The Blasphemer: A Novel (41 page)

Nancy lowered her legs but did not move away. They remained standing like this in the hallway for a minute, recovering their breath, their distance. ‘You can’t stay,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you should stay.’

SITTING RIGIDLY AT AN OCTAGONAL TABLE BEARING EIGHT GREEN-
shaded lamps, Philip waited for the documents he had ordered. He checked his table number, clicked open his pocket watch and saw his features reflected on the same silver surface that had once reflected his father’s face, and his grandfather’s. The archivist had said it would take half an hour for the requested files to be retrieved and delivered. He had been waiting forty-five minutes. The files, he had been told, were from the ‘burnt collection’. This referred to the British army records for the First World War, 60 per cent of which were burnt during a German raid on the War Office in 1940. Philip had been warned to expect gaps in the records he had requested.

He had been meaning to visit the National Archives for several weeks – it was a short walk from his house – but a nagging unease had prevented him. When, ten minutes later, a manuscript box tied with string was placed in front of him, he hesitated before opening it, slowly running his fingers over its waxy surface: acid-free cardboard that protected the documents inside. The expectant stillness of the room prohibited abrupt movements. With rheumy eyes, he read and reread the name on the lid: ‘Private Andrew Kennedy, 11/ Shropshire Fusiliers’.

Mechanically he began unwinding the string.

The box contained a birth certificate with an accompanying letter from Somerset House, an army paybook stained with what
looked like coffee, or mud, and a solitary file with hints of reddish sealing wax clinging to its edges. Written in a spiky copperplate on the cover was a list of its contents. Underneath this was a stamp stating that the file was incomplete as certain sections of it were still classified. Philip’s hands were shaking as he opened it.

The flat in Chelsea was spread over the ground floor and basement of a five-storey Victorian house. It had a distinctive front door, painted pastel blue. When Bruce answered it and took in the sight of his friend standing grinning on the step, he groaned.

Daniel waved the bottle of vodka he was holding by the neck. ‘Got it for you in Duty Free.’

Bruce shook his head emphatically and said: ‘No way.’

‘One game.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘It’ll do us both good.’

‘It’ll do you good because you always win. I’ll end up cunted again. I had to have my stomach pumped last time.’

‘No you didn’t.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘I’ll let you be white.’

‘No. I’m not well. I think I have the early stages of pneumonia. My lungs feel …’

Daniel crossed the threshold into a room decorated with ornate filigree lamps, swags of plush velvet, and a mural of semi-naked young Athenian men languishing on the steps of a temple. He dropped his canvas weekend bag on the floor and went over to a baby grand piano where a chessboard with vodka shot glasses for pieces was set up. He placed the board on a glass coffee table, next to a vase of tulips, unscrewed the top of the vodka bottle and carefully filled each glass to the rim. ‘Do you know what I like about chess?’ he said.

‘You always win?’

‘It has a beginning, a middle and an end. And you never know when you are in the middle game, because that depends on how abruptly the end game is going to come.You could be two moves away from checkmate and not know.’

‘Sounds like another reason to hate chess.’

‘I was playing with Martha the other night and instead of knocking her own king over when I checkmated her, she lifted him slowly from the table, as if he were ascending to heaven.’

‘You wouldn’t even pretend to lose to your own nine-year-old daughter? You are one sick fuck.’

‘Thanks for letting me stay.’

‘Just don’t blow my chances with my tenant, that’s all.’

‘Peter?’

‘He’s due home any minute.’

‘You time when he gets home?’

Bruce raised his eyebrow at Daniel, a world-weary expression. ‘When you meet him you will understand.’ Bruce sighed again as he sat opposite Daniel and moved the white queen’s pawn. ‘The muscled contours of his upper body have clearly been hardened by hours in the gym. And he moves in beauty like the night. I think he is searching for love, too. Such a tragic, epicene figure with no one to protect him. Alone in my study at night I think of his angelic face and shed a tear.’

‘Among other bodily fluids.’

‘How are things between you and Morticia?’

‘Confusing … Why don’t you like her, Bear?’

‘I do like her. No, that’s not true.
But it’s her.
She can’t stand me. I can sense her impatience when I’m around.’

‘Everyone gets impatient with you.’ Daniel shook his head as he developed a knight. Bruce moved his king’s pawn. Daniel took it with his knight and handed Bruce the pawn glass to drink.

*

Ten minutes after he returned from his visit to the National Archives, Philip stood to attention in front of a full-length bedroom mirror. He was wearing his dress uniform; his back bowed slightly under the weight of the medals. On his stable belt – equal horizontal bands of dull cherry, royal blue and gold – was a silver buckle. In his collar were regimental pins, miniatures of his cap badge, the heads of the snakes facing away from each other. Tutting to himself, he swapped them over, so that they were looking towards each other – a nuance that signified he was retired. By his side was the silver sword he had received upon retirement. He held his scabbard with his left hand – RAMC officers do not draw their swords – and saluted his reflection with his right.

The doorbell rang. Momentarily forgetting what he was wearing, Philip answered it. It was Nancy, her hand raised to touch the doorbell a second time. She looked him up and down, said, ‘We aren’t at war again are we, Phil?’ and offered him her cheek for a kiss. ‘No one ever tells me anything.’

Nancy was the only person who called Philip Kennedy ‘Phil’. It amused her. He was very much a Philip.

The old man looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled. ‘I was checking it still fitted. Got a regimental dinner coming up.’ It wasn’t a lie, though it wasn’t the whole truth either.

’I brought your grandfather’s letters back. I’ve translated them. They’re rather moving.’

‘Thank you, dear,’ Philip said, taking them. ‘That was kind of you. Come in.’

Nancy talked over her shoulder as she walked past the old man into the hallway, leaving a trail of gardenia in her wake. ‘We’d left them in a hotel safe in Quito before the flight. The manager sent them on.’

‘So Daniel said. I’m looking forward to reading them. Amanda has gone shopping. Cup of tea?’

‘Thanks.’

Nancy led the way into the kitchen, filled the kettle up herself and, with impatient hands, flicked its switch on. She took off her duffle coat, folded it in two and laid it on the counter. She was
wearing a short dogstooth skirt over black woollen tights. Her boots were knee-length, with pointed toes and kitten heels.

‘How have you been?’ Philip asked, placing two cups and saucers on the kitchen table.

‘Been better,’ Nancy said, warming a china teapot before dropping two teabags into it. ‘I’ve been seeing a trauma counsellor. You heard from Daniel?’

‘You’ll have to speak up. That noisy old kettle.’

‘Did you know Daniel had moved out?’

Tell me the rest of it, Philip’s eyes said.

‘He’s staying with the Bear.’

‘The Bear?’

‘Bruce. Bruce Golding.’

‘No. I didn’t know that.’ Pause. ‘Always liked Bruce. I remember he came to me for advice when he was considering becoming a doctor.’

Nancy emptied the kettle into the pot and stretched her arms as she waited for the tea to brew. ‘Of course it’s Dan who should be seeing the counsellor. He’s suffering from guilt.’

‘About what?’

Nancy pouted, weighing up how much she was prepared to hurt Daniel; how cruel she could be to Philip. ‘He climbed over me when the plane crashed.’ She said it too quickly, as if fearing she would not be able to get the words out other than in a rush. ‘To save himself.’ She placed her hand, fingers splayed, gently on Philip’s face. ‘He did this. Left me to die.’ Her hand dropped to her side and she began pouring the tea. ‘Remind me, do you still take sugar?’

Philip looked as if he had been punched. He fell silent for a moment. When he did speak his voice was hoarse. ‘But I thought Dan rescued everyone.’

‘He did. Afterwards. And he did come back and save me, but … Listen, I don’t blame him. People do these things. I’d have probably done the same. It’s instinct.’

‘But that’s … that’s …
terrible
.’ Philip was looking into the middle distance as if hearing voices.

It was Nancy’s turn to feel guilty. The old man looked ashen. She softened her tone. ‘He’s not sure I know.’

‘You poor, poor thing.’ His sword clanking against his belt, Philip moved towards her and placed a bony, loose-skinned hand on her shoulder.

Feeling hot tears welling, Nancy buried her face in Philip’s chest.

‘I don’t know what to do, Phil,’ she said, her words muffled by the ribbons on his uniform. ‘I feel lost.’ Philip put an arm around her and rubbed the small of her back.

‘I never taught him how to be a man,’ he whispered.

‘Were you disappointed when he didn’t want to join the army?’

‘It wasn’t that.’

Nancy stepped back so that she could face the old man. ‘What about the Medical Corps?’

‘It’s not for everyone. Medical officers are party to dreadful secrets. Men on the point of death often cry out in terror. I tried to give them privacy, but that’s not always possible on a battlefield.’

‘Why did you join?’

Philip considered this. ‘It was a poem. A famous one. “In Flanders Fields”. Written by a medical officer.’

‘The one about the poppies?’

‘I must have bored on about it before.’

Nancy smiled indulgently. ‘Bore me with it again.’

Philip closed his eyes, as if reading the words off his eyelids. ‘ “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses row on row…” ’

‘Beautiful.’

‘Sad.’

‘Does your grandfather have a grave?’

‘No. He’s listed among the missing on the Menin Gate Memorial …’ His throat constricted at these words. He changed the subject too quickly. ‘Did I ever show you this?’ He led Nancy slowly by the hand into his study where, against a dim backdrop of chipped cornicing and age-darkened oil paintings, he stood on a cracked leather armchair and reached on to a high shelf. ‘It’s from
Normandy.’ He handed down a small glass tank full of turf. ‘I’ve been meaning to collect some turf from Flanders, too.’

Nancy didn’t want to patronize the old man by lying. ‘You
have
shown it to me before, Phil. But thanks for showing me it again. It’s quite something.’ She took the tank from him and held it up to the light. ‘You visit your dad’s grave every year, don’t you?’

‘This is the first year I haven’t. I must go soon. For a few years, back in the seventies, I used to find flowers and letters on his grave.’

‘Left by men who served with him?’

‘I presumed so. Never opened them. It would have been an invasion of his privacy. I brought them home with me, before they turned to pulp in the rain. I still have them here somewhere, in a box.’ He took the tank back and placed it carefully on the shelf.

They sat down and sipped tea in a comfortable silence.

Philip was the first to break it. ‘I find sentimentality intolerable,’ he said. ‘Such a false feeling.’

‘Lips tight, face hard. That’s the way to deal with emotions, eh, Phil?’

‘Actually it is. I don’t feel sentimental about Daniel’s mother because … How can I put this? … I believe in a sort of life after death.We live on in the memories of the people who loved us, our wives and husbands, our friends, our children and, if we are lucky, our grandchildren. In that way we live on, for a generation or two at least, then we fade, become those old sepia photographs which no one knows what to do with because no one can identify the faces.’

‘Don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk so much, Phil.’

The old man shrugged.

‘So your father lives on through you?’

‘No,’ Philip said. ‘I have no memories of him. All I have is remembrance, which is not quite the same.’

Nancy stirred her cup of tea. ‘I heard a nice thing the other day. You know the expression “gone for a Burton”?’

Philip nodded.

‘It’s a euphemism. From the Second World War. Instead of pronouncing a comrade dead, RAF pilots would say he had merely
“gone for a Burton”, as in a pint of Burton Ale.That’s rather touching, don’t you think? Intended to soften the pain of the news.’

‘English at its most eloquently unspoken.’ Philip looked on the point of tears.

Nancy had never seen him like this before. Daniel had told her once that his father had never cried in his life. She tenderly brushed his cheek with her hand.

Philip’s face cleared immediately, his voice became firm. ‘My eyes are old,’ he said. ‘They get watery in the cold.’

‘Sorry. Didn’t mean anything by it.’ Nancy felt annoyed with herself. ‘I have to go. School run.’ She shook her head. ‘I shouldn’t have told you about Daniel.’

‘Glad you did.’

‘All he ever wanted was to live up to you, you know.’

After he had seen her to the door, Philip sat in a chair by the fire and read the translations of his grandfather’s letters, resting his hands in his lap to keep them steady, nodding to himself. When he had finished them he held them to his nose. He could smell Nancy’s perfume on them. He changed out of his uniform. Answered the phone.

‘Hello, Philip. It’s Geoff. Look, there’s something you need to know. One of the professors at Trinity, a Laurence Wetherby, has approached us about Daniel … Hello, Philip?’

‘Yes, I’m here.’

‘I think he might be in trouble.’

Philip said nothing.

‘He’s become friendly with someone we’re keeping an eye on.’

‘Does this someone know you’re keeping an eye on him?’