Briony woke to daylight filtering through the curtains, confused by the fleeing coat-tails of a dream full of shouting and gunfire. The alarm hadn’t gone off. Had she actually set it? She threw off the duvet, causing a sigh and crackle of paper, and sat up, breathing a curse at the sound of something solid hitting the floor, the cigar box. It lay open on its end, its contents spilling across the boards. She seized her travel clock and blinked at it until the hands on its face came into focus. Half-past seven. Relief. Was today Wednesday? Yes. No teaching until eleven. She lay back on the pillows, trying to recall whether there was anything she’d be late for. Nothing, she decided. She sighed as she slid out of bed, gathered Paul’s letters together and shoved them back into the box. She must have fallen asleep reading them. The result was they’d taken over her dreams.
As she showered, she mulled over what she’d read. Paul had had his first brush with the enemy. He’d killed one of his own countrymen, then saved the life of another. He’d mentioned in a later letter that the man had been sent to a field hospital and survived, presumably to be sent to a POW camp when he’d recovered. Paul’s commanding officer, Major Goodall, had summoned Paul and asked him for a full account of events, had commended him for his ‘smart work’, which Paul had mentioned to Sarah with amusement rather than pride. He said he was ’glad to have a chap who could speak German in the ranks’, but that our Captain Richards looked none too pleased at this. Briony was surprised that all this detail had passed the censor.
Subsequent letters had been written over the following year. She must remind herself of the significant dates in the Egyptian campaign, she mused as she turned off the shower and reached blindly for her towel. The high commands of both German and British forces had changed over that long dangerous summer of 1942. After she’d dressed, she pulled down a book from the shelves that lined her small living room and turned to a chronology. Tobruk had fallen on 21 June. That was when Paul Hartmann’s ship had docked at Suez. A few days later his company had joined the bedraggled remnants of the Eighth Army, defending the Egyptian frontier. By 30 June, the Germans under Field-Marshal Rommel had beaten them back to the little border town of El Alamein, and many of the foreign populace of Cairo and Alexandria fled in panic. How close defeat had been for the Allies. It was therefore an extraordinary turnaround that as October segued into November, the Eighth, finding new heart under the command of Lieutenant-General Bernard Montgomery, routed the Germans at the third battle of El Alamein and over the following months, beat Rommel back across Libya and into Tunisia. The Egyptian campaign was finally won.
‘Ah, Briony. I’d begun to think you weren’t honouring us with your presence today. A word, when you’re ready, if you wouldn’t mind.’
‘Of course. Give me a moment.’
Briony had been unlocking her office at ten o’clock when Professor Gordon Platt, the Head of Department, appeared in the doorway of his, across the corridor. She shoved her bag into her desk drawer, took off her coat and tried to ignore her coffee craving as she hurried over to hear what He-who-must-be-obeyed wanted.
Platt’s office was at least twice the size of hers, with a giant antique desk before which was arranged a selection of uncomfortable high-backed chairs. The long Victorian sash windows looked out over the courtyard, where there was usually something of interest going on. During the last protests against fees, students had erected billboards on the grass that featured a cartoon of the then Minister for Higher Education in rather a vulgar pose. Gordon Platt had kept his blinds down all day. In retaliation someone had thrown raw eggs at his window, to which his response, very stupidly, was to call the police. Consequently, his rating with the student body of the college stood at an all-time low.
He was a tall, rangy man in his late fifties, with thinning hair that might once have been an enchanting curly blond, but which was now greying, scanty on top and too long over the ears. He had a penchant for wearing bright-coloured corduroy trousers. Sometimes they were brick-red, on other occasions mustard. On days of important college meetings they would be a more sober maroon or navy. Today was a mustard day and his olive socks didn’t quite go, Briony noticed as he came round the desk and shut the door behind her.
‘Now,’ he said, sitting down again in his comfortable chair. He looked over his bifocals at her with that ruthless, searching manner that had got him where he was today. ‘I need to talk to you about our engagement programme. The Vice-Chancellor thinks the department needs to be doing more to reach out to the public, but frankly I don’t have the time, so I’d like you to step up to the plate.’
Briony stared at him in bemusement, the thought of the work this might entail rushing through her mind like a giant wave. Talks to schools, conferences, lectures, exhibitions for the public. Essential these days to justify universities’ existence. Although other members of staff and graduate students would be actually delivering them, being the organizer on top of all the other things for which she was responsible would take up a great deal of time. Time she didn’t have. She gave a sharp intake of breath to steady herself.
‘I see that you’ve put in a bid for promotion,’ Platt went on, rocking back in his chair, his hands linked behind his head, giving himself the appearance of a large, malevolent insect. ‘I’m not sure that you’ll get it, mind, it’s quite a step up for someone like you, but taking this task on will improve your chances.’
Great. He’d delivered a double blow. Not only did he belittle her ambitions, but he’d made it plain that refusal of his request now would do her no good at all.
‘As you know, Gordon, I’ve already got a huge amount to do. Can I think about it?’ She nearly reminded him how she hadn’t been well the term before, but bit her lip, realizing it wouldn’t help her status in his eyes. To a man with no imagination who had never suffered from depression or anxiety, people who did were practically basket cases. Of course, he wouldn’t have expressed it like that, he knew the jargon, but at meetings she had sensed his unease about the subject of well-being.
‘Of course, take all the time you like,’ Platt said affably, ‘but I need your decision by Monday.’ He smiled benignly at her and picked up a file from his in-tray, thus signalling that the conversation was over.
By five o’clock, Briony was mentally and emotionally exhausted, but also furious, with Platt, but also herself. This, she recognized, as she glanced at her watch, wondering what had happened to the student who hadn’t turned up, was a good thing. Anger could be a positive emotion, her counsellor had once suggested. It could encourage her to take control of a situation rather than allow it to defeat her.
The student obviously wasn’t coming. Wonderful, she could go home on time. Deliberately ignoring a sheaf of papers waiting to be marked, Briony locked her office and sneaked out.
At home she kicked off her shoes, poured herself a glass of white wine and went to run a bath. This evening would be for herself, she sighed, as she lowered herself into the hot scented water and closed her eyes. Supper, read more of Paul’s letters, watch TV. She wouldn’t worry about the wretched Platt. A phrase her dad’s father used to say floated into her mind. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ and she smiled as she remembered asking him what it meant. ‘Live for the moment and don’t worry about the future.’
Her eyes snapped open. Luke, she was supposed to email Luke about Sarah’s letters. On the one hand she wanted to, on the other she didn’t quite know whether she was stirring something up by contacting him. Really, she told herself as she got out of the bath, pull yourself together. They were both grown-ups and contacting him with information he needed for his work was hardly unreasonable.
She had his email address, so after she’d eaten her supper she quickly wrote to him, hoping he was well and asking him what it was he specifically wanted to know. Then her phone rang and picking it up she felt a little shock as she saw the caller’s name. She swiped the screen.
‘Luke? Hello.’
‘Hi. I got your email and thought I’d give you a call.’ Was she imagining that his voice in her ear sounded tentative, not his usual light confident self? Her heart went out to him and in her agitation she got up from the sofa and went over to the window, looked down onto the night-time street below. There was a black and white cat walking along the top of a fence.
‘It’s good to hear from you,’ she said softly. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine. How about you? Have I got you at a bad time?’
‘No, no, I was watching telly, but nothing important. Anyway, what about things at Westbury Hall? Is the garden project going OK?’
‘Yes, it’s been going well. I’ve nearly finished drawing up the plans, then I have to cost them. I need a few more details about some of the plants, though. Kemi managed to borrow the picture of the garden from Mrs Clare’s flat, but it doesn’t go into enough detail.’
They talked for a while about the specifics. Had Sarah mentioned the location of particular plants in her early letters, Luke wanted to know, before the garden had been turned over to wartime farming? Briony didn’t remember.
‘I think it’s best if I simply send you the relevant transcripts,’ she said, ‘but there’s something I must tell you. You’re not going to believe it, but I’ve found the other half of the correspondence. Paul’s letters to Sarah, I mean.’
Below, the cat had settled itself on a fence post, its tail twitching as it stared at something down on the ground. A mouse, maybe, Briony thought, craning to see.
‘Have you?’
‘Isn’t it amazing?’ She described how she had come by them. ‘I’ve started reading them. Nothing useful about the garden so far, but, Luke, they’re full of his wartime experiences. He was in Egypt. At El Alamein!’
‘I take it he survived?’ Luke laughed. ‘Stupid question, I suppose. Unless you’ve found a letter that says I’m dying, this is my last will and testament.’
‘I haven’t,’ she said stiffly, thinking he was making light of her discovery.
‘You’re still very involved in it all, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘It’s more than academic, then.’
‘Yes, of course it is. It’s about my family. Paul quite often mentions my grandfather, Harry. And Ivor Richards. They were all there in the same infantry company together, which is not as much a coincidence as it sounds, since it was a Norfolk regiment. Though quite what they were doing there I don’t know, as on the whole, Norfolk Battalions weren’t sent to Egypt.’
‘I didn’t mean to sound flippant. You know . . .’ Briony sensed Luke searching for the right words. ‘It took a bit of courage for me to ring. I didn’t know whether you’d want to hear from me.’
She felt such a flood of feeling that it was hard to say, ‘Oh, why?’ with coolness.
‘I may be paranoid, but you seem to have been avoiding me lately.’
Outside, the cat pounced on whatever it had been stalking. A mouse or a shrew? Briony got a horrible glimpse of the creature hanging from its jaws.
‘Luke,’ she said, after a moment, trying out her strongest tone. ‘Of course I haven’t.’
‘Right.’ His voice was strained. ‘Scrub that then. Don’t worry.’
‘I saw Aruna last night. But of course you probably know that.’
‘Yes, she said it was the first time for ages and that it had been good to see you.’
‘It was lovely to see her, but she seemed unhappy, Luke. I know it’s not my business, but she is my best friend.’
‘Do you think I don’t get that, Briony?’
‘All right, it really isn’t my business.’ She could sense Luke’s anger.
‘OK. Well, if you’d email me over those transcripts I’d be grateful. The job is taking longer than I’m being paid for. And I’d like to get that guy Greg off my back.’ Again, that bitter tone. She chose to ignore it.
‘How is Greg? Oh, and poor Mrs Clare.’
‘Mrs Clare is back in Westbury Hall with a carer in attendance and improving. Her son gave permission for me to borrow that plan. Which reminds me, Kemi asked after you.’
‘Oh, she’s so nice, Kemi. Say hi from me. I’ll send the stuff over in a moment.’
Briony ended the call and stared out of the window for a long time, watching with distaste as the cat played with its prey, going over the conversation in her mind. Luke was troubled about something, sounded deeply unhappy in fact. He seemed cross with her, too, and she didn’t know what she’d done to deserve that. What a mess everything was at the moment. A car drew up outside the house opposite and the cat ran off as a young couple unloaded a baby in a car seat. They were smiling and laughing. The lamplight fell on the face of the sleeping infant, round and chubby with tight black curls. So cute. They looked so content, the little family, caught in the golden aura of the street lamp, that Briony felt suddenly terribly alone.