The Boy I Love Read online

  Paul turned round, his fingers going to check that the eye-patch hid all it was supposed to.

  The vicar’s daughter smiled at him, her own hand going to the blush that was spreading over her throat.

  ‘Hello, Margot.’

  She was standing on the stairs, so much higher than him he had to tilt his head back to look at her. Touching her left eye she said hesitantly, ‘The patch … it makes you look dashing.’

  He laughed.

  ‘No. Really. It suits you …’ Her blush deepened. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean that, exactly. It must have been horrible.’ She came down. ‘Are you leaving?’

  ‘Leaving? Oh, no. No, not leaving. I wanted a cigarette.’

  ‘Daddy wouldn’t let you smoke in the house?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I smoke.’

  ‘Really? Well, if you’d like one of mine …’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  She had thought he was Robbie, returned from the grave, wearing the same coat she imagined they buried him in, the same coat he had spread on the grass behind the Makepeace tomb. He had lost his captain’s cap, and those strips of cloth like khaki bandages he wrapped around his shins, but it was Robbie, not dead, only lost. She’d stood on the stairs watching him, holding her breath to be as silent as possible until slowly she realised that this was only Paul, the boy who had looked so close to weeping as her father spoke of the importance of remembering, everyone had seemed embarrassed for him. Afterwards, when he was in the queue to shake her father’s hand, most people had kept their distance, as though madness was contagious.

  In the garden Margot watched as he fumbled with a cigarette case and matches. His hands shook and he smiled apologetically as first one match and then another broke.

  ‘Let me,’ she said, and took the matches from him.

  He stepped closer, accepting the light she held out. Just like Robbie, he blew smoke down his nose and smiled at her. ‘When did girls start smoking?’

  ‘Same time as boys.’

  ‘1914?’

  She felt her face flush. ‘Probably.’

  They stood side by side, smoking in silence. From the corner of her eye she noticed his fingers go again and again to the eye-patch as though checking its straightness. Tossing her finished cigarette down she pulverised it into the crazy-paved path.

  ‘I have to help my mother serve lunch.’

  ‘Margot …’ He caught her arm as she turned away, immediately releasing her as she faced him. ‘I’m sorry about Rob.’

  ‘I should say that to you, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘I know how close you and he were.’

  ‘What do you know? What did he say about me?’

  ‘That you were going to be married.’

  ‘Yes! We were!’ She laughed harshly. ‘He promised me. We would have been married by now.’ She began to cry and he took a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. ‘I’m sorry.’ Dabbing at her eyes she said, ‘I don’t know what came over me.’

  ‘Misery? That’s what comes over me, anyway.’

  She gave back the handkerchief. ‘Thank you for the cigarette.’

  As she walked away she had a feeling he was watching her. When she looked back she saw that he had turned away and was staring out towards the graves.

  Chapter Two

  IN PARKWOOD’S KITCHEN PAUL slumped into the armchair by the fire. He took off the eye-patch and threw it at the hearth where it caught on the coal scuttle handle.

  Hanging up his coat George asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Tired.’

  ‘Why don’t you go and lie down for an hour?’

  ‘I’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t mind. Glad of the company.’ He sat down in the armchair opposite him. ‘You can smoke, if you like.’ As Paul lit a cigarette George said, ‘Margot’s a pretty girl, isn’t she? She sent me such a nice letter after Robbie was killed … reading between the lines she seemed quite fond of him.’

  Paul remembered Robbie’s own description of Margot’s feelings. Shyly he had told him, ‘She loves me. In fact …’ He had glanced away. ‘She allowed me to, well, you know.’

  Allowed. Paul shuddered.

  ‘Are you cold?’ George got up and put more coal on the fire, delicately placing aside the eye-patch. Sitting down again he pressed on. ‘Margot’s such a sensible girl, a nice, sensible girl.’

  ‘I’m not interested, Dad.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s a fat little girl.’

  George was silenced, gazing into the fire as the room’s clutter was tidied away by the dusk. Nothing had changed in this room since Paul’s childhood. Even the bookcase was still full of his grandfather’s books, their spines cracked with age, their titles fading. Paul wondered how long it was since anyone had unlocked the glass doors and taken a book down. Not since his last leave, probably, when he had taken A Tale of Two Cities on the journey back to the front. He frowned, trying to remember what had become of it, and saw Jenkins hunched against the cold, a candle dripping wax on the thin pages.

  Jenkins snorted. ‘A far, far better thing my arse. Bloody fool that’s what I say.’

  Jenkins. It was dangerous how the most innocent thoughts could remind him – he should have learnt that by now. All the same, each reminder was a jolt, as though he’d been suddenly woken from sleep walking. Unable to sit still, Paul got up. ‘I think I will have that lie down.’

  Jenkins sang The Boy I love. ‘There he is, can’t you see, smiling from the bal-con-neee…’ He made the words up as he went along. Some of the words were filthy.

  Lying on his bed in his room, Paul blew a smoke ring, squinting as it disappeared into the gloom. The wind roared in the chimney and threw the bare branches of the trees against the window. He lifted his hand and its enormous shadow played in the candlelight as Jenkins’s catchy tune played inside his head. Jenkins, in balaclava and muffler, grinned at him.

  ‘The boy I love is up on the balconee. The boy I love is …’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Jenkins.’

  ‘You’re a miserable bastard, Harris. But then having to read the men’s pitiful letters would make anyone a miserable bastard.’

  ‘I’m censoring, not reading.’

  Jenkins laughed. ‘Of course! One’s mind becomes numb to the blather, eventually.’ He put on a Tyneside accent. ‘Me darling lass. I hope this letter finds you as it leaves me: utterly, utterly buggered.’

  Paul closed his eyes, smelt the burnt patties and boiled potatoes they’d eaten that evening. He could taste them still, greasy as mutton, salty as sea water. He thought of ice cream sundaes, eaten with long spoons from tall glasses in Robinson’s café, of the cold lemonade that always accompanied them. He groaned softly. Next to him on the table made from planks and barrels, the yellow flame of a candle drowned in its pool of wax.

  Jenkins came to sit next to him. He rested his hand on Paul’s thigh. Paul’s skin crawled beneath his fingers and he fought to keep from shuddering. He should have shoved him away but something held him back, some idea about protesting too much, of being the obvious queer pretending to be appalled by queerness. He waited for Jenkins to tire of this game and felt his leg tense with the effort of not moving. Jenkins looked at him, digging his fingers into his flesh before lifting his hand away.

  Staring at his bedroom ceiling Paul flicked ash into the saucer balanced on his chest. He remembered the day Jenkins joined his platoon, his shiny boots yet to be broken in and creaking with each step, his trench coat and uniform stinking of newness. He remembered his own stink: damp khaki and sweat overlaid with lousy sweetness. As Captain Hawkins introduced them, he could have sworn Jenkins’s nose wrinkled as he held out his hand. Jenkins hadn’t recognised him for a moment. Plenty of men called Harris, after all, and he supposed he’d changed a little, grown up. Paul shook his hand, all the time his heart hammering as he grinned like an idiot to hide his shock. Not used to seeing him sm
ile, Hawkins had eyed him suspiciously. ‘Are you all right, Harris? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I have that effect on people, sir.’ Jenkins at last let go of his hand, his eyes questioning. Finally recognising him, he laughed, a short, startling burst of noise that made Paul want to vomit with fright. ‘Harris! Jesus – Paul Harris?’ Jenkins looked at Hawkins. ‘We were at school together, sir!’ He turned back to Paul. ‘Good God! Harris! I’d have thought they’d let you sit this one out!’

  Paul exhaled sharply. His room was becoming colder and he thought of getting up and drawing the curtains against the chilly moonlight, of climbing fully dressed beneath the slippery eiderdown and blankets George had piled on his bed. Too much effort. He thought about having a wank and his hand plucked faintly at his fly buttons, but all the familiar filthy images evaded him. He thought about Jenkins in school, twisting his arms up his back, forcing his face down into the nest of dead, newly hatched sparrows he’d hidden in his bed. His nose had brushed the fragile flesh and he’d closed his eyes tight, trying not to breathe the green-meat smell. Later, he’d carried the nest to the bins outside the school’s kitchens, feeling responsible for the little corpses that looked so dismayed by their pointless deaths. Around that time, Jenkins’s bullying had become more inventive, and he remembered the sense of dread of what might come next. Constantly afraid, he’d felt as disgusting and powerless as the birds.

  To stop himself thinking about Jenkins he made himself think about the vicar’s daughter, the way she’d smoked her cigarette like Jenkins at his most needy. Robbie would have shown her how to smoke like that, reluctantly at first, then amused by her efforts, then taking it for granted that she should smoke as he did, the whole process taking place over the weeks of his sick leave, during that last summer of the war.

  ‘Don’t you think she’s marvellous?’ Robbie had grinned at him from the foot of the bed. His sleeves were rolled up and his forearms were deeply tanned. His smell of outdoors invaded the comforting stuffiness of his room, making Paul pull the bedcovers over his head.

  ‘Go away, Rob.’

  Rob had tugged the covers away. ‘I’ve been up for hours. I’ve mowed the lawn. What are you going to do? Waste your leave sleeping?’ Sitting on the end of the bed he said, ‘Margot is marvellous, isn’t she? We’re going to be married.’

  ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘What do you think of her?’

  What had he said? Something that had made Rob sulk. That she was too young, or too plump, that when he’d danced with her at her birthday party she’d smelt of steamed roses.

  Paul frowned as this memory came back. Dancing with her he had wanted to bury his nose in her hair, to hold her closer and breathe her in, so distracted by her scent she must have thought he was touched.

  He covered his face with his hands. Imagine, linking her arm through his as they strolled around the graves. Imagine, taking off his coat and spreading it out beside the Makepeace tomb, laying her down on its black silk lining. Imagine, whispering endearments and lies, promises and reassurance as the Makepeace dead listened impotently beneath the hard earth. He imagined the words Robbie said when he finished: ‘I’m sorry.’ Knowing Robbie he would have apologised. The rest he knew for definite, Robbie had told him.

  ‘She cried,’ Robbie said.

  ‘I should think all girls cry, the first time.’

  He had been sitting opposite him on St Stephen’s lawn and Robbie had looked away, fumbling in his tunic pocket for his cigarettes. Fiercely he said, ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘You haven’t asked me to be your best man.’ Paul leaned forward in his invalid’s bath chair to light his brother’s cigarette. ‘Should I be polishing my best eye, or not?’

  ‘Of course I want you there … when you’re better, of course.’ He shifted uneasily, glancing at some of the other patients wandering the grounds in their pyjamas and plaid dressing gowns. Stiff and correct in his captain’s uniform, his fingers went to the knot of his tie, adjusting it minutely. At last he said, ‘We won’t be married for a while. Plenty of time for that when I’m discharged.’

  The war had been over for ten months. For the first few weeks of peace Paul had been blind on his back in an army hospital bed, under orders not to move in case what remained of his sight should be dislodged for good. It would be his own, careless fault if he lost the use of his right eye as well. He’d kept silent, refusing to acknowledge responsibility, wanting to be deaf, too: deaf, dumb, blind, the ultimate retreat.

  Halfway recovered that day in September, he’d smiled at his brother. ‘You don’t have to hang around, Rob. Thanks for coming to see me.’

  Robbie frowned at him. ‘You’re better now, aren’t you? Properly, I mean. In the head.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘They should let you go! It’s idiotic keeping you here! Good God, Paul. You’re so bloody thin!’

  He remembered laughing – being thin seemed the very least of it – and Rob had frowned again, further discomfited. He stood up. ‘I’d best be off. Take care of yourself, Paul. Tell them they should send you home, where you belong.’

  Paul watched him as he walked away, remembered how his brother adjusted the fit of his cap with both hands before brushing a speck of lunatics’ dust from his tunic. He had pulled on a pair of gloves, preparation for his ride home on the borrowed motorbike. Later Paul was told that the bike had skidded on spilled oil. He imagined its wheels slowly spinning as it lay on its side, sun glinting in its spokes as his brother bled into the earth from the gash in his skull. The farmer who found his body had thought at first that he was only sleeping, peaceful on his back in a verge of grass and poppies.

  There had been unspoken irony in the condolences. Rob had joined the army in 1913 – was one of the first to fight. It seemed wrong that he should die on an English road, that there should be some natural law against it. Told he was too frail to attend the funeral, Paul had spent the day completing a jigsaw of Buckingham Palace with another lieutenant who believed the war was still raging and in an hour or two they’d be out on patrol. The fantasy was oddly comforting; he’d gone along with it until the last piece of the jigsaw was fumbled into place, imagining a close crawl across no-man’s-land instead of his brother’s burial.

  His room was completely dark now. George called him for his supper and he got up, fumbling like a truly blind man towards the door. Downstairs, he realised that he’d tricked himself into forgetting about Jenkins for almost half an hour.

  Every Wednesday and Saturday Thorp held a market along its High Street, a choppy sea of white canvas stalls from the Georgian cube of its town hall to the medieval stone cross outside the Shambles. Catholic martyrs had once burned at that cross, Margot had been told, but although she had examined the pitted stone she didn’t believe it. Thorp had always seemed too sensible a place for such carrying on, a commercial, agnostic place halfway between the cities of Durham and York, with no tradition of mining to ally it with its neighbours.

  The Wednesday streets were littered with cabbage stalks and bruised apples, the stalls strung with lanterns to light the late afternoon. Margot walked quickly past the butcher’s stall. Lately, all smells had intensified and she covered her mouth and nose with her hand so that she smelled only her own woolly mitten smell instead of the cold-blood stink of freshly slaughtered chickens. The creatures hanging from their scaly feet stared at her with dull slits of eyes in the yellow light. She looked away and bumped into Paul.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry …’

  ‘Hello, Margot.’

  She hadn’t realised who it was until he spoke. The voice was unmistakably Robbie’s. She jerked her head up in shocked recognition, her heart pounding fiercely. Paul Harris frowned at her.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Disappointment tasted like metal against her teeth. She nodded breathlessly.

  Paul took her arm. ‘Perhaps you should sit down.’

  Where the make-believe martyrs had once burned st
ood a pair of wooden benches. Paul sat her down then crouched in front of her. ‘You look terribly faint.’

  She sat up straight, breathing deeply to try to subdue the nausea she felt. When she was almost certain she wasn’t about to be sick, she said, ‘I’m fine.’

  Sitting next to her he took out his cigarette case. Opening it, he held it out to her but she shook her head.

  ‘Not in public, eh? We have to care what people think. People will think we’re a courting couple. They’ll think isn’t it marvellous how she’s standing by the poor soul, some girls wouldn’t look at him again in that state.’

  Margot looked around, exaggerating an interest in passing shoppers. ‘Aren’t they thinking about what to buy for supper?’ She turned to him. ‘You’re not a poor soul.’

  ‘No, I know. I’m a very lucky boy.’ He held her gaze. ‘May I buy you a cup of tea?’

  She hesitated. Paul got up and waited expectantly in front of her. It seemed rude to refuse him. Getting to her feet she said, ‘All right. A cup of tea would be nice.’

  * * *

  In Robinson’s Department Store café they were shown to a window table. As Paul passed other tables Margot noticed how heads turned to watch him go by, their conversations pausing only to resume in more hushed tones. She felt like a chief mourner at a funeral, ostracised from normal society. For a moment the urge to reach out and take his hand was so strong she curled her own hands into fists inside her mittens.

  They sat down and he glanced at a menu. ‘Toasted teacake? How about muffins? They used to do marvellous cream cakes here. Éclairs, meringues, that kind of thing.’

  ‘Nothing for me, thank you.’

  He closed the menu and placed it down beside him. ‘Just tea, then.’

  ‘You have something.’

  A waitress hovered, pencil poised. Paul’s fingers went to the eye-patch. ‘Tea for two, please.’

  Margot took off her hat and gloves and placed them on the chair beside her. Self-conscious suddenly, she glanced out of the window to the street. Three floors below them, the lamps on the market stalls twinkled. A hurdy-gurdy man turned the corner into view. She could just make out the red of his monkey’s fez as the man stopped his machine and began to wind its handle. She heard Paul strike a match and turned to look at him.