Bello:
hidden talent rediscovered
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Contents
Winston Graham
Book One
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Book Two
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Winston Graham
Night Without Stars
Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the series of historical novels about the Poldarks. Graham was born in Manchester in 1908, but moved to Perranporth, Cornwall when he was seventeen. His first novel, The House with the Stained Glass Windows was published in 1933. His first ‘Poldark’ novel, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945, and was followed by eleven further titles, the last of which, Bella Poldark, came out in 2002. The novels were set in Cornwall, especially in and around Perranporth, where Graham spent much of his life, and were made into a BBC television series in the 1970s. It was so successful that vicars moved or cancelled church services rather than try to hold them when Poldark was showing.
Aside from the Poldark series, Graham’s most successful work was Marnie, a thriller which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964. Hitchcock had originally hoped that Grace Kelly would return to films to play the lead and she had agreed in principle, but the plan failed when the principality of Monaco realised that the heroine was a thief and sexually repressed. The leads were eventually taken by Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Five of Graham’s other books were filmed, including The Walking Stick, Night Without Stars and Take My Life. Graham wrote a history of the Spanish Armadas and an historical novel, The Grove of Eagles, based in that period. He was also an accomplished writer of suspense novels. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published by Macmillan in 2003. He had completed work on it just weeks before he died. Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1983 was honoured with the OBE.
Book One
Chapter 2
When the shell blinded me they sent me back to a base hospital for some weeks so that skin could be grafted on my hand. Every now and then a surgeon would come by and look at my eyes and say, well it’s too early yet to be sure, and the nurses would say how lucky I was not to be disfigured.
Blindness takes getting used to, particularly in the mornings: at night you go to sleep and accept darkness as natural, it’s the mornings that are the trying time, when you wake and want to lift something off; pull the curtains, so to speak. And in the night sometimes when you try to look at your luminous wrist-watch. Once you’re properly awake your mind can take control and argue things out. Seeing isn’t everything. There’s likewise a wind on the heath.…
After a month or so they began to talk about an operation and shipped me back to England. Rachel came over to see me almost at once, but it was all rather stiff and formal, and never got down to anything. It was bad knowing she was sitting beside me and not seeing her face or her hair or her eyes, or what she was dressed in. I’d been thinking a good deal about Rachel, having had plenty of time for thought.
But it somehow wasn’t right plunging in at that first meeting for over six months; and the next time she had her mother with her, and the time after that was just before the operation and it seemed inappropriate to talk about the future when everyone was so hopeful and sold me the idea that in a few weeks I should be as good as ever.
Once or twice I wondered if this was the tin hare designed to get the dog to run.
They did things to my left eye, this being the least damaged, and it was a success. At least, it was a success so far as it went. I’d been able to get a few glimpses out of this eye when allowed to for the last week or so, and when they took the bandages off I could make out things fairly clearly again. Admitted it still wasn’t much of a view, but small change is riches to a beggar.
They said something about blood in the eye and inflammation and that these would clear up as time went on. It was a question of patience and good behaviour now. I wasn’t so sure.
Anyway, I’d had leisure to think things over thoroughly before Rachel came this time, and I was glad to see that she was alone. Yes, see. I saw her blurred and misty and grey, like one of those tactful screen close-ups done to disguise the fact that the heroine is long in the tooth.
But Rachel was twenty, and I knew her colour from memory.
“Is it—really all right, Giles?”
“It’s all right.”
“… Sure?”
“You’ve got a new hat on, and you’re doing your hair differently—and where did you get that brooch?”
“Well … thank Heaven. … When did they take the bandages off?”
“Yesterday.”
She said doubtfully: “How good is it?”
“Pretty good.”
“It doesn’t look much different.”
“It is different, believe me.”
She sat down abruptly. “I’ve had nightmares. To think of you, so active and vigorous … groping your way through life—twenty years, forty years. We can talk of it now.”
I could still see myself doing a certain amount of groping, but I thought I’d save that bright thought until after tea. Nurse Rylands, who was a stone heavier and a foot taller than I’d imagined, pushed over a trolley, and after a few minutes we were alone again. It was then that I began to notice the differences in Rachel were not only in her voice. She talked, as she’d talked before on these visits, a bit feverishly, and now that I could see and she might have expected me to be watching her she seemed to want to avoid my gaze. I’d already assured myself that the nurses in Normandy had been telling the truth and that I was no worse to look at than usual.
I listened to her, but didn’t say much. I knew it was time I started talking, because the longer it was left the worse it would get; but I’m not the stuff heroes are made of, and there was the awful temptation to let things slide.
I knew there’d be argument because she was that sort. She’d want to stick by the contract, and it’s hard arguing against your own interests. Anyway, if I wanted to be even moderately honest I had to make it clear to her that I wasn’t going to be in good shape for getting married just yet. It seemed to me that the field was wide open. If in a month or six months or twelve months I found I could see as well as ever, I’d claim all the privileges going, but until then she must be free. The present state wasn’t good enough. You can’t earn your living and do any good with a wife and family on about a quarter of an eye.
Presently I lit her cigarette and one for myself, and carefully noticed that the flame which sh
ould have been amber was a sort of delicate mauve.
“I don’t know what these damned surgeons have done,” I said, “but they’ve taken the technicolour out of life. I shall probably do pretty well as a solicitor now—seeing everything in field grey. No danger of glamour distorting the judgment.”
“Shall you—go back to that? I mean, you’re still a partner, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I expect I shall go back.”
“You should take a long holiday first. It would be crazy to plunge straight back into it.”
“Maybe. It depends.”
There was a short silence.
“You’ll go on wearing glasses, I suppose?”
“If they help. D’you mind?”
“Of course not.”
There was another pause. This was obviously the point to begin, but something in her voice made me wonder. She was nervously fastening and unfastening the second button of her attractive blouse.
“It’s marvellous that you can see again. Wonderful.”
“Well, don’t sound so miserable about it, darling.”
She got up.
I said: “ What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, there is.”
“Oh, God, I’m so unhappy, Giles.”
I got up too, and picked my way round the table, careful not to get my legs tied up with any obstructions on the way. “ What’s troubling you?”
“I don’t know. I feel I must tell you to-day, and yet I can’t.”
“That’s helpful. I’ve had a feeling for weeks that you were corking something up.”
“Have you? Sit down. It’s—not right for you to be standing.”
“I’ll not faint on you. Don’t worry.”
“No, it’s all that height. It makes me uncertain. Always did, you know.”
She smiled a bit, and I sat down to please her. She drew at her cigarette.
“I’ve wanted to tell you from the first. But I couldn’t. That’s what makes me so thankful you’ve got your sight back …”
She stopped. “That makes me sound like a bitch, doesn’t it. You see—”
“Suppose,” I said, “you sit down and begin in Basic English, I’m all braced up now.”
She did as she was told. I folded my legs and waited. We were the only people on the veranda just then. It was a veranda partly enclosed in glass, and across the other side of the gravel path was a tennis court on which a couple of men, probably convalescents, were playing singles. You could hear the soft plop-plop of the tennis balls.
She said absolutely nothing at all.
“Does all this mean,” I said, “that I’ve got a rival?”
She glanced up quickly.
“Yes.”
“Oh,” I said. It looked as if my “Traviata” scene wasn’t going to come off as billed.
“I’ve been in hell, Giles. Really, I have. It was absolutely out of the blue. It was three months ago. I tried to fight against it, not see him, etc., do all the usual things. But it wouldn’t work. It doesn’t work if you feel like that.”
“Who is he?”
“A man in the navy. A lieutenant.”
“Out of the blue, as you remark.”
“I was going to write to you, and then I heard you were wounded. I thought I’d wait. Then I heard the rest.”
“So what?”
“I couldn’t tell you anything or do anything until you’d got your eyesight back. I had to help you to keep going. It was all there was to do.”
“And if I didn’t see again? What then?”
“I hadn’t got that far.”
Hadn’t she? I wondered. I lit another cigarette and thought all round it.
She said: “You must think me a bitch. I know that. I don’t make any excuses, except what I have made. To-day’s been awful. When I phoned this morning and knew you were all right I was so delighted for your sake. But I knew then that I’d got to tell you to-day. It was now or never.”
“Can I take your tray, Mr. Gordon?” said Nurse Rylands, billowing up suddenly from behind.
I stared at the grey sunlight falling across my hands.
“Listen, Rachel,” I said, when Nurse Rylands had gone, “we joined up nine months ago. Out of that we’ve had a week-end at your place, a week in London, and a couple of nights out in October. It’s not a lot, and it’s no good flogging yourself if something’s happened to make it seem unimportant. It’s not a good break for me, but at least I can see again; and just at present that’s like the Gates of Heaven. I shall get over the rest.”
“I do feel absolutely awful,” she said.
“Thanks for sticking by me while I was—as I was. I suppose if this thing hadn’t been a success you’d have felt bound to—go on sticking, eh? …”
“No. Not bound.”
“Not bound, but as good as. I think your naval bloke has done well for himself. Was he in on this?”
“More or less.”
“All the prayers there must have been for my recovery!” I paused. “Look, darling, stop mucking about with that button. You’ll spoil your blouse.”
She said: “ It isn’t as if I don’t care for you in a way. I do, a great deal—”
“Suppose you leave the analysis for another day; we’ll only get all tied up. Just at present everything’s straightforward and clear. I’ve been jilted and I’m still on my feet. Metaphorically anyway. Why worry about the rest?”
“I think,” she said, “you’re the grandest person I ever met”
“No, Rachel, if you only knew, I’m full of rage and bitterness. But I’m trying very hard to be the little gentleman. Don’t elevate it beyond that. I’ll see you again?”
“Of course—if you want to.”
“I want to.”
The tennis players had stopped and were doing something at the net.
“How long have you got to stay in here now?”
“A fortnight maybe. Then I’m free to go out into the brave new world. I’d like to meet your lieutenant. Perhaps we could get together and have a dinner or something.”
“Of course. If you want that. You know how I feel.”
“Good. That’s settled, then. Now tell me about London. I haven’t seen it for so long.”
Later when she left we kissed like old friends and I watched her walk into the encircling fog. It was right that she should go that way, even though later I should have to write and say I’d changed my mind and that it would be better if we didn’t meet again after all.
I’d been done out of my grand renunciation and now must make do with a small. Obviously it was best to keep her from knowing how little I could see. There was no point in our both being unhappy about it.
Chapter 3
I went back to work. Somewhere about this time the war ended, and those who felt like it danced in the streets. I was too preoccupied forgetting Rachel and making a little daylight go a long way.
The eye improved a lot, and it was surprising how much I got around to.
Driving a car was a bit of an ordeal from the beginning, because, apart from the bad vision, it isn’t easy to judge distances with one eye. But golf was quite possible, and I did a lot of walking. My eyes showed no signs of injury (except that the good one kept getting bloodshot) and this fooled most people into thinking I could see as well as they could.
Certain things had to be avoided. The cinema was out altogether, and bright lights hurt. I could read well enough, but not for long periods; and for the office work I found a gem of a girl called Marigold who was only fifteen and read slowly and with the precision of a parson. I was inclined to drop things, and in the end I never accepted a cup and saucer by hand if I could avoid it. Perspective was difficult, as it was bound to be, and there were good days and bad.
The family firm welcomed me back all right. Parker was in the Far East, but Hampden was still bending his grey head over the torts, and Cousin Lewis had managed to go on getting deferments until they were no longer necessary
. There was plenty for me to do, and I put in as much work as I could at the courts, since Marigold could help me to memorise the details, and it saved a lot of reading.
The first Christmas of peace I spent with my sister in Oxford. Caroline is nine years older than I am and nearly as tall. She’d married a fellow of St. Peter’s, and was a theosophist and a vegetarian. People said she ought to have been the lawyer. She always had the effect of making me feel about fourteen and slightly sheepish.
She said: “ Well, Giles, it’s nice to have you at our table again. I’m glad you’ve recovered so well. We were so anxious for a time, weren’t we, Hugh?”
“We phoned every night,” said Hugh. “They passed on our messages?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s see, d’you take soda or water? I forget.”
“Soda, please.”
“What exactly did they do?”
I knew Hugh’s interest in operations, his own and other people’s. I said: “ Took an X-ray first, of course. Next day they stuck an electro-magnet round my head like a steel halo, so that I was the centre of a magnetic field. Then they pointed metal rods or something at my eye. After a bit of messing about something moved in my eye, and I said ‘ Ugh!’ and they said, ‘There it is.’ Then apparently they manoeuvred it round till it came into a favourable position—then they cut the eye and took out a bit of steel from Krupps.”
After a minute Caroline said: “Yet you can see perfectly well with it now?”
“Not perfectly well. I get along.”
Hugh brought the drink. “I shouldn’t have known there was anything wrong at all.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
Caroline said: “Of course, Giles always has walked and moved as if he’d got an inward preoccupation and wasn’t really concerned with what he was doing at any particular moment. I used to try to cure him of it, make him more practical.”
“My dear Carrie, I’m intensely practical, always have been. Look how well I’ve settled back into the family firm.” She sipped her barley water. “ I’ll give you credit for that. I was
afraid—well, after four years away.…”