The Edge of the Fall (20 page)

She nodded. ‘It was the wine, wasn't it?'

‘A little. But, still, it makes things hurt less.' He took his hand from behind his back. ‘I've got some here.'

‘That's the stuff from the restaurant. Did you
take
it?'

‘Well, I paid for it, so I could.' He took a slug of it.

‘I suppose so.' It seemed rather shocking to carry a bottle out of a restaurant – especially one like the Belvedere.

‘They wrapped it in a napkin. Would you like some?'

She shook her head.

He handed her the bottle. ‘Just try.'

She took a sip. It was thick, sharp, sweet, expensive. Her mind reeled under it, back to the night when the war ended. They'd been in the garden, near the rose bush. Tom was talking, put her arm around her. They'd been drinking then, too.

‘Steady on! You'll empty it.' He took it from her. ‘My turn.' He drank and then turned to her, eyes glittering. ‘Listen, Celia. I know what we should do. I'm going to go in there and ask for more. Then we'll just drink the lot. We'll be as sick as dogs in the morning, but we'll feel better. Both of us.'

‘I don't think I will.' She'd felt exhausted after that night in the garden, weary and sick.

‘Please, Celia. Please do it with me.' He put his hand on hers. ‘I need you to.'

She couldn't leave him alone. Not after this. ‘I could have a
little,' She'd just drink one sip for every three or four of his. He wouldn't know.

‘I'll go back. Wait here.'

‘We can't drink it here, Tom. Not outside the restaurant. We need to find somewhere else.'

His eyes flickered. ‘You're right. We can't drink it here. Let's go down by the lake. People sit out late there.'

‘We could.' She waited for him as he trundled off, watching the cleaners scrubbing hard at the cobblestones. A tall one came towards her with another bucket of water, slopped it over the steps. Celia stared at them, wondering if they might look up, but they were intent on their work.

‘Success!' Tom returned, bearing two bottles, wrapped in napkins. ‘Although they didn't like it much. I think they only agreed so they could get rid of me. Let's go.' He helped her to her feet and she followed him, picking her way over the damp night grass towards the road, then down to the lake. He talked on the way, bright, eager, chattering as if someone had pressed a button, about the business in London, Captain Dalton, the panelled room for meetings, the luncheon club in Piccadilly where the clients liked to go. She made noises as if she agreed, even though she thought she barely understood a word. They passed more of Baden's evening workers, women with brushes, men with buckets and bricks, sent to mend the hotels at night when the guests didn't see.

She'd thought that there might be people around the lake, looking out at it, talking as they did in the daytime. Instead it was quiet, just a man who looked like a worker rowing on the lake with a net, fishing out weed.

‘This will do.'Tom pointed at a spot at the top of the grass, swept himself down. ‘I wish I had a picnic blanket. You need a picnic blanket for this kind of thing.'

‘But we're not having a picnic!' The thought made her laugh, so much so that she had to hold her sides. ‘We're just drinking!' she managed to say, through the giggles. She sat down, still laughing. Tom was smiling at her, not quite, she thought, getting the joke.

He passed her some wine. ‘Look! I've got these as well.' He pulled out two glasses – the heavy-set crystal of the Belvedere.

‘You took those?'

‘No, only borrowed. I'll take them back tomorrow, don't worry.'

‘Did you ask them?'

‘Not in so many words. They charged me so much for the wine that I think they should be included in the price!'

He poured some of the liquid into her glass. ‘There you go.'

She sat back on her heels, feeling the grass soak her dress. Across the lake, the lights in the hotel rooms were beginning to dim, one after the other. People were curling under their covers, talking, reading, settling children. She wondered where the red-haired girl they'd seen at the boats was now. Dancing, maybe, or in a dining room. Not asleep. ‘Do you think it will ever come back?'

‘What?'

‘The war. Do you think it will come back?' All those people in Baden who looked as if they'd never fought. Somewhere there must have been fighters, like Johann, left out on the terrace. The fine dresses and the laughter hid scars, just like hers did, she supposed.

‘Never. Of course not, Celia. What are you thinking of? Why would it? They did all that at Versailles. We're at peace now. Have some more wine.'

‘You said it would come back, when it ended.'

‘I was wrong.' He drank from his glass. ‘Happily wrong. Not only about that. Wrong about many things.'

‘Heinrich is a good man, you know. He cares about you. He always asked me about you.'

‘We'll see. He knows where I am. He can write.' He drank again.

‘He can.'

‘You remember you always wanted to go to Paris?'

‘I did.'

‘You could now.'

‘Don't start again,' she said. ‘Don't start telling me what to do. It's easy for you, finding a job in business. Not for me.'

‘Sorry, Celia.' He took another drink. ‘I don't want to see you wasting your time, that's all.'

‘Perhaps I want to waste it.'

‘I don't believe that.' He drank again. ‘Not you.'

‘We were supposed to be so happy when the war ended. I looked forward to it for ages. Now I don't feel anything at all. And then I worry it might come back.'

He put his arm around her. ‘It won't come back. How can it? Look at Germany now, look around you. They don't want another war.'

‘I'm sorry about Heinrich. Maybe you could write to him tomorrow. I could give him your letter.'

‘I could, certainly. Have another drink.' His arm was still around her, burning her shoulders. The wine was hot and sweet in her throat.

‘Celia, I'm sorry for snapping at you earlier. I know you tried to help. Sometimes I haven't been kind enough to you, I think. Since the war broke out, I was so caught up in thinking about myself, I didn't always think about you.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘I was cruel to you when you came to see me in the hospital. I just didn't want anyone to come.'

‘I know.'Months after it, she'd thought of him saying sorry, how he'd apologise, take her hand and she'd forgive him. Now, finally, he was offering her what she'd hoped for and all she could feel was tiredness sliding over her. ‘You didn't ask me to come, after all. I just thought you'd be pleased to see me.'

‘It was kind of you to try. Anyway, I'm lucky to have recovered. Plenty of chaps didn't.'

‘You feel no pain?'

‘I do. Of course. My eyes can't bear the sun or the wind, my head hurts a lot. My nose is always running, from the gas, I think. But that's nothing, is it? Not compared to the rest. Anyone would say I've been lucky.'

‘No one was lucky. Not really.'

‘But we're alive. A chap in my regiment sent a postcard to all
three of his brothers. He wrote “I'm alive, are you?” He got no reply.'

‘We are.' The ghosts of the others were coming close, Michael, Shep, all the hundreds and thousands of people on the cinefilm she'd seen, the men who'd died in the back of her ambulance.

‘I'm glad.' He held her close again. ‘We have each other.'

She gazed at the lake, glittering in front of her.

‘I wonder, sometimes, how we'd have been different if we didn't have the war. You'd be a fine lady, married to a man with a great estate for hunting. I'd still be a servant to your father.'

‘You wouldn't. You'd be something better.'

He shrugged. ‘Maybe. Not this. I wouldn't be here.' His arm tightened around her shoulder. ‘Who knows? The war changed everything.'

She gazed at the lake. The man in the rowing boat was gliding to the side, his net heavy with plants.

Tom drank again, cleared his throat. ‘Celia, I meant it. I was grateful when you came to the hospital. Even though I – well, said some things I didn't mean.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘But you understand now. I told you no, I—'

‘I offered to marry you and you said no. That's what you're trying to say.'

‘Yes. I did. But you understand now, don't you? It wasn't just about how ill I was. It was that I thought – you know. I thought we were brother and sister.'

‘Yes. I know that.' She sat, listening to the crickets scratching around them. Her mind reeled, circling around the look of shock on his face when she'd offered herself to him. It had been almost revulsion, she thought, horror. She drank from her glass.

‘You said to me “I'm too plain for you, is that it?” It hurt me to hear,' said Tom.

‘That's how I felt. You find me plain, don't you? Surely it's true.'

‘Of course I don't. Who could?'

‘Everyone. I'm too tall, too thin, untidy hair and my nose is too long. I should have been born more like Emmeline.'

‘She's busy with her babies now.'

‘She's still beautiful, though.'

‘So are you. Honestly.' She could tell, from the corner of her eye, that he was looking at her.

She shook her head. ‘I'm not. If I ever was, I'm not now, not after all these years of war.'

He scrambled up, so he was facing her, kneeling. ‘Celia, don't say such things. You still are. I promise.'

She tried to shake her head again. He caught her face, so he was holding it, looking straight at her. ‘I promise you are.'

She was going to reply – and then found, looking at him, that she couldn't. Instead, she stared. His eyes were shining in the darkness. His hands were on her face. She could hear his breath, knew that if she looked down at his chest she would see it moving, up and down. She was holding the moment between her hands, like a drop of water between two fingers. If she moved either way, it would break. He breathed again.
It gives you something else to think about
, he'd said, late at night in the garden.
Makes you forget
. Cooper slipping out of the ambulance station to meet men. She heard herself breathe. Then she moved forward, bringing her face towards his. There was a pause – she felt it – as he moved backward, only a tiny space, no more than a fly's width. Then he came towards her again, his mouth was on hers – and they were back in the garden, nearly six years ago.
So this is what it's like
, she thought.
Of course! Of course it is
. She had wondered, so often. They'd talked about it at school, in the ambulance station. But now it was happening, she thought, of course it had always been so. It had to be. He was pushing her back now, down on to the grass. ‘It's wet!' he said. ‘Sorry!' She laughed as he took off his jacket, laid it down, then she was laughing again, couldn't stop. ‘Sssh,' he said. ‘Sssh.' Then he moved her back again and he was lying over her, next to her, his hands on hers. She looked past his head. The plough, her favourite constellation, dipped and shone in the sky.

*

‘Celia,' he was saying. ‘I didn't realise.'

She heard him, deep in her mind, as if she was coming up from the bottom of the sea. She tried to raise her head, couldn't. She didn't want to think.

‘Celia?'

She put her head back on the ground. Her body was heavy with the weight of what they'd done. She wanted not to think any more. She thought he might say
I love you
. But really, surely, she knew that already, so what else was there to say? Perhaps if she'd gone back with that officer in London, she'd know what to do.

‘I'm so tired.' She closed her eyes. She could hear him talking, the words coming about something. She couldn't hear them.
What have you done
? she heard other voices say: Verena, Emmeline, her father.
I don't know!
And she didn't, not really, she didn't know. This thing she was supposed to never give away, not until marriage, was now gone for ever and she'd never get it back. She was a new person, different, she'd passed through a door. When she was at school they'd talked about the idea of it, tried to work out what it was, because no one really knew. But what they did all know was that you were changed for ever – and now a new life would begin. She supposed they were all married now, doing it properly, husbands and children. Not like her, losing the precious thing somewhere near a lake in Germany. But then she thought about Cooper again, who'd always been creeping off with men. She'd liked it, she'd been happier than the rest of them.

She looked at Tom.
You're my cousin
. Queen Victoria had married her cousin, they did in the Victorian times. She'd read an article saying it was out of fashion now. But Heinrich and Lotte had wanted her to marry Johann.

She felt different, she was sure she did. Her body had changed.
She
had changed. Would people be able to see? Surely Hilde would guess. And the thing itself – it was strange, she thought. It wasn't how she had expected it would be and yet, at the same time, of course it would be like this – how could it be any different?

She wanted to talk to him –
what did you think of it, is that how it normally is, am I different?
Was she completely altered, like
magic?
I love you
, she wanted to say. Because that's what you did say, and she felt it, surely she did.
I love you
.

‘Do you want to come back to my room? I'll say you're my—'

‘Cousin?'

He smiled in the darkness. ‘Yes. As you are.'

‘I don't think that would work. Not if your hotel management are anything like ours. Let's stay here a moment,' she said. ‘It's so peaceful. Then let's go.'