Letters to the Lost (28 page)

Stella didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine fastidious Peter Underwood doing anything as messy as fighting, although with the new insight Dan had given her she could see the attraction of the youth of England.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘I know how difficult—’

He stood up abruptly – too abruptly, so that he staggered a little and his chair tipped backwards and fell with a crack onto the tiles.

‘You don’t,’ he spat. ‘How on earth could
you
possibly know? You haven’t been out there. You haven’t seen how things are. Men die, like dogs. Every day. Blown to bits. Shot through the head, the neck, the stomach, the heart. They die of disease – malaria and typhoid. They get bombed and trapped in burning tanks, or cars or planes. There are so many ways to die in this fucking war . . .’

Hearing him swear shocked her more than the outburst itself. His face was contorted with pain and fury, and flecks of white spittle had collected at the corners of his mouth. He had become a different person from the mild, academic man she knew. And yet she understood that she didn’t really know him at all. He had kept the most fundamental part of his character hidden from her. Hidden from everyone, except Peter Underwood.

She stood up, thinking only of going to him and trying to offer him comfort but he backed away, raising his hand to shield his face, almost colliding with the door as he left the kitchen. A moment later she heard another door slam – not his study this time, but the sitting room. In the sudden silence of the kitchen she let out a shaky breath and began dazedly to clear away the remains of supper.

It was frightening, seeing him like that, but as she washed the dishes she was surprised to discover that there was something liberating about it too. The rigid mould of their relationship – which cast her in the role of powerless child and him as wise, capable adult – had cracked open, providing an unexpected opportunity for change.

Unhurriedly she tidied the kitchen, deep in thought. Then she made coffee and laid a tray and, full of calm purpose, carried it along the hall to the sitting room.

‘Sorry. I’m behaving like a boor.’

He was standing beside the radiogram. In the dull light of the rainy evening his face was desolate. Records, pulled out of their paper sleeves, lay scattered about him like coins in a busker’s cap and another glass of whisky was balanced precariously beside the turntable, on which a record was spinning. Stella put the tray down on the table beside the sofa and straightened up to look at him.

‘Bach,’ she said softly, recognizing it from the concert at the National Gallery.

His face registered surprise and he picked up his glass and held it up to her. ‘Very good. Bach indeed. I didn’t think you knew about music.’

‘I didn’t, but I do now. I know about a lot of things now that I didn’t before.’

He drained half of the glass in one mouthful and laughed. ‘Fancy that. The war has turned my little wife into a woman of the world. Worldly wise. Tell me what you know about, worldly wife.’

‘Perhaps you should have some coffee now.’

‘Disappointing. I was expecting something more profound than that.’

She could feel the heat climbing to her cheeks, but knew that she had to hold her nerve. If she didn’t take this chance to speak she might not get another one. ‘All right,’ she said carefully, perching on the arm of the sofa and folding her hands together to stop them trembling. ‘I know more about people, and relationships. I know about love. And I understand about you and Peter.’

His head jerked backwards as if she’d struck him. His face was oddly rigid, flooded with colour, and veins stood out at his temples. He made an awkward attempt at a laugh, which emerged as a kind of hoarse gasp.

‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re talking nonsense.’

‘Oh Charles . . .’ She could see the muscles of his throat working as he struggled not to cry, and she went forwards, her arms instinctively opening. ‘It’s all right, you know, you don’t have to hide it from me any more. I know that you want to be with him and—’

The blow came from nowhere; she didn’t even see him raise his hand. She reeled backwards, covering the side of her face where he’d hit her, her mind a kind of startled blank.

‘There is nothing between me and Peter.’ His voice was an animal snarl, vibrating with fury. ‘
Nothing
. Do you hear? How dare you make such a disgusting suggestion.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to let you know that—’

‘What?’ He made a lunge for her. Grabbing her chin he forced her head up and back so that she was looking into his face, blasted by his sour whisky breath. ‘That you think I’m one of
those
men? That you think I’d go against God’s law and commit . . . sodomy?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with loving someone, whoever that person is!’ she said desperately, and with difficulty. ‘Love can never be wrong!’

‘Of course it can – do you not read the scriptures? “
Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination. If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed abomination, they shall surely be put to death.”’
He was speaking from between tightly clenched teeth, still gripping her chin. ‘The Bible makes it quite clear. “
The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind.”
Sodomy is a sin. A perversion. A degrading passion.’ He pushed her backwards, so they were standing on the rug in front of the fireplace. His face was dark red, his eyes bulging. ‘
“The men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another,” ’
he quoted, ‘
“men with men committing indecent acts”.
Indecent acts.’

With a sick jolt she noticed that his other hand, the one that wasn’t gripping her jaw, was fumbling with the buckle of his belt. Her first thought was that he was going to pull it off and beat her with it, as a punishment. What happened next was so unexpected that it felt unreal. Somehow she was on the floor, face down, her cheek squashed up against the tiled edge of the hearth. The rug smelled old and musty and there was grit – ash perhaps? – in her mouth, and a metallic taste which she recognized as blood.

These sensations came to her in fragments, one at a time. Her shoulder hurt where she’d fallen on it, and the ache radiated downwards into her ribs. There was more pain too, in her lower back and her hips as he gripped them hard and held them high, bending her spine the wrong way. He was pulling at her underwear, but even that didn’t prepare her for the searing stab of pain that felt like she was being torn apart.

Her cry was muffled by the rug, but Charles wouldn’t have heard it anyway. She couldn’t see his face, but he was still talking. Grunting. Spitting out the same words with every savage thrust.

‘
Men with men. Committing indecent acts.’

She tried to separate herself off from the body on the floor, but the image her mind produced was one of Mr Fairacre the butcher, hacking into a carcase on his scarred and bloodstained block, the red flesh splitting beneath the blade of his cleaver. Her cheekbone bumped against the edge of the fireplace and her lips stretched in an endless silent scream. She thought longingly, helplessly of Dan and then tried to banish him to some safe, sacrosanct part of her brain so that he wouldn’t be tainted by this . . . abomination. This indecent act.

She didn’t try to fight him off. But just as she thought she could bear it no longer she felt Charles give a convulsive shudder and fall forward. He let go of her hips and the weight of him pushed her down so that her head twisted against the tiles and she thought her neck might snap. The immediate relief that it was over was dimmed by the clammy blanket of nausea that wrapped itself around her.

They lay like that for several long, dazed minutes, the silence broken only by the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece and Charles’s ragged breathing. She wanted to tell him that she thought she might be sick, but the words were stuck in her dry throat. And then, from a long way away in the ordinary world outside she heard the click of the front gate, and footsteps coming up the path.

For a second neither of them moved and then they both tried to spring up at once. Charles, lying on top of her, was quicker. She felt the rush of release as her body was relieved of his weight but had only managed to raise herself unsteadily to her knees by the time he had reached the sitting-room door. He paused to fasten his trousers and buckle his belt. He had done all of that – committed the entire indecent act – without undressing at all, she realized with a sort of dull surprise. The doorbell rang.

Charles threw her a warning look as he left the room. A moment later she heard him open the door. ‘Oh – Charles! I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow.’

‘Nancy—’ Stella croaked, struggling to her feet and instantly doubling over as her battered insides screamed in protest. Blackness swirled across her vision like smoke. From outside in the hallway she heard Charles’s voice.

‘I came back early. Missed my wife – nothing wrong with that, I hope?’

In the mirror above the fireplace Stella’s face appeared strangely obscene against the familiar backdrop of the sitting room. There was a white indentation in the puffy red skin on her cheekbone and her bottom lip was swollen, so it looked like she was pulling a comical pouty face.

‘Is she in?’

Please . . .
Stella willed silently, staring into her own desperate eyes.
Oh please, Nancy, come and help me out of this nightmare . . .

‘Yes, but you’ve called at a rather inconvenient time.’ Charles’s voice was chilly and defensive and she heard Nancy laugh.

‘Charles, you sly old thing!’ She’d evidently taken in his state of uncharacteristic disarray and was amused and delighted by the idea of catching them in the throes of marital passion – oh, why hadn’t Stella been honest with her from the start? ‘All right, I’ll leave you to it. Tell her I called though, won’t you? And tell her I’ve got something for her – she’ll know what I mean.’

A letter. Oh God –
Dan
. Her mouth stretched into a silent howl as she heard the front door shut and, a moment later, the door to Charles’s study. Knowing that he wasn’t coming back in, she ran to the window, pressing her palms to the blast-taped glass, willing Nancy to look round and see her. She half-turned to close the gate and Stella saw her face, still wearing its amused smile. And then she flicked her hair over her collar and began to walk away, taking the letter with her, and whatever news it contained.

Then she was gone and the street was empty. Stella stood, a warm rush of stickiness oozing out of her, and felt completely alone.

21

2011

In Jess’s dream there was a fire.

She couldn’t see it because everything was so black, but she knew it was there because she could hear its roar in her ears and feel its heat on her face. Convulsed with shivers and frozen to the bone, she longed to get closer. The darkness glowed red as the heat started to lick through her, and then it was orange and yellow and then the fierce bright white of midday sun and she was burning from the inside. She tried to escape but tree roots and undergrowth twisted around her – not just around her legs and feet, but her whole body – holding her fast. She writhed and struggled and then, above the rage of the furnace inside her she heard a voice telling her that it was OK, she was going to be all right. That she was safe.

Dan Rosinski. It was him, she knew it. He came out of the fire and his face hung in front of her – old at first, but changing before her eyes until he was young again. Handsome, with dark hair and gentle eyes. His hands were cool. At his touch the roots and brambles fell away. She tried to sit up and tell him that she’d read the letters and knew about Stella. It was very important to tell him she was going to find her, but he was easing her down again, saying it didn’t matter.

And when he said that she knew it wasn’t him. And through the heat and the roar and the ache in every nerve and muscle and bone in her body she recognized the man from the leisure centre.

‘It’s all right,’ he said again, as his face began to shrink and swim out of focus. ‘I’m going to get help. Just hold on, I’ll be back soon.’

Will had never phoned for an ambulance before. As he dialled 999 he wondered if he was being ridiculously melodramatic and was about to end the call when the operator came on the line to ask which emergency service he required.

‘Sorry – ambulance please.’

‘What’s the nature of the emergency?’

‘A young lady – I’ve just discovered her, in an empty house. I think she’s sleeping rough in there, or squatting perhaps—

‘Do you need police assistance?’

‘No! No, it’s not that – she’s not well. I’m not sure what the problem is, but she seems to have a fever. She’s very hot, and she’s—’

He faltered. He was going to say that she’d been hallucinating; about letters, and someone called Stella and how she was going to find her, but he baulked at the word. Hallucinating made it sound like she was high on something. The possibility hadn’t occurred to him until that moment. Was he being terribly naïve in thinking that she was actually ill?

‘Is the patient conscious and breathing?’

‘Breathing, yes.’ Rasping breaths that made her chest squeeze like bellows. ‘Conscious – I don’t quite know. She’s talking, but not rationally, if you see what I mean. Nonsense, really.’

‘Could you give me details of where the patient is, please?’

He gave the address and was told, quite briskly, that an ambulance would be there soon, and then the line went dead.

He’d left his mobile in Mr Greaves’s kitchen and had to go back there to make the call. When he’d done it he went through to the lounge. Mr Greaves was sitting upright in his chair. His eyes, behind his bottle-bottom glasses, were the size of satellite dishes.

‘So, what did they say then?’