Time to get up: she was due at the hospital, the boys would be waiting for her, including Matteous, perhaps. She had to move her arms and legs, get away from the old, dead, illusory world of her dreams. Roy’s world, her husband’s.
June 4: Emma’s twenty-ninth birthday. Kate wondered briefly if her daughter would be celebrating it, and if so how. She opened the blackout curtains. The sun was rising, and soon the rumble of traffic would be heard on Earls Court Road, where the buses went past Matteous’s lodgings. Birds began to sing, a gardener began to rake the gravel in the square nearby. Without much thought, Kate reckoned with the possibility of an air raid, although it had been quiet for a fortnight now. She kept a bucket filled with water in the kitchen. Symbolic instance of preparedness: a midge’s tiny fist raised against a leviathan.
When she rang at his bedsit there was no answer. No footfalls, no throat-clearing, not even a whisper. Not a sound. She rang again, longer and more insistently. Again silence; the door remained closed. She took a few steps back to the edge of the pavement and looked up. He was standing in the shadows, as far away from the window as possible, almost like a statue, with a streak of sunlight falling across his dark head. That was how she had seen him when she came to collect him from the hospital ward. He appeared not to notice her, he was not at home, the bell had not rung, the unmistakable, alarming shrill had gone unheard. Kate wanted to call out to him and wave, but then thought better of it. She regretted having disturbed him by coming to his door. He was practising not being there, adopting the stance of a soldier who has been killed, but doesn’t know it yet. The final seconds before falling, the bullets lodged already in the body. Nonsense of course, she was just imagining things, going over the top, like a bad film. What she was seeing was impossible. He just stood there. Standing had become second nature to him. Standing ready, standing on guard, standing in the never-ending drill of the platoon, forever in formation. That was all it was, she was not to jump to any conclusions. She would not disturb him.
Kate began to walk away, in the direction of the bus stop for Richmond Royal Hospital, when a shout from above reached her ears.
“Miss!”
The urgency was unmistakable. She stopped, spun round and waved at Matteous, who was leaning out of the window, beckoning her.
Inside, the wicker suitcase was still in exactly the same place. Nothing in the room had changed since she had left him there the day before. As if that day had not passed into night and then day again, as if he had not moved from where he stood. No need for blackout if you don’t switch the light on. All safe, all right and proper, the room in complete darkness and invisible to the enemy. Kate asked no questions. She sat down on the only chair. Matteous remained standing. His eyes were darker than ever, the whites almost grey. Inclining his head, he struggled to frame a sentence. And another. His English sounded as if he were groping his way across a rope bridge. His hands supported his words, his shoulders leaned from side to side. Did Miss think he would be going home to the Congo? They had obviously forgotten about him in the army, and the Belgian government-in-exile couldn’t care less about an injured Congolese stranded in London. He wanted to find his mother. His mother. The big word his life had orbited around for months, for years. His mother, who had been captured and who might not be dead. The mother he had been forced to leave behind when his father told him to run for his life. Quick as a flash he had run, as fast as an antelope.
Kate put her hand on his sleeve, saying, “Of course,” although she had no idea if such a thing was possible. A soldier being discharged from hospital to free up much-needed space – would that mean he was discharged from the army, too? Probably not, but she didn’t even want to consider the question. Matteous’s enemy was completely different from everybody else’s. He had fought without any idea of who he was fighting against. Caught up in a war of strangers against strangers, in a conflict whose causes and aims were beyond his ken. He had drifted into the army because he had lost his family, because he had to go somewhere, anywhere, to avoid dying of heartache. And he had rescued that officer to avoid having to flee into the jungle all over again. Strong enough at last to hoist a man on his shoulders, away from the frontline and the bloodshed, without fear. In the jumble of French, English and Swahili, Kate could hear his grief about his mother. She took his hand, enclosed it in both of hers, and lifted the three hands to her chest for a moment, the way he always did in greeting. The dark hand, the dark face so close to hers.
