Atonement (47 page)

Marking time
rather than changing the subject, she said, “You’re a
probationer.”

“Yes.”

“Whose
ward?”

“Sister
Drummond’s.”

There was no
telling whether Cecilia was familiar with this name, or whether she was displeased
that her younger sister was training at the same hospital. There was another
obvious difference—Cecilia had always spoken to her in a motherly or
condescending way. Little Sis! No room for that now. There was a hardness in
her tone that warned Briony off asking about Robbie. She took another step
further into the hallway, conscious of the front door open behind her.

“And
where are you?”

“Near
Morden. It’s an EMS.”

An Emergency
Medical Services hospital, a commandeered place, most likely dealing with the
brunt, the real brunt of the evacuation. There was too much that couldn’t
be said, or asked. The two sisters looked at each other. Even though Cecilia
had the rumpled look of someone who had just got out of bed, she was more
beautiful than Briony remembered her. That long face always looked odd, and
vulnerable, horsey everyone said, even in the best of lights. Now it looked
boldly sensual, with an accentuated bow of the full purplish lips. The eyes
were dark and enlarged, by fatigue perhaps. Or sorrow. The long fine nose, the
dainty flare of the nostrils—there was something masklike and carved
about the face, and very still. And hard to read. Her sister’s appearance
added to Briony’s unease, and made her feel clumsy. She barely knew this
woman whom she hadn’t seen in five years. Briony could take nothing for
granted. She was searching for another neutral topic, but there was nothing
that did not lead back to the sensitive subjects—the subjects she was
going to have to confront in any case—and it was because she could no
longer bear the silence and the staring that she said at last,

“Have
you heard from the Old Man?”

“No, I
haven’t.”

The downward
tone implied she didn’t want to, and wouldn’t care or reply if she
did.

Cecilia said,
“Have you?”

“I had
a scribbled note a couple of weeks ago.”

“Good.”

So there was
no more to be said on that. After another pause, Briony tried again.

“What
about from home?”

“No.
I’m not in touch. And you?”

“She
writes now and then.”

“And
what’s her news, Briony?”

The question
and the use of her name was sardonic. As she forced her memory back, she felt
she was being exposed as a traitor to her sister’s cause.

“They’ve
taken in evacuees and Betty hates them. The park’s been plowed up for
corn.” She trailed away. It was inane to be standing there listing these
details.

But Cecilia
said coldly, “Go on. What else?”

“Well,
most of the lads in the village have joined the East Surreys, except for . .
.”

“Except
for Danny Hardman. Yes, I know all about that.” She smiled in a bright,
artificial way, waiting for Briony to continue.

“They’ve
built a pillbox by the post office, and they’ve taken up all the old
railings. Um. Aunt Hermione’s living in Nice, and oh yes, Betty broke
Uncle Clem’s vase.”

Only now was
Cecilia roused from her coolness. She uncrossed her arms and pressed a hand
against her cheek.

“Broke?”

“She
dropped it on a step.”

“You
mean properly broken, in lots of pieces?”

“Yes.”

Cecilia
considered this. Finally she said, “That’s terrible.”

“Yes,”
Briony said. “Poor Uncle Clem.” At least her sister was no longer
derisive. The interrogation continued.

“Did
they keep the pieces?”

“I
don’t know. Emily said the Old Man shouted at Betty.”

At that
moment, the door snapped open and the landlady stood right in front of Briony,
so close to her that she could smell peppermint on the woman’s breath.
She pointed at the front door.

“This
isn’t a railway station. Either you’re in, young lady, or
you’re out.”

Cecilia was
getting to her feet without any particular hurry, and was retying the silk cord
of her dressing gown. She said languidly, “This is my sister, Briony,
Mrs. Jarvis. Try and remember your manners when you speak to her.”

“In my
own home I’ll speak as I please,” Mrs. Jarvis said. She turned back
to Briony. “Stay if you’re staying, otherwise leave now and close
the door behind you.”

Briony looked
at her sister, guessing that she was unlikely to let her go now. Mrs. Jarvis
had turned out to be an unwitting ally.

Cecilia spoke
as though they were alone. “Don’t mind the landlady. I’m
leaving at the end of the week. Close the door and come up.”

Watched by
Mrs. Jarvis, Briony began to follow her sister up the stairs.

“And as
for you, Lady Muck,” the landlady called up.

But Cecilia
turned sharply and cut her off. “Enough, Mrs. Jarvis. Now that’s
quite enough.”

Briony
recognized the tone. Pure Nightingale, for use on difficult patients or tearful
students. It took years to perfect. Cecilia had surely been promoted to ward
sister.

On the
first-floor landing, as she was about to open her door, she gave Briony a look,
a cool glance to let her know that nothing had changed, nothing had softened.
From the bathroom across the way, through its half-open door, drifted a humid
scented air and a hollow dripping sound. Cecilia had been about to take a bath.
She led Briony into her flat. Some of the tidiest nurses on the ward lived in
stews in their own rooms, and she would not have been surprised to see a new
version of Cecilia’s old chaos. But the impression here was of a simple
and lonely life. A medium-sized room had been divided to make a narrow strip of
a kitchen and, presumably, a bedroom next door. The walls were papered with a
design of pale vertical strips, like a boy’s pajamas, which heightened
the sense of confinement. The lino was irregular offcuts from downstairs, and
in places, gray floorboards showed. Under the single sash window was a sink
with one tap and a one-ring gas cooker. Against the wall, leaving little room
to squeeze by, was a table covered with a yellow gingham cloth. On it was a jam
jar of blue flowers, harebells perhaps, and a full ashtray, and a pile of
books. At the bottom were
Gray’s Anatomy
and a collected
Shakespeare, and above them, on slenderer spines, names in faded silver and
gold—she saw Housman and Crabbe. By the books were two bottles of stout.
In the corner furthest from the window was the door to the bedroom on which was
tacked a map of northern Europe.

Cecilia took
a cigarette from a packet by the cooker, and then, remembering that her sister
was no longer a child, offered one to her. There were two kitchen chairs by the
table, but Cecilia, who leaned with her back to the sink, did not invite Briony
to sit down. The two women smoked and waited, so it seemed to Briony, for the
air to clear of the landlady’s presence.

Cecilia said
in a quiet level voice, “When I got your letter I went to see a
solicitor. It’s not straightforward, unless there’s hard new evidence.
Your change of heart won’t be enough. Lola will go on saying she
doesn’t know. Our only hope was old Hardman and now he’s
dead.”

“Hardman?”
The contending elements—the fact of his death, his relevance to the
case—confused Briony and she struggled with her memory. Was Hardman out
that night looking for the twins? Did he see something? Was something said in
court that she didn’t know about?

“Didn’t
you know he was dead?”

“No.
But . . .”

“Unbelievable.”

Cecilia’s
attempts at a neutral, factual tone were coming apart. Agitated, she came away
from the cooking area, squeezed past the table and went to the other end of the
room and stood by the bedroom door. Her voice was breathy as she tried to
control her anger.

“How
odd that Emily didn’t include that in her news along with the corn and
the evacuees. He had cancer. Perhaps with the fear of God in him he was saying
something in his last days that was rather too inconvenient for everyone at
this stage.”

“But
Cee . . .”

She snapped,
“Don’t call me that!” She repeated in a softer voice,
“Please don’t call me that.” Her fingers were on the handle
of the bedroom door and it looked like the interview was coming to an end. She
was about to disappear.

With an
implausible display of calm, she summarized for Briony.

“What I
paid two guineas to discover is this. There isn’t going to be an appeal
just because five years on you’ve decided to tell the truth.”

“I
don’t understand what you’re saying . . .” Briony wanted to
get back to Hardman, but Cecilia needed to tell her what must have gone through
her head many times lately.

“It
isn’t difficult. If you were lying then, why should a court believe you
now? There are no new facts, and you’re an unreliable witness.”

Briony
carried her half-smoked cigarette to the sink. She was feeling sick. She took a
saucer for an ashtray from the plate rack. Her sister’s confirmation of
her crime was terrible to hear. But the perspective was unfamiliar. Weak,
stupid, confused, cowardly, evasive—she had hated herself for everything
she had been, but she had never thought of herself as a liar. How strange, and
how clear it must seem to Cecilia. It was obvious, and irrefutable. And yet,
for a moment she even thought of defending herself. She hadn’t intended
to mislead, she hadn’t acted out of malice. But who would believe that?

She stood
where Cecilia had stood, with her back to the sink and, unable to meet her
sister’s eye, said, “What I did was terrible. I don’t expect
you to forgive me.”

“Don’t
worry about that,” she said soothingly, and in the second or two during
which she drew deeply on her cigarette, Briony flinched as her hopes lifted
unreally. “Don’t worry,” her sister resumed. “I
won’t ever forgive you.”

“And if
I can’t go to court, that won’t stop me telling everyone what I
did.”

As her sister
gave a wild little laugh, Briony realized how frightened she was of Cecilia.
Her derision was even harder to confront than her anger. This narrow room with
its stripes like bars contained a history of feeling that no one could imagine.
Briony pressed on. She was, after all, in a part of the conversation she had
rehearsed.

“I’ll
go to Surrey and speak to Emily and the Old Man. I’ll tell them
everything.”

“Yes,
you said that in your letter. What’s stopping you? You’ve had five
years. Why haven’t you been?”

“I
wanted to see you first.”

Cecilia came
away from the bedroom door and stood by the table. She dropped her stub into
the neck of a stout bottle. There was a brief hiss and a thin line of smoke
rose from the black glass. Her sister’s action made Briony feel nauseous
again. She had thought the bottles were full. She wondered if she had ingested
something unclean with her breakfast.

Cecilia said,
“I know why you haven’t been. Because your guess is the same as
mine. They don’t want to hear anything more about it. That unpleasantness
is all in the past, thank you very much. What’s done is done. Why stir
things up now? And you know very well they believed Hardman’s
story.”

Briony came
away from the sink and stood right across the table from her sister. It was not
easy to look into that beautiful mask.

She said very
deliberately, “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.
What’s he got to do with this? I’m sorry he’s dead, I’m
sorry I didn’t know . . .”

At a sound,
she started. The bedroom door was opening and Robbie stood before them. He wore
army trousers and shirt and polished boots, and his braces hung free at his
waist. He was unshaven and tousled, and his gaze was on Cecilia only. She had
turned to face him, but she did not go toward him. In the seconds during which
they looked at each other in silence, Briony, partly obscured by her sister,
shrank into her uniform.

He spoke to
Cecilia quietly, as though they were alone. “I heard voices and I guessed
it was something to do with the hospital.”

“That’s
all right.”

He looked at
his watch. “Better get moving.”

As he crossed
the room, just before he went out onto the landing, he made a brief nod in
Briony’s direction. “Excuse me.”

They heard
the bathroom door close. Into the silence Cecilia said, as if there were
nothing between her and her sister, “He sleeps so deeply. I didn’t
want to wake him.” Then she added, “I thought it would be better if
you didn’t meet.”

Briony’s
knees were actually beginning to tremble. Supporting herself with one hand on
the table, she moved away from the kitchen area so that Cecilia could fill the
kettle. Briony longed to sit down. She would not do so until invited, and she
would never ask. So she stood by the wall, pretending not to lean against it,
and watched her sister. What was surprising was the speed with which her relief
that Robbie was alive was supplanted by her dread of confronting him. Now she
had seen him walk across the room, the other possibility, that he could have
been killed, seemed outlandish, against all the odds. It would have made no
sense. She was staring at her sister’s back as she moved about the tiny
kitchen. Briony wanted to tell her how wonderful it was that Robbie had come
back safely. What deliverance. But how banal that would have sounded. And she
had no business saying it. She feared her sister, and her scorn.