Prologue
November 1928…
“The distant thud of a gun that seemed to resonate directly with the beat of your heart – giving you a sense of things out of step, too fast and out of time. And sometimes, when it was closer, our side rather than theirs, you could taste it too, and it made your throat itch and your eyes water. The physical recoil of one of the bigger guns could wind a man, but you did not need to be that close to know its strength and feel its echo. The weird thing afterwards was the silence, even more intense for the lack of everything, not just the silence of the guns…no birds, no voices…an emptiness to crush the soul…
…and I remember once a moment of pure arcadia amongst the mud and tangle of barbed wire and terror, memory of the final shell blast of the volley still pounding in our heads… Someone singing. A sudden voice I didn’t recognise, seemingly from nowhere, weirdly strong and certain. A song I didn’t know – some music hall number by the sound of it…and then other voices joining in, the whole effect an other worldly male-voice choir, punctuated with hacking coughs and shuffling feet, but with a beauty that took my breath away. It is always the little things. Too dark to see which individuals amongst the company owned those voices. My men, dirt-garbed and lice-ridden. And then a match flaring as that first voice broke into a refrain of ‘Daisy Daisy’ - even I knew that one – ‘I’m half-crazy, all for the love of you…’
It was Barat leading the singing –watching me in that brief light – daring me call for silence. I had never realised that he had such a lovely voice. He was always such a terrible mumbler, with officers and men alike. Every now and again the world turned upside down. Everything you thought that you knew about this place and these people, the rules you had made to order this hell… shaken up like a child’s snow globe. And it was always the littlest things which carried the greatest power to shock. How could it be the voice unexpected rather than the corpses or the bone crunching fear? Clarity. Beauty. In a swirling sulphur mist and darkness…”
Not a gun-shot, not cannon or birdsong, not even a bloody voice… but somewhere in the distance, a doorbell, and the tap of heels in the hall… Peter tipped back in his chair, balancing precariously on two legs and revelling briefly, suddenly, in that one stupid action –“Mr Peter, do not rock on your chair – you will snap the legs, and more than likely break yourself…now stop it…don’t make me call your father…” No indeed, and Peter leaned back a little further, just because, and then crashed the chair back onto all fours. What exactly was the point in childishly defying a nanny long-dead?
Murmured voices in the hall fell silent, a door closed, and Peter ran pale fingers across the space bar on his type-writer. All set and ready to go. Sometimes this could go on for days…“In a swirling sulphur mist and darkness…”…A crazed feverish writing, words tumbling and falling, not chosen or considered – but springing fully-formed, twisting and coiling on the paper. Making images half-recognised. Ten years since the peace. Ten years since all that. A life lived in glitter, shadows pushed far behind, not even seen. And yes, Peter made his life by writing. But not like this. Not for him the soul-searching of Sassoon or Blunden, they could keep their war stories… and their remembering. Nobody needs to remember. It doesn’t help anyone. Digging through the dirt, literally, picking at old wounds. All remembrances and secret sorrows laid bare. No use to anyone, couldn’t understand why those stories sold by the wagon-load. Who would want to be reminded? He jabbed his pencil fiercely into the notebook at his side. Headed and underlined “Act Two, Scene Two…
Archie: [stage left] – I say I am most awfully sorry. I didn’t realise you were out here…
Madeleine: [centre stage, with a rose, sighing heavily] – Oh it’s alright, I was just… [plucks petals from rose one-by-one]
Archie: – Look here…I know it’s none of my business, and do tell me to push off…but err…that whole business with Harry and that err…
Madeleine: – Chorus girl, Archie – you don’t have to find a form of words – she’s nothing but a chorus girl…don’t even considering sparing my feelings…
Archie: – I say, old thing…I didn’t mean…
Madeleine: – It’s over…I’m fine [walks to front of stage] I never cared for Harry anyway…he is welcome to his chorus girl [clutches rose stalk to bosom] from now on I am free, and I shall devote my life to other things.
Archie: – That’s the spirit. You’ll do good works and the like?
Madeleine: [looking at Archie as if seeing him for the first time] -Yes, oh absolutely…you are so understanding, so sensitive…not like that pig Harry. You understand me [looks soulfully at Archie]. Maybe…
Archie: – Right ho, sensitive, thank you [nervously, looking around for a distraction as she gazes at him]…
And Peter looked from the scribbled dialogue on the notepad to the type-written page looping from the machine and wondered, not for the first time, how one became the other. With a flick of his wrist he pulled out the black inked sheet and tore it into slow deliberate fragments, dropped like blossom on the dark carpet. White snow, red blood. La neige est blanche, la neige est rouge… Then he shook a cigarette from its case and lit it as he rang the bell.
‘Sir?’ His house-keeper arriving on efficient heels
‘Tea please, in here. And the fire.’
‘Very good Sir. A telegram has just arrived Sir.’
And the housekeeper handed him the buff envelope, seeing, but not seeing, the flurry of paper at Peter’s feet, before she vanished to carry out his orders. Peter sat, steeple-fingered - I used to order men to kill…to die…in a manner of speaking…now I order tea…a fresh-laid fire… He slit open the envelope,
DARLING PETER STOP PLEASE COME TO SOIREE TONIGHT STOP NO ARGUMENTS STOP DRESS NICELY STOP HAVE SOMEONE FOR YOU STOP KISSES LISA STOP
He rang the bell again.
‘Sir?’
‘Don’t bother with the fire, I’m going out tonight…’
‘The tea?’
‘I’ll still have the tea. Thank you.’
Peter had all his playbills and reviews framed in this room, cheek-by-jowl across the wall opposite the window. Twelve plays he had written in ten years. Well in eight years really, the first one had not been produced until 1920, but since then not one flop…
“Mr Doherty triumphs again – a Wilde for the twentieth-century…”
“Light as a soufflé – action and laughter from curtain-up till the final bows – Mr Doherty is the tonic London needs…”
“I laughed until I cried – Mr Doherty is truly the king of comedy…”
“A roaring success…”
“An absolute delight…”
Peter wandered from frame to frame, reading the words out loud – a talisman. People had written those words, therefore they must be true, he must have the heart and soul of a romantic comedian, just like they said. Not a sad bone in his body…no Ibsen or Chekhov for him. And he smiled at himself, ‘if it is written then, ergo, it’s true.’ Of course – the written word is the truth, nothing covered up or hidden.
He bent down to scoop up the scattered fragments of his typed page, running them from hand to hand like feather-light grains of sand. There was nothing in his war that he wanted or needed to remember. Certainly nothing he needed to share. He sat down in the chair by the window, listening to the low mumble of the omnibuses and the occasional clatter of a horse as people edged home. Why was it that sometimes…?
…Sometimes…sometimes things surfaced…they said that of Flanders…that, after heavy rain, or during ploughing, things got turned up – belt-buckles, helmets, cap badges, a thigh bone or a skull… And the stuff was thrown away or reburied. Not left on display for the world to see…that wouldn’t be right… Peter dropped the pieces of paper slowly into the bin – just words, like a cap badge or a bleached skull…a memory of a world long gone…sometimes accidentally disinterred and, quickly, deliberately, reburied. With decency, not in haste, not because I am ashamed or afraid…there’s just nothing worth remembering. A world away from plays and pleasure. Only now and again…thoughts intruding, demanding to be given expression, to be recognised. And sometimes Peter fought it – railed against the memory and his own fallibility. Culpability. And sometimes he let the words ripple across the surface. Briefly, privately, in silent atonement. And Peter thought of the journals he had so carefully kept, dog-eared and mud-spattered. Just one of thousands of poet-scribblers it seemed. And now the words of those other boys poets were being resurrected, turned to money-making account. Ripping yarns and bloodied hearts laid bare. And Peter’s still lay where he had left them, wrapped and boxed and put out of sight on January 16th 1919….
………………………………….
‘Oh, Mr Doherty – I adore your plays – I have seen all of them – several times – everyone loves them don’t they? It’s so exciting to meet such a lion, how do you do it? Is it very difficult?’
‘Oh, very difficult,’ Peter assured the person that Lisa had ‘found’ for him – blonde hair with that curious horizontal wave in it that all the girls seemed to like now, and a slash of red lipstick that was quite unnerving.
‘You have to wait for the muse? In the dead of night?’
‘Oh absolutely,’ said Peter solemnly, ‘I only write when the moon is full – I take my desk and type-writer and have it set up in the garden, or on the roof if I’m in town, and then I sit and wait for the words to come to me – a message from god, a divinity…’
The girl giggled. God she was young behind that rouge and blood red mouth. Probably not even twenty – a child, an absolute child, ‘Gosh, that is such a wicked thing to say, Mr Doherty.’
And he tried to smile mysteriously and, he hoped, rakishly, and wondered if the butler with the champagne had noticed yet that his glass was quite empty, ‘I assure you it is true, no disrespect meant…’ he insisted.
‘Well I think you’re a darling – so much more fun than all these depressing stories going around – all these war memoirs…what do you think…?’
‘I can only write what I write,’ intoned Peter, grabbing a couple of fresh glasses, filled to overflowing, as the butler shimmered by. Deal with this sudden thumping headache. More champagne.
‘People have so many voices in these memoirs though – they’re not all one – it is fascinating how people deal with the memory of what they went through….’ Lisa, here to put her oar in and looking perceptively at Peter. He scowled at her.
‘Oh absolutely,’ said the blonde girl, ‘I have read some of them… I do agree...but what is to be gained by rehashing it? And why now, after all this time? These writers are just tethered to the past forever – why can’t they move on?’
‘Most people have moved on,’ said Peter defensively. And then didn’t know why he was being defensive.
‘There is a theory isn’t there…’ said Lisa, ‘…that you can only cover memory up for so long…and then it finds expression…’
‘Murder will out you mean…’ said Peter.
‘Experience will out…’
‘You were in the war,’ said the blonde girl, gazing up at Peter, ‘do you recognise their stories – was your war like that? Your writing always seems so happy…’
He had lips just that shade of red, rich in a way that suggested he had never actually known innocence, not like you, with your experience made up of heavy powder and a mess of lip paint…
‘…Mr Doherty?’ said the blonde.
‘Oh Mouse, let’s change the subject, said Lisa suddenly, ‘the war is years old – it is becoming quite stale… would you like to start the dancing, let’s shake things up here…’ and she prodded Peter with a dark lacquered finger.
‘Why on earth are you called ‘Mouse’? asked Peter thankfully.
‘Because I had hair like a mouse tail…’ said the girl in a giggling rush, as if she had, like Lisa, glimpsed something in Peter’s eyes that should have remained hidden.
‘Your hair is beautiful – if only all mice had hair like yours – I’d fill my house with them,’ said Peter gallantly, as effective as a character in one of his own plays.
And Mouse giggled again, ‘my hair wasn’t always like this, silly…it was long and brown…a sort of mouse’s tail…that’s how I got this name…and then of course I grew up and so it had to be changed…my hair that is…’
‘Then your name needs changing too…’ said Peter, ‘Maybe “Angel” would be better…’
‘Mr Doherty, you are trying too hard!’
‘I m a writer,’ he replied with a gentle bow, ‘and a simple soul – I speak as I find. Dance?’
And he led her into the drawing room, where the carpet had been rolled back and the gramophone was being wound up for the serious business of the evening to begin. All must have prizes in this glittering world. All who survived. And Peter took the blonde girl in his arms as the dance began, and as she chattered, he tried to recall how many other “you-must-meets” there had been over the last few years. They were all blonde it seemed – everyone was these days. A direct line from Rupert Brooke, in his haloed glory, through all those blond beautiful boys crushed and maimed, to these girls unconsciously modelling themselves on that lost generation, hair cut short and bleached in memory of something they didn’t even know.
The beautiful, desirable boys had always been blond. The ones everyone loved. Private Cowper – god, he’d had all the officers swooning with his come-to-bed eyes, his cherubic curls, and his soft downy skin…there had been real tears shed when he had died. And so many more like him, shipped in fresh from Blighty on each sailing. Up the line, down the line…complete and perfect muses for a thousand poets, love-lorn and desperate.
I was no different, thought Peter, except...except that my boy was not blond – he had hair the colour of molasses, eyes so hooded and careful, the slowest, laziest smile…he was older than me, not sunny and light like the golden lads, but twisted and angry and yet…and yet…what memoir could I write of him that did not deserve to be turned into confetti?
And the music swirled and the dancing continued and the blonde girl giggled and Peter paid her gentle attention and stayed focused on the light, on the glittering present. When he got home at last, it was too late to do any work, too late to think anymore. He poured himself the largest whisky he dared and took it to bed with him. Some kind of oblivion, because he knew when these days came, then the dreams would come too. And he lay in bed, staring at the dark ceiling and wondering yet again how it had all come to this.
