The Blasphemer: A Novel (34 page)

‘Now
that
’s embarrassing,’ Nancy said under her breath, dipping her fingers in a small bowl of water provided for that purpose.

‘You have spun me off my axis.’

‘Steady on, Wethers old boy.’

‘I love you.’

‘Don’t squander those words.’

‘
Amor tussisque non celantur
.’

‘You’ll have to translate.’

‘ “Love, and a cough, are not concealed.” Ovid.’

‘What are you two whispering about?’ Daniel said from across the table.

‘I was trying to seduce your wife,’ Wetherby said, ‘with the offer of free tickets to a Mahler concert.’

‘We’re not married,’ Nancy corrected.

‘They’d be wasted on her,’ Daniel said, scratching his stomach. ‘She only listens to hip-hop.’

Nancy stared at Daniel, her face flushed.

‘Well, I suspect it will be hideous anyway,’ Wetherby said. ‘They are for a Friday night, when the Classic FM crowd are usually in. They come by the coachload from the shires and applaud between movements.’

‘Is that bad?’ Daniel said, removing a thread of asparagus from his teeth. He appeared to be unaware of the cold look Nancy was directing at him across the table.

‘The Ninth represents Mahler at his most intense, introspective and profound. It can only be appreciated as a whole. Broken up by applause between movements it becomes meaningless.’

‘Daniel always applauds between movements,’ Nancy said.

‘That’s right, darling, I have a low brow and you have a high brow. We complete each other.’

A heavy silence filled the room, broken only by a scrape of silver on china and the babble of a glass of wine being too quickly poured.

The couple did not speak as, two hours later, they climbed into the back seat of a minicab. Daniel clicked his seat belt; Nancy left hers unfastened. They had been driving for twenty minutes before Nancy wound her window down to release a chemical smell of air freshener. ‘We’re not going to talk about this, are we?’ she said.

‘Oh, do you think?’

A further minute of silence. Daniel broke it this time. ‘Do you want to talk?’

Nancy shook her head.

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ she shook her head again, ‘there’s too much to say.’

Silence again.

‘Do you have to do that false laugh?’ Nancy said. ‘You were making everyone cringe.’

‘Do you have to be so obvious when you flirt with people?’

Nancy flicked back her hair, mentally squaring up for a fight, not looking at Daniel. ‘Are you talking about Wetherby?’

‘What? No. Course not. That stockbroker.’

‘Paul?’

‘That was his name, was it?’

‘He’s a hedge fund manager.’

‘That’s all right then. For a moment there I thought he might be some kind of cynical opportunist out to bring down the global economy in order to turn a quick profit for himself.’

‘Did I ever tell you how attractive you look when you’re jealous?’

‘Did you have to be so obvious? You were all over him.’

‘
Paul
is happily married.’

The comment shocked them both into silence. It settled between them like a cloud of toxic gas, heavier than air, lowering the temperature.
Paul is happily married.
Nancy had curled her lip as she said it, a rhetorical whipcrack. She tilted her head to look at Daniel’s profile, challenging him to stare back. His features were alternating between indistinct and clear, the gloom in the back of the cab dispelled every other second by the orange of streetlights as the cab circled the common. Daniel was staring straight ahead of him. Nancy wanted to punch him, bruise his face with her fist, shake him from his complacency. She wanted to bite him as Sylvia Plath was said to have bitten Ted Hughes – take a chunk out of his stupid, complacent cheek. She could feel anger rising in her chest, making her breathe more quickly through her nose. It was colourless, this anger. Odourless. She knew she couldn’t stop herself. Even without sinking her teeth into his cheek, she had tasted blood. Her aim now was to damage him. This wasn’t about Paul, but she didn’t know how to tell Daniel what it was about. ‘Paul loves his wife.’

Daniel caught the eye of the cab driver in the rear-view mirror. ‘Don’t, Nancy.’

‘Paul is a man.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

Daniel appeared unsure, as if he had no stomach for where this was going. ‘I’m too tired.’

‘Tired or afraid?’

‘Don’t say anything you can’t take back.’

How has he the nerve, Nancy thought. How has he the nerve to try to negotiate his way out of this by making
me
feel guilty? Talking about a man loving his wife had broken a self-imposed taboo for Nancy. She knew now what she wanted. She wanted Daniel to be strong. She wanted him to protect her. She wanted him to be a man. It wasn’t so much to ask. She didn’t want to have to be the strong one. She wanted the man she loved, the father of her child, to love her so passionately he would sacrifice his life for her. There could be no conditions. There had been a time when she could have unequivocally said of Daniel that she loved him so much she could give her life to save his. Sitting in this cab, in the flitting London shadows, she could no longer say it – and it irritated her the way he stared directly in front of himself, unmanned and unmanly. She realized too, with frightening clarity, that the subject could no longer be avoided. It would continue to grow, expanding to fill the space between them, pushing them apart. There could be no retreat. Her heart was pounding. She could hardly breathe. The weight of the subject was crushing her. ‘What
are
we talking about here exactly, Dan? Huh? You tell me.’

‘Stop it,’ Daniel said with an unexpected firmness and confidence. ‘Not here.’

This was good, Nancy thought. She had found the tender spot, enamel at which she could scrape. This would make things easier.
He
was angry now. Become infected by her anger. It gave her a licence to go further, to stop manoeuvring and start fighting. The way her hair had loosened up proclaimed her readiness. She leaned forward to talk in the cab driver’s ear. ‘Sorry, is our conversation bothering you?’

The driver talked without moving his head. ‘Forget I’m here, love.’

‘He says we should forget he is there,’ Nancy said to Daniel.

‘I’m trying to save you from yourself,’ Daniel said, his voice taut.

‘
You
save
me
? This is a first.’

Daniel looked at her. ‘It’s you, not me,’ he said, gambling that the best form of defence was attack. ‘I’ve tried talking about it. But I can’t. You’re like this stranger to me, some mad stranger always angry, always stomping around slamming things, feeling sorry for herself. Hey, guess what, you survived. Get over it. Move on. Get your fucking watch mended.’

It was as if a prison door had yawned open for Nancy. Her long-accumulating anger liberated her. She felt ecstatic, exhilarated, dangerous. In her mind, Daniel had no rights left; his words denied him rights. ‘You’re a coward,’ she said and waited a moment for the word to settle. ‘That’s right. You’re a pathetic little coward. And wipe that stupid grin off your face.’ She tapped the cab driver’s shoulder. ‘Stop the car.’

The driver stopped and Nancy opened her door only to be caught in the headlights of an oncoming car that had to swerve to avoid her.

‘What are you doing?’ Daniel shouted as he leaned over to the open door. Nancy slammed it shut, marched over to the pavement and stood with her back to the car, staring at the solid black outline of the trees on the common.

‘Get back in the car,’ Daniel said in a neutral voice as he himself climbed out of it.

Nancy spoke without turning round. ‘I’m going to walk home.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

She could hear Daniel walking up behind her, sense him reaching for her shoulder but stopping short of touching her. ‘I want to walk,’ she said.

‘You’ll be mugged.’

‘I can look after myself.’

‘I’m not leaving you on your own.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’

The comment lingered in the night air like another cloud
of poisonous gas. The sound of a distant police siren perforated the silence. Nancy shut her eyes and said: ‘Daniel.’

He didn’t respond. Was he hoping that if he didn’t acknowledge his name there might still be a way out?

Nancy heard herself speak more calmly than she felt: ‘We need a break.’

The cab driver honked his horn. ‘You getting back in?’ he shouted.

Daniel jogged over and handed him two twenty-pound notes. He didn’t wait for the change before jogging back. It was as if the implication of Nancy’s words could find no grip in his mind. ‘What are you talking about? Break from what?’

‘From each other.’

Nancy would later torment herself for escalating things more than she had to. At this stage she still had room to back down. Instead she went further, clarifying her meaning. ‘Breathing space.’ She wheeled round to face him. ‘I can’t breathe.’

The cab drove off. Their eyes lingered on its disappearing taillights. There was a movement over by the trees. A fox. Its robot eyes were shining in the glare of another oncoming car. It tested the air for a moment and, when the car had passed, trotted across the road within feet of where Daniel and Nancy were standing. Without looking around it disappeared behind the cricket nets, back into the night.

‘That was one cool fox,’ Daniel said.

‘The Steve McQueen of foxes.’

‘Steve McFox.’There was a new quality to Daniel’s voice, neither anger nor fear but defeat and sadness. Something that had been building invisibly between them was now a physical presence. ‘We can discuss this … whatever it is … when I get back from Boston.’

They set off in the direction of their house, two roads away. The clacking of Nancy’s heels on the pavement was impossibly loud. Daniel’s plimsolls were making no noise. It was their habit to link arms as they walked, but a force was keeping them apart tonight, polar equals repelling one another. Nancy felt that they were acting out assigned roles, that it would be undignified to step out of
character. ‘Didn’t know you were going to Boston,’ she said.

‘Only just found out. The
Selfish Planet
team are going out there to film a newly born lemur for the next series. They want me to do a piece to camera from there.’

‘Are work OK with you taking time off like this?’

‘They should be fine. If I can take academic ownership of this story, I think … it would reflect well on the department. I could get a paper out of it. Might help with my tenure. I need …’ He stopped walking. ‘Come on, Nance. We don’t need to do this.’

She knew now she had hurt him. ‘Will you be OK on the flight?’ The kindness warmed them both momentarily, sending a weak pulse between them.

‘Bruce has given me something, but thanks for asking. Didn’t know you cared.’

‘Course I care.’

Le Bizet, Belgium. Second Monday of September, 1918

THE PERCUSSIVE STAMP OF STUDS ON SPRINGY WOODEN FLOOR
-boards grows louder as Andrew is quick-marched into the improvised courtroom, an echoey village hall in Le Bizet, five miles east of Nieppe. The escort, a hollow-chested corporal, clatters to a halt a second after the prisoner, slopes arms and slaps the butt of his rifle in salute. Three officers are seated behind a long oak table and, in the stillness that follows, dust motes swirl upwards, caught in a shaft of autumn sunlight. Andrew recognizes one of his judges: the scar-faced major who dragged Adilah through the market square. He looks lopsided – the left half of his tunic is crowded with medals, eleven of them, including a VC and a 1914 Mons Star. His eyelids are swollen and there is a pinkness to his eyes: at close quarters, in the light, they look cloudy and haunted. One of his leather-gloved hands, Andrew notices, is shaking. The major notices, too, and steadies it with his other hand.

To his left – the middle officer of the three – is a man who doesn’t look much older than Andrew. He has a Roman profile and is wearing a tailored buff-coloured tunic made of barathea and decorated with seven campaign medals. The cross-straps on his Sam Browne belt have a glassy sheen and support a polished leather holster on the right hip and a sword on the left. On his red tabs he has a crossed sword and baton: a brigadier-general. The dirt under
his fingernails indicates that he is a brigadier-general who has recently seen action. His red nose and watery eyes reveal him to have a cold. The officer to his left also wears medals. He is a slightly built man, mid-fifties. His pallor is the same steel-grey as the hair showing below his cap. His eyes are opaque.

Andrew takes in the rest of the room with rapid sideways glances. Everywhere he looks there is the glint of bronze and silver. Seated at either end of the table are two more officers, both wearing medals, and in the shadows, behind the table, is a chaplain with bored eyes. He is wearing a dog collar under his uniform and a cross, enamelled white and edged in gold on his chest, a DSO. His interlocked fingers are resting on a copy of
The Manual of Military Law
. A clerk – a warrant officer with a notepad and pen – is sitting by the door. Andrew takes off his cap and checks his side parting with a brush of his fingers.

The officer at the centre of the table unscrews the lid of his silver fountain pen, taps some papers and clears his throat. When he speaks it is with a nasal voice: ‘This Field General Court Martial is now …’ he searches for the right word, ‘convened, on this day, the fourteenth of September, nineteen eighteen. Let the records show that the three officers presiding are Lieutenant-Colonel James of the Royal Field Artillery …’ he holds his left hand out, palm flat; ‘Major Morris of the Second Rifle Brigade …’ his right hand is raised; ‘and myself, Brigadier-General Blakemore of the Seventh Royal Welch Fusiliers.’ He turns to the clerk and adds, ‘And could you make a note that my ADC, Second Lieutenant Cooper …’ he nods towards a handsome young man with wavy yellow hair, dimpled cheeks and glasses, ‘will be acting as prisoner’s friend and Captain Peterson here will be acting as …’ Unable to think of the correct term, he taps his papers again. ‘… will be acting on behalf of this military tribunal.’ He blows his nose and, as he leans forward to stuff his handkerchief back into his pocket, he notices the chaplain. ‘And the Reverend Horncastle over there will be acting as the court’s legal adviser.’ He looks up at Andrew. ‘Will the prisoner please identify himself ?’