Armistice (13 page)

“I could see it.”

“You mustn't judge by appearances,” said Jonathan. “They can be very misleading. Have you learned anything from seeing Anthony Dore?”

She looked away.

“Nothing,” said Jonathan, answering his own question. “It was neither misleading nor revealing.”

They listened to the music for a few moments.

“In court yesterday, did you notice the judge?” Jonathan asked her.

“Yes.”

Jonathan seemed about to add something but instead he returned to a previous subject. “That war cripple yesterday. I don't think your reading of him is right. It isn't that he wanted me to approve of him; I think he hoped that I could sort everything out for him, perform magic, turn back the clock so there had never been a war, he hadn't lost his arm, wasn't on the bread line, in limbo. Our victory is pretty sour for young men like him. Plus, of course, the relief of being found not guilty, not going to jail must be …”

He tailed off. There was suddenly a heavy weight about him, and he looked sunken beneath it. Philomena wanted to ask what he was thinking about, but that was too intrusive, and he'd told her enough about his inner workings, hadn't he? Light from a wall lamp caught his downturned head. His premature gray hairs glinted. The pianist ended the Satie and
there was respectful applause. He burst out into some energetic jazz, and a few patrons of the club whooped. Philomena's hands came to life with the music. Jonathan sat up straight. She caught him smiling at her hands. Jonathan, embarrassed, looked away. She watched something take him. His eyes filled up and for a moment she dreaded that he might break down, but he didn't, and they both waited for the difficulty to pass.

“Dan would have liked it here,” she ventured.

“Would he?” said Jonathan, perking up.

“I don't know,” she admitted. “I was just speaking for the sake of it.”

“He was game for most things,” said Jonathan. “I thought of Dan as the free spirit I'd've been if I hadn't been always studying.”

She looked steadily at him. He returned her gaze. Her heart fluttered as she recognized that the bond between Dan and Jonathan was authentic and powerful. She remembered when—was it only yesterday?—Jonathan, at their first meeting had said, “I didn't know him very long, but—” and been interrupted. She knew he had been about to say that he and Dan were very close, or like brothers, or whatever men said when they meant that they loved another man. She felt a rush of jealousy and tears pricked her own eyes. Jonathan graciously pretended nothing awkward was happening.

“I wonder what he would have ended up doing with his life,” he said, taking a swig of his drink.

“I was hoping he'd do me,” she said, and Jonathan snorted his drink out of his nose.

He looked at her and they both roared with laughter. They were so loud that even the pianist playing the jazz looked over. It was a relief to laugh. They were laughing at the pun and the snorted drink but they also laughed because it released all sorts of emotions that up until then had had no outlet. For a while they couldn't stop laughing. They realized that it was starting to become a little trying for the other patrons, but the pianist looked over toward them and smiled, telling everyone that it was all right.

On the back edge of their laughter Philomena asked Jonathan: “Do you act?”

“Me? Act? You mean amateur dramatics? No.”

“You perform in court.”

“Do I?”

“You know you do.”

“That's not the same as acting. I imagine actors on a stage are there purely for pleasure. Do you act?”

“I help out with costumes at my local amateur dramatic society.”

“Did Dan act?”

“Yes.”

“Any good?”

They properly got the giggles.

After another drink Jonathan insisted on escorting Philomena to her new hotel. Standing outside it saying goodbye was awkward. They'd both taken alcohol, and it was late, and there was nobody else about. Philomena still didn't even know if Jonathan was single. If he had a wife or sweetheart Dan hadn't
mentioned it, and neither had he. It didn't feel to her that he had anyone waiting for him at home or anywhere else.

What's the appropriate parting between a man and a woman, both of whom are drunk and grieving her fiancé, whom the man has claimed was murdered?

To avoid a potentially graceless goodbye she turned to him and said, “Thank you,” with finality, hoping that this covered everything.

Glowing inside, Jonathan wanted to prolong the evening, which had turned into the night. He thought to ask what Philomena was thanking him for in the hope that this would lead to conversation, but in the street at that hour it could only be a brief exchange, so instead he held out his hand and her hand met it lightly for a moment. He wanted to ask her what she was going to do now about the whole business; he wanted to ask her how long she was staying in London; he wanted to ask her if he'd see her tomorrow. But he didn't.

They parted, and Philomena entered The Whitehall. Jonathan loitered, his energy seeping away. He ached with loneliness.

Philomena nodded to the night porter and didn't care what he thought of her as he reached for her key. She climbed the stairways to the fourth floor. The carpet ran out after the second floor, so she was careful not to clatter her shoes on the painted floorboards and disturb her fellow guests. Passing one door she could make out male and female grunts in the same rhythm, and the squeak of a bed, which made her think of a whore and a client. But it could be a couple in love; why not? A married couple, even. She listened for a few
moments until she became envious. She moved on, up to her floor. The corridor was empty of people but it somehow felt emptier than that. She shivered a little as she arrived at her room, although she wasn't cold, and she turned the key in the lock. For some reason she pushed open the door without stepping into the room and waited a few moments before entering. Her sheaf of papers was on the table. All appeared as she'd left it. She entered and shut the door behind her. In the dark she threw her hat down on the bed and unpinned her hair. When it dropped around her face she caught the unfamiliar odors of London trapped within it. Too tired to even think of washing it she took up her brush and bent over, allowing her hair to stream down. As she turned her head to one side a horrific sight framed in the window caused her to let out a scream.

Across in the tenement block she could see the white-faced young soldier standing on a chair, placing a noose around his neck. Before she knew it she'd thrown her window open and shouted “No!” The young soldier hesitated for a moment. “Don't do that!” she shouted before the young soldier kicked the chair away and flailed in the air, his hands instinctively gripping the noose around his neck. Lights came on in the nearest buildings and windows were thrown open. People were shouting “What? What is it?” She leaned out of her window and called down into the darkness: “Jonathan! Jonathan!”

Down below he was already running. He sprinted back to the entrance to the hotel and sped past the porter and raced
up the stairs. Outside, police whistles pierced the night. As he reached the first landing Jonathan realized he didn't know what room Philomena was in. He ran back down the stairs and shouted to the porter: “This is an emergency! Philomena Bligh, what room?”

“Four oh seven,” replied the porter, startled by the command, “that's the—”

“Fourth floor, yes!” Jonathan shouted as he sprinted up the stairs to the first landing. As he began the second stairs he met Philomena coming down. She barely stopped to say: “There's a man killing himself.”

Philomena ran on down the stairs with Jonathan trailing behind. They raced out of the hotel and she looked up at the tenement block. An onlooker high above in her hotel shouted: “It's that one!” Inhabitants of the tenement, drawn by the alarm, leaned out of their windows.

Philomena shouted up to them, “How do we get in?”

Jonathan took her arm and urged, “Around the side!”

They entered the tenement and ran up the first two flights of stairs. Bewildered-looking people were opening their doors.

Jonathan asked Philomena: “Which floor?”

She looked around. “I need a window to get my bearings.”

An old lady who stood in her open door waved them in. From in there Philomena quickly deduced that the angle to her window opposite meant that they needed to go up at least another floor. They ran out of the old lady's and up the next flight of stairs and when they met more bemused tenants on the next landing she cried, “Is there a young soldier on
this floor?” Someone indicated a door and Philomena tried the handle and it was locked.

Jonathan stepped back and kicked it and the door flew open and the young soldier was in front of them twitching on the end of the rope. Philomena went in first and wrapped her arms around the dying man's legs, held him up to ease the pressure around his neck while Jonathan rummaged in the kitchen drawers and came up with a sharp knife. He stood the chair on its legs and climbed up on it and sawed through the rope. The young soldier's entire weight was suddenly in Philomena's grasp but she anticipated this and made sure that they landed without him striking his head by slipping a hand underneath to cushion it before it struck the floor. For a moment she was face to face with his twitching body, holding him. She untangled herself and turned him onto his back. Jonathan listened for his heart. He thumped the young soldier's chest with the heel of his clenched fist. Philomena began giving the kiss of life. The first policeman arrived.

When it was over Philomena felt her whole body begin to quiver uncontrollably. She put up a hand to steady herself, finding Jonathan's shoulder. He recognized her condition for what it was.

“Philomena,” he said. She didn't respond. Seeing her eyes lose their focus he clicked his fingers at the bridge of her nose, once, twice, roughly. She blinked and he brought his hand to his own face, making her follow. Her eyes met his, zooming in and out to find the range. “Philomena, it's mild shock,” he said. “I'm going to get you to your room. You
just need a few moments in your room. Yes?”

She nodded. A strange gap had opened up between her and him. When he began to lead her she knew she was next to him, being touched, guided, but she felt absent, hollow. Nevertheless she could walk back to the hotel, in through the door on jelly legs. As they passed the night porter she knew that he coughed theatrically and Jonathan snapped at him: “She just saved a boy's life.”

Later, she sat in her chair and he leaned by the window. She looked across to the now-empty room. They hadn't been speaking much. She'd been wondering if the sensation she'd had, holding the young soldier's twitching body, was similar to what he'd felt when holding Dan as he died. She knew that she could never ask him that question.

Jonathan had been looking around. He'd seen her shrine to Dan. It had given him quite a shock. He'd too easily become unmindful of the fact that she was Dan's fiancée. The reminder had deflated him. Now he was in a familiar mood.

“One theory,” said Jonathan, continuing in public a conversation he'd been conducting alone, “is that we kill ourselves when there's someone else we really want to kill, but we are unable to see it through.”

She looked sharply at him. Was that a confession? Jonathan looked like—she imagined—she got a glimpse of him as a small boy blinking back tears brought on by an injustice. But then his shields went up to protect that boy, and adult Jonathan was snarling, “I already wish that I hadn't told you that story about Dan and Anthony Dore.”

“But you have.”

“That story just causes trouble. My trouble hasn't halved since I told you. Now I'm worried about you, too.”

“So that is why you told me. It was to relieve your burden, not to actually get anything done—or perhaps it was; tell it to someone else and see if they do anything, rather than just fret. It strikes me,” she added spitefully, “that once outside of court where you are performing, you are a bit of a worrier.”

“I wasn't ever going to tell you the story. I wasn't ever going to write it to you or come and find you. It is only because you turned up here unannounced that I told it to you.”

“So it's all my fault?” she said, raising her voice, exasperated.

“What's all your fault?” retorted Jonathan, fueling the argument.

“You were going along nicely down here until I turned up?” she snapped.

“I don't know that Dore did kill Dan, I really don't—”

“Yes you do!” She was emphatic now. “Why go through all that you have, tell me all that you have in the way that you have only to turn around and say—”

“I've given the wrong impression!” He was almost shouting now. “I
suspect
Anthony Dore, yes.
Believe
he did it? Yes. Am I
sure
he did it? No.
Certain
he did it? No.”

“You are, you are!” returned Philomena, striking the side of her chair for emphasis.

“Are you telling me that on the basis of what I've told you and one sighting of Anthony Dore you are unequivocally
certain
that he murdered Dan?” challenged Jonathan.

She bit her lip.

“How can you be certain? How can you be sure? It's only my word against his. No witness, no evidence—Dan was too reckless; he should have taken more care; he shouldn't have riled Dore. Dan was an idiot, a stupid—”

Philomena turned away from him and stared at the floor, cutting him off. She wouldn't look at him, wouldn't look at him ever again. After a few moments, still with her eyes averted, she went to her door and opened it. In the corner of her eye, Jonathan sagged. Sighing, he picked up his hat and took a few faltering steps.

“I'm sorry,” he tried.