Blasted Things Read online

  The cat that had turned up at the field station wound around her legs. It had been starving, probably the abandoned pet of some fleeing family from the bombed-out village, a skinny ginger thing that someone in a fit of punning had dubbed Mange, because of the state of its skin and because it never stopped begging for food. Opinion was divided between drowning the creature and making a pet of it. Sometimes it crept in and curled up with a patient, providing a scrap of comfort – it would certainly be despatched if Sister Fitch got wind of this.

  There was a creak of board, a light touch on her shoulder. She turned to see Dr Bonneville smiling down at her. ‘Hi there,’ he said. ‘Taking a breather?’ He crouched to stroke Mange, who arched against his hand, purring fiercely.

  ‘Someone’s easily pleased,’ Clem remarked. ‘How divinely simple to be a cat.’

  Dr Bonneville straightened, hands in the small of his back.

  ‘Smoke?’ He lit two cigarettes and gave one to her. Her lips met the papery tube where his had been.

  They stood smoking in contemplative silence. Over the weeks she’d tried to avoid him because he was so damnably, dangerously nice. Difficult to ignore a person like him though – due to his height he was often visible and his expression consistently pleasant. It was his manner – the amused set of his mouth, his accent, his kindness, the way she could be comfortably quiet with him – that made him dangerous.

  ‘If you could have one wish, Clementine?’ he said. ‘No, don’t think, just say.’

  ‘No need to think,’ she said. ‘I’d have a long hot bath with sweet soap and endless water and I’d wash my hair. Honestly, I’d commit bally murder to have clean hair. Some days, I feel like shaving it all off.’ It was true. Often she was tasked with shaving the chests or bellies or limbs of men in preparation for surgery, rasping the razorblade as near to the wound as possible, through curling body hair, or scalp hair, and had thought how tremendous it would be to take the razor to her own head, be shot of the greasy, crawling mass.

  ‘You?’ she said.

  ‘Filet mignon, French fries, green beans, a slice of cherry pie, a Coca-Cola, a coffee and a shot of Jack Daniel’s followed by a long nap – and I mean several days – on a soft bed with clean sheets.’

  ‘You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into that.’ She smiled, watching the smoke plume from his lips. ‘I’ve never tasted Coca-Cola. What’s it like?’

  ‘Sweet, fizzy, gives you a lift.’

  ‘You can’t get it in England. Not that I know of.’

  ‘Hey,’ he said suddenly. ‘Wait there.’ He dashed off towards the officers’ quarters and returned with a bag under his arm – containing Coca-Cola perhaps? But no. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘come along with me and don’t say a word.’

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To make your dream come true.’

  ‘Don’t talk rot!’

  ‘Shh. Keep schtum or no dice.’

  He was leading her to the officers’ ablutions hut. This could not be! Reaching the door, he looked both ways like a comical thief, peered inside, then dragged her after him into a blast of warmth and flickering lamplight. There was a potbellied stove with water heating above it, and cubicles with actual wooden doors rather than the limp curtains in the nurses’ equivalent. From behind one of them, the sound of someone in the bath, a squeak of buttock on cast iron, a slosh of moving water.

  ‘Don’t say a word,’ he whispered, ‘or we’ll be busted.’ He pulled her into a cubicle, where there was a tin basin and jug on a washstand. From his bag he pulled a towel, soap and a hairbrush.

  He mimed that she should remove her coat, took off his own and rolled up the sleeves of his tunic. He gestured to the chair and shoved it against the back of her knees so that she had no choice but to sit. He removed her cap and hairpins and, ashamed, she felt the grimy tumble of hair down her back. He pushed his thumbs up under her skull and she tipped her head back, heard him move the washstand behind her and fill the jug with hot water.

  She gasped at the sensation of heat.

  ‘No need to commit bally murder,’ he whispered, warm breath in her ear. Clem closed her eyes and let the weight of wet hair stretch her neck backwards, realising with delight that the soap was not carbolic but scented with something flowery and fresh – freesia perhaps. He began to massage her scalp, fingers firm in the sweet lather.

  And then he rinsed, pouring mugfuls of water through and fetching more, gloriously clean and hot.

  ‘Divine,’ she breathed.

  ‘Shh.’

  Another mugful sluiced over her scalp – utter heaven – but then there was a long bubbling expulsion of wind from the officer in the bath, followed by a satisfied sigh, and she felt a laugh coming on and had to sit up straight so as not to choke.

  The water ran down her neck and soaked her blouse as irresistible hilarity surged through her. Powell clamped his hand hard over her mouth, so hard that it made her bite the inside of her cheek, but still she shuddered with laughter and tears spurted from her eyes. He pulled her up and against him and held her tight, hand still on her mouth. ‘Shut up,’ he hissed. She shook in what seemed as much hysteria as hilarity as they listened to the mystery bather haul himself up. As his bath water drained away, the laugh drained from her too. Powell felt it and wiped her wet face on the towel though the tears kept flowing and then he was supporting her as her legs went soft.

  It was Ralph of course, but it was also all the other deaths. It was the lies, it was the truth, it was the war, it was Dennis, it was lice and blood and rot and filth, it was tenderness, it was chaos. It was the dark and the dark and the dark.

  After a time, he sat her down again and brushed her wet hair, untangling as he went, gentle and deft with his surgeon’s fingers. Again she let her head fall back as he brushed, feeling the tears dry itchily on her cheeks. She could hear his breath, rapt, catching as he paused to unsnarl a knot; sometimes he hummed beneath his breath, the tune to – how it made her smile – ‘Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling, Clementine’.

  Someone else came into the hut, whistling, and banged a cubicle door. Her hair was smooth now and he indicated that she should stand and handed over her coat and cap. Finger to his lips, he opened the door, checked that there was no one in sight, and ejected her into the night. The door closed with him behind it, shutting out the light and warmth.

  As she walked away the cold air chilled her damp hair against her scalp. He’d said nothing, hadn’t even smiled as she left. She’d not even had a chance to thank him, and, oh heavens, what a frightful, idiotic goose she’d made of herself, after such enormous kindness.

  Walking back in the lamp-stained dark, the duckboards greasy and glittering with frost, she wanted to sing, she wanted to scream, she wanted to make love to him, she wanted to die.

  Kneeling before the stove, she dried her hair, smelling the sweet scent as the heat dried it, and separating a few stiff strands where the soap was imperfectly rinsed. What tenderness in her diaphragm, the end of the storm, a few sore hiccups as she calmed down. The way he’d touched her hair and her scalp, so gentle and deft. Surgeon’s fingers. Did he play an instrument? Piano, perhaps? Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling, Clementine. A yawn stretched right through her. If only now she could sleep sweetly in the clean cloud of her hair but she had another half-shift first. She pressed a hank of hair to her nose to breathe in the soapy scent again before she coiled and pinned it, replaced her cap, tightened the belt of her coat and went to find coffee and bread to sustain her for the night.

  Three times she saw Dr Bonneville and he didn’t utter a word to her, or only in passing when it was necessary. The line had moved and they were now much closer to the Front, the thunder of ammunition shaking the floor of the hut so that there was a constant shifting and rattling, a flickering of lights. Shifts had become so random now, they scarcely merited the name; if you were on your feet you were working, with the torrent of shattered men pouring in on their way to the ba
se hospitals. ‘Germs don’t sleep’ was Sister Fitch’s motto and she was right, of course.

  One morning Clem happened to be assisting Dr Bonneville on a severe abdominal, which necessitated the removal of a couple of feet of intestine. She watched his confident, adept fingers as she held her breath against the stench. The only notice of her he appeared to take was to snap when she wasn’t quick enough in passing him a swab.

  Later the same day she came upon him outside the officers’ mess. He was standing on the duckboards smoking and staring up at the khaki sky; in that light he looked utterly fatigued, with deep shadows under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheekbones. She stood beside him for a moment before he acknowledged her.

  ‘Smoke?’ He shook out a cigarette and lit it for her.

  Gratefully she inhaled, blinked through the rush of giddiness. ‘I never thanked you,’ she said.

  He didn’t reply at once, but looked down at her speculatively. She did like his height; few men were tall enough to have to look down at her like that. He must have four or five inches on Dennis.

  ‘I wash my sister’s hair,’ he said at last. ‘Used to.’

  ‘Really?’ She hesitated. ‘That’s . . . unusual.’

  There was a long pause, in which he finished one cigarette, ground out the stub, toed it over the duckboard into the mud. She was afraid he’d go, but he took out another and lit it, and took a puff before he said, ‘Thrown by a horse when she was twelve. Broke her neck.’

  ‘Oh Lord.’ Clem’s hand flew to her own nape. ‘How ghastly.’

  ‘Paralysed below the fifth cervical vertebrae. She’d been riding since she was . . .’ He put his hand down to indicate a tiny child. ‘Just one of those tricks our merciful Lord likes to play.’

  ‘Like this lot,’ said Clem, waving her arm. As she spoke, there was a crunch as a shell exploded, uncomfortably close, and he snorted in agreement.

  ‘She was fair too – hair not as thick as yours, not quite so pale. Wavier. She couldn’t wash it herself and Mom was pretty slapdash.’

  ‘How enormously kind of you,’ Clem said.

  He shrugged. ‘No, I liked to do it.’

  ‘Little sister?’

  ‘Big sister, coupla years older. Lou. Lives in a home for the handicapped now. Folks visit on Sundays. That soap, gardenia, she has them send it out here.’

  ‘I thought it was freesia.’ She hesitated before she said, ‘My little brother, Ralph, was killed. Ypres. He’d just turned eighteen.’ Her voice cracked and she stopped.

  He put a hand on her arm. ‘So sorry for your loss,’ he said. ‘That why you’re here?’

  ‘Yes, you see . . .’ she began, but there was another, closer explosion, and they both involuntarily ducked and straightened. Sister Fitch hurried past, flicking Clem a stern look. Once they were alone again, all in a rush Dr Bonneville grasped her hand and said, ‘Hey, Clementine, marry me?’

  Clem choked on her smoke.

  ‘And come home with me to Vancouver?’

  The boards beneath her feet were quaking and underneath was mud and worms and fag ends and mud and mud and mud. Drizzle spangled the smog. Her heart thudded. Someone from somewhere, some poor soul, gave an agonised bellow.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘No such word,’ he said. ‘Heck, I know it’s not much of a courtship, but look at you. You’re perfect. You’d love Canada. My folks would love you. I—’

  ‘Don’t, Dr Bonneville.’

  ‘Powell, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘Powell,’ she repeated, loving the rounded, pillowy sound.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Hey, I . . . I know it’s crazy soon to ask but the moment I set eyes on you I knew you were the girl for me.’

  She darted a look at the side of his face. ‘You’ve barely even looked at me for days!’

  ‘Been plucking up my courage. This the quickest proposal you’ve ever had?’

  She swallowed, unable to speak. Oh, if it wasn’t for Dennis . . . she should say, she should tell him about Dennis. Now. She took a preparatory breath. I’m engaged – just say it, say it and put an end to this nonsense.

  ‘I’ve a month’s furlough coming up,’ he said. ‘I’m going home. Don’t know if I’ll get sent back here. Don’t wanna lose you.’

  Canada. She had never even thought of Canada. She had only the slightest notion of what it was like. Except for mountains and snow and bears perhaps, and, oh yes, she’d heard there were giant maples that bled delicious syrup.

  ‘You could drink Coca-Cola every day,’ he coaxed. ‘Vancouver’s a great city, and there’s the folks’ place on the weekends – horses. Do you ride?’

  Clem shook her head. ‘Not more than once or twice.’

  ‘What do you say?’

  ‘We haven’t even kissed!’

  ‘Let’s put that right.’ With a finger under her chin he lifted her face and there was the soft brush of his lips on hers.

  ‘So?’

  She shook her head, speechless.

  ‘If it’s definitely no-go, then okay, just say it and I’m done. But if there’s a possibility you might consider . . .’

  She stopped gaping and found her voice. ‘Well, they say nothing is impossible.’

  He put his arm around her shoulder and she leant her weight against him for a moment.

  ‘Okay, I can go with that for now,’ he said. And then he released her and strode away. The boards creaked under his feet, the back of his greatcoat glistened in the smirry rain.

  3

  December 1917

  MID-AFTERNOON, GWEN BARGED into the hut, waking Clem from a snatched doze. ‘For you.’ She brandished an envelope, but Clem could not make herself move. She was trying to draw together the dissolving threads of dream – what was it, what was it? Oh, the hand, an elegant hand, long straight fingers, its back satiny brown. She squeezed shut her eyes for a last try and the hand padded silently away.

  ‘Snap out of it,’ Gwen said, ‘or you’ll be late.’ The dank cold air she was letting in sent Clem further beneath her blankets. It was dark in the hut and Gwen lit the Tilley lamp, slapped the envelope down on the shelf out of Clem’s reach and went off, banging shut the door behind her.

  Clem lay blinking at the fluttering light. She felt a warm vibration at her feet and realised that Mange was curled up, purring. When did he, with all his fleas, creep in? But his warmth was nice, and his throaty purr. Something was different – and then with a sharp little shock it came back to her: this morning she and Powell had made love. She hadn’t been a virgin; once she’d allowed Dennis to instruct her and had recoiled, startled by his angry red ramrod and it had hardly been pleasure. Sex was overrated, she’d decided then, something a wife must put up with but this morning . . . oh, oh.

  They’d wangled a break between shifts at the same time and wandered together between the row of poplars that lined the road and down into a forest. Once they were out of sight they’d held hands, feet crunching on the frozen grass. The trees sparkled with hoar frost. The sounds of war had seemed irrelevant as, entranced, they’d moved through avenues of shining beeches and found a copse where fir trees huddled and the ground was padded with soft needles, and here Powell had spread his coat and they’d lain down side by side.

  ‘Oh, honey,’ he said when they kissed, and what a kiss – their mouths, their bodies melting. ‘Oh, baby.’ And it would not have been possible to pull away when his hand, warm from its glove, found her breasts, and found the place between her legs that melted, ached; never had she known a feeling like it and with his fingers he brought her to the moment and then she understood what it was that drove men and women to madness and found her bold hands inside his clothes, and wondering at the beauty of him and when he entered her – only holding back for a moment, eyes questioning – it was imperative that he should be inside and she pulled him, arching and jutting her body in a shockingly animal way till they were one and there was no choice. She cried out and he yelled and she lay stunned on the o
utspread wings of his coat and knew, knew, in every sinew of her being that this was right, that this was meant, that this was love, her love, her love.

  And then it was so very cold of course, and shivering and with kisses and laughs and endearments they’d pulled together their clothing and hurried back to wash and to work. And after her shift, she’d climbed the ladder to her bunk, buzzing with tiredness, with excitement and guilt, not expecting to sleep, perhaps never in her life again, but she did of course, she slept and, oh, the hand – Powell’s hand? – scuttled crablike in her dream to hold her own.

  She lay a moment longer. Oh, it was so queer; she was ignited. Now she understood it. Love. And she was changed. The corner of the envelope protruded over the edge of the shelf. Dennis, it would be. At first she’d written to him at reasonable intervals but there had only been two or three terse notes in reply; he was angry and disappointed in her, of course, for ‘running off’ as he put it, against his ‘express wish’. But he would wait. Of course his pride had been dented. Perhaps this would be a longer, more considered missive; perhaps it would be forgiveness? But did she want that now? I’m in love, she thought, now I know what love is; oh, she did hope it wasn’t Dennis being decent and forgiving. For what, now, could she reply?

  She swung her legs round, climbed down the icy rungs of the ladder and sat on the edge of Iris’s bunk. Mange jumped from the top bunk and stretched, rubbing himself against her shins. The stove was out. She pulled a blanket up round her shoulders and reached for the letter.

  Darling Clem,

  Since my brother is too pig-headed, I will take it upon myself to write. First, the biggest news – I’ve had the babies, girls (a fortnight ago), both safe and surprisingly hefty. And mixed with the joy, of course, is the sadness that my Stan will never see them. They have such a look of him – his eyes both of them. They are an enormous comfort to me, greedy great guzzlers that they are, just like their poor daddy!