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  ‘Have a lovely day, darling,’ said Clara.

  He left the house. Kirby had turned off the engine and was smoking, half sitting on the bonnet of the car. When he saw Hal he stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Morning, sir.’

  ‘Morning, Kirby. Office.’

  In his office, Hal closed the door to Mark’s room, and the one to the corridor.

  He sat, and picked up his pen. The shutters and window were open behind him. The sun hadn’t come into the room yet, and he was in relative cool. His desk was thickly varnished chestnut-coloured wood and it shone glassily. He took a sheet of fresh paper from the drawer and, in doing so, noticed that the varnish of the desk was smeared; the cleaner must have used a wet cloth to wipe it, and the water had dried in spots.

  Hal rubbed the small spots with his sleeve. Some disappeared, but others were left, dragged out of shape. He took out his handkerchief and polished a small area, realising, as he did it, that the rest of the desk was still smeared.

  He cleared the blotter, pens, hole-punch, rubber stamps and ink bottles from the top and put them onto the round table by the door.

  In the service room, he washed out a cloth. It was grey, with a thin red stripe; the grey was dirt, not its real colour, but it didn’t go away, even after he had wrung it out under the tap several times.

  He wiped the top of the desk and dried it, with his handkerchief, the white one, with the red chain-stitched initials, until there were no more smears on the varnish. The handkerchief would need washing. He had thought he was quite ordered, but he was not. The drawers were filled and spilling over with paperclips, papers, receipts, letters from London, Nicosia, and internal correspondence too.

  Hal got down on his knees. The corners of the drawers were slightly crumbly where the varnish had crunched against the wooden runners. There was dust and tiny sawdust streaks, fluff in the drawers, amongst the contents, which seemed to stick to his hands, presenting smaller and smaller asymmetries for him to address: pencils that were different lengths, papers with corners that were soft and creased, the grain of the cheap wood itself, raw inside the drawers, holding the dust and damp from the cloth in shifting, textured grooves that could not be perfectly flat, ever.

  In the service room he rinsed the cloth, and wrung it out, counting the twists and the trickles of water running into the dirty sink.

  Hal had lunch in the mess. There, all the talk was of an abandoned car that had been discovered on the road between Limassol and Larnaka the night before. It had contained the mutilated bodies of four Greeks. Their hands had been severed from their wrists, they were stripped naked, and their penises, cut off, had been forced into their dead mouths. The topic was lodged between menus and politics, the movements of troops and the latest news from Egypt. The mutilation – or so went the theory – was a religious act: the Muslim Turks believed that an enemy whose body was cut up in such a way may not enter Paradise. The killers had chopped off the genitals of their victims for theological reasons, then.

  Naked corpses with their hands cut off, vichyssoise for lunch, rumours of a new governor, the illegal torture of a teenage boy – if you reflected upon it, thought Hal, one topic was pretty much like any other. It was comfortable to be surrounded by men: the eating, banging cutlery, cigarette smoke and noise, much more subdued than in the evening, were nevertheless consoling. He wished his hands didn’t smell of the filthy cloth he’d used to clean his desk. After lunch he went back to his office to finish cleaning and to write letters.

  The typewriter on the clerk’s desk made a rhythmic, metallic sound as he hit the keys with jabbing, staccato fingers, punctuated by a small bell when the carriage returned with an oiled slip and halt; then the smooth revolving rasp of the paper being removed, and in the quiet that followed Hal, lifting his head a moment, thought, Clara needs to be sent away.

  He put his pen down. The thought came again, like a bubble rising cleanly from a dark pool: Clara and the children must get away from here.

  Clara was sitting on the sofa, trying to read a book. She had the doors closed to the hot night. Moths fluttered around the big orange shades of the lamps. The bobbled fabric glowed. There was the sound of tiny taps as their bodies hit the shades and thin metal struts supporting the bulbs. Sometimes the moths released themselves, feathery wings against Clara’s hair, knocking against her, and she waved them away, glancing up at the door for her husband, waiting.

  When he came in, she said, ‘Hello,’ and then pretended to read again.

  He hadn’t answered. She looked up. He hadn’t taken off his belt, or his holster, but stood, as if completely disconnected from the room, staring at her.

  ‘What?’

  He moved then, as if unaware of having stopped. ‘Girls asleep?’ he said.

  ‘Yes. What is it?’

  He shook his head slightly, emptied his pockets, began to do all the things he did on returning home but Clara, alerted to some change, put her book down.

  ‘It’s very stuffy in here,’ he said. ‘Shall I open the door?’

  ‘If you like.’

  He crossed the room. The doors opened and blessed fresh air came in.

  Clara stood up. ‘Hal, I want to talk to you.’

  He seemed surprised. ‘Do you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  They were facing one another, a few feet apart.

  ‘Well, what is it?’

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ she said.

  The clarity of the phrase surprised them both. He looked at her for a moment. He smiled a tight smile, narrowing his eyes in a sort of irony. She didn’t think he knew he did it. ‘I’m absolutely fine,’ he said.

  She searched for words. ‘You don’t seem yourself,’ she said at last, in a small voice.

  The commonplace little phrase lay between them in all its magnitude. He looked down at the floor, discovered. ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Hal…’ Clara moved towards him. She put her hands on his arms.

  He narrowed his eyes again, almost smiling but somehow not, and then he said, ‘Clara,’ as if he would turn away from her, but she kept holding his arms.

  Without going anywhere, he was all movement, fidgeting beneath his skin, behind his eyes.

  ‘Wait,’ she said. She could feel the hard tension rising through him like a vibration, but he didn’t move.

  She placed her hand flat over his heart. She moved a little closer to him. She was breathing lightly, and he not at all. He was frozen as she approached him, carefully, and touched his neck with her fingertips. She could feel his heart beating very fast against her hand.

  He did not take his eyes from hers. He blinked. She began to smile at him.

  ‘I want you to go away from here,’ he said.

  There was silence. Then, ‘What?’ she said.

  ‘I think the best plan is that you and the girls go to Nicosia.’

  Clara took her hands from him. Her eyes were wide.

  Hal put his hands into his pockets. ‘I’m sure it can easily be arranged, I’ll have a word with the housing officer about it, if you like.’

  ‘You want me to go away from you?’ She took a step back from him.

  ‘Don’t you think it would be the best thing?’

  When she spoke, her voice was low and shaking: ‘For who?’

  ‘For you, of course. And the girls. There are doctors there, much better than Godwin, lots of English. You’re not happy here, you’ll be much better off, and then, when things have calmed down, we’ll think again.’

  While he was talking she turned away from him, and he spoke to her back. Her head was bowed. Above the top of her dress, between the covered buttons and the curl of her hair, there was bare skin, and he looked at it as he went on, ‘Things have been pretty rough round here recently.’

  ‘Have they?’ she said, very quietly, without turning. Her hands were gripping the skirt of her dress, twisting the material.

  ‘If you’re in Nicosia, you’ll be much better off. Things happen here
that I don’t like to have you – have anything to do with. The baby –’

  She turned suddenly and her face was furious; anger he had never seen in her – that he hadn’t known she had but, as she spoke, he realised he had felt for a long time – now surfacing, stripped bare. ‘The baby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know what’s best for me? Don’t you think I know what’s best for me and the girls and this baby?’ She said the word as if she hated it.

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Well, why, then? Why?’

  ‘I told you. In Nicosia you’ll be better off.’ Hal tried hard to articulate. ‘I’m not sure, I don’t think I’m much good for you at the moment,’ he said.

  ‘Aren’t you?’ She laughed harshly.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

  ‘And if I’m gone you’ll be able to get on with your work?’ she said, not laughing now, bitter.

  ‘It might be easier.’

  ‘And you won’t have to look at me?’

  ‘I –’

  ‘You hardly do. The only time you’re with me, you hurt me, Hal. This baby,’ she gestured, ‘which you don’t even want – and don’t pretend you do, or that you’ve given it a moment’s thought – and yesterday, when I needed you –’

  What did she mean? Yesterday – the vision of the boy on the wet boards, the blood and water on his chest. Hal’s mouth seemed to fill with hot mineral-tasting blood.

  ‘When you were drunk –’

  ‘I’d –’

  ‘Our baby is here, Hal. It’s in me, and do you know how I feel about it? I’ll tell you. I don’t bloody want it either,’ she said. ‘That night – that celebration night of yours, hurrah, jolly good, go home and have your wife. Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Clara –’

  Her voice was raw: ‘No! You say you want me safe, but you hurt me.’

  ‘Clara –’

  ‘No.’

  She backed off, and sat down, suddenly, in the chair opposite him. She began to cry, hiding her face. It was desperate. He felt desperate. The vast realisation of her feelings, and of his failure, engulfed him. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said.

  ‘Didn’t know what?’

  He was her enemy. He hadn’t known it. He went to the chair by the sofa, and sat down, rubbed his face with his hands, trying to order his thoughts. ‘If I have made you unhappy, I apologise.’ He sounded ridiculous, even to himself. Ridiculous and polite, unable to find any way to speak to her. She didn’t say anything. He tried to salvage something. Perhaps he could take it back. She might stay, if he asked her. ‘I don’t know if you want – what you want,’ he said, fumbling through the words, ‘but perhaps you could –’

  ‘Yes, Hal.’ She stopped him. ‘We’ll go. Don’t worry. We’ll go – gladly. Leave you to it, as they say. You win. I surrender.’ She gave him no quarter. ‘I do. I surrender.’

  PART THREE

  Nicosia, September

  Chapter One

  The hotel in Nicosia was a big 1920s building of yellow stone, almost a whole block, close to Government House and not far from the old city wall. It had pointed arches on the windows, balconies and decorative cut-outs in concrete that looked Moorish to Clara. Nicosia was an interior capital; the drive from Limassol, across the plains, had been dusty and long. Climbing the wide stairs of the hotel, with the girls stop-starting, tripping behind her and under her feet, Clara felt nothing but exhaustion.

  She opened the tall door to her room. It was a big, square, light room, quite plain, with twin beds and a door to a narrow bathroom that stood open. She glimpsed a much smaller room through it, with camp beds set up. There were salmon-coloured candlewick bedspreads and a chandelier with small orange-pink shades, not quite matching. Clara took off her gloves, which were dirty and damp. The sun came through the big windows pitilessly.

  ‘Here Lottie. No, Meg, come here, darling.’

  She showed the porter where to put the cases and he went down to fetch the rest. She walked across to the window. She was two floors above a wide street where British soldiers patrolled. The few cars went very quickly, it seemed, past the modern buildings. There was a zebra crossing under the window and Union flags flying from the rooftops. She needed to organise the girls’ supper. Her legs felt thick and heavy. She sat down on the edge of the bed and the girls bumbled about, came near her, peering at her and tugging her skirt. The porter came in again, and behind him, a woman – an Englishwoman.

  ‘You must be Clara Treherne,’ she said, stepping around the porter. ‘I’m Gracie Bundle.’

  Gracie was bright blonde, with neatly painted lips and a light grey suit hugging her small and curvy body. ‘Have they sorted a maid out for you yet?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Clara, standing up.

  She felt dizzy. She sat down again.

  ‘You look fairly done in,’ said Gracie. The girls were staring at her. ‘Aren’t they little poppets!’ she said. ‘Hang on a mo, I’ll send down for some sustenance. Don’t move.’

  Clara hung on, and soon there was room service – bread and tea – a maid for the next day, and net curtains keeping the sun out of the room.

  ‘I’ll get my Miss Sila to come, shall I? Take your two off your hands for an hour or so,’ said Gracie, and darted out of the room. She returned some minutes later with her Greek maid, a woman in her fifties, who was carrying a small boy and leading another by the hand.

  ‘Say hello, Tommy, say hello, Larry.’

  They didn’t.

  ‘Jolly good. Off you go, children,’ said Gracie, and the four children and the maid, swept along by her energy, left the room.

  ‘I should think you could do with a rest. Don’t worry about the children – I’ll keep a beady eye. Shall we have supper together?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clara, gratefully, and Gracie backed out of the room, gave a wink, and shut the door.

  Clara looked around her. She ought to let Hal know she had arrived.

  She picked up the telephone. There was a purring sound, then the desk answered, a high, scratchy Greek voice. Clara said, ‘This is room two one five. Would you connect me with the operator, please? Thank you.’

  The sound of several rings and vibrations, as the lines were crossed and cleared. Then another female voice, efficient, greeted her in Greek. Clara said clearly, ‘Hello? Yes, it’s a Limassol number, the Episkopi Garrison. The garrison at Episkopi.’

  Another wait. Silence. Violent whirrings. Distant voices, as though she were eavesdropping on nations. Then she was connected. She heard a soldier’s voice, with a London accent, asking for the name and extension number. ‘Major Treherne, company lines, extension forty-three, please.’

  A long pause. Clicks on the line. Ringing. The sound of it was almost contact. Ringing. Ringing. The distant rasping went on. The telephone wasn’t picked up. She listened, each second falling from the last, each ring emptier, but she waited until the soldier’s voice came back and said, ‘There’s no reply from Major Treherne, madam,’ before she replaced the heavy receiver gently, and with relief, onto its black cradle.

  Clara and Gracie had supper in the hotel dining room and Gracie told Clara all about Nicosia. The dining room was big and shabby, with a box-panelled ceiling and a dance floor at one end. They ate grilled chicken and drank boiled water from a decanter beaded with droplets. Clara felt unlike herself in this new place; she listened closely to Gracie, clinging to her words like a life raft.

  ‘You’re much better off here. It’s practically Paris compared to Limassol,’ said Gracie, who was the wife of Major David Bundle, in the K—R—. He had been stationed up in the Troodos for a year. Her two boys were at the English nursery. She took a photograph – black-and-white, with a white scalloped edge – from her small crocodile handbag and showed it to Clara. In the photograph David Bundle, roundly filling his uniform, was grinning. ‘He’s a shadow of his former self now, I should think,’ said Gracie, laughing, and then, ‘You look ra
ther white. I’m a terrible talker. Are you shattered?’

  They finished supper, signed for it, and Clara went up the wide stairs to the second floor alone.

  Gracie’s maid was on a gilt-framed chair in the long corridor, a tiny middle-aged woman in a black dress. Her empty shoes were placed neatly beside her, the thin laces stiff and curled. The corridor glowed with unnatural light, too bright for late night.

  Clara took off her own shoes, and softly opened her door, stepping inside quietly so as not to disturb the girls.

  She lay between the sheets, with the corridor light showing under her door.

  She was alone. She moved on the unfamiliar bed, tentatively. The long journey lay between her and the last violent conversation with Hal. Contained and invisible, her anger had grown, but now she was empty, like a cool metal shell when the bullet is at last discharged – clean. She didn’t miss Hal. She wouldn’t think of him.

  After Clara had left, Hal went to the café at Evdimou beach. He spent the afternoon there and, after changing at home, had dinner in the mess. He would have slept there if he could.

  It was easier without Clara and his daughters. Once a week, he wrote her short cheerful letters. He wrote: ‘Epi’s the same as usual, poor old Mark still hounded by Deirdre and the food ghastly as ever’, or ‘Saw Evelyn Burroughs today and she asked me to give you Harold and Eileen Empson’s number. Remember we met them at Krefeld that Christmas? ’53, was it?’ and always, after signing his name, he would fold the letter very precisely and fast, then put it inside the envelope, out of sight.

  But she didn’t write to him. The days went by, then weeks, and he never heard from her. He telephoned the hotel, to make sure she’d arrived safely, and although he was shocked that she didn’t write to him, her silence was easier to manage.

  In Clara’s absence, Evelyn Burroughs invited him for supper at least once a week. ‘How is dear Clara?’ she would say, leaning across the table at him. ‘Of course you miss her, but I honestly think it’s the best thing all round, don’t you?’