Wake: A Novel (30 page)

“Gracious.” Ivy shudders.

In the distance, now, they can hear the slow, dull beating of the drums.

The funeral cortege passes a young Irishman. He took the boat train over from Cork yesterday, landed at Southampton, and made his way here. He told no one at home he was coming—said he was going to visit his sister in Wexford. Things are changing in Ireland. It was necessary to lie.

The young Irishman joined up in 1915 and fought for Britain, but then, after the Easter Rising, he was spat at in the street whenever he was home on leave. Fucking Tommy, they’d say. Dirty fucking Tommy.

He is a Collins man now. A Sinn Féin man. He knows well whom he fights for. And there will be fighting. Of this he has no doubt. The lord mayor of Cork died while on hunger strike in Brixton prison not three weeks before.

And yet—he had to come. He had to lie and to come. For the lads he fought with and who died beside him, sometimes in his arms. Who, like him, were lied to, but fought like heroes nonetheless. Whose lives were thrown away, in their thousands, for scraps of land. He cannot forget them. He will not.

I’ll remember you, he thinks, and as the gun carriage, with its coffin and its dented helmet, passes him by, he closes his eyes.

Nothing will bring them back. Not the words of comfortable men. Not the words of politicians. Or the platitudes of paid poets.

“At the going down of the sun, we will remember them.”

No.

I will remember you when I pack my pipe.

I will remember you when I lift my pint.

I will remember you on fine days and on black ones. In the summer light I will remember you.

He opens his eyes and watches the military men march past. He knows who they all are; he read their names in the papers: field marshals, admirals, and generals. With a shock of recognition, he spots Haig; he’s close enough to see the gray in his mustache. He would like to spit on him.

He knows the king stands somewhere not far from here. He has a sudden image: of a man, a bomb strapped to him, running from the crowd. A strike at the heart of empire. It would be easy, easy. He shakes his head. Not yet, he thinks. Not yet.

The sound of the drumming approaches, and with it a whisper travels through the crowd:
He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming.
There’s a surge from behind and Ada holds on to the barrier. Her breath is constricted; ribbons of sweat roll down her back. She wishes she hadn’t tied herself in so tight. If she faints now, then who will carry her out? Behind her, the crowd churns and then settles again.

“Try to keep your feet wide,” says the young man beside them. “Don’t worry. They won’t move again now. That’s it. You’ll see.”

Coming up the street toward them are four enormous chestnut horses, the sound of their hooves deadened by the straw-strewn pavement, and as the horses draw nearer, almost in one movement, as though it were rehearsed, all the men in the crowd bare their heads. The young man beside her holds his hat against his chest.

Behind the horses come drummers, their drums covered in black fabric. The sound of their beat is hollow, muted. Pipers come behind them, their pipes making a thin, high tone on the still air. Behind there is space, a gap, then six black horses pull a carriage, their eyes blinkered, coats gleaming. It bears a single coffin, a tattered flag draped over it, the colors faded, as though it has spent too long in the sun.

On top of the flag Ada can see the dented helmet of a soldier. It is the same helmet that Michael wore. For a stunned second she thinks it is his—that it is the helmet that was tied around his neck the last time she saw him, as he lumbered off down the road in the lightening morning, bouncing against his back so that she was worried it would bruise him; and for that second she is convinced that the body in the coffin is his. Then there’s the sound of a woman’s sob, sharp and uncontrolled. It echoes off the buildings on either side of the road. Then there’s another sob, and another, and in the crowd opposite, hundreds of handkerchiefs appear, stark white against the black. Beside her Ivy is convulsed with silent tears.

And then she understands: They all wore that helmet.

All of these women’s husbands, brothers, sons.

The cortege passes them, moving down to the Cenotaph. Ada watches it slow. Sees it come to a stop.

There is a hush before the silence, a settling.

And then the chimes begin.

Breathless, Evelyn reaches the top of the hill. In exhilaration she sees that no one else is up here, no one is sitting on her bench. They have all been sucked down into the great gray magnet of the city below. The air is so still that below her, the smoke from chimneys rises straight up into the air. It is a truly beautiful day.

She hears the chimes of eleven begin. The bells of Primrose Hill, of Camden Town, and further into the city—many, many bells, chiming together and apart. As the silence falls, she can see it almost, traveling like a long rolling wave, up to where she sits on the hill.

Then, what she thought was silence gives way to something else. Something surprising. It is the sound of a city without people. Without walking, speaking, running people; without buses, without cars, factories, offices, docks; but it is not silence, not here on the hill, not at all. She can hear the wind, lifting through the last brittle, tenacious leaves; hear the crows, calling to one another in the trees; and then, in the distance, other calls: those of the animals from the zoo. She hears the chattering of monkeys, the muffled roar of a big cat. She didn’t expect this. It makes her smile.

Up here, there are still patches of mist clinging a little in the green hollows. Up here is land that has never been built on.

And this, too, is the city, she thinks.

And here she is, sitting on a bench in the sun.

It reminds her of another morning, a morning in summer, inside the flat in Primrose Hill, with the window open and the heat of the day outside. Lying beside Fraser, listening to the sounds of the city below. The feel of the sun through the window, hot on the soles of her feet. The close, warm smell of the man that she loved. Then standing, and stretching, her feet cool against the tiles of the floor, turning to him.
Shall we go outside?

The slow break of his smile.

I loved you, she thinks. I loved you, Fraser.

In three weeks, she thinks, I will be thirty.

She breathes in, catches the faint scent of the earth, feels that same sun, the unexpected blessing of it—on a day in November—warm against her skin.

I am alive, she thinks.
I am alive.
I am alive.

Beside her, in the silence, Hettie can feel Fred standing, held rigid.

She wants to ask him whom he thinks of. Who peoples this silence for him? Whose are the names that he calls in the night?

She cannot believe that she has not wanted to ask this before.

Facing her across the street are hundreds of men, their hats held to their chests, and hundreds of women. Many of them, both men and women, are weeping; and if hundreds stand here in Hammersmith then they are everywhere, all over this city, all over this country, and beyond, across the sea, in France.

And what of the girl with the long brown hair? Where is she now? Standing on a street like this? In a village somewhere? Is her hair still long? Or has she cut hers, too? And the other women, the older women, the women who sold themselves over and over again. What has become of them?

They don’t seem so very far from her somehow.

And Ed?

It is hard to think of him. It scrapes her heart.

Is he, too, standing on a street like this? Somewhere not too far away? Is he with his family? Or is he where she left him, bruised and alone?

She hopes not.

Beside her, Fred shifts. Hettie looks up. His face is calmer, his body less rigid. She reaches up and slips her arm through the crook of his elbow. At first he flinches, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t brush her off; he simply brings his hand down, to cover hers. They stay like that, arm in arm. She looks back at the faces, ranged across the street.

Bearing witness. This is what they are doing. They are witnessing one another, all of them. This is why they are here.

As the silence stretches, something becomes clear. He is not here. Her son is not inside this. And yet it is not empty; it is full and loud with grief: the grief of the living. But her son is not here.

A bugle sounds, the “Last Post,” tinny and distant from where they stand. As the final note dies away, the crowd exhales. For a long moment people stay where they are, as though reluctant to move. Then, very faintly at first, in the distance, comes the sound of traffic, the hum of life resuming, increasing. A known sound, and yet it seems like an affront.

Where they stand, at the front of the crowd, no one has yet moved. Then, there is an easing; the crowd loosens, people are moving now, along the back of the pavement.

“Where are they all headed?” says Ada.

“To the Cenotaph,” says a young woman to her left, holding a spray of lilies. “To lay their flowers for the dead.”

“Shall we go, too, then?” Ivy says.

Ada turns. The queue is already twenty people wide, people shuffling forward step by tiny step. It will take hours to reach the end of the road.

“Do you want to?” she says to Ivy.

“Yes.”

She hesitates. “Do you mind if I don’t? There’s somewhere else I want to go.”

She doesn’t elaborate, and Ivy doesn’t push her—doesn’t ask where, just gestures to the flowers in her hand. “Shall I lay those for you, then?”

“Yes, please,” she says. “You’ll be all right?”

“I’ll be fine.” Ivy nods, takes the daisies from her.

“They could do with a drink.”

“Me, too. A stiff one.” Ivy smiles. “When I get home. You come and find me if you like.”

“Thanks.” Ada smiles. “I might just do that.”

They hug briefly.

“Go on with you now,” says Ivy.

It is hard going at first, moving against the tide of people, but once she has fought her way to the back of the crowd and is able to find a bit of space to breathe in, Ada turns, to see if she can see Ivy in the crowd to wave good-bye.

It is then she sees him.

He is standing twenty paces away from her, his pregnant wife and little girl by his side. A small man: shoulders held against the world, pinched, pale blue eyes; thin little mustache barely covering his lip. He is standing in the queue for the Cenotaph. He has a bunch of blue flowers in his hand. He hasn’t seen her yet.

She takes a step toward him. Just then, he looks up and he sees her. His hand tightens on his daughter’s arm. The little girl cries out and twists from his grip.

At first, from the horrified look on his face, she thinks that he will leave his family and run. But he doesn’t. He stands his ground, his face settles, and he holds her gaze. He seems to grow taller, as he pulls his daughter close again and holds his pregnant wife by the arm.

She doesn’t call out to him. Doesn’t go toward him. She just nods, as though to someone that she once knew, and then turns, and walks, slowly, steadily, the other way.

After the funeral is finished, after the congregation has gone. After the king and queen and the prime minister and the mothers who lost all their sons, and the mothers who lost all their sons and their husbands, too, have gone. After the young girl who lost nine brothers—killed or missing—and wrote especially to be asked to come, and the hundred blinded nurses and the MPs and the lords who have lost a brother or a son have gone. After all of these have gone, Westminster Abbey is closed for a brief time.

Four wooden barriers are erected, and four lit candles are placed around the grave. They are expecting crowds.

A young chorister, relieved of his duties for the day, steals out of the room where his companions are changing from their robes. He doesn’t tell anyone where he is going. The door into the nave has been left ajar. The young boy slides around it. No one is in the vast, echoing church. The candles are the only light. Above him the roof stretches into infinite space. He walks over to the wooden barriers, his heart thumping. Earlier, during the ceremony, from where he was standing in the choir, he couldn’t see the coffin. Now he wants to see.

He ducks beneath the barriers, and on hands and knees crawls to the edge of the hole. In the grave, quite far down, he can see the casket, covered with a flag. From here, the candlelight hardly touches its red, white, and blue.

He thinks of his brother: of the last time he saw him, in his uniform; how tall he looked, how fine. He can remember him clearly, even though he was small then—can remember how much he wished that he were old enough to join him in the war.

War. Something in the word makes him shiver. A good shivering. The sort that tells him that someday, when he grows up, he might get his chance.

Then the great doors at the end of the abbey are opened again and pale November light floods the floor. The boy gets to his feet and crawls under the barriers, darting back into darkness. Before he slips away, he sees, coming toward him, a great procession of people, two abreast, flowing across the abbey floor.

Evelyn stands in front of the mirror, holding a dress up to her chin, turning skeptically in the light. It is a deep red. She hasn’t worn it for years, but it is well cut. She supposes it will have to do.

Behind her Doreen appears in the doorway, flushed from the outside air, her arms folded across her chest. “Going out?”

“Oh God. I don’t know.” Evelyn flings the dress down on the bed and sits beside it. “I’d forgotten what a fandango it all is.”

Doreen sits down beside her on the bed, looking amused. “Am I allowed to ask where it is you’re going?”

Evelyn reaches for her cigarette case. “Dancing. Supposedly.”

Doreen raises an eyebrow. “Whereabouts?”

“Hammersmith.”

“The Palais?”

“Mmmm.”

“And with whom…?” Doreen smiles.

Evelyn tips her head back. “A man.”

“Well,” Doreen says as her smile spreads, “that’s a good start at least. What flavor of man might he be?”