Czytaj książkę: «Fallen Skies»

Chapter One

Stephen’s mouth was filling with mud, wet slurry pressed on his eyelids, slid into his nostrils like earthworms. He flailed helplessly against the weight of it on his face, on his body, in his hair. He felt the silty terrible power of it pinning him down. When he opened his mouth to scream it poured into his throat, he could taste its wetness: the terrible non-taste of earth.

He choked on it, retching and heaving for breath, spitting and hawking. He was drowning in it, he was being crushed by its weight, he was being buried alive. His hands like paddles, he scrabbled against it, trying to claw a space for his face, and then he grabbed linen sheet, woollen blankets, counterpane, and he opened his eyes, clogged only by sleep, and saw the white ceiling of his home.

He whooped like a sick child, gasping in terror, rubbing his face roughly, dragging his palm across his lips, across his tongue where the dead taste still lingered. He whispered ‘Oh God, oh God,’ pitifully, over and over again. ‘Oh God, oh God.’

Then he turned his head and saw her. In the doorway was his mother, her dressing-gown pulled on over her thick cotton nightdress, her tired face set in lines of fear and … something else. He stared at her, trying to read the expression on her face: disapproval.

His bedside table was overturned, the ugly pottery electric lamp broken, his jug of water spilling into a puddle on the carpet. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He was humble, ashamed. ‘I was dreaming.’

She came into the room and lifted up the table. She set the empty jug and the pieces of the bedside light on it in mute accusation. ‘I wish you’d let me call Dr Mobey,’ she said. ‘You were having a fit.’

He shook his head quickly, his anger rising. ‘It was nothing. A bad dream.’

‘You should take one of my sleeping tablets.’

Stephen dreaded deep sleep more than anything else. In deep sleep the dream would go on, the dream of the collapsed dug-out, the dream of scrabbling and suffocating, and only after a lifetime of screaming horror, the bliss of feeling the earth shift and tumble and Coventry’s gentle hands scraping the soil from his face and hearing his voice saying, ‘You’re all right, Sir. I’m here now. We’ll have you out in a jiffy.’ Stephen had wept then, wept like a baby. There had been no-one but Coventry to see his coward’s tears, and he had wiped them away with dirty bleeding hands. Coventry had dug bare-handed, refusing to put a spade in the earth. He had scrabbled in the mud like a dog for its master and then they had both wept together; like new-found lovers, like reunited twins.

‘I’ll go downstairs and make myself a brew,’ he said. ‘You get to bed. I don’t want any tablets.’

‘Oh, go to sleep,’ Stephen’s mother said irritably. ‘It’s four in the morning. Far too late for tea.’

He got out of bed and threw his dressing-gown around his shoulders. When he stood, his height and maleness could dominate her. Now he was the master of the house, not a sick man screaming with nightmares. ‘I think I’ll have a brew and a cigarette,’ he said with the upper-class drawl he had learned from the senior officers in the trenches. ‘Then I’ll sleep. You toddle off, old lady.’

She turned, obedient but resentful. ‘Well, don’t make a mess for Cook.’

He shepherded her out of the room and she shied away from him as if fear were contagious, as if terror were catching.

‘I wish you’d let me call Dr Mobey,’ she said again, pausing on the landing before she turned into her bedroom. ‘He says it’s very common. They have all sorts of things to cure nervous troubles. It’s just hysteria.’

Stephen smoothed his moustache, his broad handsome face regaining its confident good looks. He laughed. ‘I’m not a hysteric,’ he said. His voice was rich with his male pride. ‘Not me,’ he said, smiling. ‘I just get the odd bad dream.’

He turned away from her and loped down the stairs. The hall was dark but the fanlight above the front door showed him the green baize door that separated the domestic quarters in the basement from the rest of the house. He opened the door and went quietly down the back stairs.

The kitchen was light; it was warm from the kitchen range. Coventry was at the stove, warming a teapot. He looked up when Stephen entered and took him in, took him all in, with one comprehensive glance. Stephen sighed with relief at the sight of him. ‘Had a bit of a dream,’ he said. ‘Fancied a cup of tea, and here you are. Ministering bloody angel.’

Coventry smiled his slow crooked smile. As Stephen watched, he spooned five heaped spoonfuls of tea from the caddy into the teapot, adding them to the old dregs left in the pot. He poured boiling water on the stale brew and stood the pot on the range for a few moments, then took up the two mugs. He put four spoonfuls of sugar into each mug and poured a dark stream of tea from the pot. It tasted stewed, and sour from the old tea, as strong as poison and teeth-grittingly sweet. It was how it had tasted in the trenches. It was that taste which told you that you were alive, that you had come back, against all odds, from a night patrol, from a dawn attack, from a lonely dangerous sniper’s mission. The strong sweet taste of tea was the taste of survival. The taste of mud was death. Stephen sank into one of the chairs before the range and put his slippered feet against the warm oven door.

‘Good Christ, Coventry! I wish you would speak again,’ he said. ‘I wish I could stop dreaming.’ He sipped a taste of tea, the strong sour brew rinsing his mouth clean of the taste of dream-mud. ‘I wish it had never happened,’ Stephen said with rare bleak honesty. ‘I wish to Christ it had never happened at all.’

Stephen Winters first saw Lily on the stage of the Palais music hall on the opening night of the first show, 5 May 1920: her debut. He missed her solo song – he was at the bar and then in the gents. But in the can-can finale his cousin David Walters, on a flying visit to Portsmouth, had nudged him and said: ‘See that girl? Can’t half kick. Bet she’s French.’

‘Damn the French,’ Stephen said automatically. ‘Beer at five francs a glass and then someone’s peed in it.’

‘See that girl?’ David persisted. ‘Pretty girl.’

Stephen had looked, blearily, through the glass window of the bar and seen Lily dive down into the splits and then fling her head up, beaming. She looked ready to laugh for joy.

‘Oh yes,’ Stephen said, surprised. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Pretty girl,’ David repeated drunkenly.

They watched while the orchestra galloped into the walk-down and the artists came downstage and took their bows. There was something about Lily’s face that appealed to Stephen. Something he could not name.

‘I know what,’ he said suddenly to David. ‘She looks like the girls used to look – before.’

‘No! She’s got short hair. None of them had short hair before.’

‘She does, she does,’ Stephen persisted. ‘She looks like the girls used to look. She looks …’

David was cheering the star, Sylvia de Charmante, who was curtseying deeply, like a debutante at court.

‘She looks like there had never been a war,’ Stephen said slowly. ‘She looks like there had never been a war at all.’

‘Go backstage!’ David said with sudden abrupt determination. ‘If you like the look of her, take her out!’

‘D’you think she would come?’ Stephen asked. The curtain had dropped and now rose. Lily was at the end of the line; he could see her blush at the applause and her frank grin.

‘Oh yes,’ David said cheerily. ‘Heroes we are. Bloody heroes. We should have worn our medals.’

‘I didn’t think you’d got any medals. I didn’t know they gave medals for pushing papers in London.’

‘We can’t all be you,’ David said pleasantly. ‘Charging around, blowing your whistle and massacring Huns single-handed.’ He slapped Stephen on the back. ‘Let’s have a little bracer and ask the girl out,’ he said. ‘She can bring along a friend for me. They’re all tarts, these girls. She’ll come like a shot.’

He shouldered his way back to the bar and shouted for two single whiskies. Stephen downed his in one thirsty gulp.

‘Come on, then,’ David said cheerily. ‘There’s usually a stage door around the back somewhere.’

The two men pushed through the crowd spilling out of the little music hall and then linked arms to stroll down the dark alley at the side of the theatre. Further down the alley a couple were locked in each other’s arms; the woman’s hat was pushed back as they kissed passionately.

‘Dirty bitch,’ Stephen said with sudden venom. ‘I hate tarts.’

‘Oh, you hate everybody when you’ve had a drink,’ David said jovially. ‘Bang on the door!’

A hatch in the stage door opened at once. George, the stage door porter, looked out.

‘Please send our compliments to the dancers,’ David said with assurance. ‘We were wondering if you could tell us the name of the little blonde one.’

The porter looked blankly at them. A shilling found its way from Stephen’s pocket to gleam in the gaslight. George opened the door and the shilling changed hands.

‘The young one, with the fair bobbed hair.’

‘Miss Lily Valance, gentlemen.’

‘We wanted to ask her to dinner. Her and a friend.’

‘She can bring the plump dark one who was on with the conjuror,’ David interrupted.

‘Miss Madge Sweet, gentlemen.’

‘Ask them both. Shall I write a note?’

The porter nodded.

Stephen took out his card case. It had a small silver propelling pencil inside. On one of his cards he wrote in small spidery script: ‘My cousin and I would be honoured if you would come to the Queens Hotel for dinner with us. We are at the stage door.’

‘We’ll wait for a reply,’ he said to the porter.

The porter nodded and was about to go inside when a middle-aged woman, drably dressed, came down the alley behind the two men, quietly said ‘Excuse me’, and stepped between them and through the open door.

‘These gentlemen are asking for Lily,’ the porter told her.

Helen Pears turned and looked at them both. ‘My daughter,’ she said quietly.

Stephen had to remind himself that she was only the mother of a chorus girl and therefore she could not be a lady. There was no need to feel abashed. She was a tart’s mother, she was probably an old tart herself.

‘I am Captain Stephen Winters,’ he said, invoking his wartime status. ‘This is Captain David Walters. We were wondering if Miss Valance and Miss Sweet would like to have dinner with us.’

The woman did not even smile at him, she had the cheek to look him straight in the eye, and she looked at him coldly.

‘At the Queens,’ he said hastily to indicate his wealth.

She said nothing.

‘We can go in my car, my driver is waiting,’ he added.

Helen Pears nodded. She did not seem at all impressed. ‘I will tell Miss Sweet of your invitation,’ she said levelly. ‘But my daughter does not go out to dinner.’

She went inside and the porter, raising sympathetic eyebrows, shut the door in their faces.

‘That’s that then,’ David said disconsolately. ‘What a harridan!’

‘You go on, I’ll meet you at the Queens.’

‘You’ve got no chance here, not with her ma on sentry-go.’

‘I’ll give it a try,’ Stephen said. ‘Go on.’

‘Forlorn hoper!’

Stephen walked with David down to the end of the alley and waved across at Coventry, waiting in the big Argyll limousine in front of the music hall.

‘Bring the car up here,’ he called.

Coventry nodded, and drove the car up to the end of the alley. Half a dozen of the cast looked at it curiously as they went past. Stephen stood by the rear passenger door and waited.

He could see the streetlight glint on Lily’s fair hair, only half-covered by a silly little hat, as she walked down the shadowy alley, her hand tucked in her mother’s arm. They were laughing together. Stephen was struck at once by the easy warmth between them.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Valance, Miss Valance,’ Stephen said with careful politeness. ‘I must apologize for my behaviour. I was in Belgium for too long, and I’ve forgotten my English manners.’

Lily beamed at him with her open friendly smile. Her mother stood waiting. Stephen felt a frisson of irritation. The woman showed no respect for a gentleman. He opened the car door. ‘I quite understand that it is too late for dinner,’ he said smoothly. ‘But may I, at least, see you home? It is so difficult to get a cab at this time of night.’

Stephen saw the quick movement as Lily pinched her mother’s arm. Helen Pears hesitated for only a moment and then she nodded. ‘Thank you very much,’ she said. ‘We live in Highland Road.’

Helen went in first, Lily next. Stephen climbed in after them and spoke into the tube that ran from the back seat to the driver.

‘Highland Road.’

‘It’s the grocery shop on the corner. Pears Grocers.’

‘My family is a Portsmouth family too,’ Stephen said, desperate for some common ground. ‘We are Winters the lawyers.’

Helen nodded. ‘I know.’

‘Do you? I beg your pardon! I did not recognize you.’

‘We’ve never met. I saw your photograph in the Hampshire Telegraph.’

There was a short awkward silence.

‘I thought the porter said your name was Miss Valance,’ Stephen said gently to Lily.

She glanced up at him from under her eyelashes. Stephen felt desire like hunger. She was hardly a woman yet, she was still a girl with skin like cream and hair like honey.

‘Valance is my stage name,’ she said. Her voice was clear, her speech elocution-pure. ‘My real name is Lily Pears.’

The car drove slowly down Marmion Road; Stephen felt he was no further forward.

‘I wonder if you would like to come to dinner tomorrow night?’ he said nervously to Helen. ‘You and Miss Pears. And Mr Pears too, if he would like to come?’

‘I am a widow. There is no Mr Pears.’ Helen paused. Stephen saw again the quick secret movement of Lily’s gloved hand on her mother’s arm. ‘Yes, Captain Winters, thank you. That would be very nice.’

‘Shall I pick you up after the show?’

‘Thank you,’ Helen said again.

The big car slowed and stopped. Lily and her mother got out on to the pavement, and Stephen followed them.

‘I’ll say goodnight then, and look forward to dining with you both tomorrow,’ he said.

Helen held out her hand and Stephen shook it, and then turned to Lily.

He took her gloved hand in his and felt the warmth of her palm through the white cotton. She looked up at him and smiled. She smiled as if she had some secret assurance, some private conviction, that nothing bad could ever happen to her. Stephen, looking down into that bright little face, felt again the potent magic of young confidence. He had not seen a face like that since the early days, the first days of the war. The young subalterns from public schools looked like that – as if life were one easy glorious adventure and nothing would ever disappoint them.

‘Goodnight, Miss Pears,’ he said. ‘I will see you tomorrow.’

‘Goodnight, Captain Winters.’ Her voice was light and steady with an undercurrent of amusement, as if she might giggle at any moment at this game of being grown-up.

He let go her hand with reluctance, and waited by the car until the poky little door of the shop doorway had shut behind them. ‘Goodnight,’ he said again.

Coventry drove him in silence to the Queens Hotel, where he dined with David, and then got royally drunk at half a dozen of the worst pubs in Portsmouth.