Small Island (45 page)

The medical officer, on the boat when we first came out east, had warned us RAF recruits. Ulcers, inflammations, colourful discharge, swellings. All the result of sexual relations with the wrong type. He’d given us lectures. Colourful pictures were passed round. Lurid photographs. Quite shocking. Parts of the body unrecognisable as human. Turned some of the chaps a sorry shade of grey. Had them worried. Frowning. Thinking back. Stopped their bragging for a while. One of them, I recall, fainted – blamed seasickness. ‘Always use this,’ the MO had said. Took a rubber sheath out of his breast pocket. Waved it around in the air.

Some joker had shouted, ‘Is there just the one, sir?’ Got everyone laughing.

Apoplexy, mental failure, nervous disease, blindness. And, of course, eventual death. Syphilis!

The inevitable result of my sexual relations with the wrong type. A small girl with black eyes harmless as a baby’s. The wretched whore in Calcutta – still left clinging on me. Syphilis! In the day, I felt this ulcer’s presence like a galloping pulse. And at night we both wept. Syphilis! I couldn’t imagine what Queenie would say to that. I tried to conjure her admonishment. A wagging finger. A tutting tongue. A turned back, perhaps. All useless when faced with the shame of a husband riddled with the clap.

Clinging to the rail of the ship I looked down into the sea. Only one step would be needed. A big one. Over the rail, off the side of the hull. It would be days before I was missed. No one would see my scrawny figure slip under the foaming wake of the ship. If they did they’d blink twice, thinking the ocean light was playing tricks on them. It was the only honourable thing for a man in my position to do. They would have to declare me missing. And Queenie, like Maxi’s two sons, could keep me as I was. A middle-aged bank clerk who’d thought his life was set. Who even started whistling once he was part of a team. An RAF aircraftman fighting a just war. An Englishman proud of his country, right or wrong. Sitting there at the rails of the ship the moonlight was brighter than an English February sky. All night I waited for courage or despair to overwhelm me. To slip me into the navy sea. But neither came.

Would the military now have to drop me off at home by truck? A spectacle in the street (everyone out to stare). A parcel being delivered to number twenty-one. Would two men march me up the steps and knock at the door? Queenie untying her apron, would she smile at her hero’s return? Would they tell her that syphilis had made me lose my mind? Would it now be Pa who hoped that if someone found it they’d bring it home for me? And would they have to give me a little shove to get me inside?

1948

Forty-six

Bernard

I expected Queenie to be shocked. Could hardly blame her. Husband back from the dead. But I didn’t foretell that ‘appalled’ would play for quite so long around the corners of her mouth. Sitting there clutching her stomach. Speechless. Pale. Shaking. Eyes rimmed red. She looked older. More careworn. She’d put on some weight. I’d watched her wither away during the early part of the war. Day by day. I was not the only husband who’d felt impotent about that. So a little plump looked well on her.

‘How’s Pa?’ I asked.

Suddenly she was crying. Weeping into her hands. I lifted my arm to caress her head. But she moved. Brushing her nose on her sleeve, she’d never know I was trying to comfort. Thought it an innocent question. Except she walked the room demented.

‘Oh, Bernard. I wrote to you . . .’

Letters went astray. Part of many chaps’ grievances. We moved so much, you see. In India, it could take months for a letter to catch up with our RSU. Some never made it. Misunderstandings passing unknown in the post. Silly question (I know), hardly worth asking, but I did. ‘Has something happened to him?’

‘Bernard, you’ve been away such a long time . . .’

Who could doubt I owed Queenie an explanation? But describe snow to someone who’s lived only in the desert. Depict the colour blue for a blind man. Almost impossible to fashion the words. How to begin to tell? It had been over two years since my ship docked back at Southampton. A long time, I admit, to get from there to here. After demob, I’d made my way to Brighton. Found lodgings in a seaside boarding-house. Just a room. Landlady was called Mrs Joy Bliss. Miserable woman. But discreet. Or, at least, too ungracious to ask many questions. I just came and went as I pleased.

England had shrunk. It was smaller than the place I’d left. Streets, shops, houses bore down like crowds, stifling even the feeble light that got through. I had to stare out at the sea just to catch a breath. And behind every face I saw were trapped the rememberings of war. Guarded by a smile. Shrouded in a frown. But everyone had them. Private conflicts. Scarring where touched. No point dwelling on your own pitiful story. Chap next to you was worse off. The man over there far more tragic. Silence was the only balm that healed.

I never doubted I was doing the right thing. Even on days when the longing for familiar was as substantial as hunger. To lie with Queenie. To sit with Pa. To gaze on objects that communed in memories. I had no idea how long the awful disease would take to claim me. No thought of doctors or cures. Shame saw to that. My only worry was that I would lose my mind. Do something rash without sanity’s firm hand.

But in waiting to die I felt fit. Found employment, cleaning tables in a café. Kept my head down, had a job to do, just got on with it. Proprietor, rather dim fellow, needed a hand with his bookkeeping. He was tickled pink when his worthless waiter turned out to be useful. I helped him out. He told all his chums. Soon I had a few of them calling on my services. Became quite a little business. All very informal but regular. I stopped being a waiter. Double-entry bookkeeping earned me enough for board and lodging.

I found Maxi’s house, of course. Up near the station. A modest house. Painted pale blue, its bow-front window hung with thick yellowing nets. I walked his street often, my footsteps marking the pavement where Maxi’s should have been going about their business. Rushing to work. A pint or two in the pub. A game of football in the park. Or cricket. Maybe even church with his family on Sunday.

There was a graveyard nearby. I sat on the bench there. Saw his two sons coming out from the house. His wife tying a headscarf against the wind, calling for the boys to wait. Them, boisterous, running up the street. Clambering up walls to walk balancing along their length. As the younger one passed me he dropped his model car. I picked it up for him. Got a faint smile. Little chap staring at me. Spit of his father. A natural successor. He grabbed the car from my hand and ran. Maxi had never seen this younger son. I felt like a thief, stealing a sight that should have been his.

They soon got used to seeing me sitting in the graveyard. His wife would nod to me. Some days she’d raise up her brown eyes to say, ‘Lovely day.’ Attractive woman, her black hair always hidden by scarves. Short. Not much taller than the elder boy. I only spoke to her in polite greeting. Silly, I know, but I was anxious not to befriend, just to watch over. I never told them I knew Maxi. Scared she’d ask the unanswerable. Want to know what befell us all out east. With the war over, even the truth seemed sordid. Loving memory was the best resting place for George Maximillian.

It was Mrs Bliss who called the doctor. My temperature raged, sweating my sheets sodden as freshly used bath towels. I could feel every bone in my body. Even the smallest of them ached. Any movement – to roll in the bed, even to blink an eye – felt impossibly exhausting. I told her not to bother but she brushed me off with a ‘Nonsense.’ Couldn’t blame her. Must have been a pitiful sight.

The doctor, after examining me, said flu. I pulled him to one side. Out of the keen hearing of Mrs Bliss. Whispered, ‘Afraid it’s considerably more than just flu.’ Got the landlady to leave us before I told him, ‘It’s syphilis.’

‘Syphilis?’ he repeated. Quite unsettled.

‘Picked it up in India.’ He wanted to know why I thought it was syphilis. Told him of the indiscretion and the disgusting pustule. ‘How long did this boil last?’ he asked.

‘A week, maybe two.’

I detected a certain distaste as he said, ‘And?’

I didn’t quite understand.

‘And what other symptoms?’

‘And this, Doctor . . . this . . . flu.’

‘Right,’ he said. He began writing notes. Checked for something in his bag while asking, ‘How long have you been back from India?’

‘Two years,’ I said.

He stopped. Turned slowly to face me again. ‘Two years?’

‘Yes.’

‘You mean it’s been two years since you noticed this lesion on your private parts? Two years since the . . . indiscretion?’

Hesitated my next yes. Sensed that answer might be wrong.

He began folding his book away. Said tersely, ‘Flu – like I said, Mr Bligh.’

‘But . . . India . . .’

‘I can do you a WR test if you want – put your mind at rest. But you’ll be wasting everyone’s time. Two years! You should be mad or dead by now. No. Flu. That’s what you have, Mr Bligh. Wretched, horrible flu. But it needs to be taken care of. I’ll talk to your landlady on the way out.’

‘Are you sure?’ I called after him.

‘Flu, Mr Bligh. Trust me. Flu. You’ll be fit as a fiddle in a couple of days.’

And I was.

Wasn’t even a miracle. I never had that awful disease. The pustule had probably been picked up from some straying insect after all. Or something gone septic. Nothing to do with that little madness in India. There was no one to tell of my silly error, of course. ‘Feeling better now?’ was all Mrs Bliss could ask.

‘Much,’ was all I could reply. Should have been a relief, I know. A return from the dead. But I had to admit there was release in imminent mortality – it had me transient, a bystander. Now unexpectedly to have my life back. Laundered fresh by a war. Ready to start again. To be thrown back among them. Suddenly to realise this war-torn England before me was now my welcome home. Good God!

Maxi’s family moved away. The yellowing curtains were gone. The house empty. The neighbours were useless, looking at me suspiciously. Why was I interested in where they had gone? Who was I to them? I had to walk away. I didn’t make a decision to go back to London, just found myself on a train. If it was sleepwalking, I soon woke up at the corner of our street. Hard to believe this had been my home for most of my life. Nothing was familiar. Had it always looked so exhausted? So friable? Buildings decaying and run down. Rotting sashes. Cracked plaster. Obscene gaps where houses once stood. I came a few more times, each visit less startling than the last.

I hoped to be discovered (I admit). Pa running to greet. Queenie laughing with relieved joy. Got closer and closer. But still approached as a stranger.

It was the darkie woman I saw first. What a sight! On our street. Never seen that before. I was dumbfounded to see that the white woman she accompanied was Queenie. What was going on? I was standing over them before I knew it. Then back in our parlour before I’d considered.

‘Has something happened to Pa?’ I had to ask Queenie again.

‘Where have you been? Why didn’t you come straight back?’ Her terrified eyes demanded the more urgent answer.

‘Lost my mind a little,’ I said.

‘How d’you mean? Did you lose your memory?’

‘Yes. Something like that.’

‘Where were you?’

‘On the south coast.’

‘In England?’

‘Brighton.’

‘Brighton!’ She screamed this. ‘Blinking heck. Brighton! What were you doing in ruddy Brighton?’

‘You haven’t said about Pa. Has something happened?’

‘I want an answer first, Bernard. I’ve a right to know. I’m your wife. I thought you were dead. It’s been years. And you just turn up and say, “Brighton!” Were you having a blinking holiday with a bucket and spade? Why Brighton?’

She’d changed the sideboard in the parlour. This one used to be in a room upstairs. Ma had it taken out. Quite rightly thought it far too big for this room. Pa’s chair was no longer by the fire.

‘Queenie, please, tell me if there is something to tell.’

She sat down again, wringing her hands. The noise of dry skin rubbing pricked up the hairs on the back of my neck. ‘Your father’s dead,’ she said, a little too promptly.

I’d known, of course. Soon as I walked into the house. I could feel him gone.

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Oh. Is that all you can say? Oh?’

That’s what war had done to me. Made death a reasonable thing. But she was quite hysterical.

‘Don’t you want to know how he died? Haven’t you got any questions? He was shot you know. Here – through the jaw. His head looked like butcher’s meat.’ A crueller man might have told her to get a grip. To come to her senses. To shut up, even. ‘Shot by Yanks. A Yank shot him. But it was all hushed away. No one was even asked why they did it. No trial. Nothing. His brain all over the pavement. And they just cleaned it up, gave me the pieces and carried on as if nothing had happened.’

The bones in her neck were standing out like scaffolding. She was screeching at me. Then there was a loud knocking on the door. I thought the person would break it down. I answered it to find a black man standing there. He looked straight past me, calling, ‘Queenie, Queenie, you all right?’Then the cheeky blighter looked at me and said, ‘Who are you?’

‘“Who are you?” is more the question,’ I told him firmly.

He took no notice. ‘Queenie,’ he called again, before attempting to push me from his way. I blocked the door. Tried to close it. But he held it open.

‘Who the bloody hell are you? This is my house,’ I said.

‘Don’t get me vex, man,’ he said. ‘I mus’ see Queenie is all right.’

Queenie soon popped up behind me. More composed. ‘It’s all right, Gilbert,’ she said to this darkie.

‘Who is this man?’ I asked her.

‘A lodger,’ she told me.