outburst that made up her mind. It was the sight of a plucked, untrussed chicken on the kitchen table a few days later. Headless, footless, wing-tipless, pink and naked, it looked alarmingly like a dead baby, arms out, knees pulled up, splayed. Flesh and skin and bone.
I know about flesh and skin and bone. I know how they work. I would rather work with them.
Bugger Peter, and bugger Julia
,
she thought, enjoying the language she’d picked up – only for mental use – from the men she’d been caring for.
When the Further Correspondence comes, if I get the chance, I will be off. I will be off.
Chapter Four
Locke Hill, April 1919
What Peter had been thinking was what he was always thinking, one way or another: the phrases and repetitions that garlanded his dance with whisky, excusing and justifying on the one hand, denying and defying on the other.
He might have been thinking:
Locke, you bastard. What a bastardly horrible thing to say to Rose, who has never done a thing wrong to you, who only cares about you, who has always looked after you. You really are a selfish nasty uncontrolled man. Why would she trust you? You’re not to be trusted by anyone. Just ask
(and here the string of names and faces began again, and the tight gulpy feeling would start up in his chest as he slipped into the familiar routine)
Burdock … Knightley … Atkins … Jones … Bloom, Bruce, Lovall … Hall, Green, Wester … Johnson, Taylor, Moles, Twyford … and Merritt … Half of them unburied … loss upon bitter loss. An armful of Atkins; Bloom’s head on his shoulder and Bloom’s arm round his neck, resting like a woman’s or a tired child’s. His own long-fingered hand white against Bloom’s hair, embracing the dead head to keep it from flopping … The warmth of the German boy’s body next to his in the shell hole … You were a lousy officer, Peter, and now you’re being a lousy civilian. It’s not surprising you’ve turned out to be a lush. Go on, lush. Have another drink. If you’re honest with yourself, Peter, don’t you see that the pain you’re feeling now is all you deserve? You’re probably causing all this pain on purpose so you can feel worse about everything. It’s all you’re good for … all you’re good for … makes no bloody difference …
Or he might have been thinking:
Bloody woman! Bloody Rose, bossing me – and bloody Julia, too, upstairs in that bloody room stinking of woman, crying and blaming me for everything – some bloody Penelope she is to come home to – it’s not my bloody fault! Of course I want a bloody drink. What man wouldn’t want a bloody drink? You’d need a bloody drink to deal with all this – anyone would. You deserve a bloody drink …
Or it might have been:
Rose, don’t go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that. Of course you belong in this house. You can stay here for ever. Of course you can – you must – dear Rose. Don’t leave me here alone with Julia, with her dead face and her blaming eyes, and that poor child who stares at me like some kind of Cyclops. Rose, come back and have a drink with me. Come on. Sit down, come on. It’ll be nice. Let’s just forget about everything for a moment – for a few hours …
*
Before the war, after Oxford – where he’d managed to stay on a few years as a junior fellow, teaching and so forth, which had suited him very well – Peter had been steered into the family firm with a view to learning the business. It had not agreed with him, and the moment his father died in 1914 he had left. It was his shame and his mother’s good intentions that had steered him back there in January 1919. He had bowed his head and taken it on: part of his punishment. He had failed in so many ways, due to his own unworthiness as much as the idiocy of his leaders. Well, he determined, if he wasn’t good enough to die with his men, and since the Army couldn’t wait to be rid of him, he would at least make a go of being all that
I know about flesh and skin and bone. I know how they work. I would rather work with them.
Bugger Peter, and bugger Julia
,
she thought, enjoying the language she’d picked up – only for mental use – from the men she’d been caring for.
When the Further Correspondence comes, if I get the chance, I will be off. I will be off.
Chapter Four
Locke Hill, April 1919
What Peter had been thinking was what he was always thinking, one way or another: the phrases and repetitions that garlanded his dance with whisky, excusing and justifying on the one hand, denying and defying on the other.
He might have been thinking:
Locke, you bastard. What a bastardly horrible thing to say to Rose, who has never done a thing wrong to you, who only cares about you, who has always looked after you. You really are a selfish nasty uncontrolled man. Why would she trust you? You’re not to be trusted by anyone. Just ask
(and here the string of names and faces began again, and the tight gulpy feeling would start up in his chest as he slipped into the familiar routine)
Burdock … Knightley … Atkins … Jones … Bloom, Bruce, Lovall … Hall, Green, Wester … Johnson, Taylor, Moles, Twyford … and Merritt … Half of them unburied … loss upon bitter loss. An armful of Atkins; Bloom’s head on his shoulder and Bloom’s arm round his neck, resting like a woman’s or a tired child’s. His own long-fingered hand white against Bloom’s hair, embracing the dead head to keep it from flopping … The warmth of the German boy’s body next to his in the shell hole … You were a lousy officer, Peter, and now you’re being a lousy civilian. It’s not surprising you’ve turned out to be a lush. Go on, lush. Have another drink. If you’re honest with yourself, Peter, don’t you see that the pain you’re feeling now is all you deserve? You’re probably causing all this pain on purpose so you can feel worse about everything. It’s all you’re good for … all you’re good for … makes no bloody difference …
Or he might have been thinking:
Bloody woman! Bloody Rose, bossing me – and bloody Julia, too, upstairs in that bloody room stinking of woman, crying and blaming me for everything – some bloody Penelope she is to come home to – it’s not my bloody fault! Of course I want a bloody drink. What man wouldn’t want a bloody drink? You’d need a bloody drink to deal with all this – anyone would. You deserve a bloody drink …
Or it might have been:
Rose, don’t go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean that. Of course you belong in this house. You can stay here for ever. Of course you can – you must – dear Rose. Don’t leave me here alone with Julia, with her dead face and her blaming eyes, and that poor child who stares at me like some kind of Cyclops. Rose, come back and have a drink with me. Come on. Sit down, come on. It’ll be nice. Let’s just forget about everything for a moment – for a few hours …
*
Before the war, after Oxford – where he’d managed to stay on a few years as a junior fellow, teaching and so forth, which had suited him very well – Peter had been steered into the family firm with a view to learning the business. It had not agreed with him, and the moment his father died in 1914 he had left. It was his shame and his mother’s good intentions that had steered him back there in January 1919. He had bowed his head and taken it on: part of his punishment. He had failed in so many ways, due to his own unworthiness as much as the idiocy of his leaders. Well, he determined, if he wasn’t good enough to die with his men, and since the Army couldn’t wait to be rid of him, he would at least make a go of being all that
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