Small Wars Page 4

  It had not been everything the four years of their engagement had promised. Before that viciously creaking bed, four years of writing letters and visits – far too short, far too infrequent – when they had kissed incessantly. Clara’s family saw a tall, cool-faced young soldier, plainly uncomfortable in their presence but somehow needing their daughter badly enough to stay in various cheap boarding houses and bed-and-breakfasts to be near her, never going anywhere else, always faithfully there, while Hal and Clara, alone in knowing what they were together, frustrated themselves kissing. His fingertips on the pulse of her neck, her lips on his knuckles, his thumb on her temple, her hairline, his arms circling her – they had been in a long daze of need for one another and that hotel, that room, that bed did not deliver them from it.

  But the night had its own success because Hal and Clara had, almost despite themselves, a deep affinity. In their love and flirting, they liked to point out their differences, but their observations were similar, as if they had been brought up together some forgotten time and only now found themselves with contrasting lives. They easily made a world to inhabit when they were together. They played within it. They had not slept all night, the night they were married, had boarded the boat bright-eyed with dazzled exhaustion and strange joy, and every bed they had been in since then – all more satisfying than that poor beginning – still had a little of that first bed in it, those first long hours of their free companionship.

  This bed, like that one, rested on an uneven floor. There was some light coming from the bulb at the top of the stairs so the outline of the door glowed.

  Her head was under his chin and he couldn’t see her face, but he could see the shape of the blankets over her body and feel her pressed against him inside the warm bed, her head fitting well into the hollow there. He was holding her hand. He could feel her wedding ring and the small diamond next to it under his thumb. He didn’t think they needed a bigger bed. He liked to be so close to her all the time and not miss anything. When she spoke, he felt her voice in his chest, through her back. ‘This bed is definitely tipping towards the window.’

  ‘It’s the floor I think,’ he said.

  ‘Did you try to prop it up?’

  ‘I tried!’

  ‘I wake up all squashed against you –’

  ‘And me almost on the floor –’

  Then the bulb on the stairs went out with a small popping noise and there was total darkness.

  ‘Hal!’ She had whispered his name so he couldn’t feel her voice any more.

  ‘Just the bulb,’ he said.

  ‘It’s too dark.’ There was absolute blackness around them. ‘The girls –’

  ‘I’ll see to it.’

  Then there was a very dull boom, almost too deep to hear. It shook the windows of the house. Clara sat up suddenly, and Hal was out of bed, finding his lighter in the dark. He flipped it open and Clara blinked at the bright flame.

  ‘Here.’ Hal handed her the lighter and pulled on his trousers. He took his pistol.

  She closed the lighter and burned her fingers doing it.

  Neither of them could see anything at all now. He listened. There were engines in the street and running footsteps. He couldn’t tell if the footsteps were coming to their house.

  He left the bedroom, went fast down the stairs, with his hand against the wall for balance, and stopped at the door. We’ve got to get out of this house, he thought. It’s completely impractical.

  The feet were running past the house, not to it, and he heard sirens and realised that the light going out had nothing to do with the bomb – if it was a bomb – and he opened the door a little way, with his pistol ready.

  ‘Hal?’ said Clara, from the bedroom.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what happened. I’ll bring a bulb.’

  He heard her getting off the bed – the springs were noisy – then he saw the glow of the lighter as she left the room to check the twins.

  He went to the kitchen. Moonlight was coming into the back of the house. There was no bulb in the kitchen drawer, but he found candles and took three plates from the cupboard above. He went to the front of the house again and up the stairs to where Clara was sitting on the end of the girls’ bed. She had Hal’s lighter on the floor in front of her, still burning. The girls were fast asleep.

  Hal lit a candle and blew out the lighter, which was too hot to pick up. He dripped wax onto the saucer, stuck the candle down and lit the other candles, and while he was doing it Clara started to cry.

  Hal had finished lighting the candles. He didn’t move now, just stayed kneeling on the floor with Clara crying, thinking how much he hated it when she cried, and not knowing what to do.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  He got up from his knees and sat next to her on the bed. The three plates of candles lit them both quite brightly from underneath and flickered on the cot bars. Hal put his arm around Clara and felt her softness. ‘It was just a fright,’ he said.

  Then there was banging on the door, very loud – Clara jumped. Hal stood up and left the lighted room.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, going down the stairs.

  ‘It’s Kirby, sir.’ Hal opened the door. ‘They’ve bombed the bloody police station in Hellas Street.’

  ‘I heard it. I’ll come now. You were fast.’

  ‘I can be.’

  ‘Just a moment.’

  Hal shut the door again, thinking how much he liked Kirby, and ran up the stairs. ‘I need to go. The police station has been bombed.’

  Clara was just where he’d left her with the girls still sleeping. She looked at him bleakly.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said deliberately, having to explain, ‘it was nothing to do with us,’ and he closed himself off from her.

  He went into the bedroom, put on his jacket, his cap and his boots. He didn’t go back into the girls’ room but holstered his pistol as he went down again.

  ‘How long will you be?’

  She was at the top of the stairs.

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ His hand was already on the door. He didn’t want her to say anything else, and she didn’t. ‘Go back to bed,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing for you to worry about.’

  Hal left and shut the door behind him.

  Clara sat down on the top stair because her legs were shaking. ‘Buck up and don’t be so ridiculous,’ she said, in a whisper.

  She got up, and took a candle from the floor of the girls’ room, placing the others out of reach on the table. She went downstairs, with the small flame throwing shadows against the walls of the house, and drew the chain that Hal had screwed onto the thin door for them a few days before.

  The dark kitchen was behind her, with the glass out onto the courtyard uncovered. She turned to it. The curtain wasn’t closed over the door. She went into the kitchen and the tiles were rough under her bare feet. She put the candle on the counter, and picked up the table, having to stretch her arms as wide as they would go to grasp both edges, leaning forward unnaturally. She carried the table with tiny steps, holding her breath because it was heavy, trying to be silent. She put it against the back door; she pressed it up snugly, feeling the horror of being observed from outside. She pulled the curtain across the glass, it was stuck behind the table, it wouldn’t close properly.

  She left the kitchen and went up to sit on the bed, with the girls sleeping, tucking her legs under her and wrapping her arms around her knees. The house was empty and evil around her, hiding itself, no protection from anything that might come. It was a nothing house; she couldn’t hope to be all right in it.

  The sleeping children near her had peace all around them, like a shield, and she edged closer to them. She felt very guilty for being comforted by the presence of defenceless babies.

  She didn’t want Hal to see the table against the back door because then he’d know how silly and frightened she was. Perhaps she could put it back before she unbolted the door for him when he came home. She didn’t wa
nt him to think she wasn’t coping. She thought of him setting off not just fearlessly, but with relish, to see what could be done, and smiled. Her girls slept on. His daughters had inherited his colouring; perhaps they would grow up with his fair outlook, too, perhaps his courage. A shutter banged – first loudly, making her jump, then again in sluggish repetition – and a dog began to bark. She thought of Hal’s belief in her and how she loved his admiration. She hugged her knees again, listening to the dog barking, the rumble of engines and a distant alarm bell ringing. She closed her eyes, clenching her jaw tightly. Words of hymns often helped. It wasn’t God, she didn’t think; she wasn’t sure what it was. Determinedly, in the prison of her mind, she sang: ‘Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven, to his feet thy tribute bring, ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven –’

  The police station was burning. Two Turkish Cypriot policemen and a Royal Military Policeman had been killed. Another Turkish Cypriot officer had his legs blown off, and would die before morning. A double victory for EOKA then: both Turks and British successfully targeted.

  The soldiers were trying to keep people back, forcing the staring crowds into a semi-circle, and the fire engines, RMPs and other troops trying to fight the fire had to force their way through.

  Hal had his men evacuate the nearby buildings and make the area safe; there was no point getting into it with the locals now, and revenge was an empty concept to him. Whoever had pitched the bombs into the police station was long gone, congratulating themselves on victory in some distant safe house or mountain camp.

  The breeze grew stronger and Hal could smell the salt on it. He thought of it blowing the smoke inland over those dark sheltering mountains.

  The fire was loud and the roaring flames were fanned by the sea breeze that came between the houses, like a draught sending flames up a chimney. Inside what was left of the police station, the plaster ceiling and wooden frames cracked and crumbled. The three dead men and the wounded one had been taken away before the fire took hold and were peaceful, or lying quietly at least, in the hospital. The fight was to keep the fire from spreading, and it took until dawn to do it.

  The early morning was mild and grey, long streaks of smoke mixing with the cloud in the sky over the town. There would be days of activity as the bombers were sought. They would not be found. Somebody might be found, somebody else, another terrorist, another sympathiser.

  The rubble of the police station was still smoking. The soldiers left the streets to the morning traffic, and people going to work made the day normal again.

  Kirby left Hal at his door. He only remembered Clara when he opened it and the thin chain snapped tight. ‘Clara!’

  Clara had fallen asleep leaning against the wall, with her neck stretched uncomfortably. She woke up with small hands on her face and Meg saying, ‘Mummy,’ then a few moments later Hal’s voice downstairs.

  She wrapped a blanket around herself and ran down. She went as fast as she could to the table and dragged it back from the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Hal, laughing, shut out.

  Clara slid back the chain and he stepped inside, smelling smoky with a dirty face. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘Good. Two Turks bought it, and an RMP – bloody bastards. I need to get cleaned up. I’ll have breakfast at Epi. CO wants to see me.’ He went loudly up the stairs.

  ‘Hello darling!’ he said to Meg, cheerfully, and Clara went up after him, gently rubbing the soot from her hands where she’d held his arm.

  Chapter Five

  Clara was upstairs with the children and Adile was sweeping the stairs. Adile was Turkish Cypriot, about sixteen years old. She had been recommended by Mrs Burroughs and had five brothers and sisters so was presumably well used to children. She spoke not one word of English, which Mrs Burroughs said was probably a good thing, as anything one wanted her to do was easily communicated by sign language, but Clara found their relationship impossibly strained.

  She missed the girl who had helped her sometimes on the base at Krefeld, who, although German and a citizen of an occupied country, seemed to bear no grudge – at least, not towards Clara and the babies. She had spoken English well, and been extremely cheerful. Cheerful to the point of backwardness, Hal said, but Clara had found her easy company. This girl, Adile, was silent. She arrived on time every morning and never looked Clara in the eye.

  Clara had been making a game of dressing the girls – putting their socks on their hands and heads first to make them laugh – and it had taken a long time to get ready. She was trying to teach them how to put on their own dresses; they weren’t awfully interested.

  The quiet slap of Adile’s slippers on the stairs, the light sweep of the broom, and the door was pushed open. It creaked. Adile bowed her head slightly. She had a gentle face. Clara knew the Turkish Cypriots were more consistently friendly to the British, but Adile was a Muslim, and more foreign than a Greek would have been. Hal said the Turks were reliable policemen and did a good job, and Clara worked to overcome her prejudices. Adile always wore her scarf wound tightly around her head and under her chin, and had very big brown eyes. Clara wondered how long her hair was.

  She got up from the floor and dusted off her dress.

  ‘’Lo there!’ said Lottie, who was very chatty, or tried to be.

  Meg was quieter. Clara hoped that they weren’t going to be divided like that so obviously all of their lives: the quiet twin, the jolly one, the pretty one, the plain one. They weren’t identical and she was relieved about that. Their being two halves of the same personality would have been an uncomfortable thought.

  Adile smiled, but didn’t speak.

  ‘Good morning,’ said Clara, briskly, and stepping around Adile, took the girls downstairs. The stairs were very narrow, it was a lengthy business with the girls’ tiny feet on the tiles, slipping on the wooden edges that were worn thin.

  There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Who could that be?’ said Clara. She sensed Adile behind her. ‘It’s all right, Adile,’ she said, not expecting an answer. ‘I’ll go.’

  The knock came again.

  ‘We’re coming!’ said Clara.

  They reached the door.

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Evelyn Burroughs!’ came the operatic answer.

  Clara opened the door. Mrs Burroughs, big and beaming, briefly transformed all of Cyprus to England.

  ‘Hello,’ said Clara.

  ‘Not having a telephone puts one right back in the nineteenth century,’ said Mrs Burroughs. ‘Not that I would remember, I hasten to add!’

  She laughed and Clara smiled at her. ‘Come in. Look, girls, it’s Mrs Burroughs.’

  ‘Silly girl, call me Evelyn.’

  ‘Evelyn. Come in.’

  Evelyn came into the house, which seemed to shrink around her. The children stared up. ‘How’s the Turkish girl doing?’

  ‘She’s fine. Very helpful.’

  ‘So you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ said Clara, firmly. ‘Absolutely fine.’

  ‘I must say you’ve been an awfully good sport about it. I would’ve kicked up a hell of a fuss. Your husband must be proud. It makes all the difference in the world to have a wife who doesn’t make things harder, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Still, it’s a rotten show and I’ve been doing my damnedest to get you a house up at Epi and I may have succeeded.’

  ‘A house would be nice.’

  ‘Yes, it’s no good here. I’ve brought a car. I’ve one or two things to get and then shall we go up to the base?’

  Clara felt gratitude verging on the adoring. ‘I’d like that,’ she said.

  ‘We just need to pop by Costa’s or whatever it’s called on Anexartisias Street – and then we can head off. All right?’

  ‘Lovely. I’ll get our coats.’

  ‘There’s no need. Have you seen the sun’s out?’ said Evelyn, and opene
d the door wide to the street where bright light was striking the first floors of the houses opposite.

  Evelyn had organised everything. She had invited three more officers’ wives and lunch was very busy and noisy. There were other children, too, though none so small as the twins, and they were all given lunch in the kitchen. The women competed to impress Clara with their welcome and were eager to show her that Cyprus wasn’t such a bad posting.

  ‘What about a walk on the beach? It’ll remind you of Cornwall in summer…’

  So, after lunch they left the children and went down to the beach, by way of the stables, where shiny horses looked over their stable doors at them as they went by and Clara touched their soft noses carefully.

  The beach was wide and sandy and a shallow sea broke white-topped waves along it in a homely rhythm. Clara felt her cheeks getting pink as they walked. She imagined kissing Hal and telling him about her day.

  When they got back up to the Burroughses’ bungalow, Captain Hayes was there on behalf of the housing officer. ‘We’ve a couple of houses for Mrs Treherne to take a look at. Shall we go along now?’

  The house Clara chose out of the two offered her was brand new, the still-damp plaster had just been painted. It was a short walk from Evelyn’s and next door to Deirdre and Mark Innes. They could drive or walk to the officers’ mess. The plot was called Lionheart, a half-built miniature suburb, with front gardens but no fences and a brand-new road through it.

  The night before they moved Clara and Hal lay in the tilting bed of the Limassol house for the last time and Clara allowed herself to feel how very much she hated it.

  ‘I’m glad we’ll have you safe and sound at Episkopi,’ said Hal, holding her close to him, both arms around her. ‘I might be away next week, and I would have hated to leave you here.’

  Clara allowed only the smallest of pauses. ‘How long will you be away for?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know yet.’