Chilvers made no reply and Laurence continued, brusquely, 'I didn't join myself until late 1915, when I could see conscription was imminent.' He felt ashamed for lying unnecessarily.
He failed to say that the circumstances which led him to do so began when when, after a single, clumsy sexual encounter—his first—which he thought Louise had found distasteful and which she certainly tried her hardest to avoid ever afterwards, she had become pregnant. Perhaps it had damaged their relationship more than it had their prospects. They were engaged at the time and he was working for her father. He could not tel Louise, much less her furious mother, how much he had wanted her: the curve of her lip, the fine bones of her ankles in white stockings, the womanly smel of the back of her neck, under the weight of her pinned-up hair, so different from the flowery perfume she wore or the hot linen scent of her dress. Feeling her under him, as he pressed deep inside her, he had felt complete. Neither Louise's obvious discomfort, nor even his own dawning shame could diminish the deep joy of it. As a result, they simply brought forward their marriage, but she miscarried soon afterwards. Having married her, he swiftly felt an appaling need to escape.
For the first months he was amused, watching her set up the smal but handsome house bought with her family funds. As the countries of Europe issued ultimatums and mobilised their armies, he looked on as she chose curtains and furniture with her mother, selected a housemaid or a lapdog, played the piano and invited her friends round. Al the while he had a sense of his life becoming immeasurably smaler. He knew his own horizons were not vast when he met Louise and he disliked himself for being unable to enjoy her complete happiness in making them both a home. She was not even particularly demanding; there was simply an implicit invitation for him to admire her domestic skils. He had acquiesced in everything.
His first positive, independent action in marriage had been to lie to her and tel her he had received his papers. They had been married just eighteen months. She never knew that he had volunteered.
So he had gone and, despite the news coming in from the front, he sat on the train to Dover almost exhilarated at the opportunity of war. Al that folowed had seemed entirely merited by this first act of treachery.
'You were working until then?' Chilvers asked, breaking into his daydream.
'In my father-in-law's business. My wife is dead,' Laurence added quickly to cut off any possible question.
'I am sorry,' Chilvers said, and paused.
After some seconds he spoke again.
'But we must speak of your brother.' He took out his pen and wrote down the details of the fictional Robert's name, date of birth. 'You said in your recent letter that he had been in a sanatorium in Switzerland and that his own doctor has died, so I assume you have no access to his records? Never mind, sometimes it is easier to come to these cases without preconceptions. I am sure we can track them down if we need them, but military medical records are, I have found, lamentably inadequate.'
Laurence felt a lessening of tension. One major hurdle had been cleared easily.
'Regiment?'
It had taken Charles and Laurence some time over the previous week to place Robert in a suitable regiment. 'Instant pitfal, this,' Charles had said. 'You can count on someone's cousin having been in the same outfit, however obscure it might be, and that same cousin being clapped up in Holmwood. You know how it is with cousins?'
Laurence had no cousins but through Charles had observed their mysterious degree of social penetration.
And for God's sake keep him out of the Artists' Rifles; being mad is practicaly a prerequisite for joining.'
In the end Charles had suggested an empire regiment. 'That's where a lot of oddbals ended up.' They had debated the merits of the Canadian and South African Expeditionary Forces.
'Anyway, Chilvers was far too old for service, even as a medic,' Laurence had said, 'and his son was never a soldier, and Holmwood's a tiny place, and it's not as if the existing patients have a committee of acceptance. It's not White's, Charles.'
He was finding that dissembling was moving from a necessity to something approaching a game with someone to share it with. Charles had given him a long, appraising look.
'Queen Victoria's Own Madras Sappers and Miners,' Laurence now said confidently to Chilvers.
'Do you have a connection with India?'
'Yes,' said Laurence. At least my sister—
'And you have other siblings?'
'No.'
'Parents?'
'Both dead.'
Chilvers wrote carefuly, his expression attentive. Laurence tried to ignore a pang of guilt.
'Your brother is unmarried?'
'Yes.'
'This must be quite a burden for you,' Chilvers observed matter-of-factly. 'The sole responsibility for an invalid is never easy.'
'I have an aunt,' Laurence said. He needed the aunt to provide a place where Robert was currently domiciled.
'Any ilnesses before the war?' he asked.
'We both survived diphtheria as children,' Laurence said, letting the imaginary brother share his infections. 'Otherwise just childhood diseases.' He was becoming more relaxed, soothed by the anodyne questions.
'Any sign of previous mental instability? In your brother's case or with any other family member?'
Laurence was briefly surprised; it was not as if shel-shock was hereditary.
