The Jeweller's Skin (5 page)

1912

In three hours’ time Edwin would be home.  She stood up and went over to the window; but the street looked much as it had half an hour before.  A boy in a cap ran down the opposite pavement, waving a large white envelope, and ran back empty-handed a moment later.  A man with a walking-stick stopped to lean on a gate.  The sky was an even grey; there were no shadows.  The long first-floor windows, which should have made her drawing-room bright and open, instead seemed to leave the air a greyish blur.  She sat down again with the English book.

Tomorrow I shall go to the theatre.

She repeated the line to herself under her breath.  At first she had said the new words out loud; but once the maid had heard and gone out giggling. 

Tomorrow he will go to the opera. 
Would Edwin take her to the opera?  She had an image of a great domed theatre; lights all along the balconies; beautiful women leaning from the boxes, in low-cut dresses of the last century.  Probably it wasn’t that at all; she must have read it in some French novel. 
Tomorrow you will go…
Oh, all these tomorrows, she thought, and dropped the book onto the Turkish rug.  I’ll do it later.

A knock: the maid came in with a tray, and unloaded it onto the side-table: teapot, hot water, sugar, cup and saucer, milk.  She had given up saying that she didn’t take milk; they didn’t believe her, or they didn’t care.  ‘Thank you,’ she said, careful with the
th,
which could betray her.  The maid was called Hammond; but hating to call a young woman by her surname, Narcisa ended up using no name at all, and no doubt seemed rude.  The girl was younger than she was, fifteen maybe, with a bustling walk and a smirking, knowing air.  Narcisa had tried early on to talk to her.  ‘That will be all,’ she said, like her mother-in-law, who managed to make it definite and dismissive.

Perhaps Edwin would bring the newspaper.  He bought it every morning, and, she supposed, read it on the train or over lunch; but often he forgot to bring it home.  Once or twice there had been news of the Balkan War.  ‘So what about Prizren?’ she’d asked, urgent; but he’d said he was sure nothing would happen there.  How could he know? she wondered, but didn’t ask.

It was five months since she had had news from home.  Five months: the last letter from Alma, with a note at the end from her father, was dated May, and had reached her in early June.  Alma had written about the new baby, Ljuljeta, and Aunt Apolonija’s cooking: silly things, that they might have laughed over on a warm May night.  Her father as ever asked after all the Humphreys, who he’d never met but regarded as family, and ended
I’m glad you are happy and safe there. 
She had all this time, while Edwin was at work, when she was ‘running the household,’ whatever that meant, and learning English and playing the piano, to worry about what might have happened to them, and write more letters that still got no answer.  ‘We must go there,’ she’d said one night to Edwin, as they were going to bed; and he said, ‘Where?’ and then apologized, and sat down with her, on the satin counterpane.  ‘It’s not the time to be travelling, you know; it’s really not safe;’ but that had made it worse.  She’d burst into tears, and he had held her hand, and been kind, but repeated, ‘No, really, too dangerous.’   He’d promised he’d find out what was happening, he’d ask his old contacts at the Foreign Office; but if he had, she’d never heard the answer.  Sometimes she wondered if there had been letters, and he’d not told her, because the news was bad.  But I’m upset anyway, she thought, and felt guilty, having doubted his honesty; in any case, he can’t read Albanian. 

She had let the tea stew too long; she poured half a cup, and topped it up with hot water.  Edwin’s mother would frown if she saw that, and murmur.  It does you no good, worrying about them all: that was what Edwin said.  But I have to worry.  Still, it was true she needed to do something.  She bent down and picked up the English book again.

The grandfather clock on the landing struck half past four.  An hour and a half until Edwin came in.  He was at his desk; she’d been to his office once, when they’d first arrived.  Perhaps he’d be starting to put his papers away.  Perhaps he’d be thinking of her already.  Then at five o’clock he’d come out onto Cheapside, and walk through the streets, past the cathedral to Ludgate Hill station.  There would be people waiting on the platform, men in their dark suits and stiff black hats, some in winter coats for the damp November evening.  Perhaps on the train he’d talk to some of them.  He’d get off the train at Camberwell; and by then she’d have done her hair, and changed into the lilac dress he liked, and be standing here in the drawing-room by the fire when he opened the front door and called up to her.

1913

Along the street where Edwin’s mother lived, the cherry trees were in flower again.  Last year she had jumped up to catch at a branch, and broken off a spray for a corsage; and Edwin had looked at her, delighted and shocked at once.  She could see the expression now, as if his face – his real face, she thought – had become detached from him, and walked along bodiless next to the new Edwin, who never looked delighted at anything.  Today the blossom was like a low roof, or a raincloud that might burst over all of them, and soak them through in their elegant spring clothes.

In very bad French Edwin’s sister said, ‘This is going to be such fun.’

Where was it they were going?  His mother had announced it, addressing Edwin, and when at last she had stopped talking to him, Edwin had turned and spoken to Narcisa in French.  She hadn’t listened; it made no difference, she knew already; his mother planned things for them all to do, and wherever they went, his mother and Edwin talked, and Narcisa was left with Eleanor, the sister, who spoke little French and didn’t know what to say.

Who was saying now, ‘You’ll see, it’s beautiful.  It’s right by the river.  There’s…’ but Eleanor didn’t know the word.  She looked hopefully, sweetly, at Narcisa, wanting help.  But it was too much, to turn towards Eleanor with her large grey eyes and her girlish, giggling manner; to work out what Eleanor wanted to say to her, and find the word in French and say it twice, three times till Eleanor had grasped it.

She said nothing.

‘Enfin,’ said Eleanor in her English accent.  Eleanor was to be married in the autumn.  Her fiancé, Gerald, looked very like Edwin, but with red hair instead of fair, and even whiter skin.  Then Eleanor too would stay alone in her house – they were to live in Streatham, close to the mother – and have to work out how to make the servants respect her, and wait for Gerard to come home from the office.  Perhaps then Eleanor would understand. 

Edwin’s mother and Edwin had stopped at the street corner.  His mother was looking at Narcisa and saying something; perhaps that they were too slow, keeping her waiting.  Increasingly it seemed to Narcisa that they, the three Humphreys, talked about her, openly, knowing she wouldn’t understand them.  It was true that she understood less than she had a year, even six months ago.  It was too much effort.

The park was a big one, with strange tall trees, and an old house on the edge, and greenhouses.  They walked till they came to a shaded place with lots of blue flowers.  ‘Voilà!’  Eleanor said.  It was clear that Narcisa was meant to be impressed.  She managed to say, ‘Very pretty.’

There was more walking.  Now something seemed to have been agreed.  Edwin and Eleanor went on ahead, and Edwin’s mother came and took her arm.  The old hand on her sleeve looked like a piece of wood stripped of bark by the river.  She stared down at it.

Her mother-in-law spoke stiffly, slowly, in English.  ‘Narcisa, I wish to speak to you.’

Something surfaced in her and chose to know the words.

‘You are a married woman.  You understand me?’

She looked down in assent.

‘You have a responsibility.  You are responsible.  For Edwin.  For…’ but the next word was strange to her.  ‘You must make an effort.’

Something hot glowed through the thick layer of wood-ash that was her feelings.  She looked up at the bony, pitiless face.

‘I effort.  Now.  I effort.’  It was unjust; but her mother-in-law would not listen.

‘You are letting things go.’  What did that mean, letting go?  What was going?  I should go, she thought.  I should go back to Prizren.  For a year she had not heard from Alma or her father.  Perhaps Edwin was keeping their letters from her.

She made herself concentrate on the strong cold words.

‘The servants.  They must…’

Respect me.  Yes yes, that was what Edwin said.  How can I make them respect me, she wanted to cry, when they don’t understand what I say?

They came to a gate.  Edwin turned and called something to his mother, who nodded, and the four of them went out onto a footpath.  A river, the Thames, was it? lay greyish and full beside them.  A boat with two men passed, their oars entering the water like kitchen knives.

‘Look, said Edwin.  ‘That is Sion House.  Do you see the statue of the lion on the roof?’

A dull stone English lion.  She nodded.

‘When we were children we would walk along here all the way to Richmond.’ He smiled at her anxiously.  He gives me his childhood, she thought, to make me love him.  But I do love him, only…

His mother said something.  Edwin turned awkwardly back to Eleanor.

There was a call behind them.  A heavy brown horse was plodding along the bank, head down.  There was a smell now of horse-dung and coal-dust.  Attached by two ropes, a green-painted barge trailed steadily in the water.  A man in a black hat stood on the front.  I could join him, she thought dully. I could jump onto the barge and be taken away.

The three Humphreys stood back from the bank.  Edwin’s mother was frowning.

The man shouted again.  The horse was close to her.  She could see its domed brown eyes, expressionless, and smell its sweat.  The ropes were taut, at an angle to the harness.

‘Narcisa!’ Edwin shouted, and moved forward.  The man on the barge waved his arms.  The water looked thick enough to carry her.  She waited.

The cab went through a wide gate and up a path.  There were flower-beds with pruned roses on either side, and a huddle of buildings.  The cab stopped at a square porch.  Edwin got out and came round to open her door.  She leaned on his outstretched hand as she stepped down; but almost at once he moved away again, and rang the bell.

The hallway was very bare, the floor highly polished.  A dark painting of cows and trees hung by the door.

A tall woman came towards them, not smiling.  ‘Mr Humphreys?’ she asked, and Edwin went with her over to the window.  She had thick grey hair pulled back in a bun, and a white scar along the side of her jaw.  She was listening gravely while Edwin spoke to her.  At one point he took out a handkerchief – she could see the blue
EH
she had embroidered – and blew his nose with a soft regretful sound.

A door at the back of the hallway opened; a young woman in white came through, carrying a bundle.  The tall woman caught sight of her and shook her head; the young one retreated.  Is it because we’re here? Narcisa wondered.

She felt tired.  As soon as she moved, Edwin turned quickly round, and watched till she had sat down on the far window-seat.  She looked out idly at the flower-borders.  There were a few yellow roses almost open, and by the porch a bed with red tulips.

Edwin came over.  ‘It’s all arranged,’ he said in French to her.  ‘This lady will make sure you are comfortable.’

‘But why?’ she asked him again.  ‘Why do you want me to be here?’

She stood up; he led her over to the woman.  He said something in English and the woman reached forward, Narcisa thought at first to shake her hand; but no, to touch the collar of her dress.  She flinched.

1915

Someone was singing in the long corridor.  At the end of the silent file towards the chapel, Narcisa turned, pulled into the narrow force-field of the music.  A peasant song, she thought, if they had any here: a four-line melody with a rise and dip, each verse sounding to end in disappointment.

‘Get a move on, you back there!’  an attendant called; but just before she caught up with the line, Narcisa glimpsed a woman on hands and knees, her broad strong bottom in blue cloth pushing at the air, the worn soles of her shoes turned to the light, head lifted a moment as she shuffled backwards, bright yellow hair curling up round her cap.  ‘
Oh slowly, slowly;’
so much Narcisa understood, and then the words fell into the tune again, a line that lifted hopefully and dropped.

When they turned off from the main corridor, a heavy door stopping the woman’s voice, Narcisa played the tune through in her head, to fix it, to give herself a fragment of music to come back to.  She followed the file out along the path.  A fine rain blew across the lawns towards them; she hunched, but her sleeve clung wet to her arm.

The chapel was cold.  A woman was labouring over an air from Bach.  Some key in the upper register was silent; the melody limped over the gap like a man on crutches. 
Oh slowly, slowly,
Narcisa sang to herself, to block out the uneven counterpoint.  Every week this thudding music, the piano as they filed in and at the end; and the simple tedious tunes of the English hymns, sung loudly off-key by the staff and a few patients.  Not music, she thought, surprised that she still remembered.  Then the chaplain arrived, pale in his off-white vestments; and the chapel creaked with the give of dark hassocks.

It was back on the ward that the tune came back to her. 
Oh slowly, slowly,
she sang under her breath, and filled up the rest of the verse in her own language: a stream, a man on a horse, a tall castle.  She was sewing two buttons back on her overall.  The rain thrashed against the long windows.  The lines of the ballad circled in her head.

‘Here,’ said the attendant dramatically: ‘What’s this? ‘ 

She was standing directly in Narcisa’s light. 

‘You hear that?’  the woman said, to anyone who might enjoy listening, diverting attention from their own misdemeanours.  ‘The Boche here is singing.  Trying to, any road.’

Boche
was clear enough, and not the first time.  Narcisa laid the overall on her lap.  Her shoulders were cold in the ill-fitting petticoat.

‘Come on, Boche,’ the woman called, her narrow eyes glistening, her arms akimbo in the grey uniform.  ‘Let’s have another chorus.  How’d it go?’  She sang a few bars in a squeaking comic voice.  The red-haired woman from the ironing-room tittered. 

‘How does a Boche know an English song, eh?  Perhaps she’s a Boche spy, eh?  What do you reckon?’

Narcisa sat still.  She understood enough.  The attendant began again:
In Scarlet Town, where I was born. 
Her voice cracked on
Town
.  ‘Don’t you know the words yet, Boche?  Suppose we teach her.’

Her face was pink; her breasts pushed against her apron.  She leaned forward and pulled the sewing off Narcisa’s lap; the needle caught against the palm of her hand.  Two or three drops of blood fell on the fabric.  ‘You wicked girl,’ she said, ‘you’ve spoiled your uniform.  Now they’re going to have to scrub it out.’  She leant forward and rubbed the cloth on Narcisa’s cheek.

The patients watched.  Narcisa’s back tensed with the effort of sitting still.  ‘Go on then, sing,’ the attendant said.  ‘I’m ordering you.’  She sang a verse through herself in her high harsh voice.

An old woman caught Narcisa’s eye and nodded.  Did she mean it was better to give in?  But silence was always better, that was what she had learned: you said nothing, and hoped they got bored with you.

She remembered the woman scrubbing the corridor, on her hands and knees, singing to please herself.  What were the words?  Something about love, no doubt.

The attendant was standing too near, leering down at her.  Why was she staring?  There had been another attendant who did that - no, she would not remember what had happened.  She pushed her chair back suddenly and stood, so the woman was off-balance and teetered backwards.

She began to sing, the first thing that came to her.

‘
Du holde Kunst..’

The strength of her voice surprised her; it reached to the far end of the ward, where she saw a woman sit up in bed, and another, limping, stop and turn round.  Now they will be certain I’m German, she thought grimly.  In the crowded ward no-one spoke, just for that moment; the attendant was leaning against the window-sill; someone up by the door was nodding to the rhythm.  I must make this last, she thought, singing in German about a better world,
eine bess’re Welt,
putting all her force into it, anger perhaps though the tune was slow and sweet.  They waited for the second verse to start.  She could all but hear the piano accompaniment, her Aunt Apolonija who had taught it to her; she paused for the few bars.  Her voice was not good any more, how could it be?  Oh god I am going to be punished for this, she thought, carried up with the swell: ‘
ich danke dir
dafür..’

The attendant slapped her hard across the face.

She heard herself make a sound, loudly, as if the song had clotted in her throat.  ‘Shame’
,
the woman by the door muttered, but the attendant glared and she was quickly silent.  Narcisa put her hand up to her cheek.  Now it will start, she thought.

The woman grabbed Narcisa’s arm and dragged it down to her side again.  The words she said were vicious and flowed together.  Narcisa’s chest was still full from the singing.  For a second she thought: I could just start again. 

The attendant must have called for help; someone else came, sour-faced, stooping, and grabbed her by the shoulder.  ‘No!’ she shouted, but it was still in German.

The first attendant wound her hand in Narcisa’s hair.  They dragged her down the middle of the ward.  Light from the windows slashed across her face.  The patients moved clumsily out of the way; Narcisa saw the red-haired woman jeering.  Her right arm was being twisted behind her back; she felt the fingers bruising her meagre flesh.  The two attendants were still berating her, or maybe talking about her to each other.  Let it be only the strait-jacket, she thought.  It was a long time since she had been restrained.  The fear leapt in her. The strong dress or the strait-jacket: both were terrible.  She had felt mutilated, her arms cut off for her sins.  But then they’ll leave me.  Was it true?  Oh, I should never have sung to them.  I should have stayed quiet. 

They stopped outside the door of a padded cell.  Before they were in there she remembered the smell: old leather and urine.  She gagged.

The attendant had not stopped shouting.  She put both hands to Narcisa’s petticoat, and tore it down from the neck.  Her knuckles bumped over Narcisa’s breasts.  I will not cry, Narcisa thought, I will not speak. 

If she does any more it will be the other thing.  She could not make herself know what that was.  Please, only the strong dress or the strait-jacket.

The sour-faced attendant waved a rubber hose.  Narcisa stood rigid.  The first one looked at her watch and shook her head.

She let her arms be put in the strong-dress sleeves, the hard canvas wrapped round and tied with tapes.  Then they pushed her, so she fell into the corner, unable to steady herself with her hands tied down.

One of them laughed before they closed the door.