As Stephen grew more dangerous Coventry fell further and further back, scanning the crowd. When Stephen started a fight Coventry would be behind him, his quick eyes looking all around, watching for a knife to be pulled, for the quick crack of a broken bottle. When Stephen was in the centre of milling fists, his face alight with unleashed malice, Coventry would still be reserved and watchful on the fringe. Only when Stephen threatened to sink under the weight of other men, or when someone was coming up behind him, would Coventry move forwards and trip the man, and knee him sharply in the kidneys as he sank down. He would fight his way through a crowd towards Stephen, jabbing a punch into an unprotected back, a hard fist behind a man’s ear so he fell knocked out cold, or doubled up by a swift dishonourable kick to the balls. Stephen knew intuitively when Coventry was behind him, and Coventry’s touch on his belt was his signal to back out of the fight, still exchanging blows, while Coventry led the retreat to the door. Often they timed their escape to within minutes of discovery; they would be out of the door and walking down the road, catching their breath, as the MPs or the civilian police came running towards the pub past them. Once they were struck a passing blow from a truncheon, once they were threatened with arrest as they were bursting out of one door as the police came in the other. But mostly they disappeared before the arrests were made, and then for the next week or so they would steer clear of that area altogether.
The violence purged Stephen. He fought, not like a gentleman, not even with the straight anger of a working man; he used his skills as a trained boxer but he set aside all the rules he had ever been taught at school. He used his knees, he used his feet. If he had a glass in his hand he would knock off the top of it and flash it, in and out, like a dagger. Generally he cut nothing more than cloth. Once he struck at a man’s face, and guessed, by the bitter horrified scream, that he had cut his eyes. If he knocked his opponent down he would kick him at once, hard-shod, in the soft vulnerable belly, or in his curved back. Once a man went down on his back, and Stephen, in a sudden rush of joy, raised his boot and stamped on the man’s face, hearing the sweet textured sound of the crushing of his nose bones, the collapse of the septum. Coventry laid hold of him then and drew him back. Stephen was trembling like a youth after orgasm. Coventry had to put an arm around his back to hold him up.
“Damn legs are all weak!” Stephen exclaimed breathlessly. “Oh God, Coventry! Did you see that! Did you hear it?” He let out a little sob, he licked his lips. “Oh God! That was so good. That was so good.”
They could hear a whistle and the sound of running feet. Coventry drew Stephen into a darkened doorway and they turned their faces into the shadows. The police ran past them, truncheons out. Stephen leaned back against the door frame.
“Cigarette,” he said.
Coventry took out a packet of cigarettes, put two in his mouth and lit them, then passed one to Stephen. In the brief flare of the match his face was neutral, noncommittal.
Stephen inhaled deeply and then blew the smoke out. “Christ,” he said. “That was the best.”
Coventry noticed that Stephen’s hands were still shaking with pleasure, his eyes dilated. They stood in silence until they had finished smoking and then they trod out the butts and walked quietly to the car. Behind them was the jangling bell of an ambulance. Stephen chuckled at the sound.
The car was parked some streets away. There was a policeman standing beside it. Stephen spotted him at once and they both fell back, moving like one man, into the dark alleyway. They turned at once and began to groom each other, straightening each other’s ties, Coventry wiping a fleck of blood from the corner of Stephen’s mouth, Stephen rubbing a smudge on Coventry’s collar.
“You’re OK,” Stephen said. “Me too?”
Coventry nodded. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his folded chauffeur’s cap. He shook it out flat and brushed it off. Then he placed it on his head and he and Stephen strode confidently out of the shadows towards the policeman, Coventry at a deferential half-pace behind his master.
“Evening, officer,” Stephen said pleasantly. “Everything all right?”
The policeman saluted. “Yes, Sir,” he said. “This your car, Sir?”
“That’s right,” Stephen said pleasantly. “No trouble, is there?”
“Nothing at all, Sir. We were afraid it had been stolen. Not often you see a car like this around here.”
“Thank you,” Stephen said. He slid a crisp ten shilling note out of his pocket and held it at the ready. Coventry unlocked the car and opened the back door, holding it for Stephen.
“Very vigilant,” Stephen said. “Carry on.”
The man saluted again. Stephen flicked the note out at him. The man hesitated. “I couldn’t, Sir,” he said. “Just doing my duty.”
Stephen winked at him. “For a little treat,” he said. “We all like little treats.”
The policeman glanced at the darkened streets behind them and guessed that in one of them was a brothel where Stephen had been.
“Oh yes, Sir,” he said. He took the note and tucked it away. “Very good, Sir,” he said. “Good night.”
Stephen waited until the man had gone round the corner and then climbed into the front passenger seat. Coventry got in beside him and took off his cap.
“Let’s go home to Hayling,” Stephen proposed. “Have a brew. It’s been quite a night.”
Coventry nodded and drove the big car along the coast road and down the sand-blown lanes to where his little houseboat stood half-surrounded by lapping waters.
Stephen went inside while Coventry fetched water from the standpipe. When he came back Stephen had the lamp lit, and was setting a match to the fire.
They were silent as they brewed the tea and then Coventry poured Stephen a mug, sour and oversweet, and Stephen wrapped his hands around the hot enamel sides and sighed with pleasure. “That was the best ever,” he said. “This evening—it was the best ever.”
Coventry did not nod, he was watching the flames. Stephen sensed his reserve.
“Something wrong?” he asked. He glanced at Coventry. Still the man did not look at him.
Stephen reached out a hand and gripped Coventry’s shoulder. Unwillingly the dumb man turned his face to his master. His eyes were sombre. Stephen shook him gently, lovingly. “Don’t you forget,” he said. “Don’t you forget. We’ve done an awful lot worse than that. We’ve done an awful lot worse than that.”
• • •
Stephen drove himself home in the early hours of the morning and crept into the bedroom as dawn was breaking. Outside the sea was up and the waves were soughing on the beach. A blackbird was singing.
Lily stirred as her husband came in and leaned up on one arm. The peach shoulder strap of her nightdress slid down her arm showing the smooth line of her breast and neck. As soon as she saw it was Stephen she sank back to the pillows and shut her eyes, completely indifferent.
Stephen undressed quietly, so as not to disturb her, and slipped between the sheets beside her. The memory of the man’s face beneath his shoes came back to him as he closed his eyes and waited for sleep. He heard again the extraordinary pleasurable crunch of the breaking nose, and the hoarse scream of pain. Stephen sighed with pleasure and put his hand out to touch Lily’s smooth warm shoulder in the darkness.
She rolled over and moved away from him. Stephen wriggled across the bed and took her shoulder in a firmer grip. He could feel excitement mounting at the thought that she might resist him. He had hardly touched her in weeks, he had been so unmanned by his father’s return to health. But now, with the perverse thrill of the fight fresh in him, Stephen thought that Lily might resist him and give him adequate reason to force himself on her.
She was a lady, he reminded himself. No-one could say otherwise; as cold as ice, she hated lovemaking. She usually endured it, but in these early hours, when she had been sleeping, after weeks of neglect, she might think herself justified in refusing him, and then he would be justified in forcing
her.
He gripped her shoulder hard and pulled her towards him, pushing her on to her back. In the pale light of the morning which showed through the curtains he could see her big dark blue eyes looking at him with absolute indifference.
“Oh, very well,” Lily said in the bored drawl of the Hampshire society ladies. “I quite thought you’d given it up.”
She took her nightdress in one careless hand and hitched it up to her waist. Her hard unforgiving gaze never moved from his face. She spread her legs, still staring at him, waiting for him to heave himself on her and take his legal rights. Her face was flinty, her eyes blank.
“Christ,” Stephen said, all desire dissolving in an instant. “Christ, Lily.”
“What?”
“Well, it’s hardly lovemaking . . .” he said feebly.
“It’s not love at all,” Lily said precisely. “It’s your right. You do it if you want to. I don’t care.”
Stephen felt his erection shrivel. He drew back from her and released his grip on her shoulder. “Ladies permit it,” he said weakly. “You should allow me to do it without comment.”
Lily shrugged. “I don’t care. It means nothing. It means nothing to me. You can do it or not, as you like.”
Stephen pulled one of the pillows towards him and hugged it. “Christ, Lily,” he said again.
She turned a face to him that was as stony as her words. “What?”
“A man likes a bit of warmth, there ought to be a bit of love between us. We’re married, we’ve got Christopher, you’re my wife . . .”
Lily listened, her face unchanging.
“We’re married,” Stephen said again. It was almost like the cry of a child, calling in playground promises and favours.
“Yes, we’re married,” Lily said wearily. “And I do my part of the bargain. I’ve said you can have me if you want. You don’t expect me to enjoy it, do you? You don’t expect me to invite it?”
“No,” Stephen said quickly. She was a lady; she could not enjoy it. “Of course not.” But even as he spoke he had a sudden recollection of Juliette and the warmth of her heavy breasts through her shirt. Her easy smile and the smell of her sweat, that summer, when he had fallen in love for the first time.
“All right, then,” Lily said. She turned her back to him and closed her eyes. She lay in silence. Stephen could not tell whether she was asleep or awake. He lay beside her, hugging the pillow for comfort. Not even in the trenches had he felt so desolate and alone. He had bent and broken Lily until she had become his bride and then his wife. He had raped her, and forced a child on her so that she would leave the theatre and be utterly in his power. But now, at the pinnacle of his control, now she was married and powerless and bound to him for ever by the law of the land, and by her love for his child, she could turn to him and tell him to lie on her or not, that it meant nothing to her.
Stephen blinked, and found that his eyes were filled with tears which ran down his cheeks and blotted on the pillow. He had lost his power at his office, he had lost the easy familiar loyalty of his clerks. He had lost his power at his home, his father once more sat at the head of the table. And the wife he had married to save him from nightmares and loneliness had moved so far away from him that he could not even hurt her, let alone touch her.
Stephen lay sleepless all night. He did not even doze. His life spread before him like the enlarged map of the Western Front which his father had pinned on the dining room wall. Half an inch gained here, half an inch lost here. Every appearance of progress—all those little marching flags—but in reality, nothing but empty ground and a strange harvest of weapons and rotting corpses.
• • •
Stephen left Lily to sleep in the morning. He went downstairs in his dressing-gown and ordered a breakfast tray for the two of them. Muriel glanced at him and his slippered feet as he went past the drawing room door. She looked slightly scandalized, as if the sight of her own son’s bare legs were improper.
He sent Sally to carry the tray, and he sent Browning in to Nanny Janes with his apologies and instructions to bring Christopher upstairs to Lily as soon as he was dressed. Then he followed Sally up the stairs to his bedroom and took the tray from her at the bedroom door, nodded to her to open the door, and went in.
Lily stirred and sat up in bed, bemused. “Gracious, what’s the time?”
“Nine o’clock.”
“What’s happening? Aren’t you going to the office?”
Stephen put the tray on the bed and poured Lily a cup of tea before he answered. “I’m not going in today.”
“Aren’t you well?”
“I’m all right.”
There was a silence. Lily was perfectly composed, sipping her tea. “Would you open the curtains please?” she asked. “I want to see the sky.”
Stephen drew them back to let the warm summer sunshine flood into the room. He did not know how to speak to Lily. He expected her to be grateful for breakfast in bed. He expected her to sense a new turning in their relationship. But she was taking it with total indifference.
The sky was a bright innocent blue, it was a lovely day. Already the bathing machines were drawn up on the beach and half a dozen donkeys were waiting to give rides at the foot of the pier.
“I’ve got a little surprise,” he said, almost as one would speak to a little girl.
Lily looked at him, not like a little girl at all. “What?”
“A treat.”
Even now she showed no animation. “For me?”
“For you!” Stephen said engagingly.
Lily raised her eyebrows. “What sort of treat?”
“How would you like your own little car?” Stephen asked. “A car of your own, which you could drive yourself. A little runabout for you. You could zip off to your concerts and shows, and when Christopher’s a bit bigger you could take him out for the day and so on.”
Lily nodded. “That would be useful,” she agreed.
Stephen buttered her a slice of toast and handed it to her on the plate. Lily took it gravely with a word of thanks. He watched her eat it.
“Lily . . .”
She wiped her mouth with a napkin and looked at him. “Yes?”
“I want it to be right between us,” Stephen said in a rush. “Lily. I want it to be right.” He had never been taught the words for the communication of emotion. He was speaking a tongue as foreign as when he had told Juliette that he loved her. It had come easier to him in French than it did to tell his wife in English that he wanted their marriage reborn into love and tenderness.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Lily said. “What do you want us to do?”
“I don’t know! I want us to be c . . . c . . . close together. I want us to spend more t . . . t . . . time together. I want . . . I want . . . I want you to l . . . l . . . love me,” he said very low.
“I’m your wife,” Lily said. “Of course I love you.”
Stephen, knowing this did not follow as a matter of course, knowing this was not true in their case, shot Lily a look of painful appeal. “Please,” was all he could say.
Lily pushed back the covers and slipped out of bed to put the space of the room between them. She opened the wardrobe door and gazed at her clothes, but she did not see them.
“I feel so damned lonely,” Stephen confessed.
Lily hesitated. There was something in his voice that broke through the year of resentment. Then there was a knock on the door. Both of them stiffened and Lily snatched up her dressing-gown. Sally came into the room carrying Christopher. Lily crossed the room at once and took him from her with a little cry of greeting. Christopher burst into a broad smile and a gurgle of pleasure at the sight of his mother.
“I thought we could take him out today,” Stephen said. “You and me, and Christopher. We could go out often. We could go out every afternoon. I could leave the office early. We could spend some time, the three of us, together.”
Lily’s face brightened with hope. “We could dismiss
Nanny Janes. If we’re having Christopher so much, if we’re together as a family, we wouldn’t want her.”
Stephen stiffened. “No,” he said. “The boy must be brought up properly. Nanny Janes stays.”
The joy fled from Lily’s face as if he had slapped her. She gave him a small hard smile. “Nothing changes at all, then,” she said, and turned her head back to her son. “If you won’t let me have Christopher, then nothing has changed.”
32
COVENTRY DROVE STEPHEN, Lily and Christopher out into the country that afternoon. Stephen held the child inexpertly once or twice before returning him to Lily. They drove through the deep sunken lanes that had been no more than cart-tracks when Stephen left for the war. The verges at the roadside were rich with midsummer flowers. The Hampshire countryside was all green and creamy white. The hawthorn was in flower and the hedges were full of the thick blooming heads of Queen Anne’s lace. Big moon daisies turned a thousand faces to the car as it drove past, brushing against the grass, sticky with pollen. Bouquets of ragwort gleamed brassy yellow at the roadside. The smell of the white elderflower blossoms filled the car with a sickly sweetness that made Stephen take out his handkerchief and hold it across his face, covering his mouth and nose. Only when he saw the critical sharpness of Lily’s glance at him did he realize that the smell could not possibly be gas, that he was behaving like a fool. He forced himself to put his handkerchief back in his pocket, though his hand trembled.
Coventry, serene behind the wheel of the Argyll, drove through the warm lanes as if he were on the wooden corduroy roads laid through the mud to headquarters. He drove indifferent to weather and to the rich heady smells of summer. He watched the lane ahead of him, seeing everything, touched by nothing.