardly dared to move, for fear that she would change her mind or shriek with horror or vanish like a djinn. Or that he'd wake up, as simple as that. Any number of ways, a young man could lose his dream from right there in his arms; he was breathless with fear, robbed of purpose, anticipating them all.

Well. She'd undressed men enough. She dealt efficiently with his clothes, all of them,
you won't keep your socks on, young man, not in my bed; but hold still, let me, I can see that you can't manage  . . .

It was her own clothes that seemed to give her foolish trouble. This was  . . . not part of the job, no. She did the one thing, or she did the other; she put men to bed or she put herself. Not both together, not any more, no, never again.

And yet here she was, and here was Michael, still not Peter. Very far from Peter. It would be idiotic to lock the door and drape the mirror to keep Peter out. He couldn't be further away already. No, all she had to do was keep this very young man here. In this world, this life. This body. Here, now  . . .

She fumbled the buttons and tore the cuff, but her blouse was gone at last. The skirt was easier, its own weight letting it drop away. Shoes could be kicked off, no need to fuss with laces.

Her underthings demanded fuss, but –
oh, you boy!
– Michael was predictably fascinated. Did he not have sisters? He might have said; she might have guessed; she couldn't remember. It was hard to remember everything, anything, in the dizzy strangeness of the moment. She was trying to be practical, competent, an experienced woman helping a youth through a difficulty; but – oh, she had difficulties of her own, and no one to help her through them.

This was  . . . not easy, no. It felt artificial, like his lips: a deceptive layer of alien skin laid over something utterly man-made.

Still, though, there was nothing artificial about his body. She was glad she hadn't turned the light off. He had something to look at, something to learn: the intricacies of women's intimate wear, girdle and stocking tops and suspenders. She could look at him. All dispassion spent, she didn't need to see him as a patient now. Indeed, she needed not to. There had to be a better reason. She could be his salvation, perhaps, but not his nurse.

And he, he to her – he could be what? A youth to train, a means to pleasure. Something that was neither patient nor husband. A body lovely to her eyes despite the scarring, despite all his hurts; eager to her touch despite his nervousness and doubts.

Come, then. There were doors to open here, for both of them. No harm in the world.

EIGHT

T
he second time, she thought the doors were at their backs, and closed behind them. She thought they were moving on.

She hadn't really expected that there would be a second time. Certainly she hadn't intended it, that night or later or ever again. If she'd thought about it at all, if she'd been made to stop and think, she would have said that this was a treatment she could offer, a knowledge she could share. Either one of those, or both together. Once would do. She thought.

She would have thought, if she had stopped to think. If she'd thought she needed to.

After that first time, she held him until he stopped trembling; and then he was all good manners and gratitude, expressed in clumsy whispers. She thought he wanted to go now, to relive this extraordinary night in the privacy of his own head, his own bed, where he might hope to understand it; only that he didn't quite know how to leave. How to say goodnight, in such intimate circumstances.

How to let go, when you were tangled skin on skin.

She could have helped him, of course. It would have been another useful lesson for a boy, how to leave a woman's bed with grace and tact. How to leave her happy.

But just when she thought they were both ready for it, there were crisp heels in the corridor and a soft tap on her door.

Ruth held her breath and his too, her palm laid lightly over his mouth. If they were caught, it would be the making of him and the ruin of her. She wasn't – quite – prepared to sacrifice herself that way, to boost his reputation or his ego.

Suddenly she was shivery in a whole new way, cold and tense and not at all delightful. She hadn't felt this way since her schooldays, when she'd been out of bed and making mischief – nothing like this! – and on the edge of getting caught. There always used to be a pleasure in the risk of it, but not tonight. She supposed she was just too old now to be so perverse, or else things mattered now in ways they couldn't matter to a child.

The tap came again, and this time a low voice calling through the panels of the door: ‘Ruth? Are you awake?'

Not pitched loud enough to wake her, unless she were an absurdly light sleeper. Still, pitched loud enough to hear and to recognize. Nurses learn these tricks.

Judith. Her new friend, her near neighbour. Her victim, coming up to bed after a desperate evening, full of that weary energy that wants nothing more than a brew and a conversation before sleep; finding herself cocoa-less, without even the makings of a nightcap.

Without companionship, that too, unless she had another friend elsewhere on the corridor. Ruth tightened her hand over Michael's lips.

Just for a moment there, she had taken the touch of them for granted. It was strange how quickly that could happen, when an hour ago all his body had felt wrong to her, wrongly sized and wrongly trained, not Peter.

A little moment longer, and blessedly Judith didn't open the door to peer in, to check. Matron would have done that, absolutely. Judith was more sisterly. She clipped back to her own room.

Reassured, Ruth turned her head to find Michael's eyes glittering at her in the moonlight, to feel his tongue teasing at her palm. Tickling.

‘You're
enjoying
this!' She was almost enraged, hissing at him, didn't he
understand
 . . .?

No, of course he didn't. He was a boy, new-made man; he was almost laughing. She snatched her hand away and he murmured, ‘I suppose there must be other nurses on this corridor?'

Indeed there were. These were the women's quarters, set aside. The men probably called it the harem between themselves, or the seraglio. Forbidden temptations. There weren't many of them, not enough: and all senior staff, like Matron and Judith and herself. The local girls arrived in flocks on bicycles and departed the same way, presumably trusted not to talk at home; but most of the nursing, most of the cleaning and cooking was done by orderlies, drafted men who were subject to military discipline and billeted somewhere in the house, somewhere else.