A Piece of the Sky is Missing

Now, at his final interview in that gloomy country house, surrounded by bare wet trees, he thinks of another answer.

‘What’s your father do?’

‘He’s dead, sir. He was a lawyer.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Sorry he’s dead, or sorry he was a lawyer? ‘Did he die in the war?’

‘Yes, sir.’

They seem pleased at that.

‘Why do you want to become an officer?’

‘I want to order the lower classes around, sir.’

They take this seriously, and seem surprised, but not displeased.

‘What qualities do you think are needed by a successful officer?’

‘Loyalty, cruelty, insensitivity, stupidity and courage, sir.’

January, 1955. The snow is thick in B.A.O.R. In Munster, Westphalia, the wind is bitter cold. The wind howls through the B Block ablutions, whistling round Robert’s legs.

He was drunk last night. He went out with Stephen. They met Scouse Edwards, Taffy Lewis and Geordie Wilkinson. They all got drunk. Robert picked a fight with Connolly, a driver. He was lucky the M.P.s didn’t pick him up. He had terrible hiccups when he signed in at the guard room, but Sgt Clarke just smiled. Not a bad chap, Nobby.

He works a shift system, and although today is Thursday it is his day off. But Thursday is also C.O.’s inspection. He has to get up early and make a tidy bed-pack. He has to square off his large pack, small pack and basic pouches. And then he has to go out, because the living quarters are out of bounds for C.O.’s inspection.

But he can’t go out. He is too ill. He goes to the lavatory and is sick. He sits there, hunched up, shuddering gently in the wind.

He hears footsteps. The C.O.’s inspection.

The lavatory door does not extend to the ground, and he raises his feet so that they are not visible beneath the door. He jams his feet against the far wall and remains seated.

He hears the little procession enter the ablutions.

‘Smell of sick,’ says the C.O. ‘What was for breakfast?’

‘Poached eggs, sir,’ says the orderly officer.

‘Treacherous chaps, poached eggs,’ says the C.O.

He hears the grunts and exclamations of keen inspection. Then his doorknob rattles.

‘This door won’t open,’ says the C.O.

His doorknob rattles again.

‘This door won’t open, sarn’t major,’ says the orderly officer.

‘Saaarrrrhh.’

The knob rattles again, more violently this time.

‘This door won’t open, saarn’t,’ says the sergeant major.

‘Sarn’t major,’ says the sergeant.

The knob rattles again.

‘Corporal Higgins, this door won’t open,’ says the sergeant.

The knob rattles again. Robert wants to be sick again, and all the blood is running from his legs.

‘Jammed, sarn’t,’ says Corporal Higgins.

‘Jammed, sarn’t major,’ says the sergeant.

‘Jammed, saaaarrrrhh,’ says the sergeant major.

‘Jammed, sir,’ says the orderly officer.

‘Get the carpenter, sarn’t major,’ says the orderly officer.

‘Saaaaarrrrrhh. Get the carpenter, saaaarn’t,’ says the sergeant major.

‘Sarn’t major. Get the carpenter, Higgins,’ says the sergeant.

‘Sarn’t,’ says Higgins.

He hears Higgins depart.

The knob rattles again.

‘Funny thing, door jamming like that,’ says the C.O. He sniffs loudly. ‘No more poached eggs,’ he says.

The party moves off. No-one has suspected that there might be someone in the lavatory, because no-one is allowed in the lavatory during the C.O.’s inspection.

As soon as he dares, Robert hurries over to A Block ablutions, and is violently sick. But he doesn’t mind. It was worth it.

May, 1956. The first really good time with Sonia. Early evening on a spring day. The sexuality in him all day, warmed by the spring sun. He walked slowly down from Cadman and Bentwhistle, making crablike progress down the hill towards the Caledonian Road. He felt romantic. The tenements in Laycock Street were liners trapped in concrete, the tired housewives leaning over the rail, hoping to see some foreign port beyond the lines of washing. He admired the Georgian and Victorian houses of Barnsbury. He walked past Belitha Villas and Thornhill Square, some streets going up in the world, others down, but all warmed equally by the sun. He went down Caledonian Road, up Copenhagen Street, through the jungle of railway bridges behind King’s Cross and St Pancras. In Euston Station he rang Sonia. He had never doubted that she’d be in. It was an evening when things must go right. He heard her deep French telephone and her nasal English voice. No, she wasn’t doing anything. Yes, she would like to see him.

He walked on down the Euston Road and entered a public convenience. The attendant was cleaning it, at this hour on this lovely evening his world was a lavatory. Robert smiled at him as he peed, and hoped it helped. The man smiled back. Half the lavatory was roped off, and the wet floor that he had washed was protected by cardboard. As he went out Robert noticed the words ‘Sell your eggs in rotation’ on one of the pieces.

‘I will,’ he said cheerfully.

The man smiled again.

He was impatient now and caught the 27 bus. Sonia was wearing a simple summer dress. Her thin white arms were bare and the hair under her armpits was newly cut. He wondered how he could ever have thought she wasn’t attractive. She had bought a bottle of sherry, an extravagance on publisher’s pay, to drink to the summer. They drank to it.