The very words filled her with resolve, and yet with a certain dread, remembering a chapel that was far off, and in the evening time a tall man bending low to a dog. ‘I will save you,’ and the shout through a smashed window at the other end of it. ‘Save yourself.’
She opened wide her eyes, looked up at the ceiling. ‘Poor man.’ No, it must not be like that, finger close to a madness, and she could see him with clear open eyes, coiled in a chair, one that would not sleep.
‘Poor Mervyn.’
She struck a match to look at the clock. Half past two.
And not a sound from that room. Such a change in him, so sudden, so violent. She closed her eyes, muttering to herself.
‘Tomorrow I will go and talk to Mr Hughes. That is it,’ and, knowing it was final, suddenly fell asleep.
In the next room, still sat, Mervyn Thomas pondered on his life.
4
Mrs Gandell was happy, she was fulfilled, but the star that had risen on that terribly ordinary afternoon fell the very moment she opened her eyes.
‘Jones!’
There was no answer.
‘Jones!’
Jones woke suddenly and cried, ‘Yes, what now?’
‘Are you awake?’
And he said flatly, ‘I’m awake, Mrs Gandell,’ and he sat up, opened his eyes, and felt the very darkness in which he drowned.
‘Good God!’ he cried, ‘I’m on the floor, Mrs Gandell.’
After the crossing of frontiers, after the explosion, Mrs Gandell had conveniently kicked him off the bed, where he had lain flat on his back, legs widespread, gently snoring.
‘Put that bloody light on, Mrs Gandell.’
She switched it on just as Jones got to his feet, and beheld her resting on one elbow, smiling across at him. He came towards her.
‘What happened?’
‘You must have fallen off the bed, Jones. And now you had better get down, hadn’t you. There’s the evening meal.’
‘How practical you can be when you want to,’ he said.
‘Very,’ she said, and added, ‘and tomorrow there is much to do. The windows, the rooms, the dining-room.’
She lay flat on her back again. ‘And don’t be too long, Jones.’
Jones cursed the darkness, and then the too sudden light, and finally the clock.
‘Look at the time,’ he said.
‘You look at it,’ she said, ‘and do hurry.’
‘Am hurrying,’ he replied, and completed dressing. ‘What is it?’
‘You know what it is, Jones. Stew.’
‘Oh yes, of course.’
‘Do wake up, Jones.’
He leaned over her and said menacingly, ‘And you? What about you? I’m not the only one with duties.’
‘I shall be down shortly,’ Mrs Gandell replied, and turned her face to the wall. She heard the door bang, his flight downstairs and later much noise from the kitchen.
‘I would really like to fall asleep again,’ she told herself, taking with her the afternoon dream, shutting off tomorrow. But she got up and slowly began to dress. She sat herself at the dressing-table, inspected herself in the mirror.
‘I’ll have to replace Dooley soon.’
She would send Jones down to the Labour, and see what they had on hand. But no more Irish. She had had enough. Jones was in the dining-room when she came down.
‘The draughts in this room are getting worse, Jones.’
‘I noticed that.’
She followed him into the kitchen, and they leaned to one another as she inspected the evening meal.
Suddenly she clutched his arm. ‘Jones!’
