The Gates of Rutherford (15 page)

“Let's see,” she murmured, holding up first one and then another. “Pink. Rose. No. What color is your mother's Singer dress? Champagne or rose. I thought so. No, you're much stronger than that. Blue. Sapphire. Ah . . . purple.”

She held the piece of paper close to Charlotte's face, and brought her own equally close. “Your skin has quite a coffee tone in there somewhere,” she said. “I imagine if you laid in the sun you would go absolutely brown.”

“I'm hardly going to lie in the sun.”

“Aren't you? Wouldn't you like to?”

“Well, who does?”

“Coco Chanel.”

Charlotte frowned. “Who is Coco Chanel?”

“She lives in Biarritz. She designs hats. And these wonderful
loose clothes. . . .” She smiled at Charlotte. “Loose clothes, Charlotte. For sporting ladies. Not tweeds. Not wool. You should live there, you know. I bet there's sunshine in your blood.”

“Father's ancestors lived in the Caribbean.”

“And owned half of it?”

“And owned half of it. Or stole half of it.”

They both smiled. Christine's hands dropped from Charlotte's shoulders, and she fleetingly stroked Charlotte's cheek. “Just for a moment there, in that reply, I saw the Charlotte that I used to know not very long ago. What's the matter, sweet one?”

It had been Charlotte's habit, in the last three weeks, to protest to everyone—especially her mother, especially Louisa, who might get close enough, or know her well enough, to know when she was lying—that everything was perfect. But now, looking into Christine's eyes, she found she couldn't do it. Abruptly, she burst into tears.

Aghast, Christine let her cry for a moment. Then, very gently, she patted her leg. “Don't go on too much,” she said. “I haven't a clean handkerchief.”

Charlotte had plunged her face into her hands; now, she dropped them and stared into space. “I'm sorry.”

“What are you sorry about? Crying? I wouldn't be sorry for a little thing like that. I cry all the time.”

Charlotte glanced at her. “You do? What about?”

“Money, usually. Not having any. And boiled eggs.”

“Not having boiled eggs?”

Christine laughed. “No, you nincompoop. Having to
eat
boiled eggs. It's all I can cook.”

“I can't cook either,” Charlotte admitted.

“One isn't taught. Or laundry. I've had the devil's own job figuring out how to wash and dry things,” Christine said cheerfully. “I heard that one aristocratic gal came to be a Bohemian—she had some
wild idea she'd like the freedom because she'd had an argument with her mother over a hat—and she left after a week because no one had picked up her underwear from the floor. She simply couldn't understand it. Mind you, the fact that she was a complete idiot didn't help. Arabella Winsome. Heard of her? Related to the Nettishes?”

Charlotte sighed. “I should never have got married.”

“Oh my love, is that all it is? But darling, most women loathe being married. If they're honest. I mean, who wants to be someone's glorified housekeeper for fifty years? Or in charge of housekeepers, and bothering about menus or whatever? Why is it our job, after all? I've seen women artists living with men who tell them quite openly that they mustn't paint anymore because they need to look after the children and put meals on the table. Not one of the men I know would dream of cleaning dishes, or buying food, or cooking it, or washing their socks. It's ghastly. So unfair. I mean, look at someone like Edna Waugh.”

“I'm sorry. I don't know who that is.”

“Well, quite,” Christine replied tartly. “She was at the Slade, and brilliant. Then she got married and
pffft
!” She illustrated the remark by snapping her fingers together. “And Christabel Dennison. Another one you won't know. She told someone I know that she felt she could never be happy again because she had to make meals all day. She used to be so talented.” She shook her head in exasperation. “I sometimes think this so-called Bohemian experiment is really just a playground. All the ideals go out of the window when a man wants food, or his shoes polishing. Personally, I find it all quite disgusting, the way men are. But you've got a woman who ‘does,' haven't you? A cook?”

“It isn't the cooking, or the house.”

“Then it must be living in the house. Is it horrible? His mother's choice? Does she turn up and criticize?”

“No, not at all.”

“Does
your
mother turn up and criticize?”

“She wouldn't dream of it.”

Christine sighed, then smiled. “One of the reasons that I'm here is that I could never stand the rules. Do you remember, before the war wiped it all away? One wasn't to be vulgar. That was one. Vulgarity was the most dreadful crime. My aunt thinks I'm vulgar now, and she doesn't know the half of it!”

Charlotte nodded slowly. “My mother tells a story that Father once forbade her to walk across the lawn in her bare feet.”

“There you are, you see! What on earth would it matter? Would the world grind to a halt? Ludicrous. I was lectured on all kinds of things. That I must never use colored notepaper, for instance. Or wear cheap scent. Or ever wear anything that had dyed fur attached to it. I must wear thick stockings, not thin ones. Never to get in a cab alone. Never to walk alone, never to dine alone. . . .” She threw up her hands. “Stifling!”

“Yes,” Charlotte replied quietly. “How awful that must have been. I don't recall anything like that, though. I was a boy-child really. . . .”

Christine fell silent. She saw at once that it wasn't Charlotte's past that stifled her, but her present—her life now. Her married life. She decided that if Charlotte wanted to tell her what the tears were about, she would. But the silence stretched out for some minutes until Christine, losing patience, clapped her hands together. “Enough,” she said. “We'll go out.”

“I must get home.”

“Back to whatever it is that makes you weep?” Christine said archly. “Not before I've taken you to the Café Royal.” Abruptly, she reached down, took Charlotte's face in her hands, and kissed her on her forehead. “There! Now wipe your eyes,” she instructed. “Nobody
feels like crying in the Café Royal, and if Augustus John is there, he'll buy us a drink. Wait while I dress.”

•   •   •

I
t was mid-afternoon by the time that Charlotte returned home.

She put her key in the lock, and called out to the housekeeper that she was back, placing her hat and gloves on the little hall table. There was no reply.

Wonderingly, she walked down the hall as far as she was able; beyond the door in the small entrance was a scullery, a pantry and a kitchen, and a small bedroom in which their cook lived. She was a plain, nice woman who—according to Michael's mother—had never married and was known to his family as a reliable and quiet sort. She would keep regular hours, and was unlikely to entertain men friends. And, although the house was small, it would never have occurred to Charlotte to trespass into the cook's domain. So after knocking softly once or twice, she retreated upstairs.

She would have loved a cup of tea. She was so thirsty. The Café Royal had been an eye-opener, and Christine had been right in that Augustus John had been there at the bar, regaling other customers with his exploits of life in a gypsy caravan on Dartmoor—and, to his credit, he had bought both she and Christine a glass of red wine with the astonishing words, “If you see any little toads running under your feet, pat their heads.”

“He means his children,” Christine had whispered.

“He brings his children here?”

“No, not really. It's a joke. He always says the same thing. He'll pat any child's head, you see. Because he never knows if it's one of his.”

Charlotte had gazed at the great man. He seemed larger than
life, grown more vivid by virtue of his fame. They called him the world's greatest painter. He was like a bull: a sort of vibrant life poured out of him. You could sense it, almost feel it as an electrical charge close to him. He laughed a lot, and spoke in a loud, booming voice. He was puffing on a pipe, and indeed the whole room was full of the smoke of many cigars and cigarettes.

The bar was like a gaudy cavern with green walls and a gilt ceiling, and, at intervals, statues of goddesses. In the mirrors behind the bar an artist's world reminiscent of Manet's
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
was reflected; domino tables and hardened drinkers, and conversations in full flow. A woman wreathed in a floor-length shawl sat on one chair; a saintly-looking girl on another. “Models,” Christine replied, when asked. “And Dorelia.”

“Dorelia?”

“John's mistress. His official one, at least.”

When they had finally left, Charlotte's head had been reeling. She wasn't used to wine; the outside world seemed peculiar. The afternoon street of people passing in their Sunday clothes seemed suddenly absurdly contained and clean. The sun had come out and the pavements gleamed after the rain; the omnibuses passed up and down, the crowds promenaded. After parting company with Christine, Charlotte had walked for some time rather than taking a cab.

She felt tired now and her head ached as she climbed the stairs. She was on duty at seven tomorrow morning. She would lie down for a while, she thought. She opened the door to the bedroom; the curtains were pulled. The room was nearly dark.

Michael was sitting in the dark in a chair near the window, facing the door. It momentarily unnerved her. “Oh . . . Michael,” she murmured. “What are you doing sitting here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“Have you had supper?”

“Some time ago.” He stood up and walked in the direction of her voice. She was so glad at that moment that he couldn't see her. He might notice the remnants of pleasure in her face. He leaned towards her, and frowned. “You've been drinking.”

“Only a glass of wine. Christine took me to the Café Royal.”

“The Café . . . ?” His astounded voice trailed away, and then came back with insistent force. “You shall not go there. I forbid it.”

“I'm afraid I've been there. I'm sorry, but I don't see how you can tell me where I should go and not go.”

“It seems that someone should.”

She turned away from him, taking off her rings and laying them quietly on the dressing table. “It's just a café,” she murmured. “They are just people.”

“People,” he repeated, irritated. “I don't want you mixing with them. They are not decent.”

She pressed her lips together hard, trying not to respond. He waited a moment, then felt his way around to her. He reached for her arm, and she watched his hand slowly come towards her in the gloom. “Women of a certain type go there, I've heard,” he said, as he finally gripped her wrist. “I don't want my wife there.”

“Michael, my
mother
goes there.” The words hung between them: she saw that he wanted to exclaim—as perhaps he had heard others say—that her mother was no better than the models that draped themselves across the chairs at the Café Royal. But she knew that Michael would not say that. He would observe a formal nicety with her. She felt herself shudder, but it was not because Michael was making an effort to be protective. It was his touch. His careful, dogged, possessive touch.

“If you wish to go there,” he said softly. “I shall come with you.”

“All right,” she whispered.

But you shan't,
she was thinking
. You shan't.

I
t was such a blessed dream.

Jack was standing in the last of the afternoon light at Rutherford, and the last year of war had never been. It had never happened at all. He had never walked away from his parents down Rutherford's long drive; he had never glanced back to see the curtains closed across the window of Louisa's bedroom, as if she couldn't bear to see him go. He had never watched the horses taken from Rutherford's yard, or arrived himself at the Remount Center in Sussex.

The year slowly reasserted itself in a series of snatched images.

He saw a fine morning, and the horses exercised. A rolling ship. A single track railway and an open cattle truck, where he stood with a hundred others. The veterinary stations at Albert, and Authuille. It was there that he had first seen men and horses gassed, turning his face as the men staggered past, or were carried retching and coughing into the wagons; and he himself lost for what he could possibly do as the horse he had been assigned to stood half dead, her legs planted far apart as she fought for breath. Please God that it had
never happened that they had decided that she was too far gone, too broken, her lungs too full of foam. Please God, let it not be that they had taken her outside and shot her; or that the next horse in the line looked at them with mute accusation, head swaying.

It had never happened. He was somewhere else. The dream came flooding back to him. He was a free man again, wading through the meadows by the river in a line of the other stable hands, looking for ragwort, making sure that there was no invasion of the yellow weed into the pasture. A free man again in the heat of a summer's day, the warmth on the back of his neck, his hands swinging aimlessly among the grass. The war had never come to claim them all; the horses were still in the yard and he was grooming them at first light, and there was no hurry and no fear; he leaned against the sweet-smelling flank of a beast as he brushed it, and they both stood ankle-deep in straw. Across the yard, he saw the wood smoke coming from the chimney of the cottage; his mother would come to the gate and call him. And beyond, the garden wall of the great house, and the gardens.

It was the end of summer three years ago, and Louisa had been rescued from France and the bastard who had tried to break her, and she was once again sitting listlessly at the table at the harvest fair. And his mind took him further back still. It was the year before that, and she had asked him to dance in the orchard, resting her clasped hands behind his neck, looking up into his face. And then it was last year again, and she was bidding him good-bye where no one could see them, and he had kissed her.

Lovely, random, floating images. Mixed up and blissful. Innocent of grief. In his sleep, Jack smiled. One of the veterinary medics passing him, seeing him slumped there on the earth in the corner of the barn that served as a first dressing station for the horses, thought that he would wake him, but decided against it. Jack Armitage had been treating the wounded from Monchy for fourteen hours straight; when
ordered to rest, he had fallen almost where he stood, first leaning on the wall and then crumbling to his knees in a crouch. He was almost sitting now, though unconscious. The medic stared at him. Strange how a man could smile in the midst of this, he thought.

But for Jack in his dreams, Monchy had not happened either. The strange scenes he had witnessed were dreams in themselves, apparitions only.

The village had been won after bloody fighting, but pockets of resistance had held out. In the safety of sleep, Jack had never seen the HQ stationed in the cellar and the telephone table surreally set up among boxes of sugar and salt. The place had once been a shop; both armies had ransacked it. Germans had torn open cartons, and the Tommies afterwards. Sugar in the rum, fire in the throat, fuel for the failing heart. Salt for the bully beef stews to make them edible.

And in the dream Jack had never stood by a wall in the darkness, two horses held by their reins, both with injuries. They were gathering them together to take back; there was a veterinary hospital five miles in the rear. A horse that could be treated must be treated. They were needed, and couldn't be thrown away. Repair and reissue, just like uniforms. Like the thirty thousand boots that Jack had seen being made in a place near the coast. Like the makeshift stables that he was required to provide, dragging corrugated iron and bricks from what had once been houses or back gardens. Trying to stop the snow coming in. Trying to clean mud from the leg wounds. Trying to make poultices for mustard gas burns.

In the dream, he had never had his back turned to the building behind him. Two in the morning. The artillery was still pounding. Big bass drums in the blackness. The army had been through here, the Highlanders, and cleared the street. And so it was impossible that when Jack had turned his head that he had seen a German face
six feet away, the rifle aimed at his own head. It was strange that he had felt no fear; he was beyond it. He had ploughed through so many dead to find the hysterical horses that he now seemed not to care. His blood ran thinly, liquid ice.

The snow was coming down. The German wavered, wiped his eyes. “Nay, lad,” Jack heard himself murmuring. As he would to a horse. A slow soothing murmur. “Nay lad, nay lad.” Like that. The man frowned, and then his mouth drew down in a childish-looking grimace. His bottom lip wavered, and he began to cry. There in the snow, there in the dark. He put his rifle on the floor and held up his hands. “It's no use surrendering to me, I can't do nothing with you,” Jack had told him. “It's the horses I'm seeing to.” He had cocked his head. The soldier nodded. He put out one hesitant hand and placed it on the nearest animal, and stroked it, and began to cry in earnest.

He had looked no more than eighteen at most. A blond boy, alone and afraid and trying to give himself up and get out of this carnage. In the next moment, someone had come out of the shadows, a British sergeant, and caught the boy by the arm, and yelled blue murder. The boy literally screamed in fright; he scrambled for his rifle, in his youth and fear reaching for his gun, cocking it and training it on the sergeant, finger trembling on the trigger. The sergeant shot him at point blank range. The boy dropped to the ground; the patrol moved on. Jack had stood there shaking, looking at the snow gently collecting on the boy's face, dropping on his still-open eyes.

But such things had not happened. Not now that he was safely asleep.

Louisa walked towards him, laughing, holding out something. He stretched to see what it was. A rose from the terrace garden. A new kind that the gardener March had cultivated. She was showing him how pretty it was; yellow, with an apricot center. His mother used to get some of the flowers that were not deemed suitable for the
big house; ones that had gone over slightly and were dying. She had always loved them nevertheless, putting them into big jugs on the kitchen windowsill. He remembered them casting their beautiful light into the room, like patches of sunlight, pools of gold.

And then he woke. He couldn't breathe. Someone was crouched down next to him, a fag in hand, blowing smoke in his face. He coughed, and the man laughed. “Get up,” he was told. “More coming through, and transport.”

He had slept for five hours, and was amazed to find that it was now daylight. Tea was being brewed: a tin cup of it was forced into his hands. His captain came striding across. “Well,” he said. “You've slept.”

“I'm sorry, sir.”

“Long day ahead. Get yourself something to eat. Jump to it.”

He went to the table and stared at the food. It seemed incredible, impossible. There was a large straw hamper there, and inside all kinds of extraordinary things. A box with shortbread in it. A flask of whisky wrapped in a straw pouch. Jam and honey and Gentleman's Relish, and cheese and cake. Fruitcake—a Dundee cake with almonds pressed into the thick glaze. He blinked, thinking it was a mirage. Or that he was still dreaming.

Captain Porter clapped him on the shoulder. “Blighty parcel,” he said. “Hamper from Fortnum's.” It was fantastic. Mail got through, parcels got through. The roads were clogged with a nightmare traffic of men, ammunition, guns, and wagons. Staff cars floundered and had to be abandoned. The wounded were dragged on sleds through the mud. The dead littered the streets. The living drowned in the fields. But the mail got through.

“Fortnum and Mason,” Jack muttered, still astounded. He looked at the logo on the basket. “Fortnum and Mason—Piccadilly since 1707.” The shop had delivered parcels to the troops fighting Napoleon;
they were delivering now to South Africa and Mesopotamia, and to prisoner-of-war-camps in Germany. But still, it looked so incredible. Both obscene and miraculous. He couldn't decide which.

Slowly, he took a piece of shortbread and cut a slice of cheese. Then he snatched up a piece of the fruitcake and stuffed it, along with some of the cheese and shortbread, into his pocket.

•   •   •

F
ortified by the unfamiliar taste of the cake, rolling it around in his mouth with ecstatic delight, he walked the horses down to the barges. In the filthy, mud-banked water that used to be a river, flat-bottomed barges were waiting to take the wounded back behind the lines.

Duckboards had been laid, but even they were submerged now. It was a slither and slide down to the riverbanks. Jack watched as stretcher bearers patiently edged forwards. The snow had turned to sleet. The morning was punctuated by artillery blasts—just a continuous percussion that no one took any notice of. You were either going to be hit or you weren't. The man next to you might take the force of a stray shell. Or the impact would be borne by you.

Jack reasoned that the worst thing that could happen would be if a shell landed, say, twenty feet away. Twenty or thirty feet meant getting sliced by shrapnel as the metal casing shattered into lethal pieces. Twenty or thirty feet away was unlucky. A direct impact was lucky. You would know nothing, he told himself. And so they all worked on: stretcher bearers, men, horses, mules, not knowing if the next crash would have their number on it, a ticket to eternity.

Jack thought that he was luckier than most in having the horses to attend to. It took his mind off himself. It meant that he didn't have to stare down too long at the faces of the injured. He would rather
look into the eyes of an animal—patient, unquestioning liquid-brown eyes—than into the frightened gaze of some young lad.

The silence was the strangest thing, and the most admirable. Aside from the hurried orders of those packing the barges, there was not a human sound. The wounded didn't weep or shout. Sometimes Jack could see their lips moving in a prayer, or some kind of instruction to themselves—he had once heard a strong Devon accent whispering, “Don't do that, don't do that,” over and over. Occasionally, standing in the line, a hand would be raised and a cigarette given. How often had Jack seen that cigarette fall unsmoked, the grip loosened, the fingers unable to grip, the life running out of the hand that tried to hold it. Others crushed it, fumbled it, gratefully trying to inhale something that didn't smell of cordite or chlorine, bromine or phosgene.

The barges with the men pushed away first. The river was so full of rubbish that progress was very slow. Jack noted how the craft moved like worms threading their way through loose earth, snagging on sunken obstacles. The sky, heavy with sleet, pressed down on the scene like a great wide grey curtain. Color had almost gone from everything around; it was a study in monochrome. Occasionally, when someone spoke, or rolled their eyes, it was a surprise to see the inner red of lips, or the bloodshot rim to an eyelid. Skin was spattered with mud, or grease, or something worse, caked to a brown residue. Hands were knotted on ropes, on rails, on handles, stretcher sides—fists of cold grey flesh.

The next barge was ready for them. Jack made his way down the slope with the mule he had taken from the line. Strange beasts, mules. The most awkward beasts on the planet. He had been told—he had never seen it himself—that the way to subdue one was to take it straight from the ship and walk it round and round a parade ground
for two days, until the animal was exhausted. Not to mention the handler. That ironed the kick out of them. Usually. But they got frightened just as the horses did, and when they were terrified they would just stop. Neither shell nor shot would move them then.