The Eye in the Door (2 page)

‘Got a light?’

Automatically, Prior began tapping his pockets. At first he hardly registered the existence of the speaker, except as an unwelcome interruption to his thoughts, but then, as he produced the matches, some unconsciously registered nervousness in the other man’s voice made him look up. He had been going to offer the box, but now he changed his mind, took out a match and struck it himself. The rasp and flare sounded very loud. He cupped his hands to shield the flame, and held it out as the other bent towards it. An officer’s peaked cap, dark eyes, a thin moustache defining a full mouth, the face rounded, though not fat. Prior was sure he knew him, though he couldn’t remember where he’d seen him before. When the cigarette was lit, he didn’t immediately move off, but sat further along the bench, looking vaguely around him, the rather prominent Adam’s apple jerking in his throat. His left leg was stretched out awkwardly in front of him, presumably the explanation of the wound stripe on his sleeve.

Prior could see the problem. This wasn’t exactly the right area, though it bordered upon it, and his own behaviour, though interesting, had not been definitely inviting. He was tempted to tease. Instead he moved closer and said, ‘Have you anywhere to go?’

‘Yes.’ The man looked up. ‘It’s not far.’

The square contained tall, narrow, dark houses, ranged round a fenced-off lawn with spindly trees. The lawn and the surrounding flowerbeds were rank with weeds. Further along, on the right, a bomb had knocked out three houses and partially demolished a fourth, leaving a huge gap. They walked along, not talking much. As they approached the gap, the pavement became gritty beneath their feet, pallid with the white dust that flowed so copiously from stricken houses and never seemed to clear, no matter how carefully the ruin was fenced off. Prior was aware of a distinct sideways pull towards the breach. He’d felt this before, walking past other bombed sites. He had no idea whether this sideways tug was felt by everybody, or whether it was peculiar to him, some affinity with places where the established order has been violently assailed.

They stopped in front of No. 27. The windows were shuttered. A cat, hunched and defensive, crouched on the basement steps, growling over something it had found.

Prior’s companion was having trouble with the lock. ‘Part of the damage,’ he said over his shoulder, pulling a face. He jabbed the door with his shoulder, then seized the knob and pulled it towards him. ‘It works if you pull, I keep forgetting that.’

‘Not
too
often, I hope,’ said Prior.

His companion turned and smiled, and for a moment there was a renewed pull of sexual tension between them. He took off his cap and greatcoat, and held out his hand for Prior’s. ‘The family’s in the country. I’m staying at my club.’ He hesitated. ‘I suppose I’d better introduce myself. Charles Manning.’

‘Billy Prior.’

Covertly, they examined each other. Manning had a very round head, emphasized by thick, sleek dark hair
which he wore brushed back with no parting. His eyes were alert. He resembled some kind of animal, Prior thought, an otter perhaps. Manning saw a thin, fair-haired man, twenty-three or four, with a blunt-nosed, high-cheekboned face and a general air of picking his way delicately through life. Manning pushed open a door on the left, and a breath of dead air came into the hall. ‘Why don’t you go in? I won’t be a minute.’

Prior entered. Tall windows shuttered, furniture shrouded in white sheets. A heavy smell of soot from the empty grate. Everything was under dust-sheets except the tall mirror that reflected, through the open door, the mirror in the hall. Prior found himself staring down a long corridor of Priors, some with their backs to him, none more obviously real than the rest. He moved away.

‘Would you like a drink?’ Manning asked from the door.

‘Yes, please.’

‘Whisky all right?’

‘Fine.’

Alone, Prior walked across to the grand piano, lifted the edge of the dust-sheet and found himself looking at a photograph of a woman with two small boys, one of them clutching a sailing boat to his chest.

When Manning came back, carrying a whisky bottle, a jug and two glasses, Prior was staring at a crack above the door. ‘That looks a bit ominous,’ he said.

‘Yes, doesn’t it? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it, really. One can’t get workmen, so I just come in and look at it now and then.’ He held up the jug. ‘Water?’

‘Just a dash.’

They moved across to the fireside chairs. Manning pulled off the sheets, and Prior settled back against the
stiff brocade. It didn’t give at all, but held him tensely upright. They started making the sort of conversation they might have made if they’d been introduced in the mess. Prior watched Manning carefully; noting the MC ribbon, the wound stripe, the twitches, the signs of tension, the occasional stammer. He was in a state, though it was difficult to tell how much of his nervousness was due to the situation. Which
was
dragging on a bit. If this went on they’d demolish the whole bloody bottle and still be swopping regimental chit-chat at midnight. All very nice, Prior thought, but not what I came for. He noticed that Manning’s eyes, though they roamed all over the place, always returned to the stars on Prior’s sleeve.
Well, you knew I was an officer
, he said silently. He was beginning to suspect Manning might be one of those who cannot – simply cannot – let go sexually with a social equal. Prior sighed, and stood up. ‘Do you mind if I take this off?’ he said. ‘I’m quite warm.’

He wasn’t warm. In fact, to coin a phrase, he was bloody nithered. However. He took off his tie, tunic and shirt, and threw them over the back of a chair. Manning said nothing, simply watched. Prior ran his fingers through his cropped hair till it stood up in spikes, lit a cigarette, rolled it in a particular way along his bottom lip, and smiled. He’d transformed himself into the sort of working-class boy Manning would think it was all right to fuck. A sort of seminal spittoon. And it worked. Manning’s eyes grew dark as his pupils flared. Bending over him, Prior put his hand between his legs, thinking he’d probably never felt a spurt of purer class antagonism than he felt at that moment. He roughened his accent. ‘A’ right?’

‘Yes. Let’s go upstairs.’

Prior followed him. On the first floor a door stood
open, leading into a large bedroom with a double bed. Manning pulled the door shut. Prior smiled faintly. ’E would not take Oi into the bed where ’e ’ad deflowered ‘is broide. Instead ‘e went up and up and bloody up. To what were obviously the
servants’
quarters. Manning pushed open a door at the end of the corridor, handed Prior the lamp and said, ‘I won’t be a minute.’

Prior went in. A double bed with a brass bedstead almost filled the tiny room. He sat on the edge and bounced up and down. It was quite possibly the noisiest bed he’d ever encountered. Thank God the house was empty. Apart from the bed there was a washstand with a jug and bowl, a table with a looking-glass, and a small closet curtained off. He got up and pulled the curtain back. Two housemaids’ uniforms hung there, looking almost like the maids themselves, the sleeves and caps had been so neatly arranged. A smell came from the closet: lavender and sweat, a sad smell. Prior’s mother had started her life in service in just such a house as this. He looked round the room, the freezing little box of a room, with its view of roofs, and, on a sudden impulse, got one of the uniforms out and buried his face in the armpit, inhaling the smell of sweat. This impulse had nothing to do with sex, though it came from a layer of personality every bit as deep. Manning came back into the room just as Prior raised his head. Seeing Prior with the uniform held against him, Manning looked, it had to be said, daunted. Prior smiled, and put the uniform back on the peg.

Manning set a small jar down on the table by the bed. The click of glass on wood brought them into a closer, tenser relationship than anything they’d so far managed to achieve. Prior finished undressing and lay down on the bed. Manning’s leg was bad. Very bad. Prior leant forward to examine the knee, and for a moment they
might have been boys in the playground again, examining each other’s scabs.

‘It looks as if you’re out of it.’

‘Probably. The tendons’ve shortened, you see. They think I’ve got about as much movement as I’m going to get. But then who knows? The way things are going, is anybody out of it?’

Prior straightened up, and, since he was in the neighbourhood, began to rub his face across the hair in Manning’s groin. Manning’s cock stirred and rose and Prior took it into his mouth, but even then, for a long time, he simply played, flicking his tongue round and round the glistening dome. Manning’s thighs tautened. After a while his hand came up and caressed Prior’s cropped hair, his thumb massaging the nape of his neck. Prior raised his head and saw that Manning looked nervous, rightly, since in this situation it was a gesture of tenderness that would precipitate violence, if anything did. And Manning was in no state to cope with that. He went back to his sucking, clasping Manning’s buttocks in his two hands and moving his mouth rapidly up and down the shaft. Manning pushed him gently away and got into bed. They lay stretched out for a moment side by side. Prior rolled on to his elbow and started to stroke Manning’s chest, belly and thighs. He was thinking how impossible it is to sum up sex in terms of who stuffs what into where. This movement of his hand had in it lust; resentment, of Manning’s use of the room among other things; sympathy, for the wound; envy, because Manning was
honourably
out of it… And a growing awareness that while he had been looking at Manning, Manning had also been looking at him. Prior’s expression hardened. He thought, Well, at least I don’t twitch as much as you do. The stroking hand stopped at Manning’s waist, and he tried to turn him over, but Manning resisted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Like this.’

Athletic sod.
Prior unscrewed the jar, greased his cock with a mixture of vaseline and spit, and wiped the residue on Manning’s arse. He guided Manning’s legs up his chest, being exceedingly careful not to jerk the knee. He was too eager, and the position was hopeless for control, he was fighting himself before he’d got an inch in, and then Manning yelped and tried to pull away. Prior started to withdraw, then suddenly realized that Manning needed to be hurt. ‘Keep still,’ he said, and went on fucking. It was a dangerous game. Prior was capable of real sadism, and knew it, and the knee was only a inch or so away from his hand. He came quickly, with deep shuddering groans, a feeling of being pulled out of himself that started in his throat. Carefully, he lowered Manning’s legs and sucked him off. He was so primed he was clutching Prior’s head and gasping almost before he’d started. ‘I needed that,’ he said, when it was over. ‘I needed a good fucking.’

You all do
, Prior thought. Manning went to the bathroom. Prior reached out and turned the looking-glass towards him. Into this glass they had looked, half past five every morning, winter and summer, yawning, bleary-eyed, checking to see their caps were on straight and their hair tucked away. He remembered his mother telling him that, in the house where she’d worked, if a maid met a member of the family in the corridor she had to stand with her face turned to the wall.

Manning came back carrying the whisky bottle and glasses. He was limping badly. Despite Prior’s efforts the position couldn’t have done the knee any good.

‘Where d’you get it?’ Prior asked, nodding at the wound.

‘Passchendaele.’

‘Oh, yes. Your lot were in the assault on the ridge?’

‘That’s right.’ Manning poured the whisky and sat at
the end of the bed, propping himself up against the bedstead, and stretching his left leg out in front of him. ‘Great fun.’

Prior said, ‘I’ve just had a Board.’ He didn’t want to talk about his condition, but he was incapable of leaving the subject alone. Manning’s silence on the subject, when a question would have been so much more natural, had begun to irritate him.

‘What did they say?’ Manning asked.

‘They haven’t said anything yet. I’m supposed to be Permanent Home Service, but with things the way they are…’

Manning hesitated, then asked, ‘It
is
neurasthenia, isn’t it?’

No, Prior wanted to say, it’s raging homicidal mania, with a particular predilection for dismembering toffee-nosed gits with wonky knees. ‘No, it’s asthma,’ he said. ‘I
was
neurasthenic, but then I had two asthmatic attacks in the hospital, so that confused things a bit.’

‘Which hospital were you in?’

‘Craiglockhart. It’s up in —’

‘Ah, then you know Rivers.’

Prior stared. ‘He was my doctor. Still is. He’s… he’s in London now.’

‘Yes, I know.’

It was Prior’s turn not to ask the obvious question.

‘Are you still on sick leave?’ Manning asked, after a pause.

‘No, I’m at the Ministry of Munitions. In the…’ He looked at Manning. ‘And
that’s
where I’ve seen you. I
knew
I had.’

Manning smiled, but he was very obviously not pleased. ‘Just as well I didn’t call myself “Smith”. I thought about it.’

‘If you’re going to do that I’d remove the letters from
the hall table first. They aren’t addressed to “Smith”.’ Prior looked down into his glass, and gave up the struggle. ‘How do you know Rivers?’

Manning smiled. ‘He’s my doctor, too.’

‘Shell-shock?’

‘No. Not exactly. I… er… I was picked up by the police. About two months ago. Not quite caught in the act, but… The young man disappeared as soon as we got to the police station. Anyway.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, we all sat around. Nobody did anything unpleasant. I sent for my solicitor, and eventually he arrived, and they let me go. Wound helped. Medal helped.’ He looked directly at Prior.
‘Connections
helped. You mustn’t despise me too easily, you know. I’m not a fool. And then I went home and waited. My solicitor seemed to think if it went to court I’d get two years, but they probably wouldn’t give me hard labour because of the leg.’