She’d been reading Freud on repression and had some idea that if she could get Robbie to speak about it, perhaps he would be cured. She held her breath, wondered if she dared to ask. ‘Is it because you killed somebody?’
He looked at her profile, took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled and shook his head. Then he started to laugh softly, without humour. He reached out to lay his hand gently along the side of her face.
‘Is that it?’ she whispered, still not looking at him.
He didn’t answer and she took another tack.
‘Who is it you dream about?’
He removed his hand. ‘You know the answer to that,’ he said. ‘I only ever dream of you.’
‘I hope not,’ said Hannah. ‘They’re not very nice dreams.’
He took a drag of his cigarette, exhaled. ‘Don’t ask me,’ he said.
‘It’s shell shock, isn’t it?’ she said, turning to him. ‘I’ve been reading about it.’
His eyes met hers. Such dark eyes. Like wet paint; full of secrets.
‘Shell shock,’ he said. ‘I’ve always wondered who came up with that. I suppose they needed a nice name to describe the unspeakable for the nice ladies back home.’
‘Nice ladies like me, you mean,’ said Hannah.
‘You’re not a nice lady,’ he said, teasing.
She was put out. Was not in the mood to be fobbed off. She sat up and slipped her petticoat over her head. Started to pull her stockings on.
He sighed. She knew he didn’t want her to leave like this. Angry with him.
‘You’ve read Darwin?’ he said.
‘Charles Darwin?’ she said, turning to him. ‘Of course.’
‘Ought to have known,’ he said. ‘Smart girl like you.’
‘But what does Charles Darwin have to do with-’
‘Adaptation. Survival is a matter of successful adaptation. Some of us are better at it than others.’
‘Adaptation to what?’
‘To war. To living by your wits. The new rules of the game.’
Hannah thought about this.
‘I’m alive,’ Robbie said plainly, ‘because some other bugger isn’t. Plenty of others.’
So now she knew.
She wondered how she felt about it. ‘I’m glad you’re alive,’ she said, but she felt a shiver from deep down inside. And when his fingers stroked her wrist she withdrew it despite herself.
‘That’s why nobody talks about it,’ he said. ‘They know that if they do, people will see them for what they really are. Members of the devil’s party moving amid the regular people as though they still belong. As if they’re not monsters returned from a murderous rampage.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said Hannah sharply. ‘You’re not a murderer.’
‘I’m a killer.’
‘It’s different. It was war. It was self-defence. Defence of others.’
He shrugged. ‘Still a bullet through some fellow’s brain.’
‘Stop it,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t like it when you talk like that.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have asked.’
She didn’t like it. She didn’t like to think of him that way, and yet she found she couldn’t stop. That someone she knew, someone she knew intimately, whose hands had run gently, lightly, over her body, whom she trusted implicitly, should have killed… Well, it changed things. It changed him. Not for the worse. She didn’t love him any less. But she looked at him differently. He had killed a man. Men. Countless, nameless men.
She was thinking that one afternoon, watching him as he stalked about a friend’s apartment in Fulham. He had his pants on, but his shirt was still draped across the bed end. She was watching his lean muscled arms, his bare shoulders, his beautiful, brutal hands, when it happened.
A knock at the door.
They both froze, stared at each other; Robbie lifted his shoulders.
It came again. More urgent this time. Then a voice, ‘Hello, Robbie? Open up. It’s just me.’
Emmeline’s voice.
Hannah slid off the side of the bed and quickly gathered her clothing.
Robbie held his finger to his lips and tiptoed to the door.
‘I know you’re in there,’ said Emmeline. ‘There’s a lovely old man downstairs who said he saw you come in and that you haven’t been out all afternoon. Let me in, it’s bloody freezing out here.’
Robbie signalled Hannah to hide in the water closet.
Hannah nodded, tiptoed across the room, snibbed the door quickly behind her. Her heart was pounding against her rib cage. She fumbled with her dress, pulled it over her head and knelt to peer through the keyhole.
Robbie opened the door. ‘How’d you know I was staying here?’
‘Charmed, I’m sure,’ said Emmeline, sauntering into the centre of the room. Hannah noticed she was wearing her new yellow dress. ‘Desmond told Freddy, Freddy told Jane. You know how those kids are.’ She paused and ran her wide-eyed gaze over everything. ‘Basic but homely.’ She raised her brows when she saw the tangle of sheets on the bed and turned back to Robbie, smiling as she assessed his state of undress. ‘I haven’t interrupted anything?’
Hannah inhaled.
‘I was sleeping,’ said Robbie.
‘At quarter to four?’
He shrugged, found his shirt and put it on.
‘I wondered what you did all day. Here was I thinking you’d be busy writing poetry.’
‘I was. I do.’ He rubbed his neck, exhaled angrily. ‘What do you want?’
Hannah winced at the harshness of his voice. It was Emmeline’s mention of poetry: Robbie hadn’t written in weeks. Emmeline didn’t seem to notice any unkindness. ‘I wanted to know if you were coming tonight. To Desmond’s place.’
‘I told you I wasn’t.’
‘I know that’s what you said but I thought you might have changed your mind.’
